Show HN: FiveStar.io – The best Amazon products, by budget - <AUTHOR> http://fivestar.io <comment><USER2> Each key press adds to the push state history. Spams the back button

<comment><USER3> Is this really the top comment on this thread? And I thought HN had come so far.

This is an amazing website! Kudos to the creator(s).

It's exactly the way I wish I could browse Amazon, and since it's currently swallowing the HN firehose, I'm impressed that it's up and working. Given that it's so useful I will actually use it for shopping from now on, I feel like we can definitely cut it some slack on its day-one execution.

<comment><USER4> > Is this really the top comment on this thread? And I thought HN had come so > far.

I don't understand what that means. The back button issue is a serious glitch, hence the upvotes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any chance you could make an option to choose which amazon to search (amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, amazon.de), I figure the API's will be the same anyway?

</comment><comment><USER6> A few ideas;

Post the ratings. Post the ratings ratios (4-5 vs 1). Post the top 5 per budget. Grab user photos/videos and let the user click through them on the product image. Interface with the amazon API for pricing trends (like camelcamelcamel).

<comment><USER7> Amazon's API doesn't let you access the ratings as a number. You get an iframe to their reviews page. Its a total pain.

You could scrape the ratings. But being on Amazon's naughty list is a bad idea for any affiliate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

<comment><USER9> yeap, got the same as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can you add some more filters?

I strongly prefer to purchase items that are either sold directly from Amazon or "Fulfilled by Amazon" items if at all possible. Part of the reason is that it seems like my name and address (and possibly other account information) would be sent to the seller when ordering by other methods, I'd like to limit this as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very nice way to make some side cash by using amazon affiliate network. Just make sure you are following their rules to a T so you do not get the hammer and actually get paid.

I like the clean look and the blue load bar. I also like the results.

<comment><USER12> What are some of the rules that people often violate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I dont get it... doesn't amazon already have searching by price/rating?

<comment><USER13> Amazon does, but I find their results rather wonky at times. Filtering by rating works fine, but sorting on price seems to rarely work right -- they are often way out of order. Also filtering on price doesn't seem to work very well either.

On this, I would guess the price range categorization makes that more absolute. I would play with it more but I don't really have time right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice idea.

I get "Well, this is taking longer than usual...". Nothing loads.

</comment><comment><USER15> In tools & home, a search for ryobi or milwaukee yields results 1/2 full of DeWalt tools. Just as I suspected.

</comment><comment><USER16> This post got a lot of flags. Is that because the site was down? It's back up now, so I turned off the flags.

</comment><comment><USER17> Some or all of the item prices seem to be based on the lowest "Used" price. This is not always ideal -- I am not about to buy a bookcase normally around $50 from the one seller that has it at $12. Being able to exclude used prices would be great.

Otherwise great UI and idea.

<comment><USER18> Doesn't matter, got your browser cookied with the affiliate program. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I searched for "waffle iron" and "tennis racket" and thought the results were pretty spiffy looking.

But I'm a little unclear on the use case for this site. Say I want to buy a waffle iron, so I search for that term and get a list of results. How do I know which one to pick? If

a) I had a hard maximum budget b) I wanted to get the absolute best product possible in this budget (rather than say best value possible subject to price within budget) c) When x < y, the best product at $x is always inferior to the best product at $y

then I could just look for the price category just below my budget and pick one of the items there. But none of these assumptions are guaranteed to hold; in fact, in my experience generally all three do not.

</comment><comment><USER20> Cool idea. Can you elaborate on how this improves on just searching amazon directly with filters on price and star rating?

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't have to manually parse ratings and reviews. It just removes a few steps from the "I want an item, which one do I get" flow.

Thanks for checking it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've seen something like this before. [http://toppp.com/](http://toppp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Very neat idea. I added your site to my bookmarks.

But you need a new logo--something that looks more solid, polished, and professional.

</comment><comment><USER22> FYI, your URLs seem to be encoded incorrectly (perhaps missing a decodeURIComponent somewhere, or incorrectly calling encodeURIComponent). Are you sure Amazon pays when it's in that format?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out; I can't imagine they do. I've fixed the issue, thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Searched for 'router' and it recommended the MediaLink one. Noticed MediaBridge is back in business on Amazon? Guess that ban was short-lived =(

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here: I switched the debounce to 1 second instead of 500ms, so that should fix a bit of the load problems.

I'll also scale the heroku dynos if it goes down again.

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems to do a search requests instantly after you type a key (ie. in the middle of entering a word). Not surprised this has load issues.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fantastic experience using this site! I love seeing what $50 extra bucks gives me and I more often than not splurge the little extra.

</comment><comment><USER26> The results page consistently use "availible" instead of "available" which was a little jarring.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is really nice. Any chance of making it work for other Amazon sites (regions) than .com?

</comment><comment><USER28> This is really cool! does mess up the history though. Every URL gets saved to history.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've fixed this with a decent debounce delay. I failed to test the back button, hence the poor UX.

Thanks for checkout it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For my search, it shows 6 'availible' items. Spell check time?

</comment><comment><USER30> It's still dead, Jim.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is very useful. I hope Amazon doesn't try to C&D it.

</comment><comment><USER32> nice, great idea. Will you be adding different Amazons, I live in the UK and products differ/may not be available here.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly in the list of things to add, but I'm not confident enough in my backend code to add more complexity just yet. FiveStar will be undergoing a rewrite in August, so I could definitely add it then. Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER27> I don't know if you'll see this, as the thread is pretty old now.

You've at least 3 comments in this thread asking for the same thing. There's an enthusiasm about your product right now. That could be long gone by August.

If I were you, I'd find a way to implement the features being most often requested, sooner rather than later.

Apologies for my tone. I just really like the product and would like to see it succeed (and, yes, be more useful to me personally).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How does a dead link have 12 votes? Curious...

<comment><USER34> it was probably the other way around: it got votes and into the first page and because of that and the traffic it got "HN'ed"

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Neat idea. But yeah, error.

</comment><comment><USER36> Seems nice. I wanted to just see the best products by category, but it wouldn't let me search for [blank].</comment>


Switch from Photoshop to Gimp: Tips From a Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.rileybrandt.com/2014/03/09/photoshop-to-gimp/ <comment><USER2> This was posted to reddit a couple weeks back, and I'll repeat the same comment I made there.

"I spend about 90% of my time in Lightroom and only 10% in Photoshop."

This is why he was able to do this. He isn't using the functionality that Photoshop provides, he's using the functionality that Photoshop Essentials provides. Look at his parity instructions - every feature is found in Photoshop Essentials. If that's all you use, then great, by all means switch over to Gimp. The bigger the userbase it has, the better off it will be.

But don't think that it's going to replace Photoshop in the near future. Non- destructive editing is the biggest thing GIMP is missing in my opinion, but supposedly the move to GEGL will allow them to start development on this ( [https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user- list/2013-December...](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user- list/2013-December/msg00225.html) ).

