Ask HN: What are the most uplifting comments you've read on HN? - J-dawg I was searching for something on HN and I happened upon this thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2262527
I thought the top comment by neilk was just beautifully written and really encouraging (with the slight irony that he encourages the OP to stop reading HN!). I have bookmarked it and resolved to re-read it when I'm feeling low.
It got me thinking, there's a lot of introspection and self-criticism here on HN, but there's even more wisdom and kindness. What are the most positive and uplifting comments you've read?
And to neilk and people like you, thanks. You've probably helped more people than you realise. <comment><AUTHOR> "+100. I can tell the guy writing this essay is young. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'd love to be young again too. But when I look back over my twenties I don't find myself wishing I had worked more hours on my startup." [1]

Perhaps not "uplifting" on the surface of it, but it had a rather profound impact on me nonetheless when I stumbled across it about three years ago. (See my reply[2] and the rest of the thread for a bit more context.) However indirectly, drumdance (among others) made me realize that I still had a chance to make my own path through my twenties.

A couple months later, I decided to pick up and move to Berlin. Today, my life is full of the things that I decided would make up my personal definition of happiness:

"I want to take advantage of my youth to discover more things that make me happy. I want to travel—a lot. I want to learn new languages. I want to meet amazing people. I also want to design and build things, but I don't think that it has to take over my life." [2]

(Forgive me for quoting myself!)

So thank you drumdance, mrooney, simonsarris, neilk, and michaelochurch. I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't read your critical yet encouraging words.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4341926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4341926)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4342680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4342680)

<comment><USER2> >I want to travel—a lot. I want to learn new languages. I want to meet amazing people. I also want to design and build things

It's cool if someone can do this, but who can afford to, especially in their 20s?

<comment><USER3> > _It 's cool if someone can do this, but who can afford to, especially in > their 20s?_

I spent 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina and repeatedly had people ask "Who has the time and money for that".

It's a myth that travel is expensive.

I managed a hostel in Ecuador for 5 months, and I would say the average backpacker was spending $10,000 USD / year to travel the world. And I mean the entire world. The vast majority of backpackers are somewhere in the 19-35 year old range. Though there is a good smattering of > 55 too.

$15,000 USD / year and you travel WELL - i.e. no shared rooms, lots of alcohol, 'fancy' restaurants etc. etc.

I know hostels are not popular in North America, trust me though, once you get out of there you'll catch on quickly.

For reference, I spent $13,000 USD / year TOTAL on my drive, which includes all expenses for the Jeep. Gas, parking, shipping from Panama->Colombia, insurance, etc. etc. Driving gets much cheaper per person when there are two of you (though to be clear, I was solo).

[http://theroadchoseme.com](http://theroadchoseme.com) is my blog of the drive, if you're interested.

I'm about to set off on a 2 year drive around Africa in my Jeep, I'm aiming to spend less than $20k / year. (Africa is more expensive to drive due to visas, price of gas, paying for secure camping, etc.)

<comment><USER4> Well, $15,000 + the opportunity cost of not working for a year.

Let's say you've just graduated with a bachelors in computer science, and have a job offer for $70k. By going on this road trip for a year, you've lost $85k, $70k from not working, plus the $15k it actually cost you, not to mention interest on any loans taken out for school.

$10,000 may not sound like much when you make more than 10x that per year, but remembering back to when I was 20, $10,000 was a _fortune_ that would have taken forever to earn.

<comment><USER3> If you want to look at it that way (which I think is unproductive) you should at least be accurate.

Nobody takes home their entire "income". You need to deduct taxes, rent (which you won't be paying on the road), food (which comes out of the $10k, so it should come out here), transport to/from work, entertainment, etc. etc. Essentially, you need to deduct every single cent that is spent.

I traveled for 3 straight years from age 22-25, then did that 2 year drive from 27-29. $10k is not _that_ much money, even for a 21 y/o.

(also, as an aside, I don't make anywhere near 10x $10,000 now)

<comment><USER5> First of all, I think you made the right choice, gaining money (especially when you talk about the incremental gains of the vast majority of the work force) doesn't mean gaining happiness.

Have you found a trade off between networking with people "out there" and the fact that you are not "home" and accumulating contacts/experience? I could see how this kind of long term exploration could either help or hurt your job prospects for your entire life, or help if you met the right people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      "If I could talk to my 14 year old self, I wouldn't
      recommend any particular books.

      I would say, "Don't stress and worry so much about school
      or your grades, because absolutely none of that is going
      to matter in 10 years. Learn how to make things. Start
      now, and never stop. Learn how to use technology to the
      fullest, both software and hardware. Learn how to write,
      speak and communicate ideas as effectively as possible.
      Learn how to hack people and understand how social
      structures work. Take that seriously. Most importantly,
      don't let anyone change who you are. Choose a path and
      follow it doggedly."

      Ironically, some of the best advice I've seen came from a
      book: "Who you will be in five years is determined by who
      you meet today and what you read today" [0]. But a 14
      year old doesn't need to read a whole book to gain that
      particular pearl of wisdom, or many of the others. I read
      a lot now, several of the books mentioned on this thread
      and many others. But that's because I'm old, and it's too
      late
      for me. If I could talk to my 14 year old self, or any
      14
      year old, I would tell them that there is significantly
      more to life than what can be learned in a book.

      [0] The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp "

[via] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9268981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9268981)

<comment><USER7> I 100% agree. I can't believe I was so stressed out for p.e.r.f.e.c.t grades. They HAD to be perfect. The extrinsic reward destroyed the very purpose of schools: learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This comment by jasonlbaptiste in response to "Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467)

Best comment I've ever read here.

<comment><USER2> I don't think this is very useful. There are a lot of opinions here and I could guarantee there's plenty of successful people who would advocate the opposite.

The real useful advice here can be summarized:

* Look in obscure places

* Productize a service

* Stick with it

<comment><USER9> I think the point isn't so much "obscure" places as it is "unsexy". As a trivial example, developers who set out to work on payroll register software tend to make more money than those who set out to build video games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure its uplifting but it made me chuckle and is some pretty good advice [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287767)

anamax 2424 days ago | parent | flag

If they don't have the money to pay you, you're not an employee, you're a founder and you get the same deal that they get.

If they balk, suggest that they find another code monkey while you find another biz monkey and let the market decide who ends up with the bananas.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a whole folder of help seeking _Ask HN_ s. I think they are a big part of what makes HN a true _community_ , not just a news stream.

This whole discussion on depression was insightful and inspiring. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7891017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7891017)

</comment><comment><USER11> DanielBMarkham's comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1474454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1474454) in the thread Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1474094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1474094)

<comment><USER12> I've had it printed and placed on the wall for over 5 years

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This one from zedshaw immediately came to mind: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6805807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6805807)

<comment><USER14> The world is full of people like Zed, only people like Zed don't typically hang around on the internet. They're at the bar, or playing is a softball or bowling league, yelling at enlisted in the military, pulling over speeders, driving taxis in New York, or selling pizza by the slice at a pizzeria. what ever. These guys don't give an damn about your sensibilities, they're going to tell you what they think, whether you want to hear or not, and if the language is too coarse, too bad.

Dude can be an asshat no doubt. But that's allowed in my book.

<comment><USER15> The great thing about these people, I think, is that they're going to tell you what they think about you, no BS, but they also expect the same from you: you can be 100% straight up with them.

Reminds me of a good friend and also of a regretted uncle. People I learned a lot from and who certainly played a part in making me who I am.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've got this comment from Jonathan Blow bookmarked and I like to read it from time to time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789438)

<comment><USER17> Jonathan Blow's stuff (posts / talks) seem to be consistently excellent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> PG's answer to my silly self-doubt question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5220936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5220936)

</comment><comment><USER19> Patio11 on going to university: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182552)

<comment><USER20> I also liked this comment by sillysaurus3: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8592888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8592888)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Vijucat's comment (top comment) on this article really reworked my own perspective. I think it's probably the most inspiring comment I've read on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9337863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9337863)

</comment><comment><USER22> Eight years ago I was burning out in China and started a thread to ask for help. The comments were exceedingly insightful (the top-listed comment rang especially true for me): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69097)

</comment><comment><USER23> The thread itself and all of the comments :

"I quit my job last March and it was a bad idea" ([http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102143](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102143)).

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's a spreadsheet of the most upvoted HN comments each month, which gives a sample size of good comments: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwonVX_KlDYhuhPnAAnV...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZwonVX_KlDYhuhPnAAnVpdVRgu4LxldP74-c_kvOd5k/edit?usp=sharing)

Note: said comments may not be considered "uplifting."

</comment><comment><USER25> I bookmarked this one from Arjuna as an antidote for bouts of "woe is me, everyone has more time and does more than me than me"-itis: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7076143](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7076143)

A taste: "You have to do the work. There is no one else that can do it for you. It is entirely up to you; actually, it has only ever been you, because it is you that rolls out of bed early to bring it. No one is going to do that for you. If you want to do it, then you will figure out a way to make it happen."

