The Arctic will never be frozen again - <AUTHOR> https://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/ <comment><USER2> Is it normal to sit at work and be paralyzed by existential dread, wondering why I'm even bothering to deal with some random database issue when it looks like our entire civilization is teetering on the edge of collapse?

I've been thinking about starting a retirement plan but between environmental collapse, crop failure, antibiotic resistance, it almost feels foolhardy to think we _won't_ destroy ourselves.

I don't know if I'm wrong, and it's an unreasonable, all-encompassing and constant dread, or I'm right, and our entire world has managed to collectively decide we're just going to ignore all of this and pretend everything's hunky dory.

<comment><USER3> Take care of yourself and those you love. Change the things within your control for the positive. If everybody did _just a little bit_ to make the world a better place then there'd be dramatic positive change. So be the example. Sure it may sound hippie-dippy and may not work - but it sure beats being paralyzed by existential dread, no? Not to mention that it _just might work._

Hope that helps.

<comment><USER4> Climate change can't be fixed by small changes on an individual level. It requires sweeping regulations from nation states and in particular, the military (which accounts for huge quantities of carbon emissions).

<comment><USER5> Yes, but:

\- Climate change requires sweeping regulations.

\- Regulation change needs politicians that care about the issue.

\- Politicians care when their voters base cares.

\- In order to the population in general to _really_ care, not just by mouth, their value system needs to change, so they no longer accept doing nothing.

The best way for one to have impact in all that chain is to leverage it, instead of only addressing "we need sweeping regulation". To make that, one can make visible changes in his/her behaviour, and make others reevaluate how they act and value things.

If we don't have a "sustainable" frame of mind on a daily basis, when confronted to what is good or bad regulation, it takes intellectual effort to recognize that we need to think long-term. If we start using sustainable mindframes, even when thinking about e.g. server resources, it will be more automatic. However, if we daily use "another will care for that, let us think about the right now" mindframes, it will be more difficult. And our modern society pushes a lot towards the "right now" way of thinking... because, on the short term, it yields more gains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think saying the Arctic will never be frozen again is a bit dramatic. We're coming out of 1,000 year ice age which means we've, geologically, had an ice age recently. With continual reduction of greenhouse gases by our growing efforts we could be open to a building of the arctic in the next 500-1000.

Changes in any combination of the following could trigger a new ice age: solar radiation levels, volcanic activity, circulation, orbital forces often associated with earthquakes, changes in the global climate, and war resulting in a decrease in the human population. Please read the evidence below and comment if you agree or disagree.

The Little Ice Age [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

<comment><USER7> > We're coming out of 1,000 year ice age which means we've, geologically, had > an ice age recently.

We (due to climate change) may be coming out of a 2.58 _million_ year ice age (an ice age is a period during which at least one permanent large ice sheet exists; in the case of the current one, it is the Antarctic.)

The last glacial period with the within the current ice age ended 10,000 years ago, so even if you were using "ice age" to refer to a glacial period, we're not coming out of one of those, either. (The "Little Ice Age", which you link to the Wikipedia page for, was neither an ice age nor a glacial period, but—as the article you link to notes—a set of regional cool periods at different but close times after the end of the Medieval Warm Period.)

> With continual reduction of greenhouse gases by our growing efforts we could > be open to a building of the arctic in the next 500-1000.

Because of the different albedo (ice reflects 50+% percent of solar radiation, sea water around 6%) melting Arctic sea ice will accelerate warming; it's a positive feedback loop; plus, we haven't even started reduction of greenhouse gases, nor have we even achieved reduction in the rate of increase—I think we've managed to decrease the rate of increase _of_ the rate of increase, but that's a far cry from reducing greenhouse gases.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's irrational to believe or be frightened by such alarmist claims. Current arctic sea ice extent: about 14 million km2, more than double what it was last summer, as usual, and still similar to recent years. [1]

On the other hand, since we are lucky to live in an interglacial, we should be more concerned about the return of ice age phenomena such as 1-2 km thick ice sheets that covered e.g. Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Seattle up to 10,000 years ago. [2] [3]

[1] [http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period#Weichselia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period#Weichselian_glaciation_\(Scandinavia_and_northern_Europe\))

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

<comment><USER9> I was interested in your reference [1], which you use to argue that sea ice extent is not changing.

Your suggestion turns out to be contradicted by observational evidence with very high confidence, or more briefly, wrong. The chart you link is probably OK, but it only covers a few years. To see the trend, you need a longer time base.

I got this from the just-released (U.S.) national climate assessment, chapter 11 (pertaining to the Arctic -- [https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/](https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/)). See "Key Finding 3", which I'll quote in its entirety:

"Arctic land and sea ice loss observed in the last three decades continues, in some cases accelerating (very high confidence). It is virtually certain that Alaska glaciers have lost mass over the last 50 years, with each year since 1984 showing an annual average ice mass less than the previous year. Based on gravitational data from satellites, average ice mass loss from Greenland was −269 Gt per year between April 2002 and April 2016, accelerating in recent years (high confidence). Since the early 1980s, annual average arctic sea ice has decreased in extent between 3.5% and 4.1% per decade, become thinner by between 4.3 and 7.5 feet, and began melting at least 15 more days each year. September sea ice extent has decreased between 10.7% and 15.9% per decade (very high confidence). Arctic-wide ice loss is expected to continue through the 21st century, very likely resulting in nearly sea ice-free late summers by the 2040s (very high confidence)."

The report links to what it means by "very high confidence". I believe the chart that goes with it is: [https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/indicator- arc...](https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/indicator-arctic-sea- ice-extent) \- although really the conclusion is what matters, because it's based on much more than just one chart.

This kind of report is a good place to start, because it's easy to look at small points of evidence and get the wrong conclusion, especially if you are not a climate scientist, e.g., have no publications in the area. Reports like these were made for people like us.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I'm not arguing that arctic sea ice is not changing, it obviously is changing during the seasons of a year and from year to year over the last decades -- I'm pointing out that the claim that "The Arctic will never be frozen again" is wrong.

<comment><USER9> But still, according to the assessment linked:

"Arctic-wide ice loss is expected to continue through the 21st century, very likely resulting in nearly sea ice-free late summers by the 2040s (very high confidence)."

This _is_ a huge change from the Arctic ecosystem of decades past.

<comment><USER8> Yes, it _would be_. But this 20-year prediction is based on a linear extrapolation that obviously ignores previous cooling+warming cycles of the arctic (remember why Greenland is called such). Further, that is not a prediction that there would be zero ice in the winter ("never frozen again").

<comment><USER9> > ... this 20-year prediction is based on a linear extrapolation ...

No.

It's based on a body of peer-reviewed papers reviewed by a committee of people who have studied this problem for years and decades. Unless you've sifted through these papers, gone to the conferences, and published your own work for critique, you're not qualified to reach the opposite conclusion.

<comment><USER8> I'm crushed, I had no idea facts and science were established and driven by a committee. Is there a designated committee for every subject matter? I probably won't remember your comment in 25 years, when vast frozen expanses collide with your committee studies; will you? The last several decades have not confirmed any of the predictions driven by your revered studies, despite the agitation (see Gore) and the frauds (see Mann). The predictions have shifted, past records have been manipulated, and none of the global-warming- now-climate-change computer models fit with the past tens let alone hundreds of thousand years. Greenland was warmer a thousand years ago than today, but we must submit to the absolute authority of your committee's cataclysmic claim that within one generation there shall be no more sea ice in the Arctic summer. None of these computer models would explain or show an end of the current interglacial, and a return to the ice age, even if man-made CO2 contributions were set to zero. Instead of understanding and modeling the various climate optimums and little ice ages of the last millennia, the records have been manipulated to minimize or erase these past climate changes and maintain eschatological notions.

Science is not a body of papers selected by committee -- it is a systematized, hierarchically integrated body of facts and theories. If you ignore, reject, or distort facts in order to promote your ideas, you are not a scientist but a fraud. If your notions do not account for known facts, it's not science. If your formulas and models do not integrate with known facts and do not evince some theories, it's not science.

Gaining knowledge of facts and understanding scientific theories is not controlled by the gates you throw up (peer reviews, conferences, critiques). Qualification to use one's faculty of reason and to draw conclusions is not determined by social approval, nor does it require participation in the rituals erected by your beloved committees.

<comment><USER9> You shouldn't focus on the committee. You should focus on the publications. That's the coin of the realm.

<comment><USER8> Speak for yourself, brother.

Nature, facts, and truth are the real currency of science.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


If I Started A Company Today - <AUTHOR> http://andrewhyde.net/if-i-started-a-company-today/

<comment><USER2> I've always preferred articles that focus on what someone did rather than what someone would do.

It's so hard to stick to a plan like this once you get going; too many external factors you can't control.

<comment><USER3> Did or doing, not 'would do' or "should have done" or "will do"

<comment><USER2> Er yeah what you said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like this a boilerplate. These are all the steps you should do, but it never goes that way.

Me? I'm going to continue to plan my heart out and not be the least bit surprised as it continues to unwind in a totally unexpected way.

