Ask HN: Finishing science program - should I switch to programming? - <AUTHOR>

I'm mid-20s and finishing my undergrad ("hard" science) soon at a half-decent school.  However, I'm ambivalent about continuing on as I'm not sure I have much to offer as a graduate student in my field.  ("Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician" - David Hilbert).
This, and reading threads like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310355,  leaves me worrying that in a few months I'll be just another science grad with no career path.  I like CS but I feel that my skills (a mixture of pure and applied math, physics, a little CS, and stats) aren't really valuable to anyone and I don't know what to do to change that.
I've tried several times to learn web programming, but haven't managed to get deeply into it after encountering too much framework magic, or too much language ugliness (I like Lisps and ilk, but where are the mature, understandable web stacks to learn from?), or feeling that I'm dishearteningly far from understanding how a full-size interactive web site really functions.  At the same time I don't even know if this is something I want to do - maybe I'm too perfectionist or thin-skinned or something, but maybe it's not a field where I can really do contribute something worthwhile - I have no idea.  I thought about something more mathematical like machine learning or something more systems-oriented but again don't think I can develop useful facility in these areas during the next semester or so.
So apparently I don't really know what I'm asking.  As it stands, maybe I have the wrong mindset for programming (see above) - but should I try to do something more 'academic' (like try to get into a CS or stats grad program) or what?  Should I just try to be more obsessive/less perfectionist or is programming the wrong choice?  What about in the short term?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Perhaps instead of asking whether or not you want to do programming, ask what industry interests you. A general science background should do you a lot of good, especially if you can also write and speak intelligently. Being able to write software is an added bonus that should make you more effective.

I personally can't stand web programming either. Although most startups you read about here are web companies, the world is much larger than that. I write simulation software. Other people do business applications. Some people work in finance and some work in defense.

If you are concerned that your skills do not directly translate to an industry or you are having a hard time getting hired, try finding the smaller(not necessarily startup) companies in your industry. I have found that it is much easier for somebody with more general technical skills to get hired at a smaller place.

Hope this helps and good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever you do in future,but learning to program is a very good plan.

After 10.5 years in Sales and at 34 years of age, I am learning it now.

Trust me, you would never regret this decision of yours.

Good luck!!!

</comment><comment><USER4> Take a wait and see attitude for now. Work in your field and get a sense of the opportunities. In ecology one runs into programming (models, data analysis, etc.) quite often.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm in a rather similar situation (23/m/just finished Molecular Biology/Business degree). Personally, I'm still interested in the life sciences, but the flexibility and salary of for-profit business is much more attractive than the academic career. So I started teaching myself C++/Java/perl while looking for jobs.

There are many applications of CS, have you thought about Finance (quant or operations/bioinformatics/defense industry (if you are a usa citizen)....</comment>


TechCrunch covered Vic Gundotra's departure badly - <AUTHOR> http://mattcruikshank.blogspot.com/2014_04_01_archive.html Worst of all, their article is being quoted as a "Report." <comment><USER3> _> They just said that they no longer consider social to be a separate unit, but now will be potentially integrated to everything they do. How is that the same thing as giving up on social?_

A product that is everybody's second priority is nobody's first priority.

You can see how this plays out in practice by looking at this other bit from the TC article:

"One big change for Google+ is that there will no longer be a policy of 'required' Google+ integrations for Google products, something that has become de rigueur for most product updates."

Assuming this is true, it tells you everything you need to know about G+'s current position in the Google portfolio: it's been demoted from something strategic, something _fundamental,_ to an optional add-on.

You can argue whether that's a good move or not (I think it is), but you can't really argue that it's not a step down. Because going from "this is part of what it means to be a Google product" to "this is something useful we'll let individual units decide whether to use or not" is definitely a step down.

<comment><USER4> To me, the distinction depends on whether they allow non-plus social integration. That is, if I can leave comments on X and that comment exists _outside_ of the Google Plus infrastructure? Then Plus is dead.

Otherwise? Plus is fine. That's the question. Is it "G+ is no longer mandatory" or is it "Commentary/messages can go outside of G+".

The former means G+ is alive and well. The latter means it's dead.

<comment><USER5> How do you feel the same way about websites that require you to use Facebook, Disqus, or Livefyre to comment on the site? Do you choose not to participate if they require one of those?

<comment><USER6> I participate on Disqus, but only on economics and tech blogs. Effectively, I've compartmentalized my Disqus identity to a particular persona (not much different to my HN one).

I don't comment on any website using Facebook. Actually, I have FB completely blocked in my primary browser, so I never even see any assets served up by facebook.com or fbcdn.net etc. If there is a Facebook comment section, I don't see it.

It's a matter of identity and overlaps in facades.

In real life I behave differently in business meetings, in pub chats with coworkers and other people in the industry, at college friend meetups, at secondary school friend meetups, at family meetups. I'm effectively different people with different shared culture for all these people. Comments I make in one context will not translate, and in some cases may even offend, in one of the other contexts because it will rely on the culture shared with that group - especially when the culture was created when I was much younger.

This is why wider web Facebook identity is abhorrent to me, just as much or almost more so than Google+ unified identity. The straw that broke the back of Google+ for me was Youtube comments. When I couldn't leave a comment on a silly cat video without wondering if it was showing up to my business contacts, I deleted my Google+ profile so that I could break the link with my YT account. I couldn't find any other way to break the link, and Google+'s benefits, such as they are, weigh so little with me that I would, and have, give them up in a heartbeat in order to be able to make another pseudonymous comment on YT.

So the question to me is more subtle than non-mandatory Google+ integration meaning Google+ is dead. Non-integration of Google+ with YT is all positive, as far as I'm concerned. And more deeply, for people who live more of their lives online (rather than especially older relatives who mostly use the internet to keep in contact with family and close friends), the idea of a single unified identity for the internet is fundamentally a non-starter. So any move from Google to make it non-mandatory is actually the only workable way forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TC is mostly right.

The usual motivation for making new products is to satisfy users' needs, to make their lives better. Google didn't make Google+ to give value to consumers. They made it because they feared Facebook.* Without Facebook, there would be no Google+. That's the fundamental problem – Google+ provides value only to a minority of Google users – why force it down everyone's throats?

As Steve Yegge said: "Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that's not why they are successful."

Google still doesn't understand social and people. Facebook is successful because it feeds on (or exploits?) specific psychological needs. Technology and user interface are secondary factors.

* To be more specific, I think that the #1 reason they've built Google+ was to extract friend lists (social graph), because they've thought that this data can improve their other products. Their line of thinking was "If Facebook has social data and we don't, they'll be able to make a better search engine or an ad network." They've seen this as a big threat to their core business. But making a product just to exctract data is doomed to fail.

<comment><USER8> Facebook is successful because it is successful. Google+ can serve the same psychological needs, unfortunately it's third in a market in which Facebook and Twitter happened first.

<comment><USER9> Facebook itself was third to market in social networking, after Friendster and MySpace. The latter was heavily entrenched and very successful when Facebook started unseating it.

G+ definitely suffered by coming to market after FB and Twitter, but that's not the whole of the story. More specifically, it came to market after Facebook and Twitter, without doing anything fundamentally different, better, or more useful than Facebook or Twitter. (Circles, the putative differentiating factor, added more of a burden than a solution to the standard social networking UX.)

Late entrants can sometimes win; Google _and_ Facebook were pretty far from the first movers in their respective markets. The key is that late entrants need to be significantly better than anyone who's come before them. G+ was not.

<comment><USER7> > Circles, the putative differentiating factor, added more of a burden than a > solution to the standard social networking UX.

+1 I like what Yishan Wong (ex-Facebook executive) said about circles:

"if it represents the leading edge of thought regarding social networking within Google ... that seem to indicate that Google's ability to design and deploy a successful social networking product is further behind than previously thought"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are a lot of reasons to attack TechCrunch, but their Google+ coverage isn't one of them. If you've friends at google, you know almost everything reported by TC rings true. For example, an ex YouTuber friend of mine told me a long time ago how pissed him and other YouTubers were at google+ being shoved down their throats to inflate Plus metrics.

<comment><USER4> Honestly? Unifying the commenting systems was a great idea. Having every Google application sport its own commenting system is unnecessary balkanization.

The problem is that Google+ came into that space from being a Facebook clone instead of being a comment platform. G+ should have been designed and built as a replacement for Disqus instead of a replacement for Facebook, and then it would've gone much better for Youtube/Blogger et al. For example, a Disqus- replacement would have obviously known that "Real names" was a terrible idea and the host of the comment thread (the Youtube page or whatnot) needs to have a lot of control over moderation.

<comment><USER10> Here's an example of how YouTube comments suck: if you post a video on your google+ with a comment like "hey guys watch this", that post appears as a _comment_ on that video's page. So now you have a bunch of comments on videos saying "Just found this cool video" or "you have to watch this"...something that makes no sense to the typical viewer.

<comment><USER11> It's even worse for the content creator. Over the last two weeks a video I put on YouTube spiked to millions of views and trying to track the comments is insane.

