Al-Maʿarri - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%CA%BFarri <comment><USER3> This person was one of the most knowledgeable ever in arabic. He was blind, and one time he was invited to a wedding. Being blind, he stumbled and fell on a person in the ceremony. The person then proclaimed: Who is this dog?!

Al-Ma'arri famously replied: The dog is the one who does not know 70 different words for "dog".

And that, my friends, is the challenge or insult of al-ma'arri, as it's widely known in arabic, ma'arra al-ma'arri.

As-Suyuti, the incredible polymath, wanted to disassociate from this insult, and collected all the names he knew of "dog", in rhyme, and called it "the disassociation from the insult of al-ma'arri", or in arabic, tabarri min ma'arra al-ma'arri.

Here's a recitation of it on yt: [https://youtu.be/wbS6es1lOxU](https://youtu.be/wbS6es1lOxU)

I believe he only collected something like 65, though.

An academic recently did a doctorate (I believe) and collected all the words he could find for "dog", having access to vastly more literature from both the aravian west and east.

I believe he got 67.

<comment><USER4> I must be missing something, but isn't that a petty, arbitrary, and stupid "challenge"? Of course the person at the wedding should not have called the blind man a dog, but the response just lowers Al-Ma'arri to the same level. It would be one thing if he said, "The dog is the one who calls another man a dog" (which would have the added benefit of being a funny self-deprecating paradox). Instead, he gloats about trivia? I didn't realize they had fedoras in 10th century Arabia.

<comment><USER5> what you're missing is that this an apocryphal story that dates back so far that it's now part of the vernacular of a culture. think about that - <USER2> and wit and intellectual bravado were completely different 1000 years ago, let alone how different they might be today in arab culture vs western culture. furthermore note that "fedora wearers" today are lampooned because they speak/behave anachronistically. what you're doing is akin to making fun of someone wearing a fedora during the time when fedoras were actually worn!

<comment><USER6> And furthermore, the people being called "fedoras" are wearing _trilbys_.

Humphrey Bogart wore a fedora.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To contrast with Al-Ma'arri, there was a rather mysterious group of Iraqi polymath "free-thinkers" (Ikhwan us-Safa) [0] that wrote an encyclopedia to steer Muslims on to what they thought was the Islamic way of philosophy and life [1].

The encyclopedia is rather very central to Ismaili sect of Shi'a Islam, and has refreshingly liberal and unorthodox views esposuing Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Mysticism, Hermeticism, and Eclecticism. I think, Avicenna (father of Modern Medicine) was a follower of the philosophy embed in these books.

The quote I like the most (also highlighted in the Wikipedia article):

> _"...to shun no science, scorn any book, or to cling fanatically to no > single creed. For [their] own creed encompasses all the others and > comprehends all the sciences generally. This creed is the consideration of > all existing things, both sensible and intelligible, from beginning to end, > whether hidden or overt, manifest or obscure... in so far as they all derive > from a single principle, a single cause, a single world, and a single > Soul."_

For the curious, I highly recommend this concise treatment of the gist of what's a 52 (some claim 53) book encyclopedia on Math, Science, Philosophy, and Theology: [https://www.al-islam.org/history-muslim-philosophy- volume-1-...](https://www.al-islam.org/history-muslim-philosophy- volume-1-book-3/chapter-15-ikhwan-al-safa)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Purity)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_of_Purity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_of_Purity)

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy became a bit of a folk hero in certain Internet circles, along with the elusive Benatar.

For a fun take on him see [https://existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Al- Ma%27arri](https://existentialcomics.com/philosopher/Al-Ma%27arri)

<comment><USER9> Tell me more? Benatar lectured me at uni. Great teacher.

<comment><USER8> He's simply know for his views on antinatalism, and for being somewhat shrouded in mystery. For a while, you couldn't even find a picture of his face or even an audio clip. Search results only yielded Peter Singer's warm smile for some reason.

He then became a meme shorthand for a very pessimistic thinker. Antinatalism itself has recently grow more popular, and even been represented in some popular media.

<comment><USER9> Huh. Well, he was mostly known in my ethics class for never forgetting a students name or birthday. Passed him in the street 5 years after graduating and he said, "happy birthday for last week!". I was speechless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Encapsulating his view on organized religion, he once stated: "The > inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no > religion, and those with religion, but no brains."

Sounds like he'd fit in with your average Reddit r/atheism internet edgelord.

<comment><USER11> Sure, but it's great that he could say that sort of thing publicly and not be executed. That wouldn't have been true in the Christian world at the time or a lot of the Muslim world today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've never heard of this guy, but his views overlap with many of my own. It's heartening to see that he was able to make something of himself despite the unpopular perspectives he held. In particular, I feel that antinatalism is a hard thing to express to others without it coming across as a personal affront to all who decide to bring children into the world.

<comment><USER13> It must be a really awful existence to view the world with such pessimism.

<comment><USER14> His pessimism caused by his inability to view the world.

<comment><USER12> I think the world is beautiful. I love nature and everything in it. What I don't think is beautiful is the destruction of this world by overpopulation and selfishness.

Edit: >Overpopulation is a meme. Many first-world countries today are literally seeking to import more immigrants because of under-population.

Their being a need for more humans to meet human ends is not surprising, but it certainly doesn't make an argument for the necessity of more humans from any ecological perspective.

> Besides, humans are natural too. It's not like we're built in factories and > have smokestacks on our heads. We ARE part of that world which you think is > beautiful, and to end human reproduction would be to partly destroy this > world.

This logic doesn't compute for me. Is your perspective that, by definition, anything humans do is natural? If so, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on the definition of "natural". I don't think that packing the Earth to the gills with humans at the expense of other species survival is in any way a positive development.

<comment><USER15> Heads up - it's considered poor form to edit your previous reply like this rather than responding directly to comment below.

That said, are you claiming that life only has value if there exists some "ecological necessity" for it? Because I just don't see enough consistency in any definition of "ecological necessity" to make it a meaningful term. Ecology has shifted dramatically throughout earth's history - any species you could have called "ecological necessary" in the jurassic era doesn't seem so necessary in the long-run judging by the multitude of life that continued after extinction events.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. Strangely the reply button was missing when I went to reply to the other comment.

I'm claiming that humanity should not be held so supremely important that in the name of blind procreation we should be displacing and bringing to extinction other forms of life and potentially bringing the habitability of the planet for all life into question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> More in-depth story on Al-Qaeda's attempt to erase Al-Ma'arri's legacy: [https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/al- qaeda%E2%80%99s-wa...](https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/al- qaeda%E2%80%99s-war-against-medieval-syrian-poet)

</comment><comment><USER17> I thought something was on my screen, until I scrolled. Never seen ʿ before.

<comment><USER18> Seems to be some kind of glottal stop. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true; they are all fabrications. Men lived comfortably till they came and spoiled life. The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce." -this guy

</comment><comment><USER20> Fascinating, I never heard of him. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.</comment>


Apple just hit $500/share - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL

<comment><USER2> ipad 3 is not launched yet, want to see the frenzy when it does

<comment><USER3> Given historical trends, the stock will probably take a dip when the iPad 3 fails to meet unsubstantiated expectations.</comment></comment>


Cancer patient makes full recovery after being injected with billions of his own immune cells - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scicanc118.xml

<comment><USER3> This is such exciting news. I studied the state of metastatic melanoma treatment intently for a while, and came to the conclusion that there just wasn't much other there for these people.

Now that may have changed. I don't normally get out of my chair and run to tell my friends what's happened, but this is one of those times.

</comment><comment><USER4> Alligators' immune system is pretty great as well; they're fairly resistant to HIV due to their immune system that keeps them safe in swamps, they've got lots of anti-bacterials and anti-fungals.

I wonder how many diseases wouldn't exist if we had an immune system 10x stronger.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't we just have diseases that are 10x stronger too? :)

<comment> daniel-cussen Not automatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That is pretty damn cool. Wish it had been an option in 1990 when my dad died.

</comment><comment><USER7> Error with processing of xml: java.lang.Exception: Failed to process [/ElectronicTelegraph/ETJhtml/ETXml/content/earth/2008/06/18/scicanc118.xml] with [/ElectronicTelegraph/ETJhtml/ETXsl/portal/earthbyline.xsl] - <USER2> "file:///ElectronicTelegraph/ETJhtml/ETXsl/portal/earthbyline.xsl" not found.

</comment><comment><USER8> Correlation does not imply causation. ("cum hoc ergo propter hoc") I hope this becomes a treatment for folks with cancer, but until it is well studied, we can't jump to conclusions.

<comment><USER9> The theory behind this is fairly well demostrated in animal models so I would be more confident in this than in some other novel treatments.

On the other hand, "The patient was one of nine with metastatic melanoma, that is skin cancer that has spread, who were being treated in a recently completed clinical trial to test bigger and bigger doses of their own white blood cells." Nine patients and yet we are only hearing about one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If/when this treatment becomes proven -- will those in need be able to get it?