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9325068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9325068)

<comment><USER27> Thanks, the answer of the user blueprint is genuinely inspirational.

<comment><USER28> I'm personally having a hard time grokking what blueprint is saying here. An example of formulating "good problems" would be somewhat helpful, although my gut feeling is that providing a concrete example would be as helpful as "giving me a fish" would be.

<comment><USER29> I think there are three questions at essence here.

1\. What constitutes a good problem?

A: Every problem/question includes its own answer. This is very helpful to realize. There's a principle by which the world operates. The principle of the world means that results are determined by problems of what happened. In fact, if you open your eyes to this principle, it will also be possible for to see the answer in any question without having actually learned that subject before. The quality of the answer we can get from a question depends on the quality of the question itself. Good questions are substantial, concrete, and precise. They contain matters, which can be confirmed. So, once this is understood, we can see that a good problem is simply one which has a good result/outcome/answer. You should know what result you want in order to check if your existing problems have results which match what you want.

2\. How to distinguish good from bad?

A: What are the criteria of good and bad? According to what I have learned, the more genuine something is, the better it is. For people, a person can only be a good person if they are truthful. Going to school, we might have different scores in different subjects, e.g. an A in English, a B in math, and a C in physics. But human beings are different. Every characteristic of an individual keeps up with every other characteristic within them. Would you suppose that it's possible for a person to be wise and yet not true? True and yet not conscionable? How about true but not courageous? To have a large amount of (bad) karma and yet be true? All the features of something which is good or bad are determined by degree of truthfulness. Incidentally, it's only possible to become more truthful after you undergo a particular essential process of learning by which you first realize that you don't actually perceive anything as it is, and later, after things that exist become visible to your eyes, you finally come to be able to speak about things that you really know. Generally, it's only possible to undergo this process when you meet and make yourself learn continuously from a truthful teacher. But undergoing this process is necessary in order to become someone who can be contributive to oneself and others. That is to say, we don't have the ability to guide our own lives contributively until we perceive what exists. What exists itself must be the standard for any judgement which is to be appropriate and contributive to existing circumstances. It's impossible to see what exists without truthfulness.

3\. How are questions/problems themselves formulated?

A: Quite simply, any problem is made by putting at least two things into contact. For (contrived) example, let's say I have some things that I have kept inside my consciousness from the past (causes), represented by the numeral 2. Let's suppose I meet a teacher, who could be represented as the numeral 3. The result/effect I'll naturally come to gain through the process which is determined by the factors in the problem will be 5. You can make problems that you need in order to get results you want by fixing (i) the causes you have in you at the moment, and (ii) the result you want, and algebraically solving for the cause you need to contact. In order to contact a cause you need you either need to find out how to form it through existent things, or you need to find it among what exists and go there. As mentioned, one of the real problems that general people face is that they can't see the causes they have in themselves.

Does that help?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I like comments that hop out and look at the meta. I also like comments that confirm that I'm not the only one that thinks about things a certain way.

For example, dimillian comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9341181&goto=item%3Fid...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9341181&goto=item%3Fid%3D9338812)

</comment><comment><USER31> I am going to take a slightly different position. I am very new to all of this, and i learn more from the arguments that occur than the back slapping. This is because i am nearly ignorant of all the things i am interested in [crypto, mesh nets, managing Devs] and i personally learn more when verbal sabers are crossed. Obviously, i am talking fact +opinion v. fact + opinion, not troll v. snipe. i completely believe that positive comments have a larger net positive splash and i think the positivity push here on HN is great.

Edit: Spelling

</comment><comment><USER2> Third comment, but I wanted to share this too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086475)

It was the discussion asking founders what their lifestyle is like. I found it to be a really good glance inside their lives and it helps motivate me to continue working.

</comment><comment><USER32> Every few months I go back and read this thread to help center me again on expectations: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7473787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7473787)

I have about 10 threads bookmarked, but this one gets the most views over time.

<comment><USER33> Care to share more of your bookmarks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> These from swamp40 and junto about habits, summing up the related article perfectly: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852430)

</comment><comment><USER35> Most of the comments here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291040) as they were quoting poetry.

</comment><comment><USER36> This comment from antirez: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8433770](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8433770)

</comment><comment><USER2> There was a discussion about the age of startup founders: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086670)

I found this uplifting because being constantly barraged with the success of people 2/3rds your age can be depressing.

</comment><comment><USER2> I really liked this comment from graycat, who was advocating for being a solo founder (which is what I'd like to do):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640126](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640126)

</comment><comment><USER37> grandalf's comment on procrastination:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9285481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9285481)</comment>


Math For Game Programmers: Juicing Your Cameras with Math - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-Qe66AvtY <comment><USER2> Highly recommend another of Squirrel's GDC talks: Interpolation And Splines.

[https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017922/Math-for- Game](https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017922/Math-for-Game) \- it was the thing that finally helped me understand interpolation/bezier-curves/splines intuitively</comment>


Clear: Life is messy. Simplify with Clear. - <AUTHOR> http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/

<comment><AUTHOR> The link might not work for you (for now). They are in the process of changing the video but it should be back up soon <https://twitter.com/useclear/status/162548668254261248></comment>


Verizon: Data breaches often caused by configuration errors - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179848/Verizon_Data_breaches_often_caused_by_configuration_errors <comment><AUTHOR> A good analysis of this info: [http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/07/hacked- companies-hit-by-t...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/07/hacked-companies- hit-by-the-obvious-in-2009/)</comment>


Tesla's 'Bioweapon Defense Mode' proving invaluable to owners in CA wildfires - <AUTHOR> https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-tesla-model-s-x-bioweapon-defense-mode-ca-wildfires/ <comment><USER2> [https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/tesla- mazda/](https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/tesla-mazda/)

Apparently it may not perform noticeably better (other than in speed of filtration) than a 2010 Mazda 3 or, even more surprisingly, random Uber cars in Shanghai and Delhi. I'm unclear how accurate or widely applicable the results of this test are, however.

<comment><USER3> It's just a high quality HEPA filter and a slight overpressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slight tangent: Can anyone recommend a decent air quality sensor in the sub-$100 range? I've been curious lately about measuring PM2.5, VOCs, etc. but haven't found a good option.

The sensor in the article looks really nice (Twitter thread mentions [https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Quality-Detector-Tester- Monit...](https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Quality-Detector-Tester- Monitor/dp/B07DL1M46J) as something similar. Twitter thread also links the exact product on Aliexpress, but I refuse to link Aliexpress here since that site is nearly malware).

But the problem with that sensor and all the other sensors I've found thus far (HPMA115S0, SDS011) is I can't be sure how accurate at all they are. I'm not looking for scientific grade stuff here, but if the sensor is off by a factor of two, for example, it's a bit useless isn't it? Especially if I have no idea how far off it is.

For example, I found this research paper: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322628807_Developme...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322628807_Development_of_a_Calibration_Methodology_for_the_SDS011_Low- Cost_PM-Sensor_with_respect_to_Professional_Reference_Instrumentation)

If I'm reading it correctly they show that the SDS011 sensor is completely useless for PM10 measurements. For PM2.5 it can be off by a factor of 2 under certain conditions. They were able to come up with a calibration formula that makes it much more accurate (on PM2.5), but I have no way of knowing if their calibration formula is "universal" for the SDS011 or if the constants would vary from unit to unit.

And all of those problems on a device that is marketed as being +-15% accurate. Being off by a factor of two is well beyond 15%...

I haven't dug too deeply yet. Are there better sensors? The HPMA115S0 is brand name at least, but again I have no way of knowing for sure what its real error bounds are. Is there some way to calibrate these things at home without buying an expensive, more accurate sensor (thus defeating the purpose of the cheap sensor)?

It seems a lot of hobby projects end up using these cheap sensor anyway, even if they could be completely wrong? Maybe I'm being too picky and an error of 100% isn't a huge deal?

<comment><USER5> There was a thread on HN around a week ago around just this topic. Well worth reading through it "Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25" for the comments on filters and sensors. [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18445652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18445652)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Bioweapon Defense Mode" sounds like a bad choice of name to me. It sounds like it is trying to intentionally be all B-grade movie dramatic.

If they had named it something else, it probably would have been better received.

<comment><USER7> Beijing Mode is probably what they really meant, but Bioweapon Defense Mode is less-bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can't filter lack of oxygen.

</comment><comment><USER9> All you need is to be able to afford a 100.000$ car, nothing else. Then you're fine even if you've destroyed the air quality.

<comment><USER10> Not that it's still not expensive, but the cheapest model 3 is currently $46k, which they plan to reduce soon to $35k. Even the current model is effectively already $36k after tax incentives in some states, and the TCO is even lower if you factor in gas savings.

