What really happened at LivingSocial? - <AUTHOR> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/21/what-really-happened-at-livingsocial/ <comment><USER3> This comes on top of an article a few days ago that (to people in the business at least) was almost as preposterous, in which their ranking criterion for VC funds was number of acquisitions. [http://www.privco.com/top-20-venture- capital-firms-with-the-...](http://www.privco.com/top-20-venture-capital- firms-with-the-most-private-tech-company-exits-in-2012)

<comment><USER4> I once was peripherally involved in a large commercial real estate deal in a major city. The press (a major paper- I forget which one, specifically, but you'd recognize it) reported the value of the deal _without including the debt, which was most of the financing_. It is hard to be more wrong about financial matters than that, but that is the state of financial journalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> privco's sales people e-mailed the address on my company's domain and offered research services. when we declined, four days later an article ran on privco (an 'exclusive') reporting that we refused comment on something we had never seen which was an article full of made-up dire horseshit. so I was left explaining to my employees why this company was out to get us and no, I wasn't misleading them about our finances.

we do not have the resources to sue. wish livingsocial and the other companies targeted by these pieces of shit would. it's all a giant scam.

what hurts the most is the pubs that parrot the 'research', like cnn did this time around, which gives it credibility.

edit: a16z and google pay them for their research. sad. <http://www.privco.com/testimonials>

<comment><USER6> It's like the shareholder lawsuit shakedown, only targeting private companies.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if they have short bets (in systems like InTrade or similar shadow trading systems) on the companies they drag through the dirt.

<comment><USER8> Probably not. First, if you search InTrade you won't find anything related to LivingSocial. Second, it's not legal for anybody in the US to bet via InTrade[1], and Privco is a US company with it's founder Sam Hamadeh based in New York[2].

[1] [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/after-regulatory- sanc...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/after-regulatory-sanction- intrade-closes-to-u-s-investors/)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hamadeh>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Parts of the PrivCo report might not be accurate, but I don't trust a word Tim O'Shaughnessy says. We were told long ago that we'd be profitable by now, and then there was a round of layoffs. Is he under any obligation to be truthful about any of this? It's an internal email within a private company. Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

He doesn't mention the allegation that LivingSocial owes more to merchants right now than they have on hand. As others here have mentioned, that's going to hurt the quality of deals they're able to put together at a time when they need to be building confidence with customers and merchants.

He also doesn't mention the threat of more closures and layoffs. From a business perspective, it makes _no sense_ to pay high salaries to college educated 20-somethings to do customer support from expensive downtown DC loft office space, but he never mentioned that in any of the all-hands meetings when he said we would be profitable soon.

The constant theme in communication from management at LivingSocial is always "don't listen to what others are saying about us; they don't know the full picture." I wonder how much longer they can keep that up.

If they do go under, there will be a massive rush on all the talent that will suddenly become available. The brain drain is already beginning. A number of very talented engineers (not just Chad Fowler) have already left. They've been diplomatic about it, but the fact is that they saw better opportunities elsewhere. Anybody who says that the tenuousness of LivingSocial's continuing existence isn't at least a _small_ factor has a bridge to sell you.

People won't jump ship all at once, but this is going to be a huge problem for recruitment. Salespeople and customer support staff are a dime a dozen. No news there. But anybody talented enough to be a developer at LivingSocial (and the talent is considerable) would have to be quite desperate to come on board at this time. HN readers know that the caliber of developer they need can choose where they work. Would you sign on in this environment?

<comment><USER10> " From a business perspective, it makes no sense to pay high salaries to college educated 20-somethings to do customer support from expensive downtown DC loft office space"

So true and the same comment I was going to make. I was in the Seattle office and thought the same thing 2 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> PrivCo has absolutely NO short positions in any private company we cover. These are PRIVATE companies and with rare exception do not trade. Nor do we earn any fees from private companies we cover (and we do NOT accept paid advertising, unless you count a the standard Google links).

We have no agenda other than to try and publish facts, and what LivingSocial announced yesterday immediately struck us as misleading and fishy based on everything we knew about the company and it's dire financials. The press release and memo to employees (imagine you are one of those trusting hardworking employees, or a local daily deals merchant they owe money to "soon") - over $300 Million worth actually, but have only $76 million - <USER2> it seem as if the company was doing so well financially that their happy investors who had invested at a $5.7 Billion valuation wanted to double down on their investments and bet even bigger. NOTHING WAS FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. The company was NOT doing fine, lost over $400 Million last year, was running low on cash, and had to take a massive valuation haircut and grant all sorts of special preferences in order to get this last lifeline of cash.

Their financials can't be papered over...and they verified to the penny as public Amazon.com owns 31% now of the company. Look them up...if you know anything about finance or accounting you will reach the same conclusions as PrivCo did. LivingSocial will soon require mass layoffs, and will be insolvent or sold for pennies on the dollar by the end of this year is our prediction. (And we hope we're wrong, and don't make a dime either way, as we don't want to see 4,000 trusting employees lose their jobs).

But the numbers don't lie and we stick by our prediction.

The PrivCo Team www.privco.com

<comment><USER12> Nobody is debating whether LivingSocial has a world of problems.

We're debating the veracity of all of the non-public details that made your report interesting. Well, in theory we are. Only one side of the debate seems to have showed up.

<comment><USER11> CNN/Fortune story just updated again to say insiders confirm that LivingSocial was down to JUST $28M IN CASH in February right before taking yesterday's financing.

Do the math: looking at their 2012 financials on PrivCo: [http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives- emergency-110m-c...](http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives- emergency-110m-cash-infusion-from-existing-investors-to-avoid-bankruptcy)

That is, LivingSocial's operating expenses are about $1.4 Billion/year (Revenue + Operating loss = about $1.4 Billion they spend a year). That's $120 Million a month of expenses. $4 million a day. MEANING NEW FORTUNE/CNN UPDATE to their story confirms LIVINGSOCIAL WAS DOWN TO JUST 7 DAYS OF CASH! How is that NOT the very definition of a "distressed financing" situation? Correct the record CNN and Fortune - shame on you - and admit when you're wrong - (and by the way they just deleted this posting from the article comments). LivingSocial was down to a dangerously low level of cash just as PrivCo's sources confirmed, only a week, maybe 2, left, before paychecks would start bouncing and the whole house of cards came down. This is the very definition of a "distressed financing."

<comment><USER12> Take out the $600 million non-cash "goodwill" item they wrote down, and you've got $800 million per year operating expenses. That ups them to nearly 2 weeks.

But they have been trying to get profitable. So they have been cutting expenses and adding revenue. This deal would not be possible without that. Therefore they likely are not losing money as fast as in 2012. So a month or more of runway is perfectly believable.

Next, expenses and revenue tend to come in on different schedules. If that is cash right after you've paid employees, and you have revenue booked but not realized yet, you're in a much better position than if those two are reversed. That could easily add another month.

The result? I suspect CEO's claim of "several months" is possible, but likely optimistic. However I would be shocked if your "7 days" is in the right ballpark. But there is an easy way to check. If you're right, they should have run through this investment inside of 2 months, 3 months tops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This in particular makes PrivCo look stupid:

"Two of the three investors listed on the PrivCo site as participating in the round didn't participate, and one isn't even an investor in the company."

</comment><comment><USER6> LivingSocial's response is extremely damning of "PrivCo".

<comment><USER14> What I do not understand is: what does an 'investor' expects 'injecting' 110 million dollars on a bankrupt business?

There is nothing livingsocial can do to revert its current trajectory. It's not about the company, but the very core of its business model does not work, not one but dozen of similar companies failed early, are livingsocial and groupon trying to run some sort of ponzi scheme on desperate investors and employees?

<comment><USER15> It's reasonably obvious that the investor does not agree with your assertion that "the very core of its business model does not work". You can't state something like that as inarguable fact.

I don't doubt for a second that LivingSocial is experimenting with it's models, innovating and trying new stuff. It might not work out, but the investor clearly has enough confidence that it will to invest more cash.

<comment><USER14> They are doing it for so long and so many other companies have failed, in many other countries, that I'm starting to think that will never work.

But really, this is just a completely arguable point of view, sorry if it came out a bit despotic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Off-topic: Don't get me wrong, I'm on the side of whoever is telling the truth here, however, this CNN report/posting seems to be right on time in favor of Living Social, how does that work? do the PR department just email CNN and ask them "Hey, can you make a blog post quoting an internal mail to dimiss the lies PrivCo said early today?" No sarcasm here, does it really work that way or is just my imagination?

<comment><USER17> I work in the PR space -- most of the time it comes down to relationships and resource. Having the email address and even the slightest of personal relationships with influential journalists can work wonders in times like this.

A lot of times these writers are on the hunt for sources for their articles, and making yourself available to answer questions or give quotes, whether you're the founder or someone in the PR/Marketing dept, will go a long way down the road when you're looking for coverage on a new feature or want to clarify some bad press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What happened is in the end it didn't appear to have a repeatable and scalable business model.