You get an email about activity, you see activity on the YouTube comments, you see activity through G+ notifications -- and none of it makes sense.

Did this action occur on G+? YouTube? Is this a reply to something somewhere else? What the hell is going on?

I don't mind G+ integration at all, and I think it's a good step forward, but it is simply not working well on services like YouTube at the moment and impedes use.

Also, spam control for comments is just broken. Scroll down, hover, maybe the yellow "review spam comments" box appears and maybe it doesn't. I found it interesting that G+ shares were very, very frequently marked as spam.

<comment><USER4> That perfectly shows

a) why G+ integration was a great idea, and

b) how thoroughly Google screwed up the implementation of that great idea.

If somebody comments on your Youtube post? You want to know about it. If somebody posts it to their public G+ page? You want to know about it. If somebody comments on that G+ post? You want to know about it.

Giving you a single place to drink that fire-hose of information? Great idea!

Intertwingling all those concepts together into a single mixed-up unfilterable slurry of commenting? Holy crap no wrong don't do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Social is a flavor enhancer, like salt. It's a great flavor enhancer, but you don't want to eat it on it's own.

Social + news = Facebook wall

Social + location = Foursquare

Social + YouTube = Better YouTube comments. Sorry, but it does

Social + Search = Knowing that when I search for a thing, I mean the one my friend likes, not the similarly named one he doesn't.

Social + Maps = Seeing that my friend goes to this restaurant and likes it.

Social + video calling = A phone directory and avatars.

FB Platform is the biggest thing FB produce. But their most widely end user app is wall, which sits on their platform.

As someone who never, ever, logs into plus.google.com, I still know I use gplus all the time from finding new cafes in London. It's a super great flavor enhancer.

<comment><USER13> >> Social + Search = Knowing that when I search for a thing, I mean the one my friend likes, not the similarly named one he doesn't.

This is where Google have gone wrong. I don't want my search results to be affected by signals from my friends. They don't search for the same things as me.

I want my search results to be ranked with signals from other relevant people... and I don't know who these people are.

Google got it right first time around. PageRank captures the link juice from these relevant people. C# bloggers linking to open source projects. F1 fans linking to interesting articles. Apple bloggers linking to rumours.

Google+ puts the onus on me to decide who is relevant and I don't know. Using this as signal for searching is making me do Google's job.

<comment><USER8> I wanted to say exactly that. My friends are not like me. Even the friends I have that are software developers are not interested in the same things. Heck, even the people I work directly with aren't interested in the same things.

> _I want my search results to be ranked with signals from other relevant > people... and I don 't know who these people are._

This is were you're partially wrong. Personally I know many people that I'd like to be included in my search ranking as signals. The problem is - <USER2> people are only a subset of the people that I follow on Twitter or Google+.

The problem with "Follow" or "Add as Friend" or whatever these social networks are calling it - is that some people are more interesting than others. Some people I follow simply because they are my friends. While other people I follow because I'm interested in whatever they've got to say. And this is the problem that Google should solve.

<comment><USER14> I wonder if adding an "authoritativeness/trust" rank to each user you follow would help with this. Whenever you'd add someone on a social network, you'd be asked to choose a number between 1-5 or something that tells the SN's recommendation system how much weight they should be given when choosing stories to show you or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm more embarrassed for the Xooglers and people still oblivious to the fact Google is rapidly turning into Microsoft, in the PG essay sense, with the exception that in some emerging areas they do still look dangerous.

The recent FB numbers are going to have been a very nasty awakening to a lot of them. The defensiveness around any Google related criticism is utterly incredible.

</comment><comment><USER16> TechCrunch has always been a rag publication. They do good articles like their recent piece on the SF rent, but the amount of useful signals are flooded by the low effort noise.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately. TechCrunch is one of the very few media outlets that I can say I've put in my mental spamfilter. They flipped my bozo bit years ago due to the number of times their reporting on situations I'm close to has deviated breathlessly from the on-the-ground reality of the situation.

I actually read and enjoyed their recent article on San Francisco housing... But the responsible thing for me to do next is to follow up via alternate information sources if I want to know more, because I can't trust TC to relay the facts without narrative distortion.

They are very good storytellers who allow the crafted narrative to outstrip the reality too often for my taste.

<comment><USER18> The TechCrunch of today is a _lot_ different than the TechCrunch of years ago, due to the editorial shakeups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If Google Plus is now just going to be shorthand for social features and data integration, then it seems to me that "Google Plus" s basically dead. Because you don't need a product name and a product team for social features and data integration. Those are just things that anyone includes when building products these days.

On any other web platform this set of functionality is just called having an account. For example Amazon has had social features (reviews and forums) and data integration for years, but they did not call it Amazon Plus. It's just part of the service.

Likewise, I expect Google to just start talking about Google Accounts eventually. It's already sort of tortured to force Google Plus nomenclature into everything, like managing brand YouTube channels for instance.

And, behind all of this, I think companies are realizing that social graph data is not as valuable as they once thought it was, because it's constructed self-consciously. We all make decisions about friend requests carefully now. It's become so fraught with stress that people are now flocking to anonymous social tools.

I can tell you that my relationships embodied on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter, etc do NOT accurately reflect the real-life state of my social relationships. And I bet the same is true for you.

<comment><USER20> _Those are just things that anyone includes when building products these days._

\--Exactly

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> gotta agree more with techcrunch than a groupthink former employee from google.

google+ is something people these days joke about, like that service you're forced to sign up to but nobody uses.

yes, they are integrating features to collect data across their platforms, but essentially google+ as something people come to like facebook is the walking dead.

<comment><USER22> I haven't heard joking about G+ any more than I have about FB.

FB is where you go to have your grandma and aunt write weird messages. G+ is where you go to share photography and travel logs. Sure, people do each of those things on both platforms, but g+ is in no way 'dead' or even close to it just because you don't personally use it.

<comment><USER23> The only time I ever see G+ being used is for random geek blog posts on HN from time to time. Virtually everyone I know is on FB.

<comment><USER22> That's the thing: the people on G+ seem to use it more as a professional networking tool (like LinkedIn without recruiter spam and more flexibility on what you post). I don't have any friends on G+, but I also don't WANT or NEED them on it. I use it to keep up on some tech stuff and look at photos.

Facebook and G+, while both being "social networks," function totally differently. Whether google wanted it to be a direct competitor or not, it's just filling a different niche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a useful piece of writing. Underlying it, however, is some kind of strange "status anxiety" that is all-to-prevalent in Silicon Valley. Nobody wants to be given the "scarlet letter" of failure ("G+"!) on their resume...? Understandable. Its also understandable to be ~annoyed when the media circus feels the need to pontificate on the "family politics" of any large/insular organization. That being said, the majority of the points here don't seem to be controversial enough (on either side) to get too worked up over. At a Macro-level, G+ had a big narrative of power-accretion and increasing centrality (for several years). This is now being un-wound. Whether you want to call that: (1) Failure; (2) engineered obsolescence; or (3) success! seems to matter less than the underlying story remains the same. Where power/influence (and hence: status) was once accreting to a brand (G+) it is now dissapating. This is such a non-event, that it should just be considered like any other documentary on the Discovery Channel. It has been highly edited for our viewing/entertainment pleasure, but at the of the day...on the african savanna...life & death go on hand in hand for predator and prey...some times its ugly and messy...but it is just the nature of the 'circle of life'.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't know why some in tech community hate facebook (and thus automatically love Google+), but in my opinion Google+ had a terrible interface and nobody I know ever used it - I find Facebook much, much better (not to mention that everybody I care about is there).

Despite liking Google, I find Google+ a trainwreck - it was time for Google to either get out of this business of competing with Facebook or completely revamping Google+. It seems that they chose the former.

</comment><comment><USER25> From "Trust Me I'm Lying":

" _When you see "We're hearing reports" know that reports could mean anything from random mentions on Twitter to message board posts, or worse.

When you see "Sources tell us..." know that these sources are not vetted, they are rarely corroborated, and they are desperate for attention.

When you see "which means" or "meaning that" or "will result in" or any other kind of interpretation or analysis know that the blogger who did it likely has absolutely zero training or expertise in the field they are opining about. Nor did they have the time or motivation to learn. Nor do they mind being wildly, wildly off the mark, because there aren't any consequences."_

That unattributed sources are cited no fewer than ten times in this post is laughable. Yet people still read TechCrunch because it's not exciting to admit that "we don't really have any clue what is going on because we don't work at Google and have to rely on some flimsy sources."

</comment><comment><USER26> > literally pushing people who know how to do social into every nook and > cranny of Google.

Maybe I'm missing something, but who are those people at Google? Or is this tongue-in-cheek writing?

And yes, Google has missed the train on both WhatsApp (mentioned in the article) and Instagram (not mentioned).

</comment><comment><USER18> > _Did your editor write the "walking dead" headline without reading the > article?_

The authors of the article are both the co-head editors of TechCrunch.

</comment><comment><USER27> If anyone ever read Google+ as a website like Facebook, they were getting it completely wrong. Google+'s core objective has always been to add social functionality to every Google product. Google+ is plumbing.

