From Google Analytics to Fathom - <AUTHOR> https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/its-not-me-google-its-you-ga-fathom <comment><USER2> > Since the mid-2000s, right after it became available, I started using Google > Analytics for almost every website I built (whether it be mine or someone > else). It quickly became (and remains) the de-facto standard for website > usage analytics and user tracking.

I ask everyone to consider is whether they actually _need_ analytics at all. I think in many cases the answer is "well, no, but it's nice to have…". Sure, it would be nice to know how many people visit my personal website, but I don't think it's worth sending extra JavaScript to people for, or dealing with the risk that I may be collecting more information than I actually want.

<comment><USER3> A number of the large ad networks I work with requested Google Analytics data for review when going through my application.

If you ever want to sell your site, having a decade of Google Analytics is valuable.

Yes, you could use a different analytics software or logs for the above. However, since Google Analytics is the standard, it's familiar, trustworthy, and performs equally across all sites. For example, Google Analytics shows I have about 1,000,000 page views a day. I have Apache blocking at least 30 user agents from common types of bots and scripts. Even so, my database logs show about 10,000,000 page views a day getting through to my site. That's a pretty large difference in reporting. This is why if someone is buying or analyzing a site, they want to compare the same source, such as Google Analytics, across all properties they're considering.

<comment><USER4> This is a problem I see - that no two analytics engines actually agree on the numbers, and none of them agree with my server logs.

I just flat don't trust GA, on anything. I can't trust it to give me the right numbers, so how do I know the rest of the data is actually correct, and what is the point of slowing my site down to have it?

I'll have a look at Fathom. If its numbers agree with my server logs then I'll think about adding it in. I can see the usefulness, but I'd prefer to just analyse the logs I'm already keeping (and maybe expand them to include user behaviour on the client).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm currently enjoying Goaccess [0]. It's command-line based, works on my nginx logs and tells me exactly the things I want to know. Might not be for everyone but I thought I'd share in case someone else found it useful.

I wholeheartedly support Fathom's endeavour and will definitely use them if I go back to JS-based analytics.

[0] - [https://goaccess.io/](https://goaccess.io/)

<comment><USER6> Such solutions don't work if your server is behind a proxy like Cloudflare, since most requests will be served from cache.

And btw, this implies that you're keeping logs on your visitors for other purposes than security. Under GDPR that's not OK.

A good analytics solution will anonymize the data. Including Google Analytics if you configure it properly.

<comment><USER7> The GDPR question depends on what the logs include. If you don't include IP (or anonymize it) and don't include sensitive data (like userids/cookies or POST data) then it should be okay under GDPR. You can for example have one log for security (fail2ban and so on) that includes IP and one for GoAccess that does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Before that you basically had web page visit counters (some of them with > slightly more advanced features ala W3Counter and Stat Counter), and then on > the high end you had Urchin Web Analytics

Before that you had access log summarizers such as analog:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_(program)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_\(program\))

<comment><USER9> And AWStats! [https://www.awstats.org/](https://www.awstats.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Google Analytics is free, but Google uses the gobs of data about Internet > usage it gets from tracking half the Internet for it's own purposes

Does anyone have a source on this? I attended a talk from someone from Google Analytics a few years back, and they claim that Google doesn't use any data they get from analytics for ads targeting. Not sure if their policies have changed.

<comment><USER11> Their Privacy Policy: [https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en](https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en)

> And we also use data about the ads you interact with to help advertisers > understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We use a variety of tools > to do this, including Google Analytics. When you visit sites that use Google > Analytics, Google and a Google Analytics customer may link information about > your activity from that site with activity from other sites that use our ad > services.

<comment><USER12> > Google and a Google Analytics customer may link information about your > activity from that site with activity from other sites that use our ad > services.

To clarify: Linking your Google Analytics account with your Google Ads account is an explicit feature that the property owner can do to get a fuller view of the conversion funnel.

As far as I know (having worked on that team several years ago),

> they claim that Google doesn't use any data they get from analytics for ads > targeting.

was otherwise factual. (That is, Google didn't willynilly take GA data and use it for its own purposes, or even cross-contaminate it in any way.)

Though don't know what might have changed in recent years.

<comment><USER13> This [1] happened in 2016. Google can change its privacy policy, but your data is still on their servers. The problem is not just a matter of what Google says about privacy, but a matter of trust, and Google has broken that many times already.

[1]: [https://www.propublica.org/article/google-has-quietly- droppe...](https://www.propublica.org/article/google-has-quietly-dropped-ban- on-personally-identifiable-web-tracking)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I now use both Fathom and Google analytics.

Most of the time, the only thing I care about is where people come from, and which page gets accessed most often. I feel this should already be enough information for one to understand what is a popular topic.

I'm actually still super surprised that Fathom's javascript code is 1.6kb. Can't it be lighter?

<comment><USER15> "where people come from, and which page gets accessed most often" \- I get this info from the server stats with something like awstats or analog stats (sometimes webalizer),

no google scripts, no extra javascript at 1.6k or less - much lighter, more privacy, faster.

Are these server side stats things not an option with your hosting? (they come included on some of my hosts, had to be wrangled to get one a freebsd host we run with)

<comment><USER14> I use github pages, so I can't gather such statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm still trying to find an affordable, reliable, privacy-conscious analytics tool for a blog.

I don't want to run my own server. I'm willing to spend money. I'd like to spend ~$5/mo. I write less than 6 posts per year. A good post gets tens of thousands of lifetime views. A mediocre post gets five to ten thousand. My server burden is pretty bare bones.

All I really want to know are page views and referrers. My next experiment is to use a custom "tracking pixel" served from S3 and use log tools. But I have no idea if webcrawlers will distort my data or not. This would at least allow me to reliably count page views even for people who use ad-blockers.

Edit: Blog is static design, hosted on Netlify free tier. [https://www.forrestthewoods.com/](https://www.forrestthewoods.com/)

<comment><USER17> How are you hosting your blog? If you're already self-hosting that, please know that you can easily host a Fathom instance using SQLite (because easy) on that same server without having to worry of it eating up your system resources.

From experience, a Fathom instance on a $5 DigitalOcean droplet can easily handle millions of pageviews a month. It's really quite efficient.

<comment><USER16> Static blog hosted for free on Netlify.

Does the Fathom script get picked up by ad-blockers? That's one of my concern with any off-the-shelf solution. They all involve a one-line javascript injection which is trivial to block.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Piwik isn't bad!

<comment><AUTHOR> For those who haven't been following it's development, it's been renamed Matomo[1]. Definitely an option worth considering for deeper analytics while still being a bit more performant and respectful of privacy!

[1] [https://matomo.org](https://matomo.org)

<comment><USER19> Thanks for sharing this summary. I had matomo in my notes, and was just wondering how it compares to Fathom.

If there are any more detailed comparisons, I'm all ears.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Been enjoying countly on a DO droplet for $5/mo

<comment><USER20> Finally wrote up how I did it and what I learned about the different ways of doing it.

[https://blog.garble.org/diy-analytics-digital-ocean- countly/](https://blog.garble.org/diy-analytics-digital-ocean-countly/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I track conversion rate on all my sites without JS, for free, and without hitting a DB on each request. I just download my access logs and parse them with a 5 line script.

I don't see the point in tracking anything but conversion. I don't need to know screen size or browser breakdown, because my websites are responsive, and work in all browsers since IE8.

For those using Google Analytics and the like: what are you actually tracking and taking action on?

<comment><USER22> Browser Breakdown is the one feature that I'd like from a contemporary analytics package that appears to be missing from Fathom. Simply because I'd like some slightly smarter way of checking which feature set I can get away with using as I've been keen to roll out a fully CSS Gridded layout on a couple of my own sites. It appears from my archaic analytics (I gutted GA from everything around GDPR time last year because - you're quite right - WHAT DO I gain from it, fundamentally and actionably?) I'm not able to quite yet, sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have any experience with Open Web Analytics? It looks very feature rich and it doesn't have matomo's annoying business model

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

<comment><USER24> I recently looked at all the open-source and self-hosted analytics systems I could find. OWA felt very cumbersome, no native docker support, and I wasn't even sure if it was actively maintained. I ended up going with Matomo and haven't encountered any issues with their business model yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unless I missed it here or elsewhere, GA is the only option that integrates event tracking. That's really important, especially in js-powered UIs. I so want to ditch GA, but I so need (integrated) event tracking.

<comment><USER26> We're working on this for Fathom (I'm the cofounder of Fathom).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just curious, did you notice any change in your Google SERP rankings after the move?

<comment><AUTHOR> So far, no. And hopefully it doesn't affect SERPs or that seems like some sort of antitrust violation, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those not in the know, you can configure Google Analytics to:

1\. not share data with Google for their own purposes

2\. anonymize IPs

3\. reduce the max age of their tracking cookie or disable it completely

GA is also compliant with GDPR if configured properly. At least one DPA thinks so.

Self-hosting of an open source solution is great, but I trust Google more than I can trust the hosting provided by startups. That's because Google is under constant scrutiny, whereas the startups working on these alternatives are not. Of course, you can make your visitors feel good about not using Google Analytics and get some free publicity, but that's another issue.