</comment><comment><USER5> Even stock split is not always a good idea. Alternative way to split stock is here: [http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/35%20Founders%27%20Pie%2...](http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fd0n/35%20Founders%27%20Pie%20Calculator.htm)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Andrew hits upon some of the most critical issues for new startups. Personally, I care about the team the most. If you don't have the right team it doesn't matter what industry you're in cause your chance of success is very low. Plus I'd say you should always keep evaluating your team (and yourself) to see if you're still the right fit. Jettison folks (or yourself if appropriate) whenever it becomes apparent that they (or you) are hindering the business.</comment>


Analysis of casino shelf shuffling machines (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1107.2961 <comment><USER2> I bet most people are unaware how expensive card shufflers are $20,000 US is typical. But really leasing shufflers is far more common.

One company, Shufflemaster (SHFL), had a monopoly on the market. But Bally bought SHFL and then Scientific Games bought Bally.

I've heard the patent (or whatever it is) SHFL has expires very soon. There may be a rush of new companies trying to get in on this expensive market.

Other ridiculously expensive casino equipment is a small mirror/prism. It's affixed to a card table in front of the dealer. Two cards are inserted face down but the prism reflect back the card number and suit so the dealer can see it. This small simple thing is only leased costing $100 per table per month.

I'm a recently suddenly out of work slot tech forgive my reminiscing.

Edit: table not tanke

<comment><USER3> _slot tech_

Do you mean the 'digital' ones i.e. the games with 3 or 4 3x3 rasters where one has to place 3x1 lines and try to match the fruits and bells and whatnot? If so could you share some knowledge on how the randomization on these things work? When I play these I can't help but wonder how this works. I'm fairly sure it's not 100% work of a random generator but rather finely tuned to give enough so the player comes back, but not too much. And at the same times there's a weight assigned to certain piecs and combinations thereof. And possibly there's even some rules like 'max number of points per x games can be no more then y' etc. All in all, it feels pretty complicated but I might be completely wrong.

<comment><USER4> The magic is US Patent 4,484,419. Known in the industry as the "Telnaes" patent after it's inventor.

[https://patents.google.com/patent/US4448419A](https://patents.google.com/patent/US4448419A)

This invention is where slots migrated from physical reels to virtual ones. A reel could now have thousands of "stops" compared to 10 or 20 on the older machines. The physical reels were now driven by stepper motors to show the landing position of that virtual reel. Having virtual reels with many more stops also meant the jackpots could be a lot higher than the typical 1-in-20^3 possibility of a physical reel group.

After some time, it was realized that the careful design of these virtual reels is where the slot designer can create many many "oh-so-close" combinations of the physical symbols without making the player land any closer to the jackpot than normal. And that semi-positive reinforcement draws the player in to play more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never play on a table with an auto shuffler. As a player, the house already has an advantage over you. The auto shuffler means the house always has the same advantage on every hand.

At least with a hand shuffled deck, most humans can't get a perfect shuffle, so the odds of any one hand shift slightly back and forth. If you're good at counting cards, you can find the spots where it is slightly in your favor and bet bigger.

At least, it's more fun for me, because I win a little bit more and also get the fun of practicing counting cards.

It's hard to find the hand shuffled decks though -- they pretty much only have them on high stakes games ($25/hand and up).

<comment><USER6> The condition you're referring to only occurs on one specific type of shuffler, called a CSM (continuous shuffler machine). These are the kind where the dealer feeds previously discarded cards back into the machine every hand or two, and there is never any pause in the game. CSM's are less common than traditional shuffler machines, where two decks/shoes are used, and one is being shuffled while the other is being played with. Traditional shuffler machines have no bearing on your ability to count cards, as the game is played out exactly as it would be if the dealer were shuffling.

Also, advantage players have found flaws that make certain models of shuffle machines vulnerable to attack. Here's a fascinating example of this from the world's best known advatange player, James Grosjean:

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/how- advantage...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/how-advantage- players-game-the-casinos.html)

<comment><USER5> You're right, the CSM is terrible and is what I was actually referring to. However, I will still try to avoid the traditional machine shufflers since they still get more random shuffles than a hand shuffle which rarely has more than 3 or 4 riffles.</comment></comment></comment>


Kill your credit card-less free trial. - <AUTHOR> http://observationdeck.net/kill-your-credit-card-less-free-trial/ <comment><USER2> This strikes me as dangerous advice that's very business centric instead of focusing on how customers think and act. Contrary to what every business owner wants to believe, their business isn't particularly amazing or magical and customers have no problems abandoning them during evaluations if there's the slightest conversion obstacle. Not letting customers try out your service before entering credit card details? Yeah, that's a major obstacle. Better check out the competitor's product that's easier to use.

<comment><USER3> Requiring credit card details is a good way to make people distrustful of you. In my case at least, I am extremely wary if I'm asked for them, because it always seems that the free trial is not actually free and the site owners want me to not come back but end up being billed unwittingly.

<comment><USER4> I agree wholeheartedly. Often I will auto-cancel subs immediately after sign up to make sure paying is a conscious choice, but will discover they've considered this as a possibility. So the 30 day free period is instantly ended when I cancel the auto billing part way through. That may be a gripe of my very own, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" Some would even sign up, promptly forget that they signed up, then never use the app again"_

 _"...only 1% of them actually stick around and pay you for your product."_

Those two quotes lead me to believe that you're not doing lifecycle emails. Would those people still forget after receiving four emails from you over the course of those 30 days with specific calls-to-action leading them back to the site? Would only 1% of them convert if you actually sent them an email asking them to come back to the site and enter their card details?

My experience has been a lot different to the author's. I see almost exactly 25% of my free trial customers converting to paid. And over half of those enter their card details _on the day I send them an email asking them to_.

So if you're not doing that, I could see you getting the results you were getting.

That said, it sounds like it would make for an interesting long-term A/B test. I'll try to get around to doing that, and if I do I'll be sure to post the results here.

<comment><USER6> Not everyone likes spamming their users.

<comment><USER7> This isn't spam, its marketing to people who opted into receiving communications from you in exchange for a free trial of your service. As long as you stop shortly after the trial period there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating to 1) show me how others are using the product 2) point out a product benefit I might not have notice 3) to remind me to actually use the product during the trial

<comment><USER6> > in exchange for a free trial

So I pay for the trial by being spammed? What kind of logic is that? You're telling your users "buy this product to get spammed even more!". Are you sure you want your users' money? They aren't, at this point. Marketing must always be opt-in.

> I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing

communications from a product I'm evaluating I suspect you are in a small minority.

<comment><USER5> I suspect there are still a few users out there that consider receiving four emails in exchange for a free month of a $50/month product to be a fair exchange. Or at least not unfair enough to get this upset about.

Over the years, I imagine I must have sent out something like twenty thousand of those mails for S3stat alone. Some people do indeed click the Unsubscribe link on those mails. I've never had anybody complain that they were "spam" though, since "hey, I hope you're enjoying the service, let me know if you have any questions!" doesn't really trip too many people's rage filter.

Apologies if you've signed up for our trial and I sent you a thanks message. I didn't mean anything by it.

<comment><USER6> Almost everything I sign up for these days ends up sending me several emails reminding me that I have done so. Yes, I did sign up. No, I don't want to be reminded of it all the time.

It is becoming annoying enough that I avoid signing up for things in the first place, or at least give them an email address I can easily filter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An interesting side effect of prompting credit card sign-ups is that the visitor is engaged in getting use out of the service immediately. They're running against a ticking clock (14 or 30 days) to get whatever service running.

Those who don't prompt for cards are under no immediate time pressure and therefore less likely to engage a month down the line when the specific problem that caused them to search for you in the first place is no longer as acute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. This is basically what I was trying to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a strong argument that many people hear alarm bells when asked for a credit card for a free trial. Yet, there is a valid case for wanting to overcome people's inaction, where people just don't bother to sign up (some of whom would actively enjoy/benefit from the product if you could persuade them to look deeper).

I wonder if there is a model that goes someway towards addressing both of these:

1) One month free. No credit card required.

2) Another month free (with more 'credits' or whatever), if during that first month you supply your credit card details. You will automatically be renewed if you don't cancel, but are free to do so (and will get reminders).

In this way, people get to try the product without alarm bells. They get something in return for demonstrating their interest, by way of more free time and you giving them access to more 'credits' (monitor more servers, look at more profiles, whatever it is).

This helps overcome their inaction, but avoids the alarm bells. Not sure how well it'd work but would be interesting to see.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an interesting idea! I wonder how that would work. It's a bit more complexity on the front end, but it's intriguing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really interesting. I'd love to see some numbers from a site/product that actually A/B tested both options.

If I had to use my credit card to get a free trial with Buffer for example, I would have never tried it (and eventually converted), but I guess it depends on the product.

<comment><USER11> There's this report from Totango - [http://www.totango.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/2012-SaaS-...](http://www.totango.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/2012-SaaS-Conversions-Benchmark2.pdf) (PDF)

<comment><USER12> Really great report! It's based on 100 SaaS companies, and concludes very differently from this blog post: Requiring credit card for signup results in 50% lower retained users after 90 days.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure the conclusions are very different. Yes, in this report, you get more customers if you don't ask for credit-card upfront.