<comment><USER28> > If anyone ever read Google+ as a website like Facebook, they were getting it > completely wrong.

Most people do this and that isn't their fault... it's Google's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "What we're hearing from multiple sources is that Google+ will no longer be considered a product, but a platform... Oh, okay, that makes some sense. They have created the features necessary to integrate Google+ into everything they do from now on. Makes sense. "

If G+ was originally intended to be a platform, rather than a product, this would make sense. And I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but it seems to me that everything points to them wanting this to be a facebook-killing product...not a platform on which to build other things.

</comment><comment><USER30> 2010:

> Schmidt: Our view of social is a little different than what everyone has > been writing. we want our core products to get better from social > information. > We are trying to add a social component [to google's core > products] to make them even better.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/16/details-on-the-google- socia...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/16/details-on-the-google-social-layer- emerge/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Am I wrong for hoping TechCrunch is right?

I feel like any interaction I have with Google services, I'm defending myself against getting an unwanted G+ account.

</comment><comment><USER32> While I may agree with the sentiment, this meta-piece is just as speculative (moreso, actually) than the original TC piece.

</comment><comment><USER33> Facebook's breakup of the big blue app into messaging and perhaps in the near future other specialty apps seems like part of the same phenomenon. Google+ is actually ahead of that curve because the Google identity is only becoming more important to their ecosystem, regardless of how one interacts with it.

<comment><USER13> Google is ahead of Facebook?

Ha ha ha ha...

<comment><AUTHOR> On some things, yes, very much so.

I'll just use my Facebook browser on my Facebook phone running Facebook Operating System to Facebook search for job openings where I can post my resume that I wrote in Facebook Docs, and hope the recruiter will send me a Facebook email or leave a Facebook voicemail. After that, I'll open up Facebook maps to find a take-out restaurant my friends reviewed, then I'll rent some Facebook movies my friends recommended. Or maybe I'll talk a walk, if Facebook Now says the weather is good where I am. While I'm walking, maybe I can record a video of the loons on my lake again, and post it to Facebook video. Oh, I better Facebook Keep a reminder to myself to pick up some milk.

My identity was subtly integrated into each of those things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't care if it's true or not, I want to believe. No need to rain on my parade.

But most importantly, does the blog author work at Google, or has connections that are more reliable than the ones Techcrunch has? I feel like this is pretty important to know in regards to who I should believe.

<comment><USER35> It's a badly written article by someone who has no additional information. I have no idea how it got to the top of HN but I wouldn't be worried. I'm pretty sure Google+ is dead now in the way that Google Reader was dead for years before they finally shut it down.

<comment><USER18> Articles which portray TechCrunch in a negative light tend to get lots of upvotes. Hacker News really, really doesn't like TC for some reason.

<comment><USER35> I remember this being the reason:

[http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/10/little-known-hacker-news- is...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/10/little-known-hacker-news-is-my-first- read-every-morning/)

<comment><USER20> _It's one of the best places to find information on startups we haven't heard about yet. And, better, the community is jerk-free. Comments are mostly helpful, thoughtful and interesting._

Ah, dont forget to label this (2008) ;D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Perhaps relevant: the Silicon Valley drama reminds me of the TV show "Peyton Place" that was on when I was a teenager.

I try to limit my time reading the news (and then a sample of international news) and TV, but this drama fills in the need to waste a little time on melodrama.

</comment><comment><USER37> > They just said that they no longer consider social to be a separate unit, > but now will be potentially integrated to everything they do.

Considering that being integrated into everything was one of the core problems of Google+, I fail to see how this is a smart move.

</comment><comment><USER38> On MR the other day I saw a good post mention that one way to look at an argument is to see whether the author is taking the attitude ' _can_ I believe this?' or ' _must_ I believe this?' It's clear OP is the latter.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have to agree with Matt - the hitpiece article is crap and smacks of how TC gleefully wrote about Yahoo's demise every time it could a few years back.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm going to be honest, until TechCrunch's article, I had thought that Google+ was already done. I haven't heard a single compelling reason to use it outside hangouts, but hangouts is not Google+. So as much as I hate to agree with TechCrunch, they see the writing on the wall.

<comment><USER41> 300 million monthly active users... what a dead product.

<comment><USER42> That number is inflated by adding YouTube users, which was a kind of social network with it's own kind of audience (notoriously trollish in some ways) before the shotgun wedding to G+.

My follower growth has slowed. The first product page I put on Google+ (a book about Android) got many followers quickly. Same with my personal page. The second time I put up a product page for a book, the response was much attenuated, and my follower growth has been slow and low quality. It wasn't great quality on Facebook either, but it was much faster. Maybe I need to see how well product pages would do on LinkedIn.

<comment> mkr-hn I started when G+ launched. 5500+ circlings, 2500+ to my first product page. Now I'm lucky if I get a single comment or +1. Meanwhile, I have 81 friends on Facebook and 10 followers, and it's a rare post that doesn't get comments and likes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Next thing you know, they bring Google Reader back...

</comment><comment><USER44> The power of media: connect facts in a way that shows a story that people want to be true, and it might just cause it to happen.

</comment><comment><USER45> People actually expect decent journalism from Techcrunch?

Huh. They've been barely keeping it above the gutter several for years.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me be very clear:

Anyone is welcome to conclude that Google+ is dead. Facebook still exists as a company. You personally don't use it. You don't like the font. Whatever...

I don't think it's dead. I use Google+ every day, and I'm looking forward to more of it.

But if a news site is going to make a conclusion, the arguments they use should be logical.

I assert that TechCrunch's specific arguments are not good ones.

<comment><USER46> You're awfully upset about this. Why is that?

You used to work at Google. Were you on the Google+ team?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm okay with people believing G+ is dead if they want to.

But this is a news article concluding G+ is dead, based on stated arguments.

Except the arguments are lousy.

Lousy journalism is bad for everyone.</comment></comment></comment>


New York Times Experiments with Ways to Fight Ad Blocking - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-times-experiments-with-ways-to-fight-ad-blocking-1457378218 <comment><USER2> _"The goal is to inform users of the harm of ad blocking and to encourage the whitelisting of nytimes.com. Ad blockers do not serve the long term interest of consumers. The creation of quality news content is expensive and digital advertising is one way that The New York Times and other high quality news providers fund news gathering operations," the New York Times spokeswoman wrote in an email._

She's wrong: Ad blockers don't serve the long term interest of _the NY Times_ ; customers apparently like ad blockers. It reflects a self-centered view of the world when you think your customers have the same interest you do, including your profitability and success. Your customers want the news and apparently don't like your ads, and another news website is a click/tap away. You'd better learn what your customers' interests are and serve them, not vice versa.

I happen to value the NY Times and hope they succeed. Often what I read about them reflects this kind of insular thinking, stereotypical of a long-time incumbant unable to even see, much less adjust to changes around them. It's worrying.

<comment><USER3> You haven't demonstrated convincingly that she is wrong. At best you've explained why ad blockers don't serve the short-term interests of those who consume the NYTimes. Your mistake is that you extrapolate that the short-term interests of consumers are aligned with their long-term interests.

I suggest you read Garrett Hardin's writings about The Tragedy of the Commons, so you can see how one's short-term and long-term interests are not always aligned and that finding mechanisms to curtail one's own and others' short- term interests might be in most's long-term interests. You might also be interested in Elinor Ostram's work on managing the commons, for which she won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

(Of course examples of short- and long-term interests not being aligned abound -- high tobacco use, high alcohol use, high-cholesterol diets, etc.)

I think the key question is whether NYTimes' readers' long-term interests are closely aligned with the NYTimes' long-term interests. I suspect they are (disclosure: I pay monthly for online access). Many of us believe the NYTimes produces quality content, primarily news reporting, that's expensive to produce. And we realize if we want to have long-term access to it, the NYTimes needs to generate income by various means, which can include subscriptions and advertising.

Furthermore, your use of the term "customer" for those who neither subscribe nor view the ads is problematic and defies the common definition of "customer".

<comment><USER2> Interesting points. One observation I'd make: The New York Times is not the Commons; it's not a shared public good like a public park. It's a business, owned by some people in particular who are responsible for it.

They do provide a public good, but so do GE, Hacker News, politicians, and a hot dog vendor. (I happen to particularly value the NY Times' goods.)

<comment><USER3> I was not claiming the NYTimes is a commons. Rather I was using the commons as an example of a) how one's short- and long-term interests are not always aligned, and b) how mechanisms that curtail one's own short-term interests can benefit one's long-term interests.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Was Huxley right? - <AUTHOR> http://www.hakiri.org/static/blog/2010/01/was-huxley-right.jpg

<comment><USER2> Far from being mutually contradictory, these concerns have actually been closely linked throughout history. The phrase "bread and circuses" is often associated with the fear of powerful elites manipulating pop-culture levers to control the masses, while the term "noblesse oblige" is common a shorthand term for the idea that powerful elites bear some higher responsibility for maintaining order in a world dominated by easily distracted masses.

