Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-google-duckduckgobre8al00i-20121121,0,6650221.story <comment><USER2> This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars.

Why is this article even on HN?

<comment><USER3> Hi, this is Gabriel Weinberg, the guy mentioned in the article.

The main issue I have is with duck.com. A lot of people remember that we are a search engine "duck something" and so naturally try duck.com. As a result, there is a lot of confusion, e.g.:

"I was telling someone about DuckDuckGo and they thought it was Duck.com and they went to Google. Is Google using this to find people who make the mistake to Duck.com instead of DuckDuckGo?"

"Can't you do something about this? I keep going to Duck.com when meaning to visit DuckDuckGo.com They are using the DuckDuckGo name to get people to search Google."

This only started happening after I asked about the domain name. It used to point to a history page about Duck Corporation (previous name of On2 -- <http://web.archive.org/web/20100802014055/http://duck.com/>), similar to <http://www.on2.com/>, which was acquired by Google in the same acquisition.

Google should legitimately not sell it to me, though it would have been of course nice to do so when I first asked in 2010. I think an appropriate remedy would be to either point it nowhere, point it to the original page it had been pointed to for many years, or point it to the acquisition page (as <http://on2.com> still does) -- all things they do in other cases if you look at past acquisitions.

Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion, and relates to their core search product. The facts of the situation (that it switched shortly after I asked, and only seemingly that one domain) make it appear to be deliberate. And if it were not deliberate, I've brought this up many times and there has been ample time (including now!) to correct the situation.

With regards to being easy to add search engines to Chrome, see [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/usability- issues...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/usability-issues-with- adding-search-engines-to-web-browsers.html). I've written up the differences extensively, with screenshots and explanatory notes.

<comment><USER4> > Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion, > and the facts of the situation make it appear to be deliberate. And if it > were not deliberate, I've brought this up many times and there has been > ample time (including now!) to correct the situation.

So if Google changes it they admit that they may have harmed you and you get a legal remedy. If Google doesn't change it you claim there's no reason not to and you get a moral argument.

Sounds like you're trying to construct a situation where you win and Google loses no matter what. How about just deal with the fact that it's not your domain? I quite like camping.com, doesn't mean I have the right to it.

<comment><USER3> Changing it now isn't a legal admission of anything.

In any case, there would still be no useful legal remedy available to us. We don't make much money, so what would the damages be?

The last thing a startup wants to do is take a big company to court. You're just asking to be bled dry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the article:

"In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. ....

"It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said.

The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternatives were offered on its Chrome browser in a dropdown menu, such as Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, but any search engine could be easily added."

<comment><USER6> Wait, 'one-click'?

In Firefox if I click the dropdown on the search field, then click 'Manage Search Engines' I get a dialog in which can be found a link to 'Get more search engines...'.

Clicking that opens an add-ons store tab with the 'Search Tools' filter applied, none of whose above-the-fold suggestions has anything to do with DDG. That's not one-click, it's a runaround.

In contrast, Chrome _automatically_ adds search engines as you browse the web and lets you set any one of them as the default. It also has clearly labelled fields to let you create your own by copying the format of the ones listed. Getting to there takes 3 clicks and a scroll.

Two reasonable gripes: the existence of the free-edit fields is not immediately obvious upon clicking 'Manage search engines...' and neither is the fact that the domain name in the second column is an editable keyword.

<comment><USER7> Click-and-hold on the firefox search engine icon in the search field, and a list of engines appears. I clearly see "Add DuckDuckGo" as an option in that list while I am on the site, and you can slide the mouse over to that option and release. So yes, one click.

<comment> eric-hu I don't think this is available in Firefox for OS X, there's 2 icons in the search field and neither one responds to click-and-hold

<comment><USER8> Just click on the Google "G" (or whatever you have as your default search engine) when you are at the site and "Add DuckDuckGo" shows up as an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent PR efforts by DuckDuckGo.

But not entirely sure that the arguments presented in this article are valid and would sway a technical crowd.

Given how trivial it was just now for me to switch to DDG in Chrome, I don't see how that's anti-competitive.

<comment><USER10> Excellent PR?

It sounds like a bunch of lame whining to me. I didn't use DDG before, but I at least respected their work. This is just weak. Google has done great things for the tech world by building chrome and android and releasing them as free and open source, to attempt to bring them down because you think it takes too many clicks to change the default search engine is shameful. Yegg, if you don't like it build your own browser and mobile operating system.

<comment><USER9> You, the HN reader, are not the target of this. Of course it ticks you (and me) off the wrong way - but your reaction is likely an unintended consequence!

It's excellent PR because it creates a coherent David Vs Goliath narrative that journos will buy and so will the bulk of the non-technical populace. A few more variations of this in different publications, and you'll see that it might seep into the public consciousness.

<comment><USER10> Me, the HN reader, is who DDG markets to. They try to sell themselves as the search engine for the informed user - the people who care about privacy and understand how google tracks you. The "bulk of the non-technical populace" will see an article about search engines and skip over it. They will never in their lifetime change any setting on their computer away from the default.

<comment><USER9> Good point - till now DDG was marketing at us.

Could this be where they're trying to move towards a more mainstream market?

They did take VC funding, and they may need to show growth in the mainstream market to their investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear:

It does not do any of it's own indexing.

It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them.

The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

<comment><USER12> According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong [http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...](http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-sources)

The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. <http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html>

<comment><USER11> I suspect it's trivial at best.

Every test search I've ever done on DDG shows near identical results to Bing.

I'd like to see a search that uses it's own data, examples?

Gigablast was the last serious third-party backend that had a chance for independent data. It's like old-school Google.

Gabriel should try to buy Gigablast and merge it with DDG so he has his own independent dataset.

<comment><USER13> Blekko has millions behind it and does a full index of the web.

<comment><USER11> Ah now that is an interesting engine.

Checking to see if it's hit any of our sites.

3k pages, not bad. Data is kinda stale though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They are completely forgetting about the standard cross-browser external.AddSearchProvider API. One-click install initiation works fine in both Chrome and Firefox in a DuckDuckGo + Google Suggest search plugin I put together at [http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with- googl...](http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with-google- suggest-search-plugin)

</comment><comment><USER15> This might be part of the problem

[http://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck+duck+go+says+it%27s+getting+sh...](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck+duck+go+says+it%27s+getting+shut+out)

[https://www.google.com/#q=duck+duck+go+says+its+getting+shut...](https://www.google.com/#q=duck+duck+go+says+its+getting+shut+out)

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe DDG should get around to actually competing in the search market by, you know, building its own search engine. Let's see if Weinberg has any real engineering chops, or if all he can do is complain.

Until DDG bothers to step into the real search arena and compete, they get no interest from me.

</comment><comment><USER17> The only thing that caught my eye was Google redirecting duck.com to google.com when DDG expressed interest in purchasing the domain. That seems a little underhanded, but not illegal....

<comment><USER18> Yeah, doing a reverse IP lookup with domain tools shows a list of 1,029 domains currently directing to google.com (some direct to youtube.com)

Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired duck.com's owner in 2010.

There is a very reasonable case for a WIPO domain dispute, which isn't particularly costly (granted if Google lost, and then sued you it would be expensive.) Very good way to generate a lot of press coverage.

<comment><USER19> > Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired > duck.com's owner in 2010.

For any sort of mark dispute, you shouldn't go by when Google acquired On2, you have to go by when On2 acquired the name. I assume this was closer to the domain creation date of 1995 (or the On2.com creation date of 1999).

<comment><USER20> Wouldn't it be a factor that On2 isn't/wasn't in the search space at all? Only after the Google acquisition did duck.com come to be associated with search, and then only by virtue of Google redirecting it to their main page.

<comment><USER21> Yes, On2 is/was a video codec technology company, and the reason for them owning duck.com was that they were previously named 'The Duck Corporation'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think we all see this as a marketing stunt from DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER16> Reminds me of Scott McNealy complaining about Microsoft instead of beating them with products in the market, while his company was busy imploding and becoming irrelevant. That's DDG's future if they go the route of whining instead of competing.

Linux, Google, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, (and countless open source software like Apache) et al. demonstrated time and time again that Microsoft could be trounced. Yet there was McNealy whining like a baby to the trust busters, while his own company was melting down.

Weinberg = McNealy

<comment><USER23> At least Sun did Java, what has Weinberg brought with DDG? Nothing.

<comment><USER16> Sun was responsible for a lot of tremendous technology (understatement of the year), the only point was that while McNealy was whining, his company was burning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Weinberg has absolutely no right to initiate force against Google. This disgusts me.

</comment><comment><USER25> What is wrong with people using Google's product and Google showing preference to their products first then others? I mean after all, you are using THEIR software running on THEIR system. Don't like it? Go use something else. No one is forcing you to use Chrome, etc...

