Review my website: Cornify - <AUTHOR> http://www.cornify.com Cornify is all about giving internet users choice of customization. MySpace is a great example of a successful company with a similar vision. Facebook with its Windows 3.1 look - not so much. Cornify provides a service that allows users to cover any website in a beautiful array of unicorn and rainbow imagery - taking back the web one 'corn at a time.<p>To give credit where credit is due, this concept was heavily inspired by AddThis. <comment><USER2> I almost cried when a unicorn covered up the "cornify" button and I had to stop.

<comment><USER3> Do you have firebug installed?

for (var i = 0; i < 10000; ++i) { cornify_add() }

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of the comments here seem to be enjoying the joke and having fun, but shouldn't we take the review requests on HN a little more seriously? It's the only resource on the web that allows for this form of quality feedback from such great talent and experience as is present on HN. I'd just hate to start seeing it abused, and then fade away as people stop paying attention to the review requests.

edit: Or maybe I should just cornify my site :-)

<comment><USER5> Take a look at Cornify's comments ;-)

If the site is a serious venture, then review requests here do seem to be taken seriously ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is bound to "go viral" and have "organic growth"

If I were you I'd start seeking VC immediately. At the end of the day, this idea is so simple, so uniquely brilliant and really well executed that you can worry about a business model after you're done acquiring users.

BRILLIANT!

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries, the business model is fully thought through. We're expecting to be profitable in phase 3.

<comment><USER7> ten year old girls is definitely an untapped market opportunity just waiting for monetary exploitation by devious but brilliant entrepreneurs eager to enhance shareholder value.

I'm sure Mattell are shaking in their pants, knowing that their core market is about to be exploited heavily by a soon to be funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and quickly acquired by Google, company much more aligned with web 2.0 and an uncanny ability to align the interests of multiple stakeholders in the fast changing world of international webcommerce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I made a bookmarklet:

javascript:if(typeof cornify_add==="undefined"){document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')).src='<http://www.cornify.com/js/cornify.js';}else{cornify_add()>};

First click loads it, subsequent clicks add a new image.

Now you can Cornify Hacker News too! <http://skitch.com/tlrobinson/bddmx/hacker-news-cornified>

<comment><USER9> Some support please! I can't get the bookmarklet to work (it just loads the text of the url) and I MUST HAVE A CORNIFY BOOMARKLET! Thanks.

<comment><USER8> What browser? I only tested on Safari. Try this:

        javascript:(function(){if(typeof cornify_add==="undefined"){
        document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')).src=
        'http://www.cornify.com/js/cornify.js';}
        else{cornify_add()}})();

(remove the newlines)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It does exactly what it says it will, and it does it with style.

Highly recommended. Would corn again.

</comment><comment><USER11> I must agree, this is the number one unicorns and rainbow adding site on the internet. I am disappointed that they don't frolic about and they appear blind the concept of whitespace areas, perhaps in the "pro" edition.

I am also a bit ashamed that I executed a stranger's Javascript in my Hacker News context. Who knows what just happened to my cookie? (Ok, I just read the URL and I'm safe, at least for the javascript present the instant I downloaded it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to disappoint you. We're focusing on "less is more" and after long debates we decided that frolicing was something our users could live without. We take your feedback serious and if there is more user request, we will certainly be open to a later implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This should've been "Review my STARTUP"!

</comment><comment><USER12> It's all fun and games until you execute this on facebook and the Unicorns steal your cookie and hijack your account.

Yes, bookmarklets can do that.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've got a fever ... and the only cure is more unicorns.

</comment><comment><USER14> yea, I like the glitter! If I could move them around, and if I kept clicking the button they popped up, that would be super cool.

Also, perhaps after overuse, it showed the occasional raincloud?

<comment><USER10> Definitely, the first thing I tried to do was drag them around. +1 for that feature!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm obviously doing something wrong. Nothing happens when I click the button, and I can't drag the link at right to my toolbar. I spent 3 minutes trying all sorts of things, and have given up.

Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? I'm using IE7 on Windows XP Home, and I have JavaScript turned on. I don't see unicorns, glitter, or any changes.

<comment><USER16> IE7 doesn't allow bookmarklets to be dragged to the Links toolbar, presumably due to the security risk. Instead, right-click and Add to favorites...

<comment><USER15> I've added it to favorites, but it's still the case that nothing's happening. I click on the link at the left, and nothing happens.

Am I doing something wrong? What should happen when I click on the link at left?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Feature request: Additional pictures, please. You do not have a suitable variety to satiate my thirst for Unicorns and rainbows.

Additionally, a Unicorn puking rainbows would make me invest.

</comment><comment><USER18> I actually thought it was quite the fun idea. My only suggestions are to increase the number of pictures (and thus the cuteness) as well as allow for the pictures to be dragged around. I don't want to stop clicking "cornify" if the button gets covered up :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Who said this is going to be a bad year for IPOs?

Installed: <http://bit.ly/Akao>

</comment><comment><USER20> How about putting [joke] or something in the title, so those of us short on time can skip it?

<comment><USER21> Normally I'd agree with you, but this is a 10 second diversion, and you have to be a robot not to find the concept cute and unique.

<comment><USER22> I ro-bot. Still find joke fu-nny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You've had lots of positive feedback, and I'm sure it's a good idea, but it's caused me nothing but trouble.

Firstly - and you'll see this in my earlier comments, it simply didn't work for me on IE7/XP Home edition. Now it works (Mozilla Firefox 188.8.131.52 on SuSE 10.1) but when I closed the tab the "music" kept running.

How many browser/OS combinations have you tested this on? I'm left with a machine that I may have to reboot to get control back of the sound system, and I'm _not_ a happy customer. If you do this to people "in the wild" you may get some comment significantly more negative than this one.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just fell off my chair.

<comment><USER23> I just cornified my blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm totally going to use this.

Seriously. I just added it to my personal website (down at the bottom): <http://tlrobinson.net/>

</comment><comment><USER24> My daughter loves it.