</comment><comment><USER11> The "extend human life expectancy a few years" hack

</comment><comment><USER12> All cancer diseses will be successfully cured within the next 30 years because of the development of genetic technology</comment>


Adult Tumblr blogs now removed from every form of search possible - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/adult-tumblr-blogs-now-removed-from-every-form-of-search-possible-7000018295/

<comment><USER2> First you ghettoize the content, then you eliminate it.</comment>


MetaQuery, A declarative responsive breakpoint syntax. Defined in  [HTML, CSS] - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/benschwarz/metaquery

<comment><USER2> I've read the readme and tried both demos, but I still have absolutely no idea what this does.

<comment><USER3> The basic gist from what I can tell is that it's a way of invoking styles, scripts and images that are screen size dependant in a way that reduces the amount of work required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People call this a breakpoint?

Because, we're already using that term for actual breakpoints.</comment>


Amazon's Jungle Logic - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/opinion/amazons-jungle-logic.html

<comment><USER2> This conversation looks an aweful lot like the anti-Walmart and anti-Starbucks movements. When a business starts to become massively successful such that they start to kill small business - people start worrying about 'the community'.

Change is hard. No doubt this is just the beginning. Amazon is going to get a lot bigger. It is not too hard to see anti-trust charges in the not too distent future.

Food for thought: people like to talk about what Facebook's database is worth but Amazon has my online purchase history going back 10+ years. I know which data I would rather own.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like amazon, but if they pull another dick move I will stop buying from them. They already have a bad rep for the treatment of their warehouse workers: <http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/>

All indications are that this company is doing great in the short and long term. There is no need for them to get greedy and mean.</comment>


Thoughts on Voice Interfaces - <AUTHOR> https://www.ianbicking.org/blog/2020/08/thoughts-on-voice-interfaces.html <comment><USER2> > Many systems use a "wakeword" or "keyword spotting" to start the > interaction. What if we used keyword spotting to determine the end as well? > "Please" might be a good choice. It's like the Enter key.

This would solve so many problems. Sometimes I like to think a bit about what level to set the lights at, but by that time the machine thinks I'm done with my request.

We need richer interaction models, and this is an area where it'd be nice if we could focus on programmers first to find the appropriate mechanisms.

I think modal systems that set contexts would also be amazing.

"Robot, let's adjust the lights"

Which could set the system into dealing only with lighting-related requests.

<comment><USER3> We took a small stab at this at Alexa a few years ago with Follow-up Mode (default off, you have to enable it in the settings since that continued listening should be up to the customer) that allows you to keep interacting with Alexa for "follow-up" utterances to know when you're done with the conversation, but it's not quite the same as just allowing for a single run on utterance or set of commands in quick succession, just turn taking without the need for a wakeword for the next interaction. Alexa determines you're done with some set keywords like "thank you" and stops listening, as well as using ML to understand when you're not talking to her anymore.

<comment><USER2> That's really cool!

Do you find that different types of users interact with the product differently? Children, engineers, laypeople...?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A little offtopic, but am I the only person that is driven absolutely batty by stuff like google maps talking over conversations out of nowhere and without warning (usually telling me about something of no value)?

I really wish these text-to-speech interfaces would begin notivation with a unobtrusive ding, wait a moment so you can stop talking... or even better, listen and slightly delay their notice so they're not talking over you if at all possible.

<comment><USER5> Yes, especially when listening to a podcast in the car.

"And so now begins the most interesting twi--"

"Get ready to make a left turn up ahead"

"\--and it was all because--"

"Left turn in 100 meters"

"\--but what really--"

"Turn left"

"\--and that would change things forever."

<comment><USER6> Not so with CarPlay. I've noticed that while using the Podcasts app and Apple Maps with CarPlay, it pauses the podcast while the maps app is speaking and then resumes it.

<comment><USER7> I think it depends on the specific app. Does what you're saying in Pocketcasts, but the Economist app does what parent is saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Many systems use a "wakeword" or "keyword spotting" to start the > interaction. What if we used keyword spotting to determine the end as well? > "Please" might be a good choice. It's like the Enter key.

I hate saying "Alexa, dismiss" for Reminder notifications rather than accepting the natural conversational "OK", "Thanks", "Got it", or "OK, thanks, I got it"...

Polite language sometimes conveys information: "please" signals an expectation of action, "thank you" can act as an acknowledgement or mark the end of a conversation, etc.

<comment><USER9>
      Me: Alexa, text my spouse please
      Alexa: What would you like to say?
      Me: Thank you for reminding me to pack my lunch, the cafeteria options were terrible today!
      Alexa: what would you like to say?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Discovery is IMO the biggest reason why voice interfaces will never take off.

Mapping the space of possible solutions is delegated to your brain. You are responsible for remembering what's possible, what you can do, and what you should say to make that happen. The majority of the time you will fail, because you forgot what the magic spell actually was.

Visual interface has an unobtrusive way of showing you what you can do. More importantly - it can show you multliple options at once. Voice feedback can only tell you one thing at a time and very slowly.

Voice assistants are called that for a reason - core assumption is that you share your intent, and assistant is smart enough to make that happen.

But that does not work with people either! Nobody can read your mind (yet) - that is why project requirements and management exists. I would love to tell my team one sentence of what I want done, but I have to review that at some point.

I am not using voice assistant to do human things badly. I want it to do computer things well.

<comment><USER11> Looks like a good article. I'll look more closely in a bit.

Re. your comment about discovery, I use an old version of a voice recognition software (dragon). From the help:

"Say "What Can I Say?" to see a list of sample commands you can say in the current application you are using"

So not a problem, at least in voice transcription software.

From the article criticising recognition loss in brevity, which is very true:

> "Paste" is almost never detected correctly.

Yup, so dragon simply expands the phrase to "paste that". It uses such redundancy to fix the problem, and because words are cheap (if you have no voice disability) this IME works well.

I have to say, having used dragon a long time now, I don't see much value in voice command interfaces primarily but it totally shines in plain old text transcription.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a lot of really nicely summarized points here. I think it's a good "makes you think about things" bit to read if you're going to work in this space.

<comment><USER13> It's a really interesting writing style.

\- Feels more like an outline than an article or blog post

\- Covers all the essential points

\- Wastes no space on superfluous language

\- I think I like it

<comment><USER14> This is just the evolution of thought process.

This is bullet list phase which essentially just gathering data. Next phase should be to digest this data to reveal patterns, identify best practices and that article would be more interesting - worthy of a good essay. Next phase would be to synthesize new facts, bring new perspective and fix old issues. That article would be Worthy of a research paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I fed the beginning of this post into GPT-3 and it came up with these additional thoughts. I'm extremely interested in how voice interfaces can be improved with a language model like this.

Unedited GPT-3 output: """ I think this problem is especially bad when you have to use a specific vocabulary, and when you have to speak in a specific order. It's not just the laggy UI, it's the idea that your vocabulary and phrasing is not flexible. The laggy UI is an artifact of that lack of flexibility. I don't think it's hard to understand how frustrating that can be. A lot of people in the voice community are concerned with "flow". This is the idea that the conversation should just flow, that we shouldn't have to interrupt it to do work. Flow can be achieved in other interfaces by turning off prompts, and putting in defaults. But it's hard to do in voice. First, if you have to wait too long, then you are in trouble. Second, you can't do defaults, because the only way to get the answer is to wait for the user to speak. I think that is true. But there are ways to achieve a kind of flow, by turning off prompts and being very responsive. We don't have to show you all the information on the screen at once. We can use highlights to let you know the computer is paying attention, or make use of non-visual modalities to let you know something happened. If we show you something on the screen, it's because we are trying to convey something important, and you'll be able to act on it, but we can't expect you to act on everything. Even with this in mind, flow is a design principle, not a technical requirement. I don't think we should design systems that are trying to achieve flow, because it's very hard to do. I do think we should design systems that are responsive and forgiving. Voice systems have a unique capability: they can communicate with you without being able to see you. This is the key to being able to make an AI feel more like a person. If I could have a computer read my mind, that would be much more powerful than if it just read my words. This is the reason that voice is so compelling, and why it's so interesting to implement it. Flow is a principle of interaction design, and it's about putting in a lot of work to make a system seem less work. Voice does not make interaction feel less work. In fact, voice can be the opposite. It is work. Voice requires us to work harder, and because it is so personal, we feel that more. Voice is a more intimate interface. You are using your voice to speak to a computer. There is a large class of problems which are better solved with a screen. I believe this to be """

<comment><USER16> How has nobody connected GPT-3 up to a voice interface yet? It wouldn't reveal anything new but it I think the level of conversation GPT-3 is capable of combined with actually talking to an AI would be fairly mind blowing.

<comment><USER17> How do you get access to GPT-3? I applied to the beta with a world-changing idea and didn't even get a reply.

