Why Small Businesses Aren't Spending More on Tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/blog/comptia-blog/2017/01/19/how-to-get-small-businesses-more-excited-about-new-tech <comment><USER2> All the small businesses I've worked at have another huge factor to consider, when it comes to new tech: Will the tech be supported long enough for it to be worth dealing with?

Anecdotal example: A few years ago, my workplace at the time (a bookstore near a university in NYC) decided to try that payment method Square used to have that let you check in to Square when you enter a store and then just "pay with your face" or whatever. Sounded neat, I knew some folks who loved to pay for things that way in NYC at coffee shops and such, and the Square rep told us about all the other places near us that were adopting this. So we figured what the hell, jumped on in, got some iPad bundles from Square to use for this, and I was tasked with setting it up. Just a few weeks (!) after we had set it up, Square discontinued that service. Needless to say, ever since then, that bookstore has been very apprehensive about "new tech". Why bother investing time and effort into something new if it could vanish at any moment?

<comment><USER3> Exactly this. Big names want big money which small businnes don't have and small businnes already got burned badly by fresh internet startups last time around.

Also, few bigs target small business because, let's be honest, they're a pain to work with at scale, each one of them brings variations to the base product flavor but no budget to implement them.

Hence, loads of them run off custom excel sheets.

I once proposed to have a sort of web excel with security controls and a way to let authenticated guests to work on a subset of cells as a way to move small businness online leaving control to them of their process implementation but couldn't find a sponsor.

<comment><USER4> _few bigs target small business because, let 's be honest, they're a pain to work with at scale_

It's not that difficult, it's just incentivized in our not-so-free market. Big companies can afford lawyers and lobbyists and they get all the best tax breaks and subsidies. Small companies, not so much.

 _each one of them brings variations to the base product flavor but no budget to implement them_

Yep, because the base product is designed for the large clients.

It's all incentives to target big companies. Why do you need permissions and user account management in your software? Because you're dealing with 20+ people and you may not know everyone in your company and if they can be trusted. Why do you have a base product that requires at least 10,000 database items in it to be useful? Because the big companies have that many items and they've got a monopoly or oligopoly on the market.

 _I once proposed to have a sort of web excel with security controls and a way to let authenticated guests to work on a subset of cells as a way to move small businness online leaving control to them of their process implementation but couldn 't find a sponsor._

This is actually what _should_ and _would_ happen in a free market. The majority of companies are not very large; most of them have a bit of extra cash to invest in a tool like that. There is a definite market for it. But why isn't that market pursued? All of the above incentives mentioned above.

<comment><USER5> _Big companies can afford lawyers and lobbyists and they get all the best tax breaks and subsidies. Small companies, not so much._

What does that have to do with business-to-business transactions? Microsoft doesn't care about your subsidies. Oracle doesn't care about your tax breaks. All they care about is how many users you can bring or how many zeroes you can put on the contract.

 _This is actually what should and would happen in a free market._

This sort of coordination problem is actually a classic failure of free markets (it was even covered in my Economics 101 course). Coase's Theorem only applies when transaction and negotiation costs are zero. In any real world scenario where transaction costs are nonzero, you'll see failures like this.

<comment><USER6> "All they care about is how many users you can bring or how many zeroes you can put on the contract."

Which is influenced by the subsidies you get. Some industries more than others. The extreme case is the agricultural industry in the USA. Many of the big wheat firms would not exist without the vast subsidies offered by the government. For those firms, Oracle or Microsoft are only talking to you because you've gotten money from the government.

<comment><USER6> Why was this downvoted? It's a straightforward statement of the facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is where FoxPro/dbase was the solution. I work with that for some years and none on the current tech match that.

Fox was the best part of Acces (the GUI builder, but way better) + a capable embedded database engine + way better language than anything else for businesses apps.

This could sound weird, but even python _is to hard_ in contrast with fox. Also, being more database focused, interactive and with decent GUI abilities was a match in heaven.

Fox is still pervasive in my country in a lot of simple apps/POS systems. Is the perfect match (you can even provide custom report, form building, etc to _end user_ using _exactly the same tools that fox give us_ ). Not was uncommon that some folks at that small companies learn a bit of fox to customize their apps.

My current dream is try to build something like this, and salivate what will happens if also put spreadsheet there with true relational support. Is a pipe dream, because this require a dedicated team and funding, and this kind of "unsexy" tool not fly anywhere.

<comment><USER8> This is how I think of FileMaker Pro. It seems like a great "next step" past Excel for businesses that don't have budget/time for custom programming.

Also, what about SharePoint? I haven't used it, but my impression is that this is what it's for. Is that mistaken?

<comment><USER9> Stay away from SharePoint. It sucks in every dimension you may want to use it.

Thumbs up for FileMaker though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing a lot of us underestimate is the flexibility of things like spreadsheets, and believe it or not, paper.

The resolution of an A4 piece of paper is a crisp 3508px x 2480px. For comparison, my MacBook Air is about a third of that at 1440px x 900px.

And, the processes companies have developed over years are tailored to that medium. While tech has gotten drastically cheaper in recent years, it still needs to get cheaper still for most businesses.

I spoke about this recently at NYC.rb. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13446715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13446715)

<comment><USER11> > _The resolution of an A4 piece of paper is a crisp 3508px x 2480px. For > comparison, my MacBook Air is about a third of that at 1440px x 900px._

Not to mention how infinitely more convenient paper is to handle than laptops, and while I can easily spread 10 A4 pages in front of me to look at them simultaneously, I doubt my company will buy me 9 more computers to do the equivalent "digital" thing...

That's why I occasionally even print out _code_ \- usually when I know I'll spend a lot of time changing a particular file, and I'm having a hard time understanding it or maintaining focus. Paper + color pens facilitate thinking better than an open IDE.

<comment><USER12> > Not to mention how infinitely more convenient paper is to handle than > laptops, and while I can easily spread 10 A4 pages in front of me to look at > them simultaneously, I doubt my company will buy me 9 more computers to do > the equivalent "digital" thing...

People nowadays laugh at how people in Star Trek always had multiple PADDs and sorted through them like a stack of papers or books, but at the end of the day trying to cross reference several sources to do work on a single iPad can be very frustrating.

<comment><USER13> There's probably a huge market for super thin portable (wireless) displays. If I could grab a handful of displays and wirelessly link them with my laptop while using gestures to move content between them, I'd probably pay a few hundred dollars per display. (I imagine the drawback of them being wireless would be a really slow refresh rate, so you likely wouldn't be able to watch video on them.)

If you placed a magnet on the back of them you can throw one on the wall when you get home and it could detect it's location in the room and start serving as some other systems interface.. like a thermostat or something. Then pick it up on your way out the door and it connects to your phone or laptop.

<comment><USER14> No reason more than 2 thin displays couldn't spread out of this laptop in the future: [https://www.wired.com/2017/01/razers-project-valerie- insane-...](https://www.wired.com/2017/01/razers-project-valerie-insane- laptop-3-screens/) :P

<comment><USER13> I was thinking something more versatile that could have many different uses, but that's cool none-the-less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've worked in a few small business, and have been the end-user for quite a few tech products focused on SMBs. I think the problems are far more complicated than what is written here.

First, many SMB owners are highly technophobic. No matter how good your product is, if they straight out fear technology, you aren't going to get anywhere with them.

SMBs, by definition, are small, and many run on credit card debt during the slow months. They don't have the luxury of finding investments like a tech company. Since most of them are bootstrapped, it is hard to ask for $5k / month from SMBs. If they can hire on 3 people for the same price, where do you think they are going to spend that money?

Unfortunately, many SMBs are stuck in a hard place with tech. The tech they can afford is pure trash, a total displeasure to use, crashes on a weekly basis, and so obviously bad that no one needs a math degree to understand that this product is a money pit, and likely ends up costing more to use than it would if everyone was doing things by hand.

On the opposite end, the products that are worthwhile to use are a) too expensive and b) the technology companies don't want to play small ball, so the SMBs they talk to tend to walk away feeling disrespected.

When you have a technophobic, cautious SMB owner as a customer, playing a game of "push and see it break" isn't going to work. These products end up stalling out the entire business for a morning, and the costs of paying for employees not working, then tacking on overtime, reflects poorly on these products.

I totally believe that the SMB space is ripe for massive disruption. The current tech offerings are old, buggy, slower than molasses in winter, and doesn't work as promised. The problem is, who can get to the gate first with a product that is cheap, productive, and obviously not the product of people with no domain knowledge.

<comment><USER16> > _The current tech offerings are old, buggy, slower than molasses in winter, > and doesn 't work as promised. _

I'd remove the word "current" because almost _every_ tech offering they've had has been awful ranging from the thing someone's nephew built to the website someone hacked together to Quickbooks.

As a result, even the non-technophobes are hesitant to jump in. It becomes a matter of "the devil you know" as opposed to hating tech in general.

And at the same time, they probably have tech in their lives - like their iPhone - which "just works" most of the time and the contrast is even more frustrating.

<comment><USER15> Well, "current" meaning "currently offered."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Let's see what a typical SMB needs:

1\. office space, you can co-work, work from home, do virtual office etc these days, not much to invent there.

