FreeBSD: A Faster Platform For Linux Gaming Than Linux? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_games_bsd

<comment><USER3> I am one of those strange people that still prefer FreeBSD to any Linux desktop/server distribution.

I also used Linux for several years before I started to learn and use FreeBSD, and sometimes I still use Linux, but only when I am payed to do so.

After several years with FreeBSD I even tried to move back to Linux, hearing all these 'advertisements' how good it is on the desktop, how painful FreeBSD is on the desktop etc.

So I used Ubuntu Linux for a whole year on the desktop/workstation without using FreeBSD. My experiences with that quickly got me back to FreeBSD, let me tell You why. First, hangs and crashes that was fixable only by reboot, the sound mostly. I did not turned of that workstation, as that was not needed, so every 2-4 days I was forced to do the reboot just to have the sound back. No matter if I used that sound (play music) during that 2-4 days or the machine just stayed idle, it hanged anyway. Reloading the ALSA modules did not help. Maybe it was a bug, but I always was 'up-to-date' and ALSA and the kernel were upgraded many time, even two time to the 'next big release'.

The other 'awful' thing is the updates. They work the same way like in Windows, for 9/10 times, they fix things, but on the 10/10 You end up with totally broken system that even can not boot, and like with Windows: "With minor problems reboot, with major problem reinstall."

That never happened to me on the FreeBSD land every upgrade/update of the FreeBSD's base system succeed.

There are other distributions You say ... yes there are, but which ones? Linux Mint is basically the same as Ubuntu, but with different default GUI and with some more codecs loaded in by default. I also have an allergy to anything that Lennart did, so for example Arch Linux is dead for me because it uses systemd and pulseaudio. Fedora 'the Lennux'? No thanks.

The whole Linux ecosystem seems broken to me because of all the things explained here: <http://www.pappp.net/?p=969>

Also, I do not longer want to go back to OSS vs ALSA discussion, where OSS from the FreeBSD base system just works for me with everything I do and ALSA does not on so many ways.

I do not want to 'flame' again the 'initrd' mechanism in Linux where some drivers are in the initrd and some other are in the kernel and others are in the modules, but modules are not for initrd but just kernel, the kernel and initrd is under /boot but the modules are under /lib/modules /... this is just plain mess for me.

On FreeBSD You have one directory with kernel and modules /boot/kernel period. No other subkernels like initrd just to boot and then pass the machine to the 'real' kernel. Using FreeBSD on the desktop requires knowledge and experience, and that makes it hard to use as a desktop/workstation. PC-BSD tries to change that, we will se how far can it go with it.

A lot of people ask, why You use FreeBSD when there is Linux?

I would ask the opposite, why You use Linux when there is FreeBSD?

I have here ZFS with latest 5000 version, yes, this is the next version after ZFS v28, this is ZFS Feature Flags.

I have ZFS Boot Environments with sysutils/beadm, the same way as it works on Solaris (even better), so I can create a bootable snapshot and destroy everything in my system, even rm -rf /* but after the reboot I may choose to boot from BE created just before that disaster and ... nothing happened.

I do not use DTrace, but many probably do. Jails are very nice thought. I already spoken about OSS in the base system, I already written about deterministic and reliable upgrades. I can also repeat the 'known' properties of FreeBSD like great documentation, great community, a very logical attitude in OS mechanisms and filesystem hierarchy ...

FreeBSD is no panacea to all operating systems problem, it has its own issues, the FreeBSD team has a lot of less resource (and hype) then the Linux world, but taking all the 'cons' and 'pros' its a lot less painful to use FreeBSD then to use any Linux.

If You are interested in FreeBSD desktop workstation, then check these: <http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=35308> [https://cooltrainer.org/2012/01/02/a-freebsd-9-desktop- how-t...](https://cooltrainer.org/2012/01/02/a-freebsd-9-desktop-how-to/)

... and I do not want You to see this comment as Linux bashing, these are just my thought about using Linux and using FreeBSD.

Regards, vermaden

</comment><comment><USER4> FreeBSD may or may not be faster than Linux for gaming.. but it does not matter -- freebsd is NOT a desktop OS. I've been using it for 15 years, 14 of those years on my desktop. Buggy desktops, no binary updates for ports, etc, etc. The entire thing is an exercise in frustration.

A decade ago, you could use FreeBSD on a desktop and it would be more or less similar to a Linux desktop. But Linux has more resources, and has invested more than FreeBSD into the desktop.. and FreeBSD has focused their limited resources on the server.

Today it's not even a contest. FreeBSD, if you like it, goes on a server. Linux on the desktop.

Need a workstation to develop the software for your FreeBSD server? - <USER2> Linux for the workstation and compile it on a FreeBSD build server. (I'm not kidding.. I actually use this setup for work...)

<comment><USER5> Some of us still use FreeBSD on a desktop (well, maybe you don't consider xmonad a desktop...) But your point is valid -- it can be an exercise in frustration.

The big advantages Linux has now are mindshare, funding, drivers, and people that devote a lot of time to coming up with OS versions with binary packages that all work well together, so users don't have to build software from source. With FreeBSD that's theoretically possible, but if there's a big public repository of prebuilt binary packages for the latest (9.1) release, I am not aware of it, and my system doesn't know about it. So upgrades can be painful if you have a lot of ports and your machine isn't super-fast. And running into errors in the middle of the process seems par for the course -- then you get to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it.

I have heard good things about PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD) though. Apparently it's much more user-friendly for people looking to use it as a desktop environment.

<comment><USER4> "if there's a big public repository of prebuilt binary packages for the latest (9.1) release, I am not aware of it"

FreeBSD had a security breach shortly before 9.1.. so some of their hardware was offline. So packages were not available at release. They expect to make them available at some point. Then you can install out of date packages (since packages are frozen at release), and rebuild half of them to fix security or serious bugs.

"I have heard good things about PC-BSD"

I have also heard good things about PC-BSD. I've played with it a bit, and it seems promising. I haven't used it enough to recommend it.. but it seems like it's worth a try if you need a FBSD desktop. Definitely more promising than the other BSD desktop efforts I've seen over the years (all of which are dead AFAIK).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As interesting as several pages of graphs are, it'd be cooler to read an explanation as to why. Superpages support in FreeBSD? Linux 2.6.38 should have supported it too (as of that version), but perhaps less well?

Also, why did they use different motherboards? For that matter, what the hell is the purpose of providing the page two table of system details if you're going to crop half of it away???

<comment><USER7> A brief summary of Phoronix benchmarks: nice graphs, meaningless results.

[Seriously, Phoronix benchmarks are often _very_ badly designed/executed. I'm not sure whether it's because they really are completely clueless about benchmarking, or because they just don't care.]

<comment><USER8> They also have a tendency for linkbait headlines and repeating themselves in articles with slight rephrasing to increase the page count.

Those tendency combined with the sometimes enormous amount of graphs makes a lot of page views for them.

<comment><USER9> This part is true. It's a spammy site, and annoying.

The criticism of the benchmarks, though, is out of line. All benchmarks suck. Why? _Because benchmaking is hard_. It takes a ton of patience, a ton of diligence, and a ton of hardware. It's easy to sit back typing on the one laptop you use, running one OS, and whine about someone's inability to be an expert across dozens of environment.

Yet we all want benchmarks, as evidenced by this post. If you guys really think Phoronix benchmarks can be improved (and obviously they can), I'd appreciate it if you'd get off your MBP's and post some.

<comment><USER10> Where should I be going for Linux news other than Phoronix? I constantly here bad things about it, but I also constantly find out about things that I wouldn't have otherwise. I feel "bad" for reading phoronix or something but I don't know what else to read, and LWN ain't cutting it.

<comment><USER9> Well, that's the thing. They're the best out there. So personally, I give them some latitude with the spammy ad-driven experience. Most of their numbers are just "more of the same", but occasionally they break something truly interesting and everyone rushes to explain it. This particular post wasn't one of those times though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you read the comments on the article, it's pointed out that the results are virtually identical to a previous KDE-vs-unity benchmark (PC-BSD was using KDE for this test).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess it might interest some people that this article also was discussed on FreeBSD forums:

<http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=26204>

There also is a section in the FreeBSD Handbook about how the Linux compatibility layer works:

[http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/li...](http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/linuxemu- advanced.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Whereas actually they are comparing the speed of Unity in 2011 (notoriously slow) with KDE. This is really dumb, they should be using the same window manager at least.