</comment><comment><USER25> this is kind of cute, but not entertaining enough to make the lack of intellectual interestingness worthwhile. execution ok but not stellar: graphics are large and invasive.

with a little thought this could have been cute. inject the images into the dom, maybe to replace advertisements or brighten logos. do a little data mining or randomness to inject stormclouds every-so-often. do something cute when used on weather sites.

</comment><comment><USER26> What about: "Review my StartDOWN" ?

</comment><comment><USER27> I have an extensive collection of unicorn artwork and imagery. How do I get them to you?

</comment><comment><USER28> It would be nice to calculate the offset of the "Cornify" button (when it uses the button instead of the bookmarklet) so that when you generate some insane amounts of unicorns they don't cover the "Cornify" button.

</comment><comment><USER29> If I could make a suggestion: Multiple cornify buttons. It is awesome fun to keep hitting the button, so more means you can have a sillier screen :)

</comment><comment><USER30> an "uncornify" bookmarklet might be nice. As much as I "love" the cornification, sometimes it blocks something important.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hilarious stuff. I know a lot of people who would enjoy this if it also dropped Hello Kitty all over the page. :)

</comment><comment><USER32> am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER33> Great business model!

</comment><comment><USER34> Put it on my site.

</comment><comment><USER35> Y'all can laugh -- good lord, I did, thanks Cornify! -- but you'd be shocked & awed to learn the money people make with stuff that's not far removed from this.

Viva la difference!

</comment><comment><USER22> I got corned. Damn.</comment>


Icon A5 Aircraft "comes with many strings attached" - <AUTHOR> http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2016/March/31/Icon-gambit <comment><AUTHOR> The full purchase agreement is available in PDF here: [http://download.aopa.org/advocacy/ICON_A5_Purchase_Agreement...](http://download.aopa.org/advocacy/ICON_A5_Purchase_Agreement_Complete_3_25.pdf)</comment>


Uncovering Somalia's forgotten music of the 1970s - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/uncovering-somalia-forgotten-music-1970s-170704123301195.html <comment><USER2> Cool share. If anyone has more links to these songs, plz share here. The article just has one.

EDIT. Actually, the Soundcloud its from has a ton: [https://soundcloud.com/ostinatorecords](https://soundcloud.com/ostinatorecords)

<comment><USER3> Beautiful music! It would be wonderful to have a website where you could choose a region or a country, a time period, and it automatically generates a relevant playlist.

<comment><USER4> There's a site called Radiooooo that does pretty much exactly that.

[http://www.radiooooo.com](http://www.radiooooo.com)

<comment><USER5> Looks promising, doesn't work for me on mobile but I'll check out the desktop version later. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've received my copy of the CD a couple of days ago. Great music and the back story is incredible! According to the the liner notes this is the blog that inspired the whole project: [http://tix-iyo-tiraab.blogspot.com](http://tix- iyo-tiraab.blogspot.com)

It's a small blog full of awesome Somali music from the 1970s and 1980s.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Wire has more tracks from the same release. All good, but who'd believe that the last track by Waaberi Band is from Somalia of 1969!: [https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen-to-tracks- from...](https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen-to-tracks-from-a-new- compilation-of-somali-music)

</comment><comment><USER7> A CD of this music on Amazon and you can listen to samples:

[https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-As-Broken-Dates- Somali/dp/B073M...](https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-As-Broken-Dates- Somali/dp/B073MDHRZW)

<comment><USER8> You can listen to the whole thing — and buy it in lossless format — on Bandcamp: [https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-as- broken-d...](https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-as-broken-dates- lost-somali-tapes-from-the-horn-of-africa)

<comment><USER9> Happily listening to the FLACs now - though given that the tracks were recovered from old cassettes (and recorded on fairly limited rigs in the first place) I am not sure they really need to be in a lossless format...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I personally know vik, knew of the project, and so was so excited to see this article here by coincidence. He's personally investing great effort to rescue music that otherwise wouldnt be heard. Super recommend his other albums (one is like a Haitian Buena Vista).

</comment><comment><USER11> Tangentially related, but it really makes me sad that what.cd died. It was a haven for these types of obscure music collections, tens of thousands of albums worth that simply aren't available via streaming services. I hope some sort of service finds a way to operate legally while still rewarding rarity like what did, otherwise more things like this will just be lost to the sands of time.

<comment><USER12> Between Discogs and RateYourMusic there are plenty of rare albums there, with track listings etc. but there's stuff that I find which isn't on either of them, and I wonder what I could have found on what.cd, if I had an account, and indeed downloaded beacuse many of these obscure albums were limited release or completely out of print for a decade or more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What a find. Thank you.

<comment><USER14> Indeed.

If I may?

Somalia is a beautiful country. I've been twice, the second time was when I was able to spend six months.

While I didn't go to an music venues, there was still a great deal of music. Yes, people sing and dance - even when they are oppressed. I was last there to hand out aid and it was beautiful to see how people with so little, to the point of requiring aid, were still so generous.

What irks me is the people who try to claim that Somalia is a land without government. No, they have lots of government. People just don't recognize this and they are illegitimate. You may know them by another name, warlords.

These fiefdoms have everything from taxation to laws, to paperwork and permits, and more. They are very much a governed people. In some areas, we even needed permission from multiple groups in order to travel.

Anyhow, if you get the chance, go. Before I went, I got a phone call from some guy who worked for the State Department. They used some choice words to tell me that my government would be unable to help should something go wrong. Yeah, it's a dangerous place but it was worth the risks. It really is a beautiful place that is full of (mostly) wonderful people.

<comment><USER15> Small question. The call you got, was it from the State Department of your country or from Somalia?

