If Prisoners Ran Prisons - <AUTHOR> https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/10/23/if-prisoners-ran-prisons#.xm20Sygvd <comment><USER2> In having served almost 10 years in prison for drugs. I can say that medium and maximum security prisons are often a breeding ground for killers, and dangerous people.

Young kids who have done something incredibly stupid usually end up in these places. They are then immediately put in a situation to fuck or fight. This behavior will often escalate to extreme violence or to be broken psychologically, then owned by other inmates, bought and sold like property. Can that kind of behavior be unlearned? I doubt it... I would argue that at best, people can only learn to do something better, but always lurking in the background.

This is only one of many of the bizarre insanities of prison life. I personally don't disagree with the idea of punishment or prison. I would however say that prisons are extremely dysfunctional.

<comment><USER3> >>Young kids who have done something incredibly stupid

>>They are then immediately put in a situation to fuck or fight.

IMHO this aspect of prison life is common knowledge. I wonder how incredibly stupid one has to be to risk getting jailed. And looking at the numbers that is not a marginal phenomenon.

<comment><USER4> A great many things can cause you to be party to something incredibly stupid - something mildly stupid escalating, doing something without full understanding of the consequences...

Even if you do grasp the risk at hand, other pressures can drive you to make stupid choices.

Regardless of how you got there, though, it should not be a given that you're going to come out of it worse than you went in.

<comment><USER3> >> something mildly stupid escalating, doing something without full understanding of the consequences...

I still do not get how someone can not understand the consequences. Have they never seen any movie? Really? Never talk to former inmates?

<comment><USER4> Knowing, abstractly, that doing X can result in Y punishment, and having internalized it to the point that you think of this fact as a deterrent when you're considering whether to do X, are not the same thing.

It's similar to (but not the same, I think, as) the difference between not doing X because you've been told Y will happen, and not doing X because you have memories of doing X and Y happening - the latter is a lot more deeply ingrained.

Consider newly-minted adults in prosperous environments leaving their parents' home for college for the first time - they have a theoretical knowledge of the various stresses, risks, and concerns that will arise when they live on their own, but until they've actually done it for a while and had various mishaps, it won't be nearly as well-calibrated and digested into their thinking.

Or consider the uptick of music piracy when the internet was just becoming ubiquitous - people knew, abstractly, that it was theft, and could carry consequences, but that didn't enter into most of their considerations.

<comment><USER5> "Piracy is theft"

Digital piracy is not theft. It's like taking pictures in a museum when it's not allowed. It's taking a picture of public buildings in the wrong country. It's copyright infringement and an issue for the civil court, not the criminal court.

Edit: your other points are good though :)

<comment><USER6> Regardless of whether piracy is or isn't a theft, it's actually a pretty good example. The fact is, people can and _are_ fined and imprisoned for piracy. And yet this fact is very remote to most people who pirate copyrighted content.

<comment><USER7> I don't think many people are imprisoned for piracy, if any. I'm not talking about filming in a movie theater, i'm talking downloading content for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cost of prison per prisoner per year:

$168,000

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/nyregion/citys- annual-c...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/nyregion/citys-annual-cost- per-inmate-is-nearly-168000-study-says.html)

Average in the US:

$31,000

[https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons- what-...](https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons-what- incarceration-costs-taxpayers)

This isn't about justice. It's about prison guard jobs. It's about welfare.

<comment><USER9> It's not just about welfare, its also about political power. For example, New York houses tens of thousands of prisoners from New York City in various upstate prison towns. The population of these prisoners is counted towards the populations of these upstate towns, even though the prisoners cannot vote and aren't from that area. For purposes of gerrymandering, funding, and anything else related to population these prisoners are literally political ammunition. This added clout puts representatives in the statehouse that exist only to flood the prisons with more prisoners, completely beholden to prison guard unions and other prison-related industries. They spend their time blocking any sort of logical criminal reform, marijuana legalization, or anything else that would slow the steady stream of prisoners. Its a corrupt system to the core.

[http://www.demos.org/publication/census-count-and- prisoners-...](http://www.demos.org/publication/census-count-and-prisoners- problem-solutions-and-what-census-can-do)

<comment><USER10> Prison gerrymandering has been reformed in a few places, particularly New York. Due to reforms passed in 2010, prisoners are now counted toward their home districts.

California has likewise passed a law to discontinue the process there by 2020.

For much of the rest of the country, this is still a problem.

[http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/newyork.html](http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/newyork.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, nothing to do with hackers, but if this

> Immediately they are yelled at by officers to strip naked, get 'nuts to > butts,' and after being searched they are kept naked for several minutes > until they are issued some boxers...

is true. Boah, how can everybody yell at the 'bad behaviour' of Trump and Clinton and look away here?

<comment><USER12> I agree, it's pretty sick. I can see how this sort of behaviour can become normalised, hard to remove and in some cases part of what the public expect from the prison experience. Many people see prison as a place to be punished, so it's easy for them to rationalise any sort of demeaning or dehumanising treatment as part of the package - "well he/she should've thought about that before they broke the law..." etc

In addition if you're a politician you're not going to win votes by campaigning for better conditions in prisons, now matter how you spin it.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but how is an inmate supposed to become 'better' in future if he (I assume this only happens to men) is treated this respectless? Maybe you are right with winning votes. But on the other hand I perceive the americans as quite human. And if voters (and politicians) want to reduce the likelyhood of inmates to slide back I think the conditions must be improved (if they really should be that bad - I somehow cannot believe this report, completly unthinkable in Europe (maybe we exagerate a bit towards the other end, don't know)

<comment><USER13> I hate to come off as overly negative, but while Americans individually can seem like very nice people, that's not really our culture. Especially when it comes to prison -- very few people give much thought to rehabilitation. Prison is meant to be punishment, period. Anything that makes it more humane is perceived as making it like a vacation or something. This is why we don't put a stop to things like rape in prison, because we have completely dehumanized prisoners. We treat our pets better.

<comment><USER14> Which is why the inhumane treatment of prisoners by people like former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in AZ was not only tolerated but often condoned by the public. It's why he was re-elected, for being perceived as tough on crime.

While they might not admit it, some people want to know that these criminals are being mistreated. They like the idea, somewhere deep down, of a criminal being forced to wear pink underwear and being fed spoiled food. It's twisted, wrong even. But it's very much American. Like apple pie, or baseball.

<comment><USER15> > Which is why the inhumane treatment of prisoners by people like former > Sheriff Joe Arpaio in AZ was not only tolerated but often condoned by the > public.

Yeah but the tide has turned against him, he got booted out of office ([http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/sheriff-joe-arpaio-booted- fr...](http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/sheriff-joe-arpaio-booted-from-office- by-arizona-voters/)).

About the only positive result from this years' election.

<comment><USER5> Another good result from the election: many states are legalising marihuana in some form, that's more money income from taxes and less spent on prisons.

It's still a long way from an evidence based drug (law enforcement) policy, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER16> alas, in many states law enforcement and other groups are finding ways to continue profiting from marijuana prohibition - legalization is regulation, and they make punishments stricter for some 'crimes' while legalizing other things. For instance, plant count. Some proposed laws do things like legalize growing 6 plants... while 7 remains a felony, and all while not defining a plant. Or in Colorado, while growing a few plants became legal, processing them into hash with solvents became a 2nd degree felony.

In my own experience, police in Oregon and Colorado have started enforcing DUI and public consumption for marijuana rather than possession - and those charges carry higher punishmebts than minor possession used to carry. My neighbor was raided by a swat team last year, fully armed, with emergency support, for alllegedly being over plant count (a municipal court type violation...).

So, things are moving sideways. The people addicted to making perverse profits are predictably not keen to let go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I spent my afternoon hanging out with an ex-con and entrepreneur I met through Defy Ventures. They're a great organization that are giving second chances to the incarcerated. If you're looking for a practical way to make a difference, check out [https://defyventures.org](https://defyventures.org) and sign up as a mentor. If you live in the bay area, they have a day trip to Avenal State Prison coming up next month and are looking for volunteers to help as business coaches.

Today I asked this entrepreneur for his perspective on what needs to change in our judicial system. Not surprisingly, he gave me a long list of things that are broken, including the corrupting influence of money which incentivizes tough laws and full prisons. And the money which allows people with money to walk away with a slap on the wrist for committing the exact same crime that put him away for years.

When he was released, he was scared to leave prison. He shared how the free world is terrifying to those who've been incarcerated for years. He'd been locked up in high school and never had a chance to get a proper education. He couldn't find anyone to hire him. He couldn't find anyone who'd even rent him an apartment with a felony on his record. The only people who reached out to him were his old gang members. Imagine spending the majority of your life behind bars and then being thrown into a world with smart phones and the internet -- neither of which existed when you were locked up.

Many of us in this community agree on how unfair the judicial system is in America. Many of us believe in the concept of second chances and redemption. And many of us (myself included) could do a better job at demonstrating that belief with our actions.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder why there are no private non-profit prisons.

There are many states that allow private prisons. There have been multiple articles about how awful these prisons are. Why not try to open a non-profit prison where gov't funds are supplemented with donations and focusing on rehabilitation and humane living conditions. Then we both improve the lives of some inmates, and can more effectively compare outcomes.