But, those 120 signups you get from 1000 trial signups, meaning, for each signed up customer you need to support over 8 trials (support here means your time and to a lesser extent, your service's resources).

For the 60 signups in the case where the credit card was asked upfront, there were 200 free trial signups, ie a bit over 3 trials per customer.

So which is better depends on how much money (or time) you invested in getting the 10000 interested visitors to site (prior to them signing up), and how much money (ie. time and other resources) you need to spend to get them to become paying customers.

<comment><USER12> That's a good observation. I didn't consider the cost of converting signups to paying customers though, as in my experience, the cost is little to non (when talking the type of SaaS products in the report). But in a scenario where there is significant cost pr acquisition, then the point is very valid.

I think jasonkester below nailed it when stating if you need to interact individually with customers or in any other way have significant expense supporting trials, then that's really something to address. Again, at least in these kinds of products, obviously it does not apply to enterprise etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What you're basically saying to prospective new users is this:

"I don't trust you enough to spend bandwidth and server-resources on you without getting your ID and credit card info. On the other hand, I expect you trust me with your personal identification and credit card information right off the bat."

I've had to deal with credit-card fraud in the past, so I simply don't deal with companies that do this. I suppose the question is whether or not you're saving enough on costs to offset losing clients who are cautious with their CC and ID info.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I started off, I wanted every user who came to my site to convert to a paying user. Over time, I realized that I actually didn't want for every person who showed up to become a paying user, because I spend more time dealing with issues that they bring with them than writing new code or adding features.

After you've been running businesses for awhile, you start to realize that the goal should be to get a specific type of customer (not every customer is a good customer for you, some types are a bigger drain on support resources than others), and the easiest way I've found to get those is to require a credit card for the trial. That might mean that I have less users overall, but I end up with the ones that I want.

I'm also not talking about saving on literal costs, necessarily, It's more about opportunity cost. I could be dealing with a ton of free users, or I could be dealing with a self-selected group of paid users and work on new projects. As a developer, a couple of hours here and there could potentially turn into a new product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> To me, this more or less sounds like "I'm having trouble converting, so let's focus on the really, really, really interested users". In some occations this might be the right choice to make (the service you're providing have very low margins or it's a very complex service, so overhead from support becomes costly, or time is very limited), but in general it seems like very bad recommendation.

More likely it's your value proposition that is weak – either your customers don't understand what (value and/or service) you're providing, or your onboarding is just not good enough.

If you fail to tell your visitor what you're actually offering (before they signup) you might end up with a lot of users that sign up, just to learn what service you're actually providing. This is obviously much more likely if you're not requiring a credit card at signup. Try to have people understand WHY they're signing up before they actually do. They should be convinced that you're the right choice before entering their email.

Second: Your onboarding process is not over when the user has created their account. Guide your users. Give them examples, feedback and inspiration. Still having trouble getting started? Email them a week later and ask if you can help. Keep giving them reasons to come back and eventually convert.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here's the thing: when there are a lot of services that do something similar, I sign up to the free trials of lots of them at once to evaluate them. If you require a credit card, I probably won't include your program in the initial evaluation.

So yes, if you require a credit card, you're getting fewer people with a higher likelihood of conversion, but you're also missing out on a lot of people who are doing comparisons of services. How many of those people you convert is likely to be a function of how good you are compared to the other options.

If you are offering something unique or have amazing word of mouth, this probably won't matter. If on the other hand you think your product is one of the best solutions to the problem out there, you're probably losing more customers than you want by demanding credit card details.

In the case of the OP, doing something that on the face of it anyone who needed that service could hack together a script to do roughly the same thing within a relatively short period of time, I would have thought that it would be very important to remove as many barriers to trying the thing as possible (but yes, there's no need to let the free user have access to checking more than 2 sites).

<comment><AUTHOR> For website monitoring, a big part of the reason that people buy is trust, not necessarily ease of signing up. When you're running a commodity business at scale, you'll also find that more and more users will sign up for free accounts repeatedly over time instead of paying you money, which is yet another reason to require credit cards for free trials.

When you're doing most things yourself, like me, the goal is to get a specific type of customer (not every customer is a good customer for you, some types are a bigger drain on support resources than others), and the easiest way I've found to get those is to require a credit card for the trial. That might mean that I have less users overall, but I end up with the ones that I want.

<comment><USER16> I see. I'd assumed that you were competing primarily on ease of use and pleasant UX, which if that were the case, you'd want potential customers to see what you are doing.

If it's actually about trust, it sounds like word of mouth is actually more important to you. It just seems a shame that you'd be extremely unlikely to get my business (assuming I were looking for such a service) simply because I wouldn't be able to evaluate your service without handing over data that I'm loathe to spread around, particularly for services I might not actually want.

[By the way, another model that might work for website checking as well as restricting the number of sites is delaying the notifications on the free account after the first week. Anyone who really wants the service almost certainly needs the notification immediately. It also gives you another excuse to email them 'by the way, your premium notification speed add on is expiring, upgrade to a full account to keep your instant notifications....]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A bit annoying article. The phenomenon that article describes is not about credit cards, but instead of the psychology behind actively unsubscribing vs passively unsubscribing at the end of a free trial.

Most people has a tendency to inaction. If you give users two services of equal worth, but in one you need to unsubscribe to get rid of it and the other the default action of doing nothing results in unsubscribe, more people are going to end up paying the first one because they forgot or did not care enough to go and unsubscribe. Scammers who sends false bills use the same concept, as they simply hope some people will just automatically pay and not think or even read what the bill is.

In the end, using a credit card trial where the user need to actively unsubscribe at the end of the trial will give you more users who dislike your product or simply isnt using it at all. However, hopefully its enough of a barrier so people who wish to have a "viral" product can't use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can fix this by not automatically charging at the end of a trial, and sending an email instead to ask if they still want to keep the account, and closing the account or charging them based on their action at that time. I didn't say anything about automatically charging anyone necessarily. This is more about using credit card entry as a barrier to entry that gets you more of the type of users that you want (ones who are interested in your product and likely to pay you).

Also, if someone gets charged at the end of a trial because your code is set to auto-bill them and they forgot, it's not like you can't refund them. Not doing so would do more harm than good. You only want to bill people who are actually using your product.

You definitely shouldn't use this as a tactic if you want to have a viral product. This is specifically about web apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can make a lot of money if you bill people who are no longer interested in your product and forgot about it a month ago. Sometimes they'll pay you for years without realizing that you provide no useful or necessary service of any kind!

<comment><USER19> Maybe I'm just not ruthless enough for business, but this does not seem like a great way to make money. I'd rather make less through honest customers who like my product, then screw over those who don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It would seem that no one has addressed the idea that maybe the product doesn't hold enough value to the user to continue after a trial, I really don't think these sorts of metrics are applicable unless both the business model and the product are virually idential to his.

There are too many factors to consider, what is the product? being the most important, how is it sold to me, what is the closing process?

What this post says to me is: we want our users credit card details because there is a likelyhood they will forget to cancel their trial and we will at least screw them out of one month subs.

</comment><comment><USER7> Until now I've always charged a very low trial fee. Say, $1 for the first 30 days of service then auto bill after the 30 day $1 trial.

Never thought it was a good idea to request credit card for free trial, though I haven't tested it.

Now I am testing a free trial that is action based, so the first 3 actions are free, but anything beyond that requires a full subscription. The reason is because the product I'm selling the primary concern potential customers have is "how would I use this" so we give them time have an a-ha moment but not enough to get a tremendous amount of use from it.

</comment><comment><USER21> For those requiring a credit card for trials, how are you tracking metrics/conversions? Since the conversion happens when the trial ends, which is an event disconnected from your customer's browsers session, none of the JavaScript/cookie-based 3rd party software will be able to be capture that event. Some do have a backend API you can call if you can identify the user (e.g., KissMetrics & MixPanel both have this), but others do not (e.g., AdWords and Optimizely).

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm writing an app specifically to help with this. You can sign up on the bottom of the original blog post. :)

<comment><USER21> Thanks. I read the article, but completely blocked out that blue box. There's so much hawking of eBooks and such that I skip over that stuff now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would be more likely to sign up for full price. "Free trial - just add credit card" is a massive alarm bell for me.

In my experience, this type of free trial often means you want my credit card details so that you can make it as awkward as possible for me to cancel and maybe place dubious charges when I'm not looking.

That experience makes it difficult for me to sign up for a similar free trial.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry that you feel that way. I definitely understand the feeling of being burned, but I've never had issues with something like this, as a user myself of services with a free trial that requires a credit card.

Things like Twitter and Hacker News, where you can broadcast your displeasure of a company's terrible tactics would make it difficult for a company to keep signing up new users if people are complaining about it. The only companies that I see getting away with stuff like this are huge companies who don't care about their customers anyway, like Tivo.

All of my apps have a prominent link in the user settings panel that lets a user cancel their account/billing with one click.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The biggest problem with requiring a credit card with a free trial is that unscrupulous people also use the same tactic. Rightly or wrongly, the pattern "requires credit card for trial == scam" is etched into some people's minds. In order to overcome this, the company would have to be well known and well respected, at least within their niche.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is definitely true. Personally, I feel fairly secure in putting my credit card info into web apps for free trials because of protection offered by the credit card company. If I have problems with charges that I don't want on the card, I can call them up and reverse them.