<comment><USER18> AIDungeon ([https://play.aidungeon.io/](https://play.aidungeon.io/)) in "custom" mode lets you enter any prompt. If you go for the paid version, you can use the higher quality "Dragon" model and tweak some of the parameters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are so many great thoughts in here... Only halfway through but one of the most substantive UI pieces (or any piece) I've seen in a bit. Lots of this is relevant beyond voice, to then widening range of immersive interfaces around us (text bots, dynamic alerts and recommendations, etc.)

One thing on my mind with voice is that humans generate useful shorthand very dynamically. It would be great if I could conversationally set up more context with Alexa about tasks I do often or music I like, and have that improve efficiency and accuracy when I repeat. Instead, I experience the opposite: memorized commands often stop working because the outside world has changed; for example a song I like getting shadowed by a crappy (but newer) cover.

</comment><comment><USER20> How about a high-bandwidth vocal signal language in place of natural language? Here is an example: [https://youtu.be/sG3PWet8fDk?t=4545](https://youtu.be/sG3PWet8fDk?t=4545)

<comment><USER21> I haven't seen that video before, I'm excited to watch it in its entirety.

I've always felt a bit disappointed in myself that I haven't created the kind of optimized experience that Engelbart put forward – like maybe I'm not just being inefficient, but leaving room to overengage with my own distraction.

OTOH, there are limits to our own ability to be engaged and efficient. I am a good typist, which means I can write faster than my own thoughts... do I need to type faster? I could switch to Dvorak, but I don't think that's the limiting factor. Some of the user interfaces Engelbart advocated for feel like the Dvorak of interfaces, optimizing for something that is already past human ability. Looking at some of the interfaces in the Mother Of All Demos, it feels like they would require years of living in the tool to make it worth it, to make it natural and comprehensible and focusing instead of distracting. (I haven't done it, so I might be wrong!)

A high-bandwidth vocal signal feels similar, optimizing past our mental speed, and single-system-focused. At least that's my take on it.

<comment><USER20> > like maybe I'm not just being inefficient, but leaving room to overengage > with my own distraction

I feel that way when I'm writing text and code.

But when doing visual design, or playing with a demoscene setup, I tend to feel limited by the number of variables I can simultaneously control. I have tried using MIDI nobs and sliders, but the bottleneck is how many fingers I have, rather than the number of input devices in front of me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One thing that is not mentioned is that voice is horrible for internationalization. One issue with voice is that the language of the UI is far more deeply entangled with the language of the content.

<comment><USER23> And it's definitely not future-proofed. Languages can change a lot in decades, from pronunciation to vocabulary to grammar.

People think it's crazy that we still have people editing 50 year old COBOL programs today. Imagine how annoying it'd be to have to use a 50 year old computer that hasn't had "accent updates" and needing to emulate the speech patterns of your grandparents to be recognized.

<comment><USER24> Or spatially-proofed: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu- DDlINs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs) "Please? Pathetic."

(Autocorrected SMS was unpopular in my country when it was first introduced, because it corrected to german german spellings, and ever since the mid- twentieth, we've been proud of regional orthographies. I imagine francophones who use "SMS language" also have to turn off autocorrect.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Some people think it is important that we not abuse assistants. They believe > abuse will make us cold or abusive to each other. I do not agree.

And then he provides four bullet points explaining exactly why we should not abuse assistants...

<comment><USER26> He says we have the opposite problem. People feel judged by their talking computers and feel sorry for tools. He says we should make systems we don't anthropomorphize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Now, my sample size is small, but I've noticed that people react to voice interfaces with what I can only think to call "dumb foreigner syndrome" where they actively slow down and simplify their speech as if they were talking to someone that barely understood the language. I think this comes from familiarity with _bad_ voice interfaces, but maybe we should indulge this expectation of basic but explicit commands, rather than rich but imprecise language.

Dare I say it, but maybe we should look to the likes of Zork for inspiration for voice input.

<comment><USER28> > Dare I say it, but maybe we should look to the likes of Zork for inspiration > for voice input.

On that note, there's nothing intrinsic here, really, to why these need to be _voice_ interfaces. Based on watching the video[1] and my experience using voice interfaces, if my hands are already on the keyboard, I'd wager I can type some of these things as quickly as if I'd spoken them and waited for the agent to keep up (even assuming they can).

I'm also surprised that the Awesomebar-/Sublime Text-/VSCode-style command palette hasn't by now become a ubiquitous feature of user interfaces. I'm _really_ surprised they haven't replaced for many use cases the combo of Bash running in a terminal emulator, given how well-known a problem it is to have to remember the args to infrequently used commands. And I'd rather type "it" (as in in _delete it_ ) than to ever type "$_" even once—let alone ask someone with a straight face to remember that this is the way to do things when you're talking to the computer.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqKsfj8WRE)

<comment><USER27> My comment about Zork comes from Don Gentner and Jakob Nielson's "The Anti-Mac Interface", which mentioned a simple search bar that could take more-or-less natural language instructions such as "make a new document called outlines" and the computer would make a new word processor document with that file name and maybe automatically title it for you. It sounds like it may be a similar thing to your command palette, or maybe something like the Unity HUD or those Rofi launchers I keep seeing i3 users showing off.

Come to think of it, I usually type into my Google Assistant app on my phone, rather than talk to them with voice, so there's no need to make these voice exclusive.

<comment><USER28> See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_\(Firefox\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This comment probably doesn't add to the conversation, so I apologise in advance.

We make extensive use of Sonos and Amazon Echo products in our household and have two young children (3 and 5) the older one doesn't like issuing instructions for the Echo devices because he pauses occasionally and it somewhat aggressively "SORRY, I CAN'T HELP RIGHT NOW".

A bigger problem we've noticed is that things "drift". We've got muscle memory of asking "Alexa, play classical lullabies" or "Echo, play the skeleton dance song". Occasionally though these commands will be "hijacked" by some new content in Spotify or somewhere else.

"Alexa, play music for children" used to play nice kids songs, now it plays some murder-metal album called (one assumes ironically) "music for children", prior to that match, it seems like it was a search, or a playlist?

And there seems to be no way to deny-list music like this. It's driving us off of Spotify in our household, "skeleton dance" plays either screaming metal artists or the cutesey kids song with about 50% accuracy, it seems.

FWIW I had the same problem with Amazon FreeTime where for 5 bucks a month you get access to 10,000 kids shows and games, which is about 9950 more than I had time to vet to check if they were appropriate for my kids.

Please, hold your criticism if you want to berate me for raising kids in a household with voice assistants and tablets, I am trying to balance exposing them to useful technology without exposing them to the underworld of utter shite that is to be found beneath those interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER30> So many great points. I'm very happy to hear that someone is thinking of the UX. I only wished they worked on Siri.

The only addition I can think of is during the wake word section. I'd like to remove the wake word requirement if I'm in the middle of an interaction.

For example, sending a text on Siri.

"Hey Siri text my wife. Tell her I'm on my way"

Siri shows me the text and then I have to again say "Hey Siri send it" when just "Send it" should do.

<comment> jagged-chisel Trying your example starts an interaction with Siri for me. Siri verifies the message content, asks if I'm ready to send it, and listens for my reply.

Using AirPods Pro is supposed to allow somewhat reduced vocal utterances to Siri, but I haven't spent time learning that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> A few of my own thoughts from when I was working on this full-time:

"Dialogue designers replace graphic designers when creating voice interfaces"

[http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/script-designers- repl...](http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/script-designers-replace- graphic-designers-when-creating-voice-interfaces)

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm surprised neither Google nor Apple have taken voice reading of webpages out of the accessibility ghetto and made them full fledged interfaces yet. Why can't I walk the dog and say "hey dingus, read Hacker News" and get a decent experience without having to look at my phone or put it in a voice UI only mode.

</comment><comment><USER33> Great blogpost, thanks for sharing. I'm hoping the next 5 years will lead to enough improvement that accuracy levels will get high enough that users will feel more comfortable using voice interfaces. We'll see. It does seem to me like as long as it can only be used for commands it will never take off. But being able to do conversations consistently is a very hard problem.

</comment><comment><USER34> Making voice input like talking to a person, is like trying to make a GUI similar to an oven interface.

Don't try to use full sentences to command a computer. People are happy to learn a few words if accuracy increases to >99% and it is more convenient.

Also, incorporate humming in tones.

</comment><comment><USER35> The most important point Firefox people forget: it is better to be a good browser than bad Alexa.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think, all this AI is overkill.

If those things would be more active they would work much better.</comment>


Humble Bundle: Web design and development ebooks - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/web-design-development-books <comment><USER2> Would this be worth it? Should I buy it?