<comment><USER19> Because the amount available per prisioner per day is so low that a non-profit prison could not do much better. It is not like the for-profit prisions are running on profit margins of 50%.

<comment><USER20> ~12.5% margin for CCA in 2015 [1]. I suspect that $227M could manage to pay for bringing some fresh produce into the commissary.

Edit: not to mention the $890K they spent on lobbying.

[1]: [http://media.corporate- ir.net/media_files/IROL/11/117983/201...](http://media.corporate- ir.net/media_files/IROL/11/117983/2015%20Annual%20Letter%20to%20Shareholders%20-%20Final.pdf)

<comment><USER19> This is not a great margin given the capital requirements and political risks. It would be hard for a new non-profit to get to their efficiency without scale and even if you did it would not free up anywhere near the resources required to make major changes in prisoner treatment.

The basic problem is still the tiny amount spent per prisoner on anything other than keeping them locked up. We need to spend more if we want them to not just be heading straight back to jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Related: The Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37904263](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37904263)

> If somebody has a drug problem we treat their addiction, if they are > aggressive we provide anger management, if they have got money problems we > give them debt counselling. So we try to remove whatever it was that caused > the crime. The inmate himself or herself must be willing to change but our > method has been very effective. Over the last 10 years, our work has > improved more and more.

> Fewer than 10% then return to prison after their release. In England and > Wales, and in the United States, roughly half of those serving short > sentences reoffend within two years, and the figure is often higher for > young adults.

</comment><comment><USER22> There seems to be a pretty decisive anti-prison circle jerk in this thread. It's a trend that is very common among progressives, common enough that I think we could do something about it.

Does anyone want to say things in support of prison? If we revamp the prison system, what things should we keep? What do prisons do right?

And, what are the next steps for a community willing to invest in changes to our criminal management? How do we make a difference?

<comment><USER23> Prisons should basically be a mix between a school and a mental institution. If you are a loser and fucked up, your personal issues should be treated and you should get into a position of not being a loser any more (e.g. get a regular degree, apprenticeship, on which it does not say "done in prison"). You should have to stand up every day and have a normal workday to get used to that.

You should have to stay there for as long as you are a threat to society or as long as your situation has not changed and it is likely that you will commit the crime again.

So everything that is already that should be kept, everything else we can get rid of. I would personally say, start with socializing them again, then we have an incentive to reduce prison populations by keeping people out, who do not belong there in the first place. As always, when I make this comments I am a hopeless optimist: Do not worry, it is already happening.

Also something to cheer you up, America: Where do you think ISIS comes from? If you look for a group of losers, just turn to your local (on HN often praised) European prison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There should be two types of prisons; one for people that will be released one day and one for people that will never be released. The never-to-be-released ones can be the nastist hellholes (if the aim is punishment), but the to-be- released ones need to concentrate on making sure that the prisioners are less likely to offend again once released.

I have often thought the solution to the reoffending problem is to fill the prisioners day with heaps of novel activities so that each day is spent learning new things (doesn't really matter what as long as it is not criminal). The aim would be that by the time the prisioner has finished their sentence their old life and self will be forgotten. The human brain only has so much capacity and if you fill it with enough novelty you will overwrite all the old bad information and behaviours.

VR has the ability to make this cheap and effective.

<comment><USER24> _The never-to-be-released ones can be the nastist hellholes (if the aim is punishment)_

I object. They're still human, and as they have been deprived of their freedom, we (society) have been entrusted with caring for them. Even the death penalty (quite flawed as it is) may be better in some sense, morally, than "the nastiest hellholes".

<comment><USER19> I was not arguing for making the never-to-be-released prisons hellhole, just that they are the only prisons you can inflict punishment. Punishing those people that you are going to release is stupid beyond imagination.

<comment><USER25> > stupid beyond imagination

I was punished. Spanking when I was younger, grounding when I was older. Without these consequences, I would be a worse adult.

We may disagree about degree, but "stupid beyond imagination" is an overstatement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> One of the few charities (that I'm aware of) in this area: [http://justdetention.org/](http://justdetention.org/)

</comment><comment><USER26> What I find amazing here is the pathetic modesty of all the requests. It's all about selling onion powder in the commissary or granting model prisoners the right to wear non-white shirts, not (say) the abuse of plea bargaining or the ludicrous length of mandatory sentences.

<comment><USER27> _the abuse of plea bargaining or the ludicrous length of mandatory sentences._

I don't think those really have to do directly with prisons though. It's a related topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One thing that kills me about prisons is that they achieve exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to be achieving. They add more psychological trauma, they create more anger and they force people to focus on what they've done in the past instead of what they could be doing different in the future.

The problem is that there are always more important things to worry about in our society than reforming prisons. Not much has changed since prisons have been invented, really. Recidivism is unacceptably high. The solution is not more discipline. It's more respect, more compassion, more dignity, more learning, and more showing that life doing other things is as rewarding if not more than doing the things that lead to prison.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you find this topic interesting, I would recommend that you check out the documentary "13th" on Netflix:

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741](https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741)

</comment><comment><USER30> Prisons are dysfunctional and cost too much. Why isn't GPS-tagging, curfew and public record sufficient to protect society?

Reform could only be somewhere where >90% people are non-criminal e.g. army, monastery

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

</comment><comment><USER31> Prisoners should be measured. The same way that some companies have performance measurements for its employees, prisons should have behavioural measurement for the prisoners. If the behaviour improves based on a certain grade, then the prisoners get rewarded, otherwise they get punished

<comment><USER32> How about measuring the prison instead, reform more crooks, the guards get a pay bonus. However, knowing how incentive schemes are normally gamed, they will probably resort to lobotomising the inmates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> so sad. im glad that in the age of the internet stories like this can come out and reach many people. I just hope that the next generation of leaders who grew up on the internet exposed to many differing ideas will have the courage/determination to find real solustions fix problems like this.

</comment><comment><USER34> In 100 years or so people will look back at our prisons like we now look back on the Bastille.

<comment><USER35> I look at them now with horror - no need to wait 100 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> let the prisoners run the entire prison but have the guards monitor them at all times.

like this [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)

</comment><comment><USER37> The notion that there should be no prisons at all is nuts in my view, there must be a way for people to protect themselves from others who repeatedly act violently.

But the fact that prisoners frequently have to face rape is sick and shows how dysfunctional the current system is. I even read some time ago an article that stated that the US is the only country in the world where more men than women are raped. (due to the fact that so many men are raped in prison)

What I personally believe would be a good way to treat this issue is to have prisoners work in the private sector while their payment will largely be used to pay for prison and to repay their victims for the damage they have caused them. The prisoner is set free once he has paid for all damages. (or as much as is reasonably possible)

Prisons will have an incentive to make sure that their prisoners earn as much as possible (trainings and education), victims will receive payments for damages and the prisoners themselves will have an incentive to get out of prison as soon as possible. Of course this can't be done with every type of felony and there's the question if damages are always accurate.

Also with this approach some types of felonies cannot be punished. One example would be drug abuse. You are only harming yourself and since no third party can claim damages it also would not be punished. (this alone would hugely reduce prison population)

You could even make the case that selling drugs would be legalised since there's clearly a buyer willing to buy and consume it who's not hurting any third parties directly by his choice.

I believe it is more reasonable to have prison sentences reflect the damage caused instead of ideology and prison life be more about making it up to the victims (as far as it is possible) instead of creating the most nasty, brutal place imaginable and having people suffer there.

It's probably also a better lesson for an offender to have to repay someone for destroying his car than subjecting him to repeated rapes which will likely break him psychologically.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm all for prison reform, but other than the bits where officers do demeaning things to the prisoners, this really just becomes a list of things that prisoners feel would make their lives more comfortable.

Well yeah, no shit. Of course they want it better in there. If they got all this, they'd eventually be complaining that they should have computers and playstations.

Prison isn't supposed to be torture (physically or mentally) but it's also not supposed to be better than poor people have it. If poor people can't be taken care of to the point they have these things (and I think they should!) then I don't think starting with the prisons is the right way to go.

<comment><USER39> You're correct that most of these are asking for prison to be a more tolerable place to live. Making prison a rough experience should encourage inmates to avoid crimes which will send them back. The article's author contends that the current conditions in the prison where he serves his time re-enforce criminal behavior and empowers "gang recruiters, extortion, and other threats" by depriving prisoners. He has the advantage of seeing what happens each day, but has a sample-size issue in that he's only experienced a small number of prisons. I would be interested in seeing his proposals tested in a controlled studies. None of them seems difficult or expensive to implement.

<comment><USER40> > Making prison a rough experience should encourage inmates to avoid crimes > which will send them back.

RoW actually shows that this basic approach does not work _at all_.</comment></comment></comment>


Klimt's Women, Real and on Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/arts/design/klimts-women-real-and-on-canvas.html <comment><USER2> I recently spent several days in Vienna looking at art. The Hapsburgs were avid art collectors, and have a massive collection. I highly recommend Vienna to any aspiring art historians.

Klimt had a rather conservative art training. He was essentially a court painter, painting murals in various palaces and museums around Vienna. His founding of the Vienna Secession was a big turn from the centuries long legacy of professional court painters producing landscapes, portraits, and allegorical depictions of Hapsburg empire to "Art for Art's Sake." This was a switch from art as a profession to art as an expression.