<comment><USER14> My country. It was from the US State Dept. They wanted me to come in and talk to them, after I'd asserted that I was still going. I didn't. The guy on the phone got unreasonably angry with me. I'd no intentions to ask for government help, regardless of outcome. I was quite willing to accept any/all risks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anyone looking for a Non-Technical Co-Founder in NYC? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to join a technical person or a team to work on a start-up. I had two startups before and they both failed. I have learned so much from each one of them. I know about the ins and outs of startup marketing, project management, and sales. Entrepreneurs never quit, so I want to take the lessons learned and try again. I have tried posting on HN before with little luck. I started my first business at the age of 15 in high school and my family is full of entrepreneurs so entrepreneurship runs deep in my blood.
I am willing to work my ass off including weeknights, weekends, or whatever it takes. Looking for someone who wants to start their own business just as badly as I do.
I am currently in NYC, and I have bunch of savings saved up that I can survive for at least three years without a job.
Here is a little about me:
-I graduated from one of the top undergraduate business schools in America (currently in the top five of the Business Week's top undergraduate business school ranking list)
-I have worked at Google and Salesforce in San Francisco for about a year and a half prior to moving to NYC. I am a 24 year old male.
-I am really good at people's skills, presenting, networking, and business development. I have high emotional intelligence and am pretty easy to get along with.
-I can SELL! I am also well-read.
-I am a go-getter, and do not need to be told to do things. I literally can do everything and am a fast learner.
I am looking for someone who loves coding and who is extremely dedicated and willing work their asses off to make a successful startup. If you are action-oriented, hacker-type, and are looking for a non-technical co-founder that fits the description above then please contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com. <comment><USER2> My honest reaction is that if all the above were true you would not have to post a Hail Mary inquiry like this on HN. I also find it odd that you simply did not name the biz school. Another problem is being 24. As for "I literally can do anything" \-- well, I guess so could I when I was 24.

No offense intended. This is offered just FWIW as how one person read your inquiry. Felix on the Odd Couple quoted Robert Burns: "Oh would some power the gift give us, To see ourselves as others see us."

</comment><comment><USER3> One way of doing this is to 1. find hackers with interesting projects and then 2. help them out with your sales/people skills ... for free. With no expectations of getting something back.

Then out of that trust and mutual liking and understanding that grows out of actually doing something together, you can build a real partnership.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> It's situations like Matt's that I find myself wishing I studied CompSci in undergrad, if simply for the connections to other hackers.

Goodluck Matt. Let's grab coffee sometime.

<comment><USER5> Connections to hackers aren't hard to find. However, proving to hackers that they should bring you onto their startup, idea or project is the hard part.

Few tips / ideas

Post on [http://startupers.com](http://startupers.com) under "talent"

Go on angel.co, create a profile. Go here: [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs) >> sort jobs by your field and start connecting with startups. Follow people on there and start building relationships.

[http://www.cofounderslab.com](http://www.cofounderslab.com) another site for finding cofounders

[http://startupweekend.org](http://startupweekend.org) \- find a startupweekend event in your area ... amazing place to meet hackers, entrepreneurs and smart people. Network, network, network.

[http://foundershookup.com/](http://foundershookup.com/) \- another founder matching site

[http://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/](http://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/) \-- post here info about you and what your looking for

[http://www.indeed.com/](http://www.indeed.com/) \- search for keywords + your area..example cofounder, nyc or partner nyc, or biz dev nyc and reach out to job posts. I've used this method for making connections to startups and the founders

[https://angel.co/people](https://angel.co/people) \- forgot this one...great way to find people with any skills, interests, location etc.

Ill add to this as I can think of more

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What were your previous startups in? Consumer? Enterprise? Perhaps you can start writing about your failures to connect with more technical people.

</comment><comment><USER5> Emailed you.</comment>


New Apple iPad Designs Surface with Landscape Docking & More - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/09/new-apple-ipad-designs-surface-with-landscape-docking-more.html

<comment><USER2> These are not new, they are old filings.</comment>


Code boilerplate: Is it always bad? A case study between Python and Go - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@shazow/code-boilerplate-is-it-always-bad-934827efcfc7 <comment><USER2> The author's Python example is a straw man. You can write generator expressions that way... if you hate yourself and all the people who will have to deal with your code.

The Go alternative that's provided, if that's one's stylistic preference, is just as easily implemented in Python as it is in Go.

To my eyes neither the Go nor the Python implementations in the article are beautiful.

In any case, despite his bagging of Python, it seems like the author would agree with the Zen of Python:

Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts.

</comment><comment><USER3> "My claim is: For non-trivial projects, proportional code is not cumulatively more lines than disproportional code."

We can test it by comparing the lines of code in non-trivial Python programs on GitHub with equivalent programs written in Go.</comment>


Blockchain Is a Semantic Wasteland - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/blockchain-is-a-semantic-wasteland-9450b6e5012 <comment><USER2> I like to tell people that I could build them a blockchain in less than an hour. Of course, ordinary people including people who invest in cryptocurrencies don't believe this because they don't understand what a blockchain is at all. Upon firing up Codepen and making a simple blockchain, the concept immediately seems less cool to them.

To me, the whole blockchain aspect of cryptocurrencies and related technology isn't particularly interesting, but the idea of automated consensus is. You can tell if someone actually knows a thing or two if they aren't just slobbering over "the blockchain."

<comment><USER3> You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things can happen.

<comment> jf- The problem is no one can think of one. As is often repeated here, there doesn't seem to be any use case for blockchain that is superior to other technology, other than a cryptocurrency. And even they are rife with problems.

<comment><USER4> I propose voting. You turn your mobile phone into a voting booth.

The only thing you need is to verify your identity on your phone. In Sweden we have a national system called BankID which is in use everywhere, so this is solvable.

Then you can publish your votes on the blockchain so they're immutable and publicly verifiable. This has some benefits over traditional voting:

* You can vote from your phone

* Votes can be counted instantly in real time

* Votes can be independently verified

* You can verify that your vote is counted correctly and included

You should also be able to make your identity private using zero knowledge proofs so you can verify your own vote but everyone else can not track any individual vote.

Voting via your phone would save huge amounts of time and energy compared to paper voting and it would make holding these votes much easier. It would avoid situations like in the Bush/Gore election where votes were invalid, not counted properly and counted too late.

I believe this would be a superior voting scheme if implemented properly and adopted on a national level.

<comment><USER5> Homomorphic elections is an idea that has been floating around since at least 2004 [0]. Some even have proof-of-concept implementations to go with their papers [1].

It doesn't need a blockchain (and predates blockchain), and it has some very nice properties, such as not requiring electricity proportional to how much an attacker might spend, and uncoercibility (as defined in their paper).