</comment><comment><USER28> 3 posts on the same topic within 24 hours :(</comment>


Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/moral-machines

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, posted a link to the overview article. Here's the report it refers to: <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/11/19/losing-humanity></comment>


DevBug – PHP Static Code Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://www.ethicalhack3r.co.uk/security/devbug-php-static-code-analysis/

<comment><USER2> It would be quite awesome turning this into a command line tool and hosting it on github... you could name it PHPLint.</comment>


Facebook's Embed in the Trump Campaign Helped the President Win - <AUTHOR> https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20191123680/how-facebooks-embed-in-the-trump-campaign-helped-the-president-win <comment><USER2> Obama did something similar in 2008. He was called a tech genius and starting a political revolution that all future politicians will follow.

The tech articles I saw shortly after were falling all over themselves to praise Obama and his campaign.

It's funny how when someone like Trump does it, it somehow changes the minds of everyone.

I don't think we would really know the depth of political corruption if the Democrats would have won in 2016, because it seems to be perfectly acceptable when your team uses dirty tactics to win an election.

We should be using this as a learning lesson, but I suspect if a Democrat wins the next election, things will be business as usual. Hell, Hillary ran her own mail server with classified emails and the tech community jumped to defend her.

This is why I can't really take the tech community in regards to politics seriously anymore (or the mainstream media for that matter).</comment>


Why I'm leaving TechCrunch - <AUTHOR> http://www.ohear.net/2011/06/27/why-i'm-leaving-techcrunch/ <comment><USER2> Holy shit, another Q&A startup? Wow, I bet this one does things WAAAAY better than Quora, Yahoo, Hipster, Facebook, and the 15,000 other sites where I can pose a question to a community of users.

When will "entrepreneurs" start solving some real, actual problems instead of figuring out dumb little sites with different ways to display the exact same data?

<comment><USER3> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Beepl is a catchily silly name. I can't stop saying it: "wake up, Beepl!"

</comment><comment><USER5> Too bad it wasn't MG.

<comment><USER6> I never understood why people hate on MG Siegler so much and then give John Gruber a free pass.

<comment><USER7> Plenty of people hate on Gruber as well. Look at the HN comments for any of his posts, there's always someone calling him out.

My solution is not to read authors that I dislike. I find that it is 100% effective.

<comment><USER6> It is also 100% effective in losing your ability to think critically (see the TED talk about "filter bubbles").

<comment><USER8> I try to read authors that I disagree with but respect. A certain amount of bias filtering is inevitable, but I like to think that I at least _try_ to listen to opposing viewpoints. Especially about issues that matter.

When dealing with issues that _don't_ matter, like Apple fanboys, I find it easier just to ignore them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TechCrunch's take on it: "You know you're in a bubble when… tech journalists join startups" . I had to laugh.

PS: know any good patent attorneys in SF area who can work with individuals? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2704364>

<comment><USER3> [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/you-know-youre-in-a- bubb...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/you-know-youre-in-a-bubble-when- tech-journalists-join-startups-bye-steve/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Book Recommendations? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone have any book recommendations? Preferably non-fiction (like business, self-help, finance, tech, etc). What are the best books to read? I'm going on a learning/reading binge, and I want to get the best stuff. <comment><USER2> This comes up quite often, here are two helpful links:

[http://ramiro.org/vis/hn-most-linked-books/](http://ramiro.org/vis/hn-most- linked-books/)

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

<comment><USER3> I prefer HN Reads. Though both are good sites (and the first is aggregated automatically, which is a plus), ramiro.org only finds books that are linked to Amazon. IMO this gives a rather skewed result, as most books mentioned on HN are only mentioned by the title. (And the more famous the book, the less likely it is to be linked to Amazon, since everyone is assumed to know about it already - e.g. TAOCP, SICP, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I made [http://www.hnreads.com](http://www.hnreads.com) a while ago to help find book suggestions from threads on hacker news. I expanded the idea to look at subreddits related to books, at [http://www.bookbot.io](http://www.bookbot.io) \- the eventual plan being to unify the two. There are quite a few things I would like to add, but they will have to wait until I finish my thesis!

<comment><USER5> Great invention. Congratulations and thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have barely finished chapter one of this 1981 book but I think it offers insight into the past for all of us who got into this field after Java was already prevalent.

> It chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to > design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous > pressure.

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

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HG4W9W/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HG4W9W/)

<comment><USER7> That is one awesome book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Self-help/personal development/philosophy:

\- The obstacle is the way (Ryan Holiday)

\- Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

\- Level up your life: how to unlock adventure and happiness by becoming the hero of your own story

\- the six pillars of self-esteem

\- so good they can't ignore you

\- the power of habit

\- how to fail at almost everything and still win big

Business:

\- soft sell: the new art of selling

\- essentialism: the disciplined pursuit of less

\- the magic of thinking big

\- everything is negotiable

\- making things happen

\- lean customer development

\- what customers want

\- inspired: how to create products customers love

\- delivering happiness

<comment><USER9> "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport is awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not really non-fiction, but Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is always a good read. Also if you're just interested in 'stuff', Plato's The Republic is very worth reading :

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_%28Plato%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_%28Plato%29)

<comment><USER11> > Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I really enjoyed the parts of that book that were actually about the motorcycle trip. Pirsig's thoughts on quality didn't resonate with me, at all.

<comment><USER10> Have you tried the follow up - 'Lila'? It goes at it somewhat differently.

<comment><USER11> No. I'm not really looking for more Pirsig.

My reading list is already probably a decade long (I'm a slow reader). I've recently started to abandon books that don't grab me after an hour or so and I'm wondering why I didn't do this years ago. Previously I finished anything I started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're about to work for the federal government. I suggest catch 22 and Kafka.

Now that I'm working with them,I realize those books aren't fiction: they're documentaries.

</comment><comment><USER13> Principles by Ray Dalio. My interpretation is that this book shows 'how to get what you want'.

That sounds so far up the chain of abstraction and generality, that it's easy to dismiss the book. Don't! The book is impressive partially because it manages to distill useful truths which are applicable at such a general level.

It's written by Ray Dalio, who is undoubtedly extraordinarily intelligent and remarkably determined to self-improve. He is the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and consequently the 69th richest person in the world in 2015.

The firm itself is noted for it's unique company culture. He believes that people can only improve through feedback and that there are strong social conventions and cognitive barriers which prevent people receiving the feedback they need. At Bridgewater, every meeting is recorded and broadcasted to the company. At any level in the company, if someone is being considered for a promotion, they will be invited for a discussion. Senior executives will discuss, in front of the candidate, the merits of whether to promote them or not.

The book contains elegant, simple, yet crucially important truths. They seem obvious at first sight, but he fleshes them out in such a way that you realise you don't _really_ act consistently with those truths, even if you perhaps trick yourself into believing that you do. Through reading the book, you can internalise some of his approaches in understanding the world.

It's a book which altered my way of thinking about the world in a profound way.

PDF link here: [http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...](http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater- Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> The Art of Manliness has a great set of booklists. If the website's title is not obvious enough, they are all completely centered around manliness, so be forewarned. By this, they mean manliness as opposed to boyishness, not womanliness. Heres some good lists and a link to their landing page for all their book related content:

[http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read- books...](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the- essential-mans-library/)

[http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/06/24/36-books-every- youn...](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/06/24/36-books-every-young-and- wildly-ambitious-man-should-read/)

[http://www.artofmanliness.com/category/travel- leisure/books/](http://www.artofmanliness.com/category/travel-leisure/books/)

</comment><comment><USER15> You can also check out Blinkist - they summarize business/finance/self help books to 10-15 short key insights. It's pretty cool (Disclaimer: I worked for them, but actually mean it): [http://blinkist.com](http://blinkist.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> In this election season, if you are left leaning and would like to understand just what it is that's underlying the politics of the right (or vice versa), I recommend Jonathan Haidt's _The Righteous Mind_.

[http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics- Religi...](http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics- Religion/dp/0307455777)

Prior to reading this, my politics aligned very closely with those of Sanders and I thought everybody on the right were selfish, evil, close-minded fools. After reading the book, my politics are still left of center (but definitely right of Sanders), but I think I understand and appreciate the politics of my right leaning family and friends.

</comment><comment><USER16> Zero to One by Peter Thiel

The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Strategy Rules - Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs by David B. Yoffie, Michael A. Cusumano

These are all timely books and recently written.

</comment><comment><USER17> The Picture of Dorian Gray (by Oscar Wilde) is just so beautifully written. It was Oscar Wilde's only novel (he only needed one). It also has the absolute best preface of any book I've read: [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm#chap00](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm#chap00)

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been reading Boxes - How The Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levison lately. It's pretty interesting and enjoyable.

[http://smile.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container- Smaller/d...](http://smile.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container- Smaller/dp/0691136408?sa-no-redirect=1)

</comment><comment><USER19> In a flagrant act of self-promotion, I'll recommend my own book on math and physics: _No bullshit guide to math and physics_. What is remarkable about it is the interlinked explanations of mechanics and calculus, so you get a picture of why it all works. Great review if you ever wanted to learn these topics. Comes with a review of high school math too, in case you need it.