Smart objects are another huge feature it's missing - not only the ability to downscale losslessly, but also the ability to edit all replicates at once. This is huge for designers. If I'm defining a user control for a design mockup, and I need to make a change to that control, in Photoshop all I have to do is edit the singular smart object source. The source edits will propagate to all the copies automatically. In Gimp I have to do this by hand. There are some minor features too that bug me. The inability to add a mask to layer groups is a big one for me. Layer effects (while often overused and gaudy) can be really helpful for design work - need to change the color of an icon that's raster art? Just drop a color overlay on it. If you have style swatches, it can be really easy to do fast mockups using this. This in conjunction with Layer Comps (also something missing in Gimp right now) can really help in switching between two or more alts. A great way to see what Gimp is currently missing in comparison to Photoshop is to look at the development roadmap ( [http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap](http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap) ). If some of your heavily used features are on that list, it might not be worth switching over to Gimp. If you don't see yourself as a user of those features though, give it a shot.

<comment><USER3> I hear this stuff all the time. So this is my own canned response:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6675258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6675258)

> it has a ways to go before it will actually be a competitor. And it doesn't > have a few features that I find incredibly invaluable as an Evernote user:

[list of features snipped out]

As an Octave developer, I frequently hear exactly the same things about Octave vs Matlab, and if I listen too closely, I find it disheartening. Why work on something that will forever suck and not be a competitor, and can't implement the full list of features because we don't have the giant budget of our non- free competitor?

But then I remember that people are typically more flexible than they appear to be when they write these lists, and you'll discover that they may do without some of the features that they list, at least in some circumstances. And that there exist many other people with different lists of sine qua nons who will use the free as in freedom alternative you're working on because they have different needs.

So, to the OpenNote developers and to anyone else implementing a FAIF replacement I say this: don't let these giant lists of features and suggestions about how you'll never be competitive grind you down. There are many people out there who will appreciate your work, sometimes even the people who compiled these lists. Look at the lists, see what you can implement, and don't be disheartened by the parts that seem impossible to implement. Who knows, maybe some day someone will come along and help you implement the parts that seem so hopeless to you.

Keep your chin up, free software devs!

<comment><USER4> Instead of the GIMP limping along behind PhotoShop, both dragging their decades-old legacy baggage, monolithic architectures, 1990s pricing models, etc., into the foreseeable future, I wish we had something more like Octave, SQLite, or Python: a powerful, faceless dev platform on which to build graphics-processing apps.

Basically, a runtime that holds a GPU-optimal image model (raster layers, vector layers, non-destructive edit management, multi-session undo, etc.), a set of APIs for sending memory-protected commands to the model, and a growing standard library of routines that have proven useful (network comms for offloading some processes or results to "the cloud", input/output codecs, CSS3, whatever). It would have a relatively easy to use scripting language with some built-in data types such as layer, region, vectorPolygon, gradient, font, etc., plus the usual lists, dicts, first-class functions, etc. Scripts that get a lot of use could be reimplemented in C, etc.

Developers could wrap whatever GUIs they wanted around this engine, creating easy consumer apps such as a slideshow or a camera-to-computer file importer with a magnifying glass and a keep/delete shortcut, all the way up to building clones of PhotoShop, Illustrator, resurrecting Fireworks, and so on.

Maybe someone would build a GUI builder for it that let you drag image rectangles and buttons into a window and script the whole thing, so non- programmers could create lens comparison apps, blink comparators for comet hunting....

I'd so much rather have a platform like this, where the hardest part--the image engine--would be done by experts, and the apps themselves, the feature sets, the UIs, could then be built by hordes of amateurs.

<comment><USER5> > I'd so much rather have a platform like this, where the hardest part--the > image engine--would be done by experts, and the apps themselves, the feature > sets, the UIs, could then be built by hordes of amateurs.

The naïveté of a budding hacker.

Great UIs are done by experts too, young padawan.

<comment><USER6> _Great UIs are done by experts too, young padawan._

Yes, they are, but that doesn't preclude building the underlying data model and functionality as a common platform with shared tools. It also doesn't mean that building that platform and implementing a comprehensive range of functionality isn't a much more demanding task than building a UI on top if you've already got a good foundation.

No doubt there is plenty of hard work to go around, but I think the idea of building more software with this kind of strategy has a lot of potential. It could save on the donkey work for everyone, leaving different developers to focus on the interesting/useful/distinctive aspects for different projects, while retaining some degree of compatibility and robust basic functionality.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't disagreeing with your vision, but rather with your dismissal of UIs as "amateur work".

And I'm not even a experience designer :)

<comment><USER4> It will make more sense if you know that, by "amateur", I mean someone who knows something about image processing, but not enough to build an image processor--someone whose expertise is in something else: photography, public presentation, UI design, etc.

I should have worded my final sentence differently, but in the sense that someone who knows enough about database engines to be able to use one but is an "amateur" at creating them can still use SQLite to build an app incorporating a database engine, my "vision" would let developers whose expertise is not in image processing engine implementation to write apps that incorporated a sophisticated image processor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is like using Vim-mode to switch to Emacs, or installing Lindows. If people could accept the trivial conventions of the software you're moving to ("How can I use GIMP? The hotkeys are different!") and stop treating it like a free badly-executed Photoshop clone, they might realize that it's really nice to work in.

My problems with GIMP were the CMYK stuff and a few terminology issues. I really love the GIMP interface, and I'm not the only person who finds the Photoshop interface awful.

I think that people just hate to have to learn anything new, and are willing to pay rents for the rest of their lives to fend that moment away where they might have to spend up to a week or more working in something that they're unfamiliar with. It's a bit like the fortune web developers pay to not have to figure out unix, or Apache.

Or like using a guitar tuner to tune each string separately. Maybe I'm just an angry guy:)

<comment><USER8> The thing you're missing is that the differences between GIMP and Photoshop are _not_ just user interface idioms. I wish it were that simple (I'd love to switch to GIMP if I could). It's not a matter of "learning something new"; it's the fact that without _real_ non-destructive editing features, GIMP is basically just an enhanced version of MS Paint in the hands of serious photographers and retouchers. Non-destructive editing is not a "nice to have" feature. It's quite literally a fundamental shift in methodology - and one that apparently the GIMP devs seem to be ignoring.

I know several professional photographers/retouchers, and for them, a typical Photoshop document has a single source layer (the original photo) on the bottom, and _hundreds_ of adjustment layers (organized into folders) on top to create the final image. There's just no way to approach that power with GIMP.

<comment><USER9> Shouldn't you know what you want to to, if you're a professional?

If you don't know what you want to accomplish, you need to experiment. This is when those non-destructive features come in handy, but if you know the goal and how to achieve it, they aren't necessary.

<comment><USER10> This post is a really poignant (if unintentional) example of how a lot of programmers/non-arty types have a fundamental misunderstanding about how graphic design works.

"Just do it right the first time" is such a maligned attitude when directed towards coders ("No, boss. I need to make revisions!"). Interesting that the perspective isn't being applied equally.

Shouldn't you know what you want to do, if you're a professional? If you don't know what you want to do, then you need git or other version control. If you know what you want to do, why do you need version control or patches?

<comment><USER11> Andrew Clarke talks a bit about this: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/25/a-modern- designer...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/25/a-modern-designers- canvas/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe someday the gIMP will be even close to Photoshop. Heck, maybe it is for some people's needs. But, I'm not even an artist and the gIMP doesn't come close to meeting my needs.