I see how some people's knee jerk reaction upon seeing that a credit card is required for a free trial would be to just close the tab and find a competitor, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Like almost everything, there's no simple answer as to whether requiring a credit card to start a free trial will be net positive.

This is very dependent on your product, market segment, trial length, pricing, and many other variables. You need to test this out for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER25> Amazon does this neat thing with Prime where if you stop right after a billing, if you haven't "used" the service they reimburse you fully. Was a pleasant surprise (Amazon's customer service is world-class)

</comment><comment><USER26> Your advertised feed[1] seems to be missing. Returns an empty document.

[1] <http://observationdeck.net/feed/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. It's fixed now. Apparently this happened: <https://twitter.com/rfelix/status/341487193224798208>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know any good articles about trial vs. non-trial for premium subscriptions?

</comment><comment><USER28> Just know that I won't be using your product. And most of my friends have no credit card either.

Besides not being able to sign up, I also wouldn't want to. From what I heard about how credit cards work (as opposed to debit cards, which I think is the right term for the cards that we commonly use here), I'd never sign up for a free trial and give the developer (and any potential hackers) the permission to withdraw arbitrary amounts from my credit card. I sign up for so many things and try out so many demos, it'd be a _major_ security risk. I even prefer not to give out my real name anywhere, let alone bank account details.

But then again, if you think this system works for you, go ahead and use it. If it makes you richer, who am I to say you shouldn't.

<comment><USER29> Then you're not the target market. If you have no credit card, it's very, very hard as a global website (i.e. not localized to the Netherlands) to accept money from you. So if that's the case, then they don't even want you as a customer, because you have no way of paying them.Giving you a free trial is then counterproductive.

<comment><USER30> It's actually really easy.... ( <http://bitpay.com> )

<comment><USER29> No it's not, that just moves the difficulty from merchant to client. Actually getting bitcoins is not easy, takes a long time, etc. It adds friction, support overhead, risk, latency, for very little pay-off.

We're talking about subscriptions here, so the customer would have to send bitcoins every month. He would have to first get bitcoins, then those few days later actually remember wanting to use the service, send the service the coins he paid for a few days back, wait half an hour, again. All that, for those maybe 1 out of 10K leads that would even know what bitcoin is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Phone vs. Your Heart - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/your-phone-vs-your-heart.html

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does the title and opening paragraph seem a little misleading? The author says:

 _"Most of us are well aware of the convenience that instant electronic access provides. Less has been said about the costs. Research that my colleagues and I have just completed, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, suggests that one measurable toll may be on our biological capacity to connect with other people."_

After that intro, and the title, I expected the study to focus around the ability of people to connect with others in relation to their use of their phone.

That is not what the study seems to be about. Instead, the author describes how people who were taught an 'ancient mind-training practice known as metta, or "lovingkindness," that teaches participants to develop more warmth and tenderness toward themselves and others.' There's no mention of phones or electronic devices in relation to the actual study.

I understand that there is concern about the effect of our handheld devices on our ability to interact in real life with other people, but this whole article feels a little...off. If you're going to frame an article around phone v. love, I'd prefer to see some _actual_ research on phone v. love.

Did I completely misinterpret this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Paywall-less Google link to article: [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...</a></comment>


Cringely - IBM's "Logan's Run" - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2009/09/logans-run/

<comment><USER2> IBM has elaborate incentive systems that encourage employees to patent every idea that comes into their heads, and few checks to weed out the bad ones. The plan, I suppose, is that it's hard to identify the important patents in advance, and it's worth it to spend millions a year on useless paperwork if every now and then it makes you 100x that.

Taking one of IBM's patents as revealing of their overall strategy is like watching a guy scratch his toe and concluding that he probably wants to amputate his leg. There's just no way to connect your observation to any evidence for (or against) the conclusion.

<comment><USER3> This is absolutely correct - at IBM, successful patent applications based on any idea you could come up with directly affected your reviews, ability to get promoted, and general perception of worker bees by the management chain.

Patents incentives were also roundly ridiculed by lower band and longterm employees at IBM. For individual contributor types, there was some expectation that patents were part of the job description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found the article rather sensationalistic, but one of the comments rings true with regard to globalization of knowledge work in general:

"...you end up with a barbell distribution – a bunch of those rare people who can work through systems they've never seen before and fix them at the top, and a bunch of people to act as interchangeable cogs at the bottom..."

If you cannot quickly add value to systems & technologies you've never seen before, you're probably a depreciating commodity. IBM is merely riding this wave.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hopefully the 50+ year olds will manage to transfer the key piece of information to the 18-25 year olds - what they get paid and how to get that same salary.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nathan Myrvold has a patent factory project that goes quite a bit further than this. There was an interesting business week article on it a while back:

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991401....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991401.htm)</comment>


Surgical Reading: How to Read 12 Books at Once - <AUTHOR> https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/surgical-reading-how-to-read-12-books <comment><USER2> I read 4 or 5 books at a time usually. There is no problem if they are in 2 to 3 different languages, and span across multiple genres (historical, biography, non-fiction, fiction), he already lost me at "think about the title, I know it sounds mundane", yep, cause titles are always what the author comes up with, not what the publisher wants...

The only thing I can tell you from experience: Have the self confidence to drop a book, read what interests you, not what is on some "list of books" you have to work through. And take your time reading. I learned it the hard way, but I'd rather drop 10 books, find one extremely insightful, and read it slowly and carefully and twice if I have to than speed read 20 books and remember nothing.

I am extremely doubtful about "hacks" like this ; glad if it works for him, my experience is nothing of the sorts will ever work for me.

<comment><USER3> I think even the publishers suggest a title thats best suited for the content too, and the author still gets the final say. I too am skeptical when it comes to so-called "hacks" in general but I'm happy to try this one out.

<comment><USER2> I am not yet fortunate enough of having been published, but I think the number of authors in any position to "demand a title" is extremely limited, they are glad about being published at all. If a publisher says "I think this title is more marketable", well, ... but it's of course not the main point I was trying to make. If you find a method that works, great, I think most "methods" are highly individual, if not flawed, and in the end, reading is reading, and that's it.

My opinion about that is deeply influenced by a professor I used to have. Once he spent one lecture just reading a brilliant essay by a British judge. He did not read it, he performed it, slowly, carefully, and it was the best lecture I ever had. And his advice was: "read slowly, or you might as well not read at all, forget the 'hacks', the speed-reading techniques, reading is enjoyment, if you have the right material, be thankful for every second, savor it", and if only I could have taken his advice more seriously at the time. I do now though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was in my teens I used to go to the library and pick up 20-30 books on the same subject and basically sort them into various piles of difficulty, and then start reading and move to the next book if I hit a blocker, and possibly come back to the same book with renewed insight.

Every author explains things differently and explains key concepts in different orders, so it's a no-brainer to go through multiple books on the same subject at the same time.

But IMO you still do need to dedicate yourself to linear reading the truly good books.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why would you do this?

If you did an Arts degree (like I did in the UK) you probably recognise this technique. I will admit it was some time back - my degree was all about reading from multiple sources. The goal was to have multiple perspectives on events (in my case history) which are inherently subjective. In reality, there was never enough time - so you "filleted" the core of each argument, grabbed some quotes and dug out some tiny element to "prove" you'd read it. Running 10-15 books - hah - I was researching multiple areas - 15 a week maybe?

And, that's how my degree was made - I'm sure lots of people have similar experiences and skills. I totally accept that this form of reading is possible.

But, beyond "professional learning" it's terrible. It's unenjoyable, develops poor understanding, limits comprehension of nuance and destroys enjoying the flow of the argument. Unless you have to do it, I can't see why you'd put yourself through it. Ultimately reading for learning is not about volume, it's about considered thought.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good article.

He mentions the book "How to Read a Book". I've read Mortimer Adler's version several times. It really changed how I read and learn from books. It's well worth the investment. I haven't read the Mortimer & Van Doren version.

I've found that doing the inspectional reading really helps. I've described it to friends as "giving me something to hang my hat on" while reading. Having the high level overview acts as a conceptual glue while reading a book through for the first time.

I think it was Naval Ravikant on an episode of Tim Ferriss' podcast that described reading as the "meta skill". If you can read you can learn just about anything.

Back to "How to Read a Book": Adler makes a distinction between able to read, e.g., "See Jack run", and learning from reading. I believe he describes 4 levels. The first, the ability to read, leading to the last, reading from multiple sources to learn. It's unfortunate that our ( U.S. ) educational system doesn't emphasize this much, or at all.

<comment><USER7> "How to Read a Book" is one book that I think every school and university should teach from cover to cover.

it completely changes your approach to learning to be significantly more rigorous, and i can't speak highly enough about it. and of course, it's not just good for reading from books, but any kind of reading you want.

<comment><USER8> What are some of the key points that you took from it?

<comment><USER9> I'm going to mirror the original commenter's recommendation, but also provide a bit more information.