[https://minireference.com/](https://minireference.com/) 4.5 stars on amazon [http://www.amazon.com/No-bullshit-guide-math- physics/product...](http://www.amazon.com/No-bullshit-guide-math- physics/product-reviews/0992001005/) If you're getting a print version, I recommend the version through lulu.com, since the print quality is better.

</comment><comment><USER20> Below list are some of my favorite books overall that I didn't see mentioned.

\---Non-software related

How to win friends and influence people -Dale Carnegie (The definitive guide to helping you work better with people, truly great book, should be required reading)

Blink- Malcolm Gladwell

Godel Escher, Bach - (Recursion, but not from a software perspective. Its a glorious book that will change the way you think about recursion.)

Hitch Hiker's guide to the galaxy, - Douglas Adams (Glorious book that is a fun read, when you need a break pick this up and laugh hard)

Foundation Series - Assimov (Great stories from one of the best sci-fi writers ever)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-Software related Code Complete Concrete Mathematics The Art of Computer Programming The Design of the Unix Operating System Introduction to Algorithms -Cormen Design Patterns Elements of Resusable OO Design -Gang of Four

</comment><comment><USER21> My recent favorites: Jobs, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, High Output Management, Innovator's Dilemma, Lean Startup, On The Shortness Of Life, How Google Works, Zero To One, Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Power of Habit, Things Fall Apart, Stoner

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure this is the "best stuff," but I'm currently reading From Counterculture to Cyberculture, and moderately enjoying it.

It's about Stewart Brand, but really more about the scenes he was involved in, it's not a biography. Covers the Whole Earth Catalog and the WELL, but also talks about the influence of systems theory and Bucky Fuller, and clarified, for me at least, the difference between the New Communalists and the New Left, which were somewhat conflated in my mind. It also puts Stewart Brand as a character, if not an essential one, at some key events. The mother of all demos and the founding of the Homebrew Computer Club are what I'm referring to here.

</comment><comment><USER23> By far the most useful book I've ever read is Prescott Lecky's Self Consistency, a theory of personality. I think it was published in the 40's. It's his theory of the human personality in response to the popular ideas of the time from Freud and various behaviourists. If you want an incredibly useful model for understanding your mind and the various forms of resistance we all have to deal with, I don't think you'll find a better book. (And I've read a lot of them). Last I looked the book was about $150 used, on amazon, but there are PDF's floating about.

</comment><comment><USER24> The Goal.

If you're interested in project management, Making Things Happen is good.

I've just started High Output Management and so far it seems good. Of course there are always the classics like Good to Great, What Color Is Your Parachute, etc

<comment><USER25> I was going to add, "The Goal". I just received two more copies of it from Amazon today. I've given away more copies of that book that I can count (and will give away another one to a co-worker on Monday).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working:_People_Talk_About_Wha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working:_People_Talk_About_What_They_Do_All_Day_and_How_They_Feel_About_What_They_Do)

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowe_%28author%29#Gig:_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowe_%28author%29#Gig:_Americans_Talk_About_Their_Jobs)

</comment><comment><USER27> If you haven't already read it, "Getting Things Done" by David Allen is one of the best known productivity books.

Some people I have spoken to say his method isn't for them but I've found it useful, even if I haven't implemented everything he suggests.

I'd also recommend "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. It starts at simple circuits and builds up a picture of how computers work. It has really helped me get my mental models of what's going on inside a computer straightened out!

<comment><USER28> I have always been skeptical about GTD (and haven't read the book). It seems very cultish. And apparently he just released a new version where he changes the terminology he uses for every concept, which sounds very confusing.

On the other hand, I see GTD principles pop up all the time on todo list apps, and a lot of it seems like a good idea.

<comment><USER29> I felt the same way about GTD for the longest time, until I decided to read the small book and see what the fuss was all about. It completely changed the way I look at productivity and getting things done. GTD is not so much about David Allen or The GTD Method, but about a logical, structured way of processing inputs into your life. The more inputs you have, the more you'll benefit from the ideas (I consider them ideas more than 'methods') presented in the book.

I don't follow GTD exactly the way David presents it in the book, but that's just the thing: What I learned from the book was not a specific method, but how to think about task management in a way that makes sense given the limited capacity of my brain to remember a large number of transitory things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> some recommendations on mixed topics from my recent non-fiction reads, I enjoyed all of them for different reasons (the song machine book even got me to listen to music I would never have thought I'd enjoy, but can't argue Max Martin knows how to write a catchy song!)

When breath becomes air [http://smile.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul- Kalanithi/d...](http://smile.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul- Kalanithi/dp/081298840X/)

Do no harm, Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery [http://smile.amazon.com/Do-No-Harm-Stories- Surgery/dp/125006...](http://smile.amazon.com/Do-No-Harm-Stories- Surgery/dp/125006581X/)

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory [http://smile.amazon.com/Song- Machine-Inside-Hit-Factory/dp/0...](http://smile.amazon.com/Song-Machine- Inside-Hit-Factory/dp/0393241920/)

Why we work [http://smile.amazon.com/Why-We-Work-TED- Books/dp/1476784868/](http://smile.amazon.com/Why-We-Work-TED- Books/dp/1476784868/)

Enlightenment 2.0 [http://smile.amazon.com/Enlightenment-2-0-Restoring- politics...](http://smile.amazon.com/Enlightenment-2-0-Restoring-politics- economy/dp/0062342894/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I started reading Henry Kissinger's On China. I'm currently on the Cold War chapters. USSR and China actually had a very tense relationship and Mao often played Soviets off against the Americans.

One reason I wanted to read the book is Kissinger and Nixon are responsible for establishing relationships with China. My parents generation were able to come to the US because of them. Many older Chinese immigrants have positive opinions of the two, despite them being amongst America's least favorite politicians.

</comment><comment><USER32> I highly recommend "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh. Really readable history of cryptography, without much math.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just finished "Love's Executioner" and "Creatures of a Day," both by Irvin Yalom. A deeply touching glimpse into the world of psychotherapy. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER34> May I also add "The Road Less Travelled" by Scott Peck to books on Psychotherapy. Excellent read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Robert Caro's _The Power Broker_ about Robert Moses, the most powerful unelected government official in U.S. history.

Caro, a Pulitzer winning journalist, is a wiz at writing, so you'll enjoy each page. But more importantly, even though Robert Moses was a bad buy, you don't have to be bad to learn to get what you want, in an organization, by ignoring superficial power structures, and focusing on the real ones.

Plus you'll learn a ton about how NYC was built out in the depression.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ha! Just had that binge too...

... Here's what I like:

On the business end: \- Badass by Kathy Sierra \- Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross \- Traction by Gabriel Weinberg \- Cold Calling Early Customers by Robert Graham \- Learn or Die by Edward Hess

On "refining your thought process": \- Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley \- Racing Towards Excellence by Jan Sramek \- Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin \- Case Interview Secrets by Victor Cheng (helps you think in a nice, structured way)

</comment><comment><USER37> The Design of Everyday Things. Probably the quintessential book on design, the basic premise is that if you can't figure out how a thing works, it's not your fault.

Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down. About the engineering of various things, mostly buildings. Highly recommend.

The Elements of Computer Systems (better known as NAND to Tetris). Describes a computer from the bottom up.

A History of the Arab Peoples

The Quran

The Bible

Space and Time in General Relativity by David Mermin

Feynman QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

</comment><comment><USER38> Check out Legionnaire [0] by Simon Murray [1].

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Legionnaire-Englishman-French- Foreign-...](http://www.amazon.com/Legionnaire-Englishman-French-Foreign- Legion/dp/0330485806) [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Murray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Murray)

</comment><comment><USER39> I did a 50-books project last year. [http://theuforce.blogspot.in/p/reading- list.html](http://theuforce.blogspot.in/p/reading-list.html)

[http://theuforce.blogspot.in/2016/01/the-50-books- project.ht...](http://theuforce.blogspot.in/2016/01/the-50-books-project.html)

</comment><comment><USER40> Jonathan Haidt, _The Righteous Mind_ : [http://jakeseliger.com/2012/03/25/jonathan-haidts-the- righte...](http://jakeseliger.com/2012/03/25/jonathan-haidts-the-righteous- mind-and-what-were-really-arguing-about/)

This is a novel, but Carlos Ruiz Zafon's _The Shadow of the Wind_ is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm currently reading - Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson, so I immediately recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER42> Recently read and thoroughly enjoyed "Elon Musk"; good insight into both starting unicorns and how much of a genius Elon is.

</comment><comment><USER43> I recommend Dan Drown's first book, Digital Fortress: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fortress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fortress) the book is filled with Cryptography, Quantum computing, NSA, Assasins....... Was perfect for me and will be for any other hacker!! :D

<comment><USER44> I started reading it, and put it down almost immediately. The 'technical' aspects of the book are half-understood gibberish. I would expect it would just annoy or even enrage any hacker with its inaccuracies, misconceptions and general dumbing-down to meaningless of the subject matter.

0/5 - would not recommend to anyone.