<comment><USER3> I was wondering the same thing myself. I know it's unscientific / biased, but I usually take a quick peak at the Amazon reviews. Here's the summary, in case it helps anyone else:

\- Programming Voice Interfaces = no reviews

\- Mobile App Development with Ionic = 3.5 stars (3 reviews)

\- JSON at Work = no reviews

\- Refactoring JavaScript = 5 stars (2 reviews)

\- CSS Refactoring = 4 stars (4 reviews)

\- Interactive Data Visualization for the Web = 5 stars (16 reviews)

\- Learning React Native = 5 stars (2 reviews)

\- Learning HTTP/2 = 4.5 stars (7 reviews)

\- SVG Animations = 4.5 stars (8 reviews)

\- Working with Static Sites = no reviews

\- React Native Cookbook = no reviews

\- CSS: The Definitive Guide = 5 stars (13 reviews)

\- Using SVG with CSS3 and HTML5 = 5 stars (1 review)

\- Learning React = 4 stars (22 reviews)

\- High Performance Images = 5 stars (1 review)

The sample size of reviews for most of the books is a little limited, but I'm planning on picking up the bundle at the $15 level anyway -- CSS: The Definitive Guide is well-reviewed (and expensive by itself).

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your research!

Yes, I understand it's totally unscientific to ask that question on random internet forum but I'm trying to control my I'm impulsiveness and make more rational buying decisions.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What angle is your laptop screen open to? - <AUTHOR>

90°? 170°? Some function based on desk height? An informal survey (looking around the office) shows preferences vary wildly - would any angle be less debilitating than the others? <comment><USER2> 30° - the screen has failed and there is a back-up one plugged in the back.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your cooking strategy for a quick healthy meal? - <AUTHOR>
 I wanted to know what are some tips, tricks or recipes fellow hackers are employing to keep themselves fed and also managing a full time job. <comment><USER2> I'm not a chef by any means but I'm a busy person who eats (aren't we all!). I don't like to limit my choices to 'quick healthy meals' as some deliciously healthy meals take a long time to prepare and cook, and I enjoy unhealthy meals too.

I cook for my family, so after work I rush home to prepare and cook, often with two children hanging off of me. What I've found keeps cooking as quick as it can be:

\- Be prepared, have all of the right ingredients, and make sure everything is fresh

\- Have all of your utensils within reach, have a well setup kitchen (like your workspace)

\- Have good quality equipment - the right pan can save you heaps of time, as can a good oven

\- Think about what you're eating in advance, having a meal plan gets you in a good place mentally

\- If you're going to be busy, think about preparing the night before, of better yet, cooking something like pasta the night before and re-heating

I noticed that it was increasingly difficult to think about what to eat, shop, and cook while being healthy. That's why I created [https://noshh.com.au](https://noshh.com.au) \- automated meal plans and shopping. It's focused on Australians - but there's similar services in the US and UK (and i imagine other regions) too!

</comment><comment><USER3> its about ratios. 25% clean protean like salmon, 25% slow burn carb like brown rice, 50% veg like avocado, tomato, bok choy, or maybe broccoli steamed. The sauce is garlic, lite soy, mirin and a little sesame oil

<comment><USER4> yummy!! :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Post Bitcoin transactions in one page of JS code  - <AUTHOR> http://dev.blockcypher.com/samples/create-tx.html

<comment><USER2> The full API documentation can be found there:

[http://dev.blockcypher.com/](http://dev.blockcypher.com/)

Includes websockets and webhooks to get notified on a variety of blockchain events.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using a remote server to build the transaction and then signing it locally seems pretty cumbersome.

<comment><USER2> It's much simpler than it sounds, only 7 lines of code in the sample posted. The point is that most people don't want to share their private key or their users' private keys, justifiably so.

The alternative is building the full binary transaction on your end, which involves selecting inputs, generating scripts, worrying about fees, etc. Implementing that is a week's project. Using an API is 5 min.

<comment><USER3> _The alternative is building the full binary transaction on your end, which involves selecting inputs, generating scripts, worrying about fees, etc. Implementing that is a week 's project._

Hasn't BitCore already done that?

<comment><USER2> They have. But only if you're on node.js and you need to run bitcoind yourself. Which means maintaining it, backups, restart scripts, etc. Building the transaction using BitCore isn't really simpler either (see the sample [https://github.com/bitpay/bitcore/blob/master/examples/Creat...](https://github.com/bitpay/bitcore/blob/master/examples/CreateAndSignTx- PayToPubkeyHash.js)).

So using BlockCypher's API to do that is much more portable (you have ECDSA signature libs in most PLs) and avoids all the hassles of additional infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> so you guys are giving free coins? cool! ;) nice api!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yes, for test =). At the BoostVC Hackathon yesterday, the team that won, CoinViz, used one of our APIs to do a visual representation of the blockchain: 110k requests in 5hrs and our infrastructure was still bored.</comment></comment>


Can the Kindle help me focus? - <AUTHOR> http://13.7billionyearslater.net/2010/09/28/can-the-kindle-help-me-focus/

<comment><USER2> 2-3 years ago I bought a Sony Reader. This year I bought an iPad. I've been thinking somewhat about this issue as well.

I really like(d) my Sony Reader for the reading experience. Reading, at least for me, is a very relaxing endeavour. I typically use it simply for reading fiction, almost entirely sci-fi. It's a good device but e-ink really hadn't progressed since then (in terms of contrast, refresh rate and price) until the new generation Kindles in the last few months.

This year I got the iPad and it's much closer to the notebook end of the spectrum. That also means it's much more of a distraction.

It very much doesn't relax me like my Reader. For one it's easy to get distracted into reading HN, my RSS feeds, email, Twitter or simply playing Angry Birds or Bejeweled.

It may even be due to it having an active display. This technically tires the eyes but it seems to also have a stimulative value, at least to me.

So I'm going to buy one of the $139 Kindles. I can then read my books on it or the iPad.

To answer your question: at least from my perspective, I think you'll find it a less distracted experience.</comment>


The Gang of Four book is wrong about delegation (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://saturnflyer.com/blog/jim/2012/07/06/the-gang-of-four-is-wrong-and-you-dont-understand-delegation/ <comment><USER2> I'd hate to be the Gang of Four, especially since they wrote their book 20 years ago. Since then numerous people (including myself) have discussed how to evolve some of their ideas given today's landscape.

My position is many ideas are still valid in their book, but they are less novel today and are often implemented with simpler tools. I'm sure the Gang would concur.

Other ideas may be less valid over time and I'd be surprised if the team didn't grow in their perspective.

<comment><USER3> I forget who said it, but I ascribe to the notion that most design patterns exist to work around insufficiencies in languages or ecosystems. To that end, a lot of them totally still exist--they've just been reduced in difficulty and ceremony, as you mention. The command pattern, for example, is literally just a closure.

<comment><USER4> You're probably thinking of when Peter Norvig said: "Design patterns are bug reports against your programming language."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > And C++ can't do delegation

Sure it can. The syntax is a little different, though. And there are a few ways to do it. Here's one:

        #include <iostream>
        #include <functional>

        struct Container {
            template <typename Self>
            void announce(Self const & self) const
            {
                std::cout << "these are my things: "
                          << self.things << '\n';
            }
        };

        struct Bucket {
            std::string things;
            std::function <void()> announce;

            template <typename Delegate>
            explicit Bucket(
                Delegate const & delegate,
                std::string const& aThings) :
                    things(aThings),
                    announce([&](){ delegate.announce(*this); } )
            { }
        };

        int main()
        {
            // Container works with anything with a 'things'
            // attribute
            Container container;
            // Bucket takes anything with an announce method
            // that accepts a Bucket-like object
            Bucket bucket(
                container,
                "planes, trains, and automobiles"
            );
            bucket.announce();
            return 0;
        }

</comment><comment><USER6> > If the message is delegated further, all questions about the values of > variables or requests to reply to messages are all inferred to the object > that delegated the message in the first place.

I'm not sure how the author jumps from that quote to:

> When that object delegates to another, then any reference to "self" always > refers to the original message recipient. Always.

The high-order bit is that the _delegating_ object can be interrogated for more information or context (and a reference to that object can be forwarded to further delegates), no? Why does that need to be implemented by re-binding whatever keyword or name an object calls itself to a different object?

<comment><USER7> That is probably because what he and we are talking about here is the technical definition of "delegation".

If you just call a method of another object and then that object perhaps but not necessarily sends some messages back to the original sender, to get further information, that could conceptually be seen as "delegation". But technically that's just normal (bi-directional) message-exchange.

"Delegation" needs to refer to something more technically specific to warrant its existence as a technical concept.

<comment><USER8> For languages which didn't have function-pointers as a first-class construct (like Java), you had to create another way to delegate functions between different objects. A way to encapsulate them, if you like.

It may not seem novel now, but it was not obvious to everyone at that time that this was a possible design-pattern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the example gets bogged down in language features which obscures the conceptual idea.

Hence I think the example would best be illustrated using pseudocode, which would perhaps motivate a meaningful discussion of how language features make certain patterns more or less useful, and perhaps, zooming out, certain designs more or less easy to reason about.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps a better way to explain "delegation" would be to say that it means "borrowing a method from some other object then executing it in the context of the borrower.

In O-O the "context" in particular refers to the "message recipient" available as the value of the pseudo-variable 'this' (or 'self' in Smalltalk).