<comment><USER26> exactly. DDG must make their own browser which doesn't allow the user to change the search engine. revenge!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have been a happy DDG user for more than two years and it's one of the best things I have done in a while. It works well, and it's great for productivity. So, that Google does not take it extra easy on them is not surprising. However, as Google matures, they will realize they need an AMD to their Intel. Something that poses little business threat, yet diffuses the antitrust threat. ... Watch.

<comment><USER28> I set DDG as my default search in Firefox; the results were abysmal. It felt like being transported back to altavista.digital.com, wading through middling irrelevant links searching for info. I got fed up with having to put !g into every query to get a good result, I ended up switching to DuckDuckGoog instead (and this is my current search provider).

<comment> shawn-butler This <http://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html> is a good place to place intelligent, constructive feedback.

The web community (that is, all of us) really, really needs an alternative to Google. I don't care whether you love or hate them. We desperately need an alternative.

<comment><USER29> MS spent gazillions of dollars trying to do it with Bing and isn't close yet. Google is simply the best service out there by a very wide margin. When people close the gap, there will be a viable alternative. There's no cosmic law that says there needs to be an alternative to product X.

<comment> shawn-butler I have no access to the internal budgets of Microsoft so I can't really comment intelligently. I am a cross-platform smartphone developer so I use wp7, wp8 as well as Google APIs daily in order to do my work and bing doesn't seem so bad for consumer oriented searches. YMMV. For the queries I execute, I agree their results are subpar.

But I feel compelled to respond. If there is no alternative to Google for something as important as indexing the output of human knowledge production... we are in serious trouble. The library of Alexandria burned and we still have no idea why [0].

Google is interested in one thing, getting you to look at ads. In their defense, well-targeted ads (++efficiency!). However when given the opportunity they have exploited their leadership position for every commercial advantage and recently to the detriment of search (e.g., I do not care to see what a bunch of "thought leaders" in google+ have to say on the topic I'm searching for). Their support for "Do Not Track" is grudging at best. [1]

Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near- zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local branch of your public library.

So, I support DDG and I give them feedback on my own time in the hopes they aren't also inherently out to screw me in the end. Also because I do believe (and this is an assumption on my part) that a "cosmic" -- well that may be an overreach -- law is involved. Search is not a natural monopoly [2].

[0] [http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural- monopoly.h...](http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural- monopoly.html) [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Do_Not_Trac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Do_Not_Track) [2] [http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural- monopoly.h...](http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural- monopoly.html)

<comment><USER29> "Need" implies that it requires state intervention on Google's products/services; that somehow Google's position as the market leader in... whatever it is exactly we care about (search, I guess) is a very bad thing.

Except that market forces are what they are, and there is no compelling reason to compare Google who has tons of backups and with many competing services (though most are bad) to the Library of Alexandria which had a very concrete single point of failure - which is the entire problem the Internet was developed to solve.

Google having competitors is good for all of us. But it doesn't "need" one, as if we must forcibly install a competitor in... well, whatever area you think they "need" a competitor in (Google services quite a wide range of areas).

>Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near- zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local branch of your public library.

Google horizontally integrates by buying companies and reforming them into their own services.

And Starbucks' share price has been significantly reduced from its high earlier this year. (And recovered after losing 50% of its market share by closing a lot of its unprofitable branches some years ago.)

It's a self-correcting problem.

<comment> shawn-butler I never stated I advocate state intervention. I said search is not a natural monopoly and as a result we as a market need viable competitors. As the perceived cost to us for both is zero, those competitors need "charitable" use to improve because the product is the activity. You can only improve human search by analyzing human searches. One might argue I suppose that there is enough capital to throw at the problem (say, pay me to use ddg until it catches up or pay Google to provide data), but I question whether that can be the case due to the network effects of the integrations you mention.

The Internet was not designed to provide highly-available redundant backups of data. It was designed to route packets across disparate peer networks in a manner to minimize congestion. Is there an ietf rfc you have in mind that illustrates your assertion? [0]

I do not follow; what does fluctuations in Starbuck's stock price have to do with the discussion? It was used as an example of a brand latching on to a public resource, libraries, in the hopes of becoming indistinguishable from the activity, namely reading.

[0] <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1958>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Frankly all this cry baby entitlement mentality lowers DDG in their users eyes. It makes one wonder if they are just another mouth piece for Microsoft (like Fair search camp).

</comment><comment><USER31> First of all, in my opinion, executing a frighteningly ambitious idea[1] is like performing inception. You need the simplest version of the idea for it to be "planted" in the user's mind.

People aren't using DDG much not because of any difficulties in the browser, because they don't want to. This is a very lame excuse. Google never won its users because they were able to convince users to set their Search Engine as default in their browsers.

As for DDG, the problem starts their name - "DuckDuckGo". You don't need to be an analyst with years of experience to say that this won't work because even their name is not something that is a)Catchy b)Easily rememberable c)Simple. Contrast this with Google. That's just one quick, easy to remember word. Now compare, Duck+Duck+Go. That's three words and it seems _long_. It looks like they didn't put much thought into this. This is not to say that DDG didn't do their homework properly, but just that it seems a little immature, given their name and their strategy. It looks more like they just read PG's essay[1] and started something out of the quick inspiration.

To kill a huge competitor like Google, you need to provide more _value_. Google is very hard to kill right now because, 1)Their search is vastly superior 2)a lot of people are _locked_ into their ecosystem 3)They have created a valuable _brand_. No, by locked, I don't mean it's a bad thing. For example, I use Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar, Blogger, Google Apps for my domains and a lot of other stuff because _I want to_. A single sign-in into their Eco-system lets me use all these services. And now, the best part is there's Android which seems to integrate all these things so easily like a snap that makes my life just a breeze.

So, first you need to understand that Google is now more than a search engine. Because if it was, Bing would have overtook it long back. You need to analyze the reasons why people still use Google. It's not just a search engine that they're using it for. Google has taken years and years to build the trust factor into their users. It has taken them years to make all these users "fit" into their eco-system and create a tremendously valuable _brand_ . It's not like that they did it in just one day. So, just starting a new search-engine and expecting people to join on board is not going to happen. Despite so many "Ad" controversies, Google is still the king here because of the trust factor that no one else in the industry is able to provide. The trust factor that they will remain here, unlike the rest is the most important value that they provide to their users.

If you want to kill Google at this instant, you are going to do a lot more hardwork than you thought you should do, you need a _brand_ of similar magnitude and the important essence here is the time and trust factor which everyone seems to ignore.

[1]<http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

<comment><USER32> I actually think their name is one of the strongest things going for them...and Google being more than a search engine to be the very reason Bing is gaining market share and brands like DDG actually have a shot at competing.

Regarding the name...it is unique and very MEMORABLE (repetition is one of the four mental glues.) It has just as few syllables as Microsoft, and is super easy to pronounce... From a branding perspective they are taking a very strong positioning play of being the Search Engine that respects privacy. Smart strategy if you ask me... to position themselves opposite the dominant brand with a hot button differentiation.

Regarding the trust factor, and the being locked in to google, those are actually both weaknesses of Google. The locked in issue is part and parcel with the privacy issue, which is the market DDG is trying to penetrate. Regarding Trust, I don't see why I need to trust a search engine to use it. In fact, the privacy thing again is the very reason I DON'T Trust Google...

People Use Google because Google focused on Search when all other search engines tried to be so much more. Once Google won the category (where people say, "Just Google It." They assumed they owned the market and started betting on the future convergence of search and social, etc... I actually think in 5 years from now, Google won't be the dominant player in search, although I do think Android will become a bigger money maker for them...

DuckDuckGo is doing a fine job with their name and brand strategy...up until this article and complaint which undermines their focused strategy. By complaining about Google, they appear to be in the game of competing as an equal search engine, not a DIFFERENT search experience, which is the play they need to make to win. It's the reason Burger King can't take over McDonalds...because they just claim to be better, not different. Pepsi on the other hand claims to be for the New Generation, Different than Coke which is classic, and the real thing. Just like Listerine has the brand of being more powerful than scope because they used the slogan,"The Taste You Hate Twice a Day." They said we are different, not better.

Human perception is near impossible to change... Complaining about monopolies is like saying, "we are better but they wont let us play."

If DDG wants to win, they need to pound hard about how they are different, and if they insist on complaining about Google, it should be consistent with their brand strategy and focus on how Google is more than search, and DDG is for when you just want to find what you are looking for with true privacy.

<comment><USER31> I just visited duckduckgo.com again (though full of hesitation) and as a designer I can tell you:

1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a SE should posses (For Eg. Google, Bing have a very simple design). They don't design Search engines to be simple because they _like_ it that way, because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors and patterns work best. For example, DDG uses a red menu-bar on the top which tells me they haven't done as much research. I keep repeating this, but hopefully enough people will realize this:

DO NOT over-use red. Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail). Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.

