Show HN: Hop.sh a private, bookmark manager for teams - <AUTHOR> https://hop.sh <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I've built this bookmark tool for teams which shares a very handy "omnisearch" feature. It allows you to search directly on almost any website you want (like Duckduckgo !bangs). It's very handy to use it for customer support teams to search for an order ID on Gmail, or a doc on Google Drive, or an article on an internal wiki.</comment>


Show HN: Distributed ID Generation with Redis and Lua - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.intenthq.com/2015/03/icicle-distributed-id-generation-with-redis-lua/ <comment><USER2> Not new idea to use lua in the db, but if you wish more use lua in the project. I recommend to see [http://tarantool.org](http://tarantool.org) instead redis with lua.

<comment><AUTHOR> Op here! One of the primary reasons for using Redis here is not so we can use Lua (even if it is great!) - it's so that we can generate IDs using a service we already have. This idea could be extended to anything that allows user scriptable behaviour - for example, we know at least Instagram are doing this using PostgreSQL stored procedures.</comment></comment>


Learning lisp: the bump free way - <AUTHOR> http://pavelpenev.posterous.com/learning-lisp-the-bump-free-way

<comment><USER2> A 128-word rant that boils down to "don't complain about a lack of libraries, rarr!" is a bit of a "bump" in and of itself.</comment>


Show HN: Turn Ebooks into Audiobooks - <AUTHOR> https://Auditus.cc <comment><USER2> My hacky solution to doing this for free is to use the iphone accessibility "speak screen" feature. With the high quality Siri voice downloaded, it sounds just as good as this. And in BookFusion it will read through an entire chapter without requiring you to turn the page or anything.

Not to be a "just use rsync" commenter, though. This is a cool service. Just couldn't justify $5 a book, myself.

<comment><USER3> And I couldn't justify $5 to read your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is cool! Seems like it could be of use in generating audio books for ebooks in the public domain (Project Gutenberg, etc) affordably.

<comment><USER5> I mean, not to be the "but there's free" guy, but there is LibriVox. I much prefer a real human voice.

<comment><USER4> Wasn't aware, thank you for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice site design!

<comment><USER7> thanks for your feedback!</comment></comment>


VoltDB launches next-generation open-source OLTP DBMS - <AUTHOR> http://www.voltdb.com/voltdb-launches-next-generation-open-source-oltp-dbms

<comment><USER2> Looks interesting, but a bit of FUD on their pricing page ( <http://www.voltdb.com/pricing> ):

 _Open-Source Community Project: "...This edition is unsupported and most likely to be used in non-mission critical applications."_

</comment><comment><USER3> Anybody knows which traditional database did they compare VoltDB against?

<comment><USER4> Not legally allowed to say due to the anti-benchmarking license the big vendors use. Maybe I can say it was the obvious one?</comment></comment>


Announcing GitLab Serverless - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2018/12/11/introducing-gitlab-serverless/ <comment><USER2> Really excited to announce this today during KubeCon. It was a really positive experience working with TriggerMesh founder Sebastien Goasguen and the rest of the team. They implemented Knative into GitLab really fast.

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18661061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18661061) trended.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the only Serverless GitLabCI will natively support is...the kind where you supply the server.

<comment><USER2> you are right that "There is no serverless without (managed) services" [https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1072742649700872192](https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1072742649700872192) You have to supply the Kubernetes cluster. The Kubernetes cluster can be something like GKE, which is a managed service. So while every serverless function does have to run on someones server you don't have to manage that server.</comment></comment>


My "Dumb" Watch - <AUTHOR> http://compassionmonk.com/this-is-my-dumb-watch/ <comment><USER2> Essentially, construct a straw man (modern smart watches with oh-so-many- functions), and then attack it revealing the beautiful simplicity of a device that just tells the time. Why not take it all the way back to sundials? Why even add burden to the mortal coil and keep time?

(How did this make it to HN?)

<comment><USER3> Well, it proves that not everything should be able to do tons of stuff.

<comment><USER4> How does it prove anything? It is just the preference of the blogger who is also pushing it by way of being an Amazon affiliate.

<comment><USER5> I don't know how you replied to a comment 26 minutes before I posted the comment.

I also don't know how "Amazon affiliate blogger" fits into things.

I welcome you to enlighten me on either or both topics.

<comment><USER6> _> I also don't know how "Amazon affiliate blogger" fits into things._

Fyi... amazon urls with _" &tag="_ are affiliate links that get a % cut of the sales price.

In the blog's Amazon link, you'll see it redirects to a url that includes _" &tag=compassionmon-20"_.

The blog author also wrote on the page: _" As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases from this link."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My favorite thing about analog watches vs. a smartphone is that there's no opportunity to get pulled into some push notification and forgetting why I was even checking the time to begin with. I've been trying to pay more attention to where I place my attention lately, and having a decent analog watch means I can forget where my phone even is, instead of having to be disciplined every time I interact with my "smartphone".

<comment><USER8> Funny, my experience with a smart watch has been more positive. I find that getting push notifications on my wrist allows me to dismiss them then go back to what I was doing right away. Without the watch I tend to linger on my phone after dismissing the notification, addictively checking hn or emails instead of getting back to the real world. This is the only feature of the watch I really use, though. I'd love a "smart" watch that just received notifications and had a much better battery life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have been thinking about the feature set I would want in a watch and why would I want to smart connect with phone etc. and I just don't see a need. I ended up with solar powered Swiss made carefully designed and engineered marvel of a "dumb" watch that never* needs charging and apart from the time- related bells and whistles has just the no non-sense functions of baro/alti meter and compass.

Best piece of tech I have ever had, though admitedly it costs around double of smartwatch.

\-- * the accumulator battery will of course deteriorate with time, and the watertight gaskets would have to be replaced at some point.

</comment><comment><USER10> I mostly agree with the sentiment about smart watches, but I like my watch to be a bit more featureful than this.

Recently my Casio F-91W died and I replaced it with a somewhat more expensive but functionally simple analogue watch. I'm kind of regretting not just getting another F-91W, as I really miss its backlight and date display. I now find myself reaching for my phone when I want a time / date check and treating the watch mostly as a fashion accessory.

<comment><USER11> I stopped wearing a watch shortly after I started carrying a mobile phone (~1994) as the phone could tell me the time and date, and I had to keep it charged anyway. I didn't see the point of carry a redundant item such as a wristwatch. Even now I see 'smart' watches as nothing more than gimmicks.

<comment><USER12> I have a mechanical wristwatch, and love it. Scenario: I want to know how long something lasts (e.g. lunch)

Wristwatch:

1) raise arm 2) pop crown 3) twist crown to align hands at 12:00 4) push crown 5) twist crown to wind

And now I can view at a glance how long it's been since I set it.

Same function with my smartphone:

1) dig smartphone out of pocket 2) press power button to activate screen 3) swipe my unlock figure (sometimes twice because it doesn't register correctly) 4) tap clock app icon 5) tap timer tab icon (out of three extremely similar- looking icons, sometimes tap wrong one) 6) tap 'reset' then start icon 7) press power button to deactivate screen 8) put smartphone back into pocket and everytime I want to check that timer: 9) dig smartphone out of pocket 10) press power button to activate screen and the timer's displayed.

Twice the effort, thrice the hassle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love my smart watch, i'm able to share my health info with my doctor (heart rate mostly) I can go running without my phone, I never miss a call/text from my wife, and it nags me to standup and stretch once in a while, and it tells me stupid jokes. I can also see the picture of my kids every time I look at the time.

</comment><comment><USER14> I expected to see the Casio Databank - the best dumb smart watch I've ever owned.