Elite, high-brow HN readers wanting to know more might be interested in Eric Alterman's 2008 New Yorker article, "Out of Print: The Death and Life of the American Newspaper" (<http://nyr.kr/11PL44>), while the mass of low-brow HN readers might prefer the 2006 Mike Judge movie Idiocracy (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/>).</comment>


The 'net was meant to empower users, but it has turned us into victims - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/09/andrew-keen-internet-not-answer-interview

<comment><USER2> Music to my ears, considering I've been harping on the same theme. I keep hearing that 'artists need to accept hteir business model is going away and so on, but it's not like there's a good alternative business model, although crowdfunding platforms are at least an innovation that attempts to address this. The fact is that an awful lot of digital culture consumers and promoters have a poor grasp of economics, and fail to appreciate that the creation of quality content is often a capital-intensive or labor-intensive exercise.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you vote for on a blockchain-based e-vote? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> I am currently participating in a blockchain hackathon. Our group has pivoted away from doing a government-based blockchain e-vote system because of proof of identity / voter fraud problems. We are considering doing a lottery system based on voter turnout.

I would really appreciate if you let me know more about your opinions on why / why not voting should be done on blockchain. [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTpjHU_weirIWMMLyc...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTpjHU_weirIWMMLycnDEHWzv6untiQVPnHcMuFE5WI6PL7Q/viewform?usp=sf_link)

</comment><comment><USER2> Blockchain is a bad fit for voting. Cryptographers have thought about electronic voting for a long time already, and the requirements look nothing like what blockchain provides.</comment>


Apple Gets Tech Industry Backing in iPhone Dispute, Despite Misgivings - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/technology/tech-rallies-to-apples-defense-but-not-without-some-hand-wringing.html <comment><USER2> Did anyone else catch part of the congressional hearing on CSPAN?

I was appalled that some of the representatives want Apple to provide legislation that will make them unlock the phone under certain conditions.

The 1st and 5th amendment are what apples general counsel are arguing here. Code is protected speech so Apple is being compelled to speak by the Govt. They also argue the 5th amendment is being infringed because the FBI is using an All Writs Act which subverts due process.

It's really unfortunate Congress will most likely pass legislation requiring Apple to do this in the future (most likely for San Bernadino type cases but not the drug case mentioned in the acticle). It's gonna be up to the courts to determine whether or not it violates the constitution.

<comment><USER3> I doubt the "code is speech" argument will hold up when the only speaking is to a device that the government has the court-granted right to access. Apple isn't being asked to publish the modified iOS version at-large. Also, commercial speech has substantially less protection than political speech.

<comment><USER4> You misunderstand the notion. Happens often because I think " _speech_ " in this case is a misnomer, as it makes people believe that it's about having a monologue or a dialog. That's not the case. This freedom is about expression in all its forms. Which for example includes art, which is the act of creating artifacts to be primarily appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. Art is not necessarily about the author wanting to speak.

Going back to software, the freedom of expression is important, because software, functioning like an extension of us, of our intellect, probably more than any other human occupation except for art, happens to be very opinionated, to expose _values_ and to incite both hope and despair for our future. It's not without reason that software development gets compared with making art.

It's not a wonder that Apple is taking a stand now. Any company worth its salt has values declared long ago and breaking those values is betraying your customers, not to mention that it can also hurt your bottom line. And the people at such companies are more than just cogs in the machine. Many of them work for their paychecks, sure, but many also have gotten in this industry to make a difference and now they risk being coerced in doing something they probably don't believe in.

Take Apple. They promised security and privacy to their customers and I'm sure many people at Apple worked hard to deliver that. How would you feel if you considered this to be your life's work, only to be forced later to aid in doing the exact opposite? Now that's an issue of freedom of expression ;-)

<comment><USER3> You're stretching the definition of free speech so far that any government regulation of industry would become a First Amendment violation. Not even during the Lochner era was such an expansive reading of rights accepted by the courts.

All of these large tech companies have massive government compliance programs. They regularly comply with government subpoenas for account information that they _can_ access. They most certainly have developed custom software and workflows to make their compliance easier. I don't see how this request is a greater burden than that.

> _How would you feel if you considered this to be your life 's work, only to > be forced later to aid in doing the exact opposite? Now that's an issue of > freedom of expression ;-)_

I'd feel pretty silly for thinking that I couldn't be compelled by the government to produce secrets I possess. If want to protect my customers from the government, I have to protect them from myself as well. You'd need some kind of multi-party trust system that allows people to require multiple third- party signatures before any code is loaded by the device. Free expression doesn't mean that the government has to refrain from exercise its legitimate authority, just avoid raining reality onto your premature parade.

<comment><USER4> But this isn't about being compelled by the government to produce secrets. This is about the government wanting you to produce malicious code that you're going to give your customers, signed with your keys. So those customers will receive that code from you, signed in your name.

<comment><USER3> > _This is about the government wanting you to produce malicious code that you > 're going to give your customers, signed with your keys. So those customers > will receive that code from you, signed in your name._

That's just not true. The government is not asking Apple to release this to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find this to be really inspiring that despite how much Apple is rivals with other tech giants, they can still band together and back up their competition. Microsoft and others could have turned the other cheek and talked about how selfish Apple was, but then didn't. They banded together and stood behind Apple's decision. Really powerful message.

<comment> ygjb-dupe This is less an issue of banding together behind Apple's decision, and more about retaining moral and intellectual control of their software.

If the government can get a warrant to force you to ship a patch, regardless of the scope, you are giving the government control over every aspect of how you write code, and the next logical step is a CALEA style requirements that ensures that your build process has lawful code injection capabilities.

I can't even begin to say how awful that would be for the entire industry.

<comment><USER6> How would that even work? What if I use a raspberry pi that I've added GSM and put in a phone like case, but am running Debian? I'm guessing only a very tiny number of people would be happy with this once the ramifications became clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> DOJ will be be appealing, naturally. They are after a supreme court ruling setting precedent, not a phone.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://qz.com/332059/apple-is-reportedly-giving-the- chinese-...](http://qz.com/332059/apple-is-reportedly-giving-the-chinese- government-access-to-its-devices-for-a-security-assessment/)

Lucky for USA citizens they are not Chinese.

Why does Apple find privacy okay in USA and not okay in China? I don't quite get the consistency in the position.

<comment> ygjb-dupe Since people seem to think this is an easy set of points to win, consider:

* Apple has virtually no ability to shape policy in China (at least, in comparison to western democracies) * China (the government, not the people) is not subject to the same limitations as the US government * Apple depends on China for a great deal of things, including manufacturing, and a market for products * If Apple can't manufacture and market it's products in China, it's products become more expensive and less available all over the world. * China passed laws and regulations that demand access to source code

Apple choosing to fight this battle is undoubtedly motivated by the potential business impact of supplying the software that the US government has demanded, and there is no doubt in my mind that if it was a better long term move for Apple, then it's leadership team would concede, and ship the code they were asked for (see: [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2472002/endpoint- securi...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2472002/endpoint- security/hacked-memo-leaked--apple--nokia--rim-supply-backdoors-for-gov-t- intercept-.html) among other instances).

Apple is using the polarizing nature of the technical details at hand in light of modern concerns about the surveillance state to frame it's argument against what would be a very bad legal precedent that would be disastrous for Apple, and for the tech sector in general.

I don't quite understand where your perceived lack of consistency is - are you implying that Apple didn't try to use every tool at it's disposal to do the best thing for it's investors?

<comment><USER8> Oh no, I do think they think in their investor's bests interests. I am not sure the investors' interests are in sync with more freedom for any citizens on earth.

I am just accepting the fact the Apple has a very variable concern about freedom of speech and privacy when their business is concerned.

Like when workers are prevented from exercising their freedom to choose a new job and make competition works their way and Apple take part into a no poaching agreement.

Then I look at IT's budget, their contribution to the world taxes and I clearly think that they do not really care about the laws of the common people.

And then I am concerned by companies that are richer than most governments in the world and how they behave when they have enough power.

Should we accept that big power without control and just hope for the better?

Remember UK and France used to have bad experiences with such huge companies and that it did not ended well for anyone. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To be honest I expected a bit more. If not more endorsement of Apple, some more, well, _opinion_. This read like a news piece with the word "persuasively" as the only bit of subjectivity. It's an odd piece overall.

<comment><USER10> Not sure if you're unaware, but the NYT editorial board formally endorsed Apple on February 18th: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/opinion/why-apple- is-right...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/opinion/why-apple-is-right-to- challenge-an-order-to-help-the-fbi.html)

I don't see any reason for them to mix additional opinion into their news coverage.

<comment><USER11> If it's merely meant to be news coverage, it shouldn't be in the opinion section.

<comment><USER12> This must be the first time someone complains about the NYT newsroom invading the editorial section :)

I believe expectations of what constitutes an opinion piece have changed with the advent of blogs/talk radio etc. At the Times, that style is reserved for columnists while the opinion pieces that express the opinion of the institution itself are more measured. In this case, they're just basically endorsing the judge's position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish I could say the same thing about your Android phone. p.s. Let the downvoting begin now!