2) As a general user, there is no difference between DDG and Google in my eyes because both have a sponsored link at the top. Both try to benefit from my searches, so I see no perceivable difference between Google and DDG. Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from what I perceive). So, there is not a single reason for me as an end-user to use DDG over Google.

And one more - Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo, whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form. This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.

<comment><USER33> > 1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a > SE should posses

Enough people have already said it. I feel like a broken record but what's _very complex_ about a text box and a logo?

> because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which > colors and patterns work best.

Interesting. Do you have any citations to back it up? I haven't heard of Google researching what colors work best for a search interface. Or bing for that matter.

> DO NOT over-use red.

The thing about design advice is everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs. Even if I started listening, I would never have a definitive, agreed-on opinion.

> Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up > button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail)

Where is this definitive design rule book of yours? As long as you have sufficient contrast, that is enough to attract attention to important elements. Are you saying if I have a red background and a white compose button with black text, user will somehow see the background as call-to-action and not the button? Now don't go on how red background will not look very good. That's not the point. The point is color alone doesn't decide which section of the page is important.

> Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.

Since they merge in serach box with the bar, that section is important.

> Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from > what I perceive).

This has been done n times. There is no clear pattern when it comes to choosing google vs bing results in a blind search result. As far as the end user is concerned, it's not possible to tell which one is algorithmically superior.

> Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo,

What's the irony here?

> whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form. > This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even > pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.

Oh my. How much it has hurt Microsoft. They should have just called themselves MS and be done with it. I can't fathom how much of a hit y-combinator and hacker news are taking because their names can be abbreviated.

/s

<comment><USER34> But Microsoft by itself is not a "consumer" brand. Bing is, XBox is, Windows is, Live is, Office is, Microsoft is only the name of the corporation behind those products and people don't use it in daily conversations. "Hey Dad, I want a Microsoft XBox so I can play games with my friends on Microsoft Online Services" -- said no kids ever

Y-Combinator/HackerNews is even less a consumer brand. Of course, that's only a problem if you are trying to appeal to the mass market, YC/HackerNews isn't, but DuckDuckGo is.

<comment><USER33> So are you seriously saying brands which can be abbreviated aren't adapted as well by consumers as brands which can't be? And do you have anything other than "I said so" to back it up?

<comment><USER35> It's not whether the brand can be abbreviated or not, it's what you choose to build your brand around. A short, easy to remember name is crucial [1].

You don't hear much about International Business Machines, but you do hear a bit about IBM, because IBM built it's brand around the abbreviated form which is easier to remember. Likewise, HP is now the word du jour to refer to Hewlett-Packard.

Abbreviated forms are fine, and have actually been used to bolster (or change) a company's image. Outside of tech circles if I say MS I'll most likely get awkward glances, but the moment I switch to saying Microsoft I'll get immediate brand name recognition. Likewise, you don't hear many people talking about P or C&C, but drop the name Pepsi or Coca-Cola and you'll also get instant brand name recognition.

So the question becomes is DuckDuckGo really an easily recognizable, easy to memorize, that generates imagery associated with the given product/service? Is it really that appealing?

Surely, it's memorable due to it being so weird, but is it memorable in a way that I'll link up with search? I dunno, but there's some validity to what's been said so far about the name being a bit too long or awkward for the company's sake.

1\. [http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper- articles/199...](http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper- articles/1995-working-papers/12-1995-creating-effective-brand-names.pdf) p.11 "Accordingly, the criteria rated most important were relevance to product category (5.99), connotations and images generated (5 X3), and overall appeal (5.79). They did not lose sight of the fact that names should be memorable. Ease of recognition (5.77) and ease of recall (5.42) also were rated highly."

<comment><USER33> I am not questioning building a brand. As I said elsewhere, in blind tests, people have a hard time distinguishing google search results from bing. Brand name is one of the major factors when it comes to consumers.

People preferred pepsi to thumsup in blind tests. Thumsup sweetened its drink and faced a major backlash. Thumsup drinkers associated themselves with Thumsup brand and took pride in "not sweet as pepsi".

I do understand that brand plays a major part for the consumer.

What I was questioning was the ridiculous assumption that somehow calling DuckDuckGo as DDG is diluting its brand, and always calling Google as Google is indicative of its strong brand.

<comment><USER35> As I see it, using DDG instead of DuckDuckGo is not the core problem. It's not that doing so dilutes the brand (it does in way, but that's really irrelevant) I think the main point is that if the users feel compelled to rename then there is something in the original brand name which is inefficient or cumbersome which thus detracts from the brand's overall value.

And I do not think it's ridiculous to assume that repetition builds brand awareness. The study I linked to said as much, indicating that repetition was one of the best ways to establish brand identity in the minds of consumers. That's why as a company you're best served by aligning your brand name with whatever moniker people are more likely to use and hence why a short, memorable brand name is more powerful than a unique but long-winded archaic name (at least in this day and age).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I worked in Search and on Search-related problems for nearly 4 years so here's my 2c.

For most users Google is "muscle memory". It is quite good for most Search needs. The angles of attack that tech-savvy folks think are amazing (category filters, privacy, fancy CoverFlow UX, bigger index - all real differentiators tried by real companies) - most normals don't give a rat's ass about.

IMO the only real ways to compete are as follows:

a) build something specialized that is several-x better in the specialty (Kayak) b) build something on top of data that Google doesn't have (Facebook Search, whenever it stops sucking) c) go head-to-head with nearly equivalent quality and buy your way in on the CapEx and the Ad/Mktg dollars required to change muscle memory (Bing)

Beyond that, most companies have had trouble w/ direct search because Google + Wikipedia gets the job done, by and large. SearchMe? Dead. Kosmix Search? Pivoted successfully before acquisition. Cuil? Dead. Mahalo Search? Pivoted several times away from Search. Qwiki? Pivoted successfully.

The sad thing is that Search is such a fun and challenging space with so much work to be done; I want the space to be more competitive but most consumers like the status quo just fine.

Lastly - a salute to @yegg for taking this one on. He's a far braver than I, and most others on this thread critiquing his work.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just for kicks I searched for 'search engine' on Google - once on Chrome(logged into my Google account), and once on Firefox(not logged in). Didn't get Google on the first page on either searche, did get google custom search engine though(which is a completely different thing). Duck Duck Go was in the first page both the times, as were Bing, Yahoo, some engine called Dogpile(never heard of 'em but it was #2 on Chrome), the Wikipedia article for Web search engine and a few other links. There was a list of popular search engines at the bottom of the page in Chrome, DDG wasn't there, but lots other were, and it was compiled from other sources.

Don't see much discrimination there. Especially when they don't even list their search engine on the first page

Chrome search screenie - <http://goo.gl/HffYt> Firefox search screenie - <http://goo.gl/nUe7t>

<comment><USER38> dogpile was pretty big back in the day. they were the first popular "meta search engine", aggregating results from several other search engines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> On chrome, when I right click on the search bar on duckduckgo.com (or any site), I get an option to "Add as search engine...", on clicking it, I get a dialog box for specifying Name, Keyword and URL. What chrome can do is add a checkbox to this dialog box for making it the default search engine.

</comment><comment><USER40> DDG is my default search engine, I use it every day. It is vastly superior to using Google, and they don't track my searches, I don't really need any better reasons to use it. It is really annoying that I can't easily switch my default search engine in my phone, especially because typing things into the text entry bars basically feeds them straight into Google, which basically publicizes all I do on my phone. I can't stand Chrome as a browser on my laptops, so I don't use it, but if I did I probably would want to be able to switch my search engine as easily as you can in FF. I expect to see antitrust movement soon.

</comment><comment><USER41> The biggest takeaway is that Google owns duck.com (through acquisition), duck.com pointed to a web page for the company they acquired up until DuckDuckGo made enquiries about potentially getting it, duck.com was then pointed toward google.com. That's probably the biggest dick-move Google has made, and they're perfectly within their rights to do it. It's still a dick- move, Google doesn't need to worry about DDG ever attaining marketshare in a meaningful manner, and DDG have said they're not interested in that.

</comment><comment><USER42> Current Firefox Nightly uses Google for search when something is typed in the location bar even when a) DuckDuckGo is the default search engine, b) Google is removed from the search engines list completely.

Go figure... I've lost all respect for both Mozilla and Google recently.

<comment><USER42> Correction: a) when DuckDuckGo is the _selected_ search engine. Changing the default search engine (from Firefox's perspective, not what the user thinks it is) apparently requires fiddling with about:config.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I am ardent DDG fan,but i cant seem to win over my non-CS buddies to use it,simply because duckduckgo sounds funny& laughable.I wish they could switch to a flashier name.

</comment><comment><USER44> Safari you have to edit your host file to point yahoo's search to ddg (which i did)

</comment><comment><USER45> I really like the idea of duckduckgo, but it just doesn't do it for me. As an example, I can't find articles posted in the last hour, let alone the last week (eg. iOS 6 jailbreak).