I think elections are poorly suited to blockchain for several reasons:

1\. There is an authority (the government), so the lack of centralized trust of a blockchain adds nothing.

2\. The core of a blockchain is preventing double-spends (double-votes) by picking which version of the truth is correct via some input proof-of- something. Unfortunately, there's more value in subverting an election than securing it, so it seems likely if the US uses $20k of computing power to secure the "vote blockchain", a malicious actor will simply spend $20m of compute power to reverse votes or otherwise stall out democracy. It turns out requiring work to secure something works much less well if it's not money. On the flip side, if we have to spend more for each election in proof-of-work computation than any attacker might spend, we quickly also are losing.

3\. Blockchain's cryptography does not provide nice properties like uncoercibility, and those things would have to be baked on top, and yet can instead be built separately more simply (as proved by academic research like the one I linked and the hundreds of papers that cite it).

All 4 of the properties you mentioned are totally unrelated to blockchain technology. You could already get all the above if the government just ran an api that let users digitally sign and publish votes and check votes signed with their key, and that publicly exposes a full audit log. None of that requires blockchain, all it requires is that citizens get a private key (also required if it were a blockchain), don't have multiple, and that the private key isn't publicly associated with them for anonymity.

When you say "Blockchain would help because you could vote on your phone", what you really mean is "digital voting with cryptography to make it secure would be nice". Blockchain is irrelevant if all you want is a mobile app and cryptography that excludes the generals problem.

The actual problem is not a technical one in the first place. Elections are a mess for largely human reasons. Pretending that all we need is some magic technology to fix this problem is being wilfully ignorant.

[0]: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2004/105.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2004/105.pdf)

[1]: [http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/](http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/)

<comment><USER4> The difference with storing data on a sufficiently secure blockchain is that it's totally immutable and public. Yes the government could run a database with a public API but that requires much more trust that it's coded properly and that a hacker doesn't gain access.

This is why people are distrustful to voting machines and other techy solutions. Having everything verifiable in public addresses these concerns.

> There is an authority (the government), so the lack of centralized trust of > a blockchain adds nothing.

The trust needed is for the government to distribute keys/votes instead of trusting the government to store and count your votes as well.

> a malicious actor will simply spend $20m of compute power to reverse votes > or otherwise stall out democracy.

Yes they could. It is however easy to detect.

> so it seems likely if the US uses $20k of computing power to secure the > "vote blockchain"

We would of course embed our votes in the much more secure Bitcoin ledger which is _much_ harder to attack and runs without any help from the government (although they could help make it even more secure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The tweet from the article is correct: "blockchain" is only popular because Bitcoin is an extremely profitable pyramid scheme / money laundering service. There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing technology. We have:

\- databases

\- distributed databases

\- distributed hash tables

\- cryptographic signing

\- authentication

I've heard all kinds of ideas that are just bad. Verifiable check in systems (use an app and a database), services were actually delivered (scan a barcode and use a database) supply chain tracking (scan a barcode and use a database).

Do you need Sybil resistance from proof of work because your consensus system is public and trustless? Cool Bitcoin is your jam. Just try to avoid building an unusable currency this go around, although I can't imagine a single additional use for it, and to date no one else can either.

Oh and also try and avoid broiling our planet with your energy use. Earth backup system is not yet online.

<comment><USER4> > There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing > technology.

Repeating for the N:th time on HN.

* Porn

* Donations to wikileaks

* Pot

* Sending money to Venezuela

* Leaving Venezuela with your wealth intact

* Payments without giving all transaction info third parties (PayPal, VISA, etc)

* Digital payments for the unbanked

These are all served better by cryptocurrencies than other alternatives.

A common counterargument is fees are very high on Bitcoin. This is true but it's only an argument against Bitcoin not cryptocurrencies in general. See Bitcoin Cash for example.

<comment><USER7> Not sure about digital payments for the unbanked. Are there any real cases of someone unbanked paying for something with crypto? I guess I can see how it could happen in theory.

<comment><USER4> For example many homeless people have smartphones but they can't get a bank account. It can be really hard to pay your bills if you don't have a bank account today.

Adoption wise we have very long to go but the tech is here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Jumping on a blockchain thread to ask this question-

Can anyone imagine ANY uses for a centralized blockchain?

IOTA uses tangle, but the idea is the same. Storing immutable data.

I understand Bitcoin, people commit currency fraud. Bitcoin is decentralized. Trustless currency sounds fantastic.

I do not understand these data coins that are centralized. It isnt trustless, and at this point, why not store in a write only sql database?

<comment><USER9> I think there are a bunch of use cases, for example verifying authenticity of high-value products. For example, if you buy a bag from Louis Vuitton from some third party reseller or ebay, you could verify it against LV's centralized product blockchain by scanning/checking some code on the label in the bag.

<comment> m-i-l > "you could verify it against LV's centralized product blockchain"

You can replace the word "blockchain" with "database" in this sentence and it'll still work, i.e. "you could verify it against LV's centralized product database".

<comment><USER9> Fair enough

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "A blockchain is a chain of blocks" is my new favorite definition. It's not a magic bean that solves all problems. It's just a tiny part of what makes Bitcoin function.

<comment><USER11> A big part of what makes Bitcoin function the way it does today is that there are a lot of people who _believe_ that it's a magic bean. If enough people believe that something has value then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER12> It's hard to find someone who isn't neck deep in at least one ideology. The increased connectivity of the world seems to ensure we all find that niche which hits all our predispositions well enough we come to Believe in them completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I see the author's point of view. Hype can be bad, but if there is value there the hype cycle does wear down: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg)

<comment><USER14> If.

<comment><USER13> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15>
        you, sobbing: "you can't just point at every thing using
         a merkle tree and call them blockchains"
        me, pointing at git: "blockchain"

— [https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824](https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824)

</comment><comment><USER16> Good article.

Although I'm not completely in agreement with the author, the point is valid and we do need better taxonomy because not everything that uses a blockchain requires highlighting that component over the any other technology it also may rely on.