I mean, they should at least install the same packages on each system if they want to compare "BSD" with "Linux", otherwise this benchmark is spectacularly flawed.

</comment><comment><USER13> Do note that this article dates from September 2011.

</comment><comment><USER14> IIRC they haven't turned off compiz on Linux.

<comment><USER15> I should hope that wouldn't matter if you are running fullscreen...?

<comment><USER16> In _theory_ it shouldn't matter.

In practice, with the current subsystems, it's hard enough to composit (?) windows, let alone unredirect fullscreen windows. For example, there's a tunable in KDE to "unredirect fullscreen windows". Guess how well it works?

[https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?longdesc=unredirect&lon...](https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?longdesc=unredirect&longdesc_type=allwordssubstr)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd start with a different distro then Ubuntu ... iirc that has indexing running in the background ... not going to help :(</comment>


G Suite subscription downgrade deleted all my G Suite accounts - <AUTHOR> Or more likely: I clicked the wrong button when Cancelling my paid subscription (thinking it would just revert back to the Free plan).
I store my life, and my family's life, on my G Suite account. I have (had?) all my photos there, business accounts, emails, documents, domains, etc.
I was prompted to trial the paid version of G Suite, and thought "sure, why not? maybe there is something useful here!", but then I quickly decided that there was nothing I needed in the paid version and went to cancel the paid subscription (which you _can_ do; I checked before upgraded).
In haste, I must have missed the downgrade option and clicked through to something that deletes everything instead! All user, accounts, youtube channels, docs, subscriptions, photos, contacts, purchased digital assets, domains, etc. Everything.
I figure that at this point I need to treat this as if my accounts have all been hacked and deleted, with all data lost forever; I doubt I can even log in to my bank at the moment (I don't have the domain anymore).
I've contacted support at G Suite but they told me that only if the account was hacked and then cancelled would they recover the data. Because I've already fessed up to my mistake on record, there is no way to take that route anymore.
So, other than learning to read before clicking important buttons, what potential recourse do I have here? Anyone know of potential solutions to recovering my G Suite account? <comment><USER2> I sadly can offer no advice, but only thanks. I'm using this story as an excuse to check my backups as it's been far too long to know whether they're still going, or are recoverable.

Scary stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I used G Suite for pretty much all of my photos backups, document storage, etc for as long has G Suite/GApps has been around. Used 2FA and strong passwords on all accounts, etc...

It never occurred to me that I needed to protect against an attacker who is just the sleep-deprived version of myself.</comment></comment>


Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C - <AUTHOR> http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html

<comment><USER2> Goes to show that just because you model something after another, it doesn't mean they'll look or feel similar. The underlying design of Java might have been influenced by Objective C, but the use of the two languages feel very different.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interview from <http://www.gotw.ca/publications/c_family_interview.htm>

(I'm including Stoustrup, since C++ was probably one of the influences of the choice of syntax familiy)

Q: What languages, or features of languages, inspired you?

 _Stroustrup_ : In addition to Simula67, my favorite language at the time was Algol68. I think that "Algol68 with Classes" would have been a better language than "C with Classes." However, it would have been stillborn.

 _Gosling_ : They're all over the map. Using Lisp, the thing that influenced me the most was the incredible difference garbage collection made. Using Simula and being a local maintainer of the Simula compiler was really what introduced me to objects and got me thinking about objects. Using languages like Pascal got me really thinking about modeling. Languages like Modula-3 really pushed things like exception mechanisms. I've used a lot of languages, and a lot of them have been influential. You can go through everything in Java and say, "this came from there, and this came from there."

</comment><comment><USER4> Except it seems to be missing all the features that make Objective-C "Objective-C" in my mind. How do you implement method missing/message forwarding in Java? Oh, that's right, your code doesn't even compile.

<comment><USER5> Too be fair, message forwarding is a pain in the ass in ObjC as well.

<comment><USER6> It's not really that hard, is it? You just have to implement methodSignatureForSelector and forwardInvocation.

Compare to Java where it's not even possible to forward messages determined at runtime, you have to generate stubs before compiling. AFAIK.

<comment><USER7> Sure you can ... object.sendMessage(messageName) ;) Or for already built classes ... see java.lang.reflect.Method

Personally if I were to choose, I'd trade some syntactic sugar for a decent garbage-collector. But that's just me :)

<comment><USER8> Message forwarding is not syntactic sugar!

<comment><USER9> It is. In Objective C: [obj doFoo] would be analogous to this in a Java-like language: MethodSpec s = new MethodSpec("doFoo"); (obj.hasMethod(ms) ? obj.performMethod(ms) : obj.handleMissingMethod(ms)

However, people associate "syntactic sugar" with a connotation of not being a significant difference. Many very useful tools in programming are merely syntactic sugar. For, while, and similar control flow structures are just syntactic sugar over either continuations or gotos.

Message passing OO is syntactic sugar. As evidence, look at the object system the Gtk folks made for themselves in C, or the various object systems Perl programmers have made for themselves.

The example of object systems in Perl illustrates another point about syntactic sugar: having a language which makes it possible for programmers to add their own syntactic sugar within the language is incredibly powerful. Moose is a great system, and Perl's flexible syntax is what makes it possible(although I don't really know Perl well enough to know how it's implemented, its syntax is very pleasant). CLOS is another example of the power of languages which allow programmers to add their own syntactic sugar.

Syntactic sugar can be very good. Message forwarding not only is a very useful piece of syntactic sugar, but also allows the creation of certain types of very convenient syntactic sugar to a language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The use of the word "influenced" to describe the effect had on Java's design process by Smalltalk, Objective-C and other languages of good repute is really somewhat misleading.

Certainly, there is _some_ identifiable influence. For example, the concept of a JIT-ing virtual machine comes straight from Smalltalk (Deutsch & Schiffman, 1984), and it would also not surprise me if the APIs of Smalltalk and NeXTSTEP influenced the design of Java's somewhat. But that is largely where the influence ends: on the implementation of the language rather than on the language itself.

Java _the language_ belongs on the same branch of the OO family tree with C++, C# and other strong statically-typed OO languages--not on the branch with Smalltalk and company. Yes, Java's object model is class-based, single- inheritance and single-dispatch, but its model has little else in common with Smalltalk's. If it was designed with Smalltalk in mind, then it constitutes a dangerous misunderstanding of it. I do not mean the fact that "everything" in Java is not an object, but rather that some things that very clearly should be objects, such as classes, are not objects is alone enough to disqualify it as one of Smalltalk's legitimate offspring.

The people who assert over and over again that Java was influenced by this language or that language do so because this language or that language has a better reputation among programmers than Java, and it is hoped that by doing so perhaps some of that reputation might rub-off on the hapless language.

<comment><USER11> _The people who assert over and over again that Java was influenced by this language or that language do so because this language or that language has a better reputation among programmers than Java_

The post was written by one of the people who worked on Java, not somebody trying to impress you by associating Java with some language you like better. Are you trying to say Patrick Naughton is just making this up?

<comment><USER10> As pointed out in my post, the alleged influence simply isn't there, or isn't there enough to justify the claim. Someone who cites Smalltalk as their inspiration before going off and creating a statically-typed OO language with primitive types and classes that aren't real objects either didn't understand Smalltalk or deliberately chose to distort the concepts imbued in it enough that they no longer have a right to claim it as an antecedent.

Gosling and others have been making claims of this sort for years, and yes, I _do_ believe that they do so with the hope of improving their language's reputation, and further, to give their users the impression that they aren't missing out on anything by sticking with Java; that Gosing et al. studied the cream of the language crop when designing Java, took the good parts and left the cruft behind, so why bother trying anything else?