In Mad Men, Don Draper is regularly ridiculed as a sell out, because his art is for a salary. Somehow this was seen as heretical. But art has a long history of being a profession of propaganda production for ruling class patrons. Klimt help break this mold in Vienna, and is definitely one of the most influential artists of the last century. The Secession produced artists that would go on to influence Surrealism and Modernist, which ultimately shape the way our world looks today.</comment>


A leaked look at Facebook's influencer search engine for advertisers - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/18/facebook-creator-search/ <comment><USER2> This human ad cattle factory powered by Facebook is yet another scary, sad and unethical epitomization of the modern web.</comment>


Jmeter is a Poor Choice for REST and Golang - <AUTHOR> http://danmux.com/posts/jmeter_rest_golang/

<comment><USER2> What would be necessary to actually write on ? maybe even using Go.

<comment><AUTHOR> possibly using [http://tip.golang.org/pkg/net/http/httptest](http://tip.golang.org/pkg/net/http/httptest) and a bit of workflow management - would not be too hard

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Try locust.io. its much nicer to construct JSON using python

<comment><AUTHOR> wow locust.io - looks great, thanks, I'm surprised I missed that. I'm becoming more and more of a fan of code over configuration.

I'll definitely give that a go</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the Sketch (Bohemian Coding) Alternative on Linux? - <AUTHOR> Is there any Sketch alternative on Linux? Even a paid solution in range of $300-1000 a month is welcomed. We use Linux as our primary workhorse and have our whole workflow designed around it. <comment><USER2> I've heard great things about Gravit Designer ([https://www.designer.io](https://www.designer.io)). It apparently is close to achieving feature parity with sketch. I don't think Gravit supports plugins.

Alternatively, you could use InVision Studio (not released yet) or even Figma, but those are web-based, so maybe not such a great idea.

<comment><USER3> +1. I don't do enough design work to warrant expensive software so I've been using Gravit for small jobs and it's come a long way since they first released. It's definitely useful, especially for just doing things like mockups/wireframes.

</comment></comment><comment> ok-repl It depends on what you're doing, but I'm here to tell you that unless you're doing Visual Design, you can live without Sketch altogether.

Where I'm employed at the moment we use Sketch for Visual Design. For pretty much all stages before that, we use Google Slides - this includes _everything_ , from information architecture, through UX, sometimes right up until the point where we really should be asking some hard Visual Design questions.

If your primary concern is UX or prototyping - you can do it with pen and paper just as well. To be honest, I generally find that it's best to start lo- fi. Sketch invites you to try to make your wireframes pixel perfect, which you probably don't want. Sketch also entices you to start using symbols which can lock down your designs too early. Slides will not draw you into selecting fonts, or dealing with exactly what color you want to use.

So, if your goal is to do wireframing, my tip is to go lo-fi.

However, for VD, I'm not sure you can do better than Sketch at the moment... It is a sad reality. I would have seriously considered ditching macOS for a GNU/Linux alternative if it had been possible for me.

</comment><comment><USER4> Figma is currently the best solution for UX design needs. It works quite smoothly in the browser. They've taken advantage of asm.js to the fullest.</comment>


Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sleepio.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm impressed that the Prof pronounces your first name, if it's one of the names he knows – it makes his talk feel a lot more personal. And he even knows my name, "Rory", which is fairly uncommon. How many names did you record? How did you choose those names?

On the home page, the "How it works" three-page widget scrolls too slowly when I click one of the three page circles. That speed is fine for the automatic page-turning every 8 seconds, but if I click a circle, I want to see that page right away – the animation should be about 5 times faster. I was slightly annoyed by the slowness when I tried to go back to the first page, which you don't want.

It also might help to stop that widget from scrolling until the user has scrolled far down enough that you think they have started reading it, so they can read the first step first, and aren't forced to click on the first-page circle to go there themselves. Perhaps you don't care which page the user reads first, but the chronological ordering of the pages contradicts that idea.

When I read <https://www.sleepio.com/sciencebehindsleepio>, I was impressed that you said you had done experimental trials, and I couldn't see any sign of obvious bias in the experimental design, but I was still a bit skeptical and worried that the experiments were biased. I just realized that an addition that would have convinced me a lot more strongly would have been a LaTeX- formatted scientific paper about the experiment, typeset in Computer Modern. The paper would not promote Sleepio, but just describe the experimental method and results. I don't know if LaTeX supports exporting to a web page with the Computer Modern font embedded – if not, you'd have to link to a PDF, which you'd have to work hard to convince me to open.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to look at it and give such thorough feedback.

The name thing is the one thing that always seems to delight people; it's indicative of the care/attention we pay (hopefully) to the user throughout the programme. To arrive at names we started with census records of top baby names going back 50 years, and now periodically add to them with names people enter that we don't have. It degrades gracefully though if we don't know your name!

Noted re: speed of transition. We're adding paddles today too. We decided to keep all animations in synch, but that's a good call on waiting til viewed. We'll look at it.

If we can get permission from the journal we supplying the original paper would be a great idea, although a more accessible format might be better. You can read abstract on pubmed here: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22654196>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Incredible homepage and introduction but I'd love a 7-day trial to see if it's for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes we initially had a 7 day trial but are now trying it without. The challenge is how to manage expectations from that trial - you need to stick with the programme to see a positive effect (like a weightloss programme), and despite our explanations mot people expect to see some instant results in that first week. We were hoping the 'Try it now' might give people enough of a taste of what the user experience is...but we'll give it some thought afresh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Starting with "At what time do you normally get in to bed?" to this Non-24 sufferer living in Germany is sort of like opening with "Enter your ten digit phone number" or "What is your ZIP code?"

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing we've wrestled most with (and haven't yet cracked) is how to accept time entry in a way that is unambiguous to even the least confident users, and also encompasses the range of quanta we need to manage (from mins to many hours). We've tried a few different solutions but 24hr dropdowns result in the least comprehension errors!!

How would _you_ do it if you were us?

<comment><USER4> My issue is not with your way of input, but with the question itself. My sleep patterns shift forward every single day.

I no more have a time I go to bed every night than I have a US zip code or a ten-digit cell phone number.

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood. Fair point.

We've taken what are the clinical standard measures - and some indeed feature counterintuitive questions. And you're right, one of the main issues with 'insomnia' is an unreliable sleep pattern.

We don't want to know how you slept last night, since this may be unrepresentative; but as you say an 'average' may also not capture it/be a natural way to report it. 3 x sample points ('last 3 nights') may be longwinded. Will consider...any ideas on a better question?

<comment><USER5> Start with "do you go to bed at roughly the same time (within 1-2 hours) most nights?" and only ask the "what time" question if people say yes to the first one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm currently working on a similar service for training workers in the heavy industries (oil, forestry, mining, etc). Flash based first, HTML5 next. A site design that feels more like an environment than a web page, led by interactions with a virtual character.

It is hugely inspiring to see that you've just nailed this sort of seamless and beautiful experience. I'm going to sign up for a course just so I can see how you've handled the various design challenges inherent to such a service. We've got our own exciting plans, but I'd love to learn from your example.

Also, I've got one nagging question I'd love your answer to. We've got a bunch of artists in-house, but don't have much in the way of great tools for animation. What tools did you use to do the animations on the Prof and the backgrounds? (Love the moustache mountain!) I'd be surprised if that was done with Flash keyframes, as I find them to be painfully slow to work with.

Thanks for releasing this here on HN. I hope you have a great launch. I'll be sharing your service with my team, and my friends, many of whom are frustrated night owls looking for better morning time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! Sounds fascinating - what's your service called? Would love to see how you've approached that challenge - I know for us it took a lot of iterations!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow.. The "Program" model seems like it would work for a lot of things - diets, exercise, study... Thought about making it a platform?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes that's the vision! That when you have a problem, you just 'visit The Prof', and he gives you a blended programme to help you. Sleep is a good starting point, since it is a) socially acceptable to talk about, and b) is highly co-morbid with other problems - a good way in to health in general.

A limitation of our current media-rich approach however is the cost of adapting content - we took a short term cheap, long term expensive approach... :)

<comment><USER7> Man, good luck. It's a head smackingly obvious yet simple idea.. some more: quitting smoking, learning a language, cooking at home.. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man! Yes it's a case of picking battles really at first - even within sleep there's so much we can do...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks great! Can you tell us some more about how you managed to get into a large national pharmacy chain like boots?

<comment><AUTHOR> It took A-G-E-S. Since we have bootstrapped for the last 3 years (only just took some seed money) we don't have the cash to pay our way in like most suppliers. Back then I had already got Prof Espie on board (he and I are the co-Founders) after his techniques had cured my insomnia. Since he is a world- leading expert the Boots Innovation Centre attended one of his seminars, and that prompted the first conversation, whilst we were still at planning stage. But since then it's been a very long road, talking to literally hundreds of people and outlasting team after team of buyers and marketing folk...the only approach with someone like Boots is to build a partnership, but that takes time if you don't have money.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> After a lot of iterative development and rigorous clinical testing, we yesterday released Sleepio - an automated, online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) course for poor sleep. Would much appreciate the wise views of HN, positive and negative!

<comment><USER9> Tried to view it at college but there's no sound on the PC - any chance of subtitles/text only?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. We actually have support for subtitles - but our first goal was to mimic a more human interaction and see how it helped adherence rates. So far since users make time to sit down and follow the programme each week this doesn't seem to have been a major problem, but I agree for trying it out the requirement for sound is limiting.