I know it's slightly off topic, but this would certainly encourage me to use this - and I have a community around me that tends to adopt what I do.

<comment><USER46> I agree. I have tried DDG and found their quality and freshness are both much worse than Google. Bing at least presents a credible alternative in terms of quality, depth, and freshness, but DDG is only good for people who actually don't care much if they find what they are looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's very disappointing that DDG is resorting to the same whinny PR tactics as the less than savory competitors.

It's fairly easy and straight forward to add DDG to Chrome or Android, much easier than other platforms in fact, you're not being "shut out" because you're not the default engine.

</comment><comment><USER48> never heard of 'em.

<comment><USER22> It is a search engine that allows you to find pages on the internet. The name comes from the misspelling of a large number: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol>

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Google's real motto: "Do evil and say don't be evil"</comment>


PyCon, RubyConf, UseR ... why no C conference? - <AUTHOR>

I think the answer is, C programmers are too busy writing actual programs.
PS only partially trolling ;)
but seriously, why do you think this is the case? <comment><AUTHOR> PS I know about [http://www.cconf.org](http://www.cconf.org) but it was cancelled ...

</comment><comment><USER2> Its old, well established, isn't particularly trendy, etc.</comment>


Hey, Apple Here's why I am not buying more iPads - <AUTHOR>

  TL;DR:

  Data Plans and Carrier Tethering.

  Data Plans: Too expensive and unfair.  Should be like DSL.

  Carrier Tethering: I want to buy an iPad, not a life-long hardware dependency to a carrier.

 Here's the long version:
We have one iPad 2, two iPhone 4's, two iPhone 3GS's and three iPod Touch's (and a bunch of Mac stuff).  I'd like to buy iPads for the kids.  Three of them.  Ain't doing it.  Why?
Data plans are really unfair.  Why should I pay for separate data plans?  Why can't I buy a family plan of some sort that is based on bandwidth used or some other metric.  First of all, most of our devices are operating out of WiFi most of the time.  Which means that the carrier is charging me  not to consume bandwidth.  And, in fact, I am already paying the same carrier (AT&T) for my DSL connectivity!  Double charging for the same bytes shuffling about?
If my family had four iPads we'd have to spend a minimum of $100 per month on connectivity.  Again, most of the time we are all on WiFi.  But, at times, we are not.  And, in general terms, only one or two devices would be away from WiFi at any given time.  Yet, we have to pay to not consumer carrier bandwidth.
You could easily find yourself spending hundreds of dollars a month only because you have multiple devices. If DSL where priced this way most homes would have to pay several times more what they pay today as it isn't uncommon to find multiple devices using the connection at all times.
You'd probably sell more devices if data plans were closer to the way DSL is priced:  Charge me a fixed amount per month for a given SLA, no matter how many devices my family owns.
Secondly, there's the issue of carrier tethering.  Stop it!  Please!  I want to buy an iPad or iPhone.  That's what I am buying.  I couldn't care less who the carrier is as long as the service level is good.  And, I should be able to instantly switch to another carrier if the one I am with stops servicing me well.  I should not have to spend hundreds of dollars to buy the same device with a different RF section so that I can switch carriers.
Anyhow, as I said, I am not buying more devices because of at least these reasons.  I would imagine there are lots of other folks who are on the same boat. <comment> mark-r You're blaming Apple because the different carriers all decided on incompatible RF standards? You're blaming Apple because your carrier doesn't offer a family data plan, and you refuse to consider a wifi-only iPad? I think you're ranting in the wrong direction, and in the wrong place.

<comment><USER2> I agree. I wonder what kind of telecom market entrance Apple could make with $100 Billion?

<comment><USER3> Seeing as how Verizon's operating revenue is over $100 Billion a year (it's about the same as Apples). They'd have 1 year to make it work before it sunk the company. while I agree the mobile carrier biz is all sorts of mal-adjusted to market demands insufferably dis-jointed, the technology and it's robustness they bring to the table is really quite remarkable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I know how you feel, it seems like a big waste. Why wouldn't you just buy them and not get data plans? It's not like you're forced to get ipads with the data plan. Especially if they'll be on wifi most of the time. And if it's for you kids, lets be honest, most of their time will be spent playing games, which a data plan is not necessary for once, they've got the app.

As far as different carriers using different technology, haha, good luck with that. The difference between Verizon or AT&T's cellular technology goes a little bit beyond "a different RF section" But the whole point of LTE is that eventually everybody will be on that standard, then you really shouldn't have to worry much.

</comment><comment><USER4> While I agree with your complaint, it's not Apple's fault, and more importantly, I don't think this would work as DSL is tied to a physical location (your house).

If mobile data was charged the same way, what's to stop you and 49 of your friends each chipping in 0.50 a month and sharing the data plan?

Of course fair use would come in to play, but the system would be so open to abuse that the fair usage policy would end up being very low and ruthlessly enforced.

<comment><USER5> @ the mobile data thing : data caps. I pay for 2 GB of data usage a month. I don't see anything wrong with my friend tossing me $15 and using 1 GB. If 50 people want to split it, I don't see a problem with it (though they probably will).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very strange! You should only need to change the microSIM to change carriers. The RF is the same for all iPads.

In Australia you can buy pre-paid SIMs. That is, you get a chunk of data which you have a certain time to use. Some options are as long as 12 months. Different carriers have different plans but it is not hard to find a plan that suits your usage pattern. And you can switch the SIMs between devices in your family.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why do you need an iPad with data? Not good enough just to have wifi?

</comment><comment><USER8> Definitely a first world problem. Is wifi connection not enough? Are you just reading/surfing or are you developing complex apps that you need a lot of bandwidth?

That's why I don't have an iPad. My only 1 Mac keeps me busy enough. Or have we run out of more fun things to do?</comment>


Show HN: EasyCSV, stop generating CSVs for non-tech colleagues (an MVP) - <AUTHOR> http://easycsv.com/

<comment><USER2> What is it? Your site gives almost no indication. Are we talking comma separated files?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm often asked to generate CSVs of our user base for various non-technical colleagues. They might use these CSVs to do analyses in Excel or import users into a service (like Mailchimp).

This is an attempt at taking me out of that process, and automating it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your javascript snippet seems to point to <http://easycsv.dev/>. I'm guessing you'll want to replace that.

I was also confused about what CSVs I was supposed to create. It's not clear that you're generating CSVs of user data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Eek! Fixed.

Thanks for the feedback — we'll see if we can make that clearer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You really need to do a better job explaining this. I know how CSVs work, but I don't know this could help me.

What is "your users" in this context?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. We're working on making this clearer right now.

"Your users" is _your_ users. You add a Javascript snippet to your app which sends us up-to-date information about your users (as they move around your app) — we record that data and allow you (or a colleague) to download a CSV of the data at any time.

Does that make sense?

<comment> jack-r-abbit In addition to adding the JS include for your script, we need to call a series of _EasyCSV.user_ functions to identify the user currently viewing that page and set the data we want to store about that user for that page. But all that data we'd need to pump out into the JS calls is already coming from somewhere... a DB I would assume. For me, that seems like a bit too much overhead for such a simple task. Since all the user data is in the DB already anyway, when we want a CSV of our users, we do DB export. Unless I am missing something, I don't see this being very useful myself. But if it helps you, then it might help someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No Terms of Use or Privacy Policy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, my bad. Terms of use I don't think we need right now. Privacy policy is: we'll never share your data with anyone.</comment></comment>


Take five minutes to help early startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@stripenight/help-the-earliest-startups-fc663f8b285c#.6mn0p09u8 <comment><USER2> Yes. _Please._

When you have a startup, there are a thousand potential roadblocks. The one you need to overcome as soon as possible is getting a good advisor to help you with the other 999 roadblocks.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in Palo Alto or have direct contacts who can do that for them. Show HN is a great alternative.</comment>


Gitlab Is Coming to Xfce - <AUTHOR> https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce4-dev/2020-April/032436.html <comment><USER2> At GitLab, we're really excited about this announcement! With GNOME, KDE and now Xfce moving to GitLab, we're definitely gaining traction as the preferred platform for open source projects to thrive at scale.

While all these orgs are very excited about hosting code on GitLab and about the CI/CD features we have, migration and consolidation of other tools is still ongoing for some of them. I think this is a big area of opportunity for GitLab since we're building a platform that allows so much more than just code hosting and great CI/CD. We're looking forward to becoming even better at other stages of the software development lifecycle so that GitLab can be used as the single platform to collaborate on building great software.