<comment><USER11> The Model 3 doesn't have this "bioweapon defense mode".</comment></comment></comment>


Major League Baseball's MLB.tv is really, really impressive. - <AUTHOR> http://designbygravity.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/why-is-mlb-so-far-ahead-of-everyone-else-online/

<comment><USER2> I think it's a couple of reasons. MLB has a more centralized team system than most sports, so there is less bickering amongst the teams in general. Revenue sharing is a huge part of the league.

Also, they play twice as many regular season games as the closest league, in terms of games (basketball), and thus they are somewhat underexposed on a per game basis, so it makes sense to eek out as much money as they can across their fanbase. I suspect football will be the last of the leagues to provide affordable day of streaming as exclusive broadcast rights for each game is worth a tremendous amount of money and the teams are reluctant to cannibalize any of the eyeballs that normally make it to the television on Sunday.

This isn't a fan experience issue, so much as it's an issue of money in an industry that will always have those fans, regardless of how easy it is to watch the matches.

All of this doesn't change my opinion that MLB.tv is fucking wonderful, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> The iPhone app is very, very well done. I still can't believe it was only $10. (For audio of every single game. And a couple weeks ago they added one or two video streams per day.)</comment>


Formula E Car – Test Debut - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/08/formula-e-2/

<comment><USER2> This series is a formula - the cars are the same specification. Innovation comes from when there is a rule book with sufficient amount of room for people to do their own thing. Where are the options with this series for contestants to evolve anything? Even if they could, how would that 'transform' formula 1? Not even the driver market is really set to change in F1 due to this formula. Strip aside the green-washing and this formula has very little to do with 'saving the world', evolving electric cars or 'transforming' F1. Sure it is worth giving a go, however, many motorsports fans want to see a series where teams really can innovate with power plants, aerodynamics, suspension and every other aspect pertinent to performance. Only with such a series will we have truly evolutionary leaps in automotive technology that can benefit road cars and other formulae.

<comment><USER3> They're allowed to innovate after the first season. Agreed not much to do with F1, and wondered if it wasn't intended as a way for racing to get around Bernie's control of F1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice article that discusses a practical change brought about by electric car technology, but an unfortunate title that doesn't reveal anything about its subject.

<comment><USER5> The title led me to believe they were using some kind of rocket technology.

<comment><USER4> Well, it's a bit confusing. I posted my comment when the submission title was much less relevant to the article's content than it is now. The title was edited to better reflect the topic after my comment was posted.</comment></comment></comment>


Amended Brief for US v. Auernheimer - <AUTHOR> http://www.volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AmendedReplyBrief.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Favorite part so far: "Under this standard, from a source surely more authoritative than Wikipedia, ICC-IDs are not passwords."

Meow!</comment>


The Financial Side of Building Mac Apps - <AUTHOR> http://tyler.io/2014/07/a-candid-look-at-the-financial-side-of-building-mac-apps-on-your-own/ <comment><USER3> I've got 2 modestly successful Mac apps, Mi-Fi Monitor[1], and Codepoints[2].

Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac (there's an older iOS version[3]) alone has been much more successful than I ever imagined, despite being a simple little utility, doing no advertising, and having an automatically limited market of potential users (people who own a Novatel Mi-Fi).

At the time the original iOS version was written, it was just something I myself needed, not something I intended to publish anywhere. But as I discovered after putting it up for sale, a lot of other people _needed it_ too. Novatel's own executives were using it, I talked to one of them on the phone for quite a while, 2 others emailed me about it, I reported some API bugs to them, etc. Very satisfying experience for me.

And then when I put up Mi-Fi Monitor for Mac on the MAS, it got featured on TUAW[4], which caused sales to skyrocket far beyond the iOS version and far beyond what I expected from something that was originally a "scratch my own itch" thing.

I'd love to build something larger for Mac and go down the indie path, but I'm primarily working as a consultant now on both platforms. I do absolutely love when Mac projects come my way though, I like building for that platform a lot more than iOS.

[1] [http://infincia.com/apps/mi-fi-monitor-mac](http://infincia.com/apps/mi- fi-monitor-mac)

[2] [http://infincia.com/apps/codepoints](http://infincia.com/apps/codepoints)

[3] [http://infincia.com/apps/mi-fi-monitor-ios](http://infincia.com/apps/mi- fi-monitor-ios)

[4] [http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/13/daily-mac-app-mi-fi- monitor/](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/13/daily-mac-app-mi-fi-monitor/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Tyler, as someone who constantly thinks about different avenues of working on my own, it's really informative to hear stories such as yours. Plus, your story is usually the one people gloss over. We usually hear about the two projects a year that make billions and the ones that completely fail. It's refreshing to hear about an app that made money and gave you the financial stability to take a couple more risks. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER5> Thanks! My original goal was extremely simple. Earn $X to do Y home improvement project. But as the app took off I've readjusted my goals. I've never thought about becoming "rich", instead, I see it as a wholly possible way to earn just enough to support my family and be happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats on the success.

Most of this post tracks my experience and is roughly, true for cross platform or Windows development. Shareware predates app stores.

(Though most shareware authors don't call themselves shareware authors anymore, since distribution techniques have changed and the word never helped sell software.)

<comment><USER7> Do you know any desktop applications, be it cross-platform or single OS, that were made independently (not by a company), bootstrapped and are now profitable? As far as I know Paint.net was made by one person and it's now his full-time job, but it's dependant on donations and I'm more interested in a "traditional" business model.

<comment><USER6> I know a few dozen apps that fit that bill. Bingo Card Creator started as a cross-platform desktop app (that was my only product from 2006 through 2009, when I released the online version). It was bootstrapped and was/is profitable.

A few others off the top of my head: Perfect Table Plan, Poker CoPilot, Mixed In Key, Balsamiq Mockups (though that eventually turned into "a company"), etc. You'll note that BCC doesn't belong in the same league with any of the above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been talking to iOS / OS X indies over the past few weeks and with very few exceptions, all I hear is "revenue down X% over the last Y years". We've seen this first hand, too.

Luc Vandal wrote a good article [1] about it. I'm very interested in hearing about other people's thoughts and experiences - contact details can be found on my HN profile.

[1] [http://lucvandal.com/2014/07/03/theindielife/](http://lucvandal.com/2014/07/03/theindielife/)

<comment><USER8> > may lose traction because a VC funded company is offering a free alternative > and has near to unlimited funds for market it while they figure out how to > monetize it.

This is what got me. If you are doing well, startups are going to look at getting into your market. And you can't compete against free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been doing indie Mac dev for about ten years now [[http://www.expandrive.com](http://www.expandrive.com)] and I keep arguing that we could be in a golden age for being an indie Mac dev if it weren't for everyone having fled off to do mobile development. Apple keeps selling more and more macs and now has an easy distribution channel built right into the machine for you. Make something useful. Sell it for $20-60 bucks. It's sustainable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I generally agree with you. One of the interesting bits of information from the article is the financial boost from paid updates. You can sort-of approximate this on the MAS but none of the options are ideal.

In my opinion, you absolutely must give people the chance to try your product. This means having a trial build on your website, which most Mac indies do but it's a bit problematic for paid apps, as I presume a lot of people on the MAS itself are unaware. It's in the best interest of everyone to have trials - <USER2> customers, so that they don't feel duped and actually buy a product they're happy with and for developers, so that they acquire real customers, not play a game of "can we convince people to fork over money without trying".

Moreover, it's in the best interest of customers to actually provide paid updates - they can vote with their wallet whether a business should survive. But without the proper availability of paid updates, customers are left with no choice, even if they did want to support developers. Unfortunately, the voice of a vocal minority instils fear in developers to try and charge for such updates.

Given the current climate, our plan for the future is to lower our initial price and offer major versions as paid updates. Instead of, say, charging $40 for the current version + $20 for an update, we'll just always charge $30 for the current version. As a side effect, it lowers the entry for everyone and your real customers can still vote with their wallets and support your efforts, if they choose to do so. One of the downsides is the introduction of a new SKU which is not that much of a problem (before the MAS, you had to do the same anyhow). It's usually wise to provide a way for customers to stay in touch with you and hear about updates but only if they want to (don't smack dialogs repeatedly in their face, that's just not nice).

<comment><USER5> Do you think the exposure the Mac App Store offers is worth Apple's 30% cut along with the lack of upgrade options for customers? Why not also (or in place of) sell your software directly through your website?

I'm the author of the article in question, and with my current sales infrastructure, I'm able to spin up and sell a new product (SKU) in a matter of hours. Since I've been doing this for seven years, am I now overestimating the amount of work it takes to setup and sell your app independently?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about your jurisdiction but in most EU countries, the sale proceeds from Apple lie outside the scope of VAT. Thus, you need to subtract your effective VAT rate and the net effective rate that you end up paying on the MAS is about 10-15%. Which is very close to what you would pay for, say, FastSpring ("You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction" [1]). The biggest advantage of the MAS is that it's a distribution channel preinstalled on every single Mac - that's extremely valuable.