The book, effectively, says "There are different levels of reading, which are skills, and those skills can be honed or improved. In addition, those skills may need to be applied differently to different types of books. The "most advanced" type of reading when, given multiple books with some related elements, you can form a coherent idea of those concepts based on the books you've read.

Here are a few high-level tips, just in terms of reading mechanics at a basic level that I use (If I recall inspired by the book in reference, I've pulled out my copy to see some of my marked notes as well):

(1) Read the first and last sentences of a paragraph first. At that point, decide whether to skip or read the entire paragraph.

(2) Try to read without subvocalizing the words in your head. Then, once the words aren't polluting your head, try to digest or consider the ideas as you go. I find having a pen handy helps with this.

(3) A "basic" reading has four questions to answer:What is the book about as a whole, what is being said and how, how true is the book, what is the significance of this information. These questions are the foundation to being able to talk about the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Revised title: 'How to skim a nonfiction book'.

I like useful 'hacks', but...there is so much more to reading than speed and efficiency. Reading is not a quantitative game of accretion. And the author gets a lot wrong about how and why books are organized the way they are.

</comment><comment><USER9> Commoditization of this form of reading is happening as well, the idea usually being something linked to reducing a book to 20 minutes of reading [0].

To me, this shows what little quantity of value these books actually have. That doesn't mean that the small number of useful ideas aren't of quality, just that they would have been better formatted as essays. Tragic that we can't find a way to align value with form.

[0] [https://www.blinkist.com](https://www.blinkist.com)

<comment><USER11> Blinkist honestly just never really helped me. I can't say I feel like anything really stuck.

The one way I thought about using it that would probably actually work reasonably well but I was too ADHD to stick with without structural support to keep me on task, would be listening to every single book in an entire category (there can be like 30 odd) and triangulating the core of the subject based off that. Taking copious notes on what shows up in multiple books etc.

That idea is basically the 'how to read a book' blinkist version. Though it kind of defeats the purpose of the nice quick summary I still like the idea. Maybe I should try it now that I could probably pull it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've read tons of ideas about how to extract "nuggets of information", and reading more effectively, etc. Blinkist, for example, creates great and short summaries of books. That's all good and fine. But it does not work for me. I need to read through a book. I need it to take time. I don't want the nuggets, I need it all. I need all of it to help me let the points sink in. I might remember a book years later, but I cannot recall a Blinkist summary after even two weeks.

I do agree with the "reading of multiple books in parallel" part though. It's a natural way of reading, when curiosity is the driver.

But what's the rush? It's not a competition (I think). Let's just read the books like the author intended them to be read (which, for non-fiction often is suggested in the preface or similar).

</comment><comment><USER13> My objection to this is that I'm really bad at anticipating where interesting or useful information will come from. Many times I've been watching or reading something and find a offhand that is really useful to some part of my life.

If I only read the stuff I suspect of being useful before I start, there's less of a chance to be surprised by useful information.

Is that efficient? Bot really. It's enjoyable though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Any non-reference book which can be "read" in this manner probably isn't worth engaging with anyways. This reminds me of that "Lamborghini in my garage" guy who claimed to be able to read a book in five minutes, and whose entire library was self-help / pop-psych / finance-bro fluff with no intellectual substance. Of course such material can be digested quickly.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is an interesting approach and I can see the benefits for non-fiction books, as many of them have a certain degree of "fluff" anyway you want to skip quickly.

It does seem a technique that is more suited to physical books though, I don't see myself easily skipping to and back on an e-reader, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> If you're a person who, while reading, is constantly arguing with the author and digging into their and your point of view, you may find this article and method of reading shallow. The method of "surgical reading" is most suited when you really don't care about the point of view of the author, don't want to have a dialogue or understand their deeper philosophy or context; you just, as he mentions, want to extract the 'knowledge', whatever that may be.

I gotta say, this method seems less relevant if you want to allow yourself to be changed by dialogue with an author. Reading a book or even essay by bell hooks in this way, for instance, seems like a tragic waste of time. You don't read bell hooks to 'extract a knowledge nugget', you read bell hooks to look in a mirror and see your own experiences differently.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this easier than reading one book at a time, because that's the rate that I find difficult?

<comment><USER4> It is hugely effective to have multiple physical books around you on the same subject at different levels of detail and different explanation approaches.

It makes it very easy to switch books in midstream if you get stuck, gain more understanding from another book, and then come back to the original book with renewed insight.

<comment><USER18> Getting stuck... that's a killer. Now, if I've decided to learn something, I get at least 2 books on the same topic. If one author's explanation doesn't click for me, it's good to have that second book for a different explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is how babies/kids learn init?

As in they jump around collecting nuggets and surprising people with what they have collected.

The advantage kids have is their brains are different (see Allison Gopnik + Explore vs Exploit Dilemma) and they are surrounded (hopefully) by people paying attention to what they are learning, correcting them when they get lost, nudging them in the right direction, making sure they are housed,fed and watered etc.

Same thing works out well with Adults when you place them in the safe caring confines of a research lab.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well done emphasizing the value of the preface!

It always amazes me how little attention the preface gets from readers. It's the one place where the author gets to explain why the book exists, and why you should care. If you really want to understand what you could get from a book, pay close attention to the preface. And then maybe don't read the rest of it at all! You may learn from the preface that this is not the book for you, and that could save you a tremendous amount of time.

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of this technique seems to overlap with the classic book How to Read a Book by Adler & Doren.

The only part that differs is they approach with trying to get a big picture rather than focusing on the only the parts you need.

I tend to agree with the Surgical Reading on focusing on the parts you need. Time is at such a premium that just in time learning is a great strategy.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'd add "read better books" \- if you need to surgically excise info, it's not a good book in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER23> This technique has potential. I kickstarted my interest in machine learning by going to the university library, picking a book with an interesting title and reading a random section for about half an hour, before fleeing to classes. I had a quite good overview by the end of the semester.

</comment><comment><USER24> I come across many interesting books, and I read few of them cover to cover. But rarely has there been a book which didn't add something meaningful and useful to my life from just reading one random page of it.

</comment><comment><USER25> 12 books at once seems like more unnecessary hyper-optimization to me.

It's like the people that watch YouTube videos at 2x speed to gain more time for...what, exactly? Reading 12 books at once?

Our society needs to dial it back a bit.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why not save yourself all the trouble and read a in-depth review or Wikipedia summary/Cliffnotes of the book? Doesn't seem like this technique goes all that much deeper.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is somewhat similar to how scientific articles are typically read.

</comment><comment><USER28> Love the post and the process

</comment><comment><USER29> Every year I try to read 100 books, and up to a dozen in tandem. I've succeeded the past few years, but this year I'm a bit doubtful as I've taken on "Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste", a 720 page behemoth.

My unsolicited advice for how to read 100 books a year, while still working full-time and fulfilling other important life-roles? Don't watch YouTube/TV/movies and minimize time spent reading articles. Have Alexa read kindle e-books to you when you're on the go. And if you aren't enjoying a book, drop it and find something you can tear through.

In case you're interested, here's my currently-reading list on Goodreads: [https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2589152-jason- comely?s...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2589152-jason- comely?shelf=currently-reading)

Back to reading books!

</comment><comment><USER30> Without trying to start a flame war, the author is not accurate in what is in (or not in) the Bible.

<comment><USER31> Hmm... accurate point. There are several items in his "not in the Bible" list that are most definitely mentioned, several times!

<comment><USER32> I think they're looking for the exact term, so in that way it's not in the bible even if what the exact term refers to actually is.

<comment><USER33> As I said in my other comment, it's clear from the context that by "parts of the Bible" they mean named contiguous sections, and by "not parts of the Bible" they mean topics that are raised intermittently thoughout. So there's no homosexuality "part of the Bible" just in the sense that there's no Book of Homosexuality.

It wouldn't make sense to demand an exact term when you're looking at something that was originally written in a different language (like the Bible, which was mostly written in Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek) because whether or not that word is exactly matched depends on how it's translated rather than something inherent in the original work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Probably will get downvoted for this, but I think the halo around reading books is overrated. You can gather ample amount of knowledge just as well via a series of essays online, podcasts, and sometimes even twitter threads.

Most of the books, for example, introduce a radical new idea and then elaborate on that needlessly for 400 pages. I found Sapiens to be one such book.

Even if the idea/premise is insightful, there is often a lot of redundancy in the pages. We should value brevity more.

Of course, this might not apply to all books. Textbooks/Reference books can happily coexist with online tutorials/blogs. Even certain nonfiction books (Thinking Fast and Slow comes to mind) might be best presented in a book format.

<comment><USER35> What radical new idea did Sapiens introduce? I ended up not liking it as much as I thought I would because I expected it to be little more concentrated on known factors around human evolution, but it ended up providing a lot of conjecture and best-guesses.

I think some people that see online essays and podcasts as a more efficient way to consume information might ironically be the most "orthodox" sort of readers. Most well-written non-fiction books provide a clear index, a table of contents that makes the process of the book clear, and introductory matter in each chapter that summarizes things for you. If you want a certain piece of information, you can go into the book and get out within 5 minutes. You don't owe every book you pick up a cover-to-cover read.