To delegate = To borrow a method. Delegator = Borrower. Delegate = Lender.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Gang of Four book is terrible. The explanation are very unclear (often because of excessive abstraction, even in the description and discussion).

It's been a long time so my memory is hazy on its particular sins, but I've vowed never to touch it again. I never understood what anyone saw in that book (except that it was one of the first book on the topic of design patterns).

<comment><USER11> I always thought I was too dumb to understand the Gang of Four book. I thought everyone else must be so much smarter than me, because everyone praised this book. I really had trouble getting a clear picture in my head of the ideas, concepts and how it all fits together, due to the, as you say, excessive abstraction.

I guess it was mostly due to my inexperience in software design in general. I haven't tried to read it again since then, but I'm sure by now I'd at least understand some of the words in there :) So I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, but I think even experienced developers could still learn something new.

<comment><USER12> I had the same thing. Fortunately there are other books that explain design patterns in a clearer way, but I still didn't quite see the point at the time. Clearly design patterns are important, and I should master them, right?

But then I switched from Java to Ruby, and half of the design patterns were completely irrelevant. And I had other problems for which I didn't have appropriate design patterns.

I think the Gang of Four book's target audience is far narrower than it's often been interpreted. It's meant for intermediate C++ programmers. People who have already run into a number of these problems that C++ doesn't really handle well, and now here's a book that helps you around those limitations.

I guess it also works well for older Java versions, but it's not universal. Many patterns are completely irrelevant for some languages, because those languages have easier ways to do that. Many languages have other shortcomings that are not handled in that book.

Maybe there's another target audience for that book: language designers. Design your language so nobody needs these patterns. Have built-in constructs that handle this stuff in an easy way for the programmer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I guess that the meaning of the word delegation changed between 1986 and now, definitely in the context of languages that are not prototypal.

I have heard the word delegation as in "this object methid here just returns value somebody else calculated" so many times, that I am pretty confident everybody would be just confused if I started to use different terms.

</comment><comment><USER14> From the article, I understand what delegation _is_ but I don't get why it is useful.

Anyone understand the concept?

<comment><USER12> My interpretation is: it's just prototype inheritance. Delegation is a way to do inheritance. That's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Whole OOP is "wrong". It was "right" up to about early 90ies, given the average application size and hardware. The moment CPU's started scaling with cores and CPU started running hundreds of instructions per memory read, and applications started being bigger than few tens of KB - cornerstones of OOP (dynamic polymorphism, code attached to data, per-object access control) started actively working against developers.

<comment><USER16> It is not "wrong", but it is being "overused". I had been fixing people their broken OOP code for about 10 years (diamond problem, spaghetti code, too much coupling etc.). People seem to abuse it in every way they can. I personally do not like how code is often not separate from the data as well.

That is why i like C. I can have my data structure and just add functions that can operate on those data structures outside of the data structure itself without worrying about coupling code to the data. Extra functions that can operate on the data may as well be inside a dynamically loaded plugin. Not feeling forced to put everything that can operate on a single instance of the data inside the same class. Not feeling forced to create a separate class to add methods that can operate on multiple instances of the data and hardcoding multicore support inside of it.

The new C++ (and Nim) have the notion of concepts which can mostly replace the many ways OOP was being abused. It is similar to type classes in Haskell. I advice you to read Alexander Stepanov's books.

You can have a data structure in a class, add certain concepts that the data structure supports and then create separate functions which can operate on these concepts outside of the class / object.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure I'd agree with initial statement (and by this I literally mean - "I am not sure", its not a figure of speech).

I agree with everything else you said, but the way I see it - when a paradigm cornerstone itself starts getting in the way of code organization, then that's a clear sign that paradigm itself is 'wrong', or more precisely, wrong when applied to this set of problems.

Oooooooh, look at that, I understand now what you meant :-D

Regarding your second paragraph - this is, looking from efficiency standpoint, the best approach. Additional gain is in access control: it becomes flat (ie. module-controlled), rather than having a class hierarchy in between, and then using messy constructs such as interfaces/mixins to achieve both code and type inheritance. Raise hands if you ever ended up in situation where you have to convert from one type to another, while the actual _data_ they carry are precisely the same. Raise hands if you ever had to pollute an interface or a parent class with extra data, because a subclass somewhere contains exact data needed at the other part of the chain. This is friction - and it works against the developer/team. The larger the software, the worse it gets; it doesn't have to be that way.

Anyways, regarding last two points - yes, I'm very familiar with parametric polymorphism (it is a sole reason I use C++ for work, over C), and I have than half a decade of Haskell experience behind me. Trying to shift into Rust lately - its easier to find jobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Sharing side project w Boss - <AUTHOR> I wrote some apps that improve workflow at work. I wrote these in my own time. How should I share these with my company? Should I ask for compensation at some point? <comment><USER2> First thing to verify would be your employment contract. I know of some which specify that even if the IP was created on your own time, if it is directly related to your job/company, it is the companies IP.

</comment><comment><USER3> My company has a broad reaching IP ownership that covers absolutely anything I think up or build, even in my own time and using my own equipment. However, that's just boiler plate umbrella paperwork most company legal teams force comanies to have in place for protection. I frequently develop IP and work with start-ups, and earn extra income/equity on the side. You simply need to request a waiver, on a case-by-case basis.

A lot of people say it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, but to me that's an utterly weak stance and will only lead to stress now and hassle down the road. For me, for each side project I determine could likely be profitable in some way, I simply send my supervisor (division manager in my case) an email stating as much about the effort as I can without disclosing the actual magic sauce. If it's IP (rather than a extracurricular business relationship), then I give them the opportunity to buy it outright or fund development with profit share (they never take that option). I give them 2 week turn around. He runs it through legal, and they quickly assess it for major conflicts of interest.

This works because leadership are rarely people so insecure that they want to control every aspect of your life - if they are then you should probably go work somewhere else. If you are a valued contributer, the last thing someone wants to do is be responsible for losing a valuable employee simply because they neglected to respect your work-life balance and personal growth. If they do, then they are a poor manager, and that will be apparent to their peers and superiors. This is harder at a very small company, because some (not all) leaders are naively too inexperienced and insecure to be concerned about their professional reputation. However, I've worked with great startup leaders who respect my professional partitions.

Caveat: if you're working on something very directly related to the work they're paying you to do as part of your contract (job description), then that's a conflict of interest and they should own that IP you create outside of normal operating hours. After all, put yourself in their shoes: you pay someone $2000 a week to design and build an augmented reality application to help grocery shoppers look up product information, then that person asks you if they can sell an AR application they built in their own time to let people find directions inside of a store. If it were me, I'd scratch my head and say: "wait a minute, good idea but I'm paying you to design this grocery store app. If you had such a great improvement, why didn't you bring it up so that we could role it into the development plan. I'll take that, thank you."

I've never had my employer deny a waiver request. That includes patents issued, payment and equity agreements with other companies. However, if they ever did, depending on the potential value, I am always prepared to leave.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you. I should add that my role includes zero coding/dev and my workgroup does our work without the benefit of APIs and apps. My apps greatly improve the quality of service the group can provide.

<comment><USER3> So, I actually missed a fairly important point above that may relate to your case. While my company (that I've worked at for 18yrs) has never bought or funded a project I requested a waiver for, in the past year they have begun funding development of a directly work-related side project via Internal R&D. This is a concept I've worked on here and there since undergrad. While I don't have a profit share in place, and this project is extremely high risk-high reward, I am excstatic to work on this under my current salary.

It's an amazing feeling to watch people get passionate about an idea you created, but the reward to you can still be significant in terms of the visibility/credit you'll get from leadership, which could well translate into salary and position increase. Since adoption, I've had the ear and consult of our talented leadership team, who have given me access to their powerful professional networks to boost support for the project.

Again, put yourself in their shoes. If you were paying somebody a salary, and they brought you an idea that they cultivated on their own time and with their own resources, would you not view them as one of the most valuable member of your staff, in awe that someone has that much pride in the mission of the company to go that far above and beyond the call of duty, and do everything in your power to not only pump the idea up, but also make sure the person is comfortable and stays with the company rather than leaving to empower a competitor.

Business is a very personal thing. Have confidence in yourself and what you bring to the table, find great people to work with, keep pushing, and good things will happen.

This is not your last great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very much appreciate your thoughts as it seems you have really walked this path.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Looking Back and Forward for Open-Source Mathematics Software - <AUTHOR> http://martinralbrecht.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/looking-back-and-forward-for-open-source-mathematics-software-2014/

<comment><USER2> ND4J (n-dimensional arrays for Java) is a free, open-source extension written for the JVM, compatible with both Scala and Clojure. It's a scientific computing library for linear algebra and matrix manipulation in a production environment. Uses the semantics of Numpy and Matlab...