As for non-public (consortium, enterprise, centralised, etc) blockchains, here I have a very different opinion based on my own work experience, and would point to the Energy Web Foundation's ([https://energyweb.org/](https://energyweb.org/)) consortium network as a prime example or to the work being done on Plasma ([https://www.learnplasma.org/en/](https://www.learnplasma.org/en/)) which allows for private chains to inhering the security properties of a root public chain like Ethereum, and makes extensive use of cryptoeconomics for trust minimisation.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am not an expert, I just took the edX blockchain for business last year and have experimented with the Pact contract language (lisp like, it is implemented in Haskell) and Exonum.

I like the term Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and my interest is in permissioned (private) systems for use in business, potentially tied into AI (my placeholder site: [http://hyperledgerai.com](http://hyperledgerai.com)). This is on my free time, and in my free time I have become more interested in neural networks combined with symbolic AI code.</comment>


Paradox of Tolerance - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance <comment><USER2> Since Charlottesville, I have seen many references to this by people looking to justify, or cast in a positive light, violence by AntiFa groups and their affiliates. It would be useful for people to read the entire "The Open Society and Its Enemies"[1]. The "Paradox of Tolerance" appears in Note 4 to Chapter 7:

        Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:
        unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance
        of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even
        to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared
        to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught
        of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be
        destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this
        formulation, **I do not imply, for instance, that we
        should always suppress the utterance of intolerant
        philosophies; as long as we can counter them by
        rational argument and keep them in check by public
        opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.**
        But we should claim the right to suppress them if
        necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out
        that they are not prepared to meet us on the level
        of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all
        argument; they may forbid their followers to listen
        to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and
        teach them to answer arguments by the use of their
        fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the
        name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
        intolerant. We should claim that any movement
        preaching intolerance places itself outside the law,
        and we should consider incitement to intolerance and
        persecution as criminal, in the same way as we
        should consider incitement to murder, or to
        kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as
        criminal. (emphasis mine)

which is less than a full-throated defense of violence against people whose speech we find disgusting and reprehensible.

The context in which the note is referenced is this:

        One particular form of this logical argument is
        directed against a too naïve version of
        liberalism, of democracy, and of the principle
        that the majority should rule; and it is
        somewhat similar to the well-known 'paradox of
        freedom' which has been used first, and with
        success, by Plato. In his criticism of
        democracy, and in his story of the rise of the
        tyrant, Plato raises implicitly the following
        question: What if it is the will of the people
        that they should not rule, but a tyrant instead?
        The free man, Plato suggests, may exercise his
        absolute freedom, first by defying the laws and
        ultimately by defying freedom itself and by
        clamouring for a tyrant[4].

That is, Popper sees paradoxes of freedom and tolerance as related. Later, he resolves this like Kant before him did:

        I believe that the injustice and inhumanity of
        the unrestrained 'capitalist system' described
        by Marx cannot be questioned; but it can be
        interpreted in terms of what we called, in a
        previous chapter[20], the paradox of freedom.
        Freedom, we have seen, defeats itself, if it is
        unlimited. Unlimited freedom means that a strong
        man is free to bully one who is weak and to rob
        him of his freedom. This is why we demand that
        the state should limit freedom to a certain
        extent, so that everyone's freedom is protected
        by law. Nobody should be at the **mercy** of others,
        but all should have a **right** to be protected by
        the state.

I have always been particularly fond of the conclusion:

        Instead of posing as prophets we must become the
        makers of our fate.  We must learn to do things
        as well as we can, and to look out for our
        mistakes. And when we have dropped the idea that
        the history of power will be our judge, when we
        have given up worrying whether or not history
        will justify us, then one day perhaps we may
        succeed in getting power under control. In this
        way we may even justify history, in our turn. It
        badly needs a justification.

[1]: [https://archive.org/details/TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemiesPoppe...](https://archive.org/details/TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemiesPopperKarlSir)</comment>


Why you're not making sales - <AUTHOR> http://justinjackson.ca/sales/ <comment><USER2> One other reason people aren't making sales is they aren't considering what people buy when deciding what to build. I don't mean this just in a big sense, I mean this in a very small, day to day sense, week to week sense.

I like to think of each product feature as a "marketing event". Before you add a feature or do a release, you design things around how you are going to sell it, how people will use it, and what the messaging might be for it. Then, when you launch the feature, you email your users, blog about it, drop press releases, go on podcasts, tweet the news, post to Facebook, and in general get the word out.

This might seem basic to some people, but I'm continually surprised by just how very little this is done by most companies or products. It is rare to see a company that nails the basic concept of "do things and tell people".

Github seems consistently good about this. Their pattern is launch a feature, blog about it, tweet about it, and their passionate users probably post it to social media or write about it on their blogs.

Now, imagine if Github shipped the same features, but never blogged about them. How much exposure would they miss out on?

</comment><comment><USER3> Meh. Nothing really new or insightful here. It's actually cartoonishly cliche advice at this point.

There are absolutely companies that have succeeded wildly without taking this approach, so it is not definitive by any means, in addition to not being novel.

On the other hand, there are plenty of great products that people are struggling to market effectively, for a number of reasons. Please, stop misleading people with the notion that marketing is easy if one simply "builds the right product".

When you're out there hustling and trying to solve tough sales and marketing problems, it's frustrating to keep seeing the same watered-down pablum on offer as advice.

It's even worse when the advice ends with "buy my product".

<comment><USER4> What are some examples of companies that have succeeded without taking this approach?

Also: examples of great products that people are struggling to market effectively?

<comment><USER3> > _What are some examples of companies that have succeeded without taking this > approach?_

Virtually any company that created a new product or product category. See what others have posted on this thread as examples.

> _Also: examples of great products that people are struggling to market > effectively?_

Well, I could, but the likely subsequent quibbling over products of which you've probably never heard misses the point. So, instead, why don't I just state the corollary to the implication in your question: everyone is aware of every product that could be of great interest or use to them.

Because, that is effectively the corollary to this article as well.

There are marketing challenges that are completely divorced from the viability of the product itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Absolutly.... not.

Companies like Apple, Amazon, google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or developers of things like WhatsApp did NOT do it this why.