Edit: For the record, I read the article, I forwarded it to colleagues interested in the space, and the only thing worthy of it for me was my comment -- don't start one of these without a business model.

All this PR commentary about misunderstandings about finances, funding all ties back to one thing -- they don't make money. Companies that make money don't hide it, and have a hard time hiding it.

Whether a PrivCo is funding them or not -- my original point stands.

This place for me is about learning to create a real business and not the lame bantering about distractions from this one requirement of any successful startup.

<comment><USER19> Not sure why you are getting down-voted, since what you say is unquestionably true.

I hope the whole "daily deals" fad dies soon, along with all the shitty companies (LivingSocial, GroupOn, etc.) that promote it. There is nothing more frustrating than getting consumers in the mindset of "I want to try it, but I'm going to wait until a daily deal comes along."

<comment><USER20> He's getting downvoted because he is commenting on the headline, and not the article. The article has absolutely nothing to do with how LivingSocial got to where they are, and everything to do with the investment that was just anounced. "What happened" is strictly referring to the details of that investment.

A cursory glance at the original article makes it obvious that his comment is irrelevant. It's just pithy snark against a company already dealing with false "news" reporting.

<comment><USER18> For the record, I read the article. I forwarded it to colleagues interested in the space, and the only thing worthy of it for me was my comment -- don't start one of these without a business model.

How did it apply to the article? Everything they did, didn't ultimately find a sustainable and repeatable business model. Instead theres all this perceived market validation of "oh look, investors say we're valuable", instead of market validation that's sustainable and repeatable.

I don't know anyone there and mean no one ill will, but without this, it certainly makes people wonder how making businesses lose money with deals for people who never come back is something you want to repeat, or how it can educate customers to become better customers (and pay full price).

I appreciate your judgement of me to be "pithy", but it's not. Snarks annoy me just as much. You can jump to the conclusions that you want but it's often fair to ask what someone meant instead of deciding what I meant in your positive and constructive open-mindedness.

This place for me is about learning to create a real business and not the lame bantering about distractions from this one requirement of any successful startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What I don't get is this; how does Living Social do ~$500mm in revenue and still fail to be in the black? It's not like they have any physical merchandise. All their expenses should be personnel, servers and bandwidth right? How are they bleeding through over $500mm in a year then? All the employees are overpaid? Paying too much for servers?

<comment><USER22> They count it as revenue _before_ paying the merchant. Their true revenue is probably much lower than $500mm.

<comment><USER21> Ahhhh, ok. That seems like shady accounting to me, then. Calling any money "revenue" before the merchants get their share.

<comment><USER23> That's not shady accounting, revenue is the income a company receives before handling any expenses, which in this case would include payment of merchants. This is why revenue is called the top-line - it represents the first number on any balance sheet before you subtract anything away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well now the story is updated. Quoted below:

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Hamadeh, who is standing by his original report. He says O'Shaughnessy is misleading his own employees, and that classifying the round as "equity" is a technicality given all of the debt-like provisions PrivCo continues to believe were attached. He also says that PrivCo spoke with a LivingSocial spokesman prior to publishing, and sent him a draft of the report with a request for any needed corrections. When nothing came back four hours later, PrivCo published. As you might imagine, now I've got a new call into LivingSocial.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly what I would do if I was an evil publication: make a prediction as to the trendlines of a business, write up a report full of false evidence, send a draft to the target and then declare it was the target's responsibility, not mine, to ensure that my report was correct.

What's different after this followup is that now CNN/Fortune is suspect too, because repeating this verbatim is unethical.

<comment><USER24> I don't have a firm opinion on the matter yet. I was initially suspicious of the initial report as I had never heard of them (PrivCo). However, I do work in advertising/PR and if someone submitted a claim like this to a spokesperson within four hours, we would at least say there are considerable and factual errors with your report, etc. This of course may have happened.

My interest in following this story is personal as I live in DC and have many friends still employed at the company.

I'd disagree that CNN is being unethical here, their story/angle is about the process and getting to the bottom of the PrivCo report.

<comment><USER6> FOUR HOURS. That's how much time _they_ claim to have given LivingSocial before running the report. Horsewhip these clowns off the stage now.

It's actually even worse if underlying trend they're "reporting" on is true, because they've poisoned the well.

<comment><USER24> PrivCo looks even worse now with this additional update to CNN's story:

"I don't think the real story here is the details of the financing," Hamadeh [PrivCo CEO] said. "It's what's going to happen to the little guys, all of the merchants who are really the company's unsecured creditors, if LivingSocial goes bankrupt... You'll see that we were right in six or nine months."

<comment><USER4> I think that's exactly right - this wouldn't be a story if PrivCo wasn't _mostly_ right about the big picture. The big picture is one of impending doom at LS, and yes, if that comes to bear, the little guys will get nothing.

Sure, they come off as slimy (and maybe they are - I have no idea). But the details matter less than the overall story here.

<comment><USER6> That's what PrivCo would say to defend what's happened. Like you, they'd be careful to couch the defense in terms of ideas that are hard to falsify. Of course, they got to this point in the conversation by reporting a series of material falsehoods; their initial specificity is what scored them a seat at the table. But let's ignore that they have no credibility anymore and instead entertain our own biases about what's happened.

It is especially easy to pull this off when the topic is a company we don't like.

<comment><USER4> I can't say I disagree. They displayed some pretty aggressive, and possibly unethical tactics here. But honestly, I don't much care about their account (as it seems to be inaccurate). I do care about LivingSocial's account, which is interesting to me, and paints pretty much the same picture.

<comment><USER6> That is the audience sentiment PrivCo is counting on.

<comment><USER4> They're counting on me wanting to see the truth and thinking that they're scammy and unreliable? Seems like an odd strategy.

<comment><USER6> Do you really feel like your perspective on LivingSocial's core business is underrepresented, and that continually reminding us of how little regard you have for it is a contribution?

Because I actually do think that the untrustworthiness of this report, and, more importantly, the implications of that untrustworthiness _is_ underrepresented and _is_ worth talking about more. Whereas a chin-wagging circle of commentary about how unsustainable daily-deals sites are does not seem particularly valuable.

 _(This comment reads meaner than I intend it to be.)_

<comment><USER4> Fair point. The dishonesty is simple to me: open and shut. It's in the state filings. PrivCo at best got pretty bad information and published it without verifying it, and at worst made a bunch of stuff up to drive traffic. Not much to discuss there - it's bad.

LivingSocial's business, though, changes over time, and is worth discussing from time to time. Down rounds are always interesting to me. The decreasing margin in the deals business is interesting to me. That LS still apparently plans an IPO, in the face of a fairly brutal down round is interesting to me. That they think they can be worth $1B is interesting. (As is the current valuation when you read between the lines). The sliding liquidation preference is whole discussion unto itself. But yes, it's a pretty well trodden topic when reduced to "LS's business model is flawed". So I'm guilty there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > our major competitor's market cap is now $3.9B

He can't say "Groupon?" Seriously?

<comment><USER26> Never define yourself by the competition.

<comment><USER27> But didn't he? I mean, quoting their cap number, it's obvious who he is talking about, so why not just say the name?

<comment><USER28> They are in a space where mind-share is really important.

(I think that mind-share being important is a sign you are in a risky business, but that's neither here nor there.)

<comment><USER27> But to his own employees? I understand in a public PR, but his letter was internal.

<comment><USER26> You train like you fight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fortune just reported that insider's confirm LivingSocial was down to JUST $28M IN CASH in February right before taking yesterday's financing? If my math is right, looking at their 2012 financials on PrivCo: [http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives- emergency-110m-c...](http://www.privco.com/livingsocial-receives- emergency-110m-cash-infusion-from-existing-investors-to-avoid-bankruptcy)

Their operating expenses are about $1.4 Billion/year (Revenue + Operating loss = about $1.4 Billion they spend a year). That's $120 Million a month. $4 million a day. THEY WERE DOWN TO JUST 7 DAYS OF CASH! How is that NOT the very definition of a "distressed financing" situation? T

hey were down to a dangerously low level of cash and regardless of the financing terms or structured as technically debt or technically equity, that yes this was a distressed financing situation.

<comment><USER29> In LivingSocial's Operating loss for 2012 was a 1 time write down of goodwill (about $600 million), which is a non cash expense, so should not be included in calculation of operating expenses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> IMHO PrivCo's report appears to be a good ole-fashioned hatchet-job. The real question is who is PrivCo working for? Or are they just trying to generate press with down news?

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the main problem with this business model is that it is not really beneficial for large number of advertisers. I heard so many times about local businesses that were screwed by Groupon, because they offered too many deals at too low prices (often below costs) and most people who bought deals did not return later. Groupon seemed not to care about providing a service that is really beneficial to advertisers, instead they concentrated on short term grow.

A lot of successful innovation today is about eliminating middlemen. Local deals companies do just the opposite. They are a new middleman that tries to cut a large percentage from local businesses income. I don't think this is sustainable.

</comment><comment><USER32> Did PrivCo or some related business entities have a short position in LivingSocial when the PrivCo statement was made on LivingSocial?