2\. accounting and bookkeeping, you can hire a CPA at about $300/month, or quickbooks/etc for $30/month, not much to be done there.

3\. hardware, computers are not expensive these days. Unless you're doing IT, windows 10 and a NAS and printer etc can get you going, if you're geek please use linux/bsd, again not much new stuff here either.routers/hubs are easy to get too.

4\. communication, online video conference, cellphone, skype, various video calls etc, slack for IRC, they're all affordable even for a startup.

5\. that left with some legal advice, sales and marketing, develop your own products etc, which is common for all size businesses.

Might be missing something in the list, but I could not see anything major to be disrupted in SMB space myself, especially, they're mostly having a tight budget and fighting for survival from the start before considering being your customer.

<comment><USER18> You're missing a big one, their transaction / business system(s); What software actually runs the business. If it's a small shop, that would be inventory, vendor, customer management / POS. Any other company has their own flavor of niche software that is used outside basic every business software.

There is some off the shelf software but they are mainly served to businesses that have a lot of competition: pawn shops, small stores, restaurants, etc. Everyone else has to mangle together what they can find if they can't hire a developer to build them one. If you mangle something together, you are more than likely to have scale problems when you least need it: when you are growing.

<comment><USER17> POS is pretty mature plus square, verifone etc for mobile paying now. there is online CRM too: sugarcrm, zoho crm,etc, what is missing here in this space?

<comment><USER18> If you reread my post, I said those types of business systems were sufficiently served by off the shelf software.

<comment><USER17> I think most if not all the resources existed and just spread everywhere, just need a nice checklist and write down for non-techie SMB owners to follow, instead of developing yet another solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So from graph 93% SMB are okay with current technology. Why then, they should spend more on technology? SMBs are not the VC fueled startups or Silicon valley hotshots to spend millions on new react/microservice framework and realtime analytics generated by map-reduce cluster running on AWS that will bring paradigm shift to business.

I'd say they spend more on service and product quality than hyped tech.

<comment><USER20> I think this article is trying to manufacture a problem from nothing, for the exact reason you state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting thread. Nothing wrong in hiring 2 or 3 people rather than spend $5k on tech these days. Many SMBs also operate with software built on Windows. They had or have to upgrade to Windows 10. Outlook doesn't speak to iPhone or the calendar doesn't sync, cloud storage doesn't always work perfectly well, nobody you can talk to for help, try hire a freelance IT guy - good luck. And Windows 10 installs a new feature overnight and crashes everything. Tech at the user level is a mess.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think most SMBs don't even know where to begin.

They don't know how to identify things that may already have software solutions available, nor would they know how to implement those solutions even if they were aware of them.

And they're even worse at identifying business processes that could easily be automated via custom software. There's also no way in hell they know how to find a programmer to develop that automation (unless by some stroke of luck they happen to know one). "What do I need, an iOS guy? A ForTran guy? My website is in Internet Explorer, does that help??"

I think this is why consultants are able to charge hundreds of dollars an hour for this stuff. Our company was paying $200/hr for simple SSRS reports before I started doing them.

I also sat in on a couple meetings with outside software dev firms when our company was trying to hire one for a single project. The whole process was a long, time-consuming disaster that ended up going nowhere. We wound up doing the development ourselves in the end.

<comment><USER23> > programmer to develop that automation

Not just develop, but maintain and bugfix. When you don't have the budget for an FTE, then how do you make sure you have access to the developer when you need it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Stability of the solution is a major issue.

Look at websites for example. Many small businesses that have been around for 5+ years probably have a website that works well on a desktop monitor.

Every time Google rolls out a new change to the algorithm, everyone has to update their website. Look at the change that favors mobile friendly sites in mobile search results that happened a few years back. I still have a dentist that has this huge website that is not mobile friendly. He spent thousands making it. Now he is reluctant to spend thousands more to make it responsive.

</comment><comment><USER25> We sell SaaS to many SMBs and larger enterprises. I overall agree with the assessment here, many customers might not be fully happy with their investment because they can not properly calculate ROI. A lot of the SMBs tend to focus on cutting costs when it comes to making business decisions. As a SaaS provider, when our technology enables extreme growth of their business, they get increasingly frustrated at the rising charges for usage of our software. The more sophisticated enterprises we work with are really great at calculating their ROI, projecting costs and generally think much more on an investment basis than looking at cutting costs as the sole tool to improve profits.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article is so vague, and the ROI question seemed so ambiguously defined in the survey with Small Business owners that I believe no one should be surprised looking at these statistics.

I have completed a good amount of customer interviews in the service and restaurant industry and when you start talking about streamlining their accounting or people management systems their eyes glaze over. The number 1 thing these business owners care about is more customers and/or returning customers. I guarantee the reason that some of these businesses have negative views of technology is because they attributed the ROI question to technologies they actually paid for or have been approached to pay for, like cash registers or people management software. In reality Small Businesses leverage free technology in more ways then they perceive they just don't think of them in context to ROI because they don't pay for them. For instance Google, Yelp, and Facebook along with many more. I would imagine if they thought about technology like this as supplementing their customer growth it would improve their impression of technology as it relates to ROI.

<comment><USER27> As a small-time restaurant owner, I can appreciate the impact the less- tangible services have on my business. My eyes only glaze over because regardless of what's being offered, it's typically from a startup that eventually ends up pivoting or going out of business in some fashion. I've wasted so much time dealing with that. So. much. time. No surprise (even if my day job is writing code) that I'm burnt out on tech for the business.

On the upside: I pay for Yelp ads, and my Yelp account manager is currently dealing with my account being limited because I refused to acknowledge spam messages from an UberEats salesperson. It's the first time in months a tech problem related to the restaurant has made me laugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Everyone wants to tap into the SMB market, no one wants to incur the costs that it will entail. Support, automation, ease of use are all significant hurdles. my startup is starting to target them and realizing how much overhead there is...

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if there could be a hidden cost however, in the downsides of not investing in technology stacks, specifically for business with maybe a dozen to 3 dozen employees.

For instance, if I run a series of coffee shops that use ipads as payment terminals (think shopify, square, paypal etc) and there is no device management solution in place (this is a relatively cheap expense), and someone:

1) walks off with the device (not that common, in my experience so far) 2) Device becomes locked to that users ID (dreaded activation lock, which happens so much) 3) They need to update the settings on the device in line, but can't reach it (lesser a scenario until you start scaling to say a dozen devices)

All of this is solved via device management, and the man hours alone to resolve number 2 would be saved would be worth it. At least with iOS devices. turn around times are up to 10 business days plus you need a proof of purchase which may not be the best experience ever if you don't have it and your carrier won't get a specific one (there are requirements for getting the devices unlocked, as I recall)

I can only imagine the other areas of a business where the man hours saved would actually astronomically reduce expenses, but they aren't obvious, so it doesn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER30> One big learning curve for me in business has been that "cashing the cheque" on benefits is much harder than creating benefits. For example, we improve the efficiency of an engineering appointment by 5%!!! wooot! Bonus time.... except it turns out that engineers do three appointments a day, and have a lunch break and saving 15% of their time doesn't enable a new appointment. The end! Now in a big company you have quite a few situations where marginal gains do cross the line and allow you to save real money or bank real revenue, but in little companies not so much. New tech for SMB's need to really change the picture to have a positive impact.

</comment><comment><USER31> Well, considering how awful Groupon and related coupon services were, can you blame them? A lot of companies that reach small businesses are only solving the problem of getting themselves paid rather than offering value. Small businesses are already used to people trying to milk them, and tech has potential to do so even worse than local attempts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because they aren't getting subsidies or discounts to do so? Honestly, that's the hardest thing about a small business, you're too small for subsidies and for all the nice deals with the state that you get as a big business.

The reason every company I've seen upgrade their tech is because they have money which buys them time to do so. That's basically it.

</comment><comment><USER32> As others have said, tech sucks. Good for them.

</comment><comment><USER33> In my experience small businesses don't spend much on anything.</comment>


IceBear: ice energy storage - <AUTHOR> https://www.ice-energy.com/technology/ <comment><USER2> The electric grid managers went into a panic the very first time the air conditioners were turned on at the Arizona Diamondbacks' new Bank One Ballpark (1998; BoB is now called "Chase Field" [1]). The stadium people didn't realize they needed to let the electric utility know that they would suddenly be adding hundreds of kilowatts of electric power draw to the grid.

Some years later a chilled water plant was built to use off-peak electricity to chill a million gallons of water/antifreeze [2]. This is used to cool about 30 buildings in downtown Phoenix.

Ever since I heard about the ballpark's system, I wanted one for myself. This "IceBear" system looks promising.

[1] [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2011-07-12-al...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2011-07-12-all- star-game-heat_n.htm)

[2] [http://www.imcor-az.com/experience/mission- critical/northwin...](http://www.imcor-az.com/experience/mission- critical/northwind-district-cooling-plant-phases-1-5/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> With renewable energy on the rise, the next major technological hurdle is the so called "Duck Curve" or "Nessie Curve", where Solar Energy drops dramatically after 3:00pm but air-conditioning units need to keep running till well after nightfall.