</comment><comment><USER15> > the battery life lasts a gazillion years

According to the product description, it's more like 3 years.

<comment><USER16> That's what you will read on most watch descriptions and it's an extremely conservative value. I have never had a wrist watch battery dying on me, even after wearing it for 10 years.</comment></comment>


How Netflix gives all its engineers SSH access - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/learning/how-netflix-gives-all-its-engineers-ssh-access <comment><USER2> Download link of the video since "oreilly" is an a* h* organization who doesn't allow you to watch it without signing into an account:

[http://srv72.clipconverter.cc/download/3LCUfYeKqZmwY7Wr2Nmaa...](http://srv72.clipconverter.cc/download/3LCUfYeKqZmwY7Wr2NmaarVhnGhtY25snZeWtHyc0aJ3oqeuy9XXnas%3D/602.mp4)</comment>


Compare Various CSS Frameworks - <AUTHOR> https://dohliam.github.io/dropin-minimal-css/ <comment><AUTHOR> awsm css ( [https://igoradamenko.github.io/awsm.css/](https://igoradamenko.github.io/awsm.css/) ) has perfect layout among all in my opinion.</comment>


Show HN: Email Signature editor with GSuite integration - <AUTHOR> https://emailsignature.org/ <comment><USER2> Your App is still not verified by Google

<comment><AUTHOR> We notice this too, I submit the verification form, in the next couple days this should be fixed by google. Thanks</comment></comment>


Winklevoss twins' new Facebook lawsuit rejected by judge - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/25/facebook_wins_winklevoss_lawsuit/

<comment><USER2> I dont really see what they hope to achieve, i think they want 100% ownership of Facebook or something. 65 million is a nice chunk of change and its not like they were poor to begin with. You'd think they'd stop allowing this issue to control their lives and focus their drive into something more constructive. They're unlikely to topple Facebook, so why not pick a different industry and dominate that, its not like they dont have the resources or intelligence to be able to do it. If they could get over their egos they could become extremely successful.

<comment><USER3> I'd say they already are. They've made a career out of suing Facebook, and a lucrative one at that. Its not great smalltalk when "what do you do?" comes up at cocktail parties, but they could always use their facebook money to throw their own party...

I don't think they are actually that involved. I'm guessing their army of lawyers are constantly thinking up ways to try to get more money beating this particular dead horse and the twins are just giving the nod. $65m already, why not?

<comment><USER4> Yes, I think this is it. They have few fixed legal costs since their lawyers likely will be paid out of winnings, the potential gain is enormous, and their reputation has already been made so there's little to lose socially and they might increase their prestige if they win more control, which is possible.

I do not care for them but they would need to practice an increasingly rare business philosophy to find the strength to turn down this opportunity for more money and prestige.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This frightens me. Not that the judge rejected their lawsuit (that's excellent news), but rather, that it's obvious that no amount of money can make these two happy. Not only is $65M a lot of money, but in all honesty, it's a stretch that it's even theirs. Even if they _did_ have the original idea for Facebook, their execution of that idea was so ghastly that it doesn't even matter. If these two were real entrepreneurs, they'd be thankful for the outrageous sum they've already received and put it into a new company. Speaking of which, are they seriously operating under the DBA of ConnectU just to hassle Facebook?

<comment><USER6> Actually, their "winning" is a lot more than $65M. They took $20M in cash, and the rest in facebook stock, which has increased from the 15B valuation to anything from 50B to 70B now on the private secondary markets.

<comment><USER5> That fact makes me cringe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After making $65 million for doing nothing these guys are still seeing dollar signs. They found a golden ticket and are still whining they weren't given the candy factory.

</comment><comment><USER8> You Know What's Cooler Than 65 Million Dollars? 6.5 Billion Dollars!

On a serious note, I kind of wonder if there is more to this story than just mark stalling the twins. e.g., they claimed on a show that there was much more than they could talk about due to the settlement -- such as mark using the ConnectU code.

<comment><USER9> Of course, the fact that code exists in ConnectU namespace does not necessarily make it unique or valuable.

 _He lifted our entire DB layer!_

Someone needs to tell these guys that they already won.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't decide if that shows whether these guys would be good or bad entrepreneurs. This kind of insane persistence in pursuit of what you believe in is sometimes a good sign for starting a business. On the other hand, they have made some very poor choices in that pursuit, and they've demonstrated that money is far more important to them than it is to the entrepreneurs that I admire.

Independent of that, they're exercising a non-trivial chilling effect on startups at the earliest stages, so I hate 'em for that, and I am deeply suspicious of the class angle - these guys are sons of wealth, I can't imagine they've ever known serious privation in their lives, and they're trying to squeeze still more money from someone who, much as I dislike him, earned it by working his ass off.

If I were a Randian, I'd be the kind of Randian who believes that the wealthy are the real parasites, for exactly reasons like this.

<comment><USER11> _"these guys are sons of wealth, I can't imagine they've ever known serious privation in their lives, and they're trying to squeeze still more money from someone who, much as I dislike him, earned it by working his ass off."_

True, but with a few asterisks.

First: Zuckerberg himself didn't exactly go hungry as a kid. AFAIK, he came from a fairly well to do -- probably upper middle class, though certainly not Winklevoss-class -- background.

The class angle certainly makes unsympathetic villains of the Winklevosses, but their actions -- not our best guesses at their upbringing -- are the real reasons to revile them.

<comment><USER12> Likewise, as much as the last name "Winklevoss" makes me want them to be the stuck-up rich assholes to Zuckerberg's self-made work ethic, Zuckerberg did go to Harvard from Phillips-Exeter Academy.

Financial Aid can do wonders, but that kind of track record spits money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did Zuck steal their idea...maybe a little. But it was his brilliance that made Facebook into what it is today. They should take their $65 mil and be happy with it.</comment>


Ask HN: What incentive do MOOC teachers have? - <AUTHOR>

I'm just wondering what the primary motivation for professors teaching MOOCs is. Are they getting paid? Or is it just because they'd like to volunteer their time to education? <comment><USER2> Every professor or teacher I have spoken with loves the idea of them being able to help and reach more individuals now with platforms like Coursera, Khan Academy, and SchoolKeep. My guess is a lot of them do it because they love teaching. However, for some it may help them get recognition and grants too for their research or school. I wouldn't doubt if some are being asked to speak at conferences and getting paid that way because of their reach & influence through MOOCs platforms either.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does Google proxy links in an email? - <AUTHOR>

I'm testing a reset password link in a Rails app. When I click it from gmail.com, my firefox browser goes to
https://mail.google.com/_/scs/mail-static/_/js/k=gmail.main.en.piH2wZyhMOREGIBBERISH....
before routing to the /reset_password url. What is google doing with this URL proxying? <comment><USER2> I don't know for sure but most likely they're doing it for the same reasons they proxy images: Better protection against malware Source: [http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/images-now- showing.htm...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/images-now-showing.html)

Additionally I would assume that they may use the data for analytics and advertising in order to display more relevant ads. Another possibility would be to complement the site data they got from crawling websites.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for creeping me out, Google.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's probably so they can disable malicious links.

<comment><AUTHOR> If they wanted to disable malicious links, they could crawl the page and substitute the link for a warning page (ala Chrome's "this site may be phising")</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Site for creating personal statistics - the-kenny

Hello,
I remember a very nice website which let you create personal statistics about anything you and putting them into nice graphs etc.
Does anyone know the name of the site? I can't remember it. <comment><AUTHOR> <http://daytum.com/> ?