<comment><USER9> Awesome. I have to say, this is very impressive. Is there a free trial or anything available? I would love to try it out but, alas, I'm a skint student.

Especially since it's the start of the academic year I can imagine this going down well with my student friends - maybe some kind of discount would make it more enticing.

Either way, this looks awesome and clearly the result of a lot of hard work. The Boots partnership makes it all the more exciting. Congratulations guys :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! We _did_ have a free trial, but we're trying it without...and since we're so close to launch we need to coordinate with what Boots is offering. Out of interest what sort of price do you think you (and your friends) would expect to pay for this, based on what you've seen?

<comment><USER9> Well I'd be willing to pay £25-ish or maybe a bit more. I don't know if the fact I'm Scottish skews that at all :P

The Boots thing is very interesting. Are you willing to share how that came about? I'll need to nip in today and have a wee look.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm a big believer in using physical retail to explain (and confer value on) digital products. See above - the Boots deal took years of time and effort.

£25? More than I was expecting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This site is the perfect example of why HTML 5 won't replace flash anytime soon. Because, this site pushes the perks of using Flash to its fullest. Beautiful illustration, excellent animations and simply awesome...Keep it up guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks neya! Very kind. Although...we have an HTML5 version running concurrently; try it on iPad...

<comment><USER11> Why do you use the Flash version on desktop instead of the HTML5 version?

<comment><AUTHOR> We built the main sessions in Flash first because it was the quickest way to discover what it was that we were building! So the Flash version has been around longest and is the most stable (and currently the slickest). Once we were confident of the functional requirements we built the HTML5 version, but that's still in beta so we display the Flash version by default if you have it installed/enabled. Quite a few technical challenges we had to overcome to chain videos seamlessly in HTML5 on iPad...we'll definitely be writing about it once the launch dust has settled...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the constructive comments guys.

For those of you who would like to try Sleepio, we've set up a discount code for the first 100 to use it: HN-STOLE-MY-SLEEP will give you 30% off.

Thanks for all the feedback, and look forward to any more you've got!

</comment><comment><USER12> I've watched this startup progress from the early customer/problem discovery stage to MVP, validation and beyond. The execution and commitment involved has been an inspiration. Congrats guys. Very impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> :-) Thanks Jof!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why wouldn't you use sleep.io as the default?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm because our primary target (middle aged women) are not that web-savvy i guess, and the .com is the default TLD. We bagged sleep.io when it first went on sale but haven't considered using it as the default.

To ask the opposite (and possibly stupid) question - why _would_ you make sleep.io the default?

<comment><USER14> Less characters to type.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there a free alternative using the same methodology?

Sounds interesting, but £49.99 is way too much for me right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the techniques are out there in the literature, but it's how they are tailored to your own situation - and more importantly how you _actually_ deliver positive behaviour change, rather than just info - that's the real challenge that we're trying to address at a price less than the £600 you'd need to pay for a course of face to face therapy.

We're going to try a lower price point ongoing subs model to avoid that initial barrier; the assumption initially was that we need to front-load the value, since we're curing people!!

<comment><USER16> I'd gladly pay £100 or more.. If I actually believed the product would work on me. However, there is so much crap and scams on the internet that it is hard to believe a web site programme would be effective. All the thousands of "get abs in six weeks!" ads has made me cynical. Maybe if someone I trusted had taken the programme and could recommend it to me it would put be over the trust threshold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep peer referral is the most powerful driver - you've echoed the view of pretty much every sleep sufferer I've interviewed!

The Boots partnership was in part to try to build that trust (and therefore value).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Which text-to-speech engine are you using for the professor?

<comment><AUTHOR> None - it's all recorded...er, I mean magic.

<comment><USER17> Then that's a nice narrator you have there!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> suggestion: on main landing, change green button for an inputbox for email request + a green button.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Can I ask why?

<comment> e-dard So that you provide as little friction as possible to getting people to sign up. For example, with your current button I was reluctant to press it because I would assume there would be a big form on the other side. However, I'm more likely to sign up for more info if it's only an email required.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've inadvertantly highlighted a UX failing of ours - that's not actually a sign up form!

We ask for your first name so you can meet The Prof; another thing we're wrestling with, how to introduce that (non-standard) experience in a clear way...

<comment><USER11> "All we need is your name to show you a preview", or "You won't need to enter anything else unless you purchase". Emphasise that the name is all you need, I think that would solve the issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but I actually think we need to be even clearer. It should be obvious what to do without reading anything. And if high-functioning HN users are making that error, your average Boots customer almost certainly is.

Unfortunately there isn't an obvious affordance for this sort of interaction (that I've yet come across) - it looks like an email signup, when in fact it's more like 'play a game'...an interesting challenge...

<comment><USER19> I'm just thinking out loud here. One approach is to replace the green Try It Now button with an image of the Prof, under which you say "Hi. I'm the Prof. What's your name?", following by text field and green button. Then experiment with what the green button says.

It would be interesting to see if a vague 'what's your name' approach, rather than a specific direction with a stated outcome, wins in a split-test.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea - we would need to connect the headline explaining the programme with the Prof more clearly, but that's pretty easy. Will work it up, thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prevent Google Glass from Auto-Uploading Photos - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20644764/prevent-google-glass-from-auto-uploading-photos?noredirect=1#comment31485181_20644764

<comment><USER2> If i'm reading correctly, you cannot disable the auto-upload ? awesome...

<comment><USER3> My understanding was you can, but only if you also disable google plus. While relatively few people use it, I'd bet a majority of google glass users will.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. Google has made statements saying that disabling Google Plus will stop the auto-upload, but direct testing shows that it doesn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Radical Solution to Google's Hiring "Problem" - <AUTHOR> http://dailycow.org/node/1091

<comment><USER2> This post doesn't get it. Even the most desirable companies in the world are still under insane competitive pressure for the best candidates. What A-player would shell out even a pittance to apply for a role? Even among the majors (which isn't where all the action is at right now), there are many alternatives to Google.

<comment><USER3> A-players do not submit unsolicited resumes, and would never have to pay a fee. They would be head-hunted or introduced directly through colleagues. They get plane tickets, expensive dinners, and nice lodging. They are completely above this fray.

B-players -- those who are qualified, but without connections -- should be happy to pay $25 to know that a real person will actually read and categorize their application. I would personally find this more confidence-inspiring than just mailing off a resume into the void.

The millions of unqualified, hopeless candidates are the problem. The mountains of recycling they generate aren't just bad for Google, they're bad for the B-players as well, who literally get lost in the shuffle.

<comment><USER2> I would be less likely to consider working for a company where I knew that my peers would be filtered through an application-fee process. You have to consider the impact on A-players even if you think the A-players will simply dodge it. If Google knew ahead of time _exactly_ who the A-players were, it wouldn't have to worry so much about resumes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems fraught with adverse selection issues.

1\. Only Fan Boys Apply. Only people who are willing to pay $100 to work at google will do so.

2\. Only people without other opportunities will apply. For example, why would I pay $100 to apply to google, when I can apply to everywhere else for free.

3\. Reduce the number of linchpin applicants. If I know I don't fit the stereotypical google employee, why would I spend $100 to apply and be told no. Where as I might apply for free, and hope they can see that I am actually a good hire, although, I break the mold.

If these aren't enough, how do you handle the PR side of things?

<comment><USER5> >The optimal thing to do with those revenues would be to return them to successful applicants: Say, 4% of the 250,000 applicants get job offers and 60% of them accept the job. Then they can get anywhere between $1041 and $4166 in "bonus bonus" (i.e. bonus on top of the sign-on bonus) to keep the program revenue-neutral.

Another idea would be to pay out the bonus to anyone who receives an offer, rather than just those who accept one. I think this addresses your second point, Noah, because if I think I have a good chance of getting an offer from Google then I might actually expect to profit for having applied.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure why you were downvoted for that because you bring up a good point (upvoted).

The thing is, that would encourage people to apply for the sake of gaming the system--essentially wasting a lot of recruiting time even if they didn't want to get the job.

<comment><USER5> Well I think Google would quite like the opportunity to find and pitch qualified people. I'm sure they'd happily pay $500 for the opportunity to pitch directly a good candidate who just wanted the bonus on his way to a competitor or startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't buy it. It's a barrier to entry, but is it one that correlates with better candidates? I find it hard to believe that there's a compelling correlation between people willing to pay to apply and people Google wants to hire.

If you're looking for a barrier to entry, makes more sense to look for one with likely correlations (has worked at companies whose employees tend to be a fit at Google, has authored a popular open source library, etc..)

But even then, these are all ways to cut costs and shrink the hiring funnel.. which seems like the exact opposite of what Google is trying to do. They're clearly pretty comfortable with the amount of money they spend per hire in recruiting, and I don't see any evidence they want to tighten-up the candidate pool at the risk of missing out on good hires.

[Edit]: On second thought, Google adopting this strategy does seem like a helpful solution to Facebook's hiring problem :)

</comment><comment><USER7> This doesn't make sense to me at all. Assuming the goal is to increase the percentage of applications that are "high quality," I think an application fee would be detrimental.