They build something for their own needs or something they think someone want to use.

So what is now right and what is wrong?

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Many innovations fit this description: products that people didn't know they needed or couldn't even imagine, until invented.

<comment><USER6> Well it's the classic Henry Ford quip: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'."

That doesn't mean that there wasn't a more fundamental pain that people were feeling: getting around more quickly.

So no, it's not always the best idea to solve the problem the person has, as they literally describe it. But if you are not solving either their perceived problem or their underlying real problem, they are not going to buy your solution.

Few people imagined an iPhone before they saw one, but it did solve real problems.

<comment><USER3> > _That doesn 't mean that there wasn't a more fundamental pain that people > were feeling: getting around more quickly._

Yes, the product ultimately needs to be something that people need or want, of course. But, that is so self-evident as to be a non-statement. Certainly no need to write an article about that.

It's the advocated approach/conclusion that is nonsense. Failure to ask people what they need or want as this article and many before it advocate, is not _the problem_. In fact, such an approach can be counterproductive.

What has gotten old (and was never true) is people advocating this as _the_ way to build a product/company.

The reason this matters is because it obscures the real point: Marketing is hard and is its own animal. There are many other moving parts involved in getting a product to market in a manner that reaches and compels the intended audience. To say that people aren't selling because they didn't build the right product is so simplistic and misleading that it does earnest entrepreneurs a disservice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First you cannot sell anything unless you figure out your target market. In order to do that you need to find a problem in the target market that isn't solved or isn't solved very well, then solve it and make a product and/or service for it. Make sure it is a large market or else you will niche market yourself into a hard to grow area.

Second if there is a goldrush for something, instead of becoming a miner, become a general store and sell them tools, picks, and shovels instead. If you write programs write libraries, development tools, templates, websites and ebooks on the subject, and other things. Remember that in most goldrushes miners will find fool's gold or not find any gold at all. But the ones selling them the tools will always earn money.

Third take care of your customers so they become repeat customers. You might have to offer them discounts or free stuff, as long as it helps them decide to keep coming back.

Fourth do a SWATT analysis. Strengths, Weaknesses, Analysis, Threats, Trends. Focus on your strengths, cover your weaknesses, analyze everything you can, look at threats like competitor's products and tech that can make your product obsolete, and then watch trends so you know how to avoid threats by innovating your products and services.

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure it is SWOT analysis Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, but the idea is the same.

<comment><USER7> Yes sorry about that, brainfart. :)

We used SWOTT, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, and Trends. Trends was added to SWOT because if a startup is not paying attention to trends their products and services will get very old fast and lose their customer base in an instant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've definitely been guilty of this. It took me months of struggling, hoping people will use my product before I really thought deeply about why they'll use my product. Successful products address real needs. Intrinsic motivation trumps all else.

"Build something people want" and "find a pain that people need solved" are the same things. While I don't think the four examples OP gave are the only things people care about, they're great examples:

\- How will this make me more money? \- How will this save me more money? \- How will this save me more time? \- How will this make me look good?

Those questions address real needs that people have. Anything that doesn't directly address a need your customer has is just a feature.

Implicit in this is that you have to figure out who your customer is. Your customer is the first person you'd ask to use your product. That's the person whose needs you need to address.

</comment><comment><USER9> That depends on what and how much your product is.

For example -

A $10k per month email marketing service will need to go through many different stages of approval and have multiple buying influences involved.

On the other hand,

A $10 per month Gmail add on could be purchased on a corporate card or even one's personal card and then expensed.

Scenario 1 - no, building ONLY for the users is a bad idea because they aren't the only ones buying.

Scenario 2 - yes, the purchase is small enough to be handled by the user or at the highest the users boss (because they sign off on the expense reports).

We touch briefly on the subject in a blog post from last year: [http://blog.voltagecrm.com/mapping-the-sales-process- part-36...](http://blog.voltagecrm.com/mapping-the-sales-process-part-36/)

Hope that helps.

<comment><USER10> I think appealing to the folks with the corporate credit card is best. They can make faster purchasing decisions (often related to the amount of pain they're feeling)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I get the point the OP is making. Which is _don 't build anything without being sure people need it and will use it_. I can't find any reason to argue with that. Sure, there are examples of people building things that later went on to be huge. But 99% of the time, you just have to talk to people and find out what problems they want solved. And its not like I have known this for a long time. I used to think I knew what people wanted, without asking them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do you think it's more important to build products for the end user, or (especially in a B2B situation) the people that are paying for it?</comment>


Show HN: Give away iOS promo codes on Twitter in exchange for retweets - <AUTHOR> https://www.productpush.io/ <comment><USER2> Sorry but I don't get it. Why I'm going to pay you if at the end it's me the one creating the tweets, the coupons and there is no extra exposure?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not for everybody, that's for sure. But if you want to run a giveaway of iOS promo codes on Twitter then you'll see that it is kind of a tedious task. You need to constantly check who retweeted your tweet, get a new promo code from the list, send a message to the person, delete the promo code from the list of available.. I was so bored doing that, I decided to build this service. :) Also, you get extra exposure every time when your tweet is retweeted by one of your followers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just like Facebook adverts this will be filled with fake accounts in no time

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about this possibility actually. At least for my apps I only get retweets from real users. In future, I can try to implement a combo of: a) Flat campaign fee with no charges for retweets. So you won't pay for bots. b) Send a link instead of a promo code. The code is only displayed (and considered as used) after the receiver follows the link or solves a captcha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Beside the initial fee/campaign, the cost is 0.40$/retweet. Isn't it a bit risky, especially considering how easy is to create a fake twitter account? An option could be 0.40$/retweet with at least 100-200 followers, so to protect customers from trivial cheats.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention that RTs are trivially reversible: You can undo them in the UI, and all tweets can be deleted.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true. But my service doesn't detect the retweet right away. So it has to stay retweeted for some (currently about 1 minute) period of time. I can tweak this parameter in future if I see that users misuse the service and undo retweets after receiving a code.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps at minimum write code to monitor tweets say 24h later so you can measure this.