Highly recommend "How to Read a Book". It calls the author's process of "surgical reading" "syntopical reading", though they might have slightly different meanings in reality.</comment></comment>


Game That Critiques Apple Vanishes From App Store - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/game-that-critiques-apple-vanishes-from-app-store/

<comment><USER2> The article's title makes it sound as if Apple removed the app because it criticizes Apple.

In reality, as the app's creator explains on his website [1], the app broke some of the most basic rules of the App Store:

 _"15.2 Apps that depict violence or abuse of children will be rejected

16.1 Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected"_

This app slipped through the cracks, it should've never been allowed in the app store.

[1] <http://phonestory.org/banned.html></comment>


Yahoo Acquires Advanced iOS Photography App Maker GhostBird Software - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/12/yahoo-acquires-advanced-ios-photography-app-maker-ghostbird-software/ <comment><USER2> Instagram competitor?

</comment><comment><USER3> continuing the flickr revive</comment>


Udacity Course: Make Your Own 2048 - <AUTHOR> https://www.udacity.com/course/ud248

<comment><USER2> Love the fact that for prerequisites they state "Nothing", the videos are structured as a dialogue and that they even tell you to use a simple editor like Sublime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah! I love how udacity instigates new methods for learning to program and by actually using the trending fun projects in the world right now!</comment>


Lyme disease vaccine: the frustrating reason there isn't one for humans - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness <comment><USER2> Glad to know that a vaccine was pulled out of market due to safety concerns...Another one that followed the same was the Rotavirus Vaccine [1], even after it was found "safe" during trials.

1\. [https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4843a5.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4843a5.htm)</comment>


ASK HN: Sample contract for vested shares for a new cofounder - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm bringing onboard a new cofounder for my startup. After negociations, we decided that he would get a percentage of the company vested of 2 years and be paid a small salary hourly to cover cost of living.
Does anyone know a good sample contract I could use for that? My company has already existed for 1 year and is a offshore LLC (based in HK).
Are their any tax liabilities or other things I should think about?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Normally would be done as: he buys stock, the company has "repurchase rights" over those shares, repurchase rights "vest" / "expire" ratable over 3-4rys. (your case 2yrs).

This would be a term in your "Stock Purchase Agreement" (if you were a corp).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, so what is the advantage of making him buy stocks instead of giving it to him? For tax questions?

So how do I determine the price he buys stock at? and do I give him the money for buying it ?

Cheers

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, you have a typo in your second sentence. "...negociations..." should be negotiations.

Good luck btw!</comment>


Netflix Secretly Holds Subscribers Hostage to Gain Favorable FCC - <AUTHOR> http://techknowledge.center/blog/2014/09/netflix-secretly-holds-subscribers-hostage-to-gain-favorable-fcc-internet-regulations/ <comment><USER2>
      > Based on industry norms with respect to peering and its
      > experience with the Level 3 gambit, Netflix knew that
      > transferring its traffic to settlement-free routes would
      > result in network congestion by dramatically altering the
      > ratio of traffic exchanged.

This is a poorly crafted hit piece. The "ratio" of traffic exchanged wouldn't have changed. At most it would merely have shifted origins--from whatever link Akamai and Comcast shared, to the Cogent-Comcast link. Comcast is principally an edge ISP to content consumers, so Netflix's change in providers meant nothing to them in terms of usage patterns. And because it's a good bet that the exchange facilities were the same in all scenarios, setting aside potential contractual issues it likely resulted in no change in network traffic whatsoever.

I have no idea if Netflix' CDN strategy was also a maneuver in the regulatory realm. I would hope they were smart enough, at least, to have considered the potential conflicts beforehand. OTOH, it would be extremely stupid and risky (and thus highly unlikely) for the change in providers to have been intended primarily as a regulatory gambit. For all we know it was Comcast who strategically saw an opportunity to test the regulatory waters.

What I do believe with some confidence given the context and errors is that the article is a poorly written hit piece, perhaps paid for directly or indirectly by Comcast as part of its marketing and regulatory strategy, if not actually written by Comcast.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you provide more details on the errors?

<comment><USER2> Another example,

      > When it decided to send its traffic solely through
      > settlement-free transit providers in 2012, Netflix knew
      > full well that its decision to congest peering and degrade
      > the quality of its service would affect some ISPs very
      > differently than others. Netflix had also started its own
      > CDN in 2012, and some ISPs — those who do not operate
      > Internet backbone networks, and thus would otherwise have
      > to pay transit fees to receive Netflix traffic — had
      > already agreed to the unusual arrangement of directly
      > interconnecting with Netflix's CDN without charge. Those
      > ISPs would not be adversely affected by Netflix's hostage
      > strategy, and Netflix knew it. Netflix intended to cast
      > blame only on the ISPs that operate Internet backbones,
      > and thus would not realize the same cost savings from
      > Netflix's CDN as the ISPs who do not operate backbone
      > networks.

The article tries to make the point that Netflix was trying to shift the cost of paying for bandwidth from themselves to Comcast by rearchitecting their peering arrangements in such a way that they benefited from settlement-free peering arrangements. But they just admitted above that it's usually the edge ISP who pays for traffic.

It's obvious that the company rearchitecting their peering in an attempt to shift costs is Comcast. Comcast is (indisputably) an edge, almost entirely consumer-facing ISP. They can refer to parts of their network as a "backbone" however and whenever they like, but both Comcast and this article are using the term "backbone" simply as a way to try to equivocate their contractual relationships with classic transit providers. But as the article indirectly explains, this norm exists largely because for classic transit providers load generation is symmetric--transit providers with a good mix of customers are similarly situated in terms of economic position, and it's cheaper to minimize bookkeeping with settlement-free arrangements.

But calling part of Comcast's network a "backbone" doesn't magically make Comcast's ingress and egress traffic symmetric. Yet the argument in the article is predicated on people making that erroneous mental leap. And as the article helpfully points out, when usage is asymmetric it's the edge ISP (on both ends) who ends up paying the bill. Thus, following the logic of the article as well as real-world practice, using settlement-free peering would normally be to Comcast's _benefit_!

It also follows that because it was Comcast who rearchitected their network (if in name only) to shift costs, that it was Comcast maneuvering strategically in the regulatory space. That doesn't mean Netflix wasn't making regulatory moves, but if so I'd characterize that as Netflix calling Comcast's hand at a time & place of Netflix' choosing rather than waiting around for Comcast to show its hand. In any event, from a purely business standpoint, no way would the _potential_ benefits that might accrue to Netflix be sufficient to justify such a change in transit and CDN providers.

Plus, this all ignores the fact that Netflix made the same free direct CDN peering offer to Comcast it did to every other ISP, which would have cut Cogent and Level 3 out entirely. It's just that Comcast rejected that offer; it wanted to be _paid_ for the peering! And they also rejected alternative offers to add more settlement-free ports with Netflix's transit provider. And Comcast's logic was precisely the specious argument that Comcast, purely by dint of how they referred to themselves, was situated like Level 3 or Cogent-- a middle-man transit provider--rather than like, well, Comcast. But that's patently preposterous.

Of course, Comcast should be free to require payment to peer directly with Netflix. And they can be free to reject offers of more settlement-free ports with transit providers. And I guess they're free to lie (as long as the FTC doesn't mind). But at the end of the day they shouldn't be allowed to freely sabotage net neutrality using their bogus arguments, mischaracterizations, and outright lies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tech Knowledge is a self-admitted FCC/BigTelecom shill.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you day trade in stock market? What are your investing strategies? - <AUTHOR> Do you day trade in stock market? What are your investing strategies? Please share some insights and learnings along with what worked and not worked for you.
I know this question has been asked on reddit and other forums too but I am curious to know the opinion of HN community and what fellow Tech crowd in the Valley and around the world does about investing. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Well, I don't know if it varies from country to country. But in my country (Turkey), there are prestigious companies which are almost %100 guaranteed to be stable.

What I do is, as long as the stock price drops, I keep on buying. As long as it is increasing, I sell. I just don't buy or sell all of them; I just do it as it increases/decreases.

</comment><comment><USER3> Throw away account here as I'll share some financial details.

tldr: You won't make money day trading. Invest for the long term taking into account tax considerations and your risk appetite. I have and it has served me well.

In general I've learned that reducing fees [0] and thinking carefully about how to allocate investments across asset classes [1] is a much more successful strategy than picking individual stocks. Also try to hold on to investments for more than a year so you're taxed 15% on the profits rather than 30+% [2].

First thing you'll want to do is consider your asset allocation. I haven't used this tool myself, as I used an advisor, [3] but I consider Vanguard trustworthy as they are owned by their customers and have a good reputation. The purpose of a tool like this is to get a feel for how much you should be investing in equity vs bonds, vs real estate vs other exotic investments (hedge funds /private equity). I took a similar test through a financial advisor years ago and found it useful.