"No decent OpenType typography, no layer styles, no smart objects, no dice." (from the comments on the OP)

If all I need to do is crop or scale an image than sure, I might get by with gIMP though in that case I'd arguably get by better with something simpler than gIMP.

But, I actually use vector layers with layer styles ALL THE TIME. I actually use text layers with layer styles ALL THE TIME. I actually use non destructive adjustment layers ALL THE TIME.

Photoshop layer styles are like CSS. You can declare your styles and then edit vectors or text and the styles apply dynamically.

AFAIK gIMP has no equivalents. Those are not minor features. They're what set Photoshop apart.

<comment><USER13> > But, I actually use vector layers with layer styles ALL THE TIME. I actually > use text layers with layer styles ALL THE TIME. I actually use non > destructive adjustment layers ALL THE TIME.

Just use Inkscape and call it a day?

<comment><USER14> I think you misanderstood. He does not only use vectors, he just always needs to have vectors on his projects. Inkscape won't be a solution.

Apart from that, Inkscape seems to be a good solution for pure vectorial work. But my non-techies friends hate the UI. It is not that it is different of Illustrator, they just found it ugly and unpractical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're using Photoshop for the purpose it was designed for (editing photos, not illustration/painting from scratch), then GIMP is absolutely inferior in its current form.

If you're making edits directly to source pixel layers (or even making duplicate flattened layers and working on those), you're doing it wrong.

Photoshop is designed for non-destructive editing. An essential part of that is adjustment layers. Many serious photographers will never switch to GIMP until it can match the non-destructive features of Photoshop.

Editing photos without adjustment layers is like writing code without revision control.

<comment><USER15> _If you 're making edits directly to source pixel layers (or even making duplicate flattened layers and working on those), you're doing it wrong._

That seems like a rather absolutist statement. I work with PS CC and its great features all day at work but I guess I still remember the fantastic work that was done before those features existed.

I have colleagues who still edit their photos using the apparently-despised techniques you mentioned, and despite "doing it wrong" they manage to make a great living off their photography work.

When I was teaching PS at my local college, I allowed my students to try out alternative software packages for extra credit. Some of my brightest students walked away from those classes happy that they could do everything they needed to do with GIMP, even though they knew all about non-destructive editing.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Some gifted people create stunning works of art with unconventional or limited tools. Tatsuo Horiuchi uses Excel to create beautiful paintings.

I guess my point is that it's hard to argue _against_ using non-destructive editing if it's available and you understand it. Can you create great things without it? Of course.

Bringing the analogy back to programming: some people create useful/beautiful apps without using any form of revision control, and that's fine for them. But if you know how to use revision control and have access to it, then is there really any strong reason not to use it, especially if you're working professionally? It helps increase productivity far more than not using it. For that reason, I'd definitely tell other developers that if they aren't using revision control for professional work, they're doing it wrong.

If you were to pick two professional photographers or retouchers at random - one who uses non-destructive editing and the other who doesn't, I'd be willing to bet the one who uses it (all else being equal) produces more consistent, high quality results and with greater efficiency than the one who doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of the endless bug reports we're getting right now about the Octave GUI not being indistinguishable from Matlab. Makes me wish people weren't so inflexible about the tiniest UI differences. It's difficult to please the converts.

<comment><USER16> > Makes me wish people weren't so inflexible about the tiniest UI differences. > It's difficult to please the converts.

I replaced Photoshop with Gimp years ago, but I still find Gimp incredibly painful to use. It accounts for a tiny proportion of my software use, but a massive proportion of my swearing. I use to think it was just down to being familiar with Photoshop, but I think I can only excuse it on that basis for so long.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, is it just me or are InkScape and GIMP both set up with rather unhelpful defaults? I didn't run into such problems with Huygen.

<comment><USER18> Inkscape is actually very good, and certainly comparable to Adobe Illustrator, if not superior nowadays. The main problem I see people have with Inkscape is when they have a MacOS computer, the only available build is from 3 years ago.

<comment><USER19> I use InkScape on the Mac. To get the most recent builds running, you need install XQuartz which is not bundled with recent OS X versions.

<comment><USER18> Even the latest XQuartz install appears to be 3 years old. Were you able to find a more recent one? I would be very interested if such a build existed.

<comment><USER20> I don't know of a standalone installer, but Macports has the current stable version (0.48.4).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you use Windows, consider Paint.NET ([http://www.getpaint.net](http://www.getpaint.net)) instead of GIMP. It's much quicker (particularly the 4.0 beta builds) and has a much more Photoshop- like UI out of the box.

<comment><USER22> I like Paint.Net a lot on the windows side... for Mac/Linux alternative, look into Pinta [http://pinta-project.com/](http://pinta-project.com/) ... it's essentially a cross-platform port of Paint.Net

They do the vast majority of what most people need in a simple photo editor.

<comment><USER21> Looks like a clone rather than a port (as paint.net isn't open source you can't really port it), but I'll take a look.

Their github ([https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta](https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta)) makes it look like the project may be abandoned.

<comment><USER23> It's a port of Paint.net 3.3.6 from .NET to Mono. Paint.net used to be MIT- licensed, and 3.3.6 was the last version that was released open-source.

Besides, the UI in Paint.net 4.0 has been rewritten to use WPF. That makes it essentially impossible to port to Mono.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Krita may have a different aim on paper, but that just looks like a way to avoid conflict with the GIMP devs until it's clear to absolutely everyone that they've replaced it.

One of the real shockers with the GIMP is how badly it plays with Ubuntu's Unity, where the menubar will get emptied whenever you change something in a non-image editor window.

<comment><USER25> Krita is a great program, and maybe a future GIMP replacement, but for now, it is strongly focused on Digital Painting, and it does a great job in that field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> While I never used photoshop, I also never quite liked the gimp.

I actually sometimes use blender (yes, the 3D software) to edit photos. It's not the same paradigm as photoshop or the gimp, but it lets me do advanced color grading very easily. I can use textured 3D objects for 2D Animations or non-destructive editing. As an added bonus it works for videos and the compositing setup can be reused for multiple photos. Probably if I were really adventurous I could use more of the paint mode and texture paint mode to get even closer to photoshop. But then again I'm not a pro...

</comment><comment><USER27> I've always disliked GIMP's floating windows (especially with a tiling window manager) but never knew of the single-window mode. That is a great tip!

<comment><USER28> Don't worry, it's pretty new. [http://www.gimp.org/release- notes/gimp-2.8.html](http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was a Photoshop user for a long time, but haven't looked back since I moved to Linux full time a few years back. The challenge was to use libre software for everything and reduce my business' expenses. It's been 4 years since then and I don't miss Photoshop. I realized in the process the I was terribly misusing it. It was my goto tool for everything, from web design, to photo retouch, to vector, icons...

I have a background in 3D & VFX but my work today is mostly web development, and opensource software covers all my needs. MyPaint for free drawing like brainstorming, illustrations, and blueprints. Inkscape for vector graphics like icons, logos, layouts, mockups. Darktable for simple photo editing. GIMP for heavy photo retouch, and well, it's still my goto tool for those quick screenshots, image cropping jobs. And Blender for 3D work of course. I hardly do print, but when I do I use Inkscape, HTML and CSS.