<comment> the-kenny Right. Thank you very much.</comment></comment>


Free housing in SF for talented hackers - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, I'm offering free housing for talented hackers in the bay area that would be interested in helping out / getting involved with my project in exchange. A little about me: I'm a Thiel fellow - paid $100,000 by paypal founder / first Facebook investor peter thiel to drop out of college (http://www.thielfellowship.org/).
Right now, we're looking for hackers preferably with experience in some combination of the following:
javascript nodejs html css iOS android phonegap
We have a beautiful house in a great location and an awesome startup atmosphere.
We need to make sure that you have the right qualifications of course, but if you're interested, please leave us with your email address and we'll get back to you with more info. <comment><USER2> Define "helping out / getting involved", since that is obviously not the same as "free". It's important to be clear on expectations up front so neither you nor those who take you up on your offer feel taken advantage of.

Free is great, but it may require someone giving up on a decent housing situation and then have to find an alternative situation if things don't work out between them and you. When that happens, they are left trying to find a new housing situation in a city notorious for low housing availability.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also along with your email, please leave some info about what projects you have worked on / github, ect

</comment><comment><USER3> astronomicalforce[at]gmail.com

</comment><comment><USER4> email@example.com

<comment><USER4> [http://github.com/miclovich](http://github.com/miclovich)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER6> firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER7> rjo.github.io</comment>


What speaking a foreign language says about you - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hunch.com/?p=38864

<comment><USER2> There are a lot of very poor correlations made here, VERY poor.

I only know enough Spanish to greet the janitor at work, and even then it's a cordial "amigo!" as we pass one another, a smile and a handshake.

However, I'm an avid trombone player who can read and transpose bass, treble and tenor clef and even taught a group of friends a lot about music theory as we sat around a bong one night in college. A lot of the implied correlations in that chart, statistical or not seem to have political leanings.

<comment><USER3> Upvoted for tenor clef!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed looking at the table and found myself bouncing between the left and right column quite a bit.

I think what these types of articles really illustrate is that education can be another form of bling.</comment>


Making money with a product: a myth? - <AUTHOR> http://joel.is/post/25021580513/making-money-with-a-product-a-myth <comment><USER3> I think this might actually be harder for programmers, at least with respect to software. Because I know how to write (almost) everything myself, it seems funny to pay for it, even in cases where logically I know it would save me far more time than it costs me in money.

I paid for a commercial graphics program this week, and it was really hard for me to do, even though I know it will save me time. All I see are the (relatively few) bugs, and all I can think about are how I would have done it better.

This could also be why "dev tools" are such a tarpit: at a certain stage, everybody realizes "I can write an XYZ!" (where XYZ = bug tracker, blog publisher, text editor, ...). The flip side is that if your target audience is programmers themselves, they'll be less likely to pay you because they know how to do all this, too.

The people I've seen with the most success are those who sell to the people furthest from those who can do it themselves. If I were starting a restaurant I wouldn't try to market it primarily to chefs.

<comment><USER4> I have no reason to doubt your talent, but I have an aversion to the "I could do it myself" argument. What does that even mean? You could do it yourself if you had a year to work on it? 10 years? A lot of software contains code icebergs which render this "I could create this myself in a [insert short time period]" thinking moot.

<comment><USER5> Yes, doing it yourself in a short time frame is not realistic in most cases. The real 'problem' are those people who make free software as a hobby. They write these softwares for years (sometimes with more free time than I would have if I would decide not to sleep at night at all), and this raises the barrier to entry for those who want to create paid products (for example bootstrapping on the side, with a family to support).

<comment><USER4> You should be able to differentiate yourself from those projects by focusing on something full-time and adding your unique expertise to the mix. You are a unique human being, after all. If you can't, you shouldn't bother.

I created Stormpulse while bootstrapping on the side with a family to support. Ultimately the competition became irrelevant because it's an extension/expression of myself which can't be easily duplicated and provides immediate differentiation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great post, I've blogged a bit about my personal realization with this as well. I didn't believe people would pay for things at my first startup two years ago. I thought we had to convince big companies that had huge budgets to pay for our product, not regular people.

Then, I went to work at a startup that actually made good money on a "virtual" product for regular people. I was just blown away that people would pay for something like that, and I learned in aggregate how much value a small purchase or monthly subscriber could have, even if the segment of users that paid was small.

With my new startup I knew if we put a price on it and charged, enough people would pay to keep us alive. Here we are just a few months in, able to pay ourselves and go full time on it. It's so empowering. I will be hesitant to do "free" or even "cheap" ever again after this.

<comment><USER7> Please - you've got my attention with:"Here we are just a few months in, able to pay ourselves and go full time on it".

Tell us more about it! What are you doing, how did you market it, how did you find customers, please!

<comment><USER6> This post was pretty popular three months ago on HN: [http://blog.codiqa.com/2012/03/from-yc-rejection- to-10000-us...](http://blog.codiqa.com/2012/03/from-yc-rejection- to-10000-users-in-1-month/)

That explains a lot about our growth after launching. I did respond to your email, Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The first product sale is euphoric and a bit magical. "Holy cow, somebody actually paid me for something I built!"

I just had my first sale of my software this past weekend, and it was fantastic: <http://www.keacher.com/1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/>

<comment><USER9> I took a look at your product. You should concentrate some marketing on forensics (as per one example on your site). You might even want to try some (gasp) direct mail for that giving samples for free to police departments. You can probably produce a better version for them and charge more they have budgets obviously.

<comment><USER8> I've toyed with the idea of marketing a police-forensics version, but honestly, direct mail never came to mind. Is there a specific reason you suggest direct mail for advertising to police departments?

<comment><USER9> Yes but what I just did was send an email to a person at a police department that we do business with (I don't know them) to see what they think of your software. (All things start with research and I don't want to give you info w/o doing research).

Here is the email that I sent. I will reply to you personally with the results (if any since I don't know that they will respond) or on HN if the response is interesting enough for others to learn from.

Here is the email that I just sent:

"As you know we are the [redacted business relationship that we have with this police department]

I am helping a programmer with analyzing the business potential of a software program they developed that helps police departments with forensic analysis of photographs.

I was wondering if you could have the person or persons who would use this software (it enhances photos taken removing blur) take a look and give me their opinion of whether the software is something they could use and if it would be something they would consider purchasing (whether the price is appropriate for the benefit).

If they would like to test the software I can get an evaluation copy at no charge."

My purpose in sending this letter is to get a general idea of how they view your product. It's only one data point obviously but from their response I will be able to gauge how you should proceed forward and possibly specific suggestions.

<comment><USER8> Wow, that was totally unexpected. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting post, Joel, but I have to say this isn't a problem I struggle with. For example:

'$10 seems like a lot of money. It can feel unimaginable people will hand over $10'

Really? If something will save me even a few minutes on an ongoing basis - <USER2> provide a bit more value - $10 is a pretty small price to pay. For example:

\- $7 / month for Github \- $29 / month for Kiss Insights survey tool \- $50 / year for Crashplan

...and these are just a few. I'm a bit more on the business / marketing side of things than development, so I likely have a different mindset. But I'll happily pay for great products that make me more efficient or save me time....

</comment><comment><USER11> Making money with a product is easy. Staying cash flow positive is not. Selling $10 for $5 works great as long as you have money to burn. But then reality sets in and as you point out "profit" becomes the keyword. My best guess is that people pay to solve annoying problems faster.

