NASA leak confirms galaxy full of Earth-like planets - <AUTHOR> http://spectramagazine.com/10300/nasa-leak-confirms-galaxy-full-of-earth-like-planets/

<comment><USER2> This CNN article is much better account:

[http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/27/sasselov.earth.planets...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/27/sasselov.earth.planets/?hpt=T2)

The important graph is around 8:00.</comment>


Show HN: Hackend – A Fast Serverless Backend Generator - <AUTHOR> http://hackend.xyz/ <comment><USER2> Yes I'm definitely going to put my AWS credentials on a site without HTTPS. /s

It is a cool concept though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Valid point. I will add HTTPS. Using your root credentials is a bad idea

However, you are able to create a user in AWS that has restricted permissions, and dispose of it after use. So like a TTL of 5 min if you choose. That is how the steps describe it.

<comment><USER3> Just in case you don't know, you can get some super fast easy certs with letsencrypt: [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/) \-- they even have wildcard certs coming in 2018!! ([https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates- com...](https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-coming- jan-2018.html))

<comment><USER4> Or just chuck CloudFlare infront to make it look secure.

Just kidding of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 404.

<comment><AUTHOR> Try again?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, it's a little slow to load. My server is a really small instance.

<comment><USER6> No serverless?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, no using Angular. Perhaps next project is to crack that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where's Google Cloud Platform?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry :( Not yet implemented. You can open an issue here and I can prioritize it next

[https://github.com/rlingineni/hackend](https://github.com/rlingineni/hackend)

<comment><AUTHOR> Added it as an option in the console though. Thanks for bringing it up

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> autoblocked by corp firewall. And to some degree it seems correct. Is this a hacking attempt?

<comment><AUTHOR> No haha it's not. Just something I built because building serverless apps are tedious

<comment><USER8> The new account called "catchmeifyoucan" really increases my trust, bro.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. Inspired by DiCaprio's Movie :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What kind of apps you need in your company? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> CRM

<comment><AUTHOR> you don't like existing solutions ?</comment></comment>


FTC: How to be wise about use of Wi-Fi Networks - <AUTHOR> http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/02/wireless.shtm

<comment><AUTHOR> The press release is referencing this FTC site: <http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/hotspots.aspx></comment>


Show HN: NeuralCam Live – Using ML to Turn iPhones into Smart Webcams - <AUTHOR> https://neural.cam/news/ <comment><USER2> Nice work!

I have been researching and working on this webcam quality problem for a while. I have tried a couple of webcam-over-phone solutions and while they solved the image quality issue, they tend to introduced quite some lag. Especially when you use your dedicated microphone, then the lag becomes a huge issue (because the microphone has minimal lag and the webcam has a significant lag leading to the voice not matching the lips).

Have you thought of the issue and have you done an analysis on that?

Besides, with this setup, you have to rely on a driver that turns the video from whatever phone to a webcam. That in my experience is quite flaky, but perhaps not inherently problematic. So I wonder if you could comment on OS support for people who want to use your software with say, Linux?

Disclaimer: I use and package a software suite to turn a raspberry pi high quality camera to a webcam. The lag seems pretty good and it appears as just a good old usb webcam on linux and windows (although I haven't managed to make it work on macOS) [1].

1: [https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam](https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam)

<comment><USER3> I wonder how hard it would be to get a MIPI capture device that presents v4l2, I guess it's almost certainly more expensive right now than a Pi Zero.

Anyone know of a SDI or MIPI capture card that works off the shelf with v4l2?

<comment><USER2> I haven't tried looking for it and it seems like minimizing latency on the pi 0 is more fruitful and flexible than trusting such an adapter to work. And as you said, cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note for anybody thinking they want to use this with Zoom/Slack/Discord/etc: It appears that this has the same restrictions that other DAL-based apps have and you'll need to re-sign the app or disable SIP to use it that way. I've been using an OBS virtual camera for this purpose and have had to do this a few times now. It will depend on the target app if they have this in their allowed plugins list.

[https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac- virtualcam/wiki/Compat...](https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac- virtualcam/wiki/Compatibility#apps-dont-allow-dal-plugins)

<comment><USER5> On the SIP workaround, it says disabling SIP for the filesystem is enough, but even though that's less broad then disabling SIP entirely it's still a pretty wide brush. Have you (or anyone else) tested whether it's enough to disable SIP just for specific applications or folder locations? IIRC, all definitions and exceptions for SIP fs restrictions are still in two locations:

      /System/Library/Sandbox/rootless.conf

      /System/Library/Sandbox/Compatibility.bundle/Contents/Resources/paths

Disabling SIP entirely allows editing these as root, and then reenabling allows more fine grained control. Of course like everything else in an Apple- owned location, changes have a high chance of being blown away any full system update, but those are rare enough (and always require a reboot anyway) that it doesn't seem like a major pain to just redo changes a few times a year (with a script).

There are still of course some security implications for any additional exceptions you add but a lot less then a full fs disable. Further it's cool to have control over it anyway because you can even extend SIP to additional locations of your own which could be handy for some scenarios.

<comment><USER4> I can't comment to disabling SIP as I haven't taken that route. I've generally taken the codesign route instead, which does require re-signing the app after every update. In the case of Zoom, that's gone away in recent versions since the app now has the virtualcams I'm using in its whitelist. For anything else, it's a very manual process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quality enhancement of the face region is to my knowledge the best use regarding ML and real time communication.

The idea is to detect the region where the user's face is and then transmit that region at a higher quality than the rest of the video image.

This vastly improves the video call experience as the face is almost always the most important part of any video call.

<comment><USER7> Yes, face is the most important part of most video.

80% of the intellectual content of most telepresence is transmitted via audio. That's why when your local TV news goes to a live cross and there's no sound, they go back to the studio until the audio is fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've tried EpocCam Pro [1] which is good at the basics. The biggest challenge with these "phone as webcam" setups is getting a good mounting system. A tripod is hard to get in the right spot, and stacks of books are fail. Neither EpocCam or this software solution mention mounting which makes me think they're all not putting themselves in their user's shoes. My sense is the team that wins here get the "basics" right of this -- flawless connection to computer, good awareness of Do Not Disturb/it's a phone, and suggestions for mounting. Very practical. Phone camera is way better than webcam so the rest takes care of itself.

[1] [https://www.kinoni.com/](https://www.kinoni.com/)

<comment><USER9> They're not cheap, but I hear the Mountie[0] works well for physically mounting your phone (or iPad) to your laptop screen.

[0] [https://tenonedesign.com/mountie.php](https://tenonedesign.com/mountie.php)

<comment><USER9> Update: I have since decided to purchase a Mountie and I haven't used it much yet, but I'm pretty happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks awesome - unfortunately, my 2017 MBP running the latest MacOS 10.15 and iPhone 11 don't seem to register with this software when plugged in after installing the app and drivers. The Support Center doesn't have anything useful for troubleshooting, so...YMMV?

<comment><USER11> Same. MacBook Pro 16 & iPhone 11 Pro.

Video source didn't show up in Zoom but did in QuickTime, however there was no video - only a static turquoise image.

Had to faff about parsing the Mac installer with pkgutil once I decided to remove it as there were no uninstall instructions or mention of what was installed where.

<comment><AUTHOR> Make sure the app is running on your iPhone and your iPhone is connected to your Mac with a USB cable before you select the virtual webcam in video call apps. Regarding Zoom support, the latest version Zoom version (5.2.0) should work with no issues. If you're still encountering any sort of issues, send us an email at email@example.com and we'll look into it asap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, sounds interesting. I've heard some people use old smartphones as cheap webcams & LTE modems.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I have been using DroidCam and its been great. I am using my 3 year old phone for this and the camera quality is still better than the laptop webcam bought last year

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's the pitch for the subscription model for NeuralCam Live +PLUS other than "New Styles added regularly" (which I don't think I care about, although I've used the product for less than a day so maybe with time)? The other +PLUS features (additional video styles, special soften style, low light mode, no ads promoting other NeuralCam Apps) seem like one-time purchases, not something that as a consumer I could justify paying a recurring for.

<comment><AUTHOR> we want to make this app usable for most people in the free version too. we see styles as the core component of the overall UX and being able to select the right style for a given setting is quite useful. we think that many users will appreciate a wider choice. we'll be adding additional features to the Plus version in the future while also continuously improving the tech.

<comment><USER10> Got it, thanks for responding. So my takeaway is that today the pitch for the recurring is that you'll continue to add new styles, and users can pay a monthly to access those as they come out. Just one potential customer's opinion, but I'd be much more likely to purchase styles and +PLUS features if they were one-time purchases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks good OP, just a suggestion, I opened the app and continued through (clicked continue to live feed) without airdropping the driver or clicking the link. Now i can't find a way to get back to that screen on the app. There should be a way to go back to that onboarding so that the user can both preview the image quality without having completed the setup but also continue it later. Just a suggestion! I'll try it later.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback, juliann. we'll be adding a "restart setup" button in Settings. in the meantime, you can download the plugin directly from here: [https://neural.cam/live/NeuralCamLive- installer-1.0.0.pkg](https://neural.cam/live/NeuralCamLive- installer-1.0.0.pkg)

<comment><USER15> BTW your installer includes a gitkeep file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Genuine question for people: When I read about things like gesture guard, head bubble, virtual backgrounds, etc., I cant help but wonder why they're so important.

Is it really a problem if you sneeze or cough during an online meeting? Are you colleagues really making this an issue?