TLDR; Photoshop isn't the best for every task. There are free software alternatives for everything. Using them all together provides me with all that I need, so I no longer miss Photoshop.

</comment><comment><USER30> As a developer, I've often felt that if I can't script something, embed it into my own software or service, or even redistribute it, then I haven't really _done_ it with software. This is an unrealistic goal if I was in DTP work still, but by setting this bar, I've been amazed about how my understanding of the context of a problem has broadened my horizons. For instance I feel I now have a great grasp on Nurbs, Voxels, and 3d meshes in general from having done it all with Clojure instead of Blender. Batch processing with Imagemagick is now so second nature to me I can't stomach the idea of having to load up PS or even Gimp.

I think when the process involves subtle interactive hand touches and nuances, then an interactive editor will always win out. However rudimentary, discrete "operations" are things computers should do well, and PS and Gimp fall short in my opinion. Gimp being slightly better sort of with its open scripting.

<comment><USER31> Photoshop got full scripting support in 2003 with Photoshop CS. Before that you had to install a free plugin and it didn't support _everything_ but it was still pretty powerful, I don't remember exactly when that came out but I think it was first for version 6 in 2000.

Photoshop has also had full recordable macro support ("Actions") since 1996. Many photographers I've worked with have developed huge suites of actions they've created that enable them to automate much of their workflow despite having no coding ability whatsoever.

[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/scripting.html](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/scripting.html)

<comment><USER30> Yeah I guess I was thinking about that when I wrote this, but for instance with Python I can instantiate a batch of transformations, and integrate other libraries, other programs, and share inputs and outputs among all of them. I'd be excited if there was a CS scripting whereby I could take an AI file, apply layer effects, and then position that in a 3D transform in AE, and render an MP4 all in one script.

I can do that with Linux and open source utilities, but I can't with CS. Also AI is horribly leaky in memory when dealing with advanced computational design where you have billions of points, whereas open source SVG renders take such a thing in stride.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For web developers and web designers, GIMP is a great tool.

Best of all it is free.

While I'd gladly pay ten or twenty bucks for cropping and texting images for my web properties, I'd never pay hundreds for photoshop and their invasive anti-piracy software.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think it is a mistake to measure GIMP against a standard set by Photoshop. If a person wants a program to work like Photoshop, they should probably use Photoshop. The standard for GIMP should be whether you can use it to accomplish your goal.

You might as well publish a guide on how to make a circular table saw cut like a band saw. That's completely useless both to anyone who doesn't already know how to use a band saw, and to anyone who already satisfies all their wood- cutting requirements with the circular saw. They are different tools; they don't need to work the same way.

</comment><comment><USER34> I only use Photoshop to slice the web site designs my coworkers send me. I would have switched to GIMP a long time ago if they all used it, too. GIMP doesn't read their PSD files very well.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'd recommend you switch to Sketch[1] and/or Acorn[2] instead if you're on MacOS. I love Gimp, and was a long time user of Inkscape after growing tired of Adobe's products, but the UX simply is too frustrating.

[1]: [http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/](http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/) [2]: [http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/](http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I suppose it depends on what you consider a "pro" or not, and what you are using Photoshop for to begin with.

I started out 20 years ago as a retoucher and digital pre-press. 20 years later, I'm back in the publishing game, but publishing on the tablet. The magazine I am producing as the "eat your own dog food" test run of our bootstrapped tablet publishing tools (see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22qqsFHH1HY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22qqsFHH1HY) or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXlHFhbqzHU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXlHFhbqzHU) for more info) is almost entirely photography and video. Guess who is doing the "pre-press" work? Yeah, that's me.

So let me run you through my typical retouching workflow I use to retouch a fashion photo (discussion about perpetrating negative stereo types of female body types ignored for the sake of this conversation):

        - Open the image in Photoshop
        - Duplicate the background to a new layer and convert to smart object
        - Open up the smart object into a new document
        - Liquify, patch tool, liquify, patch tool
        - Hair, pimple removal with clone stamp
        - Masked adjustment layers for very slight color correction, typically make up and teeth and eye whitening
        - Save smart object
        - Go back to original document
        - Duplicate smart object twice
        - Highpass filter + overlay blend mode on top most smart object copy
        - Smart blur on smart object copy beneath high pass
        - Mask the blurred smart object and start painting in skin smoothing on the channel mask
        - Now at this point, I might have gone back to the smart object and made some more clean up and liquify tweaks
        - Manual corrections done, I move onto color grading and color correction

All of this is done with a wacom tablet, which afaik, GIMP still has issues with (usable but not on the same level as photoshop). Liquify tool in gimp is a horrible joke. No smart objects.

Can you do this process with GIMP? You can. I have. It's not as easy or straight forward as it should be though. It can't be stressed how important Smart Objects are to the modern photoshop workflow.

So as someone who uses Photoshop not only for app design, but actual honest to goodness professional retouching, I have to say if this guy is only using Photoshop 10% of the time, he's probably not even the target market for it. Will GIMP ever make it to actual competion for Photoshop on the professional level? I sure hope so, but not anytime soon. Photoshop CC (I've been using Photoshop since 2.5 on a Mac Quadra 950) is the best version ever. I know I sound like an Adobe shill, but I have extensive expertise that goes back decades now.

Now you damn kids get off my lawn.

</comment><comment><USER37> Man, breath of fresh air, have never bothered tweaking GIMP as out of the box it's usable but frustrating compared to photoshop or fireworks (yes, I've got the latter running in a Windows VM).

On Fedora here so GIMP is what I've been using for quick image optimizations when I can't be bothered to fire up a virtual machine.

Am definitely going to integrate some of the suggested tips, thanks to whoever posted this...

</comment><comment><USER38> Cached version [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.r...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.rileybrandt.com%2F2014%2F03%2F09%2Fphotoshop- to- gimp%2F&%7Bgoogle:acceptedSuggestion%7Doq=cache%3Awww.rileybrandt.com%2F2014%2F03%2F09%2Fphotoshop- to-gimp%2F&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER39> GIMP is lighter-weight. I use it all the time for web work. If it meets your needs, it's definitely preferable to PS.

</comment><comment><USER40> I expected this to be a joke of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER41> The only way to get something that works like Photoshop.....

I bet you can guess the answer!

It's a bit like all those people who try to get a PC to run OSX. Just buy a damn Mac for goodness sake!

<comment><USER42> Gah, I don't understand why everyone doesn't just have infinite money for goodness sake!

<comment><USER43> I've been paying the ~$20/month for awhile now. I'm totally happy with that, and I don't think that's an unreasonable expense, especially if you're using it professionally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I haven't tried it myself so can't vouch for it but GimpShop ([http://www.gimpshop.com/](http://www.gimpshop.com/)) fills a similar niche.

<comment><USER45> I originally created Gimpshop, but I'm not the jerk who owns that domain and added adware & spyware to the source. Sorry about that. I hate that this guy is out there making my fun little project into an abomination.

<comment><USER46> Man, that sucks. Do you have a project site for your real source code?