</comment><comment><USER5> In my opinion you have to overcome at least one of two obstacles to make money with a product:

\- Either know an interesting domain / niche-market which is not known by thousands of other developers (This is suprisingly hard for me)

\- Or you have to work your ass off / be very smart to create something which is significatnly better then the free alternatives. Because, most of the time, there are free alternatives, and most of the time they are good enough. Sometimes they are not just good enough, but they even have enthusiastic fans.

(The third alternative is to create something so innovative that has no competitors, but there is a huge risk that the idea is just not good enough, there is not enough user need for it)

I am working on a markdown editor for windows (in fact multiplatform, developed in Qt), which no doubt will be the best in its category. The question is not that whether will it be the best or not, the question is this: Is the free alternative good enough? The answer is not trivial.

</comment><comment><USER12> A lot of the religious arguments over Apple amount to "it just works so I'm willing to pay more" vs "you just ____ and you'll pay less". The author discovers what Apple knows: make it simple, make it work, and make it save customers time and they'll fall over themselves handing you money.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just getting over the myth myself. We launched a little project a few weeks ago, servicing a very niche market that seems to like spending money on the service.

I was amazed when my partner pitched it to me, but after a little research we launched with about 40 hours of coding. First "big" day of stripe transfers hitting my account tomorrow and I'm damn near giddy. Probably not ever going to be anything more than a few hundred bucks a month, but its a nice little ATM and seems like its going to be on autopilot with the next code update with maintenance needs of just an hour or two a week.

</comment><comment><USER14> Setting price based on time savings limits the perceived value of your product since for most people they set the opportunity cost of their time pretty low. It might work better in a b2b sale where the opportunity cost is higher.

What you really want to do is provide value by letting customers do something that is otherwise impossible or painful.

For instance buffer lets you sleep while you tweet. That is much more valuable than saving time.

There is a guy on twitter (@pricing) that talks about pricing, go read a few hundred of his tweets and see it helps you get your mind wrapped around pricing better.

</comment><comment><USER15> I had to leave the software development world for a few years to see clearly why people were willing to pay for software as a service for seemingly simple things like keeping track of their contacts (think 37 Signals' Highrise) since I always had the "well, I can build that myself" mentality.

I found myself on a team of (non-IT) consultants all billing $150+/hr and suddenly that $20/50/100/whatever per month SaaS charge is absolutely meaningless. It's really _nothing_ to the company. It just doesn't even register as a "real" expense.

</comment><comment><USER16> You can turn up a quick buck sure. I've done that: shareware and websites. But how about long term product development? Not so easy. Maybe it's better to secure your place on the consulting market where the money are real because of all crazy stuff going on inside the big corps. I still don't know.

</comment><comment><USER17> The main problem, I think, is how to ask for money and knowing how much.

</comment><comment><USER18> > _He started to think about how he would achieve this, and realised that to > make it the only thing he worked on, he'd need to make money from the > product. He then thought about other products people pay for. He thought > about products he pay's for, and realised he doesn't pay for products, or at > least it was very rare for him to. He thought long and hard and tried to > understand why anyone would pay for anything._

WTF does this even mean?

They had the discussion in a coffee shop. Have they paid for their coffee? Their cake? While doing so, have they checked their mails in the phones they had paid for, that come with contracts they pay for?

Were they wearing clothes that they had paid for? Did they carry paid-for backpacks with paid-for laptops inside, each with several paid-for apps, from Keynote to Microsoft Windows? Was the coffee shop furnished with paid-for furniture and decorations?

<comment><USER13> How about we assume he meant software products since that makes sense and isn't stretching?

<comment><USER18> How about this line in my post: _Did they carry paid-for backpacks with paid- for laptops inside, each with several paid-for apps, from Keynote to Microsoft Windows?_</comment></comment></comment>


Your Mom is Not a Valid Test Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.fullcontact.com/2012/03/24/your-mom-is-not-a-valid-test-market/

<comment><USER2> I don't think I could disagree with this more.

You absolutely can't listen to what your mom _says_.

But you can absolutely validate your product with what your mom _does_.

Does she use it everyday? Does she complain about this feature or that feature? When you're standing behind her when she opens up the application, does she stare at it blankly for five minutes before clicking on something that crashes it? How many questions did she ask you about how to use it? How easy was it for her to learn to use?

All of this is infinitely valuable mom-feedback. Nobody embodies your userbase better than your mom, so you better be testing it on her.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I'm starting a company soon, half of the software I plan to sell is software my mom asked for. I know the software I build is good because my mom likes it. However, the way my mom likes my software is she uses it to fix the problems she used to complain about. And if she sees something I need to add, she tells me.

I know what she thinks about the software is skewed because it was built by her son, but I also know she used to say, "I wish I could do this" and now she says "Hey I used your program again today, I'm so glad I don't have this problem anymore." The article is right that you can't use your mom for your typical survey, but she can have a more valuable place as a beta tester, someone you can actually watch use your program.

On the other hand the article does have a valid point. "My family says they like it" is not a confirmation your software is good. It reminds me of when I watched American Idol and the horrible singers would say "Well my family says I sing well."

<comment><AUTHOR> very good point on using your mom as a beta tester. if it's easy enough that your mom can use it, you've done your job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good intent with the article. But the lead: "I threw up in my mouth a little bit"--comn man. Really?

<comment><USER5> I agree. That's an overused joke. Just as you shouldn't ask for criticism from friend or family, there is also a simple rule about being funny: don't repeat jokes. Unless you are using it in a new or clever context, or otherwise making it fresh, don't ever try to get a laugh from strangers by repeating anything they've already heard. Your friends will piss themselves laughing at your Zoolander impressions. No one else will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd also generalize this and say that you can't trust anyone that can't be too critical and honest with you with anything. I know people don't like to hurt other people's feelings, but nothing is less helpful than telling someone "Hopefully, so and so will happen", or "Just be optimistic and hope for the best". If I'm screwed, tell me I'm screwed and possible actions I can take.

<comment><USER7> Maybe I'm the exception, or maybe this is a cultural thing (I live near Berlin), but ...

I'm in the lucky position to have friends (and lots of family members) who are bluntly honest to me.

<comment><USER8> Might be a cultural thing. I was raised in this country by people who lived for some time where you are (as well as other areas overseas). They rarely dole out compliments and are quick to give criticism. When you are raised that way it becomes the norm and has definitely been a benefit in my opinion.

Edit: By "lived" I mean were born elsewhere overseas but ended up living for some time in Germany before moving to this country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Id test it

</comment><comment><USER10> That's not what she said last night.

<comment><USER11> Your mom goes to college.</comment></comment>


The Optimal Placement for Mobile Call to Action Buttons - <AUTHOR> https://uxmovement.com/mobile/the-optimal-placement-for-mobile-call-to-action-buttons/ <comment><USER2> Forms have a submit button at the bottom, so that is another reason we might be scanning for a 'call to action' button at the bottom.</comment>


Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10385853 <comment><USER2> Already posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1454468></comment>


Does Transparency Lead to Pay Compression? (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.princeton.edu/~amas/papers/transparency.pdf <comment><USER2> IMO salary secrecy is a weird fetish and probably counter productive.

If the differences between employee salaries are not economically defensible then they should not exist.

If employees cannot accept the way that their employers have measured their relative value then they should get a different job.

<comment><USER3> I am paid less than one of my peers who has a masters from a prestigious university. I am cool with this: they have more debt and a larger skill set than me. However, I am thankful that other people in the organization do not see the difference in our salaries, because I would certainly be treated differently by people outside the team. Salary gets used as a proxy for competence: why do you think people stupidly expensive luxury cars as daily drivers?

<comment><USER4> I'm fascinated by how cashflow (student loans, mortgage, family, etc) affects compensation. Given two equally skilled individuals (including ability to negotiate) but one has a bigger mortgage,y hypothesis is the the one with the bigger mortgage will get paid more.