If you are a highly desirable employee, you probably have many potential employment options. If Google imposes both an additional cost and additional step to its application process, then only applicants where:

Chance to work at Google + Application Fee/hassle > Chance to work somewhere else

Will apply.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point you bring up. Of course one of the assumptions, which may be wrong, is that Google is a desirable place to work.

If you are a highly desirable employee, you would likely get an offer at Google and have your application fee paid back in multiples--the point of the revenue neutrality is to encourage "highly desirable employees" to apply, not to discourage them. But I can see how it's hard to get over the psychological hurdle of paying to apply.

<comment><USER7> I think it's not whether Google is a desirable place to work, it's whether it's more desirable a place than other places that do not require an application fee.

Or, to be more pedantic about it, whether the marginal value of applying to Google is worth the cost.

My hypothesis is that for most good candidates, working at Google is not highly differentiated vs, say, Facebook, Apple, hot startup, etc. It might be for some subset of applicants (potentially those with big interest in search, or people who live right next to a Google office). Of course, those people would have applied anyway.

My instinct is that many more desirable applicants would just think, "I'll just apply to Facebook and Apple instead and see what happens."

Pulling out your credit card is just such a big conversion barrier that I can't see this being a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, the conversion barrier is a big one. The argument rested solely on the "expected value" of applying versus not, where E[applying] = E[marginal value] - E[marginal cost] = Pr(Will get a job and take it) * $4166 - $100. So if Pr(Will get a job and take it) >= 100/4166, then it would make sense to apply.

Of course, most people would not think like that, which is the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, author here.

Thanks for all the comments. I love it here because HN is always so critical (but not in the hateful way that Reddit makes me sick). Keep the criticisms coming.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apart from being a image disaster, I don't think that would actually work.

A hiring strategy for Google (and one I believe they're following, judging by the calls my friends are getting) is combing places like development mailing lists or open source projects contributors and proposing these people jobs. I'd say that's how they get their rock stars.

And for people that are not destined to lead teams or research groups, they're simply doing what any large company does: have a HR department and hire folks that pass the filters, then evaluate them while they're there.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems like the kind of thing that Google might want to test before actually implementing. Surveys are notoriously inaccurate and fraught with other concerns, but a "Would you have been willing to have paid a $25 application fee" question on the application itself would give some idea of the false positive (not discouraging unqualified applicants) and false negative (scaring away people they end up hiring) rates.

</comment><comment><USER10> Charging applicants is illegal in most developed countries. It's way too easy for companies to exploit desperate unemployed people.

</comment><comment><USER11> Have they ever referred to it as a problem?

With Google, I always assume they want as much training data as possible for their machine learning. We all know about GOOG-411, right?

I bet they're thrilled. And if they get around to competing with LinkedIn and Indeed, they're going to have some great data to work with.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not only is this solution is just as arbitrary as any other filter, it would have a profound impact on company culture.

</comment><comment><USER13> A fee scheme relies on the applicant being very sure that s/he is what the company is looking for. The higher the fee, the more sure s/he has to be.

The problem is when applicants aren't really sure, and don't have quite enough information on what the company would view as a good candidate. Given some of the stories that have circulated in the press about Google's hiring criteria, I am pretty sure their is a chunk of candidates that Google would want that won't be sure enough to apply.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting idea, but I don't think it would work in practice.

I remember doing a straw poll of coworkers and how they were hired. The vast majority either never applied (they were recruited or referred by friends) or they applied on a lark, without seriously intending to work for Google, and found that over the course of the interview process, they liked it. You don't apply on a lark when it costs $100.

</comment><comment><USER15> It would seem odd that a company who's mission is to organize the world's information is afraid of too many applications.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a better solution. using pre-arranged coding challenges , and testing candidates using automated testing (including automated scoring mechanism), to filter quality candidates.

see <http://codility.com/> .

</comment><comment><USER17> If an applicant is judged to be a reasonable applicant, but is not hired, Google could refund the fee. Basically, you get your money back if you weren't completely insane to apply.

This probably introduces even more problems, but it's an idea.

</comment><comment><USER18> Right. Because if there is a shortage of something, like highly talented people in a field, then the best way to attract them to work for you is tell them it is a privilege they have to pay for.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why would Google want fewer applicants? Hiring is a search problem, and negative results can be as useful as positive results in training a filter.

</comment><comment><USER20> how about this: go back to the difficult tests and puzzles they used to have. make it a pre-requisite to send in an application. that would reduce the number of apps and ensure applicants meet a high bar at the same time.

(also not sure how smart it is to charge $100 to people who are looking for jobs and consequently may not have the money to apply)</comment>


Django admin awesomeness - <AUTHOR> http://joshourisman.com/2009/10/15/django-admin-awesomeness/ <comment><USER2> Whoa - you can put a class definition _inside_ a function definition?

<comment><USER3> That's tame. Here's a scary example [1] (redefining a (built in) function in the middle of a running coroutine):

      def foo(x):
        yield len(x)
        yield len(x)
      >>> g = foo(range(5))
      >>> g.next()
      5
      >>> len = lambda y: 8
      >>> g.next()
      8

This causes problems when trying to implement an efficient python. You have to re-lookup your function bindings every time.

[1]: Example taken from Colin's Unladen Swallow presentation <http://llvm.org/devmtg/2009-10/Winter_UnladenSwallowLLVM.pdf>

<comment><USER4> kind of aside, does python support real coroutines yet or is it still just generators?

<comment><USER5> You should look at greenlet. Pretty cool stuff, used heavily in eventlet and gevent.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tip Your Hotel Maid - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/why-dont-people-tip-hotel-maids/590410/ <comment><USER2> "Maid"? Are we in the 19th century?</comment>


What do you want the highlight of your day to be? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kunalslab/what-do-you-want-the-highlight-of-your-day-to-be-224b6242a9b4 <comment><AUTHOR> I built a small tool called "Highlight One Thing".

It asks a simple question: what do you want the highlight of your day to be? [https://highlight-one-thing.glitch.me/](https://highlight-one- thing.glitch.me/)

I built this for the Product Hunt Maker Festival using Coda and Glitch. This idea came to me after my 2nd gen iPad was crashing Nick Burka's One Big Thing app.

I remixed his app with John Zeratsky's and Jake Knapp's Highlight concept from their book, Make Time.

I organized my thoughts around highlights and my journey to focus in one piece. Read it here: [https://medium.com/@kunalslab/what-do-you-want-the- highlight...](https://medium.com/@kunalslab/what-do-you-want-the-highlight-of- your-day-to- be-224b6242a9b4?source=friends_link&sk=44a35951fb70f240a7074aac5ae6116c)</comment>


Induction powered LED lit engagement ring - <AUTHOR> http://www.kokes.net/projectlonghaul/projectlonghaul.htm <comment><USER2> As a person who made his own titanium wedding ring, I have to laugh a bit. It appears this ring is chamfered on only one side. That makes it a bit of a chinese finger trap, easy to put on, uncomfortable to remove. A good metaphor.

Don't tell my wife, but cutting a round chamfer on the back side of a ring is really hard. I built a custom chock and ground a tool to do just that.

Assuming the diamonds are all recessed, cutting a backside chamfer shouldn't be impossible. Just chock, indicate, and re-chock, repeat, until you get it aligned.

This is a brilliant piece of art.

The only thing I would add is that titanium is a PITA, but while I have no experience, apparently most of the problems go away when you have coolant. I have seen production cutting tools at GE Aircraft and they rough cut like it is butter.

<comment><USER3> If you're familiar with stainless, Ti isn't that different. Go slow, listen to what your tools are telling you. Carbide tooling doesn't hurt, but isn't inherently requisite. Titanium is a wonderful jewelry material (biocompatible, low density, durable, polishes fairly well). It's only "downside" is that it's not expensive. Well-made Ti stuff draws the same attention as higher-Z materials.

I've made a number of Ti rings, but haven't set stones, as the You'll save a lot of time by starting with Ti tubing rather than turning the hole into chips. Depending on the size you need, relevant tubing isn't always available. Anodization is really fun.

I'd check into the biocompatibility of permalloy. Nickel allergies are real and can be acquired, sometimes from rings. Might rust/discolor fingers over the long term too.Laminating a Ti strip to the permalloy might help to attenuate the situation?

Chamfering the inside of a ring isn't hard to do with careful sanding on the lathe. Doing it wrong will amputate your finger or worse -- seek qualified instruction.

The article doesn't make mention of accommodating water/drainage. What happens if a little water gets beneath the stones after a hand-washing?

What a cool and inspired piece of work!

<comment><USER4> Somewhat offtopic, but since you mentioned anodizing titanium, it reminded me of an example - anodized titanium chopsticks:

[http://tistix.com/cart3/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=...](http://tistix.com/cart3/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's more "hacking" that went into this ring than most of the usual HN front page articles.

This is truly an impressive bit of work, and I hope the author and his beloved share a happy and healthy life together for the rest of their days.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Well, she insists that I change the design on this ring to make it more permanent and forgo a professionally made ring."

You have a keeper here. I made a (low-tech) engagement ring for my late wife, years ago. She would never have dreamed of replacing it.