In short: Renewable Energy is great, but its produced at a time when people don't need it. As such, there have been major investments into energy storage, such as Lithium Ion Batteries, Compressed Air, Pumped Hydro, Redox-Flow, and more.

IceBear is an energy storage tech for the air-conditioner. It runs the air- conditioner when power is plentiful: either at night (when wind energy is strongest) or even during the noon-sun if you've got enough solar panels. Then, the stored ice refrigerates the home for the next 6 hours (commercial unit) or 4 hours (home unit).

Here' is their product sheet for the IceBear 20 (Residential Unit): [https://www.ice-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICE- BE...](https://www.ice-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICE- BEAR-20-Product-Sheet.pdf)

\</comment><comment>-----

Comparisons to the Tesla Powerwall:

* IceBear only works on the air conditioner, while PowerWall works for whole home energy. But PowerWall also needs an inverter + additional equipment, while IceBear simply plugs into existing air conditioning units. Pricing isn't transparent, but it sounds like IceBear is overall cheaper.

* IceBear still needs ~300W to operate to move the stored cold energy to the ducts. It simply reduces the energy usage later in the day, rather than eliminate it.

* IceBear20 is estimated to have ~28kW-hrs of energy storage. PowerWall is 13.5kWhr.</comment>


How Facebook Hacked The NASDAQ Button - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/18/how-facebook-hacked-the-nasdaq-button/ <comment><USER2> +1 for the hack, but the other solution was to tell your lacky, ...err...I mean personal assistant, to push a button on Mark's phone at the same time as Mark rang the bell. We live in a age where we can execute all amazing technical solutions to non-problems. Now was that truly epic? Waiting for the pop to see...

<comment><USER3> It's cool because in a small but poignant way it represents how Zuck was able to build his company w/o kissing Wall street's ass. So many CEO's tactics are driven by quarterly earnings. By keeping his hoodie on and not flying out to New York to ring the bell, Zuck kinda saying fu __off to all that.

If that blue Nasdaq button embodies short term, profit driven thinking, it's neat that the engineers were able to hack it and bend it toward their will. It's a poetic hack.

<comment><USER4> I really think you're reading too much into it.

It's not a 'poetic hack', it's just neat.

<comment><USER5> Poetry can be an emergent property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO the beauty of a hack comes from two places:

1) Doing something that can't be done by hand, OR 2) Replacing repetitive manual work, this saving time in the long run

IMO there's nothing "cool" about a hack that will only be used once and could be replaced by Mark (or anyone standing nearby) pre-typing the message and then posting the status to Facebook seconds after he pushes the Nasdaq button.

You could also argue that it might have been an opportunity for the engineers to learn something, but IMO you could think of more worthwhile hacks to learn from.

<comment><USER7> > IMO the beauty of a hack comes from two places:

"In fact, hack has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation."

"Hacking might be characterized as `an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it."

So it has nothing to do with automation, perfecting your craft, saving time, making money, impressing Paul Graham, "hacking education" (?), putting in tremendous amounts of work, being irreverent, growing a neckbeard, or linking up a button to a cell phone.

It boils down to somebody else saying "are you fucking kidding me?" and you get to say: "no."

<comment><USER6> > It boils down to somebody else saying "are you fucking kidding me?" and you > get to say: "no."

Yeah, the "are you fucking kidding me?" comes from the fact that you did something awesome, i.e. something can't be done trivially by some far simpler means. So I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me :)

The only "are you fucking kidding me?" that this hack evokes is "you spent all that time and talent to do /that/?".

<comment><USER8> My image of you is now a cranky old man who never learned how to have fun.

I assume you're similarly annoyed by any Rube Goldberg machine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A question for some one who knows trading laws:

Would it be legal for facebook to spam everyone's time line with ads that essentially say: "Get an e-trade account today and buy a piece of facebook! For the first time ever you can own part of facebook! Click here"

I am not saying this would be a good thing (a bunch of uniformed investors speculating and boosting the price), however I am curious would it be legal?

<comment><USER10> No - Facebook is not a broker-dealer and do cannot market securities. Further, there are other disclosures that must be fulfilled before retail investors can be marketed to. This is only taking US residents into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand why most comments here are so jaded. This is just a fun simple hack pulled off by a creative engineer, nobody claims that it was groundbreaking or even necessary. Personally, I think it's good that they have a culture that encourages things like that.

<comment><USER12> Definitely agree. Some of the comments are positively ludicrous. This post would have hundreds of points if it were Kickstarter or a company that "hackers" like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would have found the reverse creative as well--something similar to the release of portal 2. Have some actions on facebook by many people lower a robotic arm to press the button.

</comment><comment><USER14> The real story for me is that, when you go public, NASDAQ brings some kind of button to your offices? Or there's a button at their offices?

Why? Just ceremony, like a ribbon-cutting?

<comment><USER15> Traditionally, with an IPO that's become as popular as this one, you have a representative from the company being listed ring the bell on the trading floor of the exchange they're listing on.

However, NASDAQ lacks a proper trading floor, as they're all electronic, so they have companies deliver a live feed of said representative ringing the opening bell from the company HQ.

<comment><USER16> NASDAQ allows any D-list dignitary type to "ring the bell". It's a total sham. See: <http://www.nasdaq.com/marketsite/bell-event.html>

I have to respect Zuckerberg for not wasting the flight to NYC to do this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It strikes me as incredibly post modern that a purely electronic trading platform has an "opening bell."

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally, this seems like a waste of time. The problem has a number of obvious non-technical solutions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think any of them decided to do it for reasons of being practical. The entire reasoning behind it was that it was 'cool'. A pretty good reason, if you ask me...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good to see the hacking culture alive and well!

</comment><comment><USER20> "A couple of hours later, we had built our hack. The finished product wasn't exactly the prettiest thing, but hacks aren't supposed to be. They're just supposed to work."

I can't say I agree 100%. Sometimes when you have time left over at the end of the hack, it doesn't hurt to go back and clean it up.

</comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one with massively messed up layouts on Facebook today? What's going on?

<http://cl.ly/0N3L34461V1z130f2W1e>

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh wow, Facebook is so cool! These are real hackers. A button that posts to your Facebook timeline? I thought this technology was at least a decade out.

</comment><comment><USER23> "So, like I said, it was just a normal day here at Facebook" -> I love this.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hacking is such an overloaded term these days...

<comment><USER25> In fairness, this is actually fairly close to the original MIT tech model railroader's club sense: [http://steel.lcc.gatech.edu/~mcordell/lcc6316/Hacker%20Group...](http://steel.lcc.gatech.edu/~mcordell/lcc6316/Hacker%20Group%20Project%20FINAL.pdf)

<comment><USER26> I'll go further, and say that this is a better example of the original meaning of _hacking_ than most.</comment></comment></comment>


Noob to Ninja in 8 Months - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/a-programmers-tale/a3f7aa8d9bdf

<comment><USER2> "professional software developer in less than a year"

So much delusion.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't professional just mean you're making a living doing it? If he is, then he is.

So much pretentiousness.

<comment><USER2> Not a native english speaker, so thank you, I'll keep in mind that professional means anywhere between useless to pro.

<comment><USER3> pro·fes·sion·al [pruh-fesh-uh-nl] adjective

1\. following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.

2\. of, pertaining to, or connected with a profession: professional studies.

3\. appropriate to a profession: professional objectivity.

4\. engaged in one of the learned professions: A lawyer is a professional person.

5\. following as a business an occupation ordinarily engaged in as a pastime: a professional golfer.

Happy to help out a non-native English speaker!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Place is Not a Place of Honor (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor <comment><USER2> Come on, have modern humans actively shunned any archeological site? Have we even shunned hostile environments? I think it's the contrary, we're drawn to them.

A plaque with all the UN languages is a rosetta stone, something of obvious intrinsic value. The Periodic table too - to any potential future civilization that hasn't already rediscovered those things, it may be a sought after source of knowledge.

The site is also attractive to those who would wish to use what's there to their advantage - as a weapon against their enemies, likely w/o really understanding the consequences.

Too expensive to launch it into the sun, no other solution (if we're not going to derive the value of reprocessing and actually use it up).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been kind of obsessed with WIPP for years. Even if you don't buy the reasoning, it's just... I used to work on science in this area: colleagues were working on Synroc, and I was working on theoretical techniques which you could apply to predicting how well it'd work. So it was on my mind anyway. But there's so much in the WIPP report, the richness and depth of it, that who cares if it actually happens? Seriously, the report's worth your time anyway.

I really couldn't get away from this. I used to do a lot of music. Here's a track I made in '05/'06 off my record: (<http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/releases/symbolic/>, free download);

<http://www.last.fm/music/Covert/_/A+Place+of+Honour>

Like I said; obsessed...

<comment><USER4> Ooh, I like it. I have a design exercise that involves listening to a song for inspiration. This will be perfect! Thank you for sharing. I agree that this is a fascinating idea.

<comment><USER3> Cool! I'd love to see what you come up with.

<comment><USER4> Here you go!

[http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor...](http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=794205>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773137>

<comment><USER6> And more recently: <http://www.slate.com/id/2235504/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> During my work at a utility with lots of nuclear power plants, my boss talked about this very issue. He described the problem and the proposed solution being the tall objects sticking out of the ground.