<comment><USER43> An example of the "inaccuracies, misconceptions and general dumbing-down to meaningless of the subject matter" ? cause I don't recall any.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> John Holland, "Hidden Order". Really. What is money? A message bus in a complex adaptive system. Lots of other stuff out there on complexity but this has a unique perspective. If you really want to go crazy find "Signs of Life, How complexity pervades biology" after you read "Hidden Order"

</comment><comment><USER46> If you're into startups & programming (this is HN, right?), here's my list of recommended reading: [http://www.hello-startup.net/resources/recommended- reading/](http://www.hello-startup.net/resources/recommended-reading/)

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm reading James Altucher's Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth right now and I really like it, although it's quite verbosely written (I'm about halfway through). This book is about business and monetizing ideas. I haven't read Choose Yourself, which is more of a self-help book, I think.

</comment><comment><USER48> Florian Cramer - Anti-Media: Ephemera on Speculative Arts

[http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/anti-media- ephem...](http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/anti-media-ephemera-on- speculative-arts-florian-cramer/)

</comment><comment><USER49> My top 4 recommendations (full list and notes at [http://www.dotnetsurfers.com/books/](http://www.dotnetsurfers.com/books/)) The Power of Habit, Search Inside Yourself, The Willpower Instinct, Zero to One

</comment><comment><USER50> I'd recommend being a bit more specific about the things you're after. But here's two of my favourites (one technical, one business):

"Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software", by Charles Petzold

"Rework", by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

<comment><USER50> Also:

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", by Stephen Covey

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Creativity Inc., by Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar). A book on the structure and processes used at Pixar to sustain the creative process - It's one of the best books I've read on business/management and personal development.

Ed is an incredible human being! Go read it!

<comment><USER52> > Ed is an incredible human being!

He was also at the center of a wage fixing scandal.

[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on- wage-...](http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-fixing- i-dont-apologize-for-this-105855.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The world beyond your head is fantastic. [http://www.amazon.com/The-World- Beyond-Your-Head/dp/03742929...](http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Beyond-Your- Head/dp/0374292981)

</comment><comment><USER54> I've compiled and organised resources, including books, about computing on : [http://www.learn-computing-directory.org](http://www.learn-computing- directory.org) Also feel free to contribute!

</comment><comment><USER55> You might find [http://parrotread.com/yc](http://parrotread.com/yc) useful. It has book recommendations from all the YC partners, based on books they have tweeted about in the past.

</comment><comment><USER56> I am reading CTM by Van Roy/Haridi and watching Van Roy's edx vids. Very nice explanations that require a lot of filling in the holes.

If someone else is familiar with Oz/Van Roy stuff, I have a question.

<comment><USER57> I am, but I read it many years ago, so I might not be able to help

<comment><USER56> In this video[0] Van Roy claims that the function Three "resolves" to 3. It's at around 8:45 minute. I tried working that out, but can't seem to get it correct. What I tried

       {Inc {Inc {Inc Zero}}}
       {Inc {Inc 1}}
       {Inc {1} + 1}
       {{{1} + 1} + 1}

Can we consider {{{1} + 1} + 1} to be 3 or what are my mistakes? Thanks.

[0] [https://youtu.be/Arh_6J5_fWU?t=8m46s](https://youtu.be/Arh_6J5_fWU?t=8m46s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Derek Sivers has compiled a list of books in your preferred field of interest. I find it quite helpful.

[https://sivers.org/book](https://sivers.org/book)

</comment><comment><USER41> I would also recommend the science fiction megapacks. I read a lot (especially sci-fi) and it makes me feel guily at times. :)

So if I need a quick scifi buzz, I pick a random story from the megapack.

</comment><comment><USER59> "Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders". I am reading it now, very entertaining and you'll learn thing about management styles.

</comment><comment><USER60> Some highlights from the last couple months of my reading, nonfiction:

Softwar (Larry Ellison), Matthew Symonds

A Perfect Red, Amy Butler Greenfield

Assault on Lake Casitas, Brad Alan Lewis

and fiction:

This Census-Taker, China Mieville

Whatever, Michel Houellebecq

</comment><comment><USER61> Impro by Keith Johnstone

The Inner Game of Tennis

A Guide to Better Movement: The Science and Practice of Moving with More Skill and Less Pain

Punished by Rewards

Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution by Bowles

</comment><comment><USER62> Remote: Office Not Required - [https://37signals.com/remote](https://37signals.com/remote)

</comment><comment><USER63> I Am That, by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Freedom from the Known, by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Think on These Things, by Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Bhagavad Gita

The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking

</comment><comment><USER64> On Western Terrorism by Chomsky and Vltchek. A lucid and refreshing take on global geopolitics.

</comment><comment><USER65> Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans.

</comment><comment><USER66> check these out:

[http://www.bookbot.io](http://www.bookbot.io)

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

</comment><comment><USER67> _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ by Neil Postman.

</comment><comment><USER68> Do a google search for Charlie munger reading list and you'll uncover gems like Influenc, guns germs and steel, poor Charlie's almanac

</comment><comment><USER69> That's a very broad question, so I read your comments to get a feel from where you might be coming from and/or going to and where you and I might overlap:

* Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Antifragile, things that gain from disorder [http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incer...](http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto/dp/0812979680/)

* Jared Diamond. The World until yesterday, what can we learn from traditional societies [http://www.amazon.com/World-Until-Yesterday-Traditional-Soci...](http://www.amazon.com/World-Until-Yesterday-Traditional-Societies/dp/0143124404)

* Frans de Waal. The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates [http://www.amazon.com/Bonobo-Atheist-Search-Humanism-Primate...](http://www.amazon.com/Bonobo-Atheist-Search-Humanism-Primates/dp/0393347796/)

* John Higgs. The KLF: Chaos, Magic... [http://www.amazon.com/KLF-Chaos-Magic-Music-Money-ebook/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/KLF-Chaos-Magic-Music-Money-ebook/dp/B00ABFHOS0/)

* Joseph Jaworski. Synchronicity, the inner Path of leadership [http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-The-Inner-Path-Leadershi...](http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-The-Inner-Path-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0051ANRBI)

* Piero Ferrucci. Your Inner Will, finding personal strength in critical times [http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Will-Personal-Strength/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Will-Personal-Strength/dp/0399174931)

* William Irvine. A Guide to the good life, the ancient art of stoic joy [http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/01953...](http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614)

* Chogyam Trungpa. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior [http://www.amazon.com/Shambhala-Sacred-Warrior-Chogyam-Trung...](http://www.amazon.com/Shambhala-Sacred-Warrior-Chogyam-Trungpa/dp/1590304519/)

* Tomas Malik. Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing In Us [http://www.amazon.com/Patience-God-Story-Zacchaeus-Continuin...](http://www.amazon.com/Patience-God-Story-Zacchaeus-Continuing/dp/0385524498/)

* Nick Winter. The Motivation Hacker [http://www.amazon.com/Motivation-Hacker-Nick-Winter/dp/09892...](http://www.amazon.com/Motivation-Hacker-Nick-Winter/dp/0989279820)

* Chas Emerick, Brian Carper, Christophe Grad. Clojure Programming [http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Programming-Chas-Emerick/dp/14...](http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Programming-Chas-Emerick/dp/1449394701)

Fiction:

* Peter Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction

* Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon (his other hit: Snow Crash is surprisingly more history then SF now...)

</comment><comment><USER70> >Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: An excellent book with autobiographic content about Richard Feynman, contains many funny stories and interesting insights of this brilliant man.

>J. Hromkovic: Theoretical Computer Science: An excellent introduction to complexity theory, kolmogorov complexity, automata and turing machine, language and grammar theory

>Harris & Harris: Digital Design and Computer Architecture: Introduction to electrical engineering, graudally builds your knowledge until you could implement a simple little CPU in e.g. Verilog.</comment>


Stack Overflow Careers - <AUTHOR> http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ <comment><USER2> You can pay $99 a year to be in a database where potential employers will contact you? I ended up on a whole ton of those for free back in the 90s.. :-)</comment>


How can I get healthy and clear skin? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I am not sure the following advice will help, but it has helped my teenage daughter.

What helped me the most when I was a teenager was to discover that not washing my face frequently reduced facial acne. As gross as this may sound, I used oil and manually scrapped my facial skin clean when needed. Later on, I learned this was a common practice by Greeks and Romans.

I found this article for you: [https://medium.com/@plumeriatiki/ancient- masters-of-healthy-...](https://medium.com/@plumeriatiki/ancient-masters-of- healthy-skin-b0e87d1511ed)

</comment><comment><USER3> Acne is a symptom and treating the symptom may have some effect... but of course it is a far better idea to find the cause and treat the cause. There are very few doctors who do this, but if you want to find the cause(s) then you need to find a doctor of functional medicine. I suggest that you start your search here: [https://drhyman.com](https://drhyman.com) and [https://draxe.com](https://draxe.com).

</comment><comment><USER4> Also check if it's something that you eat that is causing the distress. For instance try to completely exclude black chocolate for two weeks from your diet.</comment>


Spacecraft Traveling Close to Light Speed Should Be Visible with Current Tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/536091/spacecraft-traveling-close-to-light-speed-should-be-visible-with-current-technology-say/

<comment><USER2> Side point, but I have heard shielding proposals for dealing with the matter collision problem.