<comment><USER7> I'm sorry for your loss

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really awesome. Funny enough there was a post and on going discussion on HN recently regarding the social pressure on women to have a traditional diamond ring. I refrained from commenting, very unlike me, but I wanted to make the point at the time that if a women presented her friends with a small brown stone, but the back story was how her partner mined the diamond and shaped it himself, no store bought diamond or social norms could compare.

</comment><comment><USER9> Haha I used to work with Ben (the OP) a few years ago and saw this on his FB over the weekend. He is an awesome and hilarious guy on top of being an amazing hacker (especially in hardware). It was a pleasure working with him for the few months before he left the company.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is lovely!

It's really interesting to see all the metal work stuff that went into making this ring.

I _love_ seeing the failures of mounting the stones. Seeing a product from start to finish is good, but seeing the problems encountered during the process is a better opportunity for me to learn.

A gentle note of warning: if you ever have a problem with your finger please take off your titanium ring before your finger starts to swell. It's tricky for clinicians to cut off titanium rings. Gold and silver are much softer and much easier to cut off.

</comment><comment><USER11> Excellent job, it reminds me a lot of the effort and creativity involved with the Gir Proposal Robot[1].

Kudos to the OP for taking the time, and effort, to create something unique while learning a lot in the process. You've set the bar higher for creative proposals =)

Regarding stone-setting, a quick thought on that -- since you have to mount material (and fill) on the inside of the ring, could you not have made the holes larger on the inside than the outside, and fixed their positions from the filler?

<comment><USER12> link for the robot?

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I failed to add that in: <http://rangerx52.weebly.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome ring! At some point someone will make flex circuits for this type of application. And it certainly puts the old one-button rings from Dallas Semiconductor to shame :-)

<comment><USER14> Most of the button wasn't circuitry and the one wire chips were packaged in various formats depended on the use. There were some nifty amazing prototypes that never made it to the public. (I can neither confirm nor deny previous employment at DS or TI.) :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I ever saw a work of love, this is it.

</comment><comment><USER16> So the problem of attaching the stones was never really solved? that section seemed to be leading up to a moment of genius and a thrilling conclusion, but it looked like it was just epoxy in the end.

<comment><USER17> By him, not really. Professionally the term to google for is stonesetting techniques. Its a pity titanium is an unholy pain to solder, otherwise he'd have been a perfect candidate for bezel mounting (basically think of how glass pieces are held in stained glass windows, wrap the edges with foil, more or less, and solder the foil).

He has the same Polish made 5C collet chuck on his lathe as I have on mine in the basement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This title is really difficult to parse as it is:

      "Induction powered LED lit engagement ring"

mostly because it should be:

      "Induction-powered, LED-lit engagement ring"

<comment> qu4z-2 I agree with "Induction-powered" and "LED-lit" but I think the comma is going too far. Then again I'm a comma minimalist ('though I do like the oxford comma for some reason).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The ring I bought for my wife has a highly fluorescent solitary diamond. If you can find enough of these to fit your final version, and if you can find LEDs of a sufficient wavelength to trigger fluorescence, the result might be quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is insane and very impressive, but I have to ask -- how does he have access to all these tools, and all this expertise? Is this a product of his job as an engineer? These seem like a lot of very expensive and large metalworking tools and some seriously in-depth domain knowledge. Really impressive either way.

<comment><USER21> At the bottom he mentions that he'd gotten some help from friends, however a lot of this is knowledge gained over time as an engineer and wisdom passed on from more senior engineers. Some engineers have their own metalworking equipment at home, but it's also possible he did this at his place of employment.

<comment><USER22> He also mentions TechShop. Maybe after an edit? They sell access to machine tools and such:

<http://www.techshop.ws/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Fantastic project! My wife and I spent the day making rings for each other here:

<http://www.weddingringworkshop.co.uk/cms.php?pageid=2>

which is highly recommended, but sadly we didn't have the option to add an inductively powered LED lighting element to them :-)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is one of the most heartwarming things I've read on HN, thank you for posting details of how you did it!

</comment><comment><USER25> I really enjoy reading hardware write ups, because it's such a completely different set of skills and seems fascinating. Plus look at how awesome the finished product is, it's a clever combination of components and I'm not surprised his fiance said to just make it more polished.

</comment><comment><USER26> I still love my husband's grandmother's ring...but damn, this is cool.

</comment><comment><USER27> "the stone would fracture along pre-existing crack lines."

"The failure mechanism is that it CRUSHES the stone to dust"

Presumably these weren't diamonds then...? Those would be expensive mistakes.

<comment><USER28> Small diamonds aren't all that expensive, especially if you get them with flaws (which are usually invisible anyway), and off colors (which can't be seen if the stone is mounted).

Little ones (about the size on this ring) can be had for $5-$20.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As neither a mechanic nor a photographer, thank you for the clear explanation. I learned a lot and was, at the same time, smiling... was your (now) fiance berating you during the development process for spending all of your time in the workshop/start up office or did she know what she is getting in to. Let's be honest, with your skill level on fabrication combined with curiosity I don't suppose this is the last project...

Meanwhile a (long and rambling) question. With some friends we bought a friend a quality lathe for their birthday. I was involved in sneaking it in to their basement, and holy __* was that thing heavy! During the write up you make use of various tools - some seem appear to be professional level, base mounted etc, then at the end you mention the dremel... right place/right time... does it do the job you expect of it?

As an Englishman that moved to the US, 15 years later I am still trying to decipher infomercials, advertisements, brand names & US/Europe preconceptions, all comment welcome!

</comment><comment><USER30> Now, this is the sort of stuff I expect to find on Hacker News. Awesome work.

Since electronics are getting smaller, perhaps we are going to see more "useful" rings. RFID rings for identification, anyone?

<comment><USER31> You might enjoy <http://hackaday.com/>, if you don't already.

<comment><USER30> Thank you for the link! I had seen that site before, but my brain's garbage collector removed it for some reason. Must be a bug :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Awesome idea! I was thinking of doing something similar using an energy scavenging IC with the coil and only pulsing the LED for brief flashes when enough charge is stored.

</comment><comment><USER33> but does it bind all the other rings of power?

<comment><USER34> The Nine, Seven and the Three each had their proper gem, not so the One.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Next step: the OAuth Ring ;)

<comment><USER36> There was a Java Ring back in '98:

<http://www.nngroup.com/articles/javaring-wearable-computer/>

I would imagine much smarter (and nicer looking) devices must be available, or at least possible, these days.

<comment><USER35> Awesome! ;) Access your cloud with your NFC OAuth ring. Maybe it could need a little bit more security in case you loose it (a DNA checker... just kidding).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Now build a USB-powered mousepad to make her ring glow all day at work!

</comment><comment><USER38> This is awesome. I'm not sure my non-geek wife would like it, but I would have.

Many people wear their rings in the shower, or even just washing their hands. I wonder how it stands up to water damage.

</comment><comment><USER39> Impressive--but likely uncomfortable to wear because of the thickness and square edges. Perhaps a comfort fit finish on the interior, with rounded corners, and a third less thick.

</comment><comment><USER40> Next project, the ring of power with glowing inscription?-)

</comment><comment><USER41> >There was a small hitch...i[t']s a really tight fit for her

Definitely the Homer Simpson D'oh moment. Could you have shaved the inside to make the adjustments?

</comment><comment><USER42> What an awesome idea! You should have patented it!

<comment><USER43> Nikola Tesla might have something to say about that...

<comment><USER44> Do you mean Faraday?

<comment><USER45> No, for 70 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Figure 37 at the bottom reminds me of Iron Man :)

</comment><comment><USER47> Ridiculously cool. Thanks for posting this!

</comment><comment><USER48> Good luck at airport security checks :)

</comment><comment><USER49> Cool piece of work! How about making the ring glow in a particular color when the guy is in proximity? Imagine how awesome it'd be for the girl to get up and say "well, my boyfriend is here..."

And on another note I figured that this is exactly how machines creep into our lives - emotional pitch. Live example!

<comment><USER5> Reading the article, it appears that the ring only lights up when near the device worn on the man's forearm, but I'm not sure at what distance the illumination occurs.

<comment><USER49> Yes, glowing when hands are close suggests that the two are 'zinged'.

Triggering a color when the partner is close within a few feet after a period of absence would mean 'he is here'.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I built a dead simple, secure password manager. - <AUTHOR> http://mawud.com

<comment><USER2> I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to type in the result field. May not be the standard ux though - I'm on a tablet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thanks for point that out! The only things you need to input are the service and passphrase--the result box is just for the output of the generator.

Now that you've pointed this out, I'm doubting my sanity in making the, um, output box an input... It should focus on the "service" input on page load, but on a tablet that might not be obvious.

Anyway, I should replace that to avoid confusion. Thanks for checking it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I may offer a simple UI suggestion: Make the result box read only. Combined with the minimalist UI this makes it very confusing for first time experimenters.

Also, I would suggest a submit button for clarity (and tablets).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sounds like the UI is a problem for many, and I can see why. I was going for something as minimalist as possible, but clearly I went too far. Thanks for your suggestions!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like this would result in many users using the same password for particular services.

<comment><USER5> Maybe I'm missing something. I don't see why the use of this service would produce an increase in that phenomenon beyond what it is now. I tend to think this would merely swap encrypted versions of commonly-used passwords for the originals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have you considered using BCrypt instead of SHA?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely, but the CryptoJS library just seemed more mature than the Javascript BCrypt library I found, so I decided to just repeatedly hash the data to approximate BCrypt's work factor. Thanks!