[http://nd4j.org/](http://nd4j.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This Python library has PicoSAT SAT solver integration, and parses DIMACS files:

[https://github.com/cjdrake/pyeda](https://github.com/cjdrake/pyeda)</comment>


The iPad, the Newton, & the "Of Course" Model of Innovation Diffusion - <AUTHOR> http://cheerfulsw.com/2010/ipad-a-staggering-work-of-obvious/

<comment><USER2> Leaving aside the somewhat creepy Jobs-worship in this article, I don't think this is right:

 _The problem with the Newton wasn't any physical or technical problem. Those are easy to surmount. The problem that broke the Newton was that nobody was prepared for it. There was no mental slot in people's heads that the Newton could glide into. Nothing like it had ever existed before. It was revolutionary. It was a total surprise._

Didn't the Newton appear in the middle of a fad for little PDA-type computers which busy-looking executive types would pull out to painstakingly type their appointments on? I seem to remember them being quite popular for a little while in the early 90s.

Ooh, here's an article from 1993 about the launches of various PDAs:

[http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Business-general/PDA- devices-s...](http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Business-general/PDA-devices- stage-trade-show-debut-Apples-Newton-maintains-a-low-profile.html)

However the keyboard-based Casio etc versions outsold the Newton for pretty much the reasons dismissed in the article -- the Newton was too expensive and the handwriting recognition didn't work very well.

<comment><USER3> Scully oversold the Newton idea to the extent that the MessagePad 110 seemed inept. By the time the 2100 was released, the Newton brand was sullied enough to ensure its transformative ideas would not take hold. We settled for a decade of calendar/address book PDAs and incremental laptop evolution, to arrive somewhere in the same neighborhood as the 2100.

Mac OS X, iPods, and iPhones seem to be evidence that Apple and Jobs overcame the need for revolutionary, high-risk-high-reward leaps in favor of ratcheted, stepwise refinement that draws the market toward the same location in design space without risking quarter-after-quarter of red ink, product shortages, blown deadlines and vaporware saviors. I don't think it's a coincidence that the underlying software is (openly code-named) "Darwin".

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't disagree with you regarding Scully, either… which is probably part and parcel why Jobs has never deviated from pre-announcing only when the products were completed, just not shipping.

Re: Darwin specifically, Apple actually owns (or used to own) mammals.org, well before the acquisition of NeXT. That type of reference is definitely an Apple thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am i the only one who can't read all those "the iPad will change our world" prophecies anymore? It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, repeated and echoed by blogs and news media, people already buy the iPad like crazy. Most of the people probably don't even know why to buy it, only that they have to buy it to stay cool and have the current supergadget according to every news source on this world.

<comment><USER5> Have you used it yet? I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just that most people I know had no interest at all in the iPad until they saw mine. The hype can't hurt, but this is a product that simply sells the shit out of itself.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly what I thought about the first iPod. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal because there were other mp3 players on the market. Then I actually got my hands on one... Wow.

I am afraid of going into an Apple store and walking out with an unplanned purchase of an iPad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My favorite feature of the iPad is its $39 Newton wetsuit case. Anyone fortunate enough to have owned a message pad knows the good vibes that flowed from holding their little rubberized-metal gifts from the future. There may be no soup, no NewtonScript, and no book maker, but a lot of the Newton's heart and soul is in the iPad and the iPhone. I don't know who created the iPad or how well they knew the MessagePad 2100, but it is a milestone in personal computing technology that deserves a worthy successor like the iPad and an homage like the wonderful wetsuit wrap.

<comment><USER7> The case is a scuzz magnet, doesn't work with the dock, and has no clasp so you still have to worry that it is going to fall open in your bag. Your post is cool because I honestly can't tell if it is sarcasm or not. Kudos!

<comment><USER3> No sarcasm. I don't love the case qua case, but for it's feel in hand and as a reference to the Newton's case material. I'd prefer a Newtonized bottom in lieu of the wrap, but you can't have everything in one swell foop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure I agree with everything he says (particularly the stuff about pundits trashing, the iPad; a few have, but I'd say the balance of press has been pretty heavily tilted in apple's favor), but I'm kind of blown away that I haven't seen a blog post comparing the iPad and Newton before now. Such an obvious comparison to make in hindsight.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Amy" is typically a girl's name.

<comment><USER9> Why are people downvoting an author asking that people maybe take a moment to check whether they're responding to a woman before they write "he"? Is it that much hassle to check a byline?

<comment><USER10> A small, italic, grey-on-white pair of words, one of which is an uncapitalized name

versus

The vast majority of tech writers and geeks in general being male

Downvoting the guy pointing out the incorrect assumption is unwarranted, yeah, but the assumption is one that'll be correct really, really often.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which doesn't mean you shouldn't point it out. (Although yes, that is something I'm fixing when I get around to finishing my design.)

By the way - the "guy pointing out the incorrect assumption" is a girl.

I'm laughing. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A significant gap in this article is a discussion of the complements that are adding tremendous value to the iPad (and Apple's other recent products). Imagine the fate of the iPad if there was no AppStore, no iBooks, and no iTunes; a pretty piece of hardware with few applications and no media content.

</comment><comment><USER12> The idea that the Ipad was/is obvious is intersting and considering what else might be obvious and coming from Apple I have to say the 7" rumor seems logical. After playing with the ipad for a few minutes I was struck by two things: 1) it is heavier than I expect or would probably enjoy laying in bed, and 2), the screen is larger than I personally need.

So for me I think a 7" Ipad would be ideal. But I'm not trying to replace a netbook or laptop with this machine so maybe that's part of it too.

<comment><USER3> It's not too heavy to be good in bed, but too slippery to play with in the bathtub without its rubber jacket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My friend and I were talking about this the other day. If you want to rock the world, pick a final product that is years - even a decade or more - away and which rocks, and reason back all the potential earlier versions to the present, then build the next gen iteration. Easier said than done of course, and making sure each iteration is a hit is even harder.

</comment><comment><USER14> The aricle is neglecting the most important features of the iPad: video and wireless. It's like looking at a TI-83 and comparing it to a modern cell phone and wondering why nobody walked around with a TI-83 in their pocket except engineers.

<comment><AUTHOR> The expectations of the world in re: video and wireless were completely different in 1993. Were you there?

<comment><USER14> What's your point? Such a device does not have a mainstream user base without wireless or video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think you can underestimate the importance of having apps already available at launch time. Great article, though. I really enjoyed the Le Corbusier piece as well. Please write more!

</comment><comment><USER16> While this article does a fantastic job expounding on reasons the Newton failed, it seems to implicitly assert that people are "prepared" for the iPad, and that there is a space in their minds for such a device now. I would challenge this assertion. My own preferences notwithstanding, the only people I've heard even contemplate getting an iPad are people with 2+ MacBooks. In other words: "yes, but."

Perhaps all this article really meant to say is that the cult of Mac is eminently more powerful today than 20 years ago - in which case yes, I agree entirely.

</comment><comment><USER17> Job's Apple uses a combination of design, technology and marketing to turn their products into status symbols.</comment>


How can Facebook change when it exists to exploit personal data? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/25/forget-bit-players-facebook-brought-scandal-on-itself <comment><USER2> The correct title is "How can Facebook change when it exists to exploit personal data?" (Looks like a 'N' got typo'd in there instead of a 'H')

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Open Source Alternatives for Google Apps? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in open source projects for online office/productivity apps like Google Apps etc. Anything goes.
I just haven't seen anything in this area and I want to be proven wrong!
Cheers. <comment><USER2> You could look at Joyent Connector. It is built in Ruby and it has been open sourced. It does not have all the things that Google Apps has though.</comment>


Magic: Passwordless Authentication with a Simple JavaScript SDK - <AUTHOR> https://magic.link/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome! I've always thought someone should make Magic Links as easy as Facebook or Google Auth flows!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great work! An important step to bring web3 tech to the masses</comment>


Reddit boots hundreds of accounts linked to Russian propaganda trolls - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/reddit-boots-hundreds-of-accounts-linked-to-russian-trolls/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=50294453 <comment><USER2> "We also did not detect any effective use of these accounts to engage in vote manipulation."

Ok, so does that imply they engaged in _ineffective_ attempts at vote manipulation, and what sort of actions would those be?</comment>


Firefox security test add-on was backdoored - <AUTHOR> http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2010/07/15/firefox-security-test-add-on-was-backdoored.html

<comment><USER2> I often wonder about the security of add-ons, and whether training users to install them willy-nilly is a good security practice.

As for this one, I would have been wary due to the way the developer seemed to think 'u' is a word. It's the little things that can tip you off that at least, something might not be of professional quality.

<comment><USER3> Definitely a bad precedent, but through addons.mozilla.org, it feels no different than the "Android Market" model. I like this quote though:

"Mozilla subsequently confirmed that they had not reviewed this add-on and are currently working on a new security model that will require all add-ons to be code-reviewed before becoming discoverable on addons.mozilla.org."

Which would let me rest easy installing any extensions, as long as they're from addons.mozilla.org, a trusted source.