As you say, you would ideally sell on both the MAS and outside. In terms of selling outside the MAS, it does come with some overhead, mostly related to VAT. Even worse, the EU is changing the VAT rules starting from 2015 (the rule change itself is designed to remove the competitive advantage of big companies to be based in EU states with low VAT and sell products in countries with high(er) rates):

> Currently, the place of taxation for digital services supplies is determined > by your location as the supplier of the services. However, from 1 January > 2015, the place of taxation will be determined by the location of the > consumer.

It's not a big deal since you can just sign up for the VAT MOSS but it's still more hassle than just putting up an app on the MAS. Note that all of this applies after your exceed the VAT threshold, which is different in different EU member states.

[1] [http://www.fastspring.com/pricing.php](http://www.fastspring.com/pricing.php) [2] [http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/posmoss/](http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/posmoss/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Couldn't agree more.

I'm also a Mac Developer, my app is Codebug ([http://codebugapp.com/](http://codebugapp.com/)) an Xdebug client for Mac. I created this app in 2012 while I was learning Objective-C/Cocoa, and it's been a very cool steady growing since day one.

Specially the increase your price part. I actually added a bunch of new features and increased the price. Guess what ? The sales didn't drop at all, matter of fact they increased. I get a lot more top-quality users and people who actually engage with the app and are prone to spread the word. Also, I'm selling it from my own website, not from App Store. Sorry Apple, I already pay you $99 dollars a year for your dev program. Not going to share 30% of my profits with you :P

iOS or Mobile app doesn't appeal me at all from an indie dev perspective. Everything pretty much has been done, and there's this stigma of not charging your app of what it's really worth. Everyone is doing Free, In-app or 0.99 cents apps. Screw that, I need to put food on the table.

TL;DR: Make a good product, keep improving it, price it right and you will succeed in the long run.

<comment><USER11> I'm always interested when mac app developers either don't ever support, or support and then abandon the Mac App Store.

I can understand wanting to minimise overheads as much as possible - I just wonder what the total cost difference is for a 3rd party payment system, hosting the files, handling refunds etc (plus potentially lost sales), vs the 30% cut Apple take..?

Also, I find myself much more likely to purchase an app if I can do so via the Mac App Store. It's so ridiculously easy to purchase/install and re-install when required; I already trust Apple with my credit card; and I don't have to worry about whether the store front in question is secure.

The last part in particular is a big issue to me - your site is not available over https, so I have no way to know if the link from your site to FastSpring is the one you intended or if I'm being MITM'd and getting a link to send $60 to some russian hacker, as the destination page is on a completely different domain, bares very little resemblance to your site, and is also not hosted via https. When I tried to access the initial order page over HTTPS I was given a ridiculous message telling me "Secure Connection Not Allowed".

The "technical infrastructure" page for FastSpring touts "hardware accelerated SSL" - so I can rest assured that the message telling me I can't use their store front over SSL was encrypted with great efficiency.

The only part of FastSpring that seems to be accessible over SSL is the final order page - but I've already followed multiple links and form submissions from non-secure pages, so I could be looking at _anything_ by this stage.

That FastSpring put a big "Norton Secured" badge on the top of their http only initial order page is both ridiculous and dangerous.

All of this makes me wonder how much extra value that 30% cut can give back to the developer...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess I would point out that if it wasn't clear before it is clear now that iOS spps in a mature market behave much more like content than applications when it comes to getting news users, retaining them, and all the other pirate metrics, me hearties. Think music or ringtone store rather then desktop apps. The mobile experience is just not that sticky in most cases, and Apple has absolutely no interest in helping you build a long-term relationship with them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tyler, you kick ass. From the way you build up to the numbers, you seem almost apologetic for your app's success. You don't have to apologize for making money on software, even if it is unfashionable.

I think you're able to charge $49 where an RSS reader can't because your audience is more professional. I'm one of thousands of other webmasters who have ...started GUI frontends for Apache, so I know what this is worth. Now, you going to add support for Nginx? :)

<comment><USER5> Nginx is high on mine and my users' wish lists. I'm still trying to figure out if it's even possible to integrate with VirtualHostX (which is Apache focused) given the UI differences Nginx support would dictate or if it would be best to break Nginx support out into a new, standalone product. Some users might see a separate product as a money-grab, but I'm really at a loss as to how I'd combine Apache + Nginx support into a single product.

<comment><USER14> considering you'd be targetting two different webservers, i don't think so. you'd also be expanding the potential userbase. Besides, I haven't heard of anyone who uses both nginx & apache.

<comment><USER15> eh?

Then make me a first, i reverse proxy from Apache to NGINX, having NGINX as a caching layer for static assets etc..

That's not too uncommon imho...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thanks for sharing. I also do mac development, and I have one app today + another in the pipeline. My current App, Maxel ([http://maxelapp.com/](http://maxelapp.com/)) sells at a 8 bucks (for a download accelerator, pretty busy market), which I don't think I could pull that off on mobile.

Now that's just a utility. Business type apps can command $40+ if they're good, and the top sellers are often high-priced.

</comment><comment><USER17> Tyler - thanks for that really detailed account. Aside from the financials, I'm curious how you manage working alone? Did you ever consider finding a business partner? Do you work at home alone, or do you find some kind of shared space? I know from a brief period working on my own thing at home that it starts to feel like an echo chamber.

<comment><USER5> For the first five years, it was myself, alone in my home office at night and on weekends. My wife went to bed early and I'd have 10pm - 1am every night to hack around - plus random times on the weekend. After I went full time with it, I toured a few co-working spaces in Nashville, but most of them were either geared at MBAs who co-work for less than eight hours a week, or too expensive. So, even after going full time, it was still just me in my home office. But my working hours changed to a normal 9-5 routine. My wife also works from home, so I never went crazy from lack of human interaction.

As for business partners - never really considered one. I don't think there's enough work to go around. But I do partner with two designers, when needed, and have a few close friends who also do Mac development I can bounce ideas off of throughout the day.

<comment><USER18> What about angel investors? With some money what do you think you could might be able to do that you can't do now?

<comment><USER19> This is not the kind of business that angel investors are interested in.

An investor (be it an angel or, at a later stage, a VC fund) is interested in an exit at some point.

There's just no way a simple utility like VirtualHostX will ever generate profits that would warrant an exit event (which are limited to a sale to someone else or an IPO).

If there's no exit event, an investor doesn't get his money back. He might own a chunk of profitable business but it's paper money.

<comment><USER18> "Angel investors" and "angel investors in the valley" are not necessarily the same thing. Also the idea was not to invest in the particular product but in the entrepreneur and his capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone recommend some good books/resources to pick up Mac App development over iOS? So much is focused on iOS, and would like to get some personal recommendations.

<comment><USER5> Aaron Hillegass's "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" is how I got started. Likely, his new books only focus on iOS development. But this book pre-dates the iPhone. I learned Mac dev from it in 2005. Highly recommended for the basics.

<comment><USER20> Thanks. Just for those curious, his latest book is from 2011:

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (4th Edition) [http://smile.amazon.com/Cocoa- Programming-Mac-OS-4th/dp/0321...](http://smile.amazon.com/Cocoa-Programming- Mac- OS-4th/dp/0321774086/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406581529&sr=1-1&keywords=cocoa+programming+for+mac+os+x+5th+edition)

And apparently there is an update coming in October:

More Cocoa Programming for OS X: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides) [http://smile.amazon.com/More-Cocoa-Programming-OS- Guides/dp/...](http://smile.amazon.com/More-Cocoa-Programming-OS- Guides/dp/0321706269/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406581529&sr=1-3&keywords=cocoa+programming+for+mac+os+x+5th+edition)

<comment><USER21> The More Cocoa Programming for OS X: book has been in O'Reilly Rough Cuts beta for several years and the tech is pretty old at this point. Not sure if it ever will see the light of day. The Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X is updated regularly and the training program is ongoing so I imagine it will continue to be updated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find startups for sale? - <AUTHOR>

Serious question, want to find some business oportunities in technology. <comment><USER2> This is the big clearing-house site for businesses for sale (it includes offline and online businesses):

<http://www.bizbuysell.com/>

I haven't used it personally, but a friend of mine is always raving about it for idea generation and small biz opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://flippa.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> why only "for sale"? why not as an investor / partner?</comment>


When does a website spread itself merely by means of the Facebook Like button? - <AUTHOR>