Likewise, I'm fascinated by the focus (ha ha) on hiding backgrounds. Why is it so bad to show people where you are?

I'm clearly in the minority in that neither of those scenarios are even remotely (ha ha) bothersome to me or my colleagues. But from their overall thematic popularity, obviously these are real issues for people.

I'd love to be enlightened...

<comment><USER17> Many people don't have a room in their house or apartment that they can dedicate to creating a home office, especially people with kids, and have to use a shared room. Blocking the background is essential. Also, sneezing during a pandemic sounds like something that could get an employee or contractor a furlough.

<comment><USER18> Haven't gotten to try it yet, but is head bubble actually black around the edges, or is that just to show off how it works?

First thought was it would be nice to combine head bubble with blur, so you avoid the stark background -- that's probably already what you're doing though. Will give it a shot later today.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, the Head Bubble puts your head in a bubble, making your background black and tracking your head. it's a great way to hide your background and it really takes away any distractions from video calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I tried the software but was so put off by the ads in the app and the inability to really try the app out before paying. I they had a 10 day full trial I would be in a better position to decide if I buy or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey xutopia, thanks for the feedback. the only ad in the app is towards our other app, NeuralCam NightMode. we do have a 7-day trial option available, you can try out all the features with it and cancel at any time if they're don't bring you enough value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow. Looks interesting. I'm curious, why don't you use the built-in Macbook webcam? - does Apple limit its use?

<comment><AUTHOR> The Macbooks webcam is a lot lower in quality when compared to even older iPhones, so the image quality would be really low. Also, Macbooks do not have a Neural Engine at the moment, so running advanced machine learning algorithms in real-time is not really an option, when compared with the low quality webcam. The iPhones & iPads, though, have both a Neural Engine and a very high quality camera, and we're making full use of them with our solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You mention background segmentation - is there any way to replicate a shallow depth of field/large aperture with the iPhone's dual lenses?

I'm sure this is quite challenging to get the segmentation accurate in real- time.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll be looking to build these types of features in the near future, as our engine evolves. It's challenging yes, but not impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> An interesting idea (which would need to be integrated in the conferencing apps) might be too do quality improvement on the receiver side. Turning low bandwidth and compressed video into higher quality video.

</comment><comment><USER23> This sounds interesting - but how are people setting this up? I don't think i'd be able to use this out of the box, since i don't have a stand for my phone to position it like a webcam.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Gesture Guard

> Detects and blurs different types of gestures that don't have their place in > a video call.

> Currently, it has two main components: detecting and blurring face touches > (scratching face, picking nose, yawning, etc.) and detecting nudity. These > help you to not get caught off guard.

Finally I can do my stand up in the shower.

This sort of feels like an April fools page.

<comment><AUTHOR> The 'nudity' scenario is somewhere along the lines of you being in a video call, and your loved one walking naked in the background, or just forgetting to close the webcam while you change, etc.

We realize it's not a common scenario, but even if it would work once or twice per year, it would still be saving you from a very awkward situation, thus the value we see in this.

<comment><USER25> _Politician offers to resign after showering during live video meeting_

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/councillor-s...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/councillor- shower-video-meeting-bernardo-bustillo-spain-torrelavega-a9601021.html)

<comment><USER26> Pretty wholesome.

Unfortunately he believed minimizing the app would cut the video.

<comment><USER27> There's no substitute for a hardwired camera-on indicator light.

Otherwise politicians are going to keep showering on camera during meetings, instead of showering off-camera during meetings, like they're supposed to.

<comment><USER28> I know that the webcam USB API requires the on-off light to be controlled in software, but can't webcams just... Ignore that, and just control it in hardware? It seems to me that would be better for everyone. Heck, we could mandate webcams have hardware indicator lights by law. You can always tape over them if they bother you.

<comment><USER3> It's kinda a mix of things. Webcams built with IR sensors and emitters (like the Logitech BRIO 4K) don't use the indicator while using the IR, though you can clearly see the pulsating near-infrared LED while it's on.

On Linux at least, if you open the v4l2 device for a device like this, it will turn on the indicator directly, and I don't think you can attach to it with libusb while it's otherwise in use by v4l2. In practice, I think the worst you could do from userspace on Linux is show the indicator while not recording.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> NeuroCam Returns! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9XmXad_wmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9XmXad_wmo)

</comment><comment><USER30> at first this looked like a spammy product advertisement page, but actually, there's some interesting tech here! I'd suggest you make things like _face bubble_ , _low light_ , _gesture guard_ and _denoising_ more prominent for the HN audience, instead of "marketing material" like your future products that don't yet exist.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback, tomp. we didn't tailor the article for a specific audience, we tried to be as transparent as possible with our vision & mission. we'll think of ways of improving communication both for casual users and users like the HN audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Dare I ask about Android support?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes you may :) however, Android is much more fragmented platform and it's only really possible to run the advanced ML algorithms we're using on the newest Android phones. so.. we'll probably have some level of Android support in the future, but it's not clear which of the features on which devices.</comment></comment>


World Bank Prices First Global Blockchain Bond, Raising A$110M - <AUTHOR> WASHINGTON/SYDNEY, August 23/24, 2018 - The World Bank launched bond-i (blockchain operated new debt instrument), the world's first bond to be created, allocated, transferred and managed through its life cycle using distributed ledger technology. The two-year bond raised A$110 million, marking the first time that investors have supported the World Bank's development activities in a transaction that is fully managed using the blockchain technology. <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press- release/2018/08/23/wo...](http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press- release/2018/08/23/world-bank-prices-first-global-blockchain-bond- raising-a110-million)

Anyone know the details around the technical side of this, how do you trade it? How do you settle it?</comment>


Show HN: Refined GitHub – Simplify the GitHub interface and adds useful features - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sindresorhus/refined-github <comment><AUTHOR> This browser extension has been around for a few years but in the past year it picked up a slew of useful features and refinements, most of which can now be disabled as desired.</comment>


Hong Kong Banking System Outlook Cut by Moody's on China Risks  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-24/hong-kong-banking-system-outlook-cut-by-moody-s-on-china-risks.html

<comment><USER2> I'm sure this has nothing to do with Snowden.

<comment><USER3> Try this search, china credit four winds, e.g. [https://www.google.com/search?q=china+credit+four+winds](https://www.google.com/search?q=china+credit+four+winds), to learn about what appears to be a Maoist style top down credit crunch. E.g. from the U.K. _Financial Times_ ([http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c2f126c-d982-11e2-bab1-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c2f126c-d982-11e2-bab1-00144feab7de.html)):

" _Echoes of Mao in China cash crunch

By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai

©AFP

As China's credit crunch takes a turn for the worse, the question of why the central bank has permitted market conditions to deteriorate so suddenly and so sharply looms ever larger.

[ Details on the credit crunch and possible causes. ]

But in the midst of the extreme market stress, a statement issued late Wednesday by the central bank raised the possibility that politics are also playing an important role.

[...] the People's Bank of China ordered a thorough implementation of the new_ "mass line education" _campaign launched this week by President Xi Jinping – a campaign that in its propaganda-style and potential scope carries echoes of the Mao era.

The Communist party cadres that run the central bank were told to attack the _"four winds" _of_ "formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance", _as demanded by Mr Xi...._ "

It appears the purge of Bo Xilai and company did not signal this sort of thing would stay in the past.

ADDED: Mass Line according to Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_line)):

"The Mass Line (from the Chinese _qunzhong luxian_ ) is the political, organizational and leadership method developed by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese revolution. As described in a Revolutionary Communist Party USA pamphlet, it is the "concentrate[d] .. correct ideas that the masses gain in everyday life", as gathered and published by the party. Mao developed it into a coherent organizing methodology that encompasses philosophy, strategy, tactics, leadership and organizational theory that has been applied by many Communists subsequent to the Chinese revolution. Chinese communist leaders generally attribute their conquest of power to the faithful pursuit of effective "mass line" tactics, and a "correct" mass line is supposed to be the essential prerequisite for the full consolidation of power.

According to Frederick Teiwes, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney, the "mass line" was related to the CCP's mass organizations. "Fundamentally, for all the CCP rhetoric concerning the 'mass line,' the unions and other mass organizations functioned more as Stalinist "transmission belts" in laying down the party line and extending the reach of the state," he wrote."

New leaders, new party line ... we'll see.

<comment><USER4> The four winds is being invoked because China allowed their economy to get too juiced on leverage, and imbalanced from uneven stimulus measures. It's little more than a useful prop for the party to try to squeeze froth out of the system before it ends in an even worse crash.

<comment><USER3> Errr, as I may have made clearer in a closing sentence I added after you posted your reply, I'm focusing on the style of this; that the bubble needs to be popped is not something I question.

Hmmm, thinking about it, if the new leadership has a clue, they are recognizing that the inevitable crash is going to be very painful, so I wonder if they aren't also planning on a return to old style repression to manage the social fallout. I may indeed be reading too much into the campaign and slogan (I don't follow the PRC all that closely), I guess we'll find out soon enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AWS Civic Apps Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/civic-apps-challenge/

<comment><USER2> This is an awesome idea.

I'm excited to see aws supporting the growing class of civic minded applications.

Hope some awesome things come out of/are highlighted by this.

-d.</comment>


How to do A/B Testing in WordPress - <AUTHOR> http://thinkvitamin.com/design/how-to-do-ab-testing-in-wordpress/ <comment><USER2> You can use <http://www.sumooptimize.com> to perform you A/B test and even multivariate test.