If anyone is interested in learning more about upcoming priorities for GitLab and its overall direction, check out: [https://about.gitlab.com/direction/](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/)

And for others who are working on open source projects and want to try us out, check out our GitLab for Open Source program: [https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/open- source/](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/open-source/) Through this program you get access to our top tiers for free along with 50K free CI minutes.</comment>


Meeker, tell us something we don't know: boring truths of 2015's Internet report - <AUTHOR> http://www.theneweconomy.com/technology/meeker-tell-us-something-we-dont-know-why-2015s-internet-report-wont-do

<comment><AUTHOR> Either there is a startup bubble, or the amazing growth in internet users is "common knowledge".</comment>


Parallella, a $99 Linux Supercomputer - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/parallella-the-99-linux-supercomputer-7000014036/ <comment><USER2> I'm really disappointed about how shallow the discussions about Adapteva are, and have been, on HN.

To remind everyone, the H = hacker. This device is a godsend, as far as I'm concerned. For the first time ever I get fully documented access to compute array on chip. No the architecture wasn't designed for anything specific, like graphics, but that means I don't get bogged down in details I don't care about, like some obscure memory hierarchy.

The chip is plain, simple, low-power, and begging for people to have an imagination again. Stop asking what existing things you can do with it, ask what future things having something like this on a SoC would enable.

Also, you should really be thinking about the chip at the instruction level, writing toy DSL to asm compilers. Thinking along the lines of, oh yeah I'll use OpenCL so I can be hardware agnostic, is never going to allow you to see what can be possible with it. If you read the docs you'll see what a simple and regular design it is, perfect for writing your own simple tooling.

It's been a long time, but I feel like a kid again. Like when I first discovered assembly on my 8086. Finally a simple device I can tinker with, play, and wring performance out of.

Hallelujah! :)

<comment><USER3> _ask what future things having something like this on a SoC would enable._

I asked that and came up blank. And I haven't seen answers from anyone else, either. Has Adapteva themselves shown any examples where their chip beats a GPU?

<comment><USER4> In the comment thread on the article someone points out that the Adapteva chip doesn't do double precision floating-point, which limits its usefulness (to put it mildly). If the goal is to provide people with a low-cost platform to experiment with parallel programming, surely a decent NVidia card gives you less expensive (given you can plug it into a PCI slot and it will work) access to more CPUs that run faster and do more.

<comment><USER5> It took a long time for GPU's to get double precision floating point and plenty of GPGPU work was done with them prior to that, so it's not a deal breaker

Not sure if world first or AMD's first, but it was around this timeframe, 2007: "AMD Delivers First Stream Processor with Double Precision Floating Point Technology" <http://phys.org/news113757140.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's so much negativity in this thread, wasn't the whole idea that these guys had plans and an architecture to scale up to the order of a terra-flop by 2014, and 20 by 2022? And look! they're shipping. This first chip may not be impressive, but I'll welcome a new player to the market who has big plans to innovate.

<comment><USER7> I don't get the negativity either. If you look at the architecture manual, this is like a cheap Tilera. It's an interesting programming model (lots of cores in a shared memory SMP with weak memory ordering), and the CPU's are pretty vanilla RISC architectures. For $99, it's a great way to play with something that has the properties of the kinds of CPU's you might see in a future supercomputer.

<comment><USER8> I wrote my notes up here last time this was doing the rounds: [http://41j.com/blog/2012/10/my-take-on-the-adapteva- parallel...](http://41j.com/blog/2012/10/my-take-on-the-adapteva-parallella/)

I'm pretty skeptical, having played with the Tilera I'm not sure it gives you enough of a benefit to warrant the extra effort. The Parallella also looks _a lot_ like a Tilera, I do wonder if there might be IP issues there down the line.

I also still think our best bet for this kind of thing is multicore ARM systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who uses supercomputers, I'm not sure I entirely understand the market of this product. It's really cool and I'd love to have one to tinker with, but due to its high parallelization, I see no benefit of using this over a graphics card. I'm not sure if $99 can get you a GPU that reaches 90 GFlops though... perhaps that's where the benefit lies.

EDIT: After reviewing their website, I notice they state

> One important goal of Parallella is to teach parallel programming...

In this respect, I can see how this is useful. Adapting scientific software to GPUs can be difficult and isn't the easiest thing to get into for your average person. This board, with its open-source toolkit and community could make this process a lot easier.

<comment><USER10> I think this may just be a novel way to sell a dev board for their custom silicon and get some of that heavy kickstarter press coverage.

If you figure that what they're really trying to do is get people familiar with it and see how well it might augment one of their existing ARM products it starts to make a lot of sense.

For instance I have a low end 4 bay arm based nas. It's insanely modest specs (1.6ghz single core + 512MB ram) actually are quite sufficient for most nas tasks. But it's really more like a home server platform as they have all sorts of addons that include things like CCTV archiving, DVR, ip pbx - you get the picture. But if you really start treating it like a general purpose server you quickly realize that some common workloads perform horribly on that arm core and it's frustrating.

It can easily push 800mbps or so with nfs smb or cifs, but if you want to rsync+ssh you're looking at less than a 10th of that because of the various fp needs of that chain. Native rsync with no ssh/no compression does somewhat better but still poorly due to its heavy use of cryptographic hash functions for delta transfers.

There are plenty of other examples - file system compression, repairing multipart files with par2 (kind of like raid for file sets). Face detection, file integrity hashing) And if it could do on the fly video transcoding (don't even think about it) it could happily replace another full system i have running plex server.

There's probably a lot of devices that the designers default to arm but have to skip features that are heavy fp. If somebody in the firm has played around with a chip you can just drop in and not change your soc or toolchain that starts sounding pretty good i'd guess - and likely still far cheaper than an atom soc.

<comment><USER11> Interesting observations. I know AMD is making an ARM chip ([http://www.anandtech.com/show/6418/amd-will-build-64bit- arm-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6418/amd-will-build-64bit-arm-based- opteron-cpus-for-servers-production-in-2014)). Have they said anything about FP?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find it incredibly dishonest of Adapteva to equate it to a "theoretical 45 GHz CPU". There are much better ways to talk about the performance level of their hardware than that metric, especially given the rest of the text in their Kickstarter pitch is aimed at people who need to inherently understand the hardware's execution model in order to program it effectively.

The computing industry has established language and metrics to discuss computing performance and, while the waters often get muddied when the hardware is wide, that's a step too far.

<comment><USER13>
      This board should deliver about 90 GFLOPS of performance, or — in terms
      PC users understand — about the same horse-power as a 45GHz CPU.

That doesn't seem too outrageous to me.

Edit: They state the real fact and then give another figure explicitly stating it's an attempt to translate this into a metric the average user can somewhat relate to.

According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS#Computing> it seems that they're off by a factor of two, but I'm guessing that's just an honest mistake.

Second edit: I was under the impression that this was the result of dumbing down by a journalist, however it seems it's from Parallela itself. That is a bit disingenuous indeed.

<comment> Tuna-Fish A single Ivy Bridge core has 8 Flops/MHz of computing power. 45GHz Ivy Bridge would be able to do 360GFlops.

<comment><USER14> If you are correct for the first clause(8 Flops/MHz), 45GHz of Ivy Bridge core has 360k Flops (8 Flops/MHz * 45GHz ==> 8 Flops * 45k).

<comment><USER15> 8 double-precision flops/cycle/core is the correct figure for Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. With Haswell adding FMA, that figure doubles again(!)

<comment><USER16> Hum, no. Sandy/Ivy Bridge can only execute 4 double-precision instructions per cycle per core, in the form of two SSE instructions per cycle (one instruction doing adds, the other doing muls, executed by different units).

Doing 8 double-precision instructions per cycle would translate to either four 128-bit SSE instructions, or two 256-bit AVX instructions per cycle, which is not possible (unless I did not keep track of the latest AVX capabilities).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _"this board should deliver about 90 GFLOPS of performance, or --in terms PC users understand-- about the same horse-power as a 45GHz CPU."_

This is wrong.

A 4-core 3.0 GHz x86-64 processor delivers _more_ GFLOPS than the Parallela: 96 GFLOPS with SSE instructions, because each core can execute 8 single precision instructions, 4 adds and 4 muls, each cycle. And yes, when Parallela claims 90 GFLOPS, they mean single-precision.

For example, for the same price as Parallela, you can get a $100 Phenom II X4 965 (4-core, 3.4 GHz, 125W) delivering 109 GFLOPS. Count $200 to include minimal mobo/RAM/PSU (if all you care about is raw GFLOPS).

The main advantage that Parallela has with their exotic architecture over x86-64 is a better GFLOPS/Watt metric. But if you care about this metric you should consider GPUs, which beat Parallela: [http://parallelis.com/parallela- supercomputing-for-all-of-us...](http://parallelis.com/parallela- supercomputing-for-all-of-us/)

Parallela may not beat anything on GFLOPS/Watt and GFLOPS/$, but if they can maintain ease of development (x86-64's stronghold) while doing not too bad on these 2 metrics (dominated by GPUs), they may be a good compromise and may have a shot at succeeding in the HPC market.