Basically you could create a plasma cloud ahead of yourself and hold it there magnetically. It would take a ton of energy to generate and maintain, but if you're doing this at all then you're already pretty good at generating a whole lot of energy.

Anything impacting your plasma shield would itself become plasma. Plasma can be controlled by a magnetic field, so as soon as this happens your magnetic field grabs it and it becomes part of your shield mass.

Many potential relativistic propulsion systems such as fusion or antimatter rockets have exhaust that is partly plasma, so maybe a simple way to engineer such a shield would be to just waste a little bit of your propulsion output by facing it forward combined with a massive electromagnetic field generator.

Seems like generating the energy required to accelerate to these velocities is like 90% of the problem. But it's possible. There are already paper designs like Project Orion (thermonuclear pulse rocket) that could achieve as much as 10-20% the speed of light, which is sufficient for close interstellar flights in a human lifetime.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there such thing as a bounce rate that's "too low"? - <AUTHOR>

I have a fairly low traffic site that I blog on relatively infrequently. I've seen plenty of literature talking about bounce rates being too high, but I haven't seen any literature about bounce rates being too low. Is there such a thing?
The other possibility is that my bounce rate just isn't "correct," although I don't have any idea as to why this might be.
According to Google analytics, my bounce rate over the past month is less than 1% with just under 1,400 visits. The average time spent on my site weighs in at just over 1 minute and 10 seconds. I make a couple pennies a week via AdSense. <comment><USER2> I doubt it is bad, actually I think it is pretty good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm definitely not complaining, but it's a complete 180 since up until February my bounce rate floated between 80 and 100%

I had made some REALLY significant changes around that time, and the drop could be attributed to any and all of them.

Some changes I made: \- Migrated from Posterous to WordPress \- New theme (on account of the migration) \- Changed URLs (but kept 301 Redirects in place so links wouldn't break)</comment></comment>


Apple wins ban of HTC devices at US International Trade Commission - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2647362/apple-wins-ban-of-htc-devices-itc

<comment><USER2> Here's the patent in question, #5,946,647, filed Feb. 1, 1996: <http://www.google.com/patents/US5946647>

_"A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data... uses a pattern analysis unit ... to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. .... Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions."_

And here's an older article with more description [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/16/apple-vs-google- insid...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/16/apple-vs-google-inside-an- android-patent-violation/)

 _"When an iPhone receives a message that contains a phone number or an address -- e-mail, Web or street -- those bits of data are automatically highlighted, underlined and turned into clickable links.

Click on the phone number, and the iPhone asks if you want to dial it. Click on the Web address, and it opens in Safari. Click on the street address, and Maps will display it."_

<comment><USER3> The best example of prior art that I know is Simson Garfinkel's SBook, originally developed in 1991. Any steps required to get from Simson's idea to Apple's version seem (conceptually) trivial and obvious.

<http://simson.net/ref/sbook5/>

It's remarkable to me how much better SBook is at dealing with info like address book entries than anything mainstream today, 20 years later.

<comment><USER4> WikiWikiWeb may also be an example of prior art. It went online in 1994, with CamelCase words automatically being made into hyperlinks. URLs were also automatically transformed into hyperlinks as early as 1996. Unfortunately archive.org doesn't go any farther back than that, so I don't know if the feature was there from the very beginning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sigh, emotionally this sort of crap from Apple just really irritates me. Sure software patents are stupid, but does it strike anyone else that this Android Jihad by Apple is doing more damage to their corporate brand than help?

I should have realized during the 'look and feel' wars that its part of their DNA.

<comment><USER6> I hate software patents, I really do. But what alternatives does Apple have? They're the big fish in their industries, they have to file and use patents or they'll be on the other end of the lawsuits.

At least the patents Apple use in lawsuits are ones they've filed _themselves_ , rather than having bought them.

Or as they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

<comment><USER7> Clearly you don't hate software patents because you then went on to justify them.

In fact, I think your whole attitude is backwards for the following reasons: While I agree with you that you cannot blame Apple (nor any other company) from filing software patents given the current culture within IT. You can 100% blame Apple for aggressively using flimsy patents to suppress obvious designs amongst competitors - forcing their competitors to deliberately cripple their products or risk having them forcefully removed from market entirely. That is not competition nor is that using patents defensively. What they are doing is exploiting a legal loophole to suppress legitimate competition.

Also, the "don't hate the player, hate the game" saying really winds me up. It's basically just endorsing moronic behaviour so long as the culprit doesn't get caught. It's just a retarded view of life in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seriously, this is the company that made the '1984' commercial and touted themselves as being 'anti monopoly' just a few years ago?

<comment><USER9> Oh, absolutely.

[http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos- Baffler/...](http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos- Baffler/dp/0393316734)

Very good book, BTW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _And it goes back, and forth, and back, and forth, and_

In other news, "Samsung adds four more complaints to its German patent offensive against Apple":

[http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2646835/samsung-apple- ger...](http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2646835/samsung-apple-germany- patent-lawsuit-four-claims)

I would love for someone at one of these companies to explain how on earth this benefits the consumer.

<comment><USER11> The pro-IP argument from Apple's point of view goes something like this:

In a world where everyone just copies everyone else freely (e.g. the desktop PC world) there is/would be much less innovation.

The investments that go into many breakthrough products (iphone, ipad) are made with the understanding that IP protections are in place to prevent copycats from waltzing in and taking all the benefits later on.

Take away those protections and the initial investments aren't made in many cases and the customer sees far fewer breakthrough products.

<comment><USER12> >The investments that go into many breakthrough products (iphone, ipad) are made with the understanding that IP protections are in place to prevent copycats from waltzing in and taking all the benefits later on.

But what was the breakthrough? The iPhone and iPad are successful because of design, attention to detail, and Apple's marketing muscle. There isn't anything technically earth shattering about either product - they're just minor improvements on other companies' products brought to a high polish.

<comment><USER13> _The iPhone and iPad are successful because of design, attention to detail, and Apple's marketing muscle._

True; however, I would argue that the marketing portion of their success comes as a result of painting each new product as a picture of revolutionary innovation. It's part of the image. Take that rouse away and you might be left with a less successful product.

Simply put, Apple relies on the lie.

<comment><USER12> Well, ok, sure. But I don't see any reason the maintenance of that lie should be helped along by the patent office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Commission found that the HTC devices infringed these two claims of the '647 patent:

      1. A computer-based system for detecting structures in data
      and performing actions on detected structures, comprising:
        an input device for receiving data;
        an output device for presenting data;
        a memory storing information including program routines
          including:
          an analyzer server for detecting structures in the
            data, and for linking actions to the detected
            structures;
          a user interface enabling the selection of a detected
            structure and a linked action; and
          an action processor for performing the selected action
            linked to the selected structure; and
        a processing unit coupled to the input device, the
          output device, and the memory for controlling the
          execution of the program routines.

      8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the user
      interface highlights detected structures.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hey, Apple et al., here's an innovative idea: let's all agree to start the next thing from the most effective version of the last thing. We might all benefit.

(I wonder how Wikipedia would be doing if we weren't allowed to modify others' entries?)

<comment><USER16> Apple's probably fine with that as long as the maker of the next thing pays the maker of the last thing.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure how you get that from this case. Apple isn't offering to license the patents to HTC (even though HTC has made it clear they'd love to do that). Instead, Apple is trying to get HTC's products banned from the US market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Greetings, Professor Falken."

"Hello, Joshua."

"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

<comment><USER19> Note to downmoderators: this is a quote from WarGames. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on a foundational piece of geek cinema.

<comment><USER20> I think that the fact that it's a cultural reference and, on its own, not an interesting contribution might be why it's getting downmodded, rather than people not getting the reference.

<comment><USER19> But I found it an interesting contribution -- it really captured the essence; it seemed a perfect 'tldr'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apple == US company

HTC == Taiwan company

Any surprise why the US International Trade Commission bans HTC?

<comment><USER22> Check Apple patents, check HTC patents. Apple is responsible for bringing the PC to mass market, and the touch interface. HTC has gone from clone PC maker to premium Android phone maker, and many companies think Android is a clone, as the name implies.

Any notion of national preference is silly, HTC simply is the newest company, and thus has the fewest patents, making it the easiest android OEM to sue.

Please support your wild implied claims before making a statement. Apple is just excercising their right, and it would be silly of them not to. Although patent reform should happen one way or another.

<comment><USER21> Check HTC history. They've been the OEM makers for many smartphones before Apple came out with the iPhone. They made Windows CE and Windows Mobile phones for years. Only when Android was available commercially, they switched to Android.

Touch interface? Apple deployed capacitive touch commercially, but resistive touch has been out for a very long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And this gives you an example of what we can expect from the ITC, which the OPEN act (the proposed "compromise" in place of SOPA) claims we can trust to censor websites. Quality work here, really engendering trust.