I believe cashflow requirements make negotiating easier (provided there is room for negotiation). I'm not even going to entertain your offer for $120k. Not because I know my market value is greater than that, but because I cannot meet my financial obligations at that point. Even if I'm a clumsy negotiator, I'll get closer to my max compensation in that situation purely because I have a higher floor.

<comment><USER5> It makes sense, in a way. You base your pay on $MONTHLY_LIVING_EXPENSES + $DESIRED_MONETARY_GAIN. You can't really change your MLE by much (not in any short timeframe anyway), so your salary negotiation starts off depending on that. In which case two people with different MLEs will bargain for different salaries with the same DMG, in the end receiving equal gratification from their different salaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...in the public sector.

public sector in california lead to high attrition regardless of public or closed pay.

comparing that to any other field or state is bogus from the get go. shame on this manipulated conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER7> I work for a company that has open salaries - and a model by which those salaries are calculated.

Marty gave a talk about it back in 2015:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf5r4yLTc9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf5r4yLTc9k)

My experience is that it works very, very well - at least in the iteration we now have. I'm happy to answer any questions folks may have.

<comment><USER8> there is a company already doing that and beyond.They call themselves "buffer"

[https://buffer.com/transparency](https://buffer.com/transparency)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are countries where it is common to hire without having wage negotiations. Look at all Russian IT job sites: more than half of all job posts look like "senior computer programmer - $2000k ± $10 per month", and there will be few job posts with 3000 and higher montly wages, but the application counter for each of them will go from few hundreds to 65535

<comment><USER5> Russians don't like to bargain mostly. I suspect (but please correct me if this sounds too wrong/offensive), that it's a vestige of the planned economy they had - all salaries and prices set by the state, no bargaining allowed. It's a simpler system and removes not only a layer of stress, but also a layer of conflict between you and the employer.

Though, if I were offered $2000k/mo, I wouldn't feel the need to bargain at all ;)

<comment><USER10> Bargain about salary, or bargain in general?

I lived for a while in a post-Soviet country, and bargaining was a regular part of every day. At the bazaar, in private cabs, even at black-market money changers if you were brave/stupid enough to use them.

My brother-in-law is Russian, too, and I've seen him haggle over cars, electronics, home appliances, any "major" purchase.

<comment><USER11> I think he was joking about the typo, 2000k/mo is 2M/mo

<comment><USER9> Oh my, that's a typo. Yeah, do not hang out on internet forums late night

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Allow me to ask the question why "Pay Compression" is considered a bad thing?

Does it make the world more just?

Are you really working a hundred times harder than the people who pick up your trash?

</comment><comment><USER13> In Sweden you're supposed to be able to see anyone's income information, I wonder how things work out there.

</comment><comment><USER14> It tends to lead to pay inflation what you mean Joe Blogs is getting x

<comment><USER15> Perhaps initially, but since there's a limit to how high total compensation can go for all employees put together... the effect will be to compress compensation differences. The same is true if it should initially lead to deflation (e.g., if total compensation is already at the limit, then some of the more highly compensated employees will have to see their compensation cut in order for less-generously compensated employees to see theirs improved).

Ignoring macroeconomic effects, this should just lead to compression of compensation deltas regardless of whether it also leads to inflation or deflation. Now, if every State did this suddenly, and if transparency were required of the private sector as well, then there might be macroeconomic effects as well, such as higher inflation (or faster deflation), and I won't hazard a guess as to which.

<comment><USER14> doesn't seem to have worked for CEO compensation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tldr, the conclusion:

 _This paper has presented evidence that making wages public compresses the top of the public sector wage distribution. The evidence assembled is more in line with a "populist" response to visibility of top salaries than the effect of making public officials more accountable: salaries are cut because they appear excessive, regardless of whether or not they actually are._

I did not spend enough time on the paper to comment on the measurement details, however I would rather trust the public's opinion on what is excessive.

Also I find it a bit ill posed to study the effects of making public wages transparent. They should be by default.

<comment><USER6> no need. they compare California (high competition from private sector) with other states without such competition.

they could manipulate it to proove any point. with the same data I could say that with sunnier days lead to more employee attrition. any point that California differs from the other state can be blamed, after the author ignored the private sector salaries, and he chose to pick a competing state without salary transparency to make their point.</comment></comment>


Getting Real: free 37signals book on building a successful webapp - <AUTHOR> http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php

<comment><USER2> Also know by myself as The Bible. Its new version, Rework, has been by the bed since it was released. Really inspiring book even if you don't agree with everything, it shows you a different view of lots of interesting topics in an easy to read way. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER3> I've started reading it yesterday on my kindle (which made it really much easier to read), and I'm almost through it. It's two-three hours long, and it's a good read (it feels like short blog posts aggregated in a book). Is Getting Real that much different from it? I can't find it in epub format, sadly...

<comment><USER2> It's basically the same thing. Think of Rework as the extended edition of Getting Real.

<comment><USER3> Ah, thanks, so I don't need to read Getting Real if I've already read Rework (I've skimmed Getting Real and it seems to be mostly the same thing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent book, although slightly surprising that the inventors of Ruby on Rails are using PHP to serve the content.

<comment><USER5> We used PHP to serve up a couple of includes. That tech was implemented before Rails was born. It works so there's no reason to change it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I assumed it would have been for a pragmatic reason

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having it in Kindle format would have been nice (also, Instapaper needs some recursive option).

</comment><comment><USER7> This book was a very entertaining read. The chapters are one page long, which is perfect even if you only have 1 minute free.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sorry but Basecamp is utter crap.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great Books (getting real & rework), I like the kick-ass, cut the crap style of focusing what is important.

</comment><comment><USER10> And suddenly people realized they can sell software as a service.</comment>


The Unbuilt Streets of California's Ghost Metropolis - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/california-ghost-metropolis-gallery/ <comment><USER2> > Although areas of California City have not developed as expected, California > City has grown from 3,200 people in 1985 to over 14,000 in 2018. Cerro Coso > Community College closed escrow on 22 acres (8.9 ha) in the heart of > California City for a Community College to serve Edwards AFB, California > City, Mojave, Boron, North Edwards and the entire high desert in the > Antelope Valley.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California)

Many of southern California's big cities used to fit a similar description.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years California City was the fastest growing metro area in California, with residents drawn by the low cost of real estate, good schools, a new UC campus, booming aerospace industry, and proximity to Los Angeles.

<comment><USER3> It's in the middle of the desert. Looking at it on a map, it's something like 100km from the coast, and ~50km from any major lakes. That means it's even more dependent on bringing in water from elsewhere than LA is. At least LA could theoretically build a bunch of desalinization plants along the coast if they don't find another solution to their water shortages vs. their increasing population.

California and the rest of the Southwest should be _abandoning_ places like California City, IMO, not building them up.

<comment><USER4> I grew up in the inland Southern California desert (Palm Springs area).

Ironically, it's is more able to water itself than LA because of an aquifer that gets replenished by snowmelt annually (also, last I checked, they make the golf courses buy water rather than tapping the aquifer).

There are more sources of water than just proximity to a visible body of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tiny in comparison, but I inherited land in Valle vista, near Kingman, AZ. To me, the history from the documents was more interesting the land. [https://www.google.com/maps/search/valle+vista+kingman+az/@3...](https://email@example.com,-113.8593372,14z?gl=ca)

</comment><comment><USER6> We drive by it on our way to Vegas. I always felt it was ripe of either building a "company town" or a giant battle simulator for counter strike fans.