<comment><USER11> They cited Obj-C, not Smalltalk. Specific people and specific aspects of the design are mentioned, you haven't actually described how it _isn't_ influenced by Obj-C. Which, incidentally, has primitive types, the plain C part can do static type-checking, etc. In any event the claim is the design is influenced by Obj-C not that it is actually just like Obj-C, a distinction you seem to have trouble making.

<comment><USER10> "They cited Obj-C, not Smalltalk."

The author also cites Goslings "lots of experience" with Smalltalk.

"In any event the claim is the design is influenced by Obj-C not that it is actually just like Obj-C, a distinction you seem to have trouble making."

The influence is not sufficient to justify that claim any more than Java's garbage collection would justify its designers in describing Java as "Lispy" or "Lisp-like."

<comment><USER12> "We were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, co-author of the Java spec

<comment><USER4> Guy Steele apparently measures distance on a log scale. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps learning Objective-C would make me a better Java coder. Alternately, maybe all the ObjC practices that would translate have already been written up as standard Java patterns or included in the standard Java books and all I'd get from it would be frustration because I can't apply anything neat I see.

<comment><USER14> I'm playing with some Objective-C at the moment. For me the most interesting thing is how blurred the line between ObjC/OOP/message passing and straight C is. It's the first language I've used where you can treat the high level part as not much more than a library with custom syntax. I'm sure the lispers live in this world all the time ;)

<comment><USER15> Yes we do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Most languages are influenced by languages they proceed.

Simula, C++, C#, and Java are clearly method calling languages. Smalltalk and Objective-C are clearly message passing languages. That is the biggest distinction.

You will always be able to find a particular feature in a particular language that is influenced by languages that have preceded it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I just want to remember everyone that Objective-C is nothing more than Smalltalk with C backward compatibility. Also, the static type checking in early Java is pretty much the same thing as in early C++ (when both were without templates/generics).

<comment><USER18> I think I would argue with the "nothing more" part. It has split and evolves from its origins. Also, the combination has some decent advantages over straight Smalltalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't Classes in Java get boiled off in the compiler? There are no "class objects" at runtime that I've ever seen.

<comment><USER20>
        // unseen?
        if (foo.getClass() instanceof someClassObject) ...

<comment><USER19> In this case isn't _someClassObject_ just a literal that's resolved at compile-time and erased into a simple identifier symbol?

You can't pass _someClassObject_ as an argument to anything but an operator like _new_ or _instanceof_ , and you can't assign to or from it, it doesn't itself belong to a class. It isn't an object.

<comment><USER20> > In this case isn't someClassObject just a literal that's resolved at > compile-time and erased into a simple identifier symbol?

No. Its a variable assigned in runtime.

       public void yesYouCan (Object foo, Class<?> someClassObject) {
          // compile time?
          if(foo.getClass() instanceof someClassObject) { ... }
       }

Regardless, class and symbolic resolution occur at both compilation (to create the binary clsss files) and in runtime in the JVM (to load and execute the binary generated by the compiler):

[http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/execu...](http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/execution.doc.html#44487)

> You can't pass someClassObject as an argument to anything but an operator > like new or instanceof, and you can't assign to or from it, it doesn't > itself belong to a class. It isn't an object.

No, its quite possible/common to write methods that take class objects as parameters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always felt that Java's design resembled Modula-3.</comment>


Show HN: Who doesn't appreciate vanity metrics? - <AUTHOR> https://analyticsbar.com <comment><AUTHOR> I run about 5 different sites which all have Google Analytics. Having an app that displays these realtime stats right in my taskbar has been an absolute must have time saver, especially when all I want is an at a glance look for how things are looking so far on all my sites. It literally takes like 5 seconds to open my laptop, login, look and I'm done. easy-peasy</comment>


Show HN: Sell your stuff for more money with less hassle - <AUTHOR> https://www.bidkat.com

<comment><USER2> Woah... If I were CL, I would be busy copying this _right now_. It is such a natural extension to what they already have. Offer this as an option at $1 a pop and they will be making money off the majority of their users.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great idea! Sorry if I'm dense or missed this, but how does Bidkat make money? I was assuming a transaction fee on top of the closed bid, but it seems that it's totally free to the buyer and seller? Maybe I missed the FAQ?

<comment><USER3> The Terms (<https://www.bidkat.com/terms>) seem to imply that "upgrades" will be sold at some point, but it's not clear what upgrades.

"By selecting an Upgrade you agree to pay BunKat LLC the fees indicated for that service. Payments will be charged on a pre-pay basis at the time of purchase for an Upgrade and will cover the use of that service as indicated. Upgrade fees are not refundable."

Also, I'm confused -- where does the payment transaction happen? Does it happen inside Bidkat or is that part left up to the transacting parties?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently the only upgrade is bid activity when making offers on an auction. Payment between parties is left up to the parties. Since we're focused on local sales, this is generally face to face when the item exchanges hands.

<comment><USER3> Can sellers specify "methods of payment accepted"? I can definitely see myself selling some things to local people (couches, for example), but other things I would place on forums where there are aficionados for those products (baseball cards, for example), and where I'd rather receive payment via some online method (Paypal, etc.) and not be constrained by locality.

Not sure if that's your vision or not, but I would totally use Bidkat for collectibles as well as local sales. Of course, in your value proposition you state your purpose is to make local sales a lot easier, so I guess that's not the current vision.

<comment><AUTHOR> We definitely want to see BidKat used in these scenarios. Currently payment is completely between the seller and buyer. Feel free to add information to your description on what payment options are available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool site I re-listed a CL item I have up at the moment, we'll see how it works! The video was super great and to the point and made it clear that it is intended to synergize with other services.

</comment><comment><USER5> In your example, I tried bidding $20,000 (I really love the couch) and you asked me to come down to $1500. Is there a reason you're steering buyers towards a minimum price?

<comment><AUTHOR> Prevents people from making ridiculous offers, especially by mistake. We want buyers to come away from BidKat feeling just as good as the seller.

<comment><USER5> I think that's a good impulse, but completely refusing the bid seems misguided.

The current system seems like it favors predatory buyers over fair ones. If the seller undervalues their item, trying to start at a fair price will get rejected. I don't know how you selected the [500 1500] envelope on price, but it seems pretty narrow. Couldn't you just warn the bidder that their bid is way above the seller's expectations (or current maximum offer) and then confirm they want to pay that much?

<comment><AUTHOR> We can definitely look into this if we see this happening a lot. This should be a relative edge case and only kicks in for more expensive items, but you are right that there are other options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll agree with everyone on the design - it's beautiful, and I really love the mascot. I just wanted to add that the video really helped clear things up for me on how it integrates with other services.

It might just be me, but I didn't immediately grasp from the content on the landing page that I should be using other services like craigslist, et al. to share it. Even without sound, the video cleared that confusion up very quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We'll figure out how to clean up the copy a little bit. Glad that the video cleared things up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool.

My immediate thought when filling out a new listing...

You should auto complete. For anything and everything (that you can.)

I type in Xbox.. a list drops down with xbox 360, complete with Photo, MSRP, estimated value (based on other data points ie craigslist or ebay) and a pre filled out description.

Well, sort of like what ebay does I guess. I hate filling out forms. Everyone else does too.

<comment><AUTHOR> v2? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How are you dealing with the new CL exclusive license when posting there?

 _Clicking "Continue" confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of this content, with the exclusive right to enforce copyrights against anyone copying, republishing, distributing or preparing derivative works without its consent._

<comment><USER9> > How are you dealing with the new CL exclusive license when posting there?

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/good-news- craigslist-d...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/good-news-craigslist- drops-exclusive-license-your-posts)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good news!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, we created BidKat to make selling things locally a little bit easier. Works alongside existing sites and services instead of being a replacement to take advantage of existing network effects. Would love to get any feedback on the site and am happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, how much thought have you put into the auction format? Is there an underlying theoretical model in use?

Allowing me to buy information on the auction is an interesting choice but I'm not convinced it will actually lead to better revenue for the seller.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're definitely testing out some new things. We never want to show any ads on our sites (we hate ads) so we're looking for alternatives. Based on some user research, paying a little bit for the potential of saving a lot by making better offers was at least interesting to buyers.