Well, not in any simple sense since apparently LivingSocial is not public yet. But a short position on a related company?

<comment><USER33> Can you have a short position in a privately held company? I don't think so, but maybe there's a financial vehicle for that.

<comment><USER32> Right. Sorry about leaving out the last paragraph. But one might try being short on a related public company, say, GroupOn.

<comment><USER8> That boat has long sailed. Anybody who wanted to short Groupon would have done it more than a year ago, when the stock was trading around $20-$25.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If you believed the Privco report when you first read it, I have a bridge you may be interested in.

<comment><USER4> The LS version is not much prettier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Fisrt time I've heard of privco, but just one look at their site screams 1998 scammy website. Ya know, the kind with bold lettering, a sticky caps lock, and looks kinda like those chain emails your grandma keeps forwarding....

</comment><comment><USER36> The more damning evidence is Chad Fowler's recent departure from LS to Wunderkinder.

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh for chrissake: Just release the funding docs and term sheet.

The letter was full of possible half-truths(eg: 'There is no "4x liquidation preference"' does not preclude 3x or 5x or any other number besides 4), so smart employees should be looking until they see the docs.

<comment><USER38> He says it slides but "gets nowhere near 4x". That's clear enough to preclude 5x.

<comment><USER39> Maybe it slides right from 3x to 5x ?-)

<comment><USER37> Or never gets lower than 6x, as another example.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A comprehensive reference of performance analysis features in Chrome DevTools - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/evaluate-performance/reference <comment><USER2> I wish the chrome dev tools had Edit and Resend in the network tab like Firefox. It's incredibly handy when debugging or reverse engineering other sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idear. Start a feature request by emailing google-chrome- email@example.com</comment></comment>


Video showing the current Ubuntu Phone state - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=Q566IGyVB0o

<comment><USER2> still slow and sluggish sometimes but very much usable from the look in the video.</comment>


Von Neumann Architecture – Computerphile (ft. Prof. Brailsford) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml3-kVYLNr8 <comment><USER2> It's hard to recommend Brailsford enough, especially when talking about computing history.

EDIT: For more von Neumann history, check out [http://www.siam.org/news/news.php?id=38](http://www.siam.org/news/news.php?id=38)</comment>


West Virginia using stimulus money to buy $22k Cisco routers for rural libraries - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/west-va-internet-consultant-paid-512k-in-federal-stimulus-funds/

<comment><USER2> And?</comment>


Portland Startup Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://startupweekend.com/portland-startup-weekend/ <comment><USER2> Anybody here been to one of these dos?

Is it worth doing?

<comment><USER3> Never been, but it sounds like exactly the wrong sort of environment for creativity and productivity. Too many people attend; the communication overhead must be insane.

I _can_ tell you that the folks in Seattle failed to launch last weekend. From what I read, it sounded like there were too many chiefs, and not enough indians (or maybe just too many chiefs). I might have gone, but by the time that I found out about it, the event was sold out. It was therefore a bit galling to hear (later, via the blog) that some large percentage of the attendees were PMs, BizDev, and Marketing types.

Anyway, if you view it as a professional networking event, your expectations will probably be more in line with the reality of the situation.</comment></comment>


#ifdef Considered Harmful [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://doc.cat-v.org/henry_spencer/ifdef_considered_harmful.pdf <comment><USER2> This is the paper by Spencer and Collyer in Usenix '92\. The primary reference should likely be [https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/sa92/spencer.pdf) .</comment>


On Naming Variables – RC "Bob" Martin [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://objectmentor.com/resources/articles/Naming.pdf

<comment><USER2> If you found the PDF helpful, Bob Martin has a series of programming videos[1] which are really good but somewhat expensive at $12 to watch online or $18 to download per video. The videos cover a broad range of topics which include variable naming, patterns, best practices, theory, etc. Some also contain some brief-though-awkward shower scenes (wish I were kidding!)

Most of the videos are about an hour long and contain a 10-minute intro with a science lesson, so about 45-50 minutes of programming-talk per video. The quality of the content is really good and the flow of the scenes in the videos does break up the monotony. Bob shoots individual scenes as different "characters" and then edits them together to shift away from a lecture-style to a more conversational flow between his characters. The videos are very informal, you can get a pretty good feel for the level of formality, production quality, and overall "feel" by checking out the "How To Make a Clean Coders Video" video[2], though it doesn't contain programming discussion.

Oddities aside, the videos are informative and could really help fill knowledge gaps for anyone who might be interested.

As an aside, the purchase process through cleancoders.com is quite smooth... be sure to check it out if you're picking up some videos. Instant e-mail confirmation, very fast video downloads, etc.

1\. [https://cleancoders.com/category/clean- code#videos](https://cleancoders.com/category/clean-code#videos) 2\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9jtFoedRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9jtFoedRE)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess there's a PDF for each video? [https://www.google.ie/search?q=objectmentor.com%2Fresources+...](https://www.google.ie/search?q=objectmentor.com%2Fresources+filetype:pdf)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral? - <AUTHOR>

Recently we have revamped http://www.joognu.com and its Android app.
Joognu.com allows you to capture, weave and store memories with your child and gift them when your child grows up.
It's fundamentally private. You store those memories here which you would not like to share on Facebook. But the product essentially has to have some viral features as well so that more and more parents become aware about it.
Keeping that in mind we have given few features like below:
- Parents can selectively share individual memories (photos, videos, etc.) on Facebook - Parents can share the entire timeline with their relatives and friends.
- Relatives and friends can only see those memories which are kept open by Parents on the timeline. - Relatives and friends can like those memories and comment on them. - Parents can invite people to get more free space (We give 5GB free space to start with)
We are getting some virality due to these features but not enough.
What other features / benefits you suggest we should provide to make Joognu.com more viral? <comment><USER2> In my opinion, building a Viral Product takes more than just Marketing or Luck. I believe it begins with an understanding of your customer, and their desire to Share information within the Context of your Product. Taking this into consideration when designing the Product (or it's features) will allow you to build a Product that provides an environment that facilitates viral growth. Weather or not the Product actually goes viral will depend on how useful / valuable the Product is, in conjunction with your success rate of understanding your customer, and integrating this understanding into the Product.

In your example, I would start with some customer validation. Are you currently talking to your customers? If not, then this is probably an area of concern as you are likely out of touch with what they actually want. If you are talking to your customers, then you would want to modify your interaction with them to include some questions about what drives them to share, and what types of information they like to share, as well as who they would want to share it with. Then you basically take what you've learned and integrate it into your Product.

Going off the top of my head (this has not been validated, just my own understanding from knowing lots of parents), I would key in on the fact that Parents like to Brag about their Kids. So when their Children accomplish something cool, they want to tell all their friends about it. I would integrate this into the Product by identifying common Accomplishments that children experience in life (just learned how to walk, just learned how to talk, learned to ride a bike, etc,etc all the way up to graduated from college, got a good job, bought a house, and/or started a family). By identifying these moments / memories as Accomplishments (and perhaps assigning them a special badge of some sort), you will increase their value in terms of something worth sharing. Your Product already allows Parents to share specific moments / memories, but because these moments / memories are special, you will increase the Customers (Parents) incentive to share them, which becomes a vertical for potential viral growth. By following this train of thought (which always starts with customer validation) you can identify multiple verticals for potential viral growth. Essentially, you just want to learn and understand what makes your Customers share information, and then facilitate the sharing of that information. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent points. Having badges for the accomplishment can be really awesome for parents. As a parent myself, I understand what you are saying here. Personally I don't like to brag about my child's accomplishments but I know a lot of parents who do and we can capitalize on that in a good way.

I was also thinking of adding instagram like filters in the mobile app to make memories more beautiful (well at least in some cases).

Thank you for your suggestions and ideas. This helps a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem with "viral" is very simple - virality works through either blind luck or a _massive_ marketing spend in a short time ( _most_ viral things are simply well made adverts in disguise). As a startup you can't rely on the first ever happening and you can't afford the second. Market the app the 'old' way; go to events where parents go, pay for adverts on websites parents use, try to get a celebrity parent to endorse the app, and so on. It'll be very hard work.

<comment><USER4> Going viral is simple. You send X people to your site, and they on average send at least X+1.

For example, you link to your site on HN, and receive 100 visitors day one. It's a great service, and those 100 people share it with enough people to receive another 150 visitors the next day. Your new visitor traffic per day goes...

1\. _100_

2\. _150_

3\. _225_

4\. _338_

5\. _506_

6\. _759_

7\. _1,139_

8\. _1,708_

9\. _2,563_

10\. _3,844_

...

20\. _221,683_

Within a few weeks you're receiving a quarter million new visitors a day.

Now, if HN sends 100 visitors day one, and those users generate 80 new visitors day two, you get...

1\. _100_

2\. _80_

3\. _64_

4\. _51_

5\. _41_

6\. _33_

...

20\. _1_

Now you end up with only one visitor after three weeks.