<comment><USER45> I don't have a project site for it. I became discouraged after this whole ordeal and I let it slip away into obscurity. Also, when I put Gimpshop out there, I didn't really know how to code, so updating the source to stay current was a huge undertaking for me. Since then, I've become a self taught programmer. I know Ruby fairly well. I've built a couple of non-trivial Rails sites and within the last 6 months, I published my first iOS app. Gimpshop was a fun little 'prank' that got bigger than I ever expected. Sad what it has become, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NASA to Boost Speed of Deep Space Communications - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/space-communication-network-speed-100122.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm taking a networking class in my CS program and one of the (at least, _I_ think) interesting topics we covered was the distance issue when linking two nodes together on a network. We got around to talking about really big networks (like the Internet) or a hypothetical Earth+Moon Future Internet. Another student and I had our dreams of low-grav YouTube broken when the teacher showed us the more gritty parts of how two nodes talk on a network, namely the round trip delay. This article sounded really neat and made me remember that NASA usually comes up with some very interesting workarounds/solutions.

(This is my first contribution to HN after about a year of lurking so I thought I'd make my post a bit more meaningful and explain why I thought this was neat.)</comment>


Yelp Reviews Brew Fight Over Free Speech, Fairness - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303847804579477633444768964 <comment><USER2> The fundamental problem I have with Yelp is that it's full of opinions, not reviews, and people are allowed to post a star rating essentially in a vacuum, which then gets averaged against other star ratings to form a ranking. "The food was great but the waiter didn't fold my napkin properly - 1 star."

There's a reason newspapers hire professional food critics to write about restaurants and film critics to write about movies. It takes training, skill, and insight to write well-written reviews. Most people who write Yelp reviews are perfectly entitled to share their opinion, but not a professional review.

I remember a while ago reading the Yelp reviews of a nightclub in NYC...two different reviews told two very different stories:

"Oh this place is the best. My girlfriends and I showed up, they walked us right in and everyone was buying us drinks all night. So fun! 5 stars"

"This place is terrible. The bouncer made me and my guy friends wait on line for an hour and then charged us $50 each to go in. The drinks were overpriced. 1 star."

So according to Yelp, that place would be ranked 3 stars and I'd essentially know nothing about it.

The other major issue I have is that in almost all non-restaurant business, there is a hugely negative bias. Who goes and posts a positive review after a good experience at the local dry cleaner? Nobody. But if they're rude or lose a shirt, Yelp's going to hear about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This happened to me last year. I went to a dentist near by where I moved. The dentist and her assistant were both highly incompetent. Her assistant for example, could not understand a single word. When I demanded my X-rays, so that I can go and get a second opinion, I was refused at first and then told that it will cost $25.

So, I went to Yelp and put a review about them. To my surprise, I received a call from them asking to remove the review or I'll face lawsuit. I deleted the review.

To be honest, the language I had used was not bad in any way and all I did was describe my ordeal with an incompetent doctor.

<comment><USER4> Pretty sure you weren't under any obligation to remove the review, so long as it was honest, but you should have offered to at least trade the deletion for a copy of your X-rays.

<comment><USER5> This topic has come up before. Some dentists/doctors have you sign an agreement not to write a negative review. Even without that, this does not stop them from suing someone, regardless of merit, which would require time and expense.

Also, offering to trade for removing the review is extortion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't really see the purpose of Yelp if reviews can not be 'raw' and 'uncensored'. The reason we all use yelp is because we won't get some boilerplate testimonial- rather we will get the gritty details whether good or bad.

I can see the effects its having on some businesses. My suggestion to those businesses: focus on good customer service

<comment><USER7> Good Customer service means bugger all when negative reviews are being posted by people who are not customers in an attempt to sabotage the business. (Like competitors as suspected by the company in the article)

<comment><USER4> Like this guy[1], who posted a sign on the window of his restaurant calling concealed carry holders 'douchebags'. Overnight, he went from a 3.5 star rating to a 1 star rating, with many of the reviewers referencing the sign, and others fabricating (I assume at least) that they saw roaches, fingernails in the food, that sort of thing.

The owner has since, it seems, deleted his restaurant's Yelp profile altogether, undoubtedly because no Yelp presence is likely better than tens of thousands of 1-star reviews.

[http://twitchy.com/2014/03/18/backstreets-backlash-sc- bars-s...](http://twitchy.com/2014/03/18/backstreets-backlash-sc-bars- sneering-message-for-gun-owners-sparks-disgust-sign-suggestions-pics/)

<comment><USER8> "Overnight, he went from a 3.5 star rating to a 1 star rating"

QED

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I really want to know is, if the conspiracy about Yelp taking down reviews based on whether you pay for its premium services. I imagine this is most of the fight with FTC complaints. I've seen so many accusations, but no actual proof of a page losing its reviews, or even a recorded phone call with a rep (legal in most states, one of the exceptions being CA), just stories. I believe most negative reviews are legit and many businesses that complain about getting them are in denial.

Aside about reviews: Everyone loves to hate on how Yelp is biased and reviewed by idiots, but for me it's been better than the alternatives, and the star ratings generally reflect quality (especially for places with 100+ reviews). I usually don't have the same tastes as professional critics, since they often have a far higher price range and pay attention to the professionality of a restaurant, and have their own biases away from the "plebeian" tastes. The sample size of a lot of Yelpers is usually pretty effective in finding good food. ZAGAT et al often also don't review small tea shops, food trucks, etc.

<comment><USER10> I have one data point against yelp: I created a website for a small business and they asked me about yelp's services after getting a call since they were not technologically inclined (nice elder couple).

I told them it was not necessary for the success of their website, that the decision was up to them and they should not feel rushed into signing up for extra advertising since the site was just launched. I suggested they wait it out and see how much traffic they received.

They politely declined Yelp's services, and over the period of a month I saw a decline in their yelp ratings due to questionable reviews over very superficial stuff not indicative of overall service quality.

Idunno what to believe, but a couple colleagues know people with similar experiences. If Yelp is in the wrong here, I sincerely hope they are exposed and get the negative publicity they deserve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A system with comments attached with no poster 'real' identity pretty much warrants the dilemma yelp is facing now. What about a (food critics, etc.) system where all the comments come from your facebook friends? Would that significantly reduce the inaccurate info the user will see? People can still register fake accounts to make unfair comments but the stores do not need to worry because it is likely their potential customer will not make friends with these 'fake people/account'. And the one makes comment will be much more accurate because all of their friends can see his/her comment, so his/her comments have many social implications so most people will not purposely write some unfair comment.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, you usually don't go asking strangers for a good dentist, you ask friends, or maybe their friends. That's the whole point of recommendations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This will set a dangerous precedent - if companies that get negative reviews could sue the reviewers for defamation, any business with enough money can strong-arm negative reviewers off their Yelp page (or really any other online reviews site) by threatening them with a defamation lawsuit. Even if the lawsuit is fraudulent, most people wouldn't have the resources or willpower to fight it, as it is much faster to just delete their negative review.