</comment><comment><USER14> Locked Phone = can not change carrier.</comment>


Why Apple Doesn't Trust Developers - <AUTHOR> http://statictext.tumblr.com/post/3676219047/trust <comment><USER2> I have karma to burn, so here it goes with another hard truth:

There is a big, undeniable, compelling reason for Apple to distrust us iOS developers: as a whole we're incompetent bumblers. I'm talking about security. The number of iOS developers who do things like transmit the UDID (Universal Device ID) in plaintext, or who "encrypt" their communications by doing things like zipping it (no encryption, or the same key for every client) then "securely authenticate" it with CRC32 is just jaw-dropping. In terms of doing things with just a competent level of security, large numbers of us are screwing the pooch in ways that severely contaminate the pool for the rest of us.

Of course, this points to the ultimate incompetent bumbler in this regard: Apple. Apple should've built a better security library -- one which makes it harder to use security in an incompetent way. (Forces you to do security right, or the API doesn't work at all.) For heaven's sakes, they require you to muck with 3 objects just to shift a date from one month to the same day- number the next month. Some better support in security might benefit the iOS developer community just a bit more than the ability for our apps to work smoothly in both Julian and Gregorian calendars.

I plan on making my living through iOS in the next year, but Google seems to be way ahead of Apple with regards to security.

</comment><comment><USER3> _But I also think there is more to it than that. Apple needed to provide those services in order to highlight the devices they were selling, because specs alone don't sell. [...] And you can't trust third party developers to do it for you._

It all sounds pretty reasonable until you remember that the 30% tax is more or less aimed directly at removing Amazon ebooks from the platform, and that the kindle app was available well before iBooks.

<comment><USER4> What if certain companies made a pact of increasing their services/goods cost by some percentage (let's say 15%-30%) and call it "the iPhone tax".

Make a beautiful logo out of it, constantly reminding people that the price increase is due to Apple.

... and at the same time offer a clue that they can get the same services/goods cheaper on another platform (say... Android).

Would that help to drive users to understand how bad Apple is and hopefully start a public uproar?

Perception right?

<comment><USER3> Apple's service agreement actually demands price matching, which means a content provider must provide their best price available through the app. It is probably possible to charge more for an "iOS edition", but Amazon specifically has a standard publisher contract that requires them to charge the same price on all platforms.

<comment><USER5> Which is a sensible clause for Apple, so that Amazon can't go and say "all books bought on the Kindle device are 50% off what you pay when you buy the book on the Kindle for iPad app" to drive device sales.

<comment><USER3> You have it a bit backwards, the kindle is there to drive ebook sales, not the reverse. Apple only added the clause when they added the mandatory in app sales with the 30% tax - if amazon had any intention of doing something like that you'd presumably already have seen that behavior on the iphone or pc or osx or android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think "Trust" is used in a weird context here.. "Why Apple Doesn't Rely on Developers" might be a more accurate title.

He's saying that Apple doesn't sit around waiting for developers to create compelling apps for their products, not that developers are "untrustworthy."

To me those have different connotations.

<comment><USER7> I think "trust" is actually the perfect word.

Apple seems determined to avoid depending on Photoshop and Final Cut Pro to sell hardware, to the point of curbing software offerings that _might_ become _the reason_ to own an Apple device.

They don't simply believe that "you can't count on third-party software to sell your device." They believe "if you let third-party software sell your device, you have made a deal with the devil that you will regret."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The iPod started the digital revolution"

I suppose next you'll be telling me Apple invented the helicopter, and next week will be increasing the chocolate ration.

<comment><USER9> And according to Gruber, the iOS ecosystem is the biggest and most important thing in the history of the industry.

It as if, when it comes to Apple, some people completely lose their perspective.

<comment><USER10> Right because in 10 years time when we're all using Android tablets that will be because the Xoom and the Galaxy Tab started it all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not trusting developers is kind of a problematic approach when your platform's key strategic asset is a vast library of third party applications. Apple's own iOS software is great, but the playing field for Android and Windows Phone 7 seems a lot more level without developers on Apple's side.

<comment><USER12> >Not trusting developers is kind of a problematic approach when your platform's key strategic asset is a vast library of third party applications.

I still don't think that's true. The key strategic asset is the unbeatable user experience and the core functionality - web browsing, movie watching, book reading, maps, stuff that comes built in.

A very large number of iPad users have never downloaded an app. Same for iPhone users. They find the core functionality to be sufficient for their needs. And they would be unhappy with ANY Android device because the user experience is sub par.

<comment><USER13> _A very large number of iPad users have never downloaded an app. Same for iPhone users._

er, I'm going to need some sort of citation on that as it's pretty much the exact opposite of what I've seen

<comment><USER14> 9% of iPad users haven't downloaded an app. [http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/connected-...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/connected- devices-does-the-ipad-change-everything)

<comment><USER3> Seems possible a fair amount of that 9% simply aren't using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article exaggerates a lot. Denying users to have a browser other than Safari does not make iOS a better platform. Safari(and other similar apps) is not the best there is, the there ever was and the best there ever will be. Someone may create a way better browser then Safari at any time.

There is something we call competition in a free market. Example: when only IE was relevant, Microsoft couldn't care less about making IE better, but when things started to heat up, Microsoft took up the challenge and made IE a lot better.

Apple shipping a default browser and whatnot is good, but not letting developers compete with them is terrible.

Here is an example when Apple was forced to relax it's restrictions: <http://my.opera.com/community/countup/>

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a new blog. I think it must be a play on <http://statichtml.com/> which got on HN a day or two ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2289610>

</comment><comment><USER17> The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion that it's about Job's or Apple's trust of developers. It just recounts some history and then jumps to disjointed conclusion.

In fact, it has nothing to do with trust. I can predict with 100% certainty that developers will flock to popular platforms and mostly stay away from failed platforms.

In the platform business Jobs had failures (NeXT, Macintosh classic) and successes (Apple II, iPhone, iPad). His successful platforms had no problems attracting developers, his failed platforms less so.

The trust relation actually goes in the other direction: it's important that the developers trust the platform maker.

Platform providers have a symbiotic relation with their developers which creates a positive feedback loop: successful platform attracts developers which make useful programs which makes the platform even more successful etc.

At the same time platform providers invariably compete with developers on their platform. Nintendo competes with other game companies writing games for their consoles, Microsoft competes with some companies writing software for Windows and Apple competes with other companies writing software for Mac or iOS.

To me the core of the issue is: how fair is the game. Platform provider will always have technical and marketing advantage over independent developers. Nintendo programmers probably know the hardware the best and Nintendo can cross-promote their games with their console. At the same time we know it's not enough to win: there are games that, at a given time, sell better than Nintendo's games. Microsoft Money couldn't beat Quicken and the Windows software market is so huge that Microsoft is not even playing in most categories.

Apple did set up the game to be unfair and they are fully taking advantage of that to maximize profit.

As such, they've broken my trust and trust of many developers.

First, unlike Android or Microsoft, they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even allowed to run on iOS. When Microsoft was competing with Netscape, they actually had to write a better browser for Windows. Due to Apple rules (no interpreters allowed => no JavaScript allowed) you can't even write a competing browser for iOS which is why there's no FireFox for iOS or Chrome for iOS.

When they didn't like Google Voice app, they just banned from iOS (despite it not even violating any official rules). It allegedly took government (FCC) investigation to get it enabled.

But that wasn't enough: the new in-app payment rules target companies that have much bigger and comprehensive businesses that just writing iOS apps. Apple wants to interject themselves between any service that offers some kind of paid service and users using iOS devices and collect chunk of the revenue despite the fact that for many such businesses 30% is economically impossible.

Those are major violations of developer's trust on the part of Apple. I for one will not write a single line of iOS code as long as there is a viable alternative like Android.

Breaking developers' trust isn't enough to break the platform. If the platform is successful enough, most developers will just swallow the bitter pill.

However, if there's one thing that doesn't change it's this: things change. Apple is on top of the world right now but Android is gaining momentum. Apple's greed is a dangerous game: if the Android momentum continues, it'll be much easier for developers to walk away from Apple's platform into a welcoming embrace of Google.

<comment><USER18> > The article provides no evidence to support the conclusion...

+1

I also agree that success of the platform was the driving factor in attracting developers. In fact I think some pundits put way too much weight in the argument about attracting developers. If people use it, they will come.

> they set themselves up as a final arbiter of what kind of software is even > allowed to run on iOS

Personally I think this policy is part of the successful formula. The ugly truth is this is the right decision fr most people. Building trust in the platform by the users is FAR more important than the philosophical objections by a few developers and users.

As for competing browsers it's a little more complicated than that:

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile- ever-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/will-firefox-mobile-ever-be- released-for-ios-devices-no-blame-apple/10770)

I'm not sure than stance is still correct either.

Technically Google Voice wasn't banned either. It was just held in limbo with no decision. The end result is basically the same however.