<comment><USER2> Yes, it would be much better if the software on addons.mozilla.org was reviewed. As it is, they tell you that it may be unsafe - and considering you see that for every single add on, even ones known to be safe like Firebug, it's as good as no message at all. I've read that there is a nefarious market now for old, forgotten add ons - it's possible to take over development of an add-on, and make an update that is malware. Firefox will then automatically update the software for everyone who has it installed.

I haven't used the Android Market, but I did notice similar treatment for add ons in the Google Desktop Sidebar. I never download the apps they offer there, as again, the warning essentially says anything available could be a dangerous trojan, and nobody from Google has taken the time to check any of them.

When a trusted name offers software, they should at least provide the assurance that it is not malware. Of course, this leads to systems like the App Store and considering how expensive and time consuming the review process could be, I understand why they don't. So, that's great to hear Mozilla is trying to improve this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Indeed.</comment>


Summary of European Common Lisp Meeting Presentations - <AUTHOR> http://blog.splittist.com/2008/04/22/eclm-mmviii/ <comment><AUTHOR> Money quote (from a company with 12MB of Lisp code:

"specification is hard so incremental refinement is necessary, and Lisp supports this better than anything I know."

"The world needs to use more lisp."</comment>


Ask HN: Monetizing newsletter with 2M and 1M members - <AUTHOR> Does anyone else run large newsletter lists? We're having a hard time monetizing our weekly emails to our members.
We have nearly 2 million members (that haven't opted out) in English and close to a million in Spanish for a book website. We send weekly emails with new featured books. We've been looking for interested sponsors and I've been looking at other previous discussions here on HN on monetizing NLs for ideas. Most of them seem to be for a much more niche/focused NL list though. Any tips or ideas on how to monetize a large NL list like this that isn't too focused (other than it relates to books)?
I've tried submitting to Upstart.me but don't see it added yet, so maybe it's a bit too generic to be listed there as well.
We've been using it mostly for promoting our own products (such as membership upgrades), but using the same few products over and over again start getting diminishing attention and returns from our members.
(note that we are capable of segmenting our list internally by topic based on the books our members are interested in, but I'm not sure how to turn that into a steady revenue stream as of yet)
Thanks for your answers! <comment><USER3> Based on what you shared, I'd recommend knowing/learning more about your membership base if you haven't done so already. Your membership list and their feedback is probably the best source for getting monetization ideas that actually work.

1\. Figure out how many of the 2M and 1M members are actually engaged (reading emails as opposed to just opted-in).

2\. From the engaged audience, who are they and what keeps them interested in the newsletter? What do their lives look like and is there any value that you can bring?

By knowing who your audience is and what they potentially need, you can deliver more personalized content. You could also think about promoting content from partners that go beyond straightforward ads (i.e. discounts, exclusive offers, developer bundles, Amazon AWS credits, affiliate links, etc.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good advice. We've actually reached out to our members in the past with some similar questions/survey. It's been a while since we last did it, so maybe a fresh one will bring some new ideas to the table.

In our particular case, affiliate links haven't been a good revenue stream, though from what I've read they work really well for some others. The rest are definitely worth thinking about and exploring further.

Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Another point is, CLEAN UP YOUR LIST!!!!

If you don't have 2M engaged readers, why are you paying to email them? They are costing money and don't bring any revenue in.

At an agency I was with a few years ago had an active list of a few hundred thousand, which was really closer to a million when you added the people we purged from our lists monthly. If you haven't opened any email in the last 3 months, purge.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great advice and I agree. We actually do purge the list from inactive members and we maintain an even more aggressively purged "segment" of highly engaged readers.

Perhaps worth exploring in reducing further the cutoff for the general list as well. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first thing that comes to mind is sending them affiliate links to Amazon/Audible, that's pretty straightforward.

You could also find authors who are looking to promote their books, and charge them for adding their ad to emails.

Also I'm sure there are plenty of software/info-product companies and startups looking for audience in this niche.

If you can segment books by niche, it should be even more awesome and profitable. Send programming books and courses to programmers(a lot of them have affiliate programs), business books to business people, etc.

If it's not a secret, can you share with us what you did to build this list? The more details the better, it would be incredibly useful!

<comment><USER6> Just in case the OP goes with this you should be very careful-

Amazon Affiliate links in email are explicitly against their terms of service and you could get removed from the program.

[https://affiliate- program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/2020494...](https://affiliate- program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/202049410)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Might want to check out Peter Cooper's work on newsletters - e.g. a podcast he was interviewed on (about how he started and grew his newsletter business) was interesting and may give some ideas. Don't have the link right now but if you use relevant keywords in a search, you should find it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Googled it and I believe this is the one you're talking about: [http://5by5.tv/rubyonrails/161](http://5by5.tv/rubyonrails/161)

I'll check it out.

<comment><USER7> NP. Found the one I saw, it is actually this:

[https://devchat.tv/freelancers/the-freelancers- show-133-runn...](https://devchat.tv/freelancers/the-freelancers- show-133-running-a-successful-newsletter-with-peter-cooper)

published later than your find, but both probably have roughly the same content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thanks for looking it up and sending the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1.Have you tried setting up a Paetron account?

2.'If you enjoy our content, support us via PayPal'

3\. And once in a month or bimonthly sharing your expenses and asking for support.

4\. Contacting relevant youtubers for traffic or brand campaign where you can embed their videos along with the newsletter.

5\. Finally, Checking with Book Publication to add relevant new releases as Sponsored.

<comment><USER9> Re #2: How to make a PayPal tip jar:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to- make-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-make-paypal- tip-jar.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/hacker-news- books](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/hacker-news-books)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1765307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1765307)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links. It seems that in the first case it's mostly Amazon Affiliate links and in the 2nd they don't really mention the ways they monetize their website and newsletter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not sure if "not opting out" is a good indicator for "being a newsletter member". Be careful with trying to monetize this. You could damage your email delivery rate and thereby your core business while trying to squeeze those additional pennies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I agree about having to be careful.

We extensively check any/all emails we send out to make sure we keep a great delivery rate even on routine emails. If we were to include an ad for example, we'd work with the advertiser to make sure the copy is good, is not misleading and that it doesn't trigger spam filters etc. Our members can easily unsubscribe or select the type of emails they receive and we avoid dark patterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It might take some work but you'll definitely be able to get advertisers. The first step would be audience surveys to find out who your readers are and what they are interested in, and then you can go out and find advertisers who want to reach those folks.

However, if you're already doing books, what about Amazon affiliates or even, depending on the topic of these books, selling related products? If someone is interested in finance, business, or home improvement, for example, there's a lot of items they might buy beyond books. You can recommend them and make some money off each sale.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess the trick here is that while we can segment our lists based on interests, it might be a bit tricky & time consuming to constantly find interesting products to offer and tailor them to the many different groups. Which is not to say it would not be worth it.

Good idea about the audience surveys - though we do know our audience's geography, perhaps a general demographic survey would provide some interesting insight. Thanks!

<comment><USER13> I think that offering products that are interesting to your segments is exactly the reason they would be interested in them. Who's going to buy products/click on ads that are not interesting to them.

You're already doing the work to build the list. Why are you opposed to spending the effort to target the advertising?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course we're not opposed to spending the effort to target the advertising. It's a recurring theme in many suggestions here and we're definitely going to look for ways to improve our targeting. Thanks for your comment!

<comment><USER13> Ahh. Perhaps I misunderstood the parent comment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wrote a book. If you have people who are interested in technology I would be interested in promoting it to your list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

Yeah, we're able to send to a subset based on recent interests (downloads) and we have many categories. I've just added my email to my profile - please feel free to get in touch.

<comment><USER14> Sent you an email. I haven't added DKIM yet so check spam as I also included several attachments.

Edit: Just added DKIM. Very easy with GSuite + CloudFlare. Also added an SPF record for Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems like you've got everything needed for a thriving marketplace without the market.

Why is your content all free? Have you tried to directly monetize the content? Why not have the first x,xxx downloads free, then monetize the content and split revenue with the author & publisher? Or have a graduated cost based on popularity, similar to what pinboard did? Something like this may have the side benefit of creating a sense of urgency and anticipation for your newsletter.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're already doing some of those things on our website, or we have experimented with them in the past. At the moment we are trying to focus on the newsletter a bit and find ways to better monetize it. Thanks for your comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why not ask your members?

You have the attention and trust of a LOT of people. Figure out what they need, what problems they have.

</comment><comment><USER17> How many weekly emails are you sending, and how much money are you spending to send them?

In your shoes, I might attempt to break the newsletters up further into more easily monetizable niches. You can track which links are clicked by different subscribers, segment them, and then start sending slightly different emails. Or just straight up create new mailing lists and ask your readers to subscribe to those occasionally.

Just spitballing here.

P.S. You might consider asking on the Indie Hackers forum, too: [https://www.indiehackers.com/forum](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum). Lots of people there have monetized various apps and mailing lists.