For the test creation, you just need to point to your website address and you will be given a preview of your website on the visual editor. And you begin your test creation using the visual editor.</comment>


The Science Behind the World's Longest Flights - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-behind-the-worlds-longest-flights-1534339076 <comment><USER2> I don't think anybody really _enjoys_ long haul flights, but personally, I especially dislike them. I'd much rather break my flight up into <8hr segments. I guess with everyone trying to squeeze as much of their vacation time though, it's more efficient to take a single 20 hour flight than two 10 hour legs with a 3 hour layover.

A while back, I flew to Vietnam from New Zealand. My flight there was AKL-HKG- SGN (11h30m, 2h40m). My return flight was HAN-SGN-KUL-OOL-AKL (2h, 2h, 8h, 3h). Total flight time is about the same, but the total trip time including stopovers was 18 hours to Vietnam, and 24 hours on return. I found it so much more pleasant to be able to get off the plane, stretch my legs, and eat some real food every few hours. I really don't enjoy long flights at all and I don't think the couple of hours it saves is worth it. 4 hours is the limit for me being comfortable on a flight, after 8 hours I'm feeling quite uncomfortable but I'll manage, and 12 hours is the absolute limit for me for flying. 20 hours on a plane would be absolute torture.

I really don't see the point in these excessively long flights either, you usually have to layover somewhere anyway, these ultra-long flights are most often to a hub like DOH or DXB, where you then need to connect to your final destination.

Flying from Auckland to London, I'd much rather take AKL-HKG-LHR (12hr, 12hr) than AKL-DOH-LHR (18hr, 8hr). I'd even pay a premium of a couple of hundred bucks for it, although conveniently basically every option with one stopover from Auckland to London is about the same cost (I really don't know how it's profitable to fly from NZ to England for US$450 though, that's insane, I'm fairly sure freighting 100kg to London would cost more).

<comment><USER3> Agreed - if you fly Economy. For example, Asia to Europe it's quite pleasant to stop over in the Gulf (sorry, non-Gulf carriers :-)

However, if you fly Business (or even First), my, are these long flights pleasant.

Also, if you wish to minimise the number of take-offs and landings (eg out of a fear of flying, rational or not), non-stop flights are the way to go, obviously.

EDIT: s/direct/non-stop/g

<comment><USER4> As someone who also flies from NZ to London every now and then, I would _love_ a non-stop flight from, say, London to Sydney, and then a short hop from there to NZ (the city I'm actually flying to couldn't handle a plane big enough to fly from London, sadly, so it's a minimum of one stop).

That would be quicker, I'd be able to optimise my sleep better, and at least in business class it would be reasonably relaxing. Also, some stops can be quite stressful - LAX, in particular, is awful (Sorry, Air New Zealand, but I'll probably never fly you again while you go through LAX!).

Also, several parents I've talked to would definitely prefer a single long flight to several shorter ones, given e.g., the stress of getting all your stuff + kids off and on the plane without losing them, the distress of ear pressure during takeoff and landing, etc.

<comment><USER2> I thought Air NZ went to AKL-SFO-LHR these days?

<comment><USER4> Nope, NZ0001/NZ0002 still fly through LA, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://archive.is/ZwLPY](http://archive.is/ZwLPY)

</comment><comment><USER6> A loosely related interesting fact. When you go on long international trips you're more likely to go on older planes than would be used for short domestic trips.

Really counter intuitive since you'd think you'd want the tip top newest beasts for the long international flights, but the main wear and tear on planes is in pressurization cycles. International flights experience a single pressurization/depressurization for a long trip, whereas domestic flights experience numerous pressurization cycles over a much shorter period of time meaning they cycle through them much faster. The planes used on the long international trips end up being flyable, safely, for much longer.

<comment><USER7> That depends, Europe to/from Asia, whatever airline, it's uncommon not be on a 787/a350 which are very new or a380 (ranging from 2-10years old), occasionally have to suffer a max 15 year old 777/a330 (some airlines are still ordering these new though), but rarely gets worse than this. Most short/regional 737/a320 seem older than above. Going west from europe to say Canada or states I admit is a different story old 757s, a340, 737 on long hauls, 747s, ran by terrible airlines like Air Canada, Air Transat, United and so on, even when they run new metal its terrible legroom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd prefer no break, but then I am pretty used to sleeping and reading on long flights, and no break lets me manage my time better.

When I was a kid, QF1 was 36 hours Sydney->London, with stops at Singapore, Bombay, Bahrain, and Frankfurt. Though it was fun to get off the plane briefly I would happily have avoided them even back then. Now even one stop is generally intolerable.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love reading stories like this as commercial flying has always intrigued me. Geez, has it come a long way! Still remember a flight I had from Europe to Australia when it was such a novelty to smash alcohol cause it was so readily available and then going to the back of the plane to smoke!

</comment><comment><USER10> > _Singapore is also adding bone-broth teas because they'll send people to the > bathroom more frequently, forcing them to stretch._

I'm sure it's meant well, but this idea fulfills all the bad cliches about Singapore to a point...

<comment><USER7> At the same time reducing bathrooms (a350-900 for example), i.e. increasing passengers per toilet. Logic ain't with this airline, the glory days for SG are well gone.

<comment><USER10> The whole thing doesn't seem logical. Their top priority is keeping people hydrated - so naturally, they'll make the drinks extra-dehydrating...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Beverages are being selected to not only improve hydration

They don't need new types of beverages to improve hydration; water is already optimal. What they need is to give people sizeable plastic water bottles with a screwtop on request rather than a tiny plastic cup. I always end up waking at 4am parched from the dry air and weighing whether I should wake both my poor neighbors so I can get up and track down a flight attendant. And then bring three spillable cups back to my seat.

(Bringing your own bottle is great if you remember to do it, but it's often hard to refill on the plane depending on how they are serving water.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Some of the described problems are unique to flight (low air-pressure, dehydration, etc), but a lot of them sound like they would apply similarly to other very long stretches of travel by vehicle. (E.g. the bits about exercise). Maybe it would be interesting to research how people on very long train or bus rides deal with those.</comment>


Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_apple_will_dominate_next_gen_computing.php <comment><USER2> A little bit exaggerated.

The iPhone is not a new invention, but Apple makes smartphones cool.

The problem here is that as soon as the suits discover it, the cool factor will vanish. I still remember one of these analysts talking about the iBook tangerine saying something like: who wants a laptop with a handle? Or a laptop that is tangerine? These guys just don't get it. And thats why either apple will not dominate because the suits don't buy it, or apple will cease to be cool.

Well, I don't see the point with objective-C at all (and besides, whatever it is, its not a fast language and its not easy, especially not the api and also not the documentation of the api.).

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a hard time believing that a platform that doesn't allow for beige boxes and software (ahem) sharing can become dominant. I can see the iPhone making a mint, defining the future mobile platform even -- kind of like the Apple II and the Mac back in the day. But to dominate, you need to have the cheapskates on board.

<comment><USER4> A lot of people seem to make the argument that Apple can never win this market because they aren't cheap enough. But saying that makes the fundamental assumption that there will never be a cheap version of the iPhone platform. Similarly, it ignores the story of the iPod, which started out as a $500 mac only toy, and is now the number one music player by far. Apple is not the company it was 20 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that this article overlooks some of the previously discussed issues with the iPhone API. Objective C apps can only be run on Mac stuff, unlike Javascript which can be (mostly) be run on all web browsers. When Android starts supporting Objective C, then we'll talk about how Apple won.

<comment><USER4> Comparing Objective-C (which actually is a gcc supported language, and can be compiled on any platform that supports GCC -- Cocoa is what only runs on "mac stuff") to Javascript isn't fair. The discussion is about native applications, not web applications -- a more apt comparison would be to C# which only runs on "windows stuff".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hyperbole should only ever be used sparingly, else it gets annoying very very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER7> No. Apples focus is on the consumer market - they have fought the war for the business customers and lost. Now they are fighting in the consumer market and making a killing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope they don't. I love Apple kit, but they should be a benchmark for others to beat. We need constant competition to create innovation

</comment><comment><USER9> blatant advertising

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill I suppose IBM and Sun will just evaporate as people buy Xserves to run their businesses? Apple doesn't even use Objective-C 100% of the time as they can get to the libraries with C++ .

<comment><USER4> Of course Apple doesn't use Objective-C 100% of the time. Microsoft doesn't use C# all of the time either. Doing so wouldn't make sense for either company.

The author's point is not that Objective-C will be the only language that matters, it is that Objective-C is about to matter a whole lot more, because it is the _only_ way to write native apps for the iPhone. Secondarily, he's suggesting this is a good thing because the Cocoa frameworks (note I didn't say the language) have a proven track record of allowing small teams to ship big apps that are very successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting, but I have also read it is more difficult to code for OSX than it is for Windows, but then again, I am not a programmer, so maybe I'm not qualified to even comment. I'm just a happy OSX user, and reluctant Windows user.</comment>


Ask YC: Intact Medieval Towns? - <AUTHOR>

I'm going on vacation soon and I'd like to visit some
intact medieval towns.  I'm looking for places like
Toledo, Venice, and Siena that were important towns in
1200 but backwaters by 1700, and thus weren't overwritten.
Can anyone suggest more like that?<p>(Even though this is a personal request, I feel ok
submitting it to news.yc, because visiting "fossil"
towns is one of the best ways I know to understand
history.)<p>Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I just visited Krakow in Poland - My impression of Poland before going was very biased - I still locked into a communist era view of Poland. When I arrived I was just stunned at how beautiful the place was.

