A Cornell professor's trick for getting 1700 peer reviewed publications - <AUTHOR> https://andrewgelman.com/2018/11/04/cornell-prof-not-pizzagate-guy-one-quick-trick-getting-1700-peer-reviewed-publications-cv/ <comment><USER2> Back in 2012, I worked with a guy in grad school. He was then a grad student as well--just one year senior than me. He would recruit new incoming grads to 'collaborate' with him on his current projects or whatnot.

The way he operates usually goes like this: he has a hypothesis (something that is usually trivial in my opinion). Then he recruits grad or undergrad students to work with him on it. After that, he let his teammates to do all the development work (coding) and experimentation (recruiting subjects and sitting with them in the lab to run the experiments). We needed to recruit human subjects because our work was related to usability of assistive technologies. By the time the data was collected and analyzed, the guy would show up with a vague draft of the paper, in which he has liberally cited his own (and his grad school mentor's) old publications, without knowing a damn thing about what his teammates did. Then we, as his teammates who ran the experiments, fill out the experiment and results sections. He then would write up the conclusion and fill up the rest of the holes. After that, he submits the paper taking the first authorship (because he came up with the hypothesis). That's the way he was able to publish >25 papers during 5 years of grad school (until he got his PhD).

Now that guy is an assistant professor--with ~50 publications--at a well-known University in one of the midwest states (of the US) at the very young age (I think he's just above 30 years old). If you look at his publications, he liberally cites himself and his mentors.

Kudos to him, he knows how to play the game.

<comment><USER3> I'm in awe of his skills and intelligence. Sounds like someone who knows how to work smarter. I would have taken that as a learning opportunity.

*edit: Getting a few down-votes on this one. I was being mildly sarcastic but on the other hand it takes some skill and smart thinking to pull this kind of thing off. Also in my experience, bull-shitting is a very valuable and necessary skill at work and in life in general. Arguably it gets you to a position where you can do work of actual substance and get recognition for it.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you're in awe of someone who has learned to play a game to his own benefit, but to the detriment of the larger institution (i.e. science) of which he is a part.

<comment><USER5> This seems to be a common thread of "lifehack" types

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Peer review is broken. The assumption with peer review is that the review filters out bad research in a fair way. The reality is that it is neither fair nor particularly effective in preventing bad research slipping through.

Part of the problem is the review quality is almost as inconsistent as the article quality.

From experience I can tell you that rejecting papers is a lot more work than accepting them. It requires arguing things in such a way that it survives editor scrutiny. This in turn requires actually reading the paper, doing some background checks, etc. Of course editors getting involved also means work for them. So negative reviews tend to trigger a lot of work. So much easier to just rubber stamp the reviews that give a thumbs up.

And editors have the problem of needing to fill their journals with stuff. Nobody reads these things cover to cover. So, there's a lot of filler content that will never be cited that got rubber stamped by reviewers taking a five minute glance at the text. As long as the article is not too blatantly bad, nobody cares. A common practice is to invite accepted authors back as reviewers. So, there's a notion of bad articles leading to equally bad reviews.

It is not surprising that there are researchers that game the system by publishing in friendly publications where the reviewers/editors are known friendly. They all need to keep their numbers up.

A possible fix could be to review out in the open. Publish reviews along with the article. Allow scientists to challenge these as well. It's one thing to say "this is probably fine" anonymously than it is to say, please publish this with a message stating that I approve and endorse the content of this article.

<comment><USER7> I am not an insider but could the reviewer turn into more of an endorsement? Meaning the paper is published and the endorsers are listed as well, e.g. "Reviewed and endorsed by Jill Jones of Cornell University." Organizations could then have clauses that if you endorsed papers that you didn't review and test that you would lose your job. I know that seems harsh but we need to find a way to get "skin in the game". I don't think having a paid organization would work and I think having something at the government level would be worse.

<comment><USER8> I like this idea, but I think it might make the whole system collapse, with few people willing to review papers at all.

<comment><USER9> The 'nobody wants to do job X' problem has the usual solution: compensation.

<comment><USER10> That compensation would come at the expense of research grants. This is not the same world as commercial development.