Surely after a few hours it doesn't really matter if the retweet is removed. Sure, it won't appear on their history but the recent timeline is the biggest use case.

Perhaps send the code after say 15-30 mins, or base the time on their follower count.

Edit: Does this violate any Apple or Twitter ToS? I've a feeling Apple won't like this, but they probably won't care.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I thought, only most recent timeline counts. From my experience anything older than 15-30 minutes is not noticed anymore. So I agree, that's a good amount of time to use as the grace period. Just intuitively I think people wouldn't care to remove their retweets. I might be wrong though. Need to get more data on this. I read Twitter ToS pretty carefully, and I didn't find anything that my service would violate. As for Apple, still need to look into that.. It is something I see all the time though. And I do it for my own apps without any issues so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice, very nice. How much?

Seriously, this solves a very specific and real problem and I'm happy you guys shaped it into a simple package. Two questions I have are - (1) how much does it cost (2) how is it iOS app specific (I assume it's not).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I built it because I wanted to use it myself. You can read more about pricing here: [https://www.productpush.io/pricing](https://www.productpush.io/pricing) Essentially, i wanted to have per usage fee people would be comfortable paying instead of doing the same task manually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know the post title says iOS promo codes, but the copy on the site says promo / coupon codes. Is there any reason this is limited to iOS app codes or can deliver any kind of "string" as a reward?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right, it can deliver any "string" as a reward. I personally only needed to deliver iOS promo codes, so it seemed like the most useful application to me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What forums do startup aspiring females([non-]technical) regularly visit - <AUTHOR> I am looking to invite others to join my project(details are here: https://bsldld.neocities.org) and want to invite females so as to strike a right balance in team formation. Do you know forums where I can post my project details to invite female startup aspirants(non-technical and technical) to my project? <comment><AUTHOR> Edit: Cannot change the word "females" to "women" so set it to hidden. I was given a healthy dose of advice on some other forums about this. Sorry if I hurt feelings of women on this forum as well.</comment>


An Introduction to Microservice Based Architecture Through Story – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@elliot_f/an-introduction-to-microservice-based-architecture-through-story-part-2-dacceaff9a13 <comment><USER2> A little feedback -- I like the idea, but I think it is too brief, and therefore comes across a bit superficial ... it seems to imply that everything was magically happy ever after other than a few bumps in the road.

The struggle with the story-based approach, I guess, is to find the sweet spot where you're detailed enough that the story has some meat to it, but not too overly detailed such that it takes 2 hours and deep concentration to read.

(I don't know how to find that sweet spot, so I'm not throwing stones. Just wanted to pass on some feedback in case it helps).

<comment><AUTHOR> Re-reading it this morning, I would tend to agree, it's slightly terse and could have done with some more backstory. I'll take this feedback onboard for my next article!

I am new to this style so I am still playing around and seeing what sticks. I do really appreciate your comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nitpicking: from an architectural point of view, I don't see why you would opt for "build you own cloud on top of Amazon", as opposed to leveraging the Amazon stack, especially because the author points out it is a small team.

Maybe it's a resource issue, or they need some things that cost too much money on Amazon, but the author should at least justify why kubernetes was chosen.

My apologies for ranting about this, but I've seen this approach way to much, wasting valuable company dollars.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't believe it would be a case of building your own cloud on top of Amazon, it would be a case of saying something like:

I want 2 instances of my account service, 2 instances of my comic-book viewer service behind a load balancers. You are specifying how you want your application to look as opposed to a fully fledged cloud offering.

I hope this clarifies things!

<comment><USER3> Ok, looks like I misunderstood. Thank you for clarifying...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It shows that microservices come with a lot of complexity. Only do it when your team is growing bigger and there are problems in building your app with a big team. split up the teams, and split up the services. Let teams deploy the services.</comment>


U.S. spy agencies face big layoffs in government shutdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/us-usa-fiscal-spies-idUSBRE9900ZF20131001 <comment><USER2> AFAIK, from my super super secret source (I joke), is that all of the HUMINT and SIGINT will still occur but the analysis will be effected, mainly because the essential analysts won't have their typical support staff. For instance, maybe they need a particular piece of hardware. Procurement of that hardware will suffer because that dept. will be staffed by a "skeleton crew".

A lot of those workers are contractors and will be placed on the bench, some paid some not, depending on who they work for.

The Federal workers seem outraged in the DC area, but most civilian workers are used to the instability of markets and have little pity, from what I hear. That's public info, not private. No super secret source for that one, just callers on WTOP.

<comment><USER3> If I was a spy agency, years ago I would have started coming up with alternate streams of income to be less dependent on the economy and the U.S. Congress. I dunno- maybe sell drugs, guns, information...

<comment><USER4> The CIA has been accused of drug trafficking on a number of occasions: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffic...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking)

<comment><USER2> They were also accused of creating the "superdollar" aka the "supernote": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar)

But you can see it's all speculation, based on things they have not said, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _More than 70 percent of the civilians working for U.S. spy agencies have been deemed "non-essential" employees_

...due to great effectiveness of the recently deployed digital surveillance systems like PRISM and the help of big technology companies like Google and Facebook :)

</comment><comment><USER6> It just means they will automate the spying more. Clapper already said he intends to use 90 percent fewer system admins.

I wouldn't take this as meaning there's going to be significantly less spying or anything like that.

<comment><USER7> This fills me with signifiant unease.

So we have all this data here, ready for mining from corporate or foreign interests (ok, well the ones not already in bed with the USG) and all they have to do is attack the weakened infrastructure.

If I was a such an outside entity, a few million spent in forcing the shutdown sounds like a well-spent investment so I can swoop in and pick up the pieces.

What a clusterfuck.

<comment><USER8> I would actually think that on the whole this reduces the risk exposure for the data trove. The reason this fills /me/ with unease is rather that it's all to compatible with cleaning out people from the organisations who might have conscientious objections what comes next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone from the US explain this whole "Government Shutdown" thing for outsiders please. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that this is not what we had expected to occur.

<comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown)

It has actually happened several times in the last forty years.

<comment><USER9> That sort of confuses me even more. It isn't the sort of thing you would want to develop into a tactic, it just seems risky as hell.