As a company town it would work for some company that wanted to co-locate tech workers, a campus, and maybe a factory in such a way that they would be tempted by "live in Calfornia economically!" and realize that they were kind of stuck where they were.

As a battlefield simulator its wide open spaces with a bit of underground 'works' (for things like effects and replenishment) could make it a more active entertainment destination than Universal Studios or Disneyland.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a friend in India who drove me to this place several years go [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,78.7771605,4285m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xbdb53d28316ae86!8m2!3d17.462147!4d78.775956) The place apparently has been a ghost town for almost 30 years.

<comment><USER8> It's kind of an Indian tradition. Consider that Fatehpur Sikri was abandoned over _400_ years ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Take a look there on Google street view. It looks so odd. A few nice houses (and some not-so-nice ones) next to barren streets and unpaved roads.

<comment><USER10> That's a lot of rural California, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Hyundai-Kia Proving Grounds are there.

[https://www.hyundainews.com/en- us/releases/380](https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/380)

[https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8](https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8)

</comment><comment><USER12> The first photograph in the article was taken from an helicopter at this exact spot: [https://email@example.com,-117.7584448,1342a,3...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-117.7584448,1342a,35y,108.09h,47.32t/data=!3m1!1e3)

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems like a great place to hold another Burning Man...

<comment><USER14> There are quite a few festivals out in that neck of the woods. Eg, [https://www.wastelandweekend.com/](https://www.wastelandweekend.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> unbrowsable

</comment><comment><USER16> SimCity is real and it lives in California.

</comment><comment><USER17> .

<comment><USER17> Okay, I'm sorry. I just wanted to mark the page somehow.

<comment><USER18> Upvote it.

Click on your own HN username at the top of the page.

"Upvoted submissions" is a list of all of the submissions you've upvoted.

<comment><USER19> Additionally there's a favorite button. Favorites are public, upvotes are private.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What challenging hobbies do you have? - <AUTHOR> For some reason, I've always had a challenging 'hobby' to pass the time, even in highschool/uni, and now need a new one for employed life.
There are only two requirements: there needs to be a way to evaluate progress (i.e. reading books wouldn't really count because you can hardly 'improve' at it), and the recurring mechanic needs to be fun in some way.
This might sound very esoteric so here are examples of what I've done so far:
-League of legends (peaked top 50 euw s2, master/challenger every season afterwards until...s9?) but it is pretty boring now
-Bouldering (7b+ indoors after 6 months) but it is not maintainable because I used to go for 2-4 hours every other day, which is impossible while working full time.
-Poker, studied and played until I was marginally profitable online and crushing live low stakes. Again, I can't do this while working full time because it is very time consuming, and you get bored of the game pretty quickly.
The activity can be physical or mental, I don't mind either. I guess some obvious candidates would be chess and rubik's cube but I never found any of these fun enough to 'spam' until I got good at either.
Any ideas? <comment><USER3> You can "improve" at "reading books" 1 - Learn fast reading 2 - <USER2> classical/sf/hf/polar/etc culture Most of the books i read gives better knowledge about something (history for example) or makes me more able to handle complex reasoning (philosophical, analytics, etc) You can definitively improve at reading or read to improve yourself. I think there is no passion where you cannot improve. And there is always a way to measure it.

Anyway, I find your approach of 'hobbie' a bit strange. I feel like hobbies are something that closely relates to 'you'. I mean, if you like sport, you can go to dance, mma, shooting, trail, basket, hand, etc. Possibilities are endless. If you like intellectual activities it can goes from video games to engaging in neww studies (physics, neuroscience, etc). You can go in artistics things like painting/sculpting/photography/street art/... You can go on blacksmithing/woodturning/jewelery/etc

I think the best question to find your hobbies are: "what do i want to become ? what time do i have?". I know someone who's struggeling with an urge to find something to do after his work an who finds him unable to engage in any activity because he is not driven by wanting to do something for a purpose but just to have an activity. Having commitment for something you do just to makes your life less empty is really hard. It's easier to find hobbies if you have a goal.

I don'y know if it makes any sense to you or even if it's revelant, sorry if it's not the case.

EDIT: just posted on HN : [https://idiallo.com/blog/im-bored-what-do-i- do](https://idiallo.com/blog/im-bored-what-do-i-do)

</comment><comment><USER4> Juggling.

Good for low-level general fitness, balance, coordination, timing, and forming the ice at parties. No upper limit as to accomplishments, but plenty of low hanging fruit.

There are probably 1000 tricks/patterns you can do with just three balls, ranging from easy to professional skill required.

Practising the right thing for five minutes, three times a day, you can become a capable juggler in a couple of weeks, and a decent, impressive juggler in 6 to 12 months, depending on your general coordination. But if you've done a lot of bouldering you can probably learn to juggle three in an afternoon, and get to some interesting patterns in a couple of days.

</comment><comment><USER5> For a while I worked with my dad on finishing the construction of our Penobscot 13 [0]. It's been "done" for a few years now but during the summers we still spend some time improving little things. Challenges definitely come when things break. Last year we took the rigging off and attempted to motor on the Charles to see the 4th of July fireworks. Motor cut out and I had to row the whole 5 miles.

[0] [https://www.archdavisdesigns.com/davis_penobscot13.html](https://www.archdavisdesigns.com/davis_penobscot13.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> learn a musical instrument

</comment><comment><USER7> I skateboard</comment>


Minibuilders: Small robots printing big structures - <AUTHOR> http://monograph.io/iaac/minibuilders <comment><USER2> When I hear 3D printing being dismissed for printing shitty plastic toys, I yell on the inside. Yes it's a misnomer, and yes the media is mostly covering the most affordable machines. But the simplicity of the process, and the number of materials available is going to exponentially grow the applications in a very short amount of time.

Software is eating the world, and a 3D printer digesting material to make something new is the most direct and literal application of that idea.

At PrintToPeer we believe that the same software "operating system" will be able to control all 3D printers--regardless of the process or material-- remotely through an API. The robots here are just a hardware "function" driving a subset of the process which could otherwise be made by a 50' tall 5 axis machine (if that were feasible).

</comment><comment><USER3> There's no compaction, though. It just extrudes, toothpaste-like, and you hope it sticks. Like low-end little 3D printers.

Compare the Lil' Bubba Curb Extruder:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZMpu4MKn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZMpu4MKn8)

This is a slip-form concrete device. Notice how it has a mold around the area being extruded, and the concrete is forced into place under pressure, so there's compaction and good adhesion.

Combining the two concepts has promise. The little robotic machines need forms and compaction to get up to the routine quality of concrete work.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is cool, but combined with this solar powered sand-using 3D printing project, I think this could be really amazing! Its an idea I day dream about a lot - it would be so awesome to have structures automatically built out of sand, without having to pay for energy.

[http://vimeo.com/25401444](http://vimeo.com/25401444)

<comment><USER5> That is art right there. I'm not sure it's thats useful on Earth where we have so much pre-existing infrastructure available for construction. However on the Moon or Mars it might be amazingly useful.

<comment><USER6> On the Moon or Mars was my immediate thought too. A team of robots could build a bunker by sealing off an impact crater for the first humans to live in.

However on Earth, I could easily imagine these robots being useful too. When they get more advanced, reducing/removing the human labour will mean we will get much cheaper buildings with really creative designs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What about reinforcement? Is there any way to use rebar or mesh to make a stronger structure? It appears they can make a self-supporting arched roof shell, but surely these things can't make a bridge that would take even light traffic...?