I for one am waiting to see what happens with the Kindle. I think it's now so influential that Apple would be idiots to kick it off. If they don't it'll lead to confusion about their policy. If they do it'll be the first competitive advantage Android tablets will have (IMHO).

Lastly when it comes to App Store rejection, in spite of Apple's nebulous rules it really is a case of "you'll know it when you see it" 99% of the time (if not more).

There seems to be a trend for some people to create apps that were never going to get rejected, submit them, get rejected and then immediately come to places like this to complain about how they've been victimized, which of course gets a certain level of support from the Apple haters irrespective of the merits.

It's almost like the blog post complaining about rejection is written before the app is submitted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well, if you need examples, look at Android, which has frequent malware scares:

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/03/01/the-mother-of-all- an...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/03/01/the-mother-of-all-android- malware-has-arrived-stolen-apps-released-to-the-market-that-root-your-phone- steal-your-data-and-open-backdoor/)

(not a slam on Android, but just the natural progression - if you allow anything, someone, somewhere will abuse the privilege)</comment>


You could have invented git (and maybe you already have) - <AUTHOR> http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/you-could-have-invented-git-and-maybe-you-already-have/

<comment><USER2> Smart people learning from each other? I don't think that's allowed on the interwebs.</comment>


Why people use flotation tanks - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35521560 <comment><USER2> I have one next to my bed. Bought a used one that it roughly 20 years old ^^

I plan to replace the temperature sensor + controller with some 1 wire ones and use a raspberry pie to control the heater.

Some time ago I build a underwater speaker but the first experimental design is kind of quiet. It is unbelievable how expansive commercial once are. They are in fact just a speaker which use the plastic housing as membrane. Maybe I should print a housing.

As a addition I added a oxygen compressor to boost the oxygen level inside the tank. It is much more comfortable as the quite high humidity inside the tank is not that pleasant.

If you build a tank from scratch, I would say ~1500 € in material, depends how much you want to hunt for heap parts.

Nice things not many know:

you can sleep quite good in the tank. It's different form of sleep, but very relaxing. You drift more between the sleep world (DMT) and awake world (Serotonin). Very lucid dreams, sometimes multiple a day.

No, you don't rotate as those are reactions to pressures which you simply don't have. If you turn, you will awake. Usually those tanks are filled with bittersalt, which is very, very bitter and burns like hell ^^

I rotated once, because I had a very lucid dream about drowning and panicked after waking up. Funny thing, it was then when I actually rotated and drank a good sip of water ^^

You should not overdo it, as it may affect your ability to sleep in a normal bed.

If you spend longer time in the tank >9h-12h, depends on the person, you get hallucinations from sensor deprivation. A very interesting way to observe internal states without altering them first. But of course, it's only nice if you know that you can open the door anytime you want. Once you spend some time in it, you understand why this can be abused for torture as well :(

</comment><comment><USER3> I have never tried a flotation tank but am kind of interested; can someone talk about their experience? Is it just a fad or do you do it regularly, and what do you get out of it?

<comment><USER4> Semi-regular user here (2-3 times / month). I view it as yet another tool under the "investigation of self" initiative that some people like me have taken on. What do I get out of it? Well, my experience in the tank differs every time. Some times I use it as a source of tranquility, some times I use it to focus on a certain topic I want to work out in my head, and some times I have absolutely zero intention and I just let the experience happen. Much like meditation, in the time immediately after the tank I find myself more aware, moving a bit slower, just kind of taking the environment in. First time I ever tried the tank was in NYC and I walked from Chelsea to the east side. The sounds of the city seemed much more sharp.

I definitely recommend meditating consistently before trying it, if you can. It'll make the adjustment a bit smoother because you won't be wrestling so much with "being alone with my thoughts" and you can concentrate on "holy shit, am I in outer space right now?!"

<comment><USER5> Your description is very similar to what I experience as well, but I only get to go once or twice per year (the nearest center is about two hours from my home). I always get it coupled with a full body massage just before, and my last visit was just this past Saturday.

This time I was able to, for a short while, convince myself that I was floating on the ocean at night and could see the stars. A very peaceful experience.

The outside world feels so much more harsh, sharp, and bright after a session.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I assume that floatation tanks are not particularly conducive to folks with obstructive sleep disorders (where typically, when extremely relaxed, air pathways collapse enough to restrict breathing - usually exacerbated by sleeping on one's back)? I would think a CPAP would be too loud and provide a heavy distraction from the goal of total isolation.

</comment><comment><USER7> Someone needs to make a "flotation desk", stat.</comment>


Beautiful Circular Seekbar library for android inspired by analog clock - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/v-adhithyan/PrettySeekBar <comment><USER2> I supposed beautiful is subjective but... clean, sleek, or minimalist for sure... but I just don't see the beautiful here. Which is completely OK, not everything has to be beautiful. I feel we've been cheapening that word lately.

Also, I too am confused by the constant growing and shrinking and what that button in the bottom right of the demo is doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the correcting me. I will update the repo description. The button in bottom right corner starts moving the clock hand and also pauses it. I will add a more clear gif.

Kindly star the repo if you like it, so that it reaches more people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks cool.

But why does the circle keep growing and shrinking?

And what's with the insane dithering on the gif?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks.

I just added the shrinking effect to make it prettier. I will add a more clear gif.

If you like the work, kindly star the repo, so that it reaches more people.</comment></comment>


Mac OS X for .NET developer? - <AUTHOR> http://foreverframe.pl/mac-os-x-for-net-developer/ <comment><USER2> Grr... looks like this doesn't work in any of the major caching engines I've tried, and can't get to tfa. :-/</comment>


Financial Times preparing iTunes-like pay model - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.jomc.unc.edu/talkingbiznews/?p=10406

<comment> onreact-com Why not submit the source instead? [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/no-fee-no- ft-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/no-fee-no-ft-newspaper- joins-rush-to-charge-for-the-internet-1768509.html)</comment>


Hackers Can Mess With Traffic Lights to Jam Roads and Reroute Cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/04/traffic-lights-hacking

<comment><USER2> I remember back in pre-internet days when BBS file directories were filed with ways to hack stop lights via pulses from a strobe light. Supposedly if you had the right pulse (and the cojones to have a pulsing strobe light on the front of your car) you could mimic the pulse in a siren and get reds to start a process immediately to switch to greens. Different locations had different pulse timings and people would find local ones and upload and aggregate them on some local phreaking BBS'.

Never tried this myself.

<comment><USER3> Always thought that was an urban legend. I'm not from the US, however in New Zealand the lights would never change as an ambulance/police car went past. They'd just slow down as everyone moved out of their way.

Have witnessed this also for our Prime Minister driving past with a convoy of police and black SUV's.

<comment><USER4> In the US, these are certainly real. Apparently, some did use strobe lights to signal the traffic lights.

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

I vaguely have memories of the state legislator having to pass new laws after the devices were installed because it was not technically illegal to have the emitter in your vehicle.

<comment><USER5> Usually only certain traffic signals are equipped with the detectors, but they do in fact use strobe lights to trigger the light switch and it does happen immediately. It doesn't work with any emergency lights, though -- a separate, specific strobe light be must installed to trigger the signal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "it was found that all communication is performed in clear text without any > encryption nor security mechanism. Sensor identification information > (sensorid), commands, etc. could be observed being transmitted in clear > text."

> Because the sensors' firmware is also not digitally signed and access to > them is not restricted to authorized parties, an attacker can alter the > firmware or modify the configuration of the sensors.

Who deploys systems out into the wild these days without even giving a moment of consideration to security? This seems like "amateur hour" systems design. Did not a single engineer step up and say "Hey, uh, guys, do we want to at least take basic steps to obfuscate this stuff?"

Sounds like negligence. Not surprising their vice president of engineering has "nothing more to add to the matter."

<comment><USER7> Who deploys this? People winning contracts and delivering products. The company even stated that the customers didn't want security so they removed it. This is potentially even true - if you lose the key to a device in the ground, you have to dig it up...

The attitude of "eh, no one is really hacking it" is a common one, and might possibly be the right decision from a business standpoint. And if they get shamed into changing it, they'll issue some sort of patch, or announce the Windows utility is no longer available without credentials, and everyone will rest assured things are OK.

This is really quite common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's certainly a step up from the olden days, when hackers could turn your computer into a bomb and blow your family to smithereens.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmm maybe Live Free or Die Hard wasn't all that far fetched.

</comment><comment><USER10> With all the facial recognition software, I wonder why they just don't put a camera on top of the light, recognize traffic coming, and optimize to maximize flow.

<comment><USER11> Cost, complexity and failure rate.

<comment><USER10> 1\. I'm sure it's cheaper than burying the wire sensors in the pavement. 2\. The dev cost is amortized over a million intersections. 3\. Cameras already exist on many intersections (the red light cameras) 4\. Traffic lights are already driven by a computer.

Just think of all the gas savings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's even worse, hackers can mess with anything connected directly or indirectly to the internet.

</comment><comment> o0-0o This has civic benefits with traffic, safety, order. What's not to like?