I recently soft launched a website by publishing a status update on my personal Facebook Wall. My goal was to get very early feedback from my friends and see to what extent the site would spread beyond my friends. I calculated that I got about 40 of my friends to Like my site (and Liking means that a link to my site automatically is posted on their wall, so that their friends can see it and Like it also). The total number of Likes at this point is 125 and has stagnated. Of the 125 Likes, 40 are my own friends, and 85 are people that are unknown to me. I have not done any marketing outside of the initial Facebook status update (there are no links to my site from blogs, Google, etc), so I am pretty sure that this can be viewed as a closed system with Facebook as the only spreading mechanism.
Now, to my back-of-the-envelope hypothesis: if for every Like I get, if that Like results in 0.7 more Likes every time I go one more degree outside of my own circle of friends, then the numbers would seem to add up correctly to the 125 Likes.
In other words:
40 of my friends Liked the site;
28 of my friends' friends liked it (40 x 0.7 = 28);
20 of my friends' friends' friends liked it (28 x 0.7 = 20);
14...;
10...;
7....;
5....;
3....;
2....;
1....;
0....;
SUM = 130 (ie pretty much 125)
And yes, I can think of ways that this calculation could be flawed, but I am not looking for an exact answer; I would be willing to tolerate a fair amount of error as long as the answer is systemically correct.
Continuing on, and for lack of better terminology, I am going to denote 0.7 as the "magic number". In my opinion, as long as the magic number > 1.0, and there are endless degrees of circles of friends out there, my site will eventually take over the universe. As we all know though, those assumptions do not hold, so I am interested in finding out what the magic number has to be for me to be able to open up a Jolt Cola and sit back and comfortably watch the number of Likes grow steadily, and at a moderately increasing pace. Would the magic number have to be 1.2? 1.5? Finally, when does it go viral? 3.0? 5.0? 10.0?
I would be very curious if anyone else has done any similar calculations, or if anyone can reject my initial hypothesis. <comment><USER2> This is called the viral coefficient, and if it's more than 1, it's 'viral growth'. [http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/lessons-learnt-viral- marketi...](http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/lessons-learnt-viral-marketing/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, exactly the kind of information I was hoping to find! THANKS!!</comment>


How Rotten Tomatoes Changed the Film Industry - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/how-rotten-tomatoes-changed-the-film-industry/ <comment><USER2> That's a very... nothing-saying article. It mentions that some professional (money-making) movie reviewers gathered a decade ago for an interview, and admitted that it might be nice to get an opinion of a large audience through the internet, rather than only a few reviewers'. And from that it half- concludes that there is some tension between the two (online, 'democratic' platforms and the professional reviewers), and cites someone who hopes they can coexist or something. Umm, okay?

So how did the actual film industry change? All I read is about reviewers potentially having gone out of business because reviews can be found in bulk online.</comment>


Ask HN: What can I do when there is nothing to do at work? - <AUTHOR> I'm a contract software developer and would consider myself mid-senior level in my skillset. I've been working for my current client for about 3 months.  Every assignment they give to me I get done as soon as possible to the point that I sometimes don't have much to work on some days. Lots of down time. Over the last few weeks things have really slowed down. Every other day I reach out to my two project managers and the general system architect of the company to see if I can assist them with anything. 90% of the time they have nothing for me.
What I found odd was my department manager, who is essentially the boss of everyone in IT, sent out a mass email asking if they know anyone that can fill a role that requires about 5 years more experience than I have, but involves work very similar to what I was hired on for. I even sent my department manager a text message saying I would be more than happy to take on some of the work this new role is suppose to do once it is filled. In addition I told them I don't have much to work on right now. The department manager never responded to my text, but I could see they read it cause it was iMessage.
We are all working remotely cause of pandemic. There are lots of different internal tools that are used and if I would tinker with them would be essentially guessing to figure out exactly how they work and how I can improve upon them. I would need a businesses analyst to sit down with me to explain everything.
What can I do in this predicament? <comment><USER2> It's kind of odd to imagine not being able to think of anything to do on a system or codebase. Do you need approval before starting on a change? Why not just do something that makes things better?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's difficult to know what can be made better because I don't really understand how the entire system works. It's a monolithic system. Again, it would require a businesses analyst to understand what needs to be improved.

Also, they don't want changes made unless there is a need because they don't want to risk new bugs being introduced.

<comment><USER3> That's the thing you should be working on.

You should understand the system both technically (how is it architected, how does it work, what does it do) and from a business standpoint (why does it do that? where is value derived? what is painful?).

It's hard to add value if you can't be entrepreneurial or innovative.

<comment><AUTHOR> How can someone learn from a business standpoint what the software is suppose to do without anyone internally teaching them? The system is for finance and this is my first finance software job. Should I start learning finance?

<comment><USER3> Yes. It is critical to your long term success that you understand the problems that you are writing code to solve, not just the code.

You said that you complete things as soon as possible. Are you sure that you are understanding the problem? The solution?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Developer Income Report #16 - <AUTHOR> http://www.kreci.net/reports/developer-income-report-16/

<comment><USER2> I love seeing these posts every month. They're great inspiration for developers who might be thinking about going off on their own, and a reminder that Rome wasn't built in a day.

Congratulations kreci on reaching your income goal!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It looks like a time for reaching another one... but still hard to imagine making more... But as they say the sky is the limit... need to rethink my future goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious what kind of boost you see just from posting these Developer Income Reports. Is this a Schrodinger's Income Report kind of thing where posting about the experiment affects the outcome of the experiment?

<comment><USER4> I think you mean Heisenberg. Schrodinger is the guy with the cats.

<comment><USER5> Though that's not actually what Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says either. It's really the observer effect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)>

</comment></comment></comment><comment> steve-howard This may be off-topic, but where do you draw inspiration for your apps? I am a fairly decent programmer, would love to write some Android apps, but I'm sort of at a loss when it comes to what kind of apps I would want to write. It seems to be something you just have to draw out of thin air or get via spontaneous inspiration. Usually I think about what kinds of problems I want to solve, but there's almost always an app for that already!

<comment><USER6> Kinda looks like he leaves that kind of question to be answered by his ebook see here:

<http://www.kreci.net/android/make-money-on-android/>

<http://www.kreci.net/android/make-money-android/>

Which just goes to show he can do marketing on more than just android. I guess I'll support it because I really like these income reports but I can't comment on whether the ebook is any good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations on achieving your target.

Is there any chance of you getting apps into the Amazon store or are they only allowing U.S. developers? I know techie bloggers aren't loving the Kindle Fire, but I know a ton of normal people buying them. That's a lot of Android tablets, none of which will ever see the main Android store.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have submitted my apps to Amazon Store. One of them is on top of rankings in its category. Still it is just a little percent of downloads comparing to Android Market.

<comment><USER7> I know of almost a dozen Kindle Fires that parents are holding onto to give to their kids at Christmas. I think the Amazon downloads will pick up quite a bit in the next 3 months, especially for apps that could appeal to older kids. But it'll be interesting to see how the Amazon numbers compare to the Android Market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I understand why the author is not willing to share much specifics (such as which free apps get him 4k+ a month in ad revenue) but he still at least could get a number of installs published.

I am skeptical because I know for a fact that some people don't tell the truth. We can only speculate about the reasons..maybe it's to generate more traffic or interest towards the non-free products they offer. I know a fellow (who used to publish a competing product to mine) who boasted online in an article about making quarter million dollars a year after just being a year in business. The same fellow just was trying to sell me his "quarter-million a year business" domain name for 1K a few months before:) In this case, numbers are much more moderate and believable, but still I am not taking this just at the face value, unless there are some facts I can verify, or compare against. The number of active users, for example, and in which countries (mostly) are generating 4K+ /month in ads?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As usual comments welcome and strongly desired! =)

<comment><USER9> Congratulations for reaching your goal ! . I've been following your series since they started, and they give me hope for starting out on my own.

I'm stuck in a job I've grown to hate, and I've set my own goal to quit in April (with a small economic cushion while I start my own freelancing career).

While I don't think I'll do any Android development, your posts give me some insight on what you can do with effort.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been in very similar situation. Hated my day job and boss. But as you may see you can change it. There is a lot of money in online development. Not only Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dear Kreci,

Thanks for all the reports and the book. It is a great read and full of good advises, I recomend it to anyone entering the mobile market.

I have a question for you. How do we go to redownload the book? I had a major crash here and lost the PDF. Can I give you the PayPal ID for the transaction and you will send it back to me?

I send you an email about this couple weeks ago as well.

Cheers and thanks for all the help Andre

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello. Please use my contact form and provide me your transaction id.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any idea why your iStockPhoto income dropped just for this period? It seems like a fluke / outlier, not a long-term trend.

<comment><AUTHOR> I got less downloads than usual. Maybe because of xmass time (I do not have xmass niche photos in my portfolio). Hope it is temporary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice post. What country are you in?

<comment><AUTHOR> Poland. High taxes but income let me to pay all of them and make a comfortable living.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yet again an interesting post.

There's one thing I'd be interested in knowing: do you make more cash from your toy apps (x-Ray/cracked-window) or from the more useful ones such as your WordPress stats app?

<comment><USER13> I think the cast majority of the income is from ad clicks on the toy/joke apps. The demographic which downloads those apps is pretty big as are the download numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Being in the app business for more than 2 years, like any other business, there's a cycle. It's a definite trend that mobile ad spending increases towards the end of the year and so publishers will see higher CPM and more impressions. Come January, that bump in ad revenue might reverse and newbie developers could be in for a surprise drop in their ad revenue.