One of the young people on the team quickly thought out loud, "Sounds like Stone Henge!"

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a very hard problem to solve, as the very act of marking something signals "Hey, there's something important here!" The natural curiosity of whoever finds it is likely to override any respect they might have for the warnings of a long dead civilization.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is the same problem that the Pharaos tried to solve, and look how well that turned out.

<comment><USER9> If we're using the pharaohs as a guide, then perhaps we should make a massive monument, mark it with the most creative signage we can think of, and then bury the nuclear waste somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They could have concentric circles of increasingly deadly threats: start with tripwires, end with landmines. If every time you get closer to the nuclear waste, you're more likely to die, you will probably get the idea.

<comment><USER11> If you can make tripwires and landmines that still work in 10,000 years, you can probably do better things with nuclear waste than just put it in a cave.

Remember: the earliest known writings are less than 6,000 years old. We're talking about planning for almost twice that. This is an incredibly long period of time, in human terms (though not in geological terms, which is what created the problem in the first place).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How about a skull? Pictures of people dying of radiation?

I can't see giant monuments doing anything other than enticing people to dig. However, reliefs and images of people dying of radiation poisoning might be less ambiguous.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good sci fi. Silly for the government to care about this. I mean, really, _10000_ years?

If future civilizations are technologically advanced, detecting radiation won't be a problem.

If future civilizations have fallen back to the stone age, spatially localized buried nuclear waste is going to be the least of their problems. It would be a rounding error in the annual death rates.</comment>


Phone-sex company is amassing 1-800 numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42658653/ns/business-small_business/

<comment><USER2> They are charging only 9.6 cents per month per number. If they raise this to 9.6 _dollars_ per month per number, any compay with <10 numbers will not see any difference in it's anual budget.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone even pay for phone sex anymore? I'd thought that business model went out with dial up ISP's and people screaming in a trading pit on the stock exchange.

</comment><comment><USER4> The solution to this is the same as the solution to spam... kill all who respond. They are too stupid to live in this society.</comment>


The 1810 Republic of West Florida - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/10/6/9462159/west-florida <comment><USER2> "I talked to historian William C. Davis, who wrote The Rogue Republic: How Would-Be Patriots Waged the Shortest Revolution in American History, about this odd, short-lived country." To me, this summarizes a lot of popular history writing in a nutshell. A professional historian or writer finds an obscure, odd but interesting moment in history, and writes about it, making it seem larger than life and perhaps more important than it really was. A very short lived self declared West Florida Republic certainly qualifies as obscure, and in the grand scheme of things not particularly relevant.

<comment><USER2> I suppose these obscure stories make for good website clickbait too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> And on the other side of the state, a few years later, the "Republic of the Floridas" started on Amelia Island - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor#Florida_repub...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor#Florida_republic.3B_Amelia_Island_affair) .</comment>


Bodshots - Say hello to Instagram for fitness freaks & body builders - <AUTHOR> http://bodshots.herokuapp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> For those impatiently interested in something like this, checkout - <http://bodylog.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> But where is the app download link, or place to sign up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yet to launch, you should hit 'Sign me up' towards end of the page at <http://bodshots.herokuapp.com/> and we'll let you know when we do. We're considering a name change as 'bodshots' really comes bad in google search (specially image search) :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How many users does your app have?

<comment><AUTHOR> We haven't released to public yet, still counting sign-ups.</comment></comment>


Livecomments.go - Tutorial in Go, backbone.js, socket.io, and redis - <AUTHOR> http://paulbellamy.com/2011/04/livecomments-go/

<comment><AUTHOR> I started this as a project to learn Go, Backbone.js, Socket.io, and Redis. And thought that I may as well turn it into a tutorial in the hopes it helps other people learn too.

It's a live commenting system. Designed to be a cross between a chat-room and blog comments. It's pretty far from being done, but I felt that adding too many more features would make it a bit complex for a basic tutorial.

After I posted it I learned that actually, ending lines in Go with a semi- colon is discouraged, so, hind-sight is 20/20, and I may change that later to be more correct.

Hopefully people find it useful, and learn a bit.

Edit: Should mention, it's fairly basic, so there's no spam protection, or editing, or threads, yet... Eventually I'd like to include it on the page with my blog posts, but it's not quite ready for prime-time yet.

<comment><USER2> Your implementation is very interesting, especially because it's using such a variety of different languages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only 2 languages (Go and Javascript). Lots of frameworks, though... I wanted to learn as much as possible, so why not, you know?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could someone explain that to me?

      http.Handle("/", http.FileServer("static/", "/"))
      if err := http.ListenAndServe(":3000", nil); ...

Does the http module keep track of the routes within the module state? This seems like a horrible idea coming from python. How does this work in Go? Is it possible to run two HTTP servers in parallel using threads with this model?

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks awesome!</comment>


Interview Question:How to Find the the Highest Value in an Array - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/solving-for-a-max-value-in-an-array-57569764e616 <comment><USER2> The simpler solution is to set currentMax = myArray[0] initially, which works regardless of the sign of the array elements (though it assumes that the array is non-empty).

<comment><USER3> This is the correct answer. We can even account for the assumption with an empty check before the rest of the code. (If the array is empty, it doesn't have a max value.)</comment></comment>


Iran missile launch pictures Photshopped - <AUTHOR> http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/index.html?hp

<comment><USER2> Code to detect this: [http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to- write-my...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write-myself- aston.html)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for veering it slightly more on topic.

<comment><USER2> Here's what the output looks like:

[http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/07/photoshopped-iranian- missile...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/07/photoshopped-iranian-missile- launch.html)

<comment><USER4> Very cool. Next up: hook it up to a feed of all images released by various governments and new agencies, with alerts when there's a hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not only are they doctoring images, they are making inroads into news sites that have nothing to do with international politics!

<comment><USER6> I'd rather this link than another TechCrunch post.

<comment><USER7> I'd rather an empty space than either possibility

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone is trying to make Iran seem a bigger threat than it actually is. It's Iraq all over.. except with much severe and deadlier consequences.

<comment><USER9> Actually it is Iraq * 3 in population, area, economy and fanatics.

Edit: But Iran never said it wants to attack anyone, or made any threads besides retaliation in case they are attacked.

<comment><USER10> _Edit: But Iran never said it wants to attack anyone, or made any threads besides retaliation in case they are attacked._

I really don't want to get into a political argument, but you really need to know that this isn't true. Three ways:

a) The Iranian government has been making threats against Israel for a long time, and this has increased since Ahmadinejad took power. (See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel>)

b) The Iranian government has been funding, training, and giving weapons to groups making attacks inside Iraq. At a guess, they've killed thousands of people so far.

c) The Iranian government funds Hezbollah, a terrorist group which attacks Israel.

<comment><USER11> Of these, Only 'C' is accepted by the American military establishment as being true. Which means, I only accept 'c' as being true. Regarding 'A', go listen to the original speech and learn Farsi. That's the good thing now-a-days, a lot of younger people, those with military backgrounds anyway, know Farsi and Arabic. They will know when they are about to be hoodwinked. As touching 'B' the American military establishment has been consistent in saying that weapons and, more importantly, logistical support have been coming into Iraq from Iran. Not from the IRANIAN GOVERNMENT. It is clear that radicalized people in Iran are behind this in my view. In fact they seem keen to want to avoid the mistake they made in Iraq, getting rid of the government, when the people are the problem. And despite whatever you heard about the middle east, the people really are the problem.

Similarly weapons, money and support for the killing of Americans comes in from Syria, Jordan, and believe it or not, even Kuwait. But, by far, the largest supplier of man and material in the struggle against us pig-eating infidels is from our good friends in Saudi Arabia. Fun fact, there are units in Iraq who have yet to catch a foreign fighter who is NOT Saudi.

Did you know we actually trained some of the most effective foreign fighters in Iraq ourselves? When Chechens were blowing up Russians we thought they were freedom fighters. So they got tacit support, not just from us but from the West in general. Ask any man from Marine one eight and he will tell you about the effectiveness of Chechen snipers in Fallujah.

My point is, from MY point of view, which is clouded from being in an enlisted family as opposed to a commissioned one I'm sure, Iran is only a small part of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> from the comments:

"I know that these missles are part of a threat to wipe Israel off the map, but now they've proved that they have the photoshop capabilities to do it."

</comment><comment><USER9> They were photshopped by the news agancy. International Herald Tribune and other newspaper showed the real picture from the start: <http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/09/asia/10iran.php>

<comment><USER10> Hmm, except that picture came from a video feed, whereas the other picture came from a still camera. Not enough evidence to decide either way at the moment.

Do we have that actual picture from multiple different news agencies? That should tell us whether the editing was done by the Iranian government or by the news agency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones._ \- Albert Einstein

Whatever those weapons are, they'll probably need good hackers.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's the pixels. They're a dead giveaway every time.

<comment><USER15> Maybe. But in this case, you can clearly see a pattern on the plumes (the 2nd from the left matches the next, smaller, one to the right)

<comment><USER14> I'd like to thank you, and everyone, who took my comment seriously.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Features you would find useful in an information management application - <AUTHOR>

We provide a free cloud based consumer information management app (http://www.zukmo.com/) that we aim to enhance until it can be used as a small/medium business collaborative workspace and also as a useful consumer information management product.<p>What features could we add to make it useful to you as a consumer or a small and medium business? Our product is still alpha, but what are your thoughts on it so far? (Feature improvements and additions, structure, UI or any other suggestions are greatly appreciated) <comment><USER2> This is based on a love of b2b saas products that focus on increasing productivity...