</comment><comment><USER13> Immediately reminds me of Hackers 90's movie and hackers establishing "turf" over public resources.

<comment><USER14> and The Italian Job

<comment><USER15> Yes! ... at least in the new version (I haven't seen the older version but just noticed it's on Amazon Prime).

What's scary about that scene is that so much of our infrastructure is available on the Internet. There are projects scanning for "support systems" (including the baby monitor in yesterday's story), but most of these system rely on technology that's older and less well maintained than our computer systems.

[1] The Italian Job (2003) - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740/)

[2] The Italian Job (1969) - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064505/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064505/)

<comment><USER16> The original version also - yes, in 1969 - involves hacking the traffic light control computer system to cause chaos in Turin. The elite computer hacker who pulls off this feat by sneaking into the traffic control center and replacing the reel to reel tape on one of the mainframes is played, rather depressingly and entirely to type, by Benny Hill. I guess they didn't have the go-to computer hacker stereotype quite worked out in 1969, but they knew that geeks had potential as comic relief...

<comment><USER17> From Benny Hill to Dennis Nedry (Jurassic Park) to The Warlock (Die Hard 4), the development of the unheroic hacker stereotype; the heroic ones are slimmer...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your opinion about developer salaries and getting a raise - <AUTHOR>

Location: Toronto, Canada
Job: PHP, Symfony, LAMP
From the outset, the job began rather plain. I joined a team that took over a Symfony framework application. After about a year, the company took on a new project and I became one of the three developers tasked with making it happen.
Fast-forward 18 months; the project is doing great and I have amassed tons of experience. Despite not being lead, I took charge submitting ideas that pushed the project ahead. It sort of became my trademark and I saw my value rise. With my hiring anniversary just passing in February, I asked to have a meeting concerning my compensation.
I'm asking for feedback and your opinion regarding salary negotiation. Do you feel that salary guides are accurate or inflated? One comes to mind: http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/External_Sites/content/DM-FreeResources/RHT/downloads/RHT-SG-2011.pdf
Is it realistic to assume that a base salary of 63k x 18% or about 75k is an amount to shoot for ? What is your experience in these types of situations ? <comment><USER2> In the past, what I normally did was to work from contribution to revenue. What % of revenue do you contribute with your work? Work from there. If you contribute 400k a year, asking for 100K is more than acceptable.

Also factor in the cost for them losing you. Will they require someone immediately? pay for headhunters? or will they hardly need you. Use this as a calibration of the number.

Also find out what everyone else is making. Especially your boss. and your colleagues. Some transparency is required on your part and some hustling.

Also, how will you add more value once the raise is given. what will it allow you to do? what is the value to the company in addition to keeping a seasoned developer. ie. what is your action plan if you get a raise. vs not getting it.

you should also have a plan for not getting the raise. consider this your black swan event insurance. If you do not get what you want or need, what will you do? no extra money? how about extra time? or new tech? or will you quit? If you are very valued and are ready to quit if you do not get what is your actual value to the firm, you are in a better situation to shift negotiations.</comment>


Ask HN: I need help. I'm struggling. Advice welcome. - <AUTHOR>

Too long to post here: http://pastebin.com/wHQDqKSG <comment><USER3> While this will be a really, really cool story to tell a couple of years from now ('remember the time when I almost died in remote Australia while our car was on a breaking-down streak'), it's probably not what you want to hear right now.

There's a massive upside to your story: you lived to tell. It's surprisingly easy to get into life-threatening trouble in remote Australia, and the combination broken-down car and a lingering medical condition is a recipe for disaster. Of course, the money sucks, but as a CompSci major it's not a hole you can't get out of.

Grab a beer, celebrate the fact you're still around, and try not to worry about the rest too much. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're health is going to recover then sorry to say it but these are minor problems and will pass. They are the biggest problems of your life so far - <USER2> acknowledge that. and I do not dismiss it. Wife leaving you, friends on drugs, suicide, cancer, bankruptcy, betrayal, death, disillusionment are some of the sorts of shit life will deal you as a function of age.

Ask long as you recover from your illness, get it in perspective and start fighting the fights life will be giving you from here. Man up. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> The thing is, life is going to happen to you. Sometimes its good, even very good—other times, not so much. I've been through a lot of bad times, which I'm not going to try to compare, but what I'll point out is that I'm still here. You will be too, and if you just keep doing the stuff you're supposed to do, things will get better. Even today, when I've got a relatively stable, enjoyable life, I find myself getting antsy whenever I don't have miles of clear road and good weather obviously in front of me. But if I do what I'm supposed to, things have a way of coming together. I literally walked out of a meeting a couple of months ago with a client who couldn't pay their full bill, wondering how I was going to pay my rent and child support in a month, when I got a random call resulting in a large contract—generated from working my network and a long-standing habit of trying to help other people when I could.

The bills will pass, your bank account and health will recover, and good things will happen in good time. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other as best you can.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hey... hang in there. Randomness happens. You've pulled through this, some other month will be especially good.

You got the opposite of the vacation you needed, so make sure to get your relaxation in some other way. Australia has great nature not far away from where you are, wherever you are.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> Had some very rough times myself, including the death of a relative, work harassment during 2 years and a very hard divorce... all at the same time. We humans are made to keep on living, your own human nature will give you strength to keep going. Compare yourself with older folks, who survived wars, famine, nazi holocaust... do you think you can do better? I'm sure you can.

<comment><USER5> I know you mean well, but pointing out how bad other people have it/have had it is not typically constructive for someone in the midst of a crisis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Get some family help temporarily, do a bit of freelancing or stock supermarket shelves at night until you get going again.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you call up the debt collection agency and explain your financial hardship, it's possible (or even likely) that they will give you a generous extension to the deadline for you to pay the fine.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think that a lot of your problems wont seem like such undertakings once you are recovered from being ill. For me when I dont feel right things seem far worse than they are.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and kind words. Just the fact that I got to vent my issues and have some people listen and care has been great.

</comment><comment><USER11> you'll fucking survive man. this is a rough stretch, but you'll undoubtably have worse. hunker down and sweat it out.</comment>


How I Find Consulting Clients - <AUTHOR> https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-leads/ <comment><USER2> Networking works if you do it right. Made $300k my first year from 0 using only physical networks and around $5k spending money. I'm a web developer in Sweden.

For me to join a network the network has to match these criteria:

* It markets itself as exclusive

* It costs money (say $2k/y for small businesses and scaling prices depending on number of employees)

* Participants are owners or at C-level

The networks are often dinners where the participants get to know each other in friendly settings. I aim for networks with high middle age where I stick out as the younger (am mid-thirties) professional which connects tech with business needs (my niche).

While at a network, do not talk about yourself. Ask about others businesses and interests. These sells take between 6-12 months and are based on trust.

You also need to come prepared.

* Dress as expected.

* Have a web page with referrals so when leads get a bit nosy and Google you you're #1 in search and the page provides the lead with info about great work you've done. I have about 100 visits / mo to my page (my weird name helps for the #1 pos). 90% are primed leads.

* Know your oneliners. Prepare examples of things you can provide. Make them sound natural. Say it without selling in an informal way.

It's about being systematic and selecting only the networks where your dream leads go to. Hoping to get into invite only networks further on.

<comment><USER3> Great job!

However, i would like to point out that the Consulting "climate", in Sweden is very, very good and it is super-easy to find a client. Few searches and groups on linked-in will yield interviews, and there are plenty of brokers that deal with independent contractors.

With that in mind 300k is a nice job still for one guy!

<comment><USER2> I consider myself to be more than one person, since I have a network of dev friends. So these contacts help and I'd not be able to do those numbers without people acting as my reference.

Agree about interviews and brokers. I however have no interest on using brokers or being employed. Have gotten some really nice offers since I started consulting, Sweden is great for such opportunities.

Starting Q1 2018 I have a 90% chance landing a ~500k SEK job from an informal Facebook posting. I have no experience with dealing with clients outside of Sweden. Maybe my advice isn't applicable to the US?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who does consulting, I find it interesting to read how others do it. There is a lot of advice, but I like how this article is upfront: find what works for you.

The initial leap is understanding how money and expectations balance each other out. This comes with tripping up hard at first, but it gets easier as time goes on.

For me, it comes down to giving that first hour to the client to really drill into the issue and having them see that you aren't trying to screw them over. Unfortunately, many clients have been taken hard by prior programmers, and your goal should be making the buck stop with you. They rebut you, but that's just them figuring out your honesty, and you don't convince them by saying "yes" to everything.

Even on your best, you can't satisfy everyone, but those that you do satisfy are, more often than not, willing to refer you or give more work down the line.

</comment><comment><USER5> For us, the door opened with open source.

We maintain a few semi-popular Python packages for machine learning, which brings in enough leads to keep a team of data scientists booked for months in advance.

(Funnily enough, the actual work is mostly unrelated to the open source itself.)

We've been gradually increasing the project size and value, now working with companies like Amazon, Autodesk or Hearst.