<comment><USER14> As the article says, "Customers have the right to their opinions without being harassed and intimidated," but what about people who are not customers? How can a user of Yelp know whether or not the review is legitimate and not a competitor or disgruntled employee? And how can we know that the positive reviews weren't posted by the owner or his friends and family? Or paid shills?

All of those non-customer reviews skew the opinions that we (partially) base our decisions on.

So there have to be some checks to the anonymity. I think the barrier of going to court is among the most reasonable ones we have right now.

<comment><USER15> Yelp doesn't know if a review is truly legitimate or not but they employ algorithms to detect potentially fake reviews and the ones they flag as potentially fake are not factored into the score and hidden at the bottom of the reviews panel. Common triggers include brand new accounts with a single review and no other activity (friends, check-ins, etc.).

In the hotel industry, Tripadvisor has had to deal with the same issue with fraudulent reviews so other competitors have tried to enter the space with the concept of "verified reviews" only from folks who they know have stayed at the hotel. This is similar to Amazon's verified reviews since they tie back to purchase history.

<comment><USER14> I agree that 'verifying' the reviewer is a great idea. How would you do that? Amazon knows whether or not the reviewer bought the item; the Amazon ecosystem is somewhat closed.

How do those Tripadvisor competitors know who has really stayed in the hotel? How could Yelp do that without drying up the pool of reviewers too much?

<comment><USER16> I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to verify a bad review... they hated the experience enough to write about it, I can't imagine scanning a copy of a receipt would be too much additional effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thinking of a solution for Yelp's anonymous review system reminds me of how Youtube approached their problem of terrible anonymous video comments by forcing G+ integration.

Everyone bashed/bashes them for the move, but I have noticed a striking contrast in the quality of comments now: largely on-topic discussions, people calling out other posters to substantiate egregious claims etc

I would not mind if Yelp iterated around solutions involving public facing identity.

</comment><comment><USER17> Something I'm kind of wondering, how could one verify the claim "Yelp somehow makes negative reviews come in after a business declined ads".

I hear it so much in this that I feel like it's something worth investigating (without wanting to actually claim that I think that's what is happening).

<comment><USER5> The experiment could involve adding a few nonexistent businesses to Yelp, half of which refuse to buy yelp ads, and half of which do buy them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A "suburban carpet cleaner" that picks up rugs and cleans them can employ over 80 people, run 60 trucks, and does $12MM in revenue? Are there really that many frequently soiled fancy rugs in a single suburban area?

<comment><USER19> If they have deals with hotels, school and offices, then easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yelp is pretty much no better than the Yellow pages at this point.

</comment><comment><USER21> At this point, I can't even read food reviews on Yelp without wondering if there are negative reviews missing. I just end up opting browsing photos for a truer experience.</comment>


Show HN: Key Value store using HFS+ extended attributes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/radiofreejohn/xattrkv

<comment><AUTHOR> This was made more to experiment with the extended attribute data than to actually use it as a key value store.

It occurs to me now that there are xattr implementations on different platforms, so I might try to make this work on more than Mac OS X.</comment>


How bad are bad fundraising terms? - <AUTHOR> https://www.benkuhn.net/terms <comment><USER2> The analysis is useful, but seems undermined by the fact that Square is now trading at $32, which would put you significantly in the money.

When you look at the table in the end, it seems like it's more important to pick the right company, than the exact deal terms. Square was much more overvalued than Theranos, but obviously people at Square did significantly better from their equity.

I also wonder what sorts of strike prices people see at these startups; I would think a company's fair market value analysis would take these deal terms into account and use that lower price for the strike price.</comment>


Real Estate Broker Arbitrage in Vancouver - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/the-real-estate-technique-fuelling-vancouvers-housing-market/article28634868/ <comment><USER2> From the perspective written in the article, I don't understand why the seller is portrayed as upset: they did the deal at a price they agreed upon. Just because another buyer came in "after" that had a better price changes nothing; this could happen in a non-assigned transaction too. This part, at least, is a natural part of the mechanism of price finding in the market.

It is an interesting question why the sellers are mispricing their homes by as much as 30%, but if you know anything about the Vancouver real estate market, it is perhaps not that surprising: numbers move very fast, a lot of inexperienced non-investors own property (that they have usually owned for a very long time) and have perhaps never been involved in a deal of such scale.

If I were the _buyer_ in the first transaction, however, I'd be very upset with my real estate agent though: his job was to advise me, not to be my adversary in an internal negotiation. He did not act in my interest, despite representing himself as my agent. I would be promptly reviewing my real estate contract and the real estate laws in my province for words like "fiduciary duty" and given the size of the transaction, probably consulting a lawyer.

A stark reminder that real estate agents are _not_ your friend -- and actually, that is true regardless of what side of the transaction you are on. They are almost always paid by the selling party and still even have non- aligned incentives even for that party: preferring to get a sale done quickly than to get a better price for their client (as they only earn a fraction of the increase, but there is a high fixed 'minimum' property price in any given jurisdiction; a second sale will do much better for them than a 5% increase in their current sale).

<comment><USER3> The sellers are upset because they misunderstood the market, by millions of dollars. Whether the world is supposed to be fair or not, it's at least easy to understand why that would be frustrating.

<comment><USER4> The sellers hired the agent to understand the market. If the seller's agent tells them 'you can sell at this price' but buys the house themselves, and resells it at a profit, they clearly misled their customer about the optimal price that they could get for the house, for their own benefit. They're in a conflict of interest.

This is not the first time I hear of real estate agents buying houses from their customers and profiting from them. If my agent tried to pull that on me, I'd fire them, or if it was too costly to do so, I'd raise the price until they're not willing to buy. Then I know I would have reached a price closer to the real market price.

<comment><USER5> Is that what's happening? How I read it, the sale was being re-assigned to the buyer's agent. It definitely means the seller's agent left some money on the table for their clients, but not necessarily that they did so on purpose. I guess that's why this exists... the seller's agent can point to incompetence (unintentionally mis-pricing the home) rather than foul play.

<comment><USER6> He turned around and flipped it for $1M. That's fraud, not incompetence.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps we're talking about different cases. I'm not seeing any home in the article that's priced at $1M. I was talking about the first case where the seller ends up selling to the buying agent (not their agent) who then marks it up to the real market value. The seller's agent didn't officially have any perverse financial incentives from that sale, other than the oft-cited incentive to price low and sell quick that all brokers have [0].

[0]: [http://freakonomics.com/2008/02/26/real-estate-agents- revisi...](http://freakonomics.com/2008/02/26/real-estate-agents-revisited/)

<comment><USER6> I re-read the article and I misread it, I thought they were selling to their own selling agent. I guess they instead sold it to the buying agent. If that's the case, then I guess there's nothing wrong since the selling agent is the one that is guiding the sellers, although it sort of makes one wonder if there was collusion going on.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I think the most troubling piece of this is how hard it is to figure out if something illegal was going on. I'd say it's definitely a point in favor of just listing your home on the open market rather than doing a pocket listing (a private sale without listing). Even if you really trust your agent, pricing a home is really hard and is best left to competing buyers. It sounds like a lot of these sales were "listed" by realtors who already had an offer in hand when they contacted the owner so they weren't really soliciting the open market for highest and best offers (which is definitely a violation of their fiduciary duties).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Vancouver sw eng here. I've lived in this city for 14yrs, bought in 7yrs ago. My house has doubled in value since then. The min buy in has now reached the 1million mark and continues to climb. The ratio of real estate to salary is out of wack and the talent is starting to leave. Vancouver is becoming a playground for the wealthy.