In one case you're at the top of the world with the next big hit, and the other you have absolutely no traffic.

You see situation number two happen all the time. You get a spike of traffic and it fades away over the following week. As you can see above though, the difference in a spike of traffic fading away, or going through the roof isn't that large. We're not talking about one site being awful and the other being the best thing since sliced bread. We're talking about 100 people referring 80 people and 100 people referring 150 people. Not a huge difference in interest, but the traffic results can be staggering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I see what you are saying. More making 100 people to refer to 150, the product has to be awesome and should solve some real problems. I guess that's where the different lies between both the cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > What should I do to make this product viral?

That's easy:

First and foremost, don't ask how to make it go viral in a public forum.

Second, let the news spread through _agents provocateurs_ that it's a terrific program, so terrific you're having difficulty protecting it from thieves and pirates, but you've created what you think is a bulletproof protection scheme to defend your magnum opus against the barbarian hordes, and you're privately confident about your protection scheme.

Then step back and watch.

> What other features / benefits you suggest we should provide to make > Joognu.com more viral?

You're way too sincere and eager. You need to adopt the "briar patch" strategy: "Oh please, mister boss man, don't throw me into the briar patch ... pleeeease!"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br'er_Rabbit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br'er_Rabbit)

Quote: "In the Cherokee tale about the briar patch, 'the fox and the wolf throw the trickster rabbit into a thicket from which the rabbit quickly escapes.'"

<comment><AUTHOR> Well it will take a while before I can fully understand your suggestions but I am on it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Make it so good that people will tell each other. That's really your best bet, quality, ease of use, a reason to tell others (such as an invitation to share something from your service directly) all of those will contribute.

Make sure to measure your virality (even if only indirect) by _asking_ your customers how they found you. That way even if you can't directly measure virality like this you can measure it indirectly by comparing it to how that answer was at some arbitrary point in the past.

If the trend in relative terms (%age of respondents) is 'up' then you know you're on the right road to lighting a fuse, if it is 'down' you are losing momentum (even when you're still growing!) and it might mean you have to change your strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Make it so good that people will tell each other."

\- Yup that was the primary reason for revamp. It's too early to tell if this is working or not but yes I hear what you say.

And yes tracking is something we are very powerful at thanks to our partners who are fantastic sales people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As bad as it sounds, your best bet is probably to astroturf (or whatever the equivalent term is for social networking - sockpuppeting?) on Pinterest and Facebook, try and get a mention on popular blogs, etc.

Expending effort into improving your product is not likely to pay off in a "viral" fashion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you are right. We are already active on Facebook and should be active on Pinterest and other platforms very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Improve the product. For a site that starts with "The most beautiful way to", your design needs work, so I'd start there. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm yup. We have a long way to go...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dropbox.com - get more space if you refer a friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> We already have it :)</comment></comment>


People are "consistently inconsistent" in reasoning about controversial topics - <AUTHOR> https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/11/13/people-are-consistently-inconsistent-in-how-they-reason-about-controversial-scientific-topics/ <comment><USER2> This comment is not satire, I'm being brutally honest: I don't believe everything for the right reasons.

I believe in global warming, but not because of research papers or books I've read on climate change. I've clicked on research papers but I often find the scientific terminology and information in them overwhelming. I think, "It looks like they know what they're talking about." Sometimes I don't even click. I look around at people commenting on it, and if an articulate person makes a case one way or another, it influences my beliefs.

I know this is wrong but frankly it would be impossible to be educated enough on all these matters to justify having an opinion. Imagine if everyone who felt strongly about global warming had read and understood at least one research paper on it. That would mean half my friends, family, and coworkers have read and understood a research paper. I'll take the under...

What makes matters worse is being around people socially who have strong opinions. Not having one can make you look boring or dimwitted. If the conversation wanders into an area in which you do have an opinion--based on facts and research--citing those facts can feel like reading off box score statistics at a Yankees-Red Sox game. No one gets excited!

That makes me cynical. I think, people just want to feel strongly about something, kind of like they want to have a baseball team. It binds them together. I guess that's fine, I just wish we treated it more like sports and less like religion.

<comment><USER3> On something like global warming, I find it easy to trust the Scientific Method, rather than individual papers or individual scientists (or worse, the media translation thereof). The core counter-explanation to the scientific consensus is "Scientists are greedy liars in a giant conspiracy to get rich on research grants", which I find, um, problematic. And, while the phrasing may get prettier, that's what most of these arguments lead to, what most of the people who reject global warming believe.

In a related manner, I tend to judge ideas by who agrees with them. Be careful who you're standing with, they can tell you a lot about the validity of where you're standing. (Or, as a friend put it about politics, "If the racists think the candidate is a racist, the candidate is probably a racist".)

So, for something like global warming, if you're standing with people who believe in and work within the scientific method, you're probably good (assuming you believe in science), and if you're standing with people who believe the world was created in seven days 5500 years ago and corporations whose core business model is to put greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere... well.

<comment><USER4> I think you are misusing the term scientific method here.

Scientific method revolves around hypothesis and tests.

Global warming science is based on something else entirely.

Edit: My wording seems to have provoked confusion as to my point. Apologies. My point is that not all science utilizes the scientific method.

<comment><USER5> So you don't consider astronomy a science?

<comment><USER6> We have a lot of measurements in astronomy, which often proove or disprove our hypotheses.

<comment><USER5> The same is true in climate science.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, we're currently conducting a global scale experiment (though without a control Earth) that is already showing results.

<comment><USER7> In astronomy one aberrant observation is enough to completely revolutionize the field or destroy a previously esteemed view. It's not based on melting pot models and so a single mistake indicates something is wrong, perhaps fundamentally wrong. Consider that decades before relativity was discovered we knew very well that something was very broken because Mercury's expected orbit was off by 1/100th of a degree per century.

By contrast, how would you propose falsifying a climate model? Each decade or so we gain another chunk of data we can use to try to trial predictions of the past and, to date, they've done quite abysmally except in the most broad sense of a longterm gradual increase in temperatures. For instance from 2001 and 2010 the warming slowed to 0.11C per decade. [1] For the 17 years before then was 0.17C. There was not a single model that predicted this and, in spite of a number of after the fact hypotheses for that apparent decline, there is still no decisive answer. In a science that was more heavily dependent upon testing, this would be a ground-shaking event. But it's effect on climate science has been relatively minimal.

[1] - [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-global- warmin...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-global-warming-slow- down-in-the-2000s-or-not/)

<comment><USER5> I mean, all that really proves is that climatology is more complicated than orbital mechanics.

<comment><USER8> Formal reasoning, scientific or otherwise, is all about reducing a subject to cognitive manageability. If the subject is too complicated to do that, then it shouldn't be considered in the same class as subjects where that is possible.

<comment><USER3> Or maybe we need to put more effort in, collect more data, build better models, until we can understand it.

I could build a cabin using basic reasoning. I can't build a skyscraper with just basic reasoning. Does that mean we shouldn't build skyscrapers? Or just that we should leave their design to someone who really put the effort into the "cognitive manageability" of it?

And really, when it gets down to it, a lot of the blatantly irrational opposition to the very idea of global warming comes from "cognitive manageability". For people who still think Sky Daddy made the world in six days and cavemen rode dinosaurs, the idea that their car is wrecking the atmosphere is beyond their "cognitive manageability", and it gets flatly rejected.

When I see the people who believe in the scientific method mostly lined up on one side of an issue, and people who reject the scientific method mostly lined up on the other side, it biases me. Which was my original point, that so many people have flipped out about.

<comment><USER7> The person you're responding to is undoubtedly referring to the ability to link cause with effect. As such "cognitive manageability" doesn't mean simple. Relativity is far from simple, but it's cognitively manageable - as is the fundamental science and engineering knowledge used when designing and ultimately constructing skyscrapers.

To give an example of something that is not cognitively manageable, aside from climate, consider the stock market. We can create a million correlations to the stock market. And these correlations themselves all hold true. And there is an immense, literally unlimited, amount of profit to be made if somebody could combine these correlations into a way that could create meaningful predictive value. There's no doubt that billions, if not trillions, of dollars have been spent in pursuit of such. Yet prediction seems to remain impossible. And that's in a field with a fraction of the variables of climate change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Resist the urge to comment here with stories of the time everyone around you was illogical and inconsistent, and you were the sole voice of reason (or so you think). Much more interesting to think of the times when _you_ were illogical and inconsistent, because it's a lot harder to spot in yourself.

<comment><USER3> Something I say a _lot_ , especially at work, is "I could be wrong. I'm often wrong." I think it's very, very important to constantly remind yourself that you're not always right, and you're (hopefully) not the smartest person in the room. (Another rule of thumb - if you're the smartest person in the room, you need to find a better room!)

This also makes me think of the book _Factfulness_ , by Hans Rosling. Best book I've read in years. In it, he details thought patterns common to all of us that mislead us and cause us to misunderstand or ignore even basic facts. He's not talking about "dumb people". He's talking about smart people, and how utterly wrong they are most of the time. It'll fundamentally change how you look at your own way of thinking.