Helped:

\- hot domain (machine learning)

\- positioning as problem solvers (rather than tech X vs tech Y), _solving in context_

\- sales (me) being able to speak both the technical and business language

Waste of time (as far as leadgen):

\- conference sponsorships, online ads (newsletter banners, PPC), professional marketing agencies

\- any sort of academic partnerships or consortium projects

\- fancy website, social media

<comment><USER6> I do not have experience with it, but open source as a marketing instrument seems to be an interesting instrument. Not only for the company but also for the employees working on it. That is way I think employees are extra motivated when working on Open Source projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tldr; "there's no magic formula, so experiment faster until you find what works for you."

I manage a small full-stack design and development team. After 5 year, we have a pretty steady stream of clients. It wasn't easy. I like the idea of blogging to get leads - we haven't done much of that. Most of our clients come from referrals, but I strongly disagree about the don't send cold emails bit. I started sending out about 50 cold emails per month as an exercise, and have found a number of great long-term clients. It's a low probability game for sure, but it takes me maybe 1-2 hours per month and if I get a response I can generally determine if there's a good fit within a few back and forth emails.

<comment><USER8> Would you mind sharing how you obtain the list of contacts for sending cold emails to?

<comment><USER9> i'm not this guy but this is a useful framework for sending cold emails:

[https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/the-epic-guide-to- bootstr...](https://medium.com/@cliffordoravec/the-epic-guide-to- bootstrapping-a-saas-startup-from-scratch-by-yourself-part-1-4d834e1df8c1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here is the gist of what I got from the article.

Things that worked:

-Blogging

-Referrals through blogging

-Posting comments on HNs

Things that didn't work

-Networking Events

-Participate in marketing or consulting communities

-Partner with agencies or other consultants

-Hound people

-Cold outreach

-Advertising

-Handing out business cards

<comment><USER11> Except that networking events definitely DID work because he says that the first gig he got was through someone he met at a networking event.

And the rest was basically, "be lucky".

<comment><USER12> That gig was a lifeline, but didn't make him successful. It wasn't until he started getting visibility with the actual founders that he started to feel like he could do this as a job. Most of the don'ts are events where founders are too busy to attend or are swamped and it's almost impossible to stand out.

Really his takeaway is to make a name for yourself and the offers will roll in. Figure out a way to increase your stature or you'll never make it as a consultant. That's what all of the blog posts and hacker news articles were for, getting people who matter to know his name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, today I added an update to this two-year-old post and in the spirit of "shipping fast" I published it without spending too much time on editing. Let me know if you find typos, have questions that the post doesn't answer, or if something in the post doesn't hold water.

<comment><USER13> You know...I've never thought of shipping fast as being applicable to blogging. In some ways my blog posts fall victim to the "waterfall" development model and never end up shipping. Thank you for helping me think of that in this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly the problem I used to have. So I decided to just publish an MVP and then iterate on it later if a) I have something more to add, or b) the post starts getting a lot of attention. In this case both are true, so here I am touching it up on the fly.

<comment><USER14> For me it's an issue of "If I had time I'd have written a shorter letter".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apart from writing blog posts another good way to get clients is to give relevant high quality talks at meetups and conferences.

This has worked for me on multiple occasions. Pretty much every conference I have spoken at as a consultant has resulted in several leads or a contract.

</comment><comment><USER16> In our case:

        - Referrals from the network (e.g. VC to portfolio)
        - Cold outreach, once
        - (mostly) old colleagues getting a new job and asking us for help

Anecdotally, I am so frustrated with the high number of low quality job applicants that I've started contacting top answerers on StackOverflow whose answers meet our standards. It's a great signal as the people we chatted to that way were always motivated, experienced and professional... and usually only available on a contracting basis.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is interesting. I am planning to start doing consulting into the analytics industry and started a blog 6 months ago. So far, just by adding a "free call" page and writing few blog posts, I got a couple of leads. It's not much, but it's encouraging. I am now in the process of writing an ebook which I will sell for $100 or so and see what happens there. I do plan to test online ads for the ebook. The idea would be to use the ebook to build a customer base for consulting, let's see. Writing an ebook it's not easy, but it is helping me a lot to better understand my potential customers and define my consulting product a bit more.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have started to give consulting a serious go since 2nd quarter of this year as income from my own products are drying up. So far, I have tried following venues to attract potential clients:

\- UpWork (sending at least 20 proposals per month) \- Social Media (LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook & Twitter) \- Blog

So far getting major work from UpWork with one client from Reddit and FB each. Blog gets views but no conversions yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> I would say that in the end there are only 2 ways:

\- network with, or better, befriend _potential_ clients. Knowing your market is crutial.

\- make good work to get future referrals and speak about it (blog, forums, public speaking) to get leads.

The optimal percentage of these 2 approaches depends on your personality and the stage of your consultancy (just starting, long time in the market, etc). As anecdotes, one friend, as an housing architect (and the best seller I ever met) finds his clients _always_ during nightlife. By the other hand, my father, as a tradesman, gets clients only by referrals. After 30y it's more than enough for him. He doesn't even has any online presence.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is no easy way. I have worked in different spheres and understand that to make any business work well it needs to be capable of becoming a full-flung manifestation with an office space and receptionist (ready to work around the clock for global ideals) that can canter and monitor networks like Facebook, Twitter and more. You never know from where a client will try to reach you.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just curious, what do you use as your blogging platform? Any specific templates/themes?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's Jekyll hosted on Netlify. The theme is the default Jekyll theme with a few small modifications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was a business owner before I became a tech guy. Living in a country with good rule of law and meeting customers face to face will help you get your first consulting clients much faster.

I recommend being honest about the proposed solution and the time frame required to meet those expectations. Customer usually doesn't know what they need. They ask for a perfect solution. But you gotta show them why the pursuit of chasing perfection is futile for their business, specially in tech where doubling a seemingly simple metric might end up accounting for 10x the engineering cost.

Here is an example, some time back I contracted a customer with 10K clients in production delivering 400-500 average RPS. The customer wanted real time stats which is hard to do with that much data as it included many dimensions, I proposed a solution which was 10x cheaper and had a delay of 1 minute. The business owner initially wanted 1 second delay but at the end was happy with my solution.

You might not be so confident while talking with the customers but that's ok, just take the problem home, think over it and come back with a solution. As a business owner, I never really wanted a rockstar, I just wanted someone who I can rely upon and you'll be amazed how many failed to deliver just that. You might think that the people with money can always find better folks who can solve their problem faster with a better solution but that's not what happens in practise. I always had all money but still failed to find solutions to my problem. Yea, well that's my own experience :)</comment>


Ask HN: Does Zoom/Netflix gain profit if server cost of video streaming is high? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Zoom is profitable.

<comment><USER3> What does this mean? Netflix is wildly profitable relative to Zoom in both percentage and raw numbers. Why say Zoom only?</comment></comment>


Bulgaria Applies for .bg TLD in Cyrillic Script - <AUTHOR> http://www.circleid.com/posts/bulgaria_top_level_domain_cyrillic/

<comment><USER2> e who cares about that?

<comment><USER3> Just think about phishing attacks, how can you tell a Latin o from a Cyrillic o?</comment></comment>


American SAT tested in UK; gender achievement gap reversed - <AUTHOR> http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6003249

<comment><USER2> What I don't understand is the relevance of high school exam results when I have a Bachelor's degree. I mean who cares?

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to see what would happen if the ACT was tested there.</comment>


Diners Struggle with Fast-Moving Digital Menus - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/wait-where-did-that-burger-go-diners-struggle-with-fast-moving-digital-menus-11567620271?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> A lot of people like to literally read their order off the screen, even though internally they know exactly what it is they want. It's a habitual thing. So it does throw off those people when they get to the cashier, and what they were looking at is no longer there. Especially when there is a limited-time product available.

I see it happen almost daily in the cafe I frequent in the morning. The cashiers must be cursing the new digital menus, since there wasn't such a delay when the same menu items were in more permanent formats.</comment>


Show HN: Electronic Voting System - <AUTHOR> http://muse.union.edu/seniorproject-goodricn/

<comment><USER2> its an interesting project, but being as how the the topic of the project relates to security, democracy and ease-of-use, I think there is a point relating to each that would be worth addressing if you've not yet submitted this for assessment:

1\. Security: i know its a demo, but 'admin' and 'password'? No two-factor for admin login? nor biometrics? not even https?

2\. Democracy: Candidate 3 is disadvantaged by the fact that their button is partially off screen when there is plenty of room to show all three (ideally in a randomised order)

3\. Ease of use: Some visual feedback about what was happening with the fingerprint scanner would be really helpful. You held your finger there for what felt like a minute and if I couldn't see something on screen I think I'd have given up and walked off or found someone to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. Those are all great ideas. The coding was completed in 8 weeks so I really was crunched for time especially simply getting all the hardware to interface. I am continuing some work on it in my free time and all of these are fantastic ideas. There is now HTTPS on the web now, I like the idea of 2 factor for admin login quite a bit. as to point 2 and 3, I recognize the fact that the UI is/was fairly lacking and is definitely something that is a high priority for the project.</comment></comment>