<comment><USER8> Another Vancouver sw eng here. Only got here 3 years ago. Have to rent, impossible to buy unless I move outside the core. Then why bother living here if I have to live in Surrey? Unhappy with the fact I have to raise my first kid in a 500sqft apartment. Not sure what I'm going to do if I have another. Hoping the market crashes so I can keep living here...

<comment><USER9> Come to Toronto. The tech salaries are higher and the real estate market is not amazing but definitely lower, and we have better options for living outside the core without feeling like you're in the burbs.

You lose the ocean and the mountains though, and that can be a really hard sell (source: I moved here 5 years ago from Vancouver).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's an image from the article that explains it all:

> > [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article28634862...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article28634862.ece/BINARY/w940/image.jpg)

<comment><USER11> How that is legal, ethically, I'll never understand.

<comment><USER12> It's totally ethical.

The contract is very clear when it says, "Buyer and/or assigns." In most states, that is written at the very beginning of the contract as well.

<comment><USER13> You're mistaking legality with ethics. The assignment clause makes it legal, but that doesn't mean that the brokers are acting ethically.

Ethics revolves around ensuring that everybody's interests are protected. A broker is supposed to be a neutral party that does not have an interest in the transaction. The seller's interests are not being represented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where's the seller's agent in all of this?

The article mentions that the buyer's agent find another buyer who will pay more than Buyer #1. So, what's the problem with that?

The buyer's agent has a fiduciary duty to the buyer, not to the seller. If the buyer's agent convinces the seller to sell at a price below market, and then finds Buyer #2 to buy at market, and Buyer #1 picks up the profits, that's a great agent ... for the buyer.

The seller should have his own agent, who's job it is to find the highest bidder and to not sell below market.

<comment><USER15> My impression from the article was that the sellers didn't have independent agents. They were approached by the buyer's agent when not even listing their house.

<comment><USER16> Definitely seems that the buyers agent offered to also act as the seller's agent and probably threw in a "we can reduce our commissions if we are on both sides of the deal" type of offer.

I had my own experience buying my first home, the new construction condo agent told me that I didn't have to have a buyer's agent and could just deal with them but the more I did my research the more I realized that my agent would be legally required to represent my best interests and could do a better job advising me on a process that might seem intimidating to a first time buyer.

I can understand why some of these sellers said "YES!" when someone knocks on their door and offers them cash that's equivalent to a lifetime's worth of savings but there is some fault to be assigned to seller's who don't do their due diligence. If someone says they'll pay cash right away to you, you have to think that perhaps you should see if there are other buyers in the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It sounds to me like the solution is to introduce legislation where the seller receives the final closing price (minus fees and commissions), not the pre- close sale price. Assign as many times as you want prior to closing the deal, but if that $2M house gets reassigned a few times and ultimately closes at $2.6M, that's what the seller should receive. Essentially, the sale isn't complete until the property is actually transferred.

This would protect the interests of the seller and align the agents with their interests, something which is required to happen in theory but seems lacking in practice with rules easily skirted by an agent making laughable claims like "oh, I wasn't aware that I would be interested in having a financial stake in this property until an hour after the buyer accepted the offer".

<comment><USER18> just don't sign a contract with an assignment clause.

<comment><USER19> Why do you (as the seller) care if the contract is assigned? You agreed to sell the house for X dollars on Y date. You get X (minus commissions) on or before Y date and you're good. Whether the house is resold (or the contract assigned) 0 or N times isn't your concern. You took a price that you're happy with and got it. Whether another buyer was willing to pay a higher price 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years later is not your concern, IMO.

I bought both of my houses with an "or assigns" clause in the offer. In both cases, I expected to (and did) move into the house as my personal residence, but if a seller balked at the "or assigns" bit, I would have walked on the first house and not sure on the second house. Why? Because I may want to assign the contract to a trust, partnership or LLC, in addition to the freedom it gives me to assign to another buyer.

The couple in the article were OK with selling their house for it to razed and a new structure built, but weren't OK with the new buyer selling the house to someone else?! That makes no sense to me...

<comment><USER17> What's happening is that the house is not being resold. The sale isn't complete until the property is transferred to the new owner, who assumes the title. I explained this elsewhere [0]. If I were selling my place, I'd be happy to have you assign as many times as you want, whether it's to assign it to your holding company or to another seller if you're unable to complete on the deal. However, I would insist on receiving the completed sale price since that is the time at which the sale and transfer of the property happens; because I still own the property, it is still my concern. Upon taking ownership of the property, if you then wish to re-list the property on the market and try and get a better price that is no longer my concern.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11059602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11059602)

<comment><USER19> I get that the legal ownership is not literally changing hands multiple times (mostly because of the comical inefficiency of the real estate market and the effect of transfer taxes).

As a seller, you agreed to price X. As a buyer, I contracted with you (the hypothetical you) to ensure you are paid X. I then do some legwork and find another buyer for X+P, and assign the contract to them. At closing, you get ~X; I get ~P; new buyer gets the property, and a bunch of do-littles in the process take a bunch of fees, expenses, taxes, and commissions off the table. I don't see the problem for you or I. You do and I acknowledge that.

You can feel free to insist (in the contract) that, under those circumstances, you are due X+P, and what you'll find is that the subset of the buyers who wish to assign the contract won't deal with you (you've taken their economic value add away), but you'll eventually sell the house. It might be for X - L, where L is the loss you take by excluding that subset of buyers, as remember that X was the highest offer you were able to find otherwise and that was from a buyer that you've now excluded. But at least you can feel good that you got the "full value" of the transaction.

<comment><USER17> When P is $1M, as the article describes, I (putting myself in the seller's shoes) am not getting market value for the property; I'm only getting about 80% of market value. That's the problem I see and it really has nothing to do with you or your ability to make P on the property. The selling agent should have worked harder to capture at least a portion of that $1M, particularly since that $1M came at little to no risk for the chain of assigners. Additionally it may be the case that the buyer's agent purposely withheld a buyer, hoping to low-ball the seller, assign the purchase to themselves, and then sell the property for an offer that they could have brought to the seller in the first place.

The only reason this is possible is because the market is inefficient and I'd like to see more efficiency introduced into the market, whether that comes through legislation or via technical means, so that people aren't leaving $1M on the table to be scooped up by others. In reality that $5.2M property which ultimately closed at $6.2M might have sold for $5.7M, earning the family another $500K and saving the real buyer $500K.

<comment><USER19> _Additionally it may be the case that the buyer 's agent purposely withheld a buyer, hoping to low-ball the seller, assign the purchase to themselves, and then sell the property for an offer that they could have brought to the seller in the first place._

If the buyer's agent is acting on behalf of the buyer, they were under no obligation (legal certainly, nor ethical or moral, IMO) to bring that higher offer to the seller. (Real estate law and practices are hyper local; around here [MA, USA], a "buyer's agent" owes a fiduciary obligation only to the buyer and is allowed (and in fact would be required) to not disclose the presence of this other potential offer as by the "undivided loyalty" clause, they are "prohibited from advancing any interests adverse to the principal's [read: buyer's] interest or conducting the principal's business in such a way as to benefit a customer, a subagent, the agent or any other party to the detriment of the principal's interest." In other areas, that might not be the case.)