Over the last 9 years, I've invested roughly in this order of priority:

1) 401k for company matching & tax benefits - total profit of ~70k over the years. Starting from 0 balance 9 years ago, but recently have been maxing out contributions at ~17k per year 2) Exchange Traded Funds - SPY, DXJ, HEDJ. Essentially diversified, low fee investments in the US Stock market, Japan stock market and Europe. Total profit of ~30k over the years. 3) Bought a house, which I ended up renting. On paper profit of ~100k, but transaction costs (costs to buy and sell) eat into a large part of it. Long term it's a good plan. 4) Invested in a few individual stocks, lost a few hundred dollars. 5) Invested in options on a few individual stocks, lost ~3k. Learn about time decay before doing this.

Hope this helps!

[0] [http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/sum/10.2469/faj.v66.n2.7](http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/sum/10.2469/faj.v66.n2.7)

[1] [http://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ib_fees_expenses.pdf](http://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ib_fees_expenses.pdf)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United_States)

[3] [https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire)

</comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr Know what you're buying, know your risk threshold, hold it as long as you can, invest frequently.

It's going to sound like a stale and naive quip but buy low and sell high. I look for deals. Sometimes that's an IPO with a nice finance sheet. Sometimes it's a huge correction on a popular mega-corporation.

Weather you're a value investor or a growth investor the goal is profit, right? What works for me is knowing what I'm investing in. I'm familiar with the products or services.

It's a fun topic. There's lots to read out there. Sturgeons Law holds in full effect. 90% of all of it is total crap. All you need is probably at your local library.

Here's some homework. Look up these terms:

dead cat bounce, double top, exponential moving average, don't fight the tape, upgrades, channel, channel up, channel down, wedge, triangle, insider selling, dividends, oversold, ticker, forex, a falling knife has no handle, FUD, Irrational exuberance...

fun time 45 min talk on the basics: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDIj9JBTC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDIj9JBTC8)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are serious, this is everything you need to know:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciY8u04Kk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciY8u04Kk)

If you still want to day trade after watching these, then I guess get yourself to NY or London etc. and try and get a job like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/make-money-investing- tips/](https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/make-money-investing-tips/)

<comment><USER5> Seems reasonable but not all good advice:

> One reason I like startups is that they represent a middle way: you can get > some equity or ownership in a business that might turn out very well, but > you also get a salary.

Yeah just search HN for the horror stories. Enough said.

Work out if the EV is better working for big corp and using your extra salary to buy shares. But...

> Can you guess what happened next? The dot com crash happened, and shares of > Cisco plummeted to $12/share.

Yes you need a portfolio.</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone unveiled  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17935684

<comment><USER2> All I can say about this launch is that I can't believe how underwhelming the coverage was. TechCrunch wrote two short posts about the launch event and didn't laud or criticize the S3. In fact the only opinionated piece I saw at all was one explaining why Android isn't "actually" winning in the battle against iOS.

This phone is in many ways a better device than the iPhone 4S. While Apple's accomplishments in mobile have been incredible, the fact that Samsung has closed the gap and in many ways surpassed the iPhone is extremely impressive. I don't think Apple is going to get much more mileage out of the "3.5 inches is the right size for a phone and the current iPhone form factor is the perfect design" argument. When you look at the 4S and then the S3 and then the 4S again, it feels like you are going back a generation.

Now I have no doubt that Apple will impress with the iPhone 5, but I don't think that is coming until the October timeframe, so in the meantime, Samsung has jumped ahead of Apple in innovation. I can't wait to see what comes out of these two companies over the next several years.

My point is not to criticize Apple, but rather that I would like to see a more open approach to Apple competitors. Samsung is for real and is developing devices that are at least as good as Apple in many ways and they deserve equal consideration, and that is good for everybody.

<comment><USER3> I think a lot of people were underwhelmed by the design. They've been iterating on pretty much the same design for years. It might make _some_ sense if it was an iconic amazing design to begin with, but it never was.

I also don't like the fact that Samsung seems to be going ever heavier with Touchwiz, instead of the opposite direction like HTC with Sense 4. At this point they are basically fighting Google's improvements, and just replacing them with their own. I think that's the wrong direction for them to take.

It's one thing to have the Apple and Microsoft communities against you, but it's quite another if the Android community turns against you for screwing with Android too much. I don't like Samsung's direction, and I think they will feel it in revenues by the end of the year if they keep this up with other flagship devices.

The Pentile screen was a real downer, too. I couldn't believe it myself that they actually used Pentile. That was probably the most shocking and disappointing thing for people expecting better hardware from Samsung.

One thing I like about the Galaxy S3 - perhaps the only thing - is the processor. It's probably the best on the market right now in both CPU and GPU performance (the only one that beats the iPhone 4S in GPU right now). It seems to have crazy fast browsing. I saw Engadget loading their own website on it, and it was like instant. The benchmarks seem to confirm a significant increase in browser peformance compared to everyone else in the Browsermark test:

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/5810/samsung-galaxy-s-iii- perf...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/5810/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-performance- preview)

This only makes me more excited for the upcoming Exynos 5250 chip with a totally new CPU (Cortex A15) and a totally new GPU and architecture (Mali T604). I'm hoping this chip will come out in both the next Nexus phone and in the Galaxy Note 2.

<comment><USER4> Does a pentile layout matter on a "retina display"? The pixels shouldn't be discernible at these resolutions. When the Galaxy Nexus came out there was a lot of confusion and argument about whether it was pentile or not. If you can't tell by looking at it it's kind of a moot point.

<comment><USER5> Amen. The "retina" nonsense has to stop. Apple ended up with an extrarodinarily high resolution for their screen because of design _constraints_ , not aesthetic appeal. They had to match the physical size of the existing phones with an integral increase in pixel count (so as to not break the existing pixel-aligned artwork in deployed apps).

Except for those rare individuals who can focus at 4 inches, there's no visual value in a 330dpi screen vs. the 280+ pitches we're seeing elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm disappointed. The hardware face buttons are still there. The volume buttons are still directly opposite the power button (and thus far too easy to accidentally press). No ringer switch. The bezel is a bit smaller, but not enough so to be interesting, and the screen is PenTile. No Cortex A15 CPU.

Bright spots seem to be a GPU that can finally compete with what Apple's shipping, and some imagination put into hardware/software features like the eye tracking and proximity-sensor-triggered calling, though TouchWiz is probably still a net loss.

<comment><USER7> It's too bad that you can't really make use of the GPUs in Android. It'd be tolerable if there were only differences in capabilities (that works out OK on iOS after all), but you have to deal with the different sets of bugs in all the GPU drivers. All (?) the OpenGL ES drivers are pretty buggy, so dealing with several at once is not pretty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, the phone hardware looks pretty nice. However, I bought a Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant) and was subsequently underwhelmed with their lack of ongoing support for the phone itself. I will not be purchasing another phone from Samsung unless it is a Google-branded phone (e.g., Nexus S).

Fool me once and all that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another oversized phone. When I saw its predecessor I was shocked by the size. How can you properly fit it in pocket? I don't understand why phone manufacturers are engaged in "we are the biggest screen" race? Make your hardware better. Things like Retina display add that wow factor. I have owned two Android phones (none of them were Nexus) and they were marred with hardware and battery problems. Motorola Droid (I used for dev stuff) had amazing hardware but rest other sucked big time.

Edit: Grammatical mistakes

<comment><USER3> I think people really overstate how much bigger such a phone is compared to an iPhone in your hand. When people hear something like a 4.7" phone vs a 3.5" they must imagine it's like twice as tall or something. Galaxy S3 is only 2 cm taller and 2 cm wider than an iPhone. A picture comparing the 2 here:

[http://cdn.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/files...](http://cdn.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/files/imagecache/w680h550/postimages/684/samsung- galaxy-s-iii-28.jpg)

I've tried a 4.3" Galaxy S2 recently (I own a smaller older phone right now), and I could easily use it with just one hand, and yet there's this myth around the Internet ever since that misleading Curtis article that only 3.5" is the "perfect size" for one-handed use. It's not true. And no, I don't have large hands.

<comment><USER10> I think this photo better exemplifies the difference:

<http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-gallery#>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know if I really like that the screen got even larger.

I often wind up accidentally hitting buttons with my wrist when reaching across the screen with my thumb

<comment><USER12> The most frustrating thing with the Galaxy Nexus (4.65" screen) is trying to 'slide to unlock' it with one hand. I get most of the way across then my palm touches the camera button.

<comment><USER13> Spent a significant amount of time before realizing you must be left handed. I've figured out how to hold my GN where my hand isn't too big of an issue. It's so weird holding my old Fascinate though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find this was a very interesting announcement. Almost the whole presentation was about software, services and addons. Samsung did not talk much about the hardware, and not once use the term "Android" during the whole presentation.

This is how I want smartphone providers to make their android-based devices: Either use just AOSP and focus on supporting that well (updates), or make a very unique and improved experience for your customers.

Adding differences "just to be somehow different" will only make your phone worse.

I don't care much about the gesture stuff, but what they do with the face detection API that came with Android 4 is very interesting.

The idea that the screen will not go black as long as I look at it solves one of the most annoying problems I have when using computers. E.g. you think for a few seconds about what you just read on your smartphone, and when you're back you have to turn on the screen again. So annoying.