<comment><USER10> Hmmm...

I have no proof for what I'm about to say but here it is anyway.

The only information that bidders will practically care about is the current top bid. So the information that you are charging people for is the same thing that most auctions already display (that is, the current top bid). As the seller, I want people to see this top bid because it will raise my revenue. Charging people to see the top bid will result in less people seeing the top bid and lower revenue overall. It makes money for the site but less money for the seller. Then I might want to go to another site and make more money for my item.

You might want to look into using a 2nd price auction (like eBay) does. There's a nice book called Auction Theory by Vijay Krishna that might be of interest to you guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the feedback and can give you some of our thinking. Our target audience of buyers generally has no access at all to this type of information today for local transactions. You just send an email into the void and cross your fingers. Providing this information at all is an improvement to this audience.

For the seller, showing the top bid means that people will bid no more than they have to. Witholding the top bid (except to those who are interested) means buyers offer what they think the item is worth - which could be a lot more than top bid + 1$.

It's definitely a different approach and may fail miserably. At which point we'll pivot and come up with a better one :)

<comment><USER11> > Our target audience of buyers

Who is that? It looks to me like it's local-transaction buyers. This could definitely make craigslist selling a lot better.

It wasn't clear to me what you did -- obviously I read "auction" and I think eBay. But you're much different. The marketing copy didn't explain it well to me, but the video gave me that 'ah-hah! Nice!' moment.

Take that for what it's worth. GL!

<comment><AUTHOR> We've found that most users won't read much on a home page so we kept the copy short and focused on the video. We'll try and clean it up, but getting people to watch the video seems to be working out the best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like what I would have done if I was trying to overthrow CL (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4324452>). Great idea, I look forward to using Bidkat in the future.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wait, so I know people on Craigslist aren't linking an eBay Buy-It-Now w/ offer listings to sell their stuff -- I'm assuming CL gets unhappy about that.

What's the differentiator between BidKat and that option?

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all, we work with any service (Twitter, Facebook, even bulletin boards) so it isn't just CL - though admittedly it works well there. BidKat just provides additional information about an auction like many people already add to the CL listings.

We don't do payment processing between parties and people don't pay us to create an auction. We also are not a competing listing service, we offer no ability to search our auctions - they have to be advertised separately. Hopefully these things differentiate us enough.

<comment><USER14> _> so it isn't just CL, though admittedly it works well there._

Just out of curiosity, have you tested this or is this just supposition? It was the first thought that came to mind when I read about bidkat (posting it on CL, that is). I would just wonder whether people viewing the posts on CL actually click to go to another site?

<comment><AUTHOR> The magic line is 'for more pictures and information visit bidkat.com...' :) People love pictures.

<comment><USER15> Is there trully more pictures? (I mean, except the cats)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's generally how we've set up our auctions since pictures look nicer on BidKat than on CL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a great concept. Here's a use case for you that you might want to figure out -- how do you deal with people who are just "bid trolling"? Any way to make a bid binding?

</comment><comment><USER17> Cool nice design. This is sorta like Gumroad except you're competing against other people! Can I ask what font you used for your logo?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The logo is in HTGelateria.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Made a listing. It looks great: <https://www.bidkat.com/i/UJXTjUfd>

<comment><USER16> I used your listing as a "test case" to enter in various dollar amounts to see how the interaction design and app works. The $1,500 bid that was inputted/accepted was mine after I started bidding at $1,000. The first price counter price I received was $1,880, then $1,6XX, then it finally accepted my $1,500.

Did you have any control on how readily/quickly/aggressively you discount your price when creating a new auction listing?

<comment><USER18> I got all excited when I got a bid! Nope, I selected a range. In this case $1200 - $2000. Also, I should note that I'm from London, England. Changing the $ to a £ would be a pretty nice feature.

Interesting regarding the counter prices, also nice touch that BidKat suggest you give a "donation" when you get a bid offer. I think if I had a real bid offer, I'd be inclined to donate $5 or so!

<comment><AUTHOR> We have the ability to select different monetary units for auctions and will be implementing that feature shortly. What do you mean that you didn't really get a bid?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> <https://www.bidkat.com/i/9uDYAKBS>

</comment><comment><USER20> i love the service, but when someone made me an offer and chose his contact details to be just his First_Name, I have no way of responding to him. You should change it so email is required on a bid

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that! We didn't require email because a lot of people use name and phone number instead. We'll fix the label on the input box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So it's kind of like ebay with a way more awesome UI?

<comment><AUTHOR> And free :) Main difference is that we are not a primary listing service, we're complementary to existing listing services. Advertise your item where ever you normally do, just include a link to your BidKat auction and we'll handle offer negotiations and tracking for you automatically.

<comment><USER21> Seriously cool. Nice work. I'm working on a Twitter/Craigslist/StackOverflow- like service for moms and I will certainly see how we could use your service.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the barriers to micropayments? - <AUTHOR>

A lot of cool things would be feasible if only apps could get a few cents per user. I assume the reason this hasn't happened is neither lack of intelligence nor lack of trying. So what is keeping micropayments from being a reality? Is it the cost of processing payments? Users are unwilling to pay even a few cents? Something else? <comment><USER2> Micropayments need to be treated like pre-paid activities like consuming gas when you drive from one location to another. i.e. the decision to spend money must be automatic based on your behavior. For example, when I drive to the store, I do so without ever thinking "it's going to cost me 14 cents in gas to go there and back. Am I sure I want to go?"

For micropayments to work, consumptive behavior needs to be used as a proxy for a decision to purchase.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really interesting. Like Amazon Web Services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Transactions costs, minimum payments, infrastructure and complexity. To make a long story short, bitcoin can do micropayments because the transactions costs are very low, highly divisible denomination, straightforward addresses, no definite need for forex, and there is no intermediary financial institution. I think a framework might need to be laid over the top, however.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you elaborate on that? In particular

\- Why can't aggregators overcome the transactions costs? MoneyGram does so for remittances from US to Mexico.

\- What's not straightforward about "addresses" ? (Which addresses do you mean?)

\- Don't intermediaries sometimes lower the overall costs.

Thanks for the thoughtful answer.

<comment><USER3> In principle, anytime money goes through someone else on its way to its destination for some benefit, purpose or reason, who is going to pay for that intermediary's existence?

If you need to do a bank transfer to someone, you need their bank account number, bank name, account name, branch address, branch number, reason for transfer. A system that needs all this info is a complex system, and that system needs to be maintained, and that maintenance is by extension costly (due to its complexity.)

An intermediary might lower overall cost by enabling something to occur that couldn't occur in the first place, but why couldn't it occur in the first place? How helpful are bank transfers when they take 3-5 working days?

The banking sector is massively wasteful in my view. Parts might be justified, but other parts not.

If people are going to hate on bitcoin because they can't buy it, or don't want it to work (or whatever,) I can hate on the banking sector for eating time, money and efficiency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the long response, but it seems sort of far afield and I still feel my question was unanswered. MoneyGram reduces transactions costs by pooling wire transfers to Mexico. So they take risk and add value as an aggregator. What's to keep a micropayment aggregator from doing the same?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My guess is that some psychological factors make them impossible to use. Maybe some combination of that bias where most humans won't wait some time for a larger reward later, and the amount of effort it takes to keep track mentally of where you're making a micropayment, and where you're not.

I would guess that the closest analogy would be metered long-distance telephone time vs flat-rate. I bet that a significant portion of those going flat rate actually paid more for it than when they were metered.

</comment><comment><USER5> Processing payments generally involves a minimum per transaction fee that is often too large a percentage of the microtransaction product price itself to make it work. As mentioned by another user, Paypal has a relatively new microtransaction processing service that helps address this problem, though, so there is some progress, at least for microtransactions of a certain size.

</comment><comment><USER6> Partly psychological: <http://openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.html>

Partly technical: You can't do micropayments using credit cards. You can aggregate payments across sites, but there's a chicken-and-egg problem that has prevented payment aggregators from reaching usable scale.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why can't PayPal do micropayments? Aren't they large enough?