In that case, it is the _listing /selling_ agent's responsibility to advise their client (the seller) that the offer is too low and they should wait longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> And to think that I thought the Vancouver real estate market was crazy back in 2005...

This story is very relevant to tech. As much as I would love to, I wouldn't even think about locating a new business or office in BC today. And I'm sure I'm not alone. Attracting and retaining good employees is just too difficult when housing is more expensive than San Francisco - in a city where pay and buying power is much, much lower.

<comment><USER21> It's not more expensive than SF, don't read reports look at prices. If you work in tech SF is a lot more expensive than Van.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder why the sellers are miss pricing their homes by so much? I guess there is an aspect of trusting the agent too much, and a lack of experience making such lucrative deals (I think I'd still love the chance to make a horrible deal on $3 million of appreciation).

<comment><USER11> As someone who used to sell services to real estate agents...

Their incentives are not aligned with the seller or buyer of the home but with their ability to generate a commission per hour of labor.

Selling your house at $180,000 in 30 hours is far more lucrative than selling your house at $200,000 [fair market value] in 90 hours.

A substantial number of them will opt for the former rather than properly advising the seller.

The buyer's agent will do the reverse as their commission size is based on making the sale and the larger the dollar figure, the greater their commission. [e.g. Nudge you in the direction they think will maximize their reward for effort, such as encouraging you to pay $205,000 on a $200,000 property so there isn't any real negotiation.]

<comment><USER22> I believe it was Freakonomics had a section that covered this - When real estate agents themselves sell their own houses, they stay on the market longer than average.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Where it gets tricky is the agent has a fiduciary duty to the client. Making multiple deals isn't int he interest of the buyer. Not sure about Canada though.

</comment><comment><USER5> If only all real estate agents were transparent and accountable agents in the AI sense, hard-coded with fiduciary duty to their clients. Working on it... :)

I do think there's some confusion in these comments about buyer vs seller agent, but that goes back to the fact that traditional real estate deals are often murky and intentionally obfuscated to benefit the brokers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Similar to this happens all the time in India. Seller1 sells his property to buyer1 and gives all the property papers after transaction. Before _registering_ this property with the government Buyer1 finds another Buyer2 and sells the property. Buyer1 now avoids paying tax which is what registering property is.

</comment><comment><USER24> When they demolish and sell in Vancouver its given to the lowest contractor bid so will fall a part in a few years. Common to see huge cracks in new house walls, uneven garage doors that can't close and loose tile work galore. Glued together homes sold to absentee buyers made to last until next sale.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is house flipping, not arbitrage.

<comment><USER17> It's not flipping. Flipping is where Bob fully completes the purchase of a property from seller Alice, Bob pays the property transfer tax [0], Bob takes possession of the property as the new owner on the title, and then Bob re- lists _his_ property on the market at a new price, ultimately completing the sale to Charlie.

What's happening here is that agents involved in the sale of Alice's property provide Alice with a price of (for example) $1M, which Alice accepts under the assumption that her agent is representing her interests fairly and objectively. After Alice accepts this price, the purchase is delayed. While Alice waits to receive $1M for the sale, Eve (another agent) is assigned the property and sells the assignment to Bob for $1.25M. Bob then sells his assignment to Charlie for $1.5M. Charlie then completes the purchase, and only then is the property transferred from Alice to Charlie. Charlie pays $1.5M, but Alice receives only $1M. Eve and Bob both profit $250K each, never having taken possession of the property themselves.

[0] The tax is charged at a rate of 1% for the first $200,000 and 2% for the portion of the fair market value that is greater than $200,000. Source: [http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property- taxes/prope...](http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property- taxes/property-transfer-tax/understand)

<comment><USER25> I don't think there's a strict definition of flipping. What's happening here is much closer to flipping than arbitrage for any sensible definition of those.

<comment><USER17> My understanding of flipping was what I thought to be a common-sense one. However, upon researching it further I stand corrected: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipping#Wholesaling_and_assig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipping#Wholesaling_and_assigning_a_contract)

One part of that article that stands out is that this is possible because the seller is generally not getting market value, which implies that the seller's agent isn't doing a great job of representing them:

      "This practice is often frowned upon in the real estate
       community since it seems unethical or illegal. In practice
       there is nothing illegal about wholesaling or assigning
       rights to a purchase contract even if it is multiple times.
       It is important to understand that the reason there is an
       opportunity to wholesale is because the original seller is
       selling the property for substantially less than market
       value."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> wonder what these houses are getting appraised at. and if appraisals are just ignored and/or disclosed. I would think an agent that sells a house with knowledge of an appraisal that was 300k below what it sold for without disclosing could get in a lot of trouble.

</comment><comment><USER26> Don't complain about your block becoming a ghost town if you're selling too.</comment>


Richer Sounds staff to get windfall as founder hands over shares - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48269171 <comment><USER2> It's not a "windfall". They did the work. They made that wealth possible. They _earned_ every bit of it.</comment>


Ask HN: Facebook authentication -- Yes or no. - <AUTHOR>

I'm building my next project right now, and I have to admit that the ease of letting users click a single link to login (not needing to register) is very temping.
With it comes their identity, their profile picture, their existing network etc.
Does anybody have experience with this?  How did it work out for you?  I saw a couple of threads from a little over a year ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1502061
but am curious if opinions have changed. <comment><USER2> On my image sharing site I have a prominent facebook login option and only about 1/10 users use it to login, the rest create an account normally. I'd recommend having both options. Of course, users may be less inclined to login with facebook on a site like mine, where they are sharing content that they may want to keep separate from their facebook identity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've tried it before on a previous project of mine, and the results were pretty bad. Many users walked away because it wasn't obvious why we needed access to any of their Facebook information--we weren't asking for any permissions until much later in the relationship, but users still balked.

There weren't any great ways to notify a user and it was unnecessarily hard to allow users to interact with people for whom they new an email address but weren't friends on Facebook.

I think your best bet is to encourage users to create an account on your site/app directly (perhaps with a Facebook/Google option), and then later link it to Facebook once they understand the benefit to them of doing so.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's easy to implement, removes friction if you're developing a social app. However, you become reliant on facebook, search around and you'll find stories about developers having apps banned, etc. Also, if your app is _not_ social, and there is no clear reason to integrate with facebook, users may be hesitant to use it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Inspect foursquare. They have Facebook login but it is not mandatory. Not everybody uses Facebook, besides this brings independence to your platform rather than relying on some 3rd party (FB, in this case) system, e.g. when Facebook goes down, you are down.

</comment><comment><USER6> Works fine, just make sure you give people an email sign up option as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Look at how Quora does it. It is the best way to do it.</comment>


John McAfee: Addict, coder, runaway - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24441931

<comment><USER2> (Thought I submitted this story a few days ago but must have been mistaken.)</comment>