<comment><USER10> I've always felt that ability to accept that I'm wrong was essential to being any good at what I do ("write software") because of course the machine is (almost without exception) right and so almost always when I do something and it doesn't work that's because I got something wrong. I thought the variable was named something else, I thought the content type defaults to XML, I thought the input value is never zero, I thought that tiny change didn't need me to re-run the unit tests...

I find that being constantly confronted by the fact that I'm wrong in what I do for a living (and a hobby) sets me up to handle the same elsewhere in a more healthy way.

Example: I really like the intuitive explanation of what's actually going on with digital audio in Xiph's "Digital Show and Tell" and I often cite that when other people don't seem to understand - but this isn't because it was always obvious to me that's how it works. On the contrary, I find their explanation compelling because it directly confronts a common misunderstanding I had when I was younger. This misunderstanding was resolved by a friend & ex- colleague showing me more or less what Monty shows in the video (but with whatever gear he happened to have in his flat). Just like the video, he showed me that what I had believed was defied by the observable facts, and voilà my eyes were opened.

<comment><USER3> I think you're hitting on part of the real pleasure of software development here. Software is the _real world_. You can't negotiate, you can't beg, you can't bully, you can't do any of those human interactions to make it work. If the code doesn't work, the problem is almost certainly between the keyboard and the chair. As such, it's very rewarding when we get it right. We're displaying mastery over our environment.

The book _Shop Class as Soulcraft_ , by Matthew B. Crawford, goes into this extensively. He's talking about more physical labor, but I find the substance applies to software as well. (And although I love the book, you can save a lot of time by googling his original essay, which is a much shorter and more concise read.) Crawford argues that labor against physical reality, as opposed to human interaction, drives both intellect and morality. It's a key to living an ethical life.

<comment><USER11> I have a friend who's a metalworker, and I've always been intrigued by the parallels between our trades (mine being programming).

I think my favorite correspondence, though, is that the material we work with is the same material that our tools are made from. If my build scripts are broken, I fix them _by writing code_. If his mill is broken, he fixes it by _fabricating a replacement part_.*

\---

*Not always, of course, but you get the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I dislike this study. It naively picks out a few conservative views to lampoon as examples of irrationality (I say this as a liberal), and then hopes to generalize this as "controversial topics"

This is too narrow. We shouldn't pretend that human beliefs are predominantly logical with a few strange exceptions. By and large we know incredibly little, most of what we "know" is because authorities have told us about it (e.g. I've never seen Africa with my own eyes), and most of what we believe isn't scientifically meaningful (i.e. justice/goodness being social constructs).

<comment><USER13> What is a controversial scientific view that you wouldn't characterize as "conservative"? The article mentions aversion to GMO, does that count?

<comment><USER14> Anti-vaxxers tend to be described as middle/upper-class liberals. GMO/Organic trends do also tend to be similar groups

<comment><USER15> I've never heard anybody say that anti-vaxxers are anything but mostly conservative, and those opinions seem to match my own experiences, so this comment is a genuine surprise for me. Is there really a belief in the opposite in some circles?

<comment><USER14> Contrary to my downvotes, yes. I don't really think of it as any specific political thing, but there was a lot of emphasis, at least originally, put on the hollywood left (Jenny McCarthy comes to mind) pushing an anti-vax agenda.

I'm not trying to make any kind of political point here. Someone asked >>What is a controversial scientific view that you wouldn't characterize as "conservative"?

It's a stereotype. Like all stereotypes, it's attempting to make a broad proclamation of a large group of people, something that I generally try to avoid. I don't even agree with this one being accurate, but it's out there in the world.

[1][https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/childhood- vaccination-...](https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/childhood-vaccination- programs-should-be-exempt-political-bias)

<comment><USER16> > the hollywood left (Jenny McCarthy comes to mind)

McCarthy is clearly connected to Hollywood, but left? Basically her entire political activity is anti-vaxxers, and her brief foray into Presidential politics involved first trying to get McCain to take a meeting with her on the vaccine issue when he was running and, only when that failed, trying to do the same with Obama (who also declined.) Not exactly what you'd expect of someone committed to (or even inclined towards) the left.

(Which isn't to say there aren't Hollywood left anti-vaxxers, but McCarthy is an odd choice as an example...)

> I'm not trying to make any kind of political point here. Someone asked > >>What is a controversial scientific view that you wouldn't characterize as > "conservative"?

Anti-GMO would be a better example than anti-vax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I lolled at the qualification of the conspiratorial bent arguments as fallacious. They clearly are not. Conspiracies happen and can take a long time to unwind. They should not make up the bulk of your argument and should not fuel a position without doubt, but they are not fallacious. Scientist make mistakes, take unwarranted positions and take bribes all the time. (I mean this across all fields not as any kind of direct accusation.) Some scepsis with any consensus is just smart logic.

<comment><USER18> Conspiratorial arguments have little no relation to actual real world conspiracies.

<comment><USER19> I don't think we can make a generalization here, there's all kinds of conspiration theories and all kinds of conspiratorial arguments

<comment><USER10> The usual conspiracy theory invokes what is called a "Grand conspiracy" in which other investigations, prior thinking on the same subject, and contradicting evidence are all dismissed as part of the conspiracy. This is laughably implausible because it involves this vast co-ordinated effort, often for no discernible purpose except to prevent the theorist from being right about something.

Actual secrets kept at some scale show the limits of what is possible, three of the best examples are from World War Two, a period that's near enough for us to have good records but distant enough that the secrets are long known to us.

Ultra is the most obvious. "The ultra secret" was the fact that Allied codebreakers could read some (though not all, at various points in the war) Enigma and other encrypted messages sent via radio by the sprawling Axis forces. Only a few dozen key people knew this secret, but of necessity hundreds, perhaps around 1000 more had some limited insight because their work was connected with the breaking of German messages (e.g. Hut workers at Bletchley engaged in translating broken messages or finding "cribs"). You will find people from the latter group who believed Ultra was protected well into the late 20th century, but in fact it ceased even to be an official secret after 29 years, and by the 1970s BBC documentary editors felt comfortable assuming that a general audience would know about Ultra in the television adaptation of Jones' autobiography "Most Secret War".

Second Manhattan. American development of a Nuclear Bomb could not of course be kept secret once the weapon had been used. But until then it was adequately guarded, there's no clear sign that Axis forces understood what the Americans were attempting or where. But lots of people tacitly knew about Manhattan, they just chose not to so anything until after the fact because "There's a secret military R&D base near where I live" is very obviously not something a patriotic person tells random strangers during a war...

Thirdly the Normandy invasion. Again after the fact this secret could not be kept. Within hours of making landfall the German high command were aware that this was not, as they had initially believed, a feint, and that all available resources must be diverted to defend against it. But that was far too late. Still in the weeks, and especially days, prior to the actual invasion, it will have been apparent not only to the soldiers involved but to nearby civilians that a massive naval landing was to be attempted. It just wasn't possible to hide from the people of Southern England that there were shitloads of infantry and boats making ready to depart in the next few days. Again the secret didn't get out, for a very short time, because it will have been obvious to all who knew that this wasn't something you should tell the enemy about.

Twenty Committee had successfully eliminated all German spies on the mainland (either turning them, imprisoning them, or as necessary killing them) so the only way for the secret to get out was for some idiot to tell the enemy themselves.

So those help you judge rough scale for a conspiracy. If a hypothetical conspiracy seems _harder_ to keep than, say, Manhattan, yet it seems to need more people to keep the secret than, say, Normandy, and for them to keep it longer than, say, Ultra, all because otherwise they might get sued, rather than because Actual Nazis are going to invade their country, well that's clearly crazy.

<comment><USER18> Soviet intelligence knew about the Manhattan project in 1941, almost a year before The Manhattan Engineer District was created. FBI fought constant battle against Soviets infiltrators.

Georgii Flerov (Soviet physicist) figured on his own that the US had a nuclear program in 1942 when he noticed that all publishing on the subject. And nobody cited his studies about fission of uranium.

Manhattan project was so big that Germans could have figured it out from bits and pieces even with their ineffective intelligence, but they never put all the pieces in together. German intelligence officer came to Heisenberg at least three times and asked if it was possible that Americans were building an uranium bomb and he said no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > 45 per cent of participants explicitly denied, at least once, that anything > could change their mind on a particular topic

This is the most troubling data from the study for me. It's natural that people will hold opinions for which they don't have evidence, since we can't be experts on everything (e.g. "I trust my friend, who thinks that"), but the fact that half the population hold opinions that they would not change, given any amount of evidence, is actually somewhat terrifying.

<comment><USER21> > the fact that half the population hold opinions that they would not change, > given any amount of evidence, is actually somewhat terrifying

What would change your mind on this?

<comment><USER22> New data suggesting that a larger percentage would be willing to change their mind given reasonable evidence?

I know you're trying to be snarky, but come on.