<comment><USER8> I believe that very much depends on the printing material. It should be possible to use a concrete with very small fibers. These are called whiskers.

Whether that is enough to build a bridge I don't know, but material scientists are doing amazing things with concrete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is scarily close to the designs I have been cadding up in the past few weeks. Mine looks more like a wheeled spider though.

<comment><USER10> Oh jeez, the ones in the video reminded me enough of the replicators from Stargate as it is...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is how I imagine we will 3d print structures in space, in conjunction with this jpl's metal printing tech [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-247](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-247)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've wondered for a long time now: If battery tech can improve enough construction might look like renting an army of thousands or millions of small worker bots, with a couple guys at the command truck, or whatever, coordinating the movement of dirt or the depositing of materials, each bot moving a gram or two at a time.

</comment><comment><USER13> (warning: slightly off topic) How cool would it be to automate ecological construction in similar ways? Straw bales, straw clay, lime render layer, maybe even compressed earth bricks?

Make that open hardware, and you have a real winner for society at wide.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ha one of my most dreamed dreams.</comment>


India's electricity problems: An area of darkness (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21559977

<comment><USER2> > It has ducked fundamental reform, which would probably involve breaking up > Coal India, privatising local distribution companies and installing new > regulators with teeth.

The _Economist_ thinks privatization is the answer? Is this thing real?

<comment><USER3> Well a lot of people think like this,

      if(org.isFailing){
        switch(org.ownedby){
          case GOVT: print "Privatization is the answer"; break;
          case PVT: print "More Regulation needed"; break;

        }
      }

<comment><USER4> Just want to point that that phrase says "Privatization is the answer; more regulation is needed". I'm still wondering how it's classified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Generally there are two reasons for blackouts:

* Not enough power is being generated. If the price of electricity is high enough this will not happen.

* Unreliable equipment - which means not enough money has been spent repairing it or buying new.

India seems to be affected by both.

</comment><comment><USER6> Try solar [http://www.nedcap.gov.in/PDFs/Solar_Net_Metring/Indicative_C...](http://www.nedcap.gov.in/PDFs/Solar_Net_Metring/Indicative_Cost_Economics.pdf)</comment>


A new kind of freemium: Give away the whole, sell the pieces - <AUTHOR> http://statsheet.com/blog/a-new-kind-of-freemium-give-away-the-whole-sell-the-pieces

<comment><USER2> He lets you access the sports stats on his site for free, but he charges for the ability to embed stats in your site. I just wanted to get that out in case you saw the "new" in the title and got excited.

Edit: I just know someone is going to ask for an example, <http://www.ibegin.com>

<comment><USER3> Hmm yeah, I think after reading it, I'd describe it as more: let people browse the website for free, but sell access to the API.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I'm not selling access to an API. I'm selling exactly the kind of data and content found on the site.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but that is your implementation of the freemium model. There are other sites, including my example, that allow free access to their data on the site, but then sell the data (in one form or another). You use embedded stats, iBegin uses datasets, other companies might charge for their API.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are highlighting how my example is different from the others :-)

<comment><USER2> I'm actually highlighting how your business model is just a single execution of a broader method of conducting business. However, in the sense that your end product differs from the other examples, yes. If you really want it that bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The main app is free (and he plans to sell advertising on it later) but downstream services (like an off-site widget) are premium. That's a successful business model to be sure, but hardly novel.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a much more generic description of the model. I'm talking about a specific type of "main app" and a specific type of "downstream service"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We recently started to branch in this direction as well, however, it was rather inadvertent. A much larger website was interested in having our planning features from <http://ridewithgps.com> on their site, but didn't want to budget their own coders to implement it. We are in the process of negotiating a contract, which is turning out to be fairly lucrative for our small startup.

So, this works both large and small; just like Google Maps, you can give away some bits for free but if anyone wants to use your product in a way that will financially benefit them, they kick you a license fee.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is similar to the revenue model of Spiceworks. It is a free application available to download, but besides just ad revenue it also sells out (gets 'sponsors') for features added via their plugin architecture.

They are basically selling out portions of their functionality work flow to advertisers and giving away the application as a platform.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't see anything _new_ here.

Actually, it reminded me of an example from an audiobook I listened to a few months ago about the Freemium model.

There was an example of one of the first Gillette's marketing campaigns. Basically, they gave away blades for free but to use them you had to buy a razor.

<comment><AUTHOR> That example is definitely not similar to the StatSheet model. I'm talking about selling pieces of a free web site. You can't use the razor without buying the blades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does your sports data provider get a cut from this? It looks like you are reselling their data.

</comment><comment><USER9> Uh, how is this new? Kodak used to give away cameras so you'd buy film.

</comment><comment><USER10> mitrca,

off-topic, but i'm having trouble building a chart on your site, and was wondering if it's even possible:

Your site is great at showing season long stats, but what if I want to show specific opponents.

This week, for example, is the Duke-UNC game. Is there a way to trend stats specific just for Duke vs. UNC?

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting to think of software-as-a-service similar to the "virtual goods" model economies growing in mobile, social, etc. . .

<comment><USER12> I think it's worth noting that games, which have driven the virtual goods business model, are essentially software as a service. The value you receive from the service is entertainment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What prevents someone from doing a screen capture or content scrape of your data and posting it to their website?

Are you geared up to start sending out cease and desist notices to every chump with a myspace account who happens to like sports and knows how to use pbrush and ALT+Print Screen.

Good luck but it seems too easily to rape your content and leave you holding the legal bill for a fight you can't win.

<comment><USER13> I'm not attacking every freemium model out there.. just one that involves sports that have a large percentage of fanatic fans and their favorite teams stats . Other models don't have the same potential for copyright violation.

The idea and technology being used is great I just think there may be an enormous legal battle ahead should the site and service become very popular.</comment></comment>


"Hello world" in the BCPL language on the Xerox Alto simulator - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2016/06/hello-world-in-bcpl-language-on-xerox.html <comment><USER2> If you're interested in trying out BCPL on your own machine the inventor of the language, Martin Richards, maintains a working environment/compiler[0]. I've gotten it up and running on both Ubuntu and OS X. The readme is structured in a way that makes it kinda hard to follow so I wrote down some instructions[1] for my future self after I figured it out.

C was my first programming language and several years ago I became acquainted with ALGOL 68. I'd never seen BCPL before a few months ago. It's rather interesting how, from the perspective of someone born well after its creation, it is very clearly the link between the ALGOL family and C. I'm sure that's rather obvious to programmers who were around in the mid to late 60's but for me personally it was a lot like discovering a missing link.

[0]: [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/BCPL.html](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/BCPL.html)

[1]: [https://gist.github.com/seaneshbaugh/e09abd748ccc07c5463f253...](https://gist.github.com/seaneshbaugh/e09abd748ccc07c5463f253df97e4de8)

</comment><comment><USER3> _The image below shows the Hello World program with multiple fonts and centering applied. Since the compiler ignores any formatting, the program runs as before. "_

Mind. Blown.

<comment><USER4> It was customary to boldface the keywords in Mesa programs. The Mesa manual used that style, and I did that when I was using an Alto.

This raises the question "Why are we still programming in monospace fonts?" If you need a table or an image in a program, why can't it be in the code?

<comment><USER5> Good question! I'd also add the questions Why are we still programming with the semantics of 80-column punched cards? Why are programs even structured as sequential lines?

The lines within a method need to be ordered, but beyond that, code should just float to where it's convenient and be hypertext-y. And worrying about whitespace and fitting code on a fixed-length line is pointless.

I don't have the answers to how programs should be written, but the current system just seems wrong, locked into decisions made decades ago. It seems like programming is stuck at a local maximum.