<comment><USER18> I'd suggest a similar approach as csallen, though Step 1 should probably be to do research to find similar newsletters, websites, magazines and find out who is advertising in them.

Once you know that, you will have a much better idea of who specifically is currently spending advertising dollars (display or affiliate).

Knowing who is spending money already is really important because getting companies to carve out some of their existing budget for you is easier than getting companies to create a budget out of thin air for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually a really good idea. Thanks. I'll do some research there and then see if I can get in touch with some potential advertisers.

Good insight about companies having existing vs creating a budget - <USER2> remember that. Thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this was largely the business model for BookBub - take a look at them

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll have a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have you considered using Amazon affiliate links to make it easy for your users to buy the books? They get an easy way to buy the recommended book, and you get a cut of the purchase.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but our books are either indie books by independent authors or classics in the public domain. They're all free, so there are no affiliate links to use.

We've tried using affiliate links to other Amazon books/products in the past, but it hasn't worked well for us in terms of revenue. Can be a bit hard to sell a book to an NL list expecting free books :)

<comment><USER20> If the books are free, what about making money on the way people read them? Kindle affiliate links, maybe a service that sends the free books to your Kindle, affiliate links to reading accessories, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we offer an upgraded membership that allows people to directly send books from our site to their Kindle.

Affiliate links in general have not worked that great for us in the past though. Perhaps as has been hinted on here, it was a targeting problem and we were sending too general of an ad to the list, instead of more targeted ads based on list segments. We might give it another try with more focused ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If i would have signed up for a mailing by a bookstore, i'd only really care about specific recommendations for me. Just a single title, based on set preferences/previous purchases and not too often.

Bit like parties as Netflix do if they release some new series they strongly think you'd like. It feels more like a 'reminder' then an ad, but its an ad of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> The books on our sites are free, so while we do our best to email interesting content to our members (with our hand selected weekly picks for example), it doesn't bring any revenue in and of itself, unless they decide to upgrade their membership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You should promote interesting blog content to your list, and get them to go to your website to learn more.

I'm looking at [https://www.reddit.com/r/books/](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/) and it looks like there's so many different things that 'book people' are interested in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like perhaps one of the "problems" is that there are too many different things people might be interested in. So if 5% are interested in cars, the other 95% would find the ad or promo fairly uninteresting and irrelevant.

<comment><USER23> You are not targeting properly, you're not solving something customers want, or your product is bad. Those are the three things you'd need to look at. With a couple million subs, it's unlikely you've got a bad product, but it's highly likely you're targeting incorrectly or your product isn't solving a problem. As someone who reads a ton of books, this is a saturated market, what problem are you solving that isn't solved yet or that you're solving better?

<comment><AUTHOR> All of our books are free and most of them are by indie authors that don't publish on Amazon or other platforms. That works great both for our members who want to keep finding new reads and authors looking for an interested readership base to share their work with.

Based on yours and other comments here, it seems it's highly likely we should work on better targeting. Any suggestions on improving in that regard?

Thanks, appreciate the feedback!

<comment><USER23> Targeting is all about knowing the true habits of your audience versus what your audience claims are their true habits. As others have said, breaking out your newsletter to the highest value people is probably a good start. You can leave the general email general and require an opt-in for people instead of an opt out. You'll immediately know who is engaged enough to want more of what you're offering, then just ask them what they find the most valuable in a survey and find a way to monetize that isn't what you're already doing but is in addition, in other words, create extra value for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The content you are sending them "new featured books" sounds like it's going to be not hugely interesting for most people. Maybe try to create really engaging content around the original means of signing up (was it book specific) and you'll probably find sponsors around that relevant content.

What do you think?

<comment><AUTHOR> People sign up to find & download new/interesting books to read that they can't always find in other places. That's what our weekly NL is about, so I feel it's fairly on point, but of course there's always room to improve and play with the kind of books we recommend or even the format. Perhaps worth exploring different formats that allow for more interesting content/ad combinations.

Have you seen an interesting format/combination you could share?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If community is at all important to your members, you can set up a hiohmy community for them ([https://www.hiohmy.com](https://www.hiohmy.com)).

It's free but you could place it behind your own paywall.

<comment><AUTHOR> We did use to have forums way back in the day, but both ours and many other forums had fallen out of favor for a while and we had shut them down. Forums seem to be making a bit of a come back in some communities so perhaps worth exploring. Thanks for the suggestion and the link.

<comment><USER25> It's actually not a forum, but a way for members to connect over email. More networking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Shoot me a PM. I run an email service provider and work actively with clients on monetizing clients email lists.

</comment><comment><USER27> Forget about free content and free books , 2 focus on reaching book authors and publishers, 1 segment lists 3 profit Contact me for marketing campaign ideas

</comment><comment><USER28> wait, how did you get 2 million subscribers in the first place? And what does "haven't opted out" mean? Did you buy this list?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, haven't bought the list, built it ourselves over the last 11+ years of running well established sites with lots of traffic.

<comment><USER28> Then my next question is: why did they sign up to the list? What value are they getting out of it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's an enormous email list, how did you get such a big member list together in the first place?

<comment><AUTHOR> Websites have been running for 11+ years now and they're well established with lots of traffic.

<comment><USER30> How much traffic are you getting on those sites? I'd say don't try so hard to monetize the mailing list, try to monetize the sites (membership/patreon, premium services, new paywalled content verticals, paywalled podcasts) and use the mailing lists as an audience to bring to your sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Also, minimize your cost. What do you use to send your emails? Eg. Sendy is pretty cheap

<comment><AUTHOR> SendGrid at the moment, but thanks for mentioning Sendy. Looks promising! Reducing email cost is definitely one way of making the NL more profitable. :)

One potential problem with switching is trust in the new IPs. Any tips for a successful migration?

<comment><USER31> add the required domain name records, ptr, ... DKIM in amazon is suggested also :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe sneak an Amazon Affiliate link to some book that isn't on your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> As another comment here mentions it[0], it's actually against Amazon's policy, but either way affiliate links in general have not worked that great for us.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993332)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For a newsletter that size I'd try an Israeli startup named PowerInbox.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is it a standard newsletter format or a drip?

<comment><AUTHOR> We email our members a weekly selection of new books from our website(s).

We do have drip emails for other stuff (eg: a user hasn't confirmed their account, or a user abandoned the membership upgrade process).

<comment><USER34> Have you tested using drip for the weekly emails? Might prove profitable without devaluing content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, not sure how drip weekly emails would work or help? I'd love to hear more but not sure what exactly you had in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> liveintent or powerinbox maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> We had looked at PowerInbox before but can't remember why we hadn't given them a try. Hadn't heard of LiveIntent. I'll look into both of them a bit more. Thanks!

<comment><USER35> PowerInbox ads can be a bit spammy. LiveIntent has a more strict contract so keep an eye on the terms though but they are the largest ad email network to my knowledge so advertisers are likely spammy.</comment></comment></comment>


Case Study:  Examples of Sites Designed to Perform, and my opinion. - <AUTHOR> http://vospe.com/2010/09/09/examples-of-sites-designed-to-perform-and-my-opinion/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the mention.

At one point, we did have the sign up form available as the very next thing people saw when they clicked the Pricing/Free Price Quote but it didn't convert well. When I replaced it with a Request Free Consultation form, sales went up.

The current flow (which gets people to see pricing info before being asked to fill out the form) is a bit of an experiment. I've got early indications but it's too soon to say it works better or worse.

My theory on why asking for sale early works well for you but didn't for us is that your offering is much more productized & clearly defined so it's easier to understand. For what we offer, it's much more of a service that's pretty loosely defined.

We're evolving to be a lot more productized and more clearly defining what we offer but it's a delicate balancing act between improving our overall business model and risking cashflow.

The next phase in our evolution will be coming in about a month so tuned :D

</comment><comment><USER3> _One of the most underrated elements in design, is simplicity._

I don't think it's very underrated anymore.

<comment><USER2> A different way to say it might be "least practiced".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I cannot scroll down on your blog post (Firefox 3.6.9, Mac OS X 10.6.4). One press of the arrow key up or down takes me to the beginning and end with no middle. This does not fill me with confidence or inspiration.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey there, im gonna get rid of that. Thx for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please link to the actual pages you are talking about. I sure would like to have a tab open to reference what you are talking about, without a google intermediary step.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hate to be so negative, and I have a lot of respect for people who take the time to write articles and publish them, but the quality of design-related content on HN lately has just been... lacking.

Paraphrasing...

 _This website has a button and some bullets and orange. Personally, I think this is effective._

/end analysis

Huh?

</comment><comment><USER7> Quiet some good tips there.</comment>


Is This a Huge Flaw of Service Workers? - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53615727/service-worker-caching-after-domain-transfer <comment><AUTHOR> Does this mean that anyone purchasing a domain needs to be sure that a service worker has NEVER been registered previously on the domain?

</comment><comment><USER2> the age when developers have absolutely no clue what convenience scripts are doing!

this is comedy gold.</comment>