<comment><USER11> Some journals do offer compensation - I think the American Economic Review used to offer £100. The solution hasn't been widely adopted, though, perhaps because academics enjoy the kudos of being a reviewer (and the chance to savage other people's work anonymously :-P... ). And while you can pay for reviews, it is hard to pay for review quality, which is very subjective.

<comment><USER12> Also because a price that would significantly incentivise a senior academic is a price that is way too high for most journals to pay. If you have prestige, a decent if not exorbitant salary, bulletproof job security, a project you're passionate about and want to spend time on, and way too many obligations to actually spend time on your project, how much would _you_ take in exchange for adding yet another obligation to the pile, taking time away from what you really want to spend your time doing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 20 years ago, Sergey and Larry used the scientific publishing idea of tracking citations to determine document importance and built a better search engine. When people realized that links mattered more than anything, they started spamming links all over the place and the SEO battles began.

Glad to see that the scientists have caught up.

<comment><USER14> In reality PageRank is surprisingly resistant to such effort. The SEO typically involves bit of social engineering and hacking (example convience well known website to link you or spam the comments of unpatched blog engine).

The h-index, the measure used by researchers, is surprisingly gamable on other hand. For example, two researchers can buddy up and self cite each other few hundred publications in junk journals with DOI and will suddenly become the most prominent scientist of all time. It is mind boggling that even Google Scholar doesn't use pagerank.

<comment><USER15> If you're talking about PageRank anno 2018, then you're talking about two decades worth of research fighting back against gaming SEOs. I wouldn't use say the resulting resistance is all that surprising.

<comment><USER14> My point was gaming score using self citations. This is almost trivial with h-index and much more difficult with PageRank. PageRank is superior in resistance compared to h-index.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Getting increasingly cynical on this topic. Given the prevalance of introductions in popular media like, 'Professor X is a world renowned expert with O(1000) publications'. Which my brain translates as 'Professor X probably barely read everything with their name on it.'

There are precious few exceptions to this rule unless they are very old or are Paul Erdos.

I'd much rather hear 'Professor X's most important contribution was Y.'

<comment><USER17> I don't know about that. There's no doubt it happens that people artificially inflate their citations, but how often? The fact that this cases like this are reported as something exceptional says that they are, most likely, exceptional, or at least surprising for the people who point them out (which again means that they are maybe not that usual).

In any case, if this kind of thing is reported in the popular press, blogs, etc, it's because a scholar caught it and reported it, which means there are checks and balances that don't let this behaviour run wild all the time.

And then again, there's going to be differences between fields- some will suffer from this kind of problem more than others, etc. There's no reason to "tar everyone with the same brush".

<comment><USER16> I didn't mean to imply outright plagiarism everywhere all the time. I think there are many ways to get inflated numbers.

If a PI has 3 collaborator PIs and each PI has 4 students writing a paper every three months then the PIs can get 48 publications a year. Over 20 years, there's your O(1000) publications in a model with no substantial PI time contribution.

Given teaching loads, home life, university admin, academic duties like reviews I'd be surprised if a senior academic got 3 days per week to do research. I'd say at that rate the 4 first-author level contribution publications per year model would be optimistic. So a more realistic cap on the quality work someone could do in 20 years might be 80 publications.

<comment><USER18> I've worked in a similar system to what you described, with the top-most PI contributing essentially zero to publications directly. However, their fundraising efforts were singlehandedly paying the stipends/salary of 40+ researchers under them. I felt like it was totally fair to include them in the authors list, given that the research wouldn't have been possible without their efforts.

I doubt the parent academic had O(1000) _first_ author publications, nor is that mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER19> No it isn't! That's like including your mom in an author's list because without her raising you, you wouldn't be a researcher.

<comment><USER20> If your mom is directly raising funds to support 40 paid position she should be included.

<comment><USER21> In the acknowledgements, not as an author. Especially not as primary author.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Holy cow! 1700 publications is one publication every week for 32 years! How could anyone see that number and not realize that it must be a scam?

<comment><USER23> I've never seen a number that high in my field, maybe 500 or 600 for the big shots, and even that seems wildly unreasonable to me. Feynman had about 85 peer-reviewed papers over his lifetime, which is less than two per year during his career, which is a very reasonable number.