<comment><USER6> There's been articles posted to HN that have attempted to explain why textual source code has become the norm, but from what I remember it comes down to simplicity (and with it, efficiency of storage and processing) and portability. It's the same reason why files as plain sequences of arbitrary bytes won over structured/more "rich" formats, and the "everything is a file/stream of bytes" model of Unix dominated; all the complexity involved in handling things like embedded formatting instructions, resource forks and other nuances is a _huge_ obstacle to widespread implementation and interoperability. The phrase I remember reading in reference to this is "text is universal", and I agree completely.

One would naturally wonder how Alto/Mesa managed to have all these features, and the answer is simple: it is effectively a closed proprietary ecosystem, developed by one company with plenty of engineering effort, and with little consideration for interchange with other systems. It also had far more processing power than personal computers of the time.

 _I don 't have the answers to how programs should be written, but the current system just seems wrong, locked into decisions made decades ago. It seems like programming is stuck at a local maximum._

Never underestimate the importance of simplicity and a low "barrier to entry" \--- in fact, I'd consider the lack of success of much larger, "fancier", more complex systems like the Alto as a strong evidence that, regardless of how fancy, featureful, and radical your system is, unless it has a low barrier to entry and interoperates with existing ones, it will not endure the test of time.

<comment><USER4> I suspect that part of the reason is that Microsoft Word's internal representation is such a mess. Making a compiler read .doc files would be a major effort. So writing code in Word never caught on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't the Mesa compiler for the Alto available? If you have that, there's no need to write in in the British Cruddy Programming Language. BCPL was written as a tool for bootstrapping compilers. It's one notch above a structured assembler. The only type that BCPL supports is the 16-bit word.

Mesa, on the other hand, is a good language.

<comment><USER5> Mesa and Smalltalk for the Alto are around [1], so I hope to get them running at some point. The files need to be copied into a disk image that the simulator can read, so I may need to write an Alto file system emulator.

Lisp for the Alto, on the other hand, seems to be entirely gone - I asked around and nobody seems to have a copy. From what I hear, it never worked very well because there wasn't enough memory.

[1] [http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Indigo/XMesa/.index.htm...](http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Indigo/XMesa/.index.html) and [http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Filene/Smalltalk-76/.in...](http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Filene/Smalltalk-76/.index.html)

<comment><USER7> Is there any particular reason why you linked to Smalltalk-76 vs say, -78 or -80

<comment><USER5> I linked to Smalltalk-76 because that's the version I found in the Alto filesystem archive.

<comment><USER7> This directory seemingly contains both a copy of the Alto OS and a Smalltalk-80 image/changes file. Not sure which file is the VM executable though. [http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Indigo/BasicDisks/Small...](http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Indigo/BasicDisks/Smalltalk14.bfs!1_/.index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anyone like to see a clone of B, check this : [https://github.com/Blecki/DCPUB](https://github.com/Blecki/DCPUB)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it me, or does BCPL look like Angular 2.0/typescript? (/runs)</comment>


Carry Your Computer Desktop on a USB Key With Keepod's Free Operating System - <AUTHOR> http://nocamels.com/2013/10/carry-your-computer-desktop-on-a-simple-usb-key-with-keepods-free-operating-system/

<comment><USER2> Whats special about this? It looks like any other linux distribution on an usb stick, maybe with a stronger focus on non-techie end users.

<comment><USER3> This is the OS. They also had a card that had the OS, and some other stuff, on it.

[http://nocamels.com/2013/01/keepod-the-desktop-that-fits- in-...](http://nocamels.com/2013/01/keepod-the-desktop-that-fits-in-your- wallet-takes-on-israel/)

> _Keepod's multi-facetious technology allows it to store the most diverse > types of data. Apart from the aforementioned OS, it also includes a > smartcard (the small, square, golden chips common on most payment cards); > hardware encryption of military caliber and, an NFC chip. So the Keepod can > be used as a credit card, a public transport voucher and even to open the > door to your office. On the screen, Nissan Bahar held up a Keepod in one > hand and a smartphone in the other: "When I go to work, I only take these > two things with me. The Keepod is the only card I have to carry in my > wallet."_

<comment><USER4> The info is scarce and the websites poorly managed. Found something on a VMWare page[1], but the website they link to looks like a autogenerated spam page.

> Keepod™ ( [http://www.mykeepod.com/](http://www.mykeepod.com/)) is the > world's slimmest USB secure portable device. Sized as a credit card and > equipped with robust enterprise class encryption, Keepod provides a complete > offering for business users. With up to 16GB of secure storage, Keepod > stores all the user's files and run applications on the go.

Then the release notes for the latest version say something about "Keepod Classic", but I found no other mention of this device.

> UEFI Secure Boot support! (available for only USB drives, Keepod Classic > device support coming soon)

[1] [http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/keypod-vmw- ibm.h...](http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/keypod-vmw-ibm.html)

[2] [http://keepod.tumblr.com/post/61491388269/keepod- os-12-4-cav...](http://keepod.tumblr.com/post/61491388269/keepod-os-12-4-cave- man-is-released#_=_)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sort of reminds me of Jolicloud, based on its focus on web-apps (from the screenshots anyway, it does allow for native apps though, just like Joli OS).

I actually ran Joli OS on a UNetBootin-ed USB with persistent storage setup. It works quite well, but I'll be perfectly honest, in this day and age it's rare that I have a computer that is:

a) Not mine b) Allows me to reboot into another OS from a USB

And most importantly, I've always got my laptop with me anyway. I can see the appeal, but I'm unsure of the real-world practicality outside of a small niche.

That said, this is from a first-world upper-middle-class perspective here. It may have potential in places where computers are shared amongst a lot of people perhaps?

<comment><USER6> In this day and age most people carry their laptop, tablet and\or their phone. Even students & workers without devices have their stuff on either the network\cloud or a simple no fuss USB stick. I'm not sure what kind of audience they want to appeal to AND if it will appeal to them for practical reasons. All that said, I really like their marketing and design (though I do wonder if they're paying licensing to Marvel\DC and not just waiting to get sued). It's curious to note that these guys have also been around for a while (since 2009?) and tried selling Keypod to the enterprise (i.e.symphony\citrix integration). I think that might have caved (they've since removed their "Keypod for Business" page) which is why it would make sense for them to be offering Keypod for free and trying to appeal to the "general public".

<comment><USER7> Yes they face the problem of cost, that is computers don't cost very much these days. Most people can have their own box. That being said this might be great for traveling and internet cafes where you don't know what kind of software and bad stuff is on there.

There are already bootable usb stick solutions out there but does 80%+ of the public know about it? I doubt it. This looks easy, people like easy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Okay, I tried this out, and am fairly unimpressed so far:

\- The installer has dependencies that are not required by the package (e.g. mtools)

\- Any errors during installation are not reported or handled; the installer just hangs unless you are watching terminal output

\- Once you get it installed, the first-run wizard has the same unwillingness to report or handle errors

\- The Keepod Cloud setup fails without explanation, and trying to navigate back to its beginning caused the machine to reboot

At that point, I gave up trying to set anything up and looked around; it looks similar to Peppermint OS from a user's point of view, but works less well at this point. It's pretty, if you like that, and it looks like you can do with it anything you can do with plain Ubuntu --- as long as it works. I think it's encrypting data, so that's nice, but I can't be induced to care based on its "multi-facetious technology". I didn't know what they meant by that before, but after trying it, I do.

</comment><comment><USER9> I tried it and it doesn't work for me: " No root device found Dropping to debug shell."</comment>