First, ditch consumer. They don't pay and are very fickle. Lots of lookie- loos. And it's really hard to actually solve a problem for them because they don't even know it's a problem.

B2B is way more lucrative. Getting a SMB to pay $100-500/mo for a product that adds value is easy. Try getting that amount from a consumer!

On the site UI: design, colors are good. Make the tabs animated so it scrolls through the features.

On the content: you are stuck where I (and most other techies) get stuck. You are focusing on features. You have to focus on the benefits. Answer the question: what's in it for me.

I see there's a bunch of features. Strip all of it down to 2-3 things. That's it. You have to focus everything into 2-3 key things. And you have to present them as benefits to the customer. For example, 'distribute to social media' is a definitely a feature. 'Share your pictures with all your friends in one click' is a benefit (I think).

Think of it like this: a feature requires the customer to connect the dots to answer the question of 'what's in it for me'. a benefit connects the dots for them. It's like the "because..." of a sentence.

On the product: my goal with all my b2b work is to try to simplify the process until it takes zero clicks to perform it (i.e. fully automated). if something takes 3 clicks, figure out how to get it to 2 clicks. If it takes 2, get it to 1. And if you can get 1 click down to zero clicks, you have reached productivity nirvana! :)

Second, you have to pick a really specific niche in SMB to go after. DO NOT BUILD A ONE-SIZE FITS ALL PRODUCT! You will fail.

Pick Info Management for dog groomers or Info Mgmt for funeral homes. Go very specific and build a product that is custom-tailored to that niche. This reduces competition, decreases customer acquisition cost and will get you delighted customers.

Once you pick your niche, you have to fully understand that customer and their processes. This is impossible for you to do unless you were a dog groomer in a previous life, so you'll have to find some subject matter experts (SMEs) and pick their brains.

Then, pick the part of their process that is the most painful for them, that technology can help fix and that they will pay money for. Solve that problem and you make money.

You might get lucky and your existing product will cover some of what's needed to solve that problem, but it might not. You'll probably want to identify SMB niches that you think might have a problem related to info management as your starting point.

The biggest thing you want to be aware of is that when you are talking to SMEs, keep a wide open mind and ask all sorts of questions. Don't try to force your product or your presumption of what their problems are. You will most certainly be wrong.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

<comment><AUTHOR> >We are actually focused on the SMB side of the product right now. We're using the product development phase to build our brand name and to test our product. Once we have refined the product message, function, look and feel we will start our pitch to the SMB space

>The tabs are currently animated, but they stay for 30 seconds so that all of the information can be read. If you're getting a sense that this is too long, we'll happily shorten it.

>We really appreciate the suggestion for our product positioning and will work on our message to project benefits instead of features. Currently we're trying to communicate benefits as the following, but they may change in time: 1) we let the users save any content or stream into Zukmo, enabling them to search for and share it with their contacts. 2) We enable the users to search in a flexible manner for any text within the title, description, content body and tags to retrieve it. 3) we also simplify the web content to make it more readable 4) We enable the users to access everything from their smart phone devices. Would these messages have more appeal if they were consolidated into, say, simplified messages about collecting, organizing, accessing, and sharing?

>You make a very important point for improving utility. We'll definitely do some legwork to see how far down we can whittle down the amount of user input needed to accomplish tasks, without compromising feature depth.

>You make great points about the ease of market penetration and reduced competition associated with operating in a niche market. Our current goal is to remain broad-based and to provide a bare bones document/information management solution for SMBs where the entry criteria are much less stringent. We will further customize the product to address the client's needs.

>Thanks very much for taking the time to give us your feedback. We really appreciate it! We'll certainly be back once we've passed a few more milestones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i tried it out with your firefox button. it is really packed with a lot of features and though i couldn't try my hand at everything, i can see its use as a cloud storage option for my favorite webpages & rss feeds or for my desktop documents or other online apps (like google docs, twitter etc). Notes seemed very basic to me and needs improvement because i could only add text. i like the fact that i can generally search on any word within the web page to find it. i have a couple of questions. how can i use the multimedia service ? you have mentioned sync to devices but i didn't find any mobile app ? overall its nice and good luck with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> >That's a great summary for what our product is and does.

>We agree that the notes feature is somewhat primitive at the moment and are addressing that in our next product update, which includes an advanced notes editor with support for images.

>Our multimedia service is actually a simplified manner in which you can access and view embedded multimedia content (SlideShare, Scribd, Vimeo, YouTube, etc.) that you've bookmarked. If any search in your library turns up a multimedia result, you'll see a miniature version of that content embedded in and viewable directly from your library without the clutter usually present on native multimedia content sites.

>Our mobile applications are amongst our top priorities at the moment. We encountered a bit of a hiccup and were unable to release our Android app as expected during the last product update, though we did still update our front page with the mobile feature announcement. Rest assured that our next release is set to include a full-featured Android application with browser integration. Applications for Apple devices are set to be explored shortly thereafter, with possible apps for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices in discussion.</comment></comment>


Building of Super Pi - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbVcRQQ9PNw <comment><USER2> I was expecting a cute weekend-project style mini-cluster but 1024 Pis, wow!

Would love to see some benchmarks tough - and a comparison to old SPARC Clusters :)</comment>


Velodyne Plans a Lidar Megafactory - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/velodyne-to-build-lidar-megafactory <comment><USER2> I read that, and was puzzled. Their press release says "Velodyne LiDAR's new approach to the development of solid-state LiDAR sensors reflects the application of a monolithic gallium nitride (GaN) integrated circuit, developed in partnership with Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)." That's just a new drive circuit for the laser diode emitter.[1] Only 5ns pulses, too, which means depth resolution around 2 feet. There are other vendors with 1.5ns pulses. This is all on the output side; it doesn't improve the detector side.

Velodyne is still doing this with rotating machinery. The more advanced concepts are true solid state devices. Continental, the auto parts maker, bought Advanced Scientific Concepts' expensive, but successful technology (Space-X uses it to dock with the ISS) and is trying to make it cheaper. If they can get the cost down, that's probably the best technology around.

Quantergy announced a no-moving-parts LIDAR last year, but is having trouble delivering. (Despite that, their site says "Quanergy is the leading provider of solid state LiDAR sensors." No, they're not, not until they ship the product.) Quantergy recently announced a mechanical scanner, which is apparently shipping, and now claims that their solid state unit will ship in volume in 2017. We'll see if they deliver.

Somebody is going to get this working soon, now that there's a market. I first saw a flash LIDAR as a demo on an optical bench at ASC back in 2012. That was clearly the right approach, but it was a long way off commercially.

[1] [http://epc- co.com/epc/EventsandNews/News/ArtMID/1627/Article...](http://epc- co.com/epc/EventsandNews/News/ArtMID/1627/ArticleID/1765/EPC-Development- Board-Shows-the-Ultra-Fast-Transition-Capability-of-eGaN-FETs-over-MOSFETs- Giving-Superior-LiDAR-System-Performance-When-Used-in-Autonomous- Vehicles.aspx)

<comment><USER3> Even with longer pulses, if you know the shape of the pulse, you can use a matched filter to get sub 5 ns resolution on the detector side. [0]

A drawback of flash lidar is that the light spread out with an inverse square law. With diffuse reflection, the returned power decays in an inverse zenzizenzic fashion [1]. Lidars with a collimated laser beam are far less affected by the inverse square law on the emission side, therefore getting better range and signal-to-noise ratio.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matched_filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matched_filter) [1] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zenzizenzic](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zenzizenzic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm looking forward to seeing the first company that uses the binary SI prefixes to describe their factory. "SpaceX's new Kibifactory plans to build 1024 rockets per year," for example.

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with base10 SI prefixes? DeciFactory to build 10 rockets per year. CentiLaunchpad set to do 100 launches.

<comment><USER6> Those would be a DecaFactory and an HectaLaunchpad. A DeciFactory would build a rocket every 10 years.

<comment><USER5> Whoops, mentally went in the wrong direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know almost nothing about Lidars and I was unable to find an answer to my question:

What happens if you have a few dozen Lidar-equipped cars in the same spot? Is there something like crosstalk, scatter or noise between the cars which result in Lidar artifacts?

<comment><USER8> Highly unlikely unless such interference is very carefully, deliberately planned.

If one did want to think adversarial one could explore a system receiving Lidar, say from a car behind, figuring out its transmission and doing your own illumination to confuse or jam the other car system. But the chances for this state arising naturally are astronomically small. My 2c.

<comment><USER9> seems like you could make a material that would absorb most of the light, rather than rebounding it? Lidar uses NIR, or UV lasers, so if you could engineer a material that had good absorption properties maybe you could prevent the beams from rebounding and confuse it that way?

<comment><USER10> You don't need to engineer it. In our lab tests we accidentially realized that one of our desktop computers was "invisible" to the Velodyne, because it had a black case.