<comment><USER23> Changing one's mind about that would mean to no longer find that terrifying, not it no longer being being the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I'm easily in agreement on three of those four topics, I still get stuck on GMO. I've heard many times that the scientific consensus is that GMO foods are safe, but so far I can't understand why that statement can be made with so broad a brush. There are certain GMO foods that I have no problem with because I've looked into them a little more, but my impression of GMO is that the manner of genetic modification is essentially limitless, and it probably depends on the food, and the environment on where it's grown, etc. I mean they're literally saying, "Yup, we changed it" \- shouldn't the question be changed it _how_? So since I can't hope to understand the complete enumeration of GMO ingredients in a package of storebought food, and which ones might be contributing to some sort of long term systemic imbalance in the food supply... I'm one that is prone to agreeing with GMO labels on food so I can buy the ones that aren't if I want. I'd like to think that I'm open to finding out what I might be misunderstanding here, but usually when I find discussions online about it, it tends to be either too vitriolic or so scientific I can't understand it and suspect there's some perspective being lost.

<comment><USER25> Organic matter is composed of molecular compounds. Things like oxygen, glucose, cellulose, etc. When scientists at Monsanto change the genome of an organism, they do it so that it grows larger, or is resistant to a weedkiller, or resistant to a virus. When these GMO plants are then harvested, they can be tested for any toxic compounds such as formaldehyde or arsenic. Since there is no evidence of toxic compounds above what you might find in ordinary food, you can conclude that GMOs are safe. It is impossible that there "could" be something in there that is toxic, or something we don't know about, because we know exactly what compounds are in the plant and we know that those compounds are not dangerous.

<comment><USER24> That's fine, but that limits the parameters to what is healthy for the person eating it. There's also the aspect to consider of changing the genome affecting the larger environment. I understand the argument that this has been done throughout history via selective breeding of plants, but it's more extreme and in a more compressed timeframe with genetic modification - meaning, less ability to anticipate and deal with the side effects.

<comment><USER26> Well another thing is that the genes aren't created completely novel. They try for selected traits when they transfer it and incidental mutations happen to everything. The odds of something of major significance occurring are extremely low low - given natural carcinogens and such that can and have mutated plants including viruses past practices had potential to be way worse for producing 'unexpected' results. There are technically risks to everything but they start to fall into the category of 'technically possible but downright absurd'.

Before targeted genetic modification there was atomic gardening. That was literally irradiating seeds and choosing what they liked of the mutant survivors - and a lot of seeds didn't germinate. Even doing something that 'randomizing' didn't cause those effects. As for health of food for people eating it I think we're technically already centuries if not millennia too late after repeatably breeding fruit for increased sweetness and lower fiber content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People are not stupid and issues in question are hard. Pretending you are an expert and know actual justification, evidence and logic behind all the geology, genetics, thermodynamics and so and so to have informed opinion about all of these topics is wrong.

People are right about their own beliefs. Their beliefs are not based on evidence, but cultural.

They could research one topic and report knowing it because of evidence (they researched it)

<comment> irq-1 How do people trust experts? That's a fundamental problem.

Additionally, there are non-scientific issues confused with "belief" in science. Does agreeing with the scientific consensus on GMOs entail a belief that corporations can be trusted to implement the science? That scientists, politicians and regulators haven't been bribed or coerced? That scientific and political systems in other countries can be judged by the scientific experts? Trusting in a practical use of GMOs is _not_ the same as believing in the scientific consensus.

Another example:

> The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every > examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all > trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more > than a two-decade period before 2000.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated- fo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic- hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for- decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html)

<comment><USER28> > _How do people trust experts? That 's a fundamental problem._

Yes, this! I've often thought that a lot of hereditary socioeconomic underperformance may be in some sense attributable to a self-reinforcing information deficit where people don't figure out which experts to trust, which life advice to take, which friends to make and keep. If your parents don't start you right it must be a helluva job to figure it out later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > _However, 20 per cent of justifications were subjective and involved making > a reference to one's cultural identity, personal experience or fallacious > reasoning._

Well, another reading of this is that "objective criteria" aren't everything.

Even if it's "scientifically objectively" better to do X, it doesn't mean it's what a person wants to do (or should do).

There's better as in "more efficient" (which is measurable and objective) and better as a value judgement.

"This fits better with my moral code, culture, food taste, preferences, etc." is a perfectly valid justification.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is intuitive. People aren't consistent, why should we expect their reasoning to be? Especially when the main determinant for most peoples' views on controversial topics, in the USA at least, is their political party affiliation. Why is it that having a D or R in front of a politician's name can correctly predict around 80-90% of their viewpoints? It's a clustering effect, people select D or R, and then cobble together reasoning as best they can to defend their felt views.

Perfectly evidenced by the use of science, for instance. You have something like a pro-life movement, which co-opts scientific "facts" to support their view of fetuses being humans. But then these same GOP voters ignore scientific "facts" when it comes to climate change. This is due to the Republican politicians, who cluster all of their supporter's views to match their own. It's the same on the Democratic side - look at anti-GMO protesters who are ignorant of the scientifically proven benefits of GMO's, yet who point to 98% of scientists reaching consensus on climate change.

Political party is stronger than reasoning or consistency.

<comment><USER31> Because political questions don't have scientific solutions.

Pro-life supporters aren't co-opting science when they claim a fetus is a human being, they are undermining a possible objection: obviously everyone recognizes that killing a 1 year old is not ok, regardless how the mother feels about it, so why is it ok to kill a fetus? What's the relevant distinction between the two cases?

In a former time people didn't have a good understanding of human development, so you might claim the fetus wasn't really human until it was born. Scientifically that doesn't hold up.

But you might still be ok with abortion on other grounds. Perhaps a rationale based on capabilities or intelligence, etc.

You can levy science to support a premise in an argument, but science can't decide the policy. That comes down to values, trade-offs, philosophy and ideology.

Climate change is a great example. What everyone talks about is a belief in a one sentence description of an idea. But the actual detailed contours of that belief, and the scientific arguments that led to its conclusion... who has those?

Climate isn't exactly easy to understand, even for an expert, and people have other priorities about things they care about.

For a Republican its mostly going to come down to trust in government, and its that ideology which drives the conclusion.

Anyway I don't think scientific shibboleths are all that valuable. I'd much rather people actually understand this stuff, but the truth is its asking too much. People live busy lives and not everyone can be a scientist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Know that feeling when you learn a new word and then you see it everywhere?

Well, that's a bit how I feel now that I am reading The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone, by Philip Fernbach and Steven A. Sloman. It's a book around the topic of this post. Might be of interest to whoever finds this topic appealing.

</comment><comment><USER33> The world is fundamentally a pretty nice, easy-going place. (Cf. Bucky Fuller) Ergo, bad reasoning is the only factor keeping us from entering a kind of Golden Age.

(FWIW, the rational belief to hold about GMOs is that they are a dangerous unproven experiment, and that's it's wildly irresponsible to apply genetic engineering willy-nilly without centuries of research. So... YMMV.)

</comment><comment><USER34> The scientific consensus once was that there was nothing more elementary than protons and neutrons. Also that light traveled through ether... To fault someone for being skeptical of scientific consensus seems to be ignorant of humanity's history of ignorance. Obviously science is an essential tool for human progress but it is not a finder of objective truths.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have been working hard on debunking belief-systems that are in science itself and in its communities.

A lot of science is based on procedures and theories that automatically create certain results. As long people do not see this, it makes no sense comparing one belief-system versus another.

<comment><USER36> Since scientific consensus has replaced religion for many people, we're long overdue for Luthers and Calvins to question it (and I say this as a Catholic). It's intuitive that "the word of God" can and historically has been perverted by human beings who have been corrupted by power, it should follow that the same is true for "settled science." Even if you're not religious, historical religion is an excellent demonstration of the fallibility of man, why would scientific consensus be any different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> People make decisions with their gut first, and then backfill their decision with "logic." We should be called homo irrational, not homo sapiens.

Add to that the amount of effort we expend to protect our egos and it's a wonder we ever arrive at correct decisions.

</comment><comment><USER38> IMO, there are three bases for dis/belief in a theory: 1) the supporting evidence is compelling, 2) the counter evidence is not, and 3) the alternative theories are not. The authors (seem to) mention only basis 1, but not 2 or 3. But it's the interplay among all three that must tip the scale if the thought process is truly scientific.

However I doubt any non-scientist could enumerate serious counter theories to the scientific status quo for evolution, GMOs, vaccines, or climate change -- other than citing probability and the burden of proof as insufficient for their adoption.

Personally I know little evidence that GMOs are toxic, so I side with non- toxic. Same for vaccines (now that Wakefield is wholly discredited). Same for counter-theories to evolution, though that's such a big topic, it'd be silly to endorse all or none of it, especially at the fringes. Evolution's chief strengths are its longevity and that there's no viable alternative theory for speciation. The existence of global warming AND man as its cause also suffers from a lack of viable alternative explanations. But is this scientific thinking, or just pragmatism? I disbelieve unless you can convince me otherwise. That's just common sense.