Fits the bill reasonably well. Very prominent in earlier history, but fell out of prominence in 1600. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakow>

Despite auschwitz being down the road it escaped bombing in WWII - and whilst the communist era didn't help, recent restoration efforts are simply stunning. Amazing amount of fantastic architecture in a very compact town. The town centre, including the castle is UNESCO listed.

It's one of the nicer places I've been to in Europe. Also.. It's not quite a prime target on the tourist radar yet - which can be a big plus.

</comment><comment><USER3> Italy is littered with them, as I suspect you may already know. What size towns are you looking for? The weather i n Italy in September/October is often still pretty nice, too, compared with the more northerly portions of Europe.

\- Lucca is a good one, as someone mentioned below.

\- Verona has a great mix of stuff, from the Roman Arena (which is very impressive) to the Scaligeri castle, to other things dating from the Venetian era.

\- In the Veneto, Monselice and Montagnana are smaller towns that are worth about half a day each. You could combine those with some touring around the Colli Euganei. Arqua Petrarca is a cute little town famous for being the final resting place of Petrarch, and a pleasant place in its own right. In terms of history, Monselice had its high point when it was the local center of power for the Lombards - Padova fell along with the Roman empire. Montagnana, along with Cittadella to the north of Padova, was an outpost against neighboring city states. To this day, the province of Padova includes Montagnana and Cittadella, whereas Treviso's own outpost, Castelfranco, delimits the edge of that province.

<http://www.welton.it/photos/monselice/>

<http://www.welton.it/photos/colli_euganei/>

\- Central Italy is filling up with tourists: Umbria and Le Marche are a bit more off the beaten path. Perugia is a wonderful town where I have good memories, Urbino is good too, although it's kind of small. San Marino is someplace I've never visited, but it has been pretty much by definition left alone over the years (thus its independence). The whole area has been 'passed over', s you're quite likely to discover your own favorite, off the beaten places by renting a car and exploring, if that's your idea of a good time.

\- I don't know southern Italy quite so well, but I had a great time visiting my friend Salvatore in Ragusa - the old part of that city is impressive.

<http://www.welton.it/photos/ragusa/>

Let's see... I don't know so much about Austria, but Innsbruck is ok for a day (much more if you like outdoor sports like hiking), and Salzburg has a lot to see and is relatively well preserved. Hall in Tirol is worth an afternoon, and in the middle ages was more important than Innsbruck. They minted coins from the nearby silver mine there until the whole enterprise collapsed as 'cheap' silver from the new world put them and the mine out of business.

I could probably write a book about Italy, email me know if you have any more questions. Depending on my availability, I'd be happy to show you, or anyone else from this site, around the Padova area, where my wife's family is from, or at the very least put you in contact with friends down there. Of course, should anyone stop by Innsbruck, I'm always happy to meet hacker/startup types... I'm pretty lonely here from that point of view.

Edit: Damn... now I miss Italy...

</comment><comment><USER4> I went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber:

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

Not exactly off the beaten path today -- it's been Tourist Central since the 1880s -- but it was off the beaten path for hundreds of years before that, which is the important part.

Stay overnight. Many tourists don't, which makes it a good way to avoid some of them. Wandering around the corners of medieval buildings near dusk makes the whole vibe even more fun.

I also can't argue with Bruges, Belgium, which has the advantage of having actual non-tourist-industry inhabitants. Plus, Belgian beer! (Not that Bavaria is lacking in the beer department.)

<comment><USER5> Another vote here for Rothenburg. It is perhaps even more "medieval" than Siena (though to be fair, I spent two days in Rothenburg, and only an afternoon in Siena).

The downside is that it is very tourist-y. It almost seemed like the only things there were hotels, museums, and gift shops.

The upside is that it still feels authentic. I picked my hotel pretty much just based on price and availability, and it was charming - you can even see it in random pictures like this one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Street_in_Rothenburg.JPG> (I forget the name, but it's the one with the bell sign). My friends stayed at a different hotel, and had the same experience.

Walking along the walls at night can be an amazing experience - it had rained earlier, it was foggy, street lights reflected off the cobblestones, and no tourists in sight... it felt like we were transported to a different century.

As for taverns, I would recommend Zur Höll (meaning "Hell"), it's supposed to be over 1000 years old - and if you manage to get the table in the basement (which is actually a giant bellows), that claim seems quite believable.

<http://www.romanticroad.com/hoell/english/dine.htm>

<comment><USER6> Rothenburg, Siena, and San Gimignano are all worth visiting. There are many nice hotels outside the walls of Rothenburg.

Make sure you visit the museums of criminology (aka torture museums) in these towns/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think Estonia's old Hanse town, Tallin (Reval) fits. Between 1549 and 1625 its church was the tallest building in the world (and its peak height wouldn't be exceeded until 1884!. Very interesting table here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294496> ). Wikipedia has good historical population numbers for the town:

Year . . . . Population

1372 . . . . 3,250

1772 . . . . 6,954

But I've haven't visited yet, so I'm not sure.

<comment><USER7> A good algorithim would be to take a list of Hanse towns and subtract the ones you've heard of. The rest are backwaters that were previously important.

<comment><USER8> Good suggestion.

However, research the ones that are left before you spend a day travelling to one of them, as chances are it'll be pretty but very, very small (thinking of Doesburg and Bronkhorst, for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bruges, Belgium:

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

<comment><USER10> I would also suggest Ghent, Belgium.

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

"Much of the city's medieval architecture remains intact and is remarkably well preserved and restored. Its center is the largest carfree area in Belgium."

I was there last month, it was pretty nifty.

Bruges is super-touristy, Ghent slightly less so. You should try to check out a non-touristy town as well, that nevertheless has a significant amount of medieval architecture. Examples: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechelen>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuven>

<comment><USER11> Add Lier (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lier,_Belgium>) to that. It's a bit like Brughes, but way smaller.

(disclosure: I practically live there)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roermond> (Netherlands)

Julius Caesar called it Villa Optima. It was destroyed in 1213 and rebuilt by 1232. It was occupied by the Romans, France, Austria, Germany, among others over the years. There was also some damage in WWII but despite all that the city is mostly intact.

And don't be fooled by the modern convenience of the Outlet Mall (which is beyond the remnants of the old city wall). Most of the shoppers are German (not that there's anything wrong with that) and incidentally there are several short-haul bike routes into Germany. There's a bike shop next to the train station and there are a few cute German towns within 20km.

</comment><comment><USER13> Dubrovnik, Croatia

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

<comment><USER14> Split, Croatia is also great it's actually a medieval city built inside a Roman palace: <http://flickr.com/photos/pelle/sets/72157604400174148/>

Close by is the island of Hvar, which is also pretty amazing. It was built by the Venetians as a trading outpost: <http://flickr.com/photos/pelle/sets/72157604497939272/>

A great resource for someone wanting to learn about how these kinds of places help mold our modern business world, I recommend Nick Szabo's blog Unenumerated. See this post about Genoa for example:

<http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/genoa.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hi, I recommend that you visit Montblanc, in Tarragona (Spain), near Barcelona: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montblanc,_Tarragona>

More to the north, near the Coast (if you also want some beach) there is Pals: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pals>

Also, in France but also pretty near to Barcelona you can visit Carcassonne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne>

Finally, but not completely intact, the Barri Gòtic in Barcelona may interest you: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barri_Gòtic>

If you ever com here, and need anything don't hesitate to drop a mail.

<comment><USER16> Carcasonne has a strange fortified city which looks medieval but was actually built in the mid 1800s. If you drive from there towards Andorra you come accross lots of old medieval villages with castles, such as this one in Foix:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Foix>

Aachen in Germany should probably be on the list - it was once the centre of Charlemagne's empire, but today it has been eclipsed by nearby Cologne and Bonn. It was bombed pretty badly during the war but the town hall and cathedral survived intact.

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

<comment><USER17> Carcassonne was _restored_ in the second half of the 19th century, see the wikipedia article above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do you mind posting your short list when you figure it out? I had my first holiday around Europe recently, mainly sticking to the capital cities except for Bavaria, and next time I'd like to explore off the beaten track a lot more. All the places mentioned here are going right into my ideas for next time file.

</comment><comment><USER19> Every time I go to the south of France on holiday (I'm British) I'm always struck how many little intact medieval towns and villages there are. I'd recommend just hiring a car and start roaming about (or Train, the French do trains really well). You'll be tripping over them.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what I'm planning to do, but I'm hoping to make the process less random.

<comment><USER3> Maybe hire a guide? This guy, a tour guide in Tuscany, wrote some books make for light but entertaining reading:

[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle- url?_encodin...](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle- url?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Dario%20Castagno)

I think there's something to be said for simply wandering though (perhaps armed with some good books), especially seeing as how there is way more history and stuff to see in a place like Italy or France than you could possibly hope to absorb over a few weeks. It's "fractal", too: you can look at the big ticket items, like wars, conquests of this or that country, but you can also get into the local goings on, which are often quite interesting in their own right.

For instance, one of my favorite things in Padova is the University Tour, where they have a lectern that Galileo's students built for him. It's awful looking, because they were wealthy kids, not the sons of craftsmen, so they mangled it pretty thoroughly. They wanted to make it themselves though, rather than commission it, as a sign of dedication.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Krupa and I recently enjoyed traveling through the Abruzzo region of central Italy which has many more hill towns. Wish we had gotten to Siena though!