Authorship and citations are basically academic currency, and as such have undergone inflation just like real currency. Professors get their name on a paper as a form of payment for future or past services to other professors (often related to funding). There's just no incentive for anyone to stop this as far as I can't tell, and appealing to ethical conduct in authorship and citations is not enough.

<comment><USER24> >"Authorship and citations are basically academic currency, and as such have undergone inflation just like real currency."

Currencies don't just undergo inflation for no reason. Central banks create that situation on purpose to discourage saving.

<comment><USER25> But the method they use is printing money to move the value of money from those who had it to toward those who get the newly printed money. Same as with academics publications who do that decentralized.

(Another, more-natural (Austrian), cause of inflation is a contracting economy so dollars chase fewer goods.)

<comment><USER24> If publication of a new article is lowering the value of previous articles that indicates a severe dysfunction (which may indeed by the case).

If understanding/knowledge is being accumulated by a field the new publications should make those that they cite even _more_ valuable, not less like in the case of a fungible currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So, mix-and-match existing papers? As a referee, I often do check whether the authors have published similar content before. The only way to beat this simple vetting is if someone pushes the same paper to multiple venues, and they all get accepted at around the same time. This is pretty unlikely.

Incentives for reviewing are broken. Currently researchers have to see it as an intrinsically motivated activity for the good of the field, there are no quality checks per se.

<comment><USER27> More and more journals are using plagiarism detection software to test for that. My wife recently got caught 'plagiarizing' herself after she copied a paragraph of background material from a previous paper. The journal refused to send her paper out for review until she rewrote the offending section.

<comment><USER28> Just self-cite?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder in this day and age if a mind like John Nash would have thrived. Nash had only a handful of publications, but all of them were masterpieces. Same with Riemann.

<comment><USER25> They likely would get picked by super elite research orgs like IAS, or work outside the system and get grants from people like Simons.

Or have a low level teaching job like that guy who proved a twin primes result a few years aago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now that's impressive! 1700 peer-reviewed papers. Damn.

A commenter asks why reviewers don't use plagiarism-detection software. With most everything online (and Sci-Hub) it'd be pretty easy.

<comment><USER27> _A commenter asks why reviewers don 't use plagiarism-detection software._

Many journals do these days, and won't send a paper for review unless it passes

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> thankfully arxiv.org flags articles with overlapping text:

[https://arxiv.org/help/overlap](https://arxiv.org/help/overlap)

<comment><USER32> And the great thing about this system is that it does not inform you beforehand. You cannot check whether your paper will pass, you submit, and then when v1 appears online, it is marked as "having substantial text overlap with works by other authors" etc, with links. You cannot remove this version.

It will also flag overlap with your own works, but obviously it's not exactly a huge stain on your reputation if your thesis seems to borrow some paragraphs from your own papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a software engineer, I spend comparable amounts of time writing my own code an reviewing other people's code. I think it's normal.

Unlike scientists in academia, I'm explicitly (and well) paid to do both; it's in my job description. If do a sloppy job reviewing, and let a bug through, I feel the heat because something breaks. And what I work on is likely much simpler than what scientists work on.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't think this professor is exceptional, but rather the norm. As a PhD student in computer science I regularly observed people publishing papers overlapped to 80% with their previous paper. The difference being that paper 1 was titled "Solving problem X using Y" whereas the next one would be "A Y' approach to solving the X problem"

<comment><USER35> Overlapping in topic, that is natural. Exact text, exact framing. No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I can tell you with certainty that this is not the norm in psychology research. You will not publish empirical articles in such a manner for any journal anyone cares about. Chapters are time consuming affairs that usually the result of an invitation from a reputable figure in the field. They will not accept a copy paste of another chapter. Usually, the editor will have requests to tailor your chapter under some theme. This Cornell professor is most likely publishing in no-name journals and books that are pay to play....just like the 1,001 spam messages in my inbox offer to me as an active researcher. That Cornell has allowed this man to continue is beyond me, but it would not be tolerate in my department. I admit I despise these articles. They take the odd case and write a story, but leaves the public thinking this is typical in science. IT IS NOT.