The OP doesn't seem to address "burden of proof" in judging scientific theories, except to combine the three bases under "justification". But I think the distinction between the three is essential, as is their visible _presence_ , in a rational mind, since science-based belief must reflect the sum of thought that assesses evidence for, against, AND vs. alternative theories.

Ignoring any of these three puts one on the road to faith.

</comment><comment><USER39> "scientific consensus"

That's a contradiction in terms. Science is not democratic; wide agreement doesn't matter. A single rogue experiment or even observation can upend an entire way of understanding the world.

Compare the following two statements:

"We consulted with the scientific community. Sound science shows that vaccines save many lives, not just the ones being vaccinated. Decades of history have not turned up any significant risks. Therefore, we recommend local schools give vaccines to nearly all students. We've set up a fund to help administer this for schools that need it, and resources for homeschooled children."

Versus:

"Our favorite professors determined that vaccines are good, so we're going to inject every kid in the country, including yours. There's nothing you can do about it because you are not a Ph.D.".

With phrases like "scientific consensus", people hear more of the latter and less of the former. Especially since the phrase is used to essentially sign a blank check, where the original claim can be stretched far into the political realm by whoever is speaking.

</comment><comment><USER40> There's plenty of evidence that science and scientists are easily corruptible and high profile 'results' like "mmmmm GMO corn" are a lie. Example from my own career: some ridiculous smart grid technology which claimed people would turn their air conditioners off when it is hot out because "muh free markets" peak load pricing changes. I actually had access to the original data which pushed forward this ridiculous multi-billion dollar boondoggle and checked the assertions: the PIs overtly lied.

</comment><comment><USER41> Anytime you hear the word "scientific consensus" used to brow beat people, you should run. Science is not about consensus. Plenty of scientists challenge the consensus view and end up being correct. It's still happening to today.

We should not be urging the point that "good scientists" are the one who don't question the consensus view.

I can give a good current example: Alzheimer's. Were now seeing the failure of the Amaloid Beta model in all clinical trails and preliminary evidence is starting to point to a herpes virus link.

</comment><comment><USER42> interesting article with a lot of good tidbits. i found it particularly interesting that the authors mention how a substantial subset of people merely reiterate their position when prompted to explain their rationale for certain beliefs.

the details regarding how for many people "reasoning" is about referencing the person's perception of their own identity is also very valuable. i wouldn't call this reasoning whatsoever, however. it's tribalism -- the opposite of reasoning. this suggests that many people simply don't think about controversial issues, and instead take cues from authorities of their identity subtype. i assume there is literature which supports this idea.

there was one thing which i took issue with, however.

>sceptical attitudes toward the scientific consensus on genetically modified foods (as safe) tended to involve fallacious reasoning of a conspiratorial bent (such as "I am hesitant to believe there are NO concerns because the multinational agricultural corporations such as Monsanto have profits as the basis of their existence so any information they put out is suspect")

this is a poor example given the recent debunking of monsanto's "glyphosate is safe" fabrications. it isn't conspiratorial to suggest that X may not be Y because the proponent of X benefits from and encourages people thinking Y. that's basic critical thinking which recognizes that scientific results can be skewed or falsified to support a narrative.

given the rest of the article, i'm confident that the author's use of this example wasn't malicious... but there are many better examples.

<comment><USER43> The article implies a scientific fallacy, which is that scientific knowledge is binary - i.e. either science can say with certainty that something is true, or it can say with equal certainty that something is false.

This is not how science works. There are decreasing circles of confidence out from the relative certainty of a core curriculum - approximately an undergrad degree in a hard science - to various research topics. At the edges are pure research which is really just educated guessing. Far from being an invincible march towards knowledge, science actually progresses by throwing grad students at problems more or less at random. Some of them get lucky and find some key insights that match reality.

Most don't.

Unfortunately there's plenty of evidence from history of scientific reassurances being presented as certainties which were subsequently shown to be wrong - sometimes dangerously so.

Add the toxic influence of corporate interest and the unarguable reality that fact that some "evidence" is bought and paid for, and it becomes very hard to accept research as the proof science would like it to be.

So it's actually rational to be skeptical of extraordinary claims.

E.g. GMOs. The extraordinary claim is that GMOs will end hunger. Obviously only a total monster would oppose that.

In reality research into other farming techniques also increases yields, _and in any case hunger is actually caused by bad politics_ , not lack of faith in science.

Articles like these conflate the difference between science-as-pure-research for the sake of knowledge, and science-as-policy-justification.

The standards for science-as-policy should be much higher than science-as- research, because the consequences of warping truth for profit or power can be so much more damaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > climate change, vaccines, genetically modified (GMO) foods and evolution

On all four I happily defer to the experts in the scientific community who study the relevant fields.

On none of these do I suspect a breakdown of science because the sample of diverse specialists I have queried in each field reinforce the wider notion that there is a clear scientific consensus. Furthermore, the conversations I've had with specialists don't reveal any _lack of consensus_ , while in my experience specialists usually seem quite happy to talk about scientific controversies.

On these topics let's call it "appeal to diverse set of authorities." Throw me a denier from any of the four topics and my only tactic will be to agree on a method of randomly choosing one of the thousands of experts to whom I delegate my opinion. The doubter must then either agree to argue with _that_ expert or be forced to argue their position as the great conspiracy of the 21st century.

As long as you discuss these topics face-to-face, you'd be surprised how quickly even some of the hard core deniers' positions shift.

Edit: clarification

</comment><comment><USER45> Reason cannot give us ethics. Ethics is based upon subjective human experience.

<comment><USER26> Is it though? MAD is a trivial counter example. The reason why you shouldn't nuke your rival nation even though they are communists/capitalists that you despise with every fiber of your being is that you would get nuked in turn for it.

Granted ethics has many differing frameworks itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Imagine if the topics were existence of ether, phrenology, or racism, which enjoyed the scientific consensus of their day. I wonder what would correlate with disbelief in those controversial topics.

</comment><comment><USER47> Often mentioned on HN, Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind ([https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics- Relig...](https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics- Religion/dp/0307455777)) is a worthy read. Briefly: Almost everyone comes up with the conclusion _first_ , and _rationale_ later. The former drives the latter. He gives examples from studies where people gave responses similar to what this paper has: Very poor reasons, and occasionally nonsensical ones.

This is true for pretty much everyone - don't go and count yourself as the exception. The more intelligent you are, the more refined your reasoning, but there's evidence to show that intelligence will not lower the bias. Counterarguments from others as intelligent or more intelligent will. One of the curses of being more intelligent is that if you hold a biased view, you usually need someone as smart as you to change your mind. The smarter you get, the fewer people there are who can help remove your bias.

Some people are more objective than others, but often only in a limited domain - not in their whole lives.

>However, 20 per cent of justifications were subjective and involved making a reference to one's cultural identity, personal experience.

The book also touches on this. In my personal experience, fact based reasoning is rarer than this. There are many reasons people believe something. Attempting to discern the Truth is usually in the minority. It is to be expected that all the other reasons will be more prevalent - they simply have more utility than merely gaining knowledge. It shouldn't surprise people that factual reasoning is rare - it has little utility in most spheres of life. Much less than social cohesion and tribalism does.

Consider the issue of intelligence, and its spread across various groups (usually race and gender). It's very common to find a very well educated person insist that everyone is born equally with the same mental/intelligence potential, and differences exist merely in the extent they foster it. When asked for their rationale/evidence, the answer is usually a variant of "I choose to believe it" (usually for ideological or cultural reasons). I'm not referring only to ordinary folks, but also to university academics, etc.

(I'm not saying that they are factually wrong - merely the reasons they believe it are not based on any facts).

>whether they agreed with the scientific consensus on climate change, vaccines, genetically modified (GMO) foods and evolution

Two of those items (vaccines and GMO foods) touch on a strongly cultural force on purity. The book shows that a lot of people value purity (likely a genetic trait). They associate food consumption not just with physical health, but also mental/spiritual health. So they are quite sensitive to "unnatural" or foreign agents going into their bodies.</comment>


Tensor Tympani Muscle - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani_muscle <comment><USER2> I used to be able to "rumble" both of them (together or individually) at will. But a while back I had a mastoidectomy in one side, which resulted in the removal of that particular muscle, so now I only have one left to rumble.

One of the drawbacks to not having that muscle is that it is far easier for your ear to "pop" in wind or during air pressure changes, so I find myself often sniffing to re-equalize the pressure.</comment>


Four days' charge on an Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.techfounder.net/2013/10/03/4-days-between-charges-on-your-android/ <comment><USER2> > Cycled the battery. After running the battery calibration app, I let the > battery drain all the way to 0% (phone shutdown) and then charge it back to > 100%.

This is bad advice if you want your battery to last longer until you need to buy a new one.

Full discharge cycles might give you a slightly longer charge for the next cycle but they reduce the overall lifetime of the battery as much as 3-4 drain/charge cycles between 20% and 80%. A battery that continually runs 0% to 100% drain/charge cycles will only live 300-400 cycles, versus a 20% to 80% battery that may live 1200 cycles.