We especially enjoyed Civitella del Tronto: <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civitella_del_Tronto>

and the surrounding area includes pretty sweet hikes including one that visits a cave (Grotte Sant'Angelo) with documented religious uses back to BC times.

</comment><comment><USER21> Salamanca is like Toledo, just bigger and nicer:

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

Also a lot of interesting places at "World Heritage Sites" list:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_Europe)

</comment><comment><USER22> Regensburg, Germany: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regensburg>

I have friends who live there and they like it a lot. Especially cool during the Christmas festivals, lots of markets with mulled wine and decorations for sale.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you do go to Siena, try and go to the Il Palio. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena>

Each district of Siena has a horse in a (quite violent) race around the square.

Whilst it's generally a massive attraction for tourists the locals take it _very seriously_ and it's not just a tourist attraction at all. After the race the winning district put out their banners and have a massive party.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some suggestions, Last year we spent some time in Romania. Romania has Sibiu, Timisoara, Brasov, Sighisoara ... all very cool medieval towns. Rasnov and Sighisoara are both hilltop fort villages.

Also, you might also be interested in Lviv, Ukraine.

Have fun!

<comment><USER24> I second this. Romania was quite beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you get to the South of France, look at Aigues Mortes <http://www.ot- aiguesmortes.fr/UK/History.htm>

Centrally, Tours and Troyes are gorgeous, as is Orleans.

Besancon in the East is very attractive, but more recent battlements.

In the North, you get a panorama over all of the Flanders plain from the battlements of Cassel, just as the generals did in the Great War.

The great thing with France is that nearly every town has an unspoilt centre; the development has been kept to the environs.

Enjoy your visit.

<comment><USER25> Also, the tapestry of the apocalypse in Angers castle is staggering.

And when visiting French towns, they all have a 'petit train' which takes you around the sights for a small cost; I like to do that before deciding where to explore on foot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I highly recommend Gubbio in Umbria (Italy).

Gubbio was very important between 1000-1300 when it was independent. After that its decline started, and that's probably what kept the town small and contained. I still remember walking inside Gubbio and how it felt so... medieval and different from other Italian towns. I grew up in a small Italian medieval town but Gubbio is quite unique.

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

</comment><comment><USER27> You may want to try "Volterra" (Toscana) and "Erice" (Sicilia).

</comment><comment><USER28> Central Prague is like that, if somewhat overrun by tourism. I accidentally arrived at predawn and wandered around as the light came in -- highly recommended.

<comment><USER29> Prague is beautiful, but the architecture there for the most part is a few centuries post-medieval.

<comment><USER30> You're right, but Prague is one of the few cities where you can find great examples of every architectural style from medieval up to modern.

Try Ceske Krumlov, a small town to the south, for something more medieval.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you're in the area, there are some great exhibits at the German History Museum in Berlin, including exact (scaled down) replicas of medieval cities, with information about different areas of town. Very different than walking around town, but it is interesting to see what a medieval city looked like from the top.

Otherwise, I can vouch for Bruges, Siena, and Regensburg.

</comment><comment><USER32> Lucca, Tuscany - starting to get a bit touristy but a nice mixture of Roman, mediaeval with intact city walls that you can walk round.

</comment><comment><USER33> I loved visiting Vinci, Italy. It has a lovely little museum with the works of its most famous son.

Montepulciano was amazing as well, but perhaps falls under the Siena category.

Cuzco, Peru -- at least the central core -- may be an example as well. As would other Inca settlements.

</comment><comment><USER34> Visby on Gotland, the big Swedish island in the Baltic, is pretty cool, especially during medieval week.

<comment><USER35> Yes, definitely see Visby if you can: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Entrevaux, France - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrevaux> for something different. Old Vauban fortress in a small village in the southern alps of France.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've tagged a bunch of the ones mentioned on weheartplaces:

<http://www.weheartplaces.com/tags/medieval>

</comment><comment><USER8> Tournai, Belgium. The inner town is almost entirely medieval (and on the Unesco list). Somewhat less spectacular but still fine is nearby Kortrijk.

</comment><comment><USER38> Orvieto, Italy: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orvieto>

</comment><comment><USER39> Fez, Morocco -- I believe the UN marked it as the oldest intact and thriving medieval city in the world.

</comment><comment><USER40> Rothenburg, Germany is a really cool place. Might want to check it out.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is off-topic :)

</comment><comment><USER42> cesky krumlov, czech republic

<comment><USER24> Noooo! Don't tell people about this town. I don't want it Prague-ified.

<comment><USER30> It already is getting there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> transylvania, romania

<comment><USER44> Don't forget Transylvania is a region, not a town. Nice medieval towns are: Sighisoara, Sibiu, Brasov. One could try the Medieval villages, even better preserved than towns, with their fortification perimeter walls, fortified churches (oh yes) etc. Really beautiful, out of this world places.

Full disclosure: I'm from Arad, right near the historic region of Transylvania, Romania. Quite biased, even after living for years in Spain and France.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> New Book?</comment>


The Bitter Truth of Learning: It's Tough, Unpleasant, and Often Pointless - <AUTHOR> https://shubhamjain.co/2018/03/24/the-bitter-truth-of-learning-its-tough-unpleasant-and-often-pointless/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> This just in, water is still wet and cows moo. I don't get the profoundness here. I mean, if you're one of those stereotypical hollywood jocks from the 50s that's never read a book in his life until the age of 60...I mean sure... you found a "bitter truth". Yea, learning at a level beyond your local pub's trivia tournament or beyond the 5 minute youtube tutorial video is difficult and takes time. Most importantly, it takes effort. Always has been, always will be... until we get the Matrix style brain downloads to learn kung-fu. No one great in any field, that's worth looking up to, just dances around saying it's as easy as ordering a big mac from mcdonalds. They have more self-doubt and introspective analysis in an hour than most of the population has in a month, myself included.

Plenty of dead ends too when it comes to the path of greater knowledge. Learning and doing new things that you never needed for your goal. Welcome to scientific research of any caliber in any field. If you're lucky, you recorded the Earth shattering kabooms though. If it were easy to be "smart", then don't you think everyone would be "smart". Obviously we all define the terms smart, educated, learned, intelligent and !dumbass differently. But (I hope) you get the point of the context.

Anyways, I'm sure as shit late to the party by a few thousand years (at least) saying this since I've been hearing this from the time of... I don't know, forever in any field I gandered into more indepth. To recognize someone else as above average, or at least capable, they have humility and diligence towards educating themselves. Not complaining that it is difficult, but striving towards it because it is difficult. Most of us have heard similar at the projectile level of ad nauseum. Now I'm thinking it's not really said enough if people still think "learning is hard" after the age of 9 is news worthy. Getting really tired of teens with their "unique profound insight" that's been published since Socrates' time.

<comment><USER3> This is definitely not "water is wet" levels. "It is obvious to me that this is true" doesn't actually mean it is true, and it definitely doesn't mean that other people think it is true. The jury is out on both of those, and I would say learning in general is an exceedingly poorly understood subject mostly based on very questionable school environments.

It's pretty hard to even talk about this issue without crashing into nature vs nurture immediately, and that's a gargantuan question in itself. For example:

> If it were easy to be "smart", then don't you think everyone would be > "smart".

This statement entirely depends on a nurture-based interpretation of the above gargantuan question.

I've met lots of smart, accomplished people who believe that if learning becomes difficult or tough or grueling, you're "doing it wrong". The kind of people for whom talking about "T-shirt turning" is their idea of fun. Hard to argue with them when they know more than I do, isn't it? Yet, for some people, banging their head against something to understand it seems absolutely necessary and they can't really avoid it. And so two people learn the same thing, one carefree, one with a great amount of pain. What's this about?

I've had my own personal experiences where I was working on something, and found it rather easy, and assumed it wasn't really anything complicated, but got feedback which was the opposite of this. On the other end of the scale, I had times when I was working really hard and felt like I was using everything I had at my disposal to do the task... and then got feedback that I was performing extremely poorly, and was missing something fundamental that would have made my life easier if I would have just known.

"learning is pointless" is often very much about hard work not paying off. This has major social implications.

There's a lot of oddness that comes with learning things in general. People learn with far less effort if the task involved is actively enjoyable in itself. Other people learn better when the task has a return, such as a monetary one.

I think "learning is hard" is a very useful statement _socially_. I.e., for the average person, there's lots of resistance to learning things. But it is not a statement that can be made _globally_ , i.e., that learning is always hard.

<comment><USER4> Difficulty in learning is mostly a function of age. I learned how to make game hacks, x86 asm, pretty much 90% of the software engineering knowledge I possess before the age of 15. Now I am learning higher level mathematics because I want to solve some specific problems that have million dollar prizes attached (but I am not doing it for the money.) Fortunately, I never felt like I was doing something for a distant goal when I was young - I had awe and envy as if I was constantly saying Ahhh! This next bit of learning is arduous and often times detached. At least my early learning was in programming, something I still love and find useful. But learning late will never be as easy as curious youth learning. What we learn as youth seems to be unguided and incidental. While reasons for learning as adults are mostly consequential and dependent on some other thing that we desire. Secondary dependencies are frustrating to the brain. Sometimes you can feel like that awestruck kid but itll never match being in that state 24/7\. Being precise and directed in ones' goals is almost like a death knell and anhedonia for enjoyment and ease. Oh well..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is an important heuristic to make it much more pleasant though: do the things you like and celebrate the successes. Looking back at some of the things I learned, yeah it was tedious and downright frustrating sometimes. But doing these things now I also feel the reward. Pick the things you think are fun and enjoyable, there is no greater frustration than learning something that ultimately doesn't pique your interest. In my case, especially in high school, I disliked learning foreign languages (apart from English, of course), but I enjoyed chemistry and philosophy. Obviously I put more time into the latter, and worked through all the hurdles and headaches, but it was fun getting to know that stuff. I still only speak two languages. If figuring out T-shirt math isn't your cup of tea, then just don't.