<comment><USER7> One very large appeal of bcrypt is its memory usage characteristics. SHA1 is easily done on GPUs, and can be massively parallel with very little work. Simply rehashing doesn't adequately replicate the barriers that bcrypt puts in place to brute-forcing.

See: [http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/400/why-cant- one-i...](http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/400/why-cant-one- implement-bcrypt-in-cuda)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for that fascinating link. I've never understood why, if bcrypt is good because it's slow, a similarly slow implementation of SHA wouldn't be just as effective. Now I do. Really appreciate it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> how and why this is secure blows my mind. Should I stop using keepass?

</comment><comment><USER9> How do I run this locally?

<comment><USER10> There are several local apps that have done this for a long time. I wrote and use SHA1_Pass. It has local clients for Mac, Linux and Windows and a JavaScript version that can run locally on mobile devices. <http://16s.us/sha1_pass/>

<comment><USER9> I was wondering about the password change scenario and the FAQ at your link gives some clue. So basically, if you are using this scheme/tool for your passwords than you are basically remembering the changing words (bills1, bills2 etc). This isn't really any different than remembering your passwords (if you are into making password strings of your own).

I guess a local password manager is good enough repository for passwords as it also lets you generate passwords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great idea, confusing UI.</comment>


A Guide to the Web's Growing Set of Free Image Collections - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/a-guide-to-the-webs-growing-set-of-free-image-collections/278655/ <comment><USER2> Europeana badly needs a mention: [http://www.europeana.eu/](http://www.europeana.eu/) , [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeana)

More than 2000 european institutions contribute to the growing collection.

Also has an API: [http://www.europeana.eu/portal/api- introduction.html](http://www.europeana.eu/portal/api-introduction.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Rijksmuseum even has an API: [https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/api/instructions-for- use](https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/api/instructions-for-use)</comment>


Iceland sentences bankers to prison for their part in the 2008 collapse - <AUTHOR> http://www.loansafe.org/iceland-sentences-26-corrupt-bankers-to-74-years-in-prison <comment><USER4> I'm a native of Iceland. There are mixed feelings with respect to the sentences. We are generally proud to have a system that does imprison bankers but there are frustrations that the true architects of the financial crisis not only got off scot free but also with a substantial portion of the loot scurried away on Tortola. There has been substantial revisionist history practiced by the guilty and their defenders and the more time passes since the crash the fuzzier memory becomes. After all the electorate voted the parties that were largely responsible for the system that crashed back into power.

I'll answer any questions that you would be curious about local sentiment and coverage.

EDIT: Having finally gotten to a copy of the article I want to point out several factual statements in the article that I find a little bit challenging to agree with.

1\. Iceland let the banks fail.

Not really. It was a restructuring. In the restructure a holding company handed all the assets over to a new corporate entity. All debts and obligations were honored.

2\. Iceland avoided austerity

Many social programs were cut. Great cutdowns in the healthcare system, so much so it is on the verge of collapse now.

3\. Geothermal is clean energy

Ask anyone from Reykjavík. Silver can no longer be kept without wrapping it in cloths, otherwise it goes dark in a day due to the hydrogen sulfide pollution. It's also not renewable. You can farm the area for about fifty years before it's too cold to extract and then it takes a millennia to recover.

4\. Value of ISK/EUR

That may be the artificial value while capital controls are in effect. True value is way below that. I might cover the "snowhenge" problem later, it's a doozy.

5\. Quoting the President on the banks.

You would have to know how much of a fluffer for the banks the president was for the banks and the oligarchs before the crash to know how stinky that sounds to an Icelander.

<comment><USER5> Would you expect startup-ers to go to prison for having caused the dotcom crisis of 1999? People who did fraud went to prison. But it's not a crime to make bad business decisions. In fact right now, tech companies are red hot (a bit less since this summer). I am sure people will loose a lot of money on current valuations. Should the management teams of Tesla, Amazon or Jet.com go to prison for that?

<comment><USER4> If they artificially manipulated the stock themselves and hid their interest in the company to the degree where holdership limits were broken, yes.

You also have to realize what sort of lending put the banks under. Using their influence in the banks they directed the loan officers to make out unsecured loans to their own companies. That was a big part of the banks all failing simultaneously.

<comment><USER5> Exactly, but that's Enron style fraud. It's not fraud that caused the financial crisis. It is the excess of leverage, and the complacency in lending and the way balance sheets were funded. I am not saying it wasn't moronic, just not criminal.

<comment><USER4> There were rules that were supposed to prevent such overleveraging that they skirted by hiding their interest in the bank. The holding companies were so transparent about it that they had silly names like Drawercorp and (I shit you not) Twisty (The Icelandic name is Vafningur, it kinda translates)

<comment><USER6> > _There were rules that were supposed to prevent such overleveraging that > they skirted by hiding their interest in the bank._

To clarify, executives at Bank created a Holding Company. Bank lent Holding Company $100. Bank then sold Holding Company Bank stock for $100, thereby manufacturing $100 in "equity". This "equity" makes Bank's debt/equity, and other equity-based leverage ratios, look rosier than they are.

I recall a similar shit show going down around Karzai's cronies in Afghanistan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let's make sure we're comparing apples to apples. Most, if not all, of these convictions were for plain-vanilla securities fraud. Executives using company funds to buy stock for their own accounts on insider information. Or hiding their earnings from tax authorities in Tortola. These actions are clearly illegal and regularly prosecuted in the United States. Comparing these cases to the lack of prosecution of, _e.g._ , Lehman Brothers's Dick Fuld is disingenuous. No laws were clearly broken there.

<comment><USER7> Comparing the situation in Iceland to the situation in the U.S. is certainly not an apples to apples comparison. The scale and impact of fraud in US financial markets is far greater.

It's hard to know what laws were clearly broken when there have been very few prosecutions.

Bill Black, former regulator and litigator during the S&L crisis:

> The savings and loan debacle was one-seventieth the size of the current > crisis, both in terms of losses and the amount of fraud. In that crisis, the > savings and loan regulators made over 30,000 criminal referrals, and this > produced over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as "major" by the > Department of Justice. But even that understates the degree of > prioritization, because we, the regulators, worked very closely with the FBI > and the Justice Department to create a list of the top 100 — the 100 worst > fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 > individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. We had a 90 > percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white- > collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.

> In the current crisis, that same agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, > which was supposed to regulate, among others, Countrywide, Washington Mutual > and IndyMac — which collectively made hundreds of thousands of fraudulent > mortgage loans — made zero criminal referrals. The Office of the Comptroller > of the Currency, which is supposed to regulate the largest national banks, > made zero criminal referrals. The Federal Reserve appears to have made zero > criminal referrals; it made three about discrimination. And the FDIC was > smart enough to refuse to answer the question, but nobody thinks they made > any material number of criminal referrals [either].

[http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street- exe...](http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-execs-went- to-prison-during-the-last-fraud-fueled-bank-crisis/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If this topic interests you, I recommend you read the book by Gudrun Johnson called "Bringing Down the Banking System: Lessons from Iceland". It is a translation and summary of the Report of the Investigation Commission of Althing (the Icelandic Parliament).

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

The Report of Althing is, in my opinion, the most comprehensive since the Amulree Report of Newfoundland in 1933, and one of the very few reports to investigate causes of the crisis.

As a matter of interest, I seem to recall that 83 million euros was given to Icelandic bankers for their part in the crisis. The proceeds unaccounted for numbered in the billions. Much of what the banks did was modelled on Enron- style deception, a practice which remains quite commonplace now in the financial marketplace.

<comment><USER9> Another great book to read is Michael Lewis' _Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World_ (2012) which is a compilation of articles on the 2008 recession that he wrote for _Vanity Fair_ magazine.

The one on Iceland is called "Wall Street on the Tundra - Iceland" and you can see its preview here: [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/04/iceland200904](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/04/iceland200904)

(The complete article is behind Vanity Fair's paywall.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Frustrated that the author neglected to elaborate on the crucial detail - <USER2> truth behind Iceland's post-2008 "revival" is that it imposed capital controls on its own citizens. It imprisoned their money to avoid "capital flight." This affected everyone. Even students on school trips had to fill out copious government paperwork before exchanging minimal amounts of -their own- money for foreign currency.

I know I'd want to take my earnings and get the hell out, if my government started bowing to leftwing populism and came for the bankers like a medieval pitchfork-waving mob.

Capital controls mean that the "recovery" is completely artificial, and until they're fully lifted we won't know just how deep Iceland's problems really go.

<comment><USER11> OTOH, Once they gave the money to the banks it's not really "their own" any more. That's part of the problem. people's perception is that having money in a bank account is like having cash in a safety deposit box, which is really not the case, at all. A bank account is just a debt, and just like any debt, the bank can default on it.

Interestingly enough there was a report, addressing exactly this problem, for the Icelandic government, by means of "souverign money". An arrangemang much more like the saftey deposit box scenario.

[https://www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/media/Skyrslur/monetary- re...](https://www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/media/Skyrslur/monetary-reform.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I consider these prosecutions a good thing, even though the selection of who goes to prison and who gets to enjoy their spoils seems arbitrary. For instance none of the politicians who played benefited from and played a large role in the Icelandic financial crisis have been prosecuted. The financial oversight institutions failed too, but somehow their failure to do their jobs is acceptable?