Every material that is black could be a good candidate. I am wondering if the google cars do have a problem with cars that have a matte black finish (those PVC foils).

But you have to keep in mind that they are not invisible in the real sense, because you get a hole in your scan where you don't have points in your pointcloud. This could be detected, because the Velodyne usually has many beams pointing downward which eventually would hit the road, but would leave a hole instead if there is an NIR absorbing material.

And if you use sensor fusion, you can use a camera to check for dark colors in those areas that might help you to detect such cases

<comment><USER2> The charcoal-black material sometimes used for office chair upholstery is a very good IR absorber, and those things are not visible to a SICK LIDAR.

That's why you want to profile the road from a high LIDAR. It's not just about sensing obstacles. It's about building a height map of the environment. This was more important in the DARPA Grand Challenge, where we had to drive off- road. Potholes and rocks were to be expected. There are visual illusions for both vision and LIDAR, but few of them present the appearance of a flat road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Velodyne is having major production issues. Our latest order with them has been pushed back months, and our last new order was quoted at 30-40 weeks. They keep citing yield issues. I'm hoping this opens up the market for reasonably-priced competition.

<comment><USER12> I see Velodyne is predicting that economies of scale would lower prices "below $50" which is impressive, at the same time I haven't heard anything more about Osram's $5 lidar[1], which would certainly turn up the pressure...

1: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/new-lidar-package-makes- it...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/new-lidar-package-makes-it-easier-to- add-smarts-to-your-smart-car/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is great news. Quanergy was supposed to be selling solid state sensors by now, but they missed their deadline and have changed their answer to "soon." Regardless, so long as _somebody_ is selling the sensors for cheap, it's fantastic news for robotics. It also opens up possibilities for selling to consumers as there could be phones that include these sensors (or more likely they're sold separately as dongles). Suddenly your phones would be able to do SLAM and make 3D maps of your surroundings. That would make furniture shopping a lot easier. I could also see some cool applications with augmented reality.

<comment><USER14> I wonder which "SLAM for the masses" technology will become dominant. Do you have any thoughts what's missing in google's project Tango?

<comment><USER15> I'm still disappointed that Kinect didn't usher in that era already.

<comment><USER16> Apple bought the company making those sensors and they aren't available any more unless you know where in China they tend to "fall off the backs of trucks".

<comment><USER17> Equivalent sensors are available from various mainstream manufacturers retail for cheap....

[https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Kinect-...](https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Kinect- Sensor-for-Xbox-One/productID.2267482500)

[https://www.asus.com/ca- en/3D-Sensor/Xtion_PRO_LIVE/](https://www.asus.com/ca- en/3D-Sensor/Xtion_PRO_LIVE/)

(launching soon:)

[http://click.intel.com/intel-realsense-developer- kit-r200.ht...](http://click.intel.com/intel-realsense-developer- kit-r200.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Really interesting comment (by TheRadicalModerate (cute handle)) attached to that IEEE Spectrum article.

Posits that we don't need each and every auto manufacturer to be building and developing these systems (sensors + AI). Just a handful or two of large players (and they need not necessarily be auto manufacturers themselves) all building and developing to minimum national standards.

Basically like the driver theory test these pieces of software must all pass the same criteria and standards. They can do better, they can set the bar higher for themselves, but there needs to be an pretty exhaustive check-list of compliance.

That way when you're buying a car you're not wondering which edge-case is going to get you or someone else killed.

There are going to be fatalities and injuries along the way, that's for sure, but so long as the number of fatalities and injuries is well below the current horrific rate this tech will be beyond revolutionary.

</comment><comment><USER19> As much as I like LIDAR sensors, and as much as I'd like to see lower cost units, I have a suspicion that they are ultimately going to be unneeded for self-driving vehicles.

There's been plenty of demonstrations by various players that self-driving vehicles can get a great amount if not nearly all needed information from camera-based systems, and drive well using them.

Other sensors will be needed, of course - and maybe LIDAR can even play a part there; the more data you have, from more sources, the better - this has always been true in robotics.

I just think that LIDAR won't play a primary role, but rather as a backup or accessory system component.

<comment><USER20> It's a question of reliability. When you market an 'autopilot' that periodically crashes into stationary vehicles, you are probably fine using just a camera. If you, on the other hand, are Google, and want to provide an actual hands-off Level 4 self-driving car, well.. you need an actual 3D point cloud and not just some neural network's educated guess about what the distance is.

<comment><USER21> > not just some neural network's educated guess about what the distance is

But that's precisely the mechanism that's been working and accepted since the invention of the directed machine...

(Also, just to clarify: a stereoscopic distance determination isn't meaningfully a "guess". That's been a solved problem for a long time.)

The goal can't ever be perfect safety. The machines themselves aren't perfectly safe even if they aren't driven into anything. It just has to be measurably safer than a human driver.

<comment><USER22> It's easier to certify a lidar depth map and prove it's reliability, than a complex algorithm that builds depth maps from camera, under all lighting conditions .

And in any case , sensor fusion seems to be a common approach, so we'll probably need both lida and cameras.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> They really need this. The calibration on their Lidar sensors is all over the place and for their sensors to be reliable enough to use off the shelf, they a factory.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is not a criticism, just trying to understand better. The article's use of the word Lidars confused me. Lidar, as I understand it, is Light Detection and Ranging. A radar like system. But the it says 'Lidars' plural. Lidar is a technique not something to have multiple of. You can have multiple Lidar Arrays, or Systems or something like that but Lidars seems off to me. Is this a common way to talk about the systems?

<comment><USER25> Precedent: "The term RADAR was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging[1][2] or RAdio Direction And Ranging.[3][4] The term radar has since entered English and other languages as a common noun, losing all capitalization." -Wikipedia on Radar

<comment><USER24> Right I understand the acronym going down to a word. Totally makes sense. But its still don't see it pluralized as Radars, its radar arrays or radar dishes, or something along those lines. At least from what I have seen.

<comment><USER26> [https://www.google.com/search?q=radars](https://www.google.com/search?q=radars)

And

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=radar%2C+radar...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=radar%2C+radars&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cradar%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cradars%3B%2Cc0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this the same Velodyne that makes subwoofers?

<comment><USER28> Yes it is.

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

<comment><USER29> They also make stabilized boats. [0] Truly fascinating company.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8553204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8553204)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Software engineer here, is it too late to join Velodyne and make $$$? Asking cause, they seem established, and their engineers must be now feeling like they found a pot of gold.

<comment><USER31> Yep, but I bet pressure has been jacked up too - now that people know this stuff is useful in self-driving cars and not just research projects, I bet investment money is pouring in like rivers. How long till SICK or Hokuyo comes up with a competitor? I think there are already some on the market.

<comment><USER19> > How long till SICK or Hokuyo comes up with a competitor?

I'm really surprised that one of them hasn't done it already. Hokuyo especially - one of their sensors is already relatively small, and USB based; I wish I could get my hands on a used one (so far, all I've seen on the market are older SICK units).

It's probably because they are all entrenched in the niche industrial market; they may not be able to make a lower priced sensor without cutting into that market (but if they don't, they might see that market erode anyhow).

<comment><USER30> But in revenue terms, is it making an impact or is it just hype? Similar to how NVIDIA is selling GPUs to researchers, gamers must still account for most of their revenue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Army applying new areas of math - <AUTHOR> https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/03/21/us-army-math/ <comment><USER2> To be very honest, count me in as one of these. I am someone who works for a gov't lab, but I do "very pure" scientific research. It's not that our research doesn't have "defense applications," it might eventually, but we are definitely a few steps removed from say CFD modeling of airplane wings.

The thing is traditional sources of funding suck, and gov't labs give researchers a much better environment than the endlessly political academia. Moreover, while the contractor we work with has something like a 30% odd markup for grants, the nearest university (that I got my PhD from) takes a whopping 56% of grant money as "overhead," I imagine to pay the salaries of the President, coaches, and superstar medical faculty salaries, as well as the new development all along the nearby street.

I'm happy for my job, I just am embarrassed when I tell people I work for the military because they think I make bombs or something.

<comment><USER3> > I just am embarrassed when I tell people I work for the military because > they think I make bombs or something.

Personally, I don't understand this, but I'm from an ex-Eastern Bloc country which I was all too happy to escape.

I'd rather the US (and the rest of the Western world) made bombs than only Russia and China did. Vacuums of power in the world will always be filled and a Western invasion/expeditionary force is a much nicer alternative to a Russian one.

<comment><USER4> Having a military is kind of like having house insurance. you wish you didn't have to spend the money on it, you hope you never have to actually use it, but it would be very irresponsible not to have it.

<comment><USER5> ie we spend a third of all our tax revenue on housing insurance

<comment><USER6> where is this "third" figure coming from?

<comment><USER5> it's a poor proxy for "a lot"

<comment><USER6> I figured. I admit I tend to be pedantic about the US military spending figure because, while huge, it is not nearly as large a portion of govt spending as most people think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone interested in applying traditionally pure fields, Applied Topology has been slowly gaining steam lately (as reflected in the article: "topological" is now a hot word).

Robert Ghrist of UPenn has been at the forefront of bringing topology into applied fields; and has written a good text on the subject.