</comment><comment><USER24> This feature is largely useless, anyway. An example is, I receive text messages from Amazon when an order ships and is delivered. The "system and method to cause a computer to detect and perform actions" then highlights the tracking number and order number as though they are phone numbers, which it immediately dials when your finger comes nearby. This is very annoying because they are not phone numbers, they are tracking numbers. Lacking this feature will make me like my phone _more_.

<comment><USER25> Tracking numbers have a lot more digits than phone numbers; do they actually get detected as such? I've never seen it happen.

I have, however, found it useful to tap on an address to bring it up in Google Maps or a phone number to open it in the dialer.

<comment><USER26> Skype's browser extension does this to phone numbers on webpages; does this mean they're violating the Apple patent as well?

<comment><USER25> Possibly, but pure software patents tend to be harder to go after than software coupled with hardware (like mobile devices).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Apple may win the battle, but they lost the war... a long time ago.

</comment><comment><USER28> Any device that has a browser that can detect [regex] structures and infer actions (ex. Chrome's omnibox)... or any device that detects header structures and infers actions of the following markup (ex. text/html links)... TIL Apple invented regex interfaces.</comment>


Art vs. Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://thunderboltlabs.com/posts/art-vs-engineering

<comment><USER2> I don't think it is wise to only have one way of working. Having time alone to let your creativity flow and then having a more automated way of implementing ideas to see how they work, makes the most sense. I also believe having time to play with ideas, with a partner or group, can change the idea into something completely new, which only play can engender. Without play there is no art, invention or innovation.

</comment><comment><USER3> > A friend of mine used to refer to code that was more art than engineering as > "clever."

I see "clever" code as the opposite of good engineering _and_ art. Beautiful code isn't "clever". An elegant engineering solution isn't "clever".</comment>


How I built a profitable SaaS web app: from idea to first sales - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@moskovski/how-i-built-a-profitable-saas-web-app-from-idea-to-first-sales-782efb19d900 <comment><USER2> Out of interest, how did you work out that you could make $10,000 MRR?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a pretty rough estimation for sure but I considered how much on average is made by the Fiverr's top quote image content gigs and did a quick analysis of how many packages could be sold on the verticals not covered by the Fiverr's gigs.

Let's see how it goes though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my third tutorial on building a simple and profitable SaaS. As usual, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for reading!

<comment><USER3> great tutorial

Could you link the previous two?

Will you offer the service to fiverr sellers? Whitelabel it to agencies?

What is your current revenue?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Could you link the previous two? Sure, here [https://hackernoon.com/how-i- > made-a-saas-webservice-earning-...](https://hackernoon.com/how-i-made-a- > saas-webservice-earning-1000-monthly-profit-6d2b782b95c8) > [https://hackernoon.com/i-used-lamp-to-make-a-saas- > with-3700-...](https://hackernoon.com/i-used-lamp-to-make-a-saas- > with-3700-mo-profit-heres-how-1c47033900e9)

> Will you offer the service to fiverr sellers? Whitelabel it to agencies? > Totally. I also think I'll be able build a tiny network of affiliate > partners for this app. As I'm the only person on the payroll I could offer > pretty much substantial affiliate fee.

> What is your current revenue? The web service is just launched, let's wait > at least a month to accumulate some stats. I'm testing Google Adwords, > Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads so, and it should negatively affect the > short-term profits. But for the first month I would look at something like > $200-500 in revenue.</comment></comment></comment>


The lost cult of Microsoft program managers - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/the-lost-cult-of-microsoft-program-managers/ <comment><USER2> 1 point by jbarciauskas 0 minutes ago | link | edit | delete

To better understand the position Scott's referring to here, I recommend reading this Joel Spolsky article: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000034.html> Of course, Spolsky was a program manager at Microsoft in the same time frame as Scott. I can understand why a cult of this sort would be incredibly fragile. This sort of position has to be the absolute hardest position to hire for. We have all read about and/or experienced the difficulty of hiring a good engineer, but being a great engineer requires a well-definted set of skills - a strong understanding of and demonstrated experience with technical topics. A program manager, or a functional lead as they are called in many other contexts, has to have a blend of the technical and fuzzy skills that are almost impossible to identify, because the proper blend is very ill-defined.

A great program manager may not be able to write quicksort in Lisp off the top of his head, but should have a strong comptuer science foundation and understand the implications of various technical choices. At the same time, the program manager has to be able to communicate options and choices between team members with differing views, help structure the discussions around those options and bring everyone to a consensus as to the correct path to follow. The program manager must be gregarious and active in stimulating communication, but without that technical edge he will lose all credibility with his team.

By virtue of having these skills, however, as Joel argues, the program manager is able to drastically improve the productivity of everyone around him, but without having x lines of code or other quantifiable metrics to show for it, other than "shipped on time".

It is not hard to see how a position like this could fall out of the A people hiring other A people and into the B people hiring C people trap quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was a PM for Microsoft around 2003, and remember taking a few great classes from Scott Berkun.

In retrospect I wonder if the existence of the role itself is cause for so much of the slowness within Microsoft. The PM role became not so much a role as a cleanup/do-everything kind of position.

Unfortunately so many people end up just being gatekeepers or secretaries that actually get in the way of people getting work done, instead of visionary thinkers and doers that help things get done. I think Scott is on to something when he says that people now feel like 3 hour meetings, disheveled teams and failing products seem NORMAL. Someone needs to clean up the PM role, and I think that will clean up the lack of innovation at Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps its time for a new CEO at Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think proliferation of Web has diluted the need for Program Managers.

<comment><USER6> Not sure I follow?</comment></comment>


Apple's "evil/genius" plan to punk the web and gild the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/apples-evil-genius-plan-to-punk-the-web-and-gild-the-ipad.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss <comment><USER2> I suddenly reflected on the absurdity of

a. paying for hardware

b. paying for apps

c. paying for airtime

... in order to see ads.

<comment><USER3> You pay for your car, your parking, your highway taxes, and your gas... only to have your view of the roadside covered by billboards.

The alternative? Pay for your software, too. There's no reason it should be free.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I am so tired of this notion that software (and other things too) need to be free and supported by ads. What the hell is wrong with with just paying for something so that you don't have to get bombarded by psychological warfare designed to cause you to purchase shit you don't need? I am worried that this is direction the internet is going. Its starting to just be a huge system to drive consumerism. Really though everything is being designed around designed around better advertising. Even the holy grail of the internet, real time search, is really just about better ads.

<comment><USER3> Don't worry, it's cyclical. Don't remember the advertising crash of 2000/2001? It was going the same way: banners will support everything! FREEEEEEE! Then the bottom fell out of the banner market, because it trackable, very clear how little the banners returned. Then those businesses all went out of business. A year or two later we small-time "Average Joes" (eg. not customers of SAP) saw the first true SaaS aimed at us.

The main reason Google ads worked so well for so long is because they are topical and their format was new. Word on the vine is that the click-through rates for most text ads is falling...

History repeats.

The prevailing popular opinion? Doesn't matter. Everybody's a poker player. A BAD poker player. They say they won't pay, but they will. I'm sure if you told people they could have free food, they would turn around and tell the next restaurant that they wouldn't pay. But when they got hungry outside of the free food hours, or they really felt like indian tonight instead of food caplets, they would.

I think geeks, having a slightly better than average ability to get software for free, BELIEVE their own poker-playing, but of course, they will also pay. The proof is there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A company isn't like a single group of people, really. It's more like a confederation of affiliated fiefdoms. Some companies are worse than others in this regard (for instance, you can actually find pirated copies of Windows 7 by searching on Bing: [http://www.bing.com/search?q=%2bpirate+windows+7&FORM=RC...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=%2bpirate+windows+7&FORM=RCRE)) but even Apple is somewhat affected.

In one office, one group of people working on Safari decided Readability was a good idea worthy of reimplementation. In another office, possibly another building, another group of people decided iAd would be a good idea. Any higher ups, including Steve, probably agreed with both assessments without thinking to put the two together, because they have far more important work to do than designing absurd conspiracies to "punk the web and gild the iPad".

<comment><USER6> This is certainly true of many companies and may well be true of Apple, too, though it doesn't really fit the prevailing narrative we have of Apple as a company precisely steered by an extremely hands-on executive team.

Personally, I'm tickled by this silly and completely implausible variant of the "corporation as federation" idea: That the the executive team is focused on the iOS platform to such an extent that the desktop Safari team implemented Reader -- "annoying ads" marketing and all -- simply to see if they could get away with it.

<comment><USER5> Why would it a matter of "if they could get away with it"? It's a genuinely good feature.

What I am saying is that it's highly implausible that the executive team deliberately set out to advantage iAds by reimplementing Readability in the _Mac_ version of Safari. (If Mobile Safari had Reader--where it would be even more useful--then some suspicion could be warranted.)

<comment><USER6> Bear in mind that you're responding to a bit of fanciful musing which was explicitly signaled by the phrase "I'm tickled by this silly and completely implausible... idea" -- the idea being that the Reader feature is a public thumbing of the nose towards the iAds initiative, made possible by upper management's ostensible neglect of Apple's desktop software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, it's a grand conspiracy. The only other possible explanation would be:

1) Readability got popular. It's a good idea so they baked it into the browser.