From a game theory perspective persecuting bankers is correct. The incentive for people who are already wealthy to take massive risks gets reduced when they know they may go to prison when it all hits the fan. It has little to do with real justice, though.

<comment><USER13> Through the modern history, politicians always succeeded in turning the plebs against various scapegoats that they blame for the trouble of the day. Ever wonder how they always find someone to mark as a villain, but it is never their, the politicians', mistake?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It maybe utopian or too liberal, but I'm against imprisonment for any kind of crime against wealth, be it shoplifting or securities/bank fraud on planetary scale. I think prison should be used for crimes against humanity, e.g. homicides, domestic violence, child abuse etc. Let the economic agents figure out how to protect their wealth by themselves by increasing transparency, improving risk controls, monitoring and security protection.

Say you don't want your car stolen, go and get some insurance, let insurance companies figure out how to prevent theft and find stolen cars. Let them figure out how to make stolen cars unusable. It's just an example, but I think it's doable.

<comment><USER15> Private protection of capital sounds like a terrible idea. Making racketeering and extortion legal (but only if pure money is involved)? No thanks. I want a justice system that punishes someone who steals money behind a desk at least as harshly as someone who steals bread.

<comment><USER16> But under rodionos' suggestion, it would: stealing bread is also a crime against wealth. Wealth is not just "money".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Since the link seems to inaccessible, this website seems to be a mirror of the same content:

[http://americannewsx.com/crooks-crime/iceland- sentences-26-c...](http://americannewsx.com/crooks-crime/iceland- sentences-26-corrupt-bankers-to-74-years-in-prison/)

</comment><comment><USER18> What would have happened if the US and Euro banks went down the same path? Does anyone have a well thought out insight?

<comment><USER19> US congress would have passed a law making it impossible to jail bankers for their wrongdoing.

<comment><AUTHOR> To your point, USA citizens did not want to pay for the bankers, but here is speech on the congress floor:

\- [http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew](http://youtube.com/watch?v=HVOuK_KB9ew)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure I get the hate on bankers. I don't like the bailouts - <USER3> could've been handled better - but people seem to be angry about the fact that they offered loans that they shouldn't have. That is, non-bankers were given money that they shouldn't have been given, and the claim is that we should be more selective about offering capital and opportunities to non-bankers and the underprivileged poor.

If somebody offered me a billion dollars at a 3% interest rate or whatever it is right now, I would seriously consider accepting it knowing that I don't have the capacity to pay them back. There are a lot of things in the world that pay better than 3% interest and that are relatively safe.

Similarly, a bank that gave out loans whenever you asked(up to the 10 loan limit, maybe) would be a great opportunity even for people who couldn't pay it back out of income. You could buy an empty plot of land and put a small apartment complex on it. You could buy a 4-plex and apply any number of forced appreciation techniques(put in a coin-operated laundry, redo the piping to reduce the amount spent on plumbers, plant some flowers outside to increase the attractivity, etc.). Of course, just betting on general appreciation of single-family homes is bad money.

Basically, I was too young to really experience the effects of the 2008 and I'm feeling envy rather than anger about these people's ability to cheaply obtain capital. So I don't empathize with these news reports about punishing bankers. Can someone explain why I should feel anger instead?

<comment><USER21> Because the bailouts were not offered to everyone? Banks should not get special treatment because they are "too big to fail".

Additionally, banks do not actually generate anything tangible of value. They literally use money from others to enrich themselves.

The banking industry is also what was pushed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act into play which is what makes it almost impossible to discharge your student loans.

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

So yeah, between what I mentioned above and LIBOR manipulation, there's plenty to hate upon banks.

<comment><USER16> _They literally use money from others to enrich themselves._

From what I understand, they literally create money from thin air: [http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a big believer that for every up there is a down. I respect Iceland for doing this. Rather than giving into a fear of the unknown, they faced their demons. It is without doubt a painful ride, but if any one of us were to negligently run a company into the ground and mismanage it, we would expect to pay the penalty for. I find it sad that we have allowed these big banks to grow so big, that they are "too big to fail". At what point do we have a scenario where other types of company are also too big to fail?

</comment><comment><USER23> Would be curious if anyone with knowledge of the various meltdowns that happened in Iceland can tell us if the Wikileaks disclosures from that period contributed significantly to the unravelling, as it happened.

</comment><comment><USER24> But have they done anything about the RMT'ers in EVE-Online?

</comment><comment><USER25> I.e., each of 26 bankers, for a period of some 2 to 3 years, cannot get a passport.

</comment><comment><USER26> I couldn't reach the linked article, but it's about 74 years combined since 2012, as summarized by this Reddit post:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/418h2r/iceland_senten...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/418h2r/iceland_sentences_26_corrupt_bankers_to_74_years/cz0fbky)

Longest term was six years.

<comment><USER27> Yeah; clearer title would be "Iceland Sentences 26 Corrupt Bankers to Total of 74 Years in Prison" instead of the current "Iceland Sentences 26 Corrupt Bankers to 74 Years in Prison".

<comment><USER25> The unambiguous meaning of "N people sentenced to Y years" is that every one of the set of N people was given a Y year sentence. There is nothing _unclear_ about it; it's simply the _wrong_ way to say that each of N people was given Y/N years, on average, so that the total sentences add to Y.

You can't add people's years together. Two 30-year-olds are not a 60-year-old, in combination. Moreover, different prisoners do not serve their sentences consecutively; it won't be the case that 74 years passes before the last banker goes free.

<comment><USER28> It seems a bit akin to those "Tom, Sally, and Harry bring 50 years experience to solving your problems" type statements that are used when certain businesses/professionals market themselves. Of course, Tom, Sally, and Harry are all in their 30s.

<comment><USER25> Even then, it's wacky usage, because a lot of the experience they have overlaps: they learned a lot of the same things in the context of the same body of knowledge and culture.

<comment><USER28> Oh, absolutely wacky.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Noteslate: Monochrome paper like tablet - <AUTHOR> http://noteslate.com

<comment><USER2> Pretty sure this was posted here before. Also pretty sure it's not remotely close to being a real product.</comment>


A song (melody and lyrics) is being generated by the internet - <AUTHOR> https://crowdsound.net/lyrics?t=2 <comment><USER2> Cool! But I couldn't get the song to play audio.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use the GO continuous delivery tool? - <AUTHOR>

How has your experience been?  Is it robust?  Is it better than Jenkins, Travis CI or Hudson?  What are some of the other alternatives? <comment><USER2> IME, it's immature. It's usable, but not awesome, and not as feature-full as Jenkins.

It's one killer feature is pipelines, but the hierarchy is fixed depth and hard to learn. Every other level is exclusively either parallel or sequential. Just like Jenkins & Teamcity, it's best to run every step in a container, but this is something you have to manage yourself.

Another major drawback is that the config is all one giant xml file. The GUI makes it a little easier to use, if you can figure out how to navigte it, but when things get hard you end up editing the global xml by hand with the possibility of accidentally breaking the config for the entire cluster.

The only CI I've seen with native container isolation AND pipelines is [http://concourse.ci/](http://concourse.ci/) But it's a one man show at this point, even more immature than GoCD.

Travis is poor man's CI. It doesn't scale well, even if you pay for it. And it's not customization enough to use for anything except unit tests and maybe integration tests if they're small and fast.

Never used Hudson.

TeamCity seems about on par with Jenkins.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Halite II: A New Programming Competition from Two Sigma - <AUTHOR> https://halite.io/index.html <comment><USER2> Halite Team member here. Happy to answer any questions on Halite 2.

Halite 2 is an evolution of Halite 1. This year, the theme is space and you mine planets using ships to produce more ships that you can use to conquer the map. Since the launch on October 23rd , we have around 1000 bots from 54 countries playing Halite 2 using a number of languages including Rust, Go, Java, C++, C#, JavaScript and more. This year we are also providing GPU enabled instances for players to run their games.</comment>


How to price your web application - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/how-to-price-your-web-application <comment><USER2> A decent article on pricing, but I wish the article was contextualized in a larger discussion of revenue models that included applications that provide free services - its too much a part of thew new wave of web apps to ignore.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm just about to launch my online application - basically online storage using S3 with some pretty front end functionality specifically for the aerospace industry...I'm basing my monthly price plan on the amount of files uploaded (with a markup and covering an estimated maximum usage) but I'm also thinking maybe I should price it like most products and price per user with an enterprise "unlimited" package..anyone had any similar experiences where your costs were based in part from Amazon S3?

<comment><USER4> I think you should charge for the additional value of your app first. And add a small but fair cost to your expenses on managing user's data in Amazon S3. But in this case you should base your price plans' on features and functions first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If only I could get users to get out their CC's in the first place.</comment>


The Rock 'n' Roll Casualty Who Became a War Hero (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html?pagewanted=1

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't believe what this guy did is really hacking and if he did the story doesn't tell but it's an awesome story of reinvention and excelling.</comment>


Elasticsearch's New Aggregations - <AUTHOR> https://www.found.no/foundation/elasticsearch-aggregations/ <comment><USER2> The correct title of the article is "Elasticsearch's New Aggregations" and I would add "[2013]". Please consider to resubmit with the correct title.</comment>