<comment><USER8> Hipster Topology: I studied Algebraic Topology before it became "Applied"

<comment><USER9> That would be "Old Geezer Topology".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if there's anyone here working on Homotopy Type Theory that can explain what it is, and how it is used in modeling?

I skimmed the PDF of the book but am drawing blank as to its connection to an application. Perhaps it's used for verification of concepts, similar to how formal methods in CS (e.g. TLA+) are used to conceptually check algorithms?

<comment><USER11> One application: It makes it easier to do mechanized reasoning to optimize SQL queries.

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.04822.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.04822.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Abstract: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.04822](https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.04822)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In a similar vein, John Baez was given an opportunity, funded under a grant from DARPA, to use Category Theory for modeling systems.

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex- adap...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/complex-adaptive- system-design-part-1/)

<comment><USER14> > In a similar vein, John Baez was considering (ultimately declining) an > opportunity [...]

But did he ultimately decline? The link you posted has this content at the very end:

 _> Something tipped the scales and I said yes. We applied for the grant, and we got it.

> And so, an interesting adventure began. It will last for 3 years, and I'll > say more about it soon._

And further down, this is his reply to a reader comment:

 _> As I said at the end of my post, I am working with Metron on this CASCADE project, and I'll be doing it for 3 years. My decision was not predicated on the hope that the US will do anything in particular. It's predicated on the hope that I'll make faster progress in my research if I team up with some more practical people and use my math skills to tackle a concrete problem in network theory: namely, optimizing search and rescue missions. I'll get lots of new ideas which I wouldn't get otherwise, and I'll publish papers on these ideas.

> If I were only searching for mathematical beauty in the word I wouldn't feel > the need to work on this project, because beauty is so easy to find. > Instead, I'm trying to develop network theory into a useful set of tools._

<comment><USER13> Correct, I misread that paragraph. Editing original comment, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love that new areas of math are being applied, but (as a PhD applied mathematician) I disagree with the quote "Applied mathematics is not a subject classification. It's an attitude".

It has taken me years - an entire career, really - to learn to effectively communicate my mathematical findings to other non-mathematical researchers and effectively bridge these gaps. I know a lot of mathematicians who say "well, sure, I could communicate my work to other fields, but ...<some excuse here>", when the truth is, they just don't have the training or expertise for how to do it. It's not just that they don't want to/are too good to bother/etc./etc. (as much as they would like it to seem that way).

The fact is, translating research findings is hard. Much harder than actually making them. And asking good questions, relevant to the scientific field you are working in, even harder. The quote above reflects a common, damaging hubris in mathematics research and is why most of the "best" math research never gets used in other fields of science.

<comment><USER16> > translating research findings is hard. Much harder than actually making > them.

I think this is an indication that one is making findings in area that other people don't care about. Not necessarily that it is bad subject to study, but with some people, it is better not to spend the effort to explain, because only the prepared mind can understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> DARPA was looking people with expertise in category theory, algebraic geometry and topology, and sheaf theory few years back for the Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design Environment (CASCADE) program [https://www.darpa.mil/program/complex-adaptive-system- compos...](https://www.darpa.mil/program/complex-adaptive-system-composition- and-design-environment)

</comment><comment><USER18> This recalls me a story from Stanislaw Lem' Cyberiad. The two constructors, Trurl and Clapautius, give the same advice to the leaders of two opposing armies:the best army, each of them explain, is the one where there is an unique spirit in all the bodies. So, just add to all soldiers a plug in front and a socket in the back, so that they can all connect. The armies apply the advice and something unexpected happens.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not the first time I've stumbled into topology/homology used in military areas: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Id3Gu18MME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Id3Gu18MME) (Great channel btw.)

</comment><comment><USER20> I like the characterization of pure vs. applied math being primarily about motivation. I've often said the difference is more on the "why" that the "what".

<comment><USER21> I studied applied mathematics. Roughly summarised: pure mathematicians create new math through the process of _conjecture_ and _proof_. Applied mathematicians use those theorems and methods to _solve_ simplified models of reality in order to draw conclusions about expected behaviour and/or for the sake of _optimisation_.

<comment><USER20> That's not quite right, in my opinion. In a past life I was an (applied) research mathematician, but started off fairly pure.

Wearing both hats you can find yourself creating new mathematics, but there is a difference in why you are doing it, and what you consider progress to mean.

<comment><USER22> And how worried you are about rigorous proofs. You can happily hand wave your way to some approximation in Applied Maths land (because you need the result, not that you are trying to prove that it is true). Then you can spend the next bit of time relaxing various assumptions about your approximation and see where it takes you. A lot of new tools come from thinking deeply about roadblocks to applied problems, that sort of thing tends to be the maths I am personally most engaged by.

<comment><USER20> You still need rigorous proofs at the end, if you are trying anything new. I think I would look at it more as you might try an ugly/practical approximation, or add a term, or whatever just to see if it will improve things. And maybe it gets you "close enough" for the application. But if you have a deep think about where you are stuck and come up with a new tool, then you have to be careful.

<comment><USER22> We call them "physicists" :)

<comment><USER20> hah. it's true ... there is a weird fuzzy line between theoretical physics and applied maths. Sometimes you're on the same page, sometime you really are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Obligatory GitHub link to UniMath project:

[https://github.com/UniMath](https://github.com/UniMath)

</comment><comment><USER24> Frankly this sounds like some bureaucrat who likes HTT made up an excuse to fund it. It's a mil/gov version of a corporate engineer who decides to build a project in a language they read about on HN.

<comment><USER25> > this sounds like some bureaucrat who likes HTT

...did you read that after you typed it? do you think there is a actually some US federal government bureaucrat running around who has an opinion on HTT?

<comment><USER26> Well, considering that it's the official position of the U.S. Army Research Office Aberdeen Proving Ground that

"Homotopy Type Theory and its applications are such an area that is of significant interest in military applications",

yes.

[https://www.arl.army.mil/www/pages/8/W911NF-17-S-0002%20ARO-...](https://www.arl.army.mil/www/pages/8/W911NF-17-S-0002%20ARO- Core-BAA-Amendment-03.PDF)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Without more details about why homotopy type theory was mixed into that paragraph about causal inference, I call bullshit. I think this is bolstered by clicking on the link to the previous post about categorical data analysis, which offers nothing and even takes a pot shot at professional statistics (saying the field is "bad at specifying the domain and range of functions" which is a bizarre and incredibly inaccurate characterization of professional statistics).

I think someone is making a mountain out of a mole hill here. I'm sure there will be a flurry of grant money though.

<comment><USER28> Statistics has become politicized through questionable interpretations of polling and crime data specifically with respect to various demographic markers. Increasing skepticism towards the field is a product of ideological division. No science is immune from its scientists and most humans are irrational creatures with emotive drivers.

<comment><USER29> There certainly has been widespread misuse (and probably intentional abuse) of statistics, but is it fair to blame the field for that?

It's very often an outsider misusing statistics, while professional statisticians who point out the mistakes are ignored.

<comment><USER20> I think this is mostly unavoidable whenever your field of study bumps up against politics and money. Economics has the same problem but perhaps worse in some ways, as there is less rigor.

I don't know how much of the blame you should assign to the field, in that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > US Army applying new areas of math

Good on them, that long division can be tricky.

> Modeling frameworks are desired that are able to eschew the usual > computational simplification assumptions and realistically capture … > complexities of real world environments and phenomena, while still > maintaining some degree of computational tractability. Of specific interest > are causal and predictive modeling frameworks, hybrid model frameworks that > capture both causal and predictive features, statistical modeling > frameworks, and abstract categorical models (cf. Homotopy Type Theory).

You could fit everyone in the Army who understands this in a single barracks.

<comment><USER31> > You could fit everyone in the Army who understands this in a single > barracks.

Why would you need more people than that? I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people in my University who understand this would fit in a single barracks too, but it doesn't in any way detract from the work they're doing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Finding products shown within video - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I am working on an idea and wish to gather your opinions regarding this idea of mine. So basically we are watching more videos online. We may wonder where we can get certain products that were shown within the video. For instance, I may be watching a video and wondered where can I get the mobile phone or the set of clothing used by the character within the video. If there is such a system whereby you can view products shown within the video and can click on links that can direct them to where they can find more information, would you use it?<p>Any feedback and chance of collaboration is welcomed. Thanks for the attention! <comment><USER2> I actually think it would be a nice idea. Show us a demo or something of your idea to impress us!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I do apologize if this post is inappropriate.</comment>


Show HN: We created an iPhone app that lets you share your plans for tonight - <AUTHOR> http://www.doingtonight.com/

<comment><USER3> Clean UI. Like the logo. Don't know why you ask for an additional password beyond FB log in.

Anyway, some UI fixes I'd suggest:

1\. On open, prompt the user for what they are doing tonight with some auto suggestions (and the option to write their own).

2\. Allow users to upload pictures for what they're doing (people love pictures)... aka social networks don't succeed without pics. At least let me take a picture of the event I'm at or food I'm making.

3\. "Tag" users does not prompt any users for me (you should pull up my friends list or address book if I haven't added anyone).

4\. Similarly, if I don't have Facebook friends on here, ask me to invite some.