<comment><USER7> They do as of earlier this year:

[https://www.paypalobjects.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropaym...](https://www.paypalobjects.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Word! Well that should be enough momentum to prove / disprove Shirky's claim that micropayments can't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where do u micro pay for anything in the real world?

I think micropayment should be a hidden implementation detail. Users should only have to pay like they do for regular things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Micropayments are easier to implement computers and a sophisticated financial system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Psychologically: it takes as much effort to decide to pay 0.01c as to pay 0.99c.

2\. Practically: transaction costs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Peter, is that true for non-OECD countries? Many poor Brasilians are on the Net and 5¢ is not negligible to all those users.

Clay Shirky also mentioned the "psychological cost of deciding" in an article linked in another comment. But what's the (quantitative) evidence for these statements?</comment></comment>


[Fluff] This short Geeky 15 minute comedy about Larping as Vikings - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSz_IOUkc6g <comment><AUTHOR> One of our interns was in this short and as geeks ourselves, the entire office enjoyed it. Thought you might enjoy it over here. I know this isn't the kind of content that lives here but it is definitely in all our wheel house.Nice to see some original ideas that aren't horrible versions of nerd culture (Looking at you Suicide Squad).</comment>


Lessons from Zynga & Sony on moving from Amazon AWS - <AUTHOR> http://natishalom.typepad.com/nati_shaloms_blog/2012/03/lessons-from-zynga-and-sony-move-from-amazon-aws.html What really brought Zynga and Sony to move from Amazon AWS <comment><USER2> Curious to know what powers zCloud. Do they use eucalyptus/openstack kind of open source cloud platform? Also glad to know that this open source cloud platforms have become so powerful. Thanks nati for sharing it, btw i like Gigaspaces alot .</comment>


Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth & Politics - <AUTHOR> http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html Interesting stuff about the nature of truth starts at 10:35. <comment><USER2> English text link here: [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005...](http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter- lecture-e.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting stuff about the nature of truth starts at 10:35.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite one or two page webapp? - <AUTHOR> I am planning to build the website that's just built for getting data and display on the first page. <comment><USER2> I love WordPress for its cool feaures and ease of use. I've just finished creating my real estate wesite using a premium WP real estate theme ( [http://www.templatemonster.com/category/real-estate- WordPres...](http://www.templatemonster.com/category/real-estate-WordPress- themes/) ). It looks quite pretty.</comment>


Google Buzz Reveals Tech's Twenty Most Media-Connected People - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/02/12/techs-twenty-most-media-connected-people/

<comment><AUTHOR> seems like it took years before there was any interest in mining facebook and twitter data for stuff like this - the google buzz mining has already started after three days.</comment>


Do We have a Moral Duty to Improve the Human Race? - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/12/enhancing-evolu.html <comment><USER2> The author mentions competitive advantage. To be honest, I think that in such a fundamental case as this, competitive advantage isn't a win. Let's say that good nutrition increases general aptitude. So, more people are smart competing with me if nutrition improves. It also means I pay less money supporting people with bad health. And while I might be competing, it means that better things are being done.

Let's say that my IQ is 125 and the average is 100. Let's say we find something that can raise everyone's IQ to 150 except mine. That's a good thing, even for me. Those people will make production more efficient, create new and better products, etc. That lowers the cost of the same standard of living or allows one to pay a constant cost and get a significantly increased standard of living.

Now, my place in the social hierarchy would change, that's for sure. I guess people tend to care about that as much if not more than the other things.

In terms of genetically engineering children, I'm less thrilled. The fact is that biodiversity prevents extinction. Designer genes might, for a while, provide us with better results, but in the long run it leaves us very, very vulnerable to catastrophe. So, do we pick ourselves or our species? Parents will always pick their child over their species. So, all parents with the means to do so, will eliminate that genetic diversity to the detriment of the species.

We're even seeing it today with parents refusing vaccinations. They work off the principle that everyone else is vaccinated so my child won't get those diseases anyway and I would be terrified if my child got autism (which has never been proven, but they're nuts anyway). They pick their child over society. What happens when everyone does that? In the case of vaccines, it won't happen because once enough people do it, disease will return and parents will be burring their children. In the case of biodiversity, we might not know for hundreds or thousands of years.

I wouldn't be so quick to accept this as improving the human race. Improving individuals: yes (at the cost of loosing the biodiversity that sustains species). We'd become like the banana - doomed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the author's methodology (or at least the article's synopsis of it) seems a somewhat flawed premise.

Suggesting that we focus less on conventional medicine in order to raise the bar in other areas neglects the massive waste and allocation in the market system.

One of the fundamental things that increases lifespan is diet. I've read in numerous sources the approx life span of humans should be 120 years if they don't suffer a medical trauma. Now we have the ability to deliver the optimum diet to achieve that we don't. Instead we subsidize meat until people get fat heavy diets, etc.

The Macdonalds culture has created a culture where non-nutritious foods are the cheapest to consumers, despite the real cost of production.

The author can try to justify leeching resource from numerous areas of society to create "competitive advantage" but until governments remove the impediments to have healthy food cost less nothing much else we do will mean much.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm just happy we're starting to have this conversation at all.</comment>


Crafting a Sustainable New Republic - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chris-hughes-crafting-a-sustainable-new-republic/2014/12/07/2138faf6-7e28-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html <comment><USER2> "At the New Republic, I believe we owe it to ourselves and to this institution to aim to become a sustainable business and not position ourselves to rely on the largesse of an unpredictable few."

Except that Hughes _is_ one of those few who is in a position to allow the New Republic to create quality journalism while remaining financially protected. In fact, that's just about all he brings to the table, since he doesn't have a background in journalism or running an organization like this.

If he wanted to grow a business, TNR feels like a strange project. Especially when it seems like journalists need the exact kind of protection that his wealth as an owner could've provided.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I didn't buy the New Republic to be the conservator of a small print magazine whose long-term influence and survival were at risk."

Except TNR existed for a century as a subsidized, money-losing magazine. Buying the magazine without understanding that may have been a mistake.

(Source for that is Jonathan Chait's rebuttal to those that equate earning a profit with social utility: [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/new- republic-an...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/new-republic-and- the-imperfect-media-market.html) )

</comment><comment><USER4> Hmmm. A perfect opportunity to set out his vision- he's never going to get more attention for it than right this moment.

But he didn't take it at all. Virtually content free statement.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Perhaps I lack imagination but I don't see what a periodical such as the New Republic really can or needs to do other than have their content online as print formats continue to decline in popularity. And after reading his statement, I had no better understanding of what his plans for a "sustainable" New Republic look like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the weird bit. The "nut graf" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_graph](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_graph)) in Hughes' essay is:

 _> At the heart of the conflict of the past few days is a divergent view on how the New Republic — and journalism more broadly — will survive. In one view, it is a "public trust" and not a business. It is something greater than a commercial enterprise, ineffable, an ideal that cannot be touched. Financially, it would be a charity. There is much experimentation in nonprofit journalism – ProPublica and the Texas Tribune are proving the model — and that may be the right path for certain institutions. At the New Republic, I believe we owe it to ourselves and to this institution to aim to become a sustainable business and not position ourselves to rely on the largesse of an unpredictable few. Our success is not guaranteed, but I think it's critical to try._

So he thinks it's "critical" that TNR be operated as a business, rather than a non-profit. OK, fine. But he never bothers to explain _why_. _Why_ do they "owe it to ourselves and this institution to become a sustainable business", rather than a non-profit? Non-profits can be "sustainable" too, after all. But he never gets around to mounting an argument for why having TNR be a profitable business is "critical." He just asserts that this is so.

It's like he wants to reply to his critics, but without actually engaging with their arguments in any substantive way. So it comes off reading like an internal monologue rather than a convincing argument.

<comment><USER7> He also fails to state in any clear way what, concretely, Foer, Wieseltier, Ioffe, et al wanted that was inconsistent with his idea of a "businesslike" mode of operation, whatever that means...