<comment><USER17> Exactly right. ARMs lure isn't really the current performance for supercomputing, it's rather the expectation that they will hit the next big performance wall much later than x86 because of its simple architecture that's suitable for the maximum amount of cores per die space. Give it 2-3 years and we might have the big step in supercomputing architecture at hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Note: the $99 version has 16 cores, not 64 cores. [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a- su...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a- supercomputer-for-everyone#faq_40886) (+ 2 ARM cores)

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone explain what the practical differences between something like this and a gpgpu approach? It doesn't sound particularly performant compared to modern gpus otherwise. Maybe they add in some more general purpose instructions for a little more flexibility?

<comment><USER19> A typical GPU can execute a small number of threads on a large number of streams of data carefully laid out in memory. Every time you want to do something conditionally on just one data stream, you waste a lot of capacity.

In contrast, the Epiphany chips can execute individual threads on each core in parallel on data either local to the core (fastest), on any other core, or in separate main memory.

The current Epiphany chips aren't too spectacular, since the core count is "low". They can "only" execute 16 individual instruction streams in parallel. But that's on a chip the size of your finger nail, and their roadmap is aiming for 1024 core chips.

They're effectively aiming for people to find ways of making effective use of simple, small, power efficient cores for problems that are not "data parallel" enough to be efficiently done on GPU's.

<comment><USER20> This might be a really stupid question:

How difficult would it be in the practical sense to keep all of the cores on something like this "fed" with enough information to get benefits from its concurrency?

I mean to "feed" all 64 cores enough data/code so they can all "do something" concurrently is one hell of a job all on its own!

<comment><USER19> Depends a lot on the type of problem, and I think that's going to be what makes or breaks them. They have some good examples, but you're right, it's a hard problem and one of the reasons it's so important for them to get these dev boards out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Previous discussions:

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4635618>

[2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4705487>

</comment><comment><USER22> I backed this project simply because it's a great idea to build a very small highly parallel computer that runs on very little power. Maybe this one won't hit it out of the park but it might give other people ideas. Building the first one of anything is always hard. Add a little serendipity and we might get an entirely new use for computers.

Just saying that I could do more with a $99 graphics card sort of misses the point.

<comment><USER3> It's such a great idea that AMD Kabini already did it.

<comment><USER22> Ok, so we should stop there and not encourage further development in the market? I want a 1000 core "Raspberry Pi" that sells for $50.

Let me know if there's anything else that I can do to help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How many megahashes this hardware computes?

<comment><USER24> They say 90 GFlops.

(<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26824.20;wap2>)

> For example a Radeon 6990 has 5.2 gigaFLOPS of computing power[1] and yields > roughly 800 megahash/s in bitcoin mining.

That was in July 2011. Mining is harder now.

<comment><USER25> Radeon 6990 is 5.1 TERAflops (5099 GigaFLOPS) ... several orders of magnitude faster than this thing

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_6000_Series#Northern_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_6000_Series#Northern_Islands_.28HD_6xxx.29_series)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While I find this quite exciting from a pure developer perspective, it also reminded me that I haven't had anything I'd call a Desktop box in quite some time.

If I were to ever get a Desktop machine again, it would have to be cheap and light, definitely don't want anything clunky, otherwise a laptop seems preferable to me. There do not seem that many products that would fill that gap, Intel's NUC is too expensive, the Raspberry PI too slow. Apple's mini Mac seems like the best proposition in this segment.

I wonder if the Parallela could not only be used as development center, but also as a Desktop computer? It won't run any fancy games, that's clear, but it may actually be usable for browsing, watching videos and office duties.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow, I remember seeing the original Kickstarter for this and thinking "this will never see the light of day", yet here it is. I still find it a bit of an odd product; neither for hobby or business, but it sure is cheap.

<comment><USER19> It's a developer board. The product is the chips, not this board. This board is there mainly to get a dev board in the hands of people who might want to build cool stuff with it.

That they've actually managed to get it price competitive with a lot of cheap ARM computers, despite sporting a Zynq (ARM SoC with built in FPGA) is amazing.

<comment><USER11> Can't help but wonder if they are in fact taking a loss, backed by Adapteva.

<comment><USER28> They seem to actually have support from some of the hardware manufacturers. From Update #31 "Much gratitude goes out to the component manufacturers who really "got it" (Xilinx, Analog Devices, Intersil, Micron, Microchip, Samtec all deserve special thanks). Without their help we would be losing $100 per board!"

So, the backers are getting a Very Good Deal, with the hopes that a successful launch will make demand high enough to make the $99 viable with volume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can think of some amazing uses for this. I'm tempted to get one just to port this old hack of mine to it:

<http://adam.ierymenko.name/nanopond.shtml>

<comment><USER30> That's very cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> a supercomputer is cluster of machines connected by high throughput, low latency interconnect.

Hundreds of servers connected together with 1Gigabit is still a "grid cluster" .. you need at least 10Gigabit Ethernet (over iWARP) or infiniband (RDMA) to be considered a supercomputer.

This is marketing B.S.! this B.S. is "emphasized" by the 90GFLOPS = 45Ghz thing. 90GFLOPS is by a single 45GHz "ALU" (perhaps an ALU doing Multiply-Add - MADD op.) not a full fledged CPU (like the i7 or Xeon, which has 4-8 cores with each core having 3 ALU's) as the readers might imply.

For example the i7 3770K does 121.6GFLOPS @ "only" 3.5Ghz (ref> table page 2 [http://elrond.informatik.tu- freiberg.de/papers/WorldComp2012...](http://elrond.informatik.tu- freiberg.de/papers/WorldComp2012/PDP2833.pdf))

measuring performance with Ghz is soooo Penitum III! the whole thing is very misleading, and I don't like that!

Supercomputer? not even funny! Its a Super-"Raspberry Pi". That's it!

</comment><comment><USER31> How does this compare the the new Intel MIC (Xeon Phi) co-processor boards? I think they claim 1TFLOP. Can we think of this as a low-powered alternative?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MIC>

<comment><USER32> The general idea is similar - lots of cores with distributed SRAM memory and some shared DRAM, all sitting on 2D mesh network. The main difference is that Epiphany is made of custom simple RISC cores, while Xeon Phi uses 1st gen Pentiums with huge SIMD FPUs slapped on for higher FP throughput (and TDP).

<comment><USER31> Interesting.

It looks like (from info on wikipedia pages) the Xeon Phi 3100, gets about 3.3 GFLOPS/WATT, whereas the Epiphany E64G401 manages about 50 GFLOPS/WATT.

So something like 10 of these might compare to 1 xeon phi, and still be cheaper in terms of hardware, and much cheaper in terms of power consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> iso-8859-1 Epiphany Architecture Reference: [http://www.adapteva.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/epiphany_...](http://www.adapteva.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/epiphany_arch_reference_3.12.10.03.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER33> I wish these things had just a bit more memory. Most of the interesting algorithms I work with (bioinformatics) really want 4G of memory. A lot of them you can squeeze down to 2G but 1G is just out of the question.

</comment><comment><USER34> i think this is cool, but wouldn't learning OpenCL be more future proof for someone wanting to get into parallel processing? Seems like there is more drive behind GPU development than specialist hardware like this

</comment><comment><USER35> This is really cool. Since it's linux I assume it can run the JVM, correct? That's incredibly powerful, as even GPU programming requires bridge libraries. And what, $99? That's incredible. I'm going to get one...

<comment><USER3> IIRC Linux does not run _on_ Adapteva. Linux runs on the ARM which is _next to_ the Adapteva chip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is perfect for numerical computing applications like software-defined radio or image processing, which can now be done on embedded platforms. I'll definitely be ordering a board when they're available.

</comment><comment><USER37> Can someone explain to me how a $99 computer can have 45ghz of processing power, but an i7 costs 3x that for 1/10th that clock speed? What does this $99 miss out on that my i7 has the capability of doing?

<comment><USER32> First of all, this 45GHz figure definitely isn't valid for modern x86 chips - thanks to multiple cores and SIMD instructions they reach few dozen GFLOPS at stock frequencies.

Furthermore, x86 chips pack all of their performance in low number of cores, what makes them much more useful for common scalar code. And if 20 times higher scalar performance isn't enough to convince you to pay premium, the complexity required to achieve this level of scalar performance definitely is enough to discourage Intel from selling you i7s for $99.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm not familiar with this so I have a question: Can you interconnect a few of these boards to create a more powerful unit? I notice they have "expansion connectors"...

</comment><comment><USER39> I only want to know one thing. How fast can it mine Bitcoins?! I feel like that's the new "...but can it run Crysis?"

</comment><comment><USER40> It is not easy finding people with good parallel programming skills. Hopefully, this will help things along.

<comment><USER3> Of course if you learn on Adapteva then your knowledge may not translate to the "worse" architectures that are used in the real world. If you want to learn parallel programming, the computer you already have supports threads, CSP, actors, OpenMP, OpenCL, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It might be interesting to have a go at writing a version of Connection Machine Lisp for it.