2) There is plenty of money in ads. Apple decided they wanted some of this money instead of funneling it to a direct competitor.

I prefer the conspiracy idea myself.

<comment><USER8> Reading this Ken Fisher article was akin to reading a blog post.

This is why I look to authors like John Siracusa for quality articles on Ars Technica. This article however, is just a giant assumption that is likely to not be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"Reader mode seems to only be available on pages that the browser thinks are articles"_

Someone will write a javascript workaround that stops "reader mode" from triggering. If it's just a simple heuristic, it should be easy to defeat.

<comment><USER10> I don't think you've actually used it. it doesn't just "trigger" and block just ads from appearing. You still see the ads and everything on e page. On certain pages, you can optionally, manually enter a mode that just brings the text into focus.

<comment><USER11> This is a pretty important detail, because it means that only the most obnoxious site designs will suffer. There are still _some_ ads. Indeed, the remaining ad space might even grow in value, partially compensating for the loss of the obnoxious follow-on pages.

Of course, that assumes a more intelligent metric for ad value than just the raw number of page views. Which means that this whole thing could end up _benefiting_ Google. Who has the analytics data to help put a value on ads that is more intelligent than just "cost per thousand downloads of the ad, even if those downloads are on page seven of a ten-'page' article"? I know who!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How come Apple always pulls off stuff Microsoft would never get away with?

<comment><USER11> I'd reverse the question:

Why doesn't Firefox already do this out of the box? It's not as if adblocking is a particularly new concept. This is ten-year-old technology. It's not as if adblocking isn't known to be something people want: Geeks use it all the time.

<comment><USER13> There are still questions to the morality and legality of ad blocking in respect to copyright law I'd imagine.

Personally I could give a crap. ;)

<comment><USER14> You could or you couldn't?

<comment><USER15> Aside from Apple vs Google, David Mitchell discusses this curious form of expression with graphs and what-not:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To me this is more about Apple attacking back at Google. Jobs made a comment about how it wasn't them (Apple) that entered their (Googles) market referring to Googles entering the smartphone market.

Apple is attacking Google on two fronts - the Web, a move to hit Google in the money belt via Reader and it's ad-blocking features; secondly, copying Google's advertising monetization methods to reap potentially Google like (aka huge) profits via iAd, and again limit/control Google/other advertising platforms's on their iOS's.

I got to hand it to Apple, it's a pretty good strategy. I suspect they won't suffer much backlash from this hypocrisy beyond the tech crowd though.

<comment><USER17> It really doesn't matter who hit first. Apple and Google have different and conflicting business models (and arguably views of the world). Their war is inevitable. Both companies are in it for profit but that's not what I care about.

I am Google partisan in the war simply because Google's model seems to imply an open world whereas Apple's model seems to imply a closed world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anybody remember the time when articles on the web were mostly single page (and you scrolled down to read them - hey mice even have scroll wheels for that)? Then the ads people figured that they can cram in more ads by splitting articles every 10 lines and reading them became totally annoying. If Apple can force the content back to single page, I am all for it...

</comment><comment><USER19> Nobody uses Safari and a fraction of this nobody uses Readability (however apple brands it)

Chrome and Firefox have a plugin architecture and ad block.

Jailbreak you iPad and block iAds in /etc/hosts

Enjoy modern life and the Internet and gadgets.

<comment><USER13> Chrome and Firefox have a plugin architecture and don't have ad block built-in as shipped. Huge difference there.

(On a sidenote I'm still using Firefox over Chrome as Firefox is still the superior adblock platform. ;)

<comment><USER20> > Chrome and Firefox have a plugin architecture and don't have ad block built- > in as shipped. Huge difference there.

What difference? Safari 5 has a plugin architecture and doesn't have ad block built-in as shipped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or in other words, Safari's reader is going to kill our page views and ad click-through rates and we're mad about that because we're not getting rich on Apple's app store like everyone else.

<comment><USER22> If Ars believes that there's more money to be made from the App Store than from the Web, they're welcome to release an app.

<comment><USER13> So what is the point of the web if people have to get permission to publish native apps to make money off their own content?

<comment><USER22> I agree that Apple is screwing things up, but I don't think Ars is complaining out of self-interest.

<comment><USER13> Wasn't Ars the site that was whining at it's readers about how adblocking screws them? It would fit in with their previous complaints.

<comment><USER23> How does blocking ads that I'm not going to click screw anyone? Surely no one pays for their ads to just appear on a web page. If they do I think they're getting ripped off. Until I started hearing people talk about how scary targeted ads were I never even knew. I don't run ad block but I don't even notice the ads. I had to consciously look to see if they were targeted. I saw they were, said "oh, that's scary" and went back to my regular browsing. A result of growing up on public TV I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Somehow I don't think the web will even miss a beat as a result of this. Content will still live on, People will still use computers to browse. I'm pretty sure I'll still be able to get news from my favourite sources, maybe those people with iPads and iPhones will pay for this content for me by watching ads. That's fine with me!

I had an iPhone which broke after 15 months, and have ordered an Android phone and couldn't be happier about it. I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

</comment><comment><USER25> Article has some good points, but even my somewhat temperate view of Apple (I find the type of devotion a little like Scientology, to be honest) doesn't make me believe "Reader" is a nefarious scheme to overtake advertising -- although I am sure that wouldn't be looked down upon internally.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see this as a good thing for the web. Now websites (that are serving articles) have to compete with the layout/presentation of Reader, both in terms of having nice, readable typography and layout, and having appealing, non-obnoxious ads, like some of the higher end of print ads.

</comment><comment><USER27> I saw this feature and thought of the built-in Universal Access on the Macs. Going along those lines, a lot of pages have way too small text and this is a more convenient way of reading those pages then constantly adjusting font sizes.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find what Apple is attempting to be absolutely ridiculous and rather brazen.

I won't be surprised that if the Safari reader mode becomes popular, the big content provider and news sites start blocking Safari.

<comment><USER29> I doubt there is a way to detect is someone uses this mode or not. Safari loads the full page, and then you have an option to trigger reader mode, which does not even replace the page: it's like lightbox for images: original page is dimmed and you get nicely formatted text in front of it.

<comment><USER28> Not sure why I was downmodded above, but:

I had meant websites can start blocking Safari as a browser and not just the Safari reader-mode. Since Safari is effectively changing the way a content provider wants to display their websites and directly impact how they make money, especially important for news sites, both big and small, no one should be surprised if they revert to that.

If I was CNN, NYTimes, etc., I would do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The only publishers that this will affect are the ones that ignore readability and user experience. That's the only time you'd use this feature. I think letting users punish poor design is brilliant way to create the right incentives.</comment>


Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2019-0708 <comment><USER2> The exploit is so severe they are releasing patches for xp and server 2003</comment>


How to recover a combination to a lost Master combination pad lock - <AUTHOR> http://www.fusor.us/lockpick.html <comment><USER2> I learned this trick many years ago, and it definitely works. A friend of mine had an old lock he didn't remember the combination to, and within five minutes I had it opened and the combination written down for him thanks to this trick.

</comment><comment><USER3> To see how combination locks work, see <http://woodgears.ca/combolock/index.html>. The video at the end of the page is particularly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> Did anyone try it? I don't have a master lock on hand.

<comment><AUTHOR> I found a Master lock that I know the combo to (I consciously tried to not let knowing the combo influence the "where are the clicks" results).

Got 12 candidates and seven .5 numbers, just like it said. One of them was the correct last number. Throwing away the .5 numbers left four numbers with the same digit in the ones place and an odd man out which was indeed the correct last number.

The modulus trick produced the correct first number in the resulting candidate list and the second number candidate list contains the second number. So yeah, does work on this lock (where "work" == the method results in only 100 combinations to try manually, one of which I know is correct).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never knew about this trick. The only one I know is how to pop the lock open and then reset the code.

This is really cool though.</comment>


Show HN: Create Chart Images from a URL - <AUTHOR> https://quickchart.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> With the Google Image Charts API shutting down [1], I set out to build a replacement service that allows developers to create PNG images by encoding chart data and other options in a single URL.

Some might prefer an interactive Javascript charting library, but this is not possible in the case of email, SMS, Slack, and so on. This image generation solution is simpler and does not require external dependencies.

This project is open source and is pretty easy to run if you do not want to rely on the QuickChart.io web service: [https://github.com/typpo/quickchart](https://github.com/typpo/quickchart)

I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

[1]: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-chart- api/rZt...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-chart- api/rZtHTyYgyXI)

<comment><USER2> That's a neat idea and nice of you to have made it open source, since the quickchart.io site seems to be down at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, I am upgrading it to a larger machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is so cool. I just tested using it with the IMAGE formula in Google Sheets and it works really well:

      =IMAGE("https://quickchart.io/chart?c=" & ENCODEURL("{type:'radar',data:{labels:['January','February','March','April', 'May'], datasets:[{label:'Dogs',data:[50,60,70,180,190]},{label:'Cats',data:[100,200,300,400,500]}]}}"), 1)

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice! I built the following a year or two ago and it's currently running on AWS Lambda. It uses Highcharts to generate charts.