</comment><comment><USER36> There are rules and incentives in the 'Academia' game. Among important things: get published, get cited, get your name out there. I am cynically inclined to think the 'system' fosters this, and some people have gotten good at it.

Unfortunately it's become less about 'science and knowledge' and more about getting the grants to survive and eventually be able to work on 'real' research.

However I do not believe this is specific to Academia, any 'game' can be hacked (at least for some time).

<comment><USER37> Considering his background of Yale, Stanford and 13 honorary PhDs spanning 4 continents (his words) I wonder how far back his gamesmanship goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> ISTM perhaps the link should be to the blog post [0] from which TFA liberally quotes? At the very least, the references to different colors of text will make more sense.

Perhaps there's something "ironic" about that...

[0] [http://steamtraen.blogspot.com/2018/04/some-instances-of- app...](http://steamtraen.blogspot.com/2018/04/some-instances-of-apparent- duplicate.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> TLDR; a professor kept recycling his books in to perhaps 1000s of papers with identical content. It is however not clear from the article how all these went past peer reviewed publications for decades.

<comment><USER39> Peer reviewed publications would just care the paper on review is any good, they're not archivists to go and search for similarities. In fact in most cases they barely read the work with any substantial sense of "read".

But the article mentions peers might not be getting the works either: " Bobbie Spellman, former editor of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, is confident "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Sternberg was not telling the truth when he said that "all papers in Perspectives go out for peer review, including his own introductions and discussions." Unless, as Spellman puts it, "you believe that 'peer review' means asking some folks to read it and then deciding whether or not to take their advice before you approve publication of it.""

<comment><USER40> > In fact in most cases they barely read the work with any substantial sense > of "read".

I would not say this applies to most cases.

I have got many papers reviewed, have done many reviews, and have got questions from people doing other reviews, and people usually put quite some effort into it. There are exceptions, but bad reviews are not the norm, and you can usually catch them when it happens and talk with the editor about it (either if you are the author or another reviewer).

Searching for similarities should indeed be part of the job, but it is not always easy, and I agree more work should be done in that aspect.

This may be different in other fields or specific journals but, please, don't generalize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's seems really pertinent to point out two other profs doing somewhat the same thing. Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay recently did an interview with Joe Rogan. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlqU_JMTzd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlqU_JMTzd4)

The interview is really interesting.

</comment><comment><USER42> Academics are highly incentivized to seek quantity over quality of publications. Reviewers are disincentivized from performing thorough peer review (unpaid, tangential relation of paper to area of interest, too many papers to review).

This professor has simply optimized an unethical path through the broken incentive system. He's not alone by a long shot.

</comment><comment><USER43> And for each such professor that gets discovered there are a dozen still hidden and a hundred covering each other, all of the hundred three doing the same stuff, just slightly smarter.

I don't believe anymore that this stuff is a new phenomenon though. It's more like a group of people trying to discredit university these days.

</comment><comment><USER37> From the professor's website:

His main research interests are in intelligence, creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, teaching and learning, love, _jealousy, envy, and hate._

</comment><comment><USER44> Hey, the dude published 1700 papers. Even if his repetition factor is 3 or 4, that's 400+ unique publications. Let's show some respect ;) Also, in some fields, it's acceptable to publish the same material thrice: i) conference; ii) journal; iii) book chapter, each slightly evolved or expanded or condensed or improved version of one another (ahem, I'm looking at telecommunications and signal processing).

</comment><comment><USER45> TL;DR: The man is obsessed with citing his own work—except on the occasions when he does a cut-and-paste job, in which case he is suddenly shy about mentioning his other publications. And, as editor, he reportedly says he sends out everything for peer review, but then doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER46> He's merely applying SEO practices. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

<comment><USER47> I don't understand this. The professor is acting in an unethical manner. Do you mean to say that if something is possible, it is intrinsically ethical? Perhaps I am misinterpreting your comment. He is responsible for his own actions and those actions are clearly outside the range of acceptable ethical behavior for an honorable participant in a research community. Yes, the 'game' also has issues, but that does not excuse the actions and choices of the 'player.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> How can I hire this guy??

</comment><comment><USER49> Social sciences is an oxymoron. Problem with social sciences is not only this issue that the article points out, but that the vast majority of it is not reproduceable.