There are also a lot of little nice touches to the ui, like this one:

"Pick up the phone when you've got a missed call or text and it will vibrate gently in your hand in combination with the notification light to let you know you're a popular bunny."

or that you can hold the phone to your ear while you're texting someone and it will call the person you're texting.

Or that you can select a person in the camera and the focus will stay on that person.

Or that you can burst 10 photos with one shot and then have the phone automatically recommend the best picture to you.

The wireless charger and the HDMI dongle are also very nice.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why are we still focusing on hardware when it is clear that software is just as, if not more important than appearance and feature set?

It has a big screen and fancy processor, but it's still Android, and until that blemish is removed, Samsung will always be a second rate cell phone manufacturer.

I say this as someone that will only buy Samsung in almost every other category.

<comment><USER16> > Why are we still focusing on hardware when it is clear that software is just > as, if not more important than appearance and feature set?

It's because comparing hardware specifications is _easy_ \- it's quantifiable, it's numbers, and techies are familiar with them. How do you objectively compare the effect on that hardware on the software experience, and the quality of the software experience itself (qualitative)?

FWIW, ICS (Android 4.0) is a big step in the right direction compared to earlier versions, especially when it comes to making the most of the hardware underneath.

<comment><USER17> Why do consumers care that their phone has quad core gpus or whatever when Apple tells them a simple story about how the device is supposed to fit into and improve their lives? Technology is just a means to an end.

<comment><USER18> Because I don't really listen to _Apple_ as much as to my own experience. Well to be fair I have used an iPhone (3S) only for a couple of hours and have been living with an Android phone (HTC Desire S) for 8 months now. May be an iPhone would have made me happier, but to think of it objectively I don't see much difference in utility and ease. I would even make a hypothesis that the extra happiness is largely because of sociological factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really don't care for its physical appearance but some of its features now seem basically obvious. The "screen stays on while you look at it" or "eye tracking" seem great.</comment>


Ask HN: (CA) Health insurance for a few man startup? - <AUTHOR>

What's a good health insurance plan/company to go through for a tiny startup? Assume quality coverage for health, dental, and vision and some spouses. <comment><USER2> Talk to a broker. I've always used <http://www.pacifichealthalliance.com/contact.html> for personal and my previous startup's insurance needs

(I'm not making any affiliate or any profit from the above, I just know he's a good guy who understand tech startups)

</comment><comment><USER3> I purchased insurance through a corporate membership with the American Electronics Association <http://www.aeanet.org/Insurance/InsuranceStart.asp> some time ago. Don't know exactly how it is now. But it was good insurance then, it was easy to get a small company started, and the cost was reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out kaiser permanante.</comment>


How LG Described its Windows 7 Phone to Anandtech - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4045/lgs-optimus-7-samsungs-focus-reviewed-a-tale-of-two-windows-phones/2

<comment><USER2> Favorite part:

"And we're proud of the fact that we don't load Optimus 7 with a lot of "LG apps" _or a fancy animated UI which gets old in a few weeks. :-)_ "

Nice little jab at HTC there.

<comment><USER3> Except HTC Sense is actually usable and the apps HTC ships are useful. Peep, for example, is a great Twitter client for casual users and, unlike TweetDeck, is tightly integrated with People.

<comment><USER4> Usable is a bit debatable: <http://whalesalad.com/blog/incredible-vs-nexus- one/>

With that being said, Peep is fairly awesome. It's one of the best Twitter clients I've ever used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's refreshing to read such sincere and bullshit-free description from a manufacturer.

<comment><USER6> If this were how everyone communicated, there'd be no wikileaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I picked up the LG Optimus 7 phone last week and really am impressed with it. The screen is just the right size - I _almost_ feel it is too big but it sits comfortably in the hand. A 4" screen would be too much.

The LG apps they added actually do feel useful - I haven't tried the voice-to- SMS thing yet but the "play-to" app is great fun. The scansearch feels like it could be useful when travelling but so far I haven't had any need for it.

Oh, and the voice quality is better than any phone I've had before including the BlackBerry Bold and Storm. (oh, and it is superior in everyway to my old LG Chocolate - though that isn't saying much.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Props for not letting Microsoft write the letter accompanying the phone. Candor will bring you a long way.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are they making a similar phone for Android? I'd be interested in seeing that.

<comment><USER10> I think the LG Optimus One and LG Optimus T are similar hardware. The price of the Optimus One is pretty attractive, about 200 CAD without contract.

Edit: oops, I guess they are fairly different. The 7 has a larger screen, and faster CPU, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome.</comment>


Homeland Security Detains Stockton Mayor, Forces Him to Hand Over His Passwords - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151002/15583732429/homeland-security-detains-stockton-mayor-forces-him-to-hand-over-his-passwords.shtml <comment><USER2> I hope this starts happening to more, even "higher-level" politicians and government officials. Only then, when they experience it firsthand, will they realize just how crazy they've allowed things to become. Then -- maybe -- we'll start to see changes being made.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Agents told him that it was "routine and not unusual" to be forced to hand over your laptop and phone.</comment>


Samsung Petitions Supreme Court of U.S. to review patent case re: Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/12/apple-v-samsung-petition-for-supreme.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is going to be interesting to watch.

In my entirely not-a-lawyer opinion, this could be a great opportunity for the court to clean up some of the problems with our current patent system.

Or they could deny cert and do nothing for a variety of reasons. Either way will be fun to watch play out.</comment>


Inside a global cybercrime ring - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100324/wr_nm/us_technology_scareware

<comment><USER2> _When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics_

What planet is this guy from? I understood it was wrong to lie, cheat and steal when I was 5. If someone had explained to me what malware in 2010 looked like and how people made money from it, I would have understood that was wrong.

I'd be a lot more understanding of an explanation like "I couldn't find legitimate work", but the idea that 20 is too young to understand or care about ethics is absurd.

</comment><comment><USER3> Glad to be running a Linux desktop in relation to this ... though it sucks in a number of other ways.

</comment><comment><USER4> " estimates that a hacker who gets 1 to 2 percent of users of infected machines to purchase the software can pull in over $5 million a year in commissions."

Why am I not using my computer security knowledge to do this? haha</comment>


Having rescued recorded music, Spotify may upend the industry again - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/business/21734488-its-clout-streaming-could-allow-it-sign-new-artists-itself-challenging-major-record <comment><USER2> I wouldn't say Spotify "rescued" recorded music. Rather, they merely softened the blow iTunes dealt the music industry years prior.

If their distribution service is any indication, a Spotify record label would likely churn out focus-grouped mass-audience sonic piddle at razor-thin margins, in exchange for business favors from the Big Four and lucrative partnership deals with overpriced vodka brands. This won't result in an evolved or improved music industry, just a music industry with a new top dog leading the pack, who will be adopting the same tired, lowest-common- denominator approach as their predecessors.

These guys at Spotify aren't exactly the most creative entertainment executives to walk the Earth. For how long they've been around, they've not gotten a whole lot accomplished. They've done a poor job at filling out their catalog and have not done nearly enough outreach to the independent labels. They should be able to take on TicketMaster in the live concerts game at this point. Yet, their biggest tech-brag to date is being able to generate somewhat-compatible playlists for users of non-adventurous tastes, on the most fundamental and superficial musical data points. ("Oh, you like this specific sub-genre of electronic music? Here's more music that has been described as existing within that same sub-genre category.")

Given the data Spotify is exposed to, they should easily be able to give me better recommendations than my local record store clerk. But they can't. Of course, Apple's services does not fare any better, but at least Apple has an excuse: they also make computers and phones. Apple only uses the music industry as leverage for acquiring users into their ecosystem.

Spotify, on the other hand, only does music distribution. And they do a horrible job at it, cheapening the art in the process, and severely limiting the control the user has over their music. If we want music to ever recover from the shit-tastic way the Napster issue was handled, we should hope that Spotify's grubby paws stay far away from the music production space.</comment>


Show HN: BetaPage: Browse, discover, hunt startups and new ideas - <AUTHOR> http://betapage.co/ <comment><USER2> Soon going to submit my startup. Good luck!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Right now we are looking for your feedback

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is this different from Product Hunt?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the delay reply.

Betapage is more useful for new startup you can launch your startup in private and public beta stage and can get the subscriptions of early adapters and beta tester while products in beta stage do not get good attraction of audience on product hunt, they usually collapses there.

We are soon launching the platform of Idea hunt which will be totally different and would be more interactive than the same platform of producthunt it would be more like an idea validation platform.Users will be able to get expert advice about their idea even before launching it.

<comment><USER4> Hi! So how does this differ from Idea Hunt [http://ideahunt.io](http://ideahunt.io)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now I can not disclose. But it is very different from ideahunt.io</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where WhatsApp Went Wrong: EFF's Four Biggest Security Concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/where-whatsapp-went-wrong-effs-four-biggest-security-concerns <comment><USER2> Interesting read... and nice to see a more moderate tone in an EFF post, opposed to some of the more "the sky is falling" types of posts in the past.

My personal hope is that WebRTC becomes much more usable, and with something like keybase.io can be used to send/receive encrypted messages with much less of a centralized repo.</comment>