[https://api.restcharts.com/](https://api.restcharts.com/)

[https://github.com/whatl3y/restcharts](https://github.com/whatl3y/restcharts)

A competitor that appears to be profitable and doing well is [https://charturl.com/](https://charturl.com/).

</comment><comment><USER5> TIL that Google Charts is shutting down. My first thought after seeing this was "how is this different than Google Charts?". Then I got to the bottom about GC shutting down.

I didn't use GC very much, but when I needed a quick chart it was super handy. Thanks for making this!

<comment><USER6> TIL too, but I'm honestly not surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks great :-) You should charge for it. Maybe even in the interest of your users, to keep the service alive. You could leave it open source so people can self-host, or use your server for a fee for convenience.

<comment><USER8> agreed. 100%

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great app! Here's a similar tool that I've seen, but haven't used: [http://chartd.co](http://chartd.co)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd recommend taking a look at Vega [https://vega.github.io/vega/](https://vega.github.io/vega/) or its sibling Vega-lite. It exposes all of its configuration via declarative JSON. I could see it working well for a use case like this

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks great. There have been a few projects like this that I've seen but yours has a good amount of flexibility.

Do you intend to monetize this somehow? I imagine that throwing a few million daily requests on something that renders images (fast) isn't exactly free to host...

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool! You should multiply the width and height of each chart on your marketing site by `window.devicePixelRatio` so that the graphs look crisp on Retina/HiDPI displays.

<comment><USER13> It looks like the charts default to 500x300. It would be nice to be able to pass a parameter specifying the size of the image returned. Then I could set the width of the <img/> to be half of that to get it to show properly on retina at an arbitrary size

<comment><AUTHOR> The API does support "width" and "height" query parameters to set image size!

<comment><USER13> Ah, I'm wrong, sorry.

I'd been inspecting the image elements to see why they were fuzzy on my retina screen, and didn't see those params - it's in the docs right there on the page though. In that case I'd just update the marketing site to fetch larger images so they look good on retina.

This is a fantastic project, by the way. The need for this comes up all the time for us (e.g. charts for emails).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great stuff and free :) question - you don't need to urlencode the paramteres in the URL? how so? Further - isnt that limited to 1024 chars per URI specs ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You probably should urlencode the parameters for longer URLs and chart definitions containing special characters. For simpler examples we can get away without URL encoding.

The server is configured to accept up to ~64kb URLs. Some browsers have built- in limitations that range from 5120 characters (IE 11) to 64k [1]. Of course, a URL that large becomes very unwieldy. Maybe I should add a way to save charts to a short url.

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the- maxim...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum- length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers)

<comment><USER15> Could also add gzip/deflate/base64 of the query parameter. For many JSON payloads the compression ratio can be 10:1. If it's all happening client side then the processing cost is pushed to the browser so an added decompress wouldn't change much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are the example charts supposed to have red backgrounds? It loads that way on my system in 3 different browsers.

edit: It is working fine now. No more red backgrounds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be a strange issue with transparent images on certain devices. I've corrected this and also added an optional "bkg" param to set the background color.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of the late Chartspree[0].

[0]: [http://web.archive.org/web/20170201170400/http://chartspree....](http://web.archive.org/web/20170201170400/http://chartspree.io/)

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.image-charts.com](https://www.image-charts.com) is a drop-in replacement for Google Image Charts.

<comment><USER19> Well, except for the watermark on all free-tier images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I never thought of using any service to generate a chart and this looks like it may come in handy in the future for me.

Glad that it is open source so people can self host it.

</comment><comment><USER21> google visualisation api remains. its in-browser .js, heavier weight, but it works. So this is a replacement for throwing data at a central chart render engine, not a replacement for all current google charting methods. (disclaimer: I've built sites which depend on the google chart & visualisation api)

This replaces the deprecated image chart methods.

</comment><comment><USER22> How do you compare to ChartURL ([https://charturl.com](https://charturl.com))?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's free, open source, and no watermark - so QuickChart compares favorably in that regard!

In terms of functionality, ChartURL is also built on Chart.js, so charting capabilities should be roughly equivalent. They've added the nice feature of being able to save your charts to a short URL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat Stuff! What is the max data that I can send it?</comment>


3 Ways to Squash Burnout and Boost Productivity - <AUTHOR> https://news.layervault.com/stories/29145

<comment><USER2> This is pure blogspam, just a link to an article on another blog. Original article:

[http://blog.pickcrew.com/squash-burnout-boost- productivity/](http://blog.pickcrew.com/squash-burnout-boost-productivity/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a link doesn't require registration?</comment>


Ask HN: open source ticket / helpdesk system? - <AUTHOR>

Hi I'm looking for a good open source ticke / helpdesk system.
With the following characteristics:
1. Able to receive tickets by mail or web. 2. Able to escalate tickets according to rules. Like: reassign this ticket if no comment in 12 hours. 3. Ideally would allow to convert tickets to github issues.
Thanks in advance :-) <comment><USER2> Request Tracker or RT for short is great [1]. Has a nice web interface and email support. You'll have to do some research into #2 and #3 though.

[1] [http://bestpractical.com/rt/](http://bestpractical.com/rt/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using UserVoice and it's worked well enough. I'm not sure if it has auto-escalation or not, as I don't have a need for it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've used desk.com and it was good enough. It also had a decently good API and email integration.</comment>


Google Launches Google Apps Labs, Third Party Developers Welcome - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/28/google-launches-google-apps-labs-third-party-developers-welcome/

<comment><USER2> This is absolutely fantastic.

For anyone who does not currently use a Code Review tool on their projects, I highly recommend you setup <http://codereview.yourdomain.com> with Guido's App Engine code review app. It takes seconds to setup and is surprisingly capable.

<comment><USER3> I'm looking at it, and it seems it makes sense when your team is distributed, but not if the two developers can actually make the code review on the same computer.

<comment><USER2> Currently, my team is distributed. I am in WA and my partner is located in PA.

However, even when you are sitting right next to each other there is value in a tool like this. If you are reviewing a large change set, you can huddle around the review tool instead of around your normal editor. This way you aren't tempted to make quick changes or fixes to the code on a whim, instead you are annotating the code inline. Code context shortens the length of comments, so you are more willing to make them. In person, I find that a lot of comments are said aloud, but lost forever when you fail to write it down or write it down without any context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, seen this one coming since AppEngine was launched. This should make their Apps offering even more compelling and help steal more marketshare from Microsoft. Seems like a great way for enterprise software startups to get their product in front of customers too.

</comment><comment><USER5> Everyone is going slap happy with these open app platforms! Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple...

</comment><comment><USER6> Uhm, no, third party developers are not welcome yet. They _will_ open the platform to them, later.</comment>


Sparqa Legal - <AUTHOR> https://www.sparqa.com/ <comment><USER2> The title should be prefixed with "Show HN" if this is something you created and want to show off</comment>


Amazon, FTC End Legal Battle, Clearing the Way for Up to $70M in Refunds - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-ftc-end-legal-battle-clearing-the-way-for-up-to-70-million-in-refunds-1491337565?mod=e2twd <comment><USER2> Simple bookmarklet for paywall bypass. Write the following in URL and bookmark it: javascript:location.href='[http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+location.href](http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+location.href)

Tested in Firefox

<comment><USER3> (Commenting to save this for later.)

<comment><USER4> You don't have to comment to do this. You can:

1\. Click on "X (seconds|minutes|hours) ago"

2\. Click on favorite.

Or:

1\. Install Google Keep bookmarklet.

2\. Click on "X (seconds|minutes|hours) ago".

3\. Click on the bookmarklet to save a link to the comment to Google Keep.

I hope one of these suggestions proves useful to you.

<comment><USER5> Hm, we should file an issue on $browser's $bugtracker requesting something like...I dunno, what should we call it...a "bookmarks" feature?

<comment><USER6> Maybe you could build that as a service, some kind of system that could "sync" those between devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No paywall: [https://archive.fo/taClx](https://archive.fo/taClx)

<comment><USER8> Just a heads up, archive.fo seems to ban (some) VPNs.

> The owner of this website (archive.fo) has banned the autonomous system > number (ASN) your IP address is in (20473) from accessing this website.</comment></comment>


Conspiracy theorists are harassing and attacking UK telecoms engineers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21276912/5g-conspiracy-theories-coronavirus-uk-telecoms-engineers-attacks-abuse <comment><USER2> This covid19 caused by 5g kinda took in France too. When telcos only were allowed to start preparing to deploy on the second of april...

At least it was easy for skeptics to debunk this one and tell their friend to stop listening to "enlightened" people over the internet. Until the next one, more vague and thus more convincing.</comment>


Ask PG: Where did the rest of my 'saved' stories go? - <AUTHOR>

I've been around for a little while and upvoted at least a hundred stories, but when I went looking for one of them today, I found that my 'saved' page only has 9 stories listed: http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=nfriedly - what happened to the rest? <comment><USER2> Don't worry, the data's not lost. It's just a bug that will disappear in the next restart, probably in a day or two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, glad it's not lost! Thanks for the info.</comment></comment>