The key metric to measure is DAU, and checking that you are generating more impressions from more active users.

<comment><USER15> What kind of drop have you seen in past years? 10/25/50% ?

<comment><USER14> 50%

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It looks that some moderators do not like me. This post was on the main page and suddenly disappeared like many of my previous ones... Little not fair... Thanks...

<comment><USER16> It's at #12 now. The ranking algorithm is very sensitive to early votes, so a few votes in the first hour or so can make a noticeable difference in where the story ranks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yay! It is really back! Strange things happens ;) Thank you to all voters!</comment></comment></comment>


Regulating Google's Results? Law Prof Calls 'Search Neutrality' Incoherent - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/search-neutrality-incoherent <comment><USER2> James Grimmelmann (the prof being cited) has a strong software engineering background; he worked with me on PREfast in Microsoft Research and also was in Office for a while. So he understands technology well. That said I often disagree with him, including on this issue.

His full paper is well worth reading. [http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034...](http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=james_grimmelmann)

<comment><USER2> it's really bizarre to me that my post above got voted down at least once (maybe more). it seems to me that it adds quite a lot to the discussion: information about the main subject of the article most people don't know, and a link out to the full paper that's buried on page 2 of the main article. why was it downvoted?

<comment><AUTHOR> > That said I often disagree with him, including on this issue.

The people who downvoted probably _agree_ with him or are trolls.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the response! For the trolls, oh well, what can ya do. For the people who are downvoting because they agree with him ... does a downvote meant "doesn't add value" or "I disagree"?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cranelift, a low-level retargetable code generator written in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/CraneStation/cranelift <comment><USER2> It's interesting that booleans are stored as 0 or -1 [1]. I wonder what drove that decision. I just checked, and Rust's LLVM stores booleans as 0 or 1.

[1] [https://cranelift.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ir.html#boolean-t...](https://cranelift.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ir.html#boolean- types)

<comment><USER3> Well, for one, if true is -1 (using two's complement), then a bunch of conditionals and bit-twiddling become more simple. For instance:

        x = some_bool ? a : b;

can be compiled as a branchless:

        x = (some_bool & a) | (~some_bool & b);

This is why Forth also represents true as -1.

<comment><USER4> That would only be true if `a` is guaranteed to be a non-zero value though, right? e.g. `x = some_bool ? 0 : 1` would not be able to be represented that way.

<comment><USER5> It works for me. Note that `|` is a bitwise-or (not that it really matters, it just removes a branch)

        const True = -1
        const False = 0
        const ternary = (condition, left, right) => \
          (condition & left) | (~condition & right)

        ternary(True, 0, 1) // 0
        ternary(False, 0, 1) // 1

<comment><USER4> Oh right, because the right-hand side evaluates to 0 as well in this case. Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The README says:

"Cranelift is designed to be a code generator for WebAssembly, but it is general enough to be useful elsewhere too. The initial planned uses that affected its design are:

WebAssembly compiler for the SpiderMonkey engine in Firefox. Backend for the IonMonkey JavaScript JIT compiler in Firefox. Debug build backend for the Rust compiler."

</comment><comment><USER7> Hopefully will replace LLVM one day.

<comment><USER8> It will be an herculean effort though, given the amount of companies that contribute to LLVM.

<comment><USER9> Fortunately, this isn't required for the project to be successful :-).

<comment><USER8> Depends on how successful is going to be measured.

If it is to generate code with the same optimization quality and hardware support as LLVM, not really.

There are still cases where LLVM is playing catch up with GCC.

I also would like to see a pure Rust compiler toolchain, but sometimes pragmatism wins.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, pragmatism is why we don't define success in those terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Previously called "cretone", by the way.

<comment><USER11> I heard that the project was renamed because no one could pronounced "Cretonne". :)

<comment><USER12> Plus it has the danger of sounding too much like "cretin"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does it, or are there plans to, translate the IR to WASM (i.e. a WASM backend instead of just frontend)? This seems to have a more expressive set of instructions than WASM and could be a good target for compilers.

<comment><USER9> It is something we're thinking about. You might have to limit yourself to a subset of the full Cranelift IR for this, but I think we could make that subset big enough to be interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any example or tutorial?

<comment><USER15> I can't say if it's complete or work in progress, but here is a demo: [https://github.com/sunfishcode/simplejit- demo](https://github.com/sunfishcode/simplejit-demo)

<comment><USER2> Nice! This should be amazing for writing toy compiled languages! This looks way easier to get up and running than an LLVM backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I understand the enthusiasm for Rust, but I'm growing tired of these project advertised as "written in Rust" like it proves a point in itself.

<comment><USER9> Fwiw, "written in Rust" was added by whoever submitted the HN link; the project's own web page and documentation don't describe it like that.</comment></comment>


Some Lessons from the AT&T/Facebook Switcheroo - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/some-lessons-att-facebook

<comment><USER2> Has anybody published any studies about what it would cost to move a massive web service like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, etc. to having 100% of communication over TLS (HTTPS)?</comment>


How Women 'Dressed for Success' [1991] - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aha.io/index.php/do-women-need-to-dress-for-success/

<comment><USER2> Why do fashion pronouncements ("You should set your goal on owning four pairs of good quality business shoes") sound just as dated if they're from 1991 or 1891?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. The guide contains many ridiculous "insights" like a budget and target selection of clothes for your wardrobe.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How is it to work in Visual Effects industry as a developer? - <AUTHOR> Anyone has experience on it? Lots of automation, scalability of the nodes, render farms... Looks like very interesting work. <comment><USER2> Depends on where you are, what you want to do.

There are two main bits of VFX developer work: tools and RnD.

Tools developers are there to allow artists to find, convert, import and send assets to a render queue. Most of this is written in python, as thats the embedded language of choice for most VFX packages (maya, nuke, $other)

Then there is RnD: this is most of the stuff you see at sigraph. We need to implement a new type of water caustic that doesn't suck, Model snow more realistically, or trying to make hair systems not an utter pain in the arse to use.

If you want to be in the tools department you'll need python, and some experience with maya/nuke/renderman/arnold.

If you want to be doing RnD you'll need to figure out what you want to play with and either apply to a company that trying to build their own renderer (MPC) or join a company that is already building one (disney, pixar, the foundry, autodesk)

Also, beware that its an industry thats in the second part of a massive globalisation heave. Jobs are clustered in vancouver & london. However there are large changes that mean lots of work is starting to gravitate to china and india. At the moment its low end stuff like paint and roto, but thats where the next generation comes from.

<comment><USER2> I also forgot to mention; at a well established shop everything is automated & integrated.

most workstations will have a network home partition, which means that your home directory is everwhere you log in. Its easier and miles faster to write something out to an NFS share than it is to use HTTP/database

Ten gig switches get saturated without trying too hard (Place I worked pulled a constant 15 gigabytes a second from storage. bursting to 35. thats bytes, not bits)

Render farms have been using cgroups for many years. you'll start to worry about scheduling rate of tasks.

The only things that are virtualised are things like the intranet and the wiki. everything else is on real steel

rendernodes are big, there are loads of them, but never enough. They are treated like cattle.

There are large data pipes. however if you deal with marvel, you'll not have internet access at your desk, it'll be through some horrid remote desktop system. If you're lucky you might get one way copy and paste.

Fluid sims have caches that are in the order of 10s of terabytes

<comment><USER3> Curious about Marvel, any more info? I find it interesting, am wondering how difficult a rd would be and such.

<comment><USER2> So Marvel are wonderfully paranoid about footage leaks.

It didn't help that someone got drunk on a plane and left wolverine on an unencrypted laptop. (which wasn't a VFX person because it had sound, titles and non VFX shots)

They specify that there must be an air gap between "work side" and the internet.

This means that there must be two/three networks, A workstation network which has no internet, a Data IO network for sending and receiving assets from other companies and finally the remote desktop server for internet access.

Other things like USB disks are disabled on all non dataIO workstations.

I've heard that some places were being forced to disallow email access as well. However I think that was successfully argued against.

The hardest part is not having access to download libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have some experience here..

I worked at a studio in London, I was basically a data wrangler, writing python tools to automate everything.

The render farm consisted of 250 nodes, each had 48 cores and 256GB of RAM. It was connected to a large storage array, total storage was approx 5PB.

In the evenings the desktop machines that the modellers worked on were turned into render nodes. These machines were given lighter scenes to render since we wanted them to complete overnight.

The longest frame I have seen has taken a 48 core node 60 hours to render a single frame.

What else would you like to know?

<comment><USER5> In what format does a rendered image come out? How large is it? How is editing done?

<comment><USER4> I worked in VFX - so we were delivered the edited scenes and the artists would render on top of them ... theres very little post-processing done, what comes off the farm is fit for the client.