</comment><comment><USER42> Cool. I don't know any other cheap way to experiment with optimization for 64 cores.

</comment><comment><USER43> Hmm I wonder if there is a way to bypass your graphics card and use this as a GPU?

</comment><comment><USER44> I want one, or two, maybe more. I'm totally fascinated with parallel computing.

</comment><comment><USER45> So where do I buy one?

<comment> iso8859-1 Sign up on the site and they'll mail you when you can order. If you only need FPGA, you can get the Mojo (see link elsewhere in thread) from May.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Can it run XBMC?

<comment> iso8859-1 Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> usb 3.0 would have been nice

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder how those in the performance computing sector feel about running a proprietary supervisor with built in DRM on each and every CPU? Raspberry users might not care when for just hobbyist applications, but I doubt any serious scientist is going to overlook that.

[http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzon...](http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzone.php)

<comment><USER10> Intel platforms have a very similar risk via SMM and the platform code & controller. It's less advanced, but it can easily exert full control over the system without the os allowing it, minus access to some registers and on die cache. It could DMA in or out of the gpu memory as well.

Whether your soc vendor forces a secure supervisor to load is up to them, and i'd be surprised if an HPC builder had trouble finding vendors to supply parts with a totally controllable boot chain.

I'm sure there are ways to obscure it, but there are just as many ways on x86 platforms, the only real difference being that you could pull the eprom and reflash it and inspect the other board components. There's also plenty of evil things you can put in a soc without relying on trustzone.

Bottom line is you have to trust your vendor. If you want a soc integrated and fab monitored by a business/state that is politically aligned with yours it is probably just a matter of paying a premium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Can it mine BitCoin competitively?

<comment><USER49> > Can it mine BitCoin competitively?

Prior to the popularity of mining using GPUs, it would have been the shizzle.

Today's ASIC-based systems will hash circles around it.

<comment><USER28> It's only pulling 2W, so it really depends on the performance per W. Maybe that'll be my first project...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?

<comment><USER51> Sure thing [http://www.adapteva.com/white-papers/building-the-worlds- fir...](http://www.adapteva.com/white-papers/building-the-worlds-first- parallella-beowulf-cluster/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> So how fast is this really? It doesn't sound like much of a supercomputer to me. If it were so super for $99, it'd have been hyped everywhere already and gamers would not buy desktops anymore. It rather sounds like a platform to practice multithreading on.

<comment><USER53> Supercomputer =/= "a fast computer".

<comment><USER52> Then what is it?

Wikipedia also seems to say it's "a fast computer": _"a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation"_

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer>

<comment><USER54> A supercomputer is a machine that's I/O bound instead of CPU bound, at least as a first approximation.

You'll get lots of specs thrown at you like in mid 2013 a supercomputer means using X, Y, and Z technologies. But that is just a longer format version of the above.

A pessimist usually warps the definition to a machine that's primarily programmer limited rather than CPU or I/O limited, LOL.

Over the decades as parallelism has been popular its drifted more toward being financially limited more so than anything else, in the long run this is probably going to be the new definition, a overall system who's performance is solely limited economically. You might think thats all computers, not so, there's plenty which are inherently limited by architecture to low performance, or limited by programming to single core / single thread tasks.

The biggest bummer of supercomputers in the parallel era is no one is doing anything about latency. That's nice that your 2000 processor design with 20 deep pipelines eventually after enormous latency can really churn stuff out, but the olden days pursuit of low latency resulting in speed was pretty interesting technologically. Hilariously you'll even get noobs who don't even understand the difference between latency and speed or claim there isn't one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> These guys are completely dishonest. I saw their kickstarter video where they said that for $99 you could have "a computer many times faster than anything on the market ZOMG".

Yeah, maybe it's faster for all those times during the day when you calculate matrix chain products. But for largely single-threaded tasks, like EVERYTHING you do on a day to day basis, it's going to be significantly slower than your average dual-core i3.

<comment><USER19> I backed them on kickstarter, and I don't remember seeing any claim like what you claim to have seen.

To me it was always clear that the current models are not particularly fast. They may be fast "per watt", and if they succeed in their roadmap, then their future 1024 core chips may be fast for the subset of problems that they are suitable for.

In the meantime, the kickstarter page is/was careful to focus on this as a stepping stone, and developer platform for playing with the technology first and foremost, and not as being about delivering some incredibly fast computer for end users.

If anything, they've provided an extreme amount of data, down to cycle counts for memory accesses and the instruction set, and they've dumped a lot of code in our laps, including drivers etc., and the final unit actually comes with a faster version of the Zynq SoC than what they promised, after Xilinx apparently gave them an amazing deal.</comment></comment>


While open source is free as in beer, it's also free as in baby (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://danielcompton.net/2014/11/19/dependencies <comment><USER2> > software decays over time, a.k.a. entropy

This is similar advice to "always have your castle ready to withstand a siege". Both are excellent pieces of advice -- for 2010s software/the medieval ages respectively. But the advice is not timeless, once we get/got our crap together it stops making sense.

Software decays because we don't track all its inputs. Once we do it will no longer decay, when run in environment X it will give output Y, every time. There's already movement on this front with [http://nixos.org](http://nixos.org) and imitators -- I expect massive improvements on that front in our lifetimes.

Of course, you still need an x86-64 computer or whatever. I doubt they'll stop making them any time soon though=)

<comment><USER3> You can track the environment all you want, but you still have to modify your software when the environment changes.

If your software has a web page, browsers are not under your control. You don't know what the next version of Firefox is going to do.

If your software runs on any cloud service, you don't know what they're going to do.

Also, even if the software stayed the same, business requirements will change. New security holes will be discovered. Customer expectations will change. Who knows, maybe IPv6 will finally happen?

Freezing your software is not an option for most people. The Internet is not done yet and it's not going to be done anytime soon.

<comment><USER4> It's possible that we will reach a point in computing history where we can run all historical software, and that this state of affairs will continue indefinitely. It just requires enough manpower put into "bootstrapping" of hardware in software (emulation). A decentralized Internet file system might help too.

In other words, the "digital dark age" [1] for code (in addition to documents) doesn't need to last forever.

You might compare it to things like farming, metallurgy, or plumbing. Many things in those areas were invented independently in different geographical areas, and some were altogether forgotten and reinvented later. But now we've reached a point in civilization where we're not going to forget them, because we have libraries, the Internet, and so forth.

Likewise, at some point we should stop forgetting how to run old software as well. Old software can be made runnable now through conscious effort, but the "default" is still for it to rot and be forgotten.

For web pages, the Internet Archive only does the server side... there does need to be an archive of web browsers as well, and there probably will be some day. I have no idea when that will be, but I think it will happen.

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

<comment><USER5> [https://www.softwareheritage.org/](https://www.softwareheritage.org/)

<comment><USER4> That's a great effort. Though their mission isn't exactly what I am describing, it's definitely on the way.

It seems like it is mostly about collecting source code at this point. But the harder problem is the build and runtime environments (and how to "bottom them out"). Without the ability to execute it, source code has limited utility.

"Given that any software component may turn out to be essential in the future, we do not make distinctions and collect all software that is publicly available in source code form."

<comment><USER5> The Debian snapshot service keeps binary packages too:

[http://snapshot.debian.org/](http://snapshot.debian.org/)

The Ubuntu Launchpad system has something similar.

Fedora's build servers keep all packages for eternity IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >If you only need a small amount of relatively simple code and the license allows it, then just copy that code into your project.

I disagree with this. With a good dependency management system, this should almost never be done, even for the most trivial code. If you find it somewhere else, and it's published as a "dependency" (module, package, etc...), you should install it as such.

Lock the version, vendor your dependencies, keep a copy of the full source, but don't just copy it into your project.

Even trivial code snippets "decay", and being able to look at a piece of code that "decayed" and see that there was an update 6 months ago that fixed the problem will save time over trying to follow code copied into your code base, a possibly out-of-date comment saying where it came from, and the chance that anyone could have modified it from it's original without updating the comment in the meantime.

I think of a dependency is "copy-paste with metadata", and throwing out that metadata seems like a bad idea.

Is there something I'm missing or have completely wrong, as I seem to see this being advocated for more and more, especially in the javascript ecosystem?

</comment><comment><USER7> The OP refers to open source, but his comments apply just as much to any third-party component in your product. Many proprietary products also suffer from slow or non-existant upgrade paths, and then what do you do to upgrade the component?

</comment><comment><USER8> While Daniel is correct that open source projects require upkeep and typically require a community of users and developers giving back to the project in order to succeed or at least continue, I think this could be misused as a reason to back those that erroneously conclude that closed source software that is backed by paid work on software is the best method, and this in my many years of experience is incorrect.