<comment><USER11> Risky politically?

In practical terms, it isn't that risky. As has been pointed out, this has happened before. The U.S. hasn't defaulted on its treasury bills. The Secret Service doesn't stop protecting the President. Federally-funded highways are still operating.

<comment><USER12> Meanwhile Curiosity, the Mars Rover, isn't moving. Thankfully, there aren't any spacecraft scheduled for mission-critical operations (orbital insertion, for example), or those would go unsupervised, too.

Most all NASA is on furlough, as if people didn't need the money.

A colleague is waiting for word on his grant application from the NIH. Ordinarily his panel (~ 20 people) would converge on Washington this Friday and decide on who gets funded. That is going to be postponed, and it's hard to settle on a date when all 20 are available. Everyone has bought their plane tickets already and cannot use them now; they will have to buy new tickets- again on Federal funds.

Since the application is in already he cannot submit the same to the NSF, as he would have done in case it got turned down.

The immediate cost, and the knock-on cost is immense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, that explains today's 'Show HN: "Who is hiring"'</comment>


What is one thing that you can do now that your future self will thank you for? - <AUTHOR>

Please do share! Whether it's a book recommendation, and organizational hack, a stock pick, self-improvement advice. Sky's the limit here, as long as it's something productive!
I'll set it off with:
Decide who you are.
'I am not talking about taking on an identity such as one outlined by a career. Too many times we allow ourselves to be defined by our careers. This can be so much the case that when someone needs to change careers or retire, they lose their sense of self. This can be extremely destabilizing.
Knowing who the real you is gives you stability in life. If you are a good, honest, strong and ethical person, decide that right now. We are who we decide we are and are nothing else.' <comment><USER2> quit smoking those sweet sweet cigarettes

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 it's amazing how great you'll feel once you officially quit. In addition, try to remove any crutches from your life i.e. drinking, smoking etc... It's very rewarding long term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > What is one thing that you can do now that your future self will thank you > for?

Learn something new every day.

> I'll set it off with: Decide who you are.

All right, but don't expect that to be permanent -- individuals evolve just like species do, and we're not necessarily the same person we were even ten years ago. Put another way, grooves often become ruts.

> Knowing who the real you is gives you stability in life.

My personal opinion is that being able to accept change -- in ourselves and in others -- provides even more stability.

Did you know you can't steer a boat that isn't moving? Just like a life.</comment>


The Google (Ads) Job Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://alecbrownstein.com/project.php?cat=3&subcat=&pid=23 <comment><USER2> If you'd rather see a graphic that explains it than watch a 1 minute video: [http://alecbrownstein.com/united_way_files/Google_Ad_Layout....](http://alecbrownstein.com/united_way_files/Google_Ad_Layout.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> Creative, but it could be done so much better. Improve the copy a bit and send them to a landing page which functions as a combination pitch and portfolio.

(Psst -- if you're on the job market, have one of those. And since most of you here can program, have a way to quickly spin up ones targeted to the interests of a particular decisionmaker. )

<comment><USER4> Given the results he got, it doesn't seem like he needed to do so much better. (Of course, perhaps he was just lucky.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to say, that's pretty bloody brilliant. If you were the one performing the search, how could you _not_ click on that link?

<comment><USER6> I'm used to seeing people search results there when I search for names, so I'd probably skip over it. There's got to be something more attention grabbing than "Hey, $NAME".

Still, this is cool.

<comment><USER7> But his target was people from the ad industry, and they pay more attention to ads than you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is brilliant.

I'm the guy who came up with the idea of using Facebook Ads to target companies that you want to work for.

[http://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/use-facebook-ads-to-make- em...](http://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/use-facebook-ads-to-make-employers- hunt-you-down/)

I toyed around with the idea of using Google AdWords, but couldn't quite figure out how to get the targeting right. This just made me smack my forehead. For most job seekers this idea is a lot harder to implement than the Facebook idea just because you often don't know whom you want to talk to about landing a job with a given company.

Still, this has me thinking of all kind of ways that you can use AdWords to target really niche keywords. The clicks probably cost a nickel, but the attention derived from that click could be way more.

</comment><comment><USER9> How often do these guys google themselves? My mean time between self- googling's can be months... seems like there would be the potential for months to pass before hearing anything.

<comment><USER10> Consider that a friend, acquaintance or employee might have seen the ad and mentioned it to them. That'd reduce the waiting time.

<comment><USER3> That's _even better_ , because you've just leaped up the trust totem pole from "A nobody on the Internet" to "a warm introduction from a trusted associate."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent example of thinking outside of the box.

<comment><USER12> And the copy-cats will pay much more than the 6$.

<comment><USER13> Why? I don't think it is going to be wide spread and people aren't all going to be going after the same people for jobs.

<comment><USER12> Good question. I just assumed this would get popular, like the million-dollar homepage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cool idea, but why would you use a video with cheesy promo music to explain it, instead of a paragraph of text with a screenshot or two?

<comment><USER15> Because that's appropriate for your intended audience?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've tried hiring using Google Ads with keywords relevant to some advanced techs we use and if you are in my country, you get an ad. It didn't help much with our immediate hiring needs but it worked better as brand advertisement - it generated some discussions and I believe it did help us hiring later.

</comment><comment><USER17> Heh. There used to be a job ad on my name. By a former employer. Now there's just one from my current employer.

</comment><comment><USER18> That'd be a great answer to YC's application question "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage."

Granted it still involved a computer, but I'm sure they'd agree it was a great example.

</comment><comment><USER19> So this is a cool idea, but since the video was just some text and two screenshots, couldn't he have made a blog post instead of making me load a video?

</comment><comment><USER20> Hmm ... wondering how frequently do people google themselves "as compared to other people googling for them". The ratio will be even smaller for famous people.

It can be debated that the others will not click on the link. Or that people actually google themselves more often than I think. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER21> Pedantic point: that's the first ad at the top, not the first search result (which is not clear in the video).

</comment><comment><USER22> This was just on the channel 4 national TV news in U.K.

</comment><comment><USER23> amazing. the opportunities are all around us</comment>