Although the farm schedules individual frames, they are combined into scenes (short clips from 2 - 30 seconds) and the artists get the scenes back. The scene file format is proprietary (and viewed with proprietary software), but I had a sneaky look inside and it seems to be losslessly compressed TGA frames. Scenes are usually short 2-6 seconds, and filesize would be 2-3 GB</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's different from paying with bitcoin? - <AUTHOR>

HN,
I've been wondering why it is that the idea of building UI's on top of bitcoin seem all the sudden such a good idea, but what it all comes down to for the greater public, is that they can transfer money to oneanother, when this can for instance also be done with the Paypal api or such services.
So please, tell me what makes it better for people to transfer money to a wallet id then to a bank account.
Thanks for your comments in advance! <comment><USER2> Besides the freedom and privacy, there are a few more advantages.

Bitcoin transactions are very cheap, and can be free. (however most clients usually require a minimum miner's fee of about 5 microbitcoins, which will probably go down in future versions if the USD/BTC price goes much higher).

For example, a few days ago, someone sent about $140 million (USD) worth of bitcoin, and paid no fee.

Another advantage is that transactions can be as small as 0.00000001 BTC (called a satoshi), which when combined with little or no fees, makes online micro payments viable.

</comment><comment><USER3> most obvious benefit at the moment is anonymity. Another good benefit is that is P2P - that means no mid party can intercept your transaction and prevent it from happening.</comment>


Edward Snowden: The Untold Story (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/ <comment><USER2> Needs (2014)

<comment><USER3> Discussion from original post in 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172365)</comment></comment>


What to do with my iphone app DayTracker - <AUTHOR>

Any ideas of what todo with my iphone app DayTracker (www.thedaytracker.com)  I want to make it better but I dont have the (code) skills to really make the app awesome myself.  With the 4.0 OS coming out it could really be great.
Not sure if I should continue development on it or not.  Anyone have any ideas as to what I should do.  Is there any devs that want to work with me on it.   Would be great to work with someone in the SF Bay Area.
At a crossroads of what I should do with the app.  It sells everyday but needs some work to be great.
Ideas or suggestions welcomed.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> Open source it. It might help other people who want to do similar stuff.</comment>


When to Sell? Look at the HQ - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-to-sell-look-at-the-hq-1491768486 <comment><USER2> The first two examples that are cited as evidence are companies who he noted as failures because their stock dipped in 2007-2008. Cherrypicking evidence from a decade ago, and correlating it with the massive market selloff... I couldn't continue to read the nonsense beyond that.</comment>


Inside Uber's New Self-Driving Cars in Pittsburgh - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-ubers-new-self-driving-cars-in-pittsburgh-1473847202 <comment><USER2> Awesome article, thank you!</comment>


Lost Sense of Smell May Be Peculiar Clue to Coronavirus Infection - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/health/coronavirus-symptoms-smell-taste.html <comment><AUTHOR> From the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery:

[https://www.entnet.org/content/coronavirus- disease-2019-reso...](https://www.entnet.org/content/coronavirus- disease-2019-resources)</comment>


Can the world please standardize passwords? - <AUTHOR>

This is 2015 and I find it amazing that with all the standards bodies in the world, we have not all decided on a standardized pattern for what constitutes a password.
e.g.
- some sites require 8-12 characters. Why limit it to 12? - some sites require a number, a letter (upper and lower case), and some punctuation - some sites do not allow punctuation - some sites cannot handle upper/lower case
With the hundreds of passwords people have to remember, it is impossible to satisfy all the requirements. So that means it's impossible for many people to remember their passwords.
The worst possible violation of a secure password is to "write it down". This argument goes for password managers as well (which only work on the device that holds them). Same deal for having the browser remember your password. Not secure at all.
Banks and finance institutions are the worst offenders. They if anyone should be able to agree on what constitutes a password.
Passwords are with us for the long term. My mother is not going to use certificates to talk to her web banking.
And logging into Facebook is hardly a solution either. That's the last body that should be controlling authentication. Privacy? What's that?
So where are the global standards?
Ugh... Thanks for listening... Peter <comment> cs- NO, no no no, and No!

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15753279/password- validat...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15753279/password-validation- with-multiple-rules/15754118#15754118)

It's not a standard that can fix this problem, it's education, both between end users and developers.

One could devise a system that allows any password as long as the entropy threshold is satisfied.

The only limitation to passwords should be a minimum level of entropy (or at least length, to keep things simple) furthered by taking into account character sets, lists, etc...

Some people prefer only digits, other like sentences, while some are used to the systems currently in place at the moment with multiple custom rules.

Food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER2> Most passwords don't matter. The example I always use is if someone guesses my HN password, so what? [1] HN is not my bank. It does not need serious security in regard to my use (not speaking for anyone else). Giving it a unique low quality password is fine. Facebook demands a bit more attention, gmail more beyond that, but neither requires life and death security either.

One reason for no single standard is there is no single level of risk. The other is that standardizing password formats makes cracking passwords more standard.

[1]: Though, I did change the trivial password I was using before first posting the example here on HN

<comment><USER3> If you have higher security accounts which have gmail as the contact email, then the gmail account should be treated the same.

Breaking into gmail gives access to many password recovery mechanisms.

But I agree for low priority sites: my password across many forum sites is the same and very low entropy. I really don't care to think more about it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" So that means it's impossible for many people to remember their passwords."_

Good. Human-memorable is machine-crackable.

More seriously, there's work being done on this front, but specifically along the lines of eliminating passwords, because _passwords are a terrible method of authentication_.

See: FIDO Alliance [https://fidoalliance.org/](https://fidoalliance.org/)

Or my preferred item, the Yubikey: [https://www.yubico.com/](https://www.yubico.com/)

In other words, a lot of your assumptions aren't necessarily correct (and there's competing interests. If I were writing a standard, I'd have all passwords be 20-characters minimum. However, that's not good for user experience)

<comment><USER5> Passwords are the worst form of authentication except for all the others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > This argument goes for password managers as well (which only work on the > device that holds them).

My couple of password manager files encrypted and stored on Dropbox disagree with that one. (A couple of different ones because I like to segregate them by criticality. So I don't have to unlock the one with critical information most of the time. Reduces the attack surface.)

I can access them anywhere. Although I try not to access them on anything I don't have control over. For example: I memorize my dropbox password and my student login separately.

And it's a whole lot more secure to have a couple of long passphrases to unlock long generated passphrases for every site than to have a short password/passphrase for every site.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I buy all the future technology solutions, but only in the future.

For today we are stuck with passwords. Maybe my beef would be diffused if some lazy programmers would be more open to longer passwords and more non-alpha characters. e.g. let the user decide how long the passwords needs to be beyond some reasonable minimum. Then allow any character the user can stuff in. i.e. don't tell the user the password conatins invalid characters.

Again, the average user is like my mom. Not like the people on HN. And you can memorize non-dictionary passwords...

</comment><comment><USER7> Can such standard also include setting the default for echoing the password? Seeing that I have entered ### for a 5 character password is perfectly adequate. But for a 17 character password, echoing ######### does not give me useful feedback where I am or allow me to meaningfully edit mistakes.

Yeah, if I am projecting my screen in front of an audience of 300, I do not want my password echoed. But when I am using my mobile phone, getting feedback is far more useful than guarding against someone reading my screen.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just recently signed up for dropbox, and when I did, Chromium asked me if it was cool for them to auto-gen a password and put it in my browser keyring.

Whatever method they are using, I would imagine that'll be the new standard. My passwords are decently secure, but that's hard to beat in terms of both workflow and security.

</comment><comment><USER9> You can create all the standards you want. Doesn't mean anyone will adhere to 'em. :)

<comment><USER10> Required: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > So where are the global standards?

Here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength#NIST_Special_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength#NIST_Special_Publication_800-63)

That formulate provides the only meaningful measure of a passwords strength: its entropy. NIST 800-63 is a (very conservative) formula for calculating it. Rules like "at least one numeric" are poor rules of thumb for the same thing.

That raises the question of "how much entropy do I need". That depends on how well guarded the password is. A four digit pin has an entropy of around 12 bits. By web standards it's an absurdly weak password, yet it has stood attacks for years. That's because it's guarded by a piece of hardware that only lets you have 3 guesses.

There are banks that only let me have a 6 character password - without upper case or special characters, which you apparently think is bad. But the bank is assuming they control the use of that password in the same way the pin is controlled. If that assumption is right it's a perfectly reasonable think to do.

The assumption is almost certainly wrong, but it probably doesn't matter. There has been a gang knocking over Russian banks by infiltrating their IT (ie hacking their infrastructure). If they've done that they also have access to the customers password data. But then it probably doesn't matter as the bank is hosed anyway. [http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-report-says-computer- crimina...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-report-says-computer-criminals- stole-millions-from-banks-1424033504)

The average web site isn't as secure as a bank. It has to assume the password database will leak. If it leaks the attacker gets unlimited tries at guessing each password, and number of guesses per second is limited purely by how much hardware they can afford. For example, if the password is protected by SHA256 + salt, spending US$30K lets you make 1 guess every 3 pico seconds. If want a password that can withstand such at attack for a year (ie, take a year on average to brute force), you need a password with 40 bits of entropy. Such a password will be around 60 characters long. However, if the web site puts some thought into how they store the password they can reduce it considerably: [http://pbkdf2.sourceforge.net/](http://pbkdf2.sourceforge.net/) Sadly almost none do.