<comment><USER8> Catering to the twitter generation instead of, you know, actual journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've heard this same speech given after several layoffs at large companies. This is pretty boilerplate stuff, and its distracting from the fact that he swooped in and lost nearly every single voice in the room.

</comment><comment><USER10> This article from a couple days ago offer some additional background and different (opinionated) perspective:

      Facebook Prince Purges The New Republic: Inside the
      Destruction of a 100-Year-Old Magazine

        Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes and his lieutenant from
        Yahoo gut one of journalism's great publications, setting
        off waves of resignations and tears...

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/05/the-new- rep...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/05/the-new-republic- implodes.html)

Discussion of that article (under the more pedestrian title "Chris Hughes Purges The New Republic") took place here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705410)

</comment><comment><USER11> Julia Ioffe's take on things: [https://www.facebook.com/julia.ioffe.9/posts/101003775093899...](https://www.facebook.com/julia.ioffe.9/posts/10100377509389962)

</comment><comment><USER12> Why was this published on the Washington Post? You'd think that the owner and publisher of a magazine and news website would want to publish his thoughts about the future of that publication _on_ the publication.

<comment><USER13> Probably many reasons but primarily TNR's subscription base has been dropping for years as their wonky analysis has fallen out of favor, so what better way to increase interest/awareness but to advertise the new approach in WaPo who have 20x as many subscribers that are mostly Washington based?

<comment><USER12> It was a somewhat rhetorical question on my part, and it speaks volumes about the reach and relevance of TNR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Its funny he cited Vox Media as a place where innovation was happening. I think their "Latest News" column for 12/08/2014 speaks volumes to what Hughes plans on turning TNR into. Every headline is made to be clickbait.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/90gd333hff849ih/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/90gd333hff849ih/Screenshot%202014-12-08%2000.09.15.png?dl=0)</comment>


Brief thoughts as co-founder of acquired Fanvibe (YCS10) - <AUTHOR> http://artchang.com/fanvibe-acquired-by-berecruited

<comment><USER2> It seems to me that the real winners in such deals are the investors. They put some money into this company, those dudes work extremely hard for a year, while the investors chillax, then they sell off. The investors make a nice chunk of change, while these dudes transfer to another company where they will continue to work extremely hard for another year or more.

To me, 'startups' are not really companies. They are vehicles for speculative activity by a certain class of people. All those drones being encouraged into spending so much time working in these companies so that investors will make money could also work on creating real businesses that they own and that will make them real money.

<comment><USER3> You've got it exactly backwards. So exactly, in fact, that it looks like trolling, but oh well...

I know nothing about Fanvibe's acquisition, but typically in these cases it's the "dudes" who control the business and they're selling it because they want to, because it's making them a life-changing amount of money.

Meanwhile the investors make a small return but lose the chance of a big return, which is what they really need in order to succeed at startup investing. Good investors support the founders anyway, because they know it's not in their interest to thwart them and also because they are often nice people who are happy to see the "dudes" succeed.

<comment><USER2> An investor puts $20k in 15 companies and gets perhaps $50k back. Over the sum of his companies he's getting quite a lot of money for doing nothing but having a few dinners and answering some emails.

On the other hand, these guys are making perhaps $300k each, which they can easily make as highly capable consultants. And they end up with nothing much after that, just the chance to work even more.

The problem is not venture capitalists, it's those "brand name" investors who are putting $20k in many many companies.

<comment><USER4> The "brand name" investors are exactly the ones that don't "chillax". Casual angel investors usually lose money. The ones that have strong deal-flow don't get that by just occasionally showing up in Mountain View with a checkbook. Also note that most of the "super angels" at this point are really just mini- VCs. Conway, McClure, Sacca, et al are mostly investing other people's money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Loved the quote from Evan Beard:

"Remember that your mind is a fortress of impenetrable happiness."

Common words of wisdom that never seem to be taken to heart nearly enough. Reminded me of another gem from Daniel Gross of Greplin:

"It's very important to constantly tell yourself if anything, how lucky you are to be here in the first place. Even if you aren't in the valley, remember how lucky you are to live in the 21st century."

Congrats Art! Thanks for showing us what fortresses can do ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm more curious about whether or not the founders felt Fanvibe's business model was a successful one. Did they feel they reached an optimal product/market fit? Or was there potentially more to give?

I've been doing research in the space(s) of sports & gaming, particularly in- game predictions, which I think can be super compelling in the right context. While I wasn't that enthralled with other aspects of the product, I.E. checking in to games (why, when I can just use a location-based service?), trash talking with other fans (can do that via social media, along with team- centric blogs/forums) etc, it seemed like Fanvibe was ahead of the curve with this in-game prediction element; at least from a non-gambling perspective.

Just curious what their thoughts were on this.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whats the average each co-founder would get in an exit like this? Would the earn out be a large or small percentage of this amount?

</comment><comment><USER8> Congrats!

And I have to say, I've rarely seen a post about being acquired that sounded so _happy_ about it. Really seems like you'll enjoy working at beRecruited, so best of luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I'm just really optimistic? =)</comment></comment>


Puzzle: squirrel's first attempt with the pull-rods on different sides - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/KFEDeOcnmlo <comment><USER2> Are you filming the squirrels? Can you provide more info about the setup? How many tries needed the squirrel to solve this?</comment>


Smartphones are a threat to morals - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/smartphones-are-empowering-our-vices-like-never-before/2014/03/27/1dd2c716-b5ab-11e3-bab2-b9602293021d_blog.html

<comment><USER2> FTA:

> We don't need phone-free zones the way we now have smoke-free zones.

We don't?

We _do_ have phone-free zones: pretty much all theaters, many locker rooms, some classrooms, a few restaurants. Expanding this idea at least a little strikes me as a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> why is watching porn imoral?</comment>


Insects can teach us about the origins of consciousness - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-04-insects-consciousness.html <comment><USER2> Really interesting! Reminded me of a good Economist article recently that went into the idea of 'consciousness' in more detail and how certain animals show different elements of it -

[http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21676961-inner-lives- an...](http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21676961-inner-lives-animals-are- hard-study-there-evidence-they-may-be-lot-richer-science-once-thought)

<comment><USER3> Wow very good read in the link.

I like the chimp that hid stones to throw at visitors that annoy him later haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started raising bees last year, and think I am set to learn a few new things about consciousness. I am starting to think that the "Hive Mind" recognizes me. After I get more experienced I for sure plan to do more experiments.</comment>


NASA building satellites with Android phones inside - <AUTHOR> http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobility-Matters/NASA-building-satellites-with-Android-phones-inside/ba-p/6504 <comment><USER2> This is a marketing stunt. Why not use Linux but Android?

<comment><USER3> Aside from the obvious comeback of "the Android kernel is Linux"...

The reason NASA wants to use commercial phones is because it wants to use _off-the-shelf_ hardware. That provides it with an already-extant platform with mature drivers, which doesn't need much custom engineering.

I'm not aware of any mature, free-as-in-speech Linux phones with the sort of power and sensor arrays of the Galaxy Nexus. I guess NASA isn't either. Are you?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Opt in v/s out - <AUTHOR>

This question keeps coming up, and the usual argument I've heard is: For most users, they wouldn't bother opting in, so there's no way to release a feature than to have them be opted in by default for all new features, and then have an option to opt out for stuff they don't really want.<p>I was wondering if it would be feasible for a product to have a screen when it's installed, asking users if they would want to opt in or out by default? Has anyone experimented with such a strategy in their product? What have your observations be? <comment><USER2> I can't comment on my own observations because I don't have enough experience with this. However, some suggest that default choices are hard to resist: whether it's online or off. NYT wrote about that several years ago. [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/technology/default- choices...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/technology/default-choices-are- hard-to-resist-online-or-not.html)</comment>


IOHK Launches Cardano Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/iohk-launches-cardano-blockchain-ada-now-trading-bittrex/ <comment><USER2> "While Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies rely on proof of work, where miners solve a cryptographic puzzle to reach consensus on the state of the ledger, proof-of-stake systems reach consensus by coin-holder vote. As a result, proof of stake is vastly more energy efficient than proof of work."