You might think the tradeoff in battery lifetime versus charge duration is worth it but as the battery loses lifetime, its maximum charge will be reduced so you'll quickly have shorter charge durations.

<comment><USER3> I've seen this advice floating around the internet before, and while I agree with the lower limit, who the hell charges their phone to just 80%? I just plug the phone in at night and let it charge to 100% while I sleep. Is there even an option on smartphones to do anything different?

<comment><USER4> I have a battery monitor that plays a sound when it gets to a certain level, then I unplug it.

I charge it when I'm at the computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They're getting 4 days by basically not using the phone.

<comment><USER6> Yep, look at those blue tick marks at the bottom of the graph. That shows the periods of time that the phone was active in some way (screen on, wifi on, network use, etc). From the graph, it seems like that was pretty much never.

By contrast, here's what my phones same battery readout looks like:

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/4IC70y4.png](http://i.imgur.com/4IC70y4.png)

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/kW9t1du.png](http://i.imgur.com/kW9t1du.png)

EDIT: Something to note about my battery life: I've used my phone a lot today, as can be seen from the photos, and I'm only down to %84 battery since charging it last night. The reason for that is because I bought an after market battery for my phone that increases it's capacity nearly x3. I find the added size not just manageable, but preferable. The extra weight and size in my hand makes the phone more hefty, which is exactly what I like.

<comment><USER7> All you need to know is he used the browser for 8 minutes and gmail for 9 minutes over 3 1/2 days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I got ~40 hours yesterday on my HTC one X by doing nothing special. My phone still had 6% left when I plugged in.

The 2 days prior to that have been busy days at work for me and I have used the phone for ~3 hours (1 hour phone calls, 2 hours browsing / reading stuff).

I did not disable any radios. I was on lte the entire time, bluetooth was enabled, my email and twitter were syncing as well.

Perhaps Android 4.3 (and hence CM10.2) have improvements for battery life after all ?

<comment><USER9> Are you using the dual core evita or the quad core international version?

Strange, but im on 28/9 build of cm10.2 and I barely last 3/4 of a day with half my radios off.

<comment><USER8> I have the dual core evita. Using 26/9 nightly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "This includes turning off radios when there is no data activity and other services as needed. "

Yeah, right… Forget about push notifications, push emails, IM, video/VoIP calls, background updates.

Why not get a feature phone then? It lasts weeks between charges.

<comment><USER11> I use my Android like that. No need to have radio active when I'm near a desktop or laptop computer all day. I still use HDSPA+ when I'm outside for lunch or wifi in the evening in bed, but I turn it on/off at those times. No need to drain the battery all day.

<comment><USER3> I set up the same system in Tasker: it is actually very surprising how well it works.

<comment><USER12> Mind giving a quick explanation as to how/what rules you use?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Am I reading the graphs correctly that it states that in 3 days OP only used Chrome and Gmail for roughly 9 minutes each? Yeah... don't use your phone, and OH MY GOSH, the charge lasts forever!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what those numbers mean - perhaps it's CPU time. I use chrome and Gmail for about 30-40 minutes every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you don't use much mobile data turn off 3G/4G, letting 2G take care of voice and slow data.

This saves much power.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure if this is the place for this but with my Galaxy Note 2, I generally get about a day and a half with moderate to heavy use, including not charging it overnight. I generally charge it overnight every other night and sometime plug it in for a few hours during the day.

I have not tweaked any of the settings and seldom use the battery saver option. I never use Bluetooth as I have no need for it. None of my apps are authorized for GPS except Google maps or FourSquare--I just have no need for most apps to know where I am. I do make sure to turn off wifi when I am outside of my home and using cellular data. If there is a weak cell signal and wifi available, I will turn it on. This isn't scientific but I feel going in and out of wifi signals does drain the battery.

</comment><comment><USER16> S2 is at least 2 years old. Whatever battery (1650 mAh) it came with is probably due to be replaced anyway.

Just get an extended battery such as Qcell [[http://www.amazon.com/QCell- Samsung-SGH-i777-Extended-Compat...](http://www.amazon.com/QCell-Samsung- SGH-i777-Extended-Compatible/dp/B006SK5GK0)] (a whooping 3600 mAh!) and have same 4 days charge with all the updates/gps/bluetooth/etc enabled, all the time.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm very satisfied with the battery life of my HTC One. I use it quite a bit during the day (a few sessions of Duolingo per day, HN frequently, the odd email/chat, etc) and it's still at 40-50% at night (I charge it anyway when I'm asleep, though).

It's currently been on battery for 18 hours and it's still at 23%, and this includes listening to audiobooks for an hour in the car, etc. It's pretty great.

</comment><comment><USER18> tl;dr if you hardly touch your phone, it lasts longer between charges.

</comment><comment><USER19> What's your screen on time? Most phones will get 4 days easily if you never use them...

<comment><AUTHOR> I installed BatteryStats just now, and added a few screenshots to show more detailed usage data. It says screen is at ~20% - so about 20 hours of screen time.

<comment><USER18> I highly doubt that, unless you have some truly shocking 3rd party extended battery. The screen has taken 20% of the battery life but it doesn't mean 20% of 4 days = the amount of time the screen was on. I suggest you press Screen in Settings > Battery and then reporting that. The screen is the single biggest juice sucker in modern smartphones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you are correct, my bad :) Clicking on screen in the Settings -> Battery says screen time on is 4h 32m. So I guess in a 4 day cycle I get to a little over 5h

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If I would keep screen off, turn off any updates and receive no calls I'm pretty sure I will get a week with out any special roms or apps. But what's the point to have a smartphone then?

</comment><comment><USER21> I hate post like this, no one cares how long your phone last when you never use the thing. At least once a week theres a post like this over on /r/android & /r/nexus4

</comment><comment><USER22> Depends on how are you using your phone and what applications you are running. Try to use G-maps and facebook for a couple of hours and your battery will be empty.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I say in the article - mileage will vary depending on usage, and GPS still sucks the battery. However, 4 days on normal usage is a nice achievement :)

<comment><USER22> Are you using TaskKiller? I use it to monitor "suspicious" services on my Adnroid. That helped me to disable many "old" apps that just run-out my battery.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to use TaskKiller for memory clearing purposes. Haven't used it since I upgraded to CM 10

<comment><USER22> I am working on data sync service, mainly sync data between cloud and mobile. 30% of apps installed on my Android do data sync. This thing is killing battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I still have a G1 with an extended battery, and it gets charged once-twice a week. I use it fairly regularly, so it's not jst standby.

Underclock, people, underclock :)

</comment><comment><USER24> Don't play Ingress.

<comment><USER25> I bought an EasyAcc 12,000 mAh power bank mostly for ingress....

<comment><USER26> I use my macbook air which is usually in my bag when I travel to charge my phone. It will charge via usb even when the computer is in standby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What's your screen-on time in minutes or hours?</comment>


Ask HN: CLI design of import/export commands - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing a distributed project management tool with a command line interface. I have two commands relating to initially copying a project to/from a hub. The export command looks like this:

    prog export PROJECT HUB
 This reads well when compared with the English "export this PROJECT to the HUB".
The import command could have the same order of arguments if I also want it to match with the English "Import the PROJECT from the HUB":

    prog import PROJECT HUB
 There is possibly some value in having a consistent order with the two commands. An alternative however is to enable the importation of several projects (or even all) at once, by reversing the order of the arguments:

    prog import HUB [PROJECT-1 .. PROJECT-N]
 English can also be massaged to work this way "Import from HUB all projects, or the following projects: PROJECT1-N". This also has the advantage that it is a similar order to the "git clone" command which has familiarity for software developers, although git is the last tool I will be modelling my interface on.
Which order would you prefer, and why? <comment><AUTHOR> For some context of how these commands fit in with everything else, here is the overall command usage summary:

        prog help [COMMAND...]
        prog init [DIRECTORY]
        prog import HUB [PATHS...]
        prog new ITEM
            prog new project [PATH] [TITLE...]
            prog new task [PATH] [TITLE...]
            prog new issue [PATH] [TITLE...]
        prog list ITEMS
            prog list topics
            prog list projects
            prog list project-states PATH
            prog list task-states PATH
            prog list issue-states PATH
            prog list hubs
        prog show ID
        prog log [ID]
        prog comment ID
        prog drop ID
        prog push ID PATH [HUB]
        prog export PATH HUB
        prog sync [ID] [HUB]
        prog upgrade [DIRECTORY]
        prog sql STATEMENT...
        prog ALIAS

At the moment PATH is the way to reference a project.

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact, while I'm here, any other comments you have on the interface are also very welcome. Possible topics: Order of commands as printed here, or the names of the commands and/or arguments, order of the arguments, whether arguments should be optional or not, etc.

If you have ever been annoyed at an inconsistency in git, and wished you could have had a say when it was being designed, then now is your chance to possibly affect how this tool matches your ideals.

The tool is not yet anywhere near releasable, but will most like (A)GPL.</comment></comment>