I often feel that people see hardship as a virtue. You /must/ feel shitty, otherwise you're not worthy. And, I don't think that's even remotely true in the long run.

Really my only advice to anyone who wants to learn a new skill: if you start to feel reluctant; just stop. Really. Only do the things you ultimately enjoy. Why put yourself through tedious things in your adulthood. The world is a big place, I'm sure there is something you like doing. Just do that. Don't beat yourself up over it. I've never learned to play an instrument, and suck at countless things; and that's fine. You'll notice that you will quickly become better at the things you enjoy, compared to the tedious ones.

<comment><USER6> > Only do the things you ultimately enjoy. Why put yourself through tedious > things in your adulthood. The world is a big place, I'm sure there is > something you like doing.

It's too easy to interpret that advice as doing things that are easy. Easy things don't require effort, and people who are not inherently driven to explore or be creative point to advice like this as ways to justify spending all day watching Netflix or posting on Instagram. Those things are easy and give some level of enjoyment, but they are ultimately empty and eventually result in deeper sadness.

Hardship is not the right word but struggle is. Struggle is not pleasant but leads to deeper satisfaction, and that's what people mean when they talk about "hardship" as a virtue.

<comment><USER7> I am definitely on the side of "do the things you ultimately enjoy."

If you don't enjoy something, ask yourself if you really have to do it, and if you do, ask yourself how you can enjoy it more. And I say this as a dad who has changed hundreds of poopy diapers and resolved thousands of toddler requests and minor conflicts. Learning French is not "better" than watching TV. There are lots of pointless, impoverishing hard tasks and meaningful, enriching easy tasks. Any value judgments on struggle will make this harder to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my own experience as both a young software developer and now as a more experienced leader, the work of learning isn't unpleasant at all. Is it hard to find the motivation to learn at times? Certainly! But afterwards I'm never regretful because I feel as if I've gained a new superpower. I spent the last 3 months or so ramping up with a company working with half a dozen technologies I had no experience with, and today I feel capable enough at each of them that I could run the product myself without too many hiccups (though albeit at a much slower pace). The skill of learning is by far the most valuable in this field.

<comment><USER9> I agree, and I'd add that I find learning to be like any other activity, in that practice makes me better at it. I'm also not infrequently surprised by connections to "useless" learned material that only crops up months or years later. As far as motivation, I think practice helps too; you get used to gathering yourself and pushing forward or you get used to giving up, and I prefer pushing on.

I also just enjoy learning, I love making new connections and synthesis of existing knowledge with new information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > If you want to learn, you have to try harder.

Rather than learning being pointless, I would focus on this.

In a world of instant gratification we are fed the idea that if learning isn't fun and easy, then you are teaching wrong. Granted, a lot of material can be optimised, but I concur that people should expect to have to make a bigger effort once you pass the superficial stage.

<comment><USER11> That's the problem that I've always had with the "learning should be fun" slogan. Yes, a lot of teaching isn't well done and ideally it would be a lot more individualized. But learning a topic to any real depth is also a lot of work which is absolutely not going to be "fun," at least as the term is usually used, all the time.

<comment><USER12> I have always questioned claims that "learning should be fun" for many reasons, but I think it would be a fallacy to think learning cannot be fun. The exception I experience regularly involves curiosity. When I am curious about something, learning it is usually fun. But, this is a fairly personal process. I'm not sure it can be inherently encouraged through teaching methods. The Socratic method seems to reflect this notion but is more a useful tool for guidance than for exciting curiosity.

I still remind myself regularly that learning _without_ the push of curiosity is necessary, and a path to that next burst of curiosity.

<comment><USER11> Oh learning can absolutely be fun (and exciting etc.) And some types of learning activities can be genuinely fun in the playing a game sense of the word. I just think that there's a problem with the mindset that if you aren't loving every minute you're learning there's something wrong.

I also enjoy writing. I can also assure you that looming deadlines are not fun by reasonable definitions of the word :-)

<comment><USER13> >Oh learning can absolutely be fun (and exciting etc.) And some types of learning activities can be genuinely fun in the playing a game sense of the word. I just think that there's a problem with the mindset that if you aren't loving every minute you're learning there's something wrong.

Spot on, IMO. That mindset is encouraged or aggravated by kind of e-learning startups that seem to want to kidify / gamify / dumbify all their content. I've had interactions with some of them when they approached me for partnerships of some kind, or for content creation, often in Python. Have had to say no to some of them due to that mindset, which I do not think is good for either the students or the instructors / companies providing the instruction, from both a pedagogical and a business (profit) point of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I was teaching English in a Japanese high school the other teachers often took the approach of "This is not going to be fun, but you have to apply yourself in order to get the rewards later on." In my own study of Japanese, I found that I really enjoyed learning -- which was diametrically opposed to my experience of "learning" French when I went to school. 13 years of classes and I _still_ can't speak French. In contrast, I did complete self of Japanese and I'm totally functional in normal Japanese society.

Often the teachers would ask me to make an entertaining class, but I eventually decided that the fun of learning would be at least 10x better than any entertainment I could provide. At about the same time I was working with a teacher who urged me to start giving out surveys to my students to find out what they enjoyed most in my classes. Even I was surprised to find that my daily quiz was the most popular element by a huge margin.

I completely restructured my classes so that students had much more opportunity to apply their learning, rather than focusing on shovelling an endless stream of content into their heads. I think it's that realisation that you went from not knowing something, to understanding it and being able to use it easily that's fun.

Yes, as you get more advanced, there is considerably more grind, but I think if you build techniques to enjoy the process you are going to have much more success. Especially for languages, it's going to take a _long_ time and you have to be consistent. If you are just grinding it out and pushing yourself every day, I think it will be _very_ difficult to make any significant progress.

One of the things that I found illuminating was that the satisfaction of my students (as measured by my surveys) pretty much mirrored their performance. The better the average class grade, the more satisfied the students. This is all anecdotal, but at least for me it made up my mind that there is a relationship. All kinds of success is fun and learning is a kind of success.

Edit: I should point out that there is nothing conceptually difficult in language learning -- even exceptionally stupid people are fluent in at least one language. So the above may not apply to something that is really difficult as opposed to really big.

<comment><USER15> I hated math in high school. Sitting in that desk with an overhead projector and a textbook was torture. I never groked basic trig, just memorised. And then a few years ago I made a dumb little space shooter video game. The trig _clicked_ and I was instantly in love. And then came vectors and I was even more in love. It's left me yearning for the free time to go back to school and very angry about all that missed opportunity in high school.

I've wept at the reflection of how awful math class was, and how amazing it could have been.

<comment><USER16> I used to think that home schooling was a travesty, but now that I can reflect on how useless school was, maybe it isn't so bad after all. The #1 most useful piece of all my pre-university schooling was the socializing. Academics were consistently subpar

<comment><USER15> Agreed. I've always felt that K-8 is basically, "learn social skills and while we're here, learn the basics." High school is more about learning pre-college skills, learning skills, study skills, discipline, and how to survive puberty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> An excellent point. See also _The Case Against Education_ : [https://jakeseliger.com/2018/03/12/the-case-against- educatio...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/03/12/the-case-against-education- bryan-caplan).

I'll also observe that many fields have an unpleasant introductory learning curve in which one must memorize lots of random-seeming and unpleasant things, before one can operate fluidly in that field and do anything interesting.

That's sort of the opposite of the original author's statement: "Learning is fun, but often as it happens, the fun parts start drying up as you delve deep," but it may be that there are un-fun parts on _both_ sides of the curve, so to speak.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, in a lot of technical fields in particular--especially early on--you just have to take a lot of facts as given, memorize formulas, etc. because you just don't have the background in that subject or related subjects to understand the underlying mechanisms or derive equations from fundamental principles. For example, as I recall high school physics, you memorized a lot of formulas because most students wouldn't have the calculus background to derive them.

I'm not sure what I think of this article though. I read what he's saying as along the lines of a lot of people who find essentially pop science about some subject interesting would find developing true expertise about the topic a real slog. That's doubtless true but there are relatively few things that any of us have the time or interest to go deep on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know I'm learning when I get this feeling like.. mental pain. Still, its a brilliant thing to do consistently.

Eg. Running is pointless, you're not running away from a predator, or a foot- messenger delivering a message or anything; but you are maintaining your health, fitness and quality of life.

<comment><USER19> The paradox of the _experience_ of learning is that I feel drained and unintelligent when I'm actually going through the work to understand something new. It's only some time after I start really understanding something that I also _feel_ the mental expansion from the new skills I've acquired. If I wanted to _feel_ knowledgable all the time, I'd be better off not trying to learn new things other than what I acquire incidentally around my already- honed skills. I've experienced this cycle enough times to know that I should keep going even when I feel worn down. I agree that it's a lot like physical exercise -- it brings tremendous benefits, but it's also unpleasant enough in the moment that it's hard to act in your own best long term interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The complement to this is that after you've learned something it is easy to forget the pain you went through. Empathy can be a powerful tool for pedagogy. If your learner can see that you understand the struggle they are going through it can help remove a layer of shame and self-doubt. If, on the other hand, an educator regularly calls things easy, basic, trivial, or simple (or worse demeans someone for not understanding) the lack of empathy will be apparent and learning will be impeded. One thing Sal Khan has said is that video lessons are uniquely effective because there is no chance the educator will become frustrated with the learner even if they need to repeat the lesson a dozen times. In person and in our writings it can be hard to remember the struggle, but it can be one of the most helpful things we do as we train someone new to any task or concept.