<comment><USER50> My rule of thumb is that if a subject area includes the word "science" in its title, it is less likely to follow the scientific method.

Physicists don't assert that they study "physics science", nor do chemists describe their subject as "chemistry science".

It's only a rule of thumb of course. There are exceptions (computer science, neuroscience, ...) but I think it works in a lot of cases: "social science", "management science", "data science", ...

It's a bit like how if a country includes the word "democratic" in its title, it's less likely to be a real democracy.

<comment><USER51> Computer science isn't an exception, it mostly mathematics

<comment><USER50> I tend to agree, I was thinking this as I wrote the above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Google scholar should filter out self citations. Google scholar hasn't been updated in like 10 years I sometimes worry alphabet will pull it's plug.

<comment><USER53> Yes, Google Scholar is so useful and ubiquitous that it is dangerous. It would be far preferable to have a proper open replacement for it.

The technical issues are probably "easy". The ongoing maintenance costs/hassles could be solved. But the human factors would be very tricky to get right: anyone who maintained it would be under a lot of pressure in their decision-making -- your example of whether self-citations should be filtered is a good example of a decision which would have big effects and would be highly political.

One good thing about Google Scholar is (was?) that we didn't worry that Google engineers would tweak it to benefit Google researchers.

<comment><USER54> The biggest problem with replacing google scholar is that if you are not google, publishers will threaten to sue you for crawling their website and/or displaying information about their papers on your website. If you are Google you can just counter-threaten to delist them and stop crawling their website entirely. Google is unfortunately one of the only players that can actually offer something like google scholar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Academic journals hate him!

</comment><comment><USER56> There are PhD students at my school who get tasked with peer review and they hardly speak a lick of English. They don't otherwise seem that bright either...</comment>


Needs more Hitler - <AUTHOR> http://blog.erratasec.com/2015/01/needs-more-hitler.html

<comment><USER2> I like the first comment by Technocrat, copied and pasted here for posterity:

\---

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-11/sony-hack- reveals-h...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-11/sony-hack-reveals- health-details-on-employees-and-their-children.html)

"Documents stolen from Sony Corp. by hackers include detailed and identifiable health information on more than three dozen employees, their children or spouses -- a sign of how much information employers have on their workers and how easily it can become public.

One memo by a human resources executive, addressed to the company's benefits committee, disclosed details on an employee's child with special needs, including the diagnosis and the type of treatment the child was receiving. The memo discussed the employee's appeal of thousands of dollars in medical claims denied by the insurance company."</comment>


Reflections on what made working at Stripe feel different - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/zebriez/status/1180171989979258880 <comment><USER2> There more than a little irony about citing great writing and emphasizing the art of good memo writing in a multi-tweet thread. Briana's thread is packed with great info that would make a great blog post.

UPDATE: with a tool like ThreadReader this is easy: [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1180171989979258880.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1180171989979258880.html)</comment>


Ask HN:CPAN like archive for c  - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering if there is a CPAN like archive for C libs and snippets,i was able to find boost for C++,but nothing for c...also what do u think of making one(in case it does not exist) <comment><USER2> <http://ccan.ozlabs.org/>

<comment><USER3> Cool, didn't know of ccan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Site which collects C libraries and snippets would be quite cool and useful. It's pretty hard to find C libraries by googling.

</comment><comment><USER4> In addition to CCAN, there are (somewhat) general-purpose libraries like GNOME's glib.</comment>


8BITCOIN: a Bitcoin Miner for the Apple II - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1157302995169796096 <comment><USER2> [https://www.twitch.tv/8btc](https://www.twitch.tv/8btc)</comment>


Russian rides Phantom to OS immortality - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/phantom_russian_os/

<comment><USER2> IIRC several years ago the Linux virtual memory manager started to optimistically write pages to swap when it was idle. If the VMM is tuned to do this more aggressively, and not to invalidate the page file on reboot, you get the benefits of Phantom without the whole hassle of writing a new OS.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately not, because

a) the memory manager cannot guarantee a consistent system state in the swap file

b) the kernel has no way of instantiating its own state from an image

These are hard problems, which is why the people working on them usually start from scratch: <http://www.eros-os.org/eros.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So basically, virtual memory and the filesystem become one and the same thing?