Another correction is that "open source" does not mean free as in beer. Source can be open and not free. To ensure that you are using or offering source with a free license, please read: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license- list.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html)

<comment><USER9> By analogy open source is free as in baby while closed source is like a baby in a maximum security prison. At least one you have the option of fixing when it breaks. The other, you hand someone cash and maybe they fix it.

The other problem, especially as software migrates in to pay-to-use cloud services, is that you have no clue what the future $ cost will be.

Software startups that began with free tiers or really competitively priced tiers have morphed in to things that cost six or seven figures a year. String a few of these together and suddenly you have to figure out how to roll those costs back on to your own customers -- and it may turn out you don't have a viable business model. Further down the road, some of those companies won't exist. Some may be purchased by Oracle/IBM/MS and then reallocate funds from upkeep & dev to nightmare salespeople.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr from the conclusion:

> Open source software is a massive boon to programmer productivity, saving > man centuries of effort. But remember, just as you own your availability, > you also own your software and everything that goes into it.

</comment><comment><USER5> [2014]

</comment><comment><USER11> Before you file a github issue, see if you can fix the problem yourself and submit a pull request. You're in the best position to fix the bug - you've reproduced the problem, you have the correct environment, and you have full source code.

If you're unable to fix the problem, it's your duty to provide as much useful information as possible in order for someone else to solve it. Saying something like "it doesn't work with X" is not helpful. Put yourself in the position of the maintainer and provide the information you'd like to see - OS, versions, exact commands to reproduce the issue, sample data - whatever is necessary. And if you've reported an issue, it's your responsibility to follow up and test and prospective solutions and provide feedback. Their time is not less valuable than yours.

Remember that open source project owners have done you a favor by giving you access to the code and owe you EXACTLY NOTHING. Complaining free riders are the worst. Give back to the community.

<comment><USER12> > fix the problem yourself and submit a pull request

For smaller projects out on GitHub I often see attempts at this that fail. Stuck in "Open" status for years or outright rejected.

Maybe the account in control of the canonical repository is no longer active or interested in the project.

Maybe that person doesn't understand or agree with the submitted code or asks for more accompanying work.

Maybe the submission is under-documented or not even fully understood by the submitter.

Each of these types of sticking points can be overcome, but the bottom line is they all take a lot of work from one side or the other.

Does anyone have examples to share of open source projects that have very low friction for drive-by contributions while still maintaining quality? Projects with very clear documentation and instructions for contributing? It would be nice to have some models to aspire to.

<comment><USER13> > Does anyone have examples to share of open source projects that have very > low friction for drive-by contributions while still maintaining quality? > Projects with very clear documentation and instructions for contributing?

Yes, absolutely. Read [https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/](https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/).

We developed the C4 contract (in the form of an RFC) precisely to teach maintainers how to welcome new contributors while keeping quality high. It took many years to refine this approach. By formalizing it, it becomes really simple for projects to adopt: all you need in your README 'Contributing' section is a license (we recommend MPLv2), a link to this RFC, and later a style guide to ensure consistent code style.

The thing about C4 is that it teaches people to make small testable patches, and to trust new contributors. We know from experience that it's users of a project who keep it alive. Original authors and core maintainers burn out, get full time jobs, start new projects. As long as you have users, though, you have potential contributors.

Small patches, merged immediately, with reviews and improvements made asynchronously over time. This style is lovely to work with, kills bike shedding (we argue with new patches rather than comments), and reduces the friction in the project to as low as possible.

More on optimistic merging: [http://hintjens.com/blog:106](http://hintjens.com/blog:106)

In terms of friction: we aim to get a patch live on master within a few minutes. If that breaks master, we fix it either with a new patch, or a revert. Anyone can submit a patch, anyone can revert or improve previous patches. You can't merge your own pull requests. We work straight on master so new code is pushed aggressively towards users capable and willing to use it (those who build off master). We use CI heavily to test backwards compatibility, i.e. that existing APIs and protocols haven't broken.

There is also a whole theory of how incremental testable patches remove the need for "intelligent design" and thus the dependency on brilliant key individuals. That's another story which I cover in my book "Social Architecture". Free to read online if you want it.

Best of all, this process works. We know because we've been using it quietly and successfully in the ZeroMQ community for years.

Of all the things I've done in open source, I consider this my most important work, as it solves the really essential problem raised in TFA, which is how to keep open source projects alive over the long term.

<comment><USER14> Thanks Pieter!

I've been interested in that optimistic merging idea of yours for a while now, but I've never had the courage to pull the trigger on it anywhere myself.

I had a few questions about it though. The process seems to work by moving the code review portion after the merge instead of doing it before the merge. So instead of sitting in a review queue, the code goes live, and if there's any problems the code is removed. I was wondering if this is really that much better from the contributer's POV. Sure it's discouraging if they submit a patch and have it ignored, but it must be even more discouraging to submit a patch, have it accepted, and later have it removed because it wasn't good enough.

Also, I know the incremental patch style is the style for OM, but is there any way to do large sweeping changes, other than forking the project or trying to break it into a series of incremental changes?

How well does OM scale with number of contributors? Have you any experience with very low numbers of contributors (where I think you could potentially have bad patches sit in the repo for an excessive period until they are removed), or with very, very large numbers of contributors?

Really though, all the ZeroMQ RFCs are great. If any of you are doing some C programming, I'd highly recommend checking out ZeroMQ's CLASS C style guide: [https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:21/CLASS](https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:21/CLASS)

<comment><USER13> Like any radical shift in technique, it's best to try on a small project. It takes a while to get the hang of it. I'll answer your questions...

\- It is really seldom that a patch is reverted (that a patch is removed). As in, it only happens in exceptional cases, when someone has made an obviously toxic patch by accident on on purpose. It's far easier to move forwards with improvements to the patch. We encourage people to do this rather than provide opinions on the code in writing. What this does is interesting: it brings others in the project into the work, and creates instant mentor-mentee hookups. We see this really often and it is a wonderful thing. You make a patch, it's merged, someone sends a patch on your patch and explains why, and suddenly you have someone in the project who knows that area and can teach you.

\- Large sweeping changes are sometimes the simplest way to e.g. refactor some code. It's usually a Really Bad Idea to make functional changes at the same time. It also depends a lot on the language. I'd disrecommend large sweeping changes to a C project, absolutely. The risk of introducing multiple bugs is just too high. In a scripted language, far less risk, and so it's safer. In general, functional changes appear to work better as many small testable steps, and refactoring can work as a single mass change.

\- OM scales really well. It needs 2+ people in the project. After that, the limits are elsewhere. Projects with hundreds of contributors are probably too large in terms of internal structure. It means you get ad-hoc pseudo-projects inside a single repository which means poor internal contracts, etc. I'd say a project with more than 7-10 _active_ contributors at any time is getting too large. IME a network of small projects works far better than larger monolithic projects.

\- I use OM (the C4 protocol) on all projects, whether they are just starting (my first act is then to call for co-maintainers), or have been around for ages (like the libzmq C++ core library, with hundreds of contributors). We've never seen an issue of scale.

Cheers!

<comment><USER11> Similar to [https://github.com/illacceptanything/illacceptanything](https://github.com/illacceptanything/illacceptanything) ?

;-)

<comment><USER13> No, quite different. There are strong rules about what constitutes a valid patch. Probably stronger than in most projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Free as in Baby" \- how apt! I have my own children; I have no desire to adopt someone elses' brats. This explains perfectly why I'll search for a supported commercial product before any open-source deal.</comment>


Show HN: EverydayCheck – Simple habit tracker concept I made - <AUTHOR> http://everydaycheck.com <comment><USER2> You really need to explain how it helps track your habits and the value it presents. Maybe a case study or your own experiences. Also, it's still not displaying correctly on an mobile device. That's always a deal breaker for me because if one cannot get the styling correct, there are probably other broken parts too.

<comment><AUTHOR> which phone do you have or which is the resolution it has? I used chrome dev tools to make it work for mobile and it looks good for me and also on my phone, but you are not the first to complain about the styling so I'm wondering how can I debug that... thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like it, but I would primarily use it from my phone. Currently your styles break on anything smaller than an ipad.

If you cleaned up mobile a bit, I'd use this.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! In theory it should work for 400px but yeah I have to improve it for mobile... the layout is too desktopy...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can signup with a fake email if you want, you don't need to confirm anything!

Any feedback is very welcome :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> someone give this man a high paying job plz</comment>


Never Take Your Eyes Off This Hacker Metric - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/26/never-take-your-eyes-off-this-hacker-metric/ <comment><USER2> I would suspect that messaging infrastructure like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Skype, AIM, and so on, all have very high "DAU to MAU ratios". Either you're on them or you're not, and if you are, you need to check it.

But I'm not sure how these numbers are really comparable to another type of site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can someone confirm for me that DAU according to Facebook includes visiting a page with the "Like" iframe?</comment>