<comment><USER21> I think there's an inverse to be wary of here. If you keep talking about how difficult something is, and tell someone how this is really complicated, their expectation can shut them down to understanding something that really is as simple as it sounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, two points:

First of all, clickbaity title as he says it might be "pointless".

Secondly he is talking about topology. I find it to be a very hard subject. If you pick up most topology books you will find an area of math that most people have never really been prepared for and the books themselves start with some concepts that are very abstract. Now depending on what you are interested in, Topology can provide many insights into the shapes and constructions of spaces. Things like metric topology tie into how vector spaces are constructed. Things like n-dimensional manifolds can be related to aspects of machine learning.

I recommend The Teaching Company's Shape of Nature videos for learning some general ideas about topology.

Just a disclaimer, I am not a mathematician, so I might be off on some my perceptions. Also no pun intended on pointless.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Learning new things can be exhilarating, but it can get tough, and > unpleasant, too. Explanations can be dumbed down, but the effort involved to > grow further is unavoidable.

Anything rewarding demands something from you, otherwise it wouldn't be rewarding. Pain, discomfort, and adversity are good for the soul. If you want instantaneous gratification without sweat, do heroin or play video games.

<comment><USER24> Well yes, and it's exactly the same for video games, which almost always are about making the player overcome obstacles to achieve rewards.

I'm not sure about heroin, but there's a bit of an obstacle in getting that into one's system too, no? And then usually in getting additional funds to acquire the next fix?

Life is a struggle.

<comment><USER23> > Well yes, and it's exactly the same for video games, which almost always are > about making the player overcome obstacles to achieve rewards.

Video games are about creating the perception of challenge and the perception of reward, both of which are calibrated to maximize user engagement and enjoyment. I don't _dislike_ games as a form of entertainment, but let's not pretend they're in any way an analogue of real life.

<comment><USER25> Is there a difference between perception of challenge and a challenge? Either way, I do think that some video games _are_ challenging. On the other hand, some games, particularly freemium mobile games really do just hijack your brain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Like exercise. It's hard, unpleasant while you do it, exhausting, and ultimately pointless. That's not an argument against either exercise or learning though.

(Oh, and it feels great afterwards.)

<comment><USER27> I would take a pill that will take care of your muscles in background any day when it's offered.

I.e. why does it even have to require input from my side? You don't have to train your peristaltics, why are other muscles different? I guess it just boils to a mutation 100 thousands years ago which decreased default muscle power to save on energy, we could roll that back, get extra colories burned as a bonus.

Animals don't work out. They also don't push the envelope every day.

<comment><USER28> Animals constantly 'work out'. If you've ever had an indoor cat they seen as generally one of the lazier creatures but they will every once in a while just spaz out and start bouncing off the walls. It's not just for fun - it's an instinct that helps keep them in shape. It's the same for all animals. They will constantly work out. It looks like play, but it serves a valuable purpose -- somewhat like how young predators will regularly play fight with each other. That's not just for fun.

Evolution and life is primarily an optimization game. And our bodies are product of that. When we do things, we tend to become better at them. When we don't do things, we tend to lose our ability to do them well, hopefully in lieu of new focuses. Even the brain works this way - as becomes readily apparent when you age and can see in your acquaintances who continues to work with their brain, and who instead spends their time watching television and imbibing.

<comment><USER29> Not really. Cats do "spaz out" episodically but a typical human with the same amount of exercise would probably be a flabby sack of fat with cardiovascular issues. The activity isn't predictive of the rate of muscle atrophy to the same degree across species, because loss of muscle is mediated by a specific, variably effective biochemical cascade and is not a consequence of inactivity per se. Similarly, loss of memories or cognitive skills is an active process that may have negligible speed even without much utilization.

But I'm nitpicking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In "Peak" by Anders Ericsson, he alludes to a few principles that makes learning into deliberate practice: setting small goals, getting expert feedback, focusing and removing distractions, and being somewhat discomforted. This article is familiar to that last point. To get the most out of learning, according to Ericsson, you should be in the 'yellow zone': not where you feel comfortable and easy, but also not reaching fight-flight-freeze mode either.

Getting in depth with a subject is painful. And its easy to waste time and effort. But it can be less painful if you're smart about it.

If you're tracking your progress, and you're aware what that next 5% looks like, that's much easier than trying to go for 100% each time. Getting feedback is critical too, and having that person help you set short, challenging but achievable goals makes a big difference so you aren't moving too quickly or slowly. Having peers who you can relate with and socialize your challenges with makes motivation easier. And you really need to set a time and place on a recurring basis, where the physical environment sets you up to be successful.

Disclaimer: I'm working on sagefy.org

</comment><comment><USER31> "Ownership not as a percentage of equity, but as a measure of your ability to change things for the better."

This is wishful thinking. This is how you wish the world was, and, as a child, you demand it to be so.

</comment><comment><USER32> Such a small article about such a big topic. Yes, real learning takes a lot of time and energy. You might think that solving problem X, really solving it, might be done after a few hours. And in the end, after you really done it, you realize you spend two years.

However, that doesn't mean it's worthless, or that you should apply it to stuff that doesn't matter (like the math of t-shirt turning). If you do that it's really a waste of time.

But there are endeavours that are totally worth it. For instance really spending the time to learn the movements of quick folding t-shirts might bring more order to your life, increase your dressing and save quite some time over the years. And there are other endeavours that are really, really profitable. For instance learning another language well enough to read good books in it. It will not add +X value to your life, it will add another dimension. Think about turning a 2D person from plane world into a 3D person. How much more vast would his understanding of the world be? While the price of learning that much of another language might be incredibly high, the value is even higher.

So, how do you discover these profitable learning experiences? By looking at all the Cool New Stuff that all the kids are learning, figuring out what is the "magic ingredient" that enables everybody to just get the job done without learning this one skill that is a lot of work, seemingly has not many benefits, that everybody in the industry should know but for some reason most people don't know. And then, instead of using the Cool New Stuff you go and learn that basic skill. You will be surprised that in the end, when you really mastered that one skill, you are not just able to handle all the Cool New Stuff of the next 10-500 years, you won't even need it to solve your problems.

In writing that might be learning all the different words and applications, grammar and punctuation. In software development that usually means studying ascepts of unix (parallel processing, package management, data storage, text processing, binary processing). In business that means learning balancing the books and taxes. In soccer that means shooting straight curves, basic stamina, dribbling.

You will be surprised how many partners and competitors you will beat just with mastering these boring basic skills.

</comment><comment><USER33> If I'm viewing learning as pointless, I'm forgetting about how learning anything is a practice in learning how to learn.

The need to learn how to learn is so important and poorly taught in society. There's a great online course on the subject here:

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is very true. When I was in grad school I made a group to teach data vis to grad students. The distribution of learning, in retrospect, was super lopsided: almost everyone who did our activities wasted their time; a handful became obsessed and are now professionals who use those skills and many others constantly.

</comment><comment><USER35> Am I the only one who found the referenced essay by Isaac Asimov on creativity much more interesting than the article? It seems like that essay deserves a HN thread of its own!

</comment><comment><USER36> The first thing that came to my mind after reading the post was this book -

The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge by Abraham Flexner

The second thing was - he used "cul-de-sac" instead of "dead end" :)

</comment><comment><USER37> You turn a T-shirt inside out the same way you do a plastic bag. The fact that there are a few extra holes makes no difference. I suppose someone could bring a whole lot of fancy mathematical thinking to this, but why?

</comment><comment><USER27> Math and physics are hard[0], but the rest of stuff is fairly easy. You can infer 80% from logic and experience, start learning from a high base. In any area.

[0] so you should avoid trying to reinvent the wheel here

<comment><USER38> Ah. That explains the beautiful explanations given time and again on HN, where somebody utterly clueless derives a field from first principles, and proceeds to make an utter fool of themselves.

No, you cannot infer 80% from logic and experience. It might _look_ that way, but mostly you'll be hopelessly wrong and and entertainment for anybody working in that field.

Do the hard work, or be a clown. In any field.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the greatest tip to sell domain name? - <AUTHOR> I want to sell my domain name? How do you do? <comment><USER2> Go to Flippa.com</comment>


Show HN: Hosted and open source status pages manager written in Elixir Phoenix - <AUTHOR> https://statuspal.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, I built this service to provide light and good looking status pages management, inspired by the Heroku status page (and some others), I decided to go with Elixir + Phoenix as I enjoyed it in my last project (lesen.io).

This is still work in progress, there are many features on the way but I think it can provide some value already, and hopefully I can get some feedback here so I can pick wisely on what features to work next.</comment>


How we improved Kubernetes Dashboard UI in 1.4 for your production needs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kubernetes.io/2016/10/Production-Kubernetes-Dashboard-UI-1.4-improvements_3.html <comment><USER2> Kudos to the Kube-UI team.

You folks have made huge progress since 1.3. Dashboard is looking really nice.

The one feature I am really waiting for is being able to attach a terminal to a running pod container - all from the GUI (like the cloud shell feature of GCP). That would be simply awesome.