Very interesting concept, especially if you combine it with the soon-to-be- ubiquitous solid state drives.

But what happens when your system crashes? And the last state was the one that caused the crash...</comment>


Toyota develops thought-controlled wheelchair (be sure to check the video) - <AUTHOR> http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/toyota-develops-thought-controlled-wheelchair/ <comment><USER2> This is great. It seems this is taking our relationship with computers to the next level. The big problem is humans are not perfect decision makers. What would happen if the system suddenly react to a thought which is completely foolish.

<comment><USER3> Long term this shouldn't be an issue at all. All our systems are currently controlled by our brain - why would next-gen machines be any different in our ability to control them?

A guy I once met was partially blind. He decided to learn how to see again as he was sick of feeling his way around. He took the "evolutionary" option, by starting to walk extremely fast everywhere. For the first few weeks he had a few knocks and bruises as he ran into doors. Gradually he got back his ability to detect objects at high speed.

I think our brain can adapt much better than we realise with the right stimuli :)</comment></comment>


Newsgroups and the Internet Archive: I Made a Difference - <AUTHOR> http://screengod.blogspot.com/2018/03/newsgroups-i-made-difference.html <comment><USER2> It's pretty sad that a bunch of people sent historical Usenet archives to Google, they imported them into Google Groups, and then... basically hid/lost access to it over time. I assume the data is in GFS somewhere but it may never see the light of day. But maybe we just need to shame them every decade: [https://www.wired.com/2009/10/usenet/](https://www.wired.com/2009/10/usenet/)

<comment><USER3> Google Groups was great when they first acquired all those archives! It just got progressively worse and worse over time, and I've never understood why. (Stagnation I could understand, but how did the same searches get _less_ effective?)

<comment><USER4> I get that Google essentially walked back from an at least implied role as an information archivist. But I still don't really get why they so completely abandoned things like Google Groups given the truly minuscule resources to maintain them at some low level.

<comment><USER5> Nobody can get promoted for improvements like that. It would only garner goodwill with a tiny customer base and it's not clear how that would translate to revenue or user growth on other products

<comment><USER6> Totally agree, but I kinda feel (and this is solely my opinion) that much as it's our collective responsibility to donate to worthwhile causes, gigantic tech companies should spend rounding-error money on good digital causes like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google's Usenet archive is too important to be owned by one company. My understanding is some Google engineers worked a few years ago to make sure Archive had a copy, but I can't verify that and I don't think it's online. Some of the earliest archives come from Eugene Spafford's collection which is readily online elsewhere, but Google did a lot of work cleaning it and of course has the DejaNews archives which are invaluable.

I'm amazed Google Groups still exists as a product, it seems abandoned internally and I expect to hear it's shut down any month now.

</comment><comment><USER8> I miss dejanews - anyone remember that before Google bought them? They had full search, it's a shame Google let that go. Their search went back to pretty much the beginning of net news. Does that exist anywhere anymore?

<comment><USER7> At least some of the Usenet archives are still online in Google Groups and searchable. Can't vouch for completeness of the search index though, it looks pretty wonky for stuff from the early 1990s. Anyway, example working archive link I found via search: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.os.minix/tor...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.os.minix/torvalds$20comp.os.minix%7Csort:date/comp.os.minix/yDS0CebiYdE/yjQw2YBmy2IJ)

Don't be too hard on Google's acquisition of Deja. I wasn't working at Google at the time, but heard from many colleagues when I joined that the Deja acquisition was quite chaotic because Deja was just about to shut down entirely when Google picked it up rather than let it disappear. It's a shame they don't do better with the Usenet archive now, but it's clearly not Google's business anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For all of you who are misty-eyed pondering those wonderful, probably-lost- forever Usenet posts from the 90s, I dare you to read Kibo's .signature (last updated 5/5/94 4:52AM <\-- CINCO DE MAY-O !!!!) at [http://archive.birdhouse.org/etc/kibosig.txt](http://archive.birdhouse.org/etc/kibosig.txt) to cure yourselves of misplaced misty-eyed nostalgia for those long-ago times when the Internet was something else.