Lets tie this up. We've seen that a 12 bit password (a pin) can work well, yet a 20 character password stored on a regular web site will last around 10 seconds once the password database storing the password as a salted SHA256 hash leaks. These are wildly different numbers are not going to be easily encapsulated by the single standard you desire, mainly because difference between these two examples was _not_ how user chose them. It is in the way they are protected. That is where you should be focusing your efforts.

Besides, forcing users to change their behaviour doesn't work - they are far smarter than your "weak password detection" algorithms, and none of us like to be manipulated.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News for cryptocurrency and Blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://www.crypto.study <comment><USER2> Look, I understand this might become like the "hacker" debate, but can we please stop referring to blockchain and digital currencies with the term, "crypto"? We're coming to the point where people refer to these currencies as "cryptos".

The cryptography of digital currencies is a _very small_ portion of the entire field, and the term is being gradually co-opted to refer to that specific portion.

The reason I bring this up is because I find the choice in domain name unfortunate. You could have used something like blockchain.study. The more we have this term co-opted the more often we'll search crypto and have the engine spit out a bunch of cryptocurrency related results when we're not necessarily looking for those.

<comment><USER3> > _can we please stop referring to blockchain and digital currencies with the > term, "crypto"?_

I'm afraid that train has left the station. Can anyone think of a situation where such a language reversal has occurred?

<comment><USER4> Not off the top of my head, but I think it qualifies as a synecdoche:

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

<comment><USER5> Other way around - synecdoche usually refers to a whole through a part (calling an entire ship by just saying _stern_ , for example) but a part through a whole is usually called metonymy. Synecdoche is a subset of metonymy.

Edit: the wikipedia article does mention that it can be a part through a whole. But this is at odds with my Classical background.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Part of the appeal of Hacker News is that it doesn't require a "first name" and a "last name" and an email address during registration.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. Would consider your point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> why did you make this instead of a subreddit?

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually thought of it. But I believe that although reddit can be a great platform but it comes with certain limitations.

With so many things going on in blockchain and cryptocurrecnices at so many fronts, a subreddit would give preference to only popular things. That is why I have added tags (Needs more improvement though), so that a person can look at his interest specifically.

We can also add New ICOs section, something similar to SHOW HN to cover ICOs as well.

And also web generally gives free hand to lead the project as you and your users want to compared to a subreddit. And as a programmer I love that feeling. :)

<comment><USER8> It's like internet forums all over again. Every "subreddit" can be hosted somewhere else. This is fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> i thought Hacker news _is_ the hacker news for cryptocurrency... lol.

this is a news aggregator site, just like HN

<comment><AUTHOR> True that.

But now the title sounds like a clickbait :( (Had no intention of that)

<comment><USER9> I was more joking about HN constantly have front page on cryptocurrencies/blockchain, i don't need a dedicated one lol as there's more than I need(but I am specifically not interested in that I am sure others are)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha, I agree to that too. Maybe this could help to reduce that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice set of links so far. I hope this gets some traction.

Gray on white isn't the easiest for my old eyes, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

Would try to tweak some colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The clicked links accumulate so if you click 'Newest' 3 times in a row you have to go back 3 times to get back to the home. Don't add links to history if the same url is already on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Resolving this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a way to filter only news like, eg, when new coins get launched, when there are rumors about coins getting added to exchanges, when they actually got added? I'm following the space a bit, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible.

An idea for a project that would be _really_ useful IMHO: a calendar with all releases/rumors about additions/actual additions to exchanges. I would even pay a bit for that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are so correct. Even I face this problem a lot. I will try to see what I can do but unfortunately that is not possible right now.

With so many ICOs coming in, getting the info is correct info is so much difficult. But icoalert.com is doing good work in ICO launch details and timing. Hope this helps.

<comment><USER12> If you start working on this, let me know. I could want to help somehow. You can find my email on my profile

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Dropping you an email

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Type is too large. Too much white, hard on the eyes. Logo looks like Comic Sans? That's a poor choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for suggestion. Changed the color. Working on others.

<comment><USER13> Looks a lot better but you probably need darker font... Font is gray on soft white background (soft white is a big improvement) but now you prob need black font.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can barely fit 3 posts at one time on my mobile screen as opposed to 10 HN posts. This is way too big.

<comment><AUTHOR> Changed it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You might wanna include more sources for your aggregation, including subreddits....

Take a look at [https://cryptopanic.com](https://cryptopanic.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, would have a look. The aim is to drive content and curation with the help of users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bad Request: 400

gunicorn is not happy with you, apparently ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha. It is happy now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just curious, did you remove any submissions?

</comment><comment><USER18> getting a "Bad Request: 400" error.

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated. Please check again. :)

<comment><USER19> Still not working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No RSS feed?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the next thing in mind. There are some minor bugs which needs to be resolved, will put rss feed after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Broken

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please check again. Figured out the error and changed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ugly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please help me improve. Is there anything specific you would like me to change?

<comment><USER22> Design cannot be fixed with incremental improvements like a review in a PR. If you don't have talent for eye candy, you don't have it. Hire a good designer.</comment></comment></comment>


iFixit has been acquired by Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.ifixit.com/apple_press_release

<comment><USER2> Could we kill all of the stupid April Fools' articles?

<comment><USER3> What a coincidence: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506793)

Could you all take care of this one as test case, please?

(Edit: That was harsher than I should have been. Sorry.)

<comment><USER4> Seems a bit unnecessary.

<comment><USER3> You mean piling on a specific case? You're right. That was a mistake.

It's going to take me a while to get my balance with the public moderation thing, and I overdid it in this case. Sorry to all and especially the OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Marvellous. From [http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability):

"Last generation design makes the iPhone 4S ugly and worthless, increasing upgrade appeal."

</comment><comment><USER6> Love that they've taken inspiration from [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability)

I like clear guideline instead of stupid self repair nobody care about, thanks Apple for fixing iFixit.

"iPhone 5: Your battery should be dead by now. Time to replace your phone."

I knew it, I needed to go to the Apple store.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Apple is working hard to make devices last long enough to be upgraded or irrelevant, making repairability an antiquated notion"

</comment><comment><USER9> brilliant and so spot-on. Don't forget the all-new Smartphone Replaceability Index: [http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability](http://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_replaceability)

Why bother with repairing a device when you can just replace it with a new one?

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks like an April fool joke: [https://twitter.com/kwiens/status/450894251992162304](https://twitter.com/kwiens/status/450894251992162304)

</comment><comment><USER11> Totally forgot about April's fools ... glad that it's (probably) not true as I don't see Apple keeping a company like iFixit.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a feeling they're just going to kill them off since it seems more like bad PR when they score Apple products.

</comment><comment><USER13> BTW, I bet someone could claim market manipulation and win a lawsuit (if he could somehow prove that the April 1st joke was too credible and it affected share prices, for example).

I hope everyone has some sense of humor, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Um, I've been meaning to buy some tools to fix my iMac. I hope they stick around until I can afford them. What bad luck I've been getting lately. :-(

<comment><USER15> Given the date today I'd be tempted to not take the accouncement too seriously - it is April Fools Day after all.

<comment><USER14> D'oh! I am relieved and kicking myself at the same time!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Calling April Fools. Well done, but basic premise is just too obvious.</comment>


Increase your worth as freelancer by providing value, not by lowering the price - <AUTHOR> https://freelancemag.blogspot.com/2019/05/increase-your-worth-as-freelancer-by.html <comment><USER2> I have done the reverse.

I will do freelance work on any project for 1 day for free, as long as:

* It is a start to finish project. I won't finish off someone else's work or take on something I don't think I can get into a working state in a day. These are usually MVP type things.

* It's available to the public. No company internal tooling.

* The requestor will be about on the day. I want them to see me work.

This policy has gotten me lots of later paid work, which I price pretty high.

I consider it more as a demo of my abilities, and the first day of any project is usually the one you learn most in.</comment>


Scripting: Higher Level Programming for Ten 21st Century (1998) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tcl.tk/doc/scripting.html

<comment><USER2> Tcl remains as one of the most powerfully mature languages in this area.</comment>


The Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times - <AUTHOR> http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-circled-the-earth-four-times <comment><USER2> TL;DR

In 1883, a volcano on the island of Krakatoa, between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia, made the loudest and farthest-travelling sound known since.

The sound was heard by people in over 50 geographical locations, spanning an area a thirteenth of the globe. It took 4 hours for the sound to travel the distance.</comment>