<comment><USER3> For sure - any particular features there? Or just parity with kubectl exec?

Disclosure:I work at Google on Kubernetes

<comment><USER4> Not GP but I assume he means something like what is provided by weavescope [1]. I've tried weavescope but not kube-ui, although from what I can tell weavescope looks a little nicer and provides more functionality.

[1]: [https://github.com/weaveworks/scope](https://github.com/weaveworks/scope)

<comment><USER5> Weavescope is great, when the increase in overhead is overcome by the efficiency and specificity of the metrics it provides. In our case, WS did not justify its own existence in this sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Disclosure:I work at Google on Kubernetes

I love the direction this is going - people have been really looking forward to a single pane of glass and this gives it to them. I really wanted to call out how much the community helped out here - TONS of folks to make this great.

</comment><comment><USER6> GIFs are not effective explainer tools if the text/cursor is difficult to parse due to the low resolution/compression. (And especially not with fade in/fade out transition)

This would be a case where a video is better to demonstrate the new functionality.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the feedback. We will shoot videos to demo new capabilities as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The 1.4 Dashboard really impressed me. It moved the user experience from something mostly good for lightweight overview to something that can actually be used over running commands over kubectl. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER7> Great to see this much needed update after seeing the team work on it. Anyone interested in contributing to the UI or giving feedback should join the Kubernetes UI SIG [https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/sig- ui/R...](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/sig-ui/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER9> Fixed URL:

[http://blog.kubernetes.io/2016/10/Production-Kubernetes- Dash...](http://blog.kubernetes.io/2016/10/Production-Kubernetes-Dashboard- UI-1.4-improvements_3.html)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, we've updated the link.</comment></comment>


Neat features in Eclipse editor (that Richard Stallman wants for Emacs) - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-03/msg02254.html

<comment><USER2> tabs and compile err's in the margins would be interesting.</comment>


Is it true that being just passionate is not enough? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Is-it-true-that-being-just-passionate-is-not-enough?share=861983df&srid=dclw <comment><USER2> Just being passionate is never enough for anything. You can have all the passion in the world, but if you take no action, nothing will change. Even with passion and action, luck can play a huge factor.

Even with passion, action, and luck, things can STILL not go right (though I guess theoretically enough luck means everything will go right no matter what you do).

All in all this is a pretty bad question IMO because there's little to no context, and basically what I just stated above was like a platitude/life-fact that everyone knows probably.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. You should make sure the pig enjoys it too.

But seriously.. _this_ question, on HN?!

<comment><USER4> Isn't that a bit presumptuous? We know nothing of his/her background.</comment></comment>


NegativeScreen, invert your screen colors - <AUTHOR> https://zerowidthjoiner.net/negativescreen <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not the author, but I'm very happy to have found this tool and thought it would be helpful.</comment>


Sortfolio auction only has 24 hours left with 0 Bids - <AUTHOR> https://flippa.com/2739829-sortfolio-com-web-design-marketplace-w-220k-annual-revenue?nodupe

<comment><USER2> The comments on the listing might explain why they haven't gotten any bids. 37Signals seems to be relying on their name to sell Sortfolio as opposed to using best practices for selling sites on flippa. They haven't provided any traffic/revenue proof, responded to questions, or put any visible effort into the sale beyond listing it. Sounds like they aren't too serious about selling it on flippa.com.

<comment><USER3> They blogged about the sale.

I think one of the bigger turn offs might be the fact that the new owner will have to get everyone to setup their payment method once they switch. Because the current payment system relies on 37Signal's own.

<comment><USER4> I think this is spot on: the payment system issue is huge.

My guess is they just put the listing on flippa to attract attention. I'll bet there have been bids but nobody is paying attention to the listing and accepting them.

They certainly haven't done any of the basics, such as answering questions. One commenter wrote, "For all we know, he is dead as he has not replied to ANY questions."

I, for one, am not impressed by their behavior. It just screams arrogance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's see if Jason actually follows through with shutting it down if it doesn't sell. Remember this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941626>

<comment><USER6> I'd guess that 37signals does at least 60 million a year in revenue from their main products (100,000 paying customers [1] times at least $50/mo avg). Sortfolio is such a tiny fraction of that, but still requires occasional attention (time + money). I'd shut it down, too.

[1] [http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/jason-fried-scaling- st...](http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/jason-fried-scaling-startups)

<comment><USER7> At this point, with no clear buyers lining up, I'd have held an interview or some other more efficient process, and handed it over to an impressive entrepreneur, while keeping 25% to 40% of the company (give the entrepreneur the majority equity). Set up whatever fair protections are reasonable, and let the entrepreneur run with it, no money down. Then all but forget it exists.

Radically better option than just shutting it down.

<comment><USER8> Radically better option and dumb not to consider. There are scores of people who could turn this into a much more profitable venture. I mean hell a little toutapp email marketing, cold-calling, seo & ppc - could turn this into a decent business. But anyone would be dumb to take it sans 37signal branding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why would anyone seriously considering buying the site bid earlier than necessary? If somebody wants it, buying it at close is when you'd place your bid.

</comment><comment><USER10> You'd probably have more luck making a return on your investment by purchasing Facebook stock instead of buying Sortfolio. The whole site relies on the 37Signals payment integration and name, if someone buys this I feel sorry for them, because they won't ever see a dime of that money made back after you factor in the cost of running the site infrastructure and time spent integrating the sites payment system with something like Paypal who will take commission from each sale.

Shutting it down would be the decent thing to do here. I question whether the site makes as much money annually as 37Signals say it does. Why shut down a profitable site that probably in its current form requires hardly any maintenance? Something is fishy here, I don't know what but the whole thing wreaks of suspicion.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've tried to use Flippa before and I still don't understand the bidding process. If as a seller you don't act on a bid, it auto-expires after something like 5 days. To me it sounded like accepting a bid meant that was the end of the auction, but maybe it was just confirming the bid as an actual bid, which seems unnecessary. Either way, anything I tried to sell always had 0 bids, even though people were bidding on the sites.

<comment><USER12> It allows you to avoid having people push up the price of your auction with false bids. For higher value sites it gives you a chance to confirm the buyer is able to pay.

<comment><USER11> I just went into my account and checked... If you don't accept a bid, it automatically rejects it after 72 hours. What is the point of accepting a bid below your reserve price or expiring bids after 72 hours on a 30 day auction? Lots of messages from users wanting to know why I "rejected" their bids and I didn't know what to tell them. I understand measures to prevent artificial price inflation, but anytime bids started becoming competitive, they would start to expire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think they set the minimum bid too high.

The fear that there will be a lot of customers who fail to reenroll after the transfer is well founded. Ditto to the idea that it wouldn't survive independent of the 37signals brand. Consequently, an opening bid at greater than one year revenue is much too high.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. One thing I found on eBay was to always start with a low price. Quite often $1. People get involved that otherwise wouldn't. It normally ends up with a much higher ending price than normal, because many people are bidding, not just 1-2

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No wonder. I would not pay (or advise anyone to pay) half a mil for a business with # of customers in the low hundreds, some of whom have anecdotally confessed to very low efficacy/value from it in previous HN threads.

Intuitively, 37signals was in a very rare position in the market to immediately funnel traffic to this service and it still did not take off into thousands of paying customers and $1M+ of annual revenue.

I don't believe the ask price is _fair_ as much as it is _high enough_ to maintain the 37signals brand and image. A couple hundred K lower, and it is too little for them to bother. I think it might have had takers in the $70k - $120k (basically salvage price) range.

</comment><comment><USER16> This would have been a lot more successful if they privately shopped it around and had a plan to make the payments change seamless. If I am paying this site currently I would be uneasy about the way it is possibly changing hands.

Also a lot of people paying for it may have been attracted by the 37 signals brand.

</comment><comment><USER17> Well now what changed? They made it very clear in both the post and on HN that if they didn't get $480,000 they would close it down (very arrogantly I might add):

"The price is $480,000, cash. No special deals, no partial payments now the rest later, no equity in your company, etc. $480,000 cash and it's yours."

... "If you're interested at $480,000, please email me direct at"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941230>

"Sortfolio isn't right for us anymore. Our attention is elsewhere. If we can sell it for a fair price (we consider $480,000 fair), then we'll sell it. If not, we'll close it down and move on."

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3172-sortfolio-going-once- goi...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3172-sortfolio-going-once-going-twice)

The flippa auction says $250,000 is the minimum bid.

They weren't even willing to offer a commission to a broker. They wanted $480,000 nothing less.

</comment><comment><USER18> more like floppa.com

<comment><USER19> Sometimes the best comments are at the bottom. Nice one. ;)</comment></comment>


Why I Still have faith in LastPass - <AUTHOR> http://www.curiousmitch.com/2015/06/why-i-still-have-faith-in-lastpass

<comment><USER3> My eyes have been opened - I tried 1Password and I'm never going back to LastPass. I'm yet to find a single thing LastPass is better at.

<comment><USER4> Does 1Password have a web based version?

<comment><USER5> The backup creates a web app, '1Password Anywhere'. It's nice how they do it since it's self-hosted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Naive people are naive and this is a false dichotomy. Don't recidivate - <USER2> are better-reputation alternatives!

<comment><USER7> What alternatives would you recommend?

<comment><USER6> Most people I know use 1Password. From the comments made here, 1Password also looks to be the best of both worlds and the most popular alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you find your knees get sore with the astroturf?</comment>