Kibo for President!

<comment><USER10> What did I just read. It's like trying to understand satire from a hundred years ago.

I was convinced it was hopelessly corrupted by the archiving process, but some of the ASCII art still works (mostly).

<comment><USER11> It's concentrated 90's memes, straight from the Gen X tap. Can be hazardous in large doses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thank you!

If I read it right, humanity has lost 1991-2003 to Google though, correct?

<comment><USER13> Take a look here:

[https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical](https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical)

"This historical collection of Usenet spans more than 30 years and was given to us by a generous donor"

This group for example, from that collection:

        https://archive.org/download/usenet-comp/comp.emacs.mbox.zip
        [69.8M]

includes posts spanning from December 1988 to June 2013.

For some reason the mbox files have an odd format, with From lines that look like:

         From -8118066241627336028

I wrote some scripts to fix that so I could open the mbox files in Mutt.

BTW, found the above links on this page:

[http://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history_...](http://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/02/23/early_usenet_history_and_archiving.html)

which has more info & links about historical usenet archives.

<comment><USER12> Oh wow, does this mean that we have all of usenet texts? What stops people from providing a better interface than Google's then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > After a month I had most newsgroups - excepting binaries - and it came to > 800GB.

> Trying to index THAT lot was impossible

Stupid question, but why would indexing 800GB of newsgroup postings be impossible?

<comment><AUTHOR> Clucene was way too slow for body text, more than 1GB. I had my own header parser in C++ (though you can do that in Python easily).

I'm trying again on that 800GB with KISS DB (append-only hashtable), and Elasticsearch. Doesn't matter if GPL because it's a website.

<comment><USER15> Do you mind sharing the code ? I think that is an interesting thing to see

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reddit is the current era's equivalent of Usenet, and we don't have a robust archive of that either.

<comment><USER17> wayback machine's archive of reddit isn't perfect but it works. just give the IA more money

<comment><USER18> Yes, but much of the Wayback Machine's reddit content was specifically targeted and scraped by ArchiveTeam, who are volunteers that seek out at-risk content from the web and make sure that it gets into the Wayback. In the past few years we've specifically tried to go after sub-reddits that we thought were newsworthy and/or at high risk for deletion. But there's no way we can get all of it.

But you can help! If you have extra server space/bandwidth or you can spare $40/month, we can add more pipelines: [https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot](https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot)

Source: am ArchiveTeam member, run various pipelines, have scraped sub-reddits ranging from The_Donald to the cryptocurrency worlds to darknet markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's great to see some Usenet archives out there to partly make up for the disappointment of Google Groups. But I'm sad that this archive seems to be incomplete, even within its stated date range. Back in the day, I was active on rec.arts.books.tolkien and alt.fan.tolkien: in this archive, I can't find any trace of the massive "alt." hierarchy at all, and the list of files for the "rec." hierarchy doesn't include the Tolkien group. For that matter, the list includes rec.humor.funny and rec.humor.d and others, but apparently not rec.humor itself. (It really does make you appreciate just how substantial the effort of collecting a comprehensive Usenet archive would be.)

On another note, not that anyone here would be able to fix it, but this list would be a lot easier to search through if the item names didn't all begin with "Usenet newsgroups within", so you could jump to first letters in a meaningful way.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's my fault (not the IA), I thought I'd got all newsgroups but must have missed some. I just checked the main newsgroup list and it's incomplete, for some reason.

My plan though, is to dust off the old code, get a complete list of groups, get them, and then make it searchable.

Sorry about that, I didn't check. This was all done in 2013. Basically, I wanted to build a search engine but indexing the newsgroup posts (for header and text body search) would take too long. I abandoned it, then in 2016 I sent it to the IA.

So, I only just found out it's lacking a bunch of groups, 5 years on...

<comment><USER3> No apologies necessary: creating the archive in the first place was awesome! Like I said, this just shows how massive and complex Usenet is (or maybe, was), and how it's not easy at all to create a comprehensive archive. It's far better to have _some_ of it than none of it!