I'm not an expert on cryptography - can anyone back up this claim? because it seems to have solved a major issue with the miners</comment>


Ask YC: What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail? - <AUTHOR>

. <comment><USER2> * Sneak onto the space shuttle and go into space. Optionally jumping out the door at any time (going up, in orbit or one the way down).

* Kidnap myself and demand a ridiculously high ransom from the state.

* Restart the Free Love movement.

* Put my name is as Democratic candidate, sweep the rest of the election and 100% of the super delegates, and then become the most unexpected and powerful man in the world by winning the general election

* The most epic, cross-country, high speed police chase ever.

* My favorite parts of GTA, in real life. This includes pilot lessons after breaking into an airport by jumping a 15 foot fence with a BMX bicycle I stole from a gangster on the sidewalk down the block.

* Flip a quarter heads up, repeatedly, on national TV under scientific scrutiny. Sound boring? Wait until I do it 1000 times in a row, all heads up. The astronomical odds would make me more likely to be a demigod than just a really "lucky" guy. Not enough? Flip it 10,000 more times. If you do the near-impossible enough times, people will think you are the third coming. And then life gets fun. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would try to deliberately fail on purpose just to see what happened. Could be dangerous though.

<comment><USER4> I bet you wouldn't try.

<comment><USER3> You're right, I would be way too scared.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sleep with supermodels, starting with Jessica Alba.

<comment><USER6> Just open your eyes to the many beautiful women around you right now. 'Supermodels' are just an illusion -- cartoon characters which distract you from what is real.

<comment><USER5> "beautiful women around you right now"

I don't fail with them :-p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd make everybody happy, without compromising the long-term prospects of the human race. And then I'd do something even more awesome, but I'd have to begin somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER8> Envisioning what things will be like 10,000 years from now.

<comment><USER5> Won't it make life unbearably painful for you now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the possibility of failure is a great motivator, so I wonder if I would have the motivation to attempt to succeed if I knew I wouldn't fail.

The most interesting things I've ever done started with questions that began "I wonder if..."

</comment><comment><USER10> I've changed my mind. After reading some of these answers. I remember reading (some possibly apocryphal) stories about Tibetan monks able to run for days on end and sit on mountaintops in freezing weather without getting cold.

I would attempt to learn how to unlock the true power of the mind and teach others to do so (to eliminate fear and the self-talk stuff that stops us)

[http://www.presscluboftibet.org/china-tibet-17/lung-gom- pa.h...](http://www.presscluboftibet.org/china-tibet-17/lung-gom-pa.htm)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd attempt (and succeed, apparently) at creating pervasive and reliable life- extension technology.

Either that or some kind of upload technology. Charles Stross' "Vile Offspring," here I come!

</comment><comment><USER12> Strong AI, obviously.

</comment><comment><USER10> Start a profitable business and be successful in mentoring others how to start their profitable business (not network marketing by any means)

</comment><comment><USER13> The lottery.

</comment><comment><USER14> What does the word "fail" mean?

<comment><USER4> It means to throw an exception.

I suppose if I knew I couldn't fail, I'd just have to overload the meaning of the return value.

<comment><USER15> In that spirit, maybe you can't fail, but _will you terminate_?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ToE.

Which makes this a very funny question: you could also attempt to calculate the instantaneous position of an electron within an atom. And not fail. And when you don't fail, you failed.

</comment><comment><USER17> Solve the halting problem. One minor detriment: because it would effectively create an infinite solution in a finite space, the resulting impact on space- time would probably be cataclysmic.

</comment><comment><USER18> Become ruler of the world?

Ground me somewhere on this one.

</comment><comment><USER19> Fly?

</comment><comment><USER20> Some kind of space propulsion company like John Carmack

And also autonomous control of some other things.

</comment><comment><USER21> Cure hunger. Challenging problem where you would need the wind at your back.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sex

<comment><USER5> Just curious... How can one 'fail' at sex? :)

<comment><USER23> Obviously you've never been to high school.

<comment><USER5> Oh I didn't realize that only "involving at least one additional person" type sex counted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would set 1 = 2, and the universe would implode!

</comment><comment><USER6> Dive the blue hole in Dahab

</comment><comment><USER25> Begin a career as a trader.

</comment><comment><USER26> Faster-than-light travel.

</comment><comment><USER27> take on world poverty.

</comment><comment><USER28> time travel!

</comment><comment><USER29> Persuade parents to act much more rationally, invent enough life extension and backup-and-restore-of-people for immortality, win the war on terror (with a single heartfelt speech), make dirt cheap self-replicating, easily programmable nano-bots that understand English.</comment>


What is Proved and What is Assumed - <AUTHOR> http://sel4.systems/FAQ/proof.pml

<comment><USER2> OT: first time I see a .systems domain, exciting!</comment>


Startups 2.0: A Cambrian Moment - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/01/special-report-startups-20

<comment><AUTHOR> A special report of 9 articles with these leads:

Platforms: Something to stand on PROVIDING THE RIGHT platform is sometimes all it takes. Instead of planning new pedestrian plazas by the usual bureaucratic means, New York City's department of transportation just marks an area on...

Building companies: Rocket machine WHY BOTHER WITH accelerators? Why not just hire a bunch of clever youngsters, provide them with the necessary cash, support and technology, and tell them to pursue a business idea with a proven suc...

Tech startups: A Cambrian moment ABOUT 540M YEARS ago something amazing happened on planet Earth: life forms began to multiply, leading to what is known as the "Cambrian explosion". Until then sponges and other simple creatures ha...

The dark side: Founder's blues A YEAR AGO Jody Sherman shot himself. His online shop, Ecomom, which sold eco-friendly and health products for children, was running out of cash. A few weeks later the business closed its virtual d...

Accelerators: Getting up to speed IT FEELS LIKE some prayer meeting. Two middle-aged men start by telling the audience how important it is to pitch in. A booming voice announces the acts, greeted by loud cheers; then some enthusias...

Creating a business: Testing, testing "WE EVEN HAD to host the servers in our own office." Naval Ravikant laughs as he describes how in 1999 he and some friends founded his first startup, Epinions, a website for consumer reviews. They ...

Venture capitalists: From leafy to lofty TECH MONEYMEN LIKE altitude. In Silicon Valley the leading venture-capital firms cluster on a leafy hill overlooking Stanford University. And when Benchmark Capital opened a branch in San Francisco...

Hardware startups: Hacking Shenzhen OH NO, NOT another accelerator, you may think. But this one is different. On the tables are not just the obligatory laptops and smartphones but circuit boards, cables, screwdrivers and a few items ...

Business communities: All together now BLOCK 71 HAS long been slated for demolition. A look at the tenant list for the seven-storey industrial building on Singapore's Ayer Rajah Crescent helps explain why it is still standing: nearly 10...</comment>


HBO has renewed Silicon Valley for a fifth season - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/25/15692422/hbo-silicon-valley-renewed-fifth-season <comment><USER2> Here's to hoping they advance the plot at all. Love the jokes, love the characters, love the satire, but really wish they would stop resetting the plot to square one every few episodes.

You could skip the first three seasons and not really miss anything plot wise.

<comment><USER3> Its a character-driven satire. The plot is ancillary.

<comment><USER4> The plot is always an important part of any show.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say it wasn't important. I said it was ancillary. The whole point in satire is social critique. The plot in satire is just a vehicle for that, it's not necessarily important in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > HBO explained that the decision for Miller to depart the show was a mutual > one.

This is disappointing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I agree. I wonder why he wants to leave the show?

<comment><USER6> Maybe mostly due to his crazy schedule. He is in many upcoming movies and has a TV show. He also has to think of his future and right now he is in demand which may change in another year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the show a lot, happy to hear.</comment>


Aretha Franklin has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.clickondetroit.com/entertainment/aretha-franklin/aretha-franklin-the-queen-of-soul-dies-at-age-76 <comment><USER2> As a youngish person who wasn't really into musiic, my first exposure to her and that entire genre was the Blues Brothers. That movie and her scene is an absolute delight.