5\. Too much unobvious iconography in the app. Tags don't usually imply to people to me but rather keywords. Your edit button is a circle which is confusing. Also, be consistent and use "Go" when I'm inputing stuff.

6\. Black, White and Blue are really boring colors. Add some flavor to this and make a custom footer UI bar.

Most importantly, I agree with dmix in that I need a reason to "cheerlead a new social network". You should provide some kind of incentive to solve the chicken/egg problem.

<comment><USER4> Thanks Martin - great feedback. We can't wait to explore ways to integrate with UpOut in the near future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd post what I'm doing on twitter more often if my close friends used Twitter. But they rarely venture outside of Facebook, so I don't bother.

Same with Path, I'd like to use it but I couldn't be bothered to cheerlead a new social network to them.

The same applies here, sadly.

</comment><comment><USER6> This needs to be more than just updates from friends. Facebook does that well enough. Simply organizing a certain _type_ of update into a stream isn't a sufficient reason for people to use the app unless everyone else already is.

Here's what might work though: aggregate and map local, context-aware events: local as in things that are happening nearby, and context-aware as in things that suit my interests. Why not consume data from Songkick for example - <USER2> displaying concerts and music events. Or figure out a way to generate data from bars and nightclubs. Maybe mashup something from Yelp? Make it easy, fun, and intuitive to browse this type of information - with data from your friends mixed and layered in.

That way, there's a reason to use this thing without the luxury of having friends who are users (which, frankly, will be everyone).

I've been thinking a lot about this stuff myself - I'd be happy to toss back ideas outside of HN. My address is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. We're already working on curating some top events for a bunch of populous cities. I'll shoot you an e-mail and perhaps we can talk further.

Edit: you may want to also take a look at our "nearby" events. While the list may admittedly be a little dry if you're outside of a high-populous area, it's a cool feature.

</comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit Since you asked for feedback I am going to give you feedback. It will be honest and not meant to be disparaging. While I'm not sure I would use it that much since I can achieve the same thing using Twitter/Facebook, one thing is certain... I will never use it if it is iOS only. Not all iOS and Android people hate each other. We hang out together and do stuff... tonight even. :) If the app is iOS only and there is no actual website (for non iOS people) to perform the same tasks as the app, then I feel even the iOS crowd may have a hard time buying in to it since it forces them to neglect part of their social circle. In real life, social networks are platform agnostic. Just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree. We're iterating as quickly as we can on iOS to get to product-market fit before we expand to other platforms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the app itself is fantastic, it's limited in scope and this functionality is already offered by Twitter, Facebook, or any other social network with status updates...still a good piece of software, but I can't see it catching on when you can do the same thing with just a simple Facebook or Twitter update where all your friends who are already in those social networks will see it...good follow-through, but the concept definitely needs work.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback. We're working on building out really interesting functionality while maintaining the simplicity of the app. We believe there is real value in providing a single forum where you can find what people in your network, and in your area are doing tonight.

Rather than hunting for plans posted on Twitter and/or Facebook, you can always rely on doingtonight to find out what people are doing tonight, without having to sort through all kinds of unrelated conversations.

We also think people have a different identity at night, and don't want to mix that up with their identity on the rest of the social graph.

But you're absolutely right that we have to do a lot of work before we realize this potential!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been working on a similar idea and think this is pretty fertile space. We have calendaring for scheduling our days, but not so much for our social lives and free time. What's needed there is kind of an anti-calendar. The trick with any technical solution isn't the tech.. It's making it into enough of a game or engagement that people will use it consistently enough to make the network valuable to everyone. Good luck with that!

<comment><USER4> Couldn't agree more. Would love to chat about the space some time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why would people use this app over Facebook or Twitter? Is it just because of the "I'm Down" button?

<comment><AUTHOR> We believe that facebook and twitter are inadequate social calendars, and that we can do a lot better. We of course support cross-posting to twitter and facebook already (eg. <http://doingtonig.ht/p/jiv>), but hope to do a lot more in the future. Sign up and stick around with us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats to Doingtonight! Big fan of your app

</comment><comment><USER11> A similar app I know is Found <http://getfoundapp.com/>

<comment><USER12> A similar app I know is Twitter <http://twitter.com>

No seriously though, wasn't that half the point before it turned into the "omg we're a social network build your popularity and acquire all the followers to broadcast your brand" game?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tried using "Plancast" for a while, but couldn't get many other people to use it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

<comment><USER14> This being Hacker News, I expected some post or details (even if not terribly in-depth) about the development of your app, service and / or company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jare, we will be doing this in the short term. Just wanted to post the link up and get some initial feedback on the concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Strikes me as somewhat similar to MyNyte.

</comment><comment><USER16> very similar to Forecast</comment>


U.S. Unveils $53 Billion High-Speed Rail Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/us-high-speed-rail-plan_n_820234.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not American, but travel to the US regularly, and think it would be great for the US to have high-speed rail. I've recently travelled on AmTrack a few times and it is a very good service.

The question I'm wondering is, if Warren Buffet has seen the enormous value in the future of the US railroad, why is this plan being brought forward by the government, rather than a public/private partnership?</comment>


Hacking gmail password - <AUTHOR> I just had a gmail account hacked, did a google search and it seems there are many ways to hack gmail, e.g. after you fill out some ads forms and such. This looks scary and is it time for us to do two-step login these days? <comment><USER2> @0xexplorer is absolutely correct with both of those suggestions. You need to know where you account is being logged in from (if someone is trying) and setting up 2-factor auth won't allow someone with just the password in. Change your account password before switching to 2-factor auth. When you do, be sure you first have a q-code reader and google authenticator on your phone. This way you can turn on their code generator as part of the process. Unless you like texts of course, but its up to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should indeed enable two factor authentication and not only on gmail. It is also good practice to enable account login notifications.</comment>


Why you should probably have an LLC for side projects - <AUTHOR> http://stu.mp/2010/09/why-you-should-probably-have-an-llc-for-side-projects.html <comment><USER2> I think it's handy to have an LLC set up for a number of reasons, but the point raised in this blog post isn't one of them.

Corporate protection from personal liability is extremely valuable for contracts, and especially to protect you from your company's creditors. It does _not_ however automatically shield you from liability to negligence claims, and, more generally, from tort claims of all sorts.

One reason you don't hear about this very often is that established businesses tend to maintain liability insurance, and in practice people sue with the intention of recovering money, and what they're targeting with those suits is the company's insurance.

This might be a good argument for buying professional liability insurance --- and, indeed, all contractors should (and probably have to, as a contract term). But for your open source side project, it's a moot point; use any well- known open source license and your users are already conceding a disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability as a term of using your code.

<comment><USER3> You still run the risk of being sued open source or no.

I don't think the shield of LLC liability or open source license disclaimer will necessarily help the guy there (as people can still personally sue him), but I can't see it hurting.

It's also important to distinguish between liability and errors and omissions (what tptacek called professional liability insurance). Make sure if you do buy insurance, it's the right type. Each type protects you against claims only of a certain type.

<comment><USER2> Forming an LLC won't hurt you. It will help with other things. But it will do nothing to address the legal risk this guy is talking about.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's what I just said...

> _I don't think the shield of LLC liability or open source license disclaimer > will necessarily help the guy there_ (as people can still personally sue > him), but I can't see it hurting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure things vary state to state, but where I am you can form an LLC online at the Secretary of State website in 10 minutes, for about $100.

A couple of things I've been advised by my attorney (not that I'm giving anyone else legal advice...)

If you form an LLC but then don't operate it "seriously" (keeping records, having written articles of organization, etc) a court may nullify your "limited liability" protection.

The author states that "Unfortunately, the US is a litigious country and any idiot can sue you for anything." and while technically true, in practice it's not that easy. Outside of small claims, you can't file a civil complaint unless you hire an attorney, and in most civil litigation each side pays their own fees. There may be exceptions for gross negligence but that would be pretty hard to prove in a contract dispute for software development. So unless a fairly substantial amount of money is at stake it's not going to be worth doing. No good lawyer is going to bring a lawsuit that costs his client more than he can recover, and you also have to take into consideration the ability of the other party to pay (an LLC that has assets comprising a laptop computer and a few thousand dollars in the bank is not going to be a target for any litigation).

</comment><comment><USER5> In California there is a minimum $800 per year tax on all LLCs regardless of whether or not you made any money from the venture, so that kind of nullifies the potential benefits for most people, IMO.

$800 is a very real cost and the chances of anyone suing you over a side project are so incredibly remote that a $800/yr insurance policy versus being sued is severely -EV.

YMMV in other states.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just created an LLC for this purpose, as well as combining all of my side projects under one brand.

It costs a significant amount, and I'll soon see if it's worth it...

</comment><comment><USER7> The costs associated with starting an LLC vary from state to state, but usually side jobs don't rise to level of needing liability insurance. If your side project is big enough to be a lawsuit target, then it isn't a side project anyway. Build it into something more, and form an LLC, or just get some kind of business/manager's insurance.</comment>


Xdiff tracks "moved" code - <AUTHOR> http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2010/07/move-support-in-diff.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you guys find it useful? We got a lot of "AHA" effects while doing demos. What do you think?

Thanks!</comment>