<comment><USER3> The Blues Brothers scene in question is on YouTube [0] (this 5-ish minute version sets up the musical number; the shorter versions don't).

That version, btw, is embedded in this interview of John Landis, the director of the film on Deadline Hollywood. Landis discusses his pleasure at having Aretha Franklin participate in the film and more [1].

He stresses an interesting point which is that the movie came out at a time when disco eclipsed other genres like the blues...to the point that some record companies passed on releasing the film's soundtrack album, thinking that it wouldn't sell (as Landis points out, it wound up going platinum [2]). And he describes how the movie was made to use Belushi's and Akroyd's celebrity to bring attention to the then-neglected previous generation of blues and R&B musicians -- apparently, it worked.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY66elCQkYk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY66elCQkYk)

[1] [https://deadline.com/2018/08/john-landis-aretha-franklin- the...](https://deadline.com/2018/08/john-landis-aretha-franklin-the-blues- brothers-reminisces-john-belushi-dan-aykroyd-1202447056/)

[2] [https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default- award...](https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default- award&se=blues+brothers#search_section)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a voice. Remember some video where she and a lot of other female vocal stars much younger were singing together; she topped them all just by her presence.

<comment><USER5> I assume this? [https://youtu.be/Lstk0Xe8sdg](https://youtu.be/Lstk0Xe8sdg) Her and Celine Dion are amazing here

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> RIP to the Queen of soul. Hard to find one whose work inspired industry insiders and vast audiences, spanning across several generations. This tribute by CNN is short but informative:

[https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1030103135338020864](https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1030103135338020864)

</comment><comment><USER7> She leaves an incredible legacy. Not just in her own work, but in all the musicians she inspired to find their own voice.

</comment><comment><USER8> RIP to the Queen of Soul

</comment><comment><USER9> Do yourselves a favor and listen to "Get it Right". 8 minutes of perfection.

<comment><USER10> If you haven't yet, listen to her performance of "(You make me feel like) A natural woman"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsnZT7Z2yQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsnZT7Z2yQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Respect in Peace, Aretha.

</comment><comment><USER12> Exactly 41 years to the day after Elvis.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you had asked me yesterday, I would have guessed she'd been dead for at least two decades.

It's not the first time I'm surprised like this. When I imagine a 60s artist, I tend to forget how young they achieved their stardom.

<comment><USER14> The Rolling Stones are still touring. I'm not sure why you're surprised that people from the 1960's are still alive.

Unfortunately she had pancreatic cancer, an extremely deadly disease.

It doesn't feel like 10 years since Randy Pausch died of pancreatic cancer:

[https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/book/index.html](https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/book/index.html)

<comment><USER15> The stones are still around and doing things. I cannot recall seeing her doing anything in my lifetime. Not TV, not concerts, etc etc.

vOV

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sad, but hn relevant?

<comment><USER17> That's for the community to decide.

<comment><USER18> _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they 're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. (...) If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic._

There's no interesting new phenomenon to discuss with celebrity deaths. Unless Aretha Franklin wrote some software of note or otherwise influenced tech or hacker culture in some significant way, then this is obviously off topic.</comment></comment></comment>


Faker.js - generate massive amounts of fake data in the browser and Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/marak/Faker.js/

<comment><USER2> This is cool.

I'm gently disturbed that it generates valid email addresses. You pick a random name, follow it with an @, then add a random word, and then add a TLD. Obviously you're not responsible for how people use the tool.

Best practice would be to use the domain example.com

<comment><USER3> In most use cases I can think of the generated data is used only in a closed (testing) environment and won't be visible to web crawlers and spambots. Many developers like me use these libraries for prototyping different UI views for their apps.

Unfortunately, spammers do have way more advanced technologies to try and guess working addresses. Libraries like this generate mostly very improbable addresses: you would get way better results just by taking lists of most popular first names and family names and concatenating them with some well- known web mail providers.

<comment><USER4> _In most use cases I can think of the generated data is used only in a closed (testing) environment and won't be visible to web crawlers and spambots. Many developers like me use these libraries for prototyping different UI views for their apps._

The bigger problem, in my experience, is when you accidentally spam people yourself, while testing some function that somehow generates an outgoing email. I think almost everybody that's ever worked on code that sends emails has - at one time or another - ran a job that somehow wound up sending 6,712,374 "test" messages to every user in the production database. :-) Dummy addresses are better, but it's better still if they use @example.com so you know there's no way they'll actually get delivered to anybody.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great project! I would, however, recommend an API with more namespaces. Functions like Address.ukCounty don't sit well with me; such an API would be a mess if you added support for countries other than the US and the UK. You could (and probably create namespaces for each country code, e.g.:

        Address
        |-> US
            |-> state
        |-> UK
            |-> state

An alternative would be for country-specific generators to take a country code as an argument. I am not an experienced API designer, though, so take my comments with a heaping of salt.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice library. It would be nice to add the ability to generate random values based on a distribution, e.g. the values are random but correspond to a normal distribution with a given mean and standard deviation. This would be very useful for testing statistical libraries and applications.

<comment><USER7> Which attributes would you sample from a normal distribution here? I don't see any numerical attributes where this would make sense. One could add weight, height, age etc. and sample from the relevant geographical/gender distributions?

<comment><USER6> An example would be the processing of automatically acquired measurement data. Such data usually shows some kind of distribution (binominal, normal, geometric, etc...) that needs to be taken into account when validating such a tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obligatory "I wrote something similar" post. But my tool is written in Java, doesn't run in the browser, but does use @example.com for the email addresses.

<https://github.com/mindcrime/dummydatagenerator>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is fantastic. I was actually looking for something like this to test some APIs with dummy data.

<comment><USER3> The original such library was Perl's Data::Faker which was ported to Ruby as Faker gem (and later refactored to faster and more comprehensive Ffaker gem).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shameless plug: I also created a similar library for Scala some time ago <https://github.com/justwrote/scala-faker>

Need to update to 2.10 soon :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Cool. I recently build a similar thing for Magento to provide demo data and for anonymization purposes. Some parts of faker.js needs sure refactorings ...

<comment><USER11> I've been looking for something that can generate fake cart data. Is what you built open source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks! I won't be using <http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/> as much now.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's the use case for this? To annoy spammers?

<comment><USER14> I built something like this for an internal CMS framework and it really speed up prototyping pages - especially large list pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So many Node.js libraries....

</comment><comment><USER16> Great, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER17> anjuna.js</comment>


Ask: HN Best book on programming for non technical founder? - <AUTHOR>

Best singular book for intro to programming and web applications.  I know one book will never 'cover it all'.  Yet best all round start to this. <comment><USER2> If you have no programming experience whatsoever and you're looking to do web development, I recommend starting with HTML. A good book is the Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML. HTML isn't a programming language on its own but it is used in conjunction with pretty much everything else and is pretty much the starting point. That book does a really good job explaining the very basics and why you'd do something a certain way. From there, you can expand into actual programming languages afterwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip .

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For me, the easiest way to start wasn't using a book. It was learning hands on to create a simple functional website right from the beginning, and researching the effects and functions you want to be able to do. Once you get the hang of it, it's relatively easy to understand and after a while, you'll get a hang of how to start programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool . Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A good one would be Learn Python the Hard Way. Python is a good language for beginners, and widely used.

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index>

There are probably similar books/resources for Ruby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Checking out now . Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Building web applications is just a small part of programming in general; I too would agree on learning HTML and CSS first. Once you can master static pages, you can start learning how to introduce dynamic components to build rich web apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would suggest you read "Joel on Software". It can teach you how to better communicate with your technical founder and programmers and to understand the general technical challenges in undertaking a project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great source . Also love the style of how he communicates . Thanks for the tip .</comment></comment>


You Gotta Be Great - Steven Pressfield - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/2010/02/writing-wednesdays-26-you-gotta-be-great/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Watching those Marines and midshipmen jump out of their seats and swarm around Maj. Gant, it was clear to me that young men and women's hearts today (and some of us who are not so young) are starving for challenges worthy of their secret, limitless capacities."

Steven Pressfield is always an inspiration</comment>