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I can gather, I downloaded one tenth of Usenet - 11,000 groups. This means if I'd done all 110,000 groups it would have taken me about a year to download them, and an 8TB drive to store them (in 2013!). That wasn't really feasible...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm impressed that Giganews maintains a 10-year archive of Usenet, I suspect that would break most newsreaders.

<comment><USER20> A lot of the big usenet providers have at least a decade's worth of article retention at this point (even for binary newsgroups).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Usenet was my very first exposure to internet communities. I read and posted on alt.games.nintendo.pokemon between ages 9 and 13, then moved to Something Awful after that.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm gonna put my dinosaur hat on and remind everyone that you can still use USENET in 2018. It's alive, well, and if you don't need access to binary groups, it's also free and very straightforward.

There are still some intresting discussions going on, mostly in the technical groups.

I still open it up maybe once a month or so for nostalgia, though I haven't posted in a while.

</comment><comment><USER23> Search query to the void, but if anyone has archives of the umbc.* hierarchy, I'd be eternally grateful to see them.

</comment><comment><USER24> Usenet article periodically get promoted to the front page. I wonder what that says about the age demographics of HN, given that Usenet hasn't been significant in maybe 20 years (and even then it was a niche). Is the younger generation here? And if not here, where?

<comment><USER25> I'm kind of offended that you seem to think young people can't be aware of things that happened before their time.

EDIT: To elaborate a bit, my expectation would be that the sort of young person using HN leans more historically interested than normal. Is more likely to appreciate the value of things like Internet archive, etc. Usenet is a huge part of digital history, and the fact that it's not available even though archives were kept is something of a tragedy.</comment></comment>


App growth questions - <AUTHOR> We are trying to grow our app, but we are limited by advertising budget. Suggestions? <comment><USER2> Well mentioning your app here would be a good start for example.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell us more about the app.</comment>


Dutch app gives elderly pedestrians extra crossing time at traffic lights - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/12/dutch-app-elderly-hack-pedestrian-crossings <comment><USER2> At least in Ontario, Canada you have as much time as you need to make forward progress once you legally enter the intersection. Or something like that. But the light is there to indicate it is allowed to enter, not how long you have.

<comment><USER3> My point of view is sure you as a pedestrian have a legal right but if you get hit and are killed there is no point in being right but dead.

I get my ass out of the way asap.

<comment><USER4> In Canada (Quebec) people are generally more relaxed and drivers will wait for pedestrians even if it means they miss their light.

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying I'm a golden egg among rotten ones here in my country, Colombia, but I have 20 or so (conscious) years of my life 1) not running to reach my destination and 2) being relaxed most of the time without the need of drugs or anything. It seems so normal for me not being rushed, waiting for the lights when I'm driving or walking, crossing the street using designated intersections.

In any case, I've measured things as simple as how long it takes for me to reach bus station from work place, and I've sometimes reached it sooner than some people I see running. I know it sounds crazy, but some times they forget to buy the ticket, or they get blocked by slow people taking ALL the road (three horizontally-aligned people in a four tops road), while I keep my pace.

I'd wish people had less worries in their life (we all have our problems and demons), and could keep their peace of mind without worrying about everything or having OCD or something.

Anyways, this sounds amazing.

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of a story by Derek Sivers [0] on the marginal time savings of biking at an all-out sprint pace vs. a more moderate (and more enjoyable) pace. A sprint gave him only a 4% time boost, whereas, as he puts it, "I could just take it easy, and get 96% of the results."

[0] [https://sivers.org/relax](https://sivers.org/relax)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This has been done in Singapore for years.

[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10108869359209909&se...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10108869359209909&set=a.698263527199.2476357.6803277&type=3&theater)

<comment><USER8> I was curious how long it's been around, and did some digging. It seems to have been launched in 2009[1] and greatly expanded between 2011 and 2013[2].

[1] [https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=3afz2r6kt6...](https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=3afz2r6kt67606vuscj0akd890h806x0zmb0y1ntv2vokwha7n)

[2] [https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/default.aspx?scr=yes&keywor...](https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/default.aspx?scr=yes&keyword=Green%20Man%20Plus%20\(GMP\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How many elderly people actually have smart phones? The article said they had very few users, but blamed it on unwary users. Of the 70+ year old people that I know, most do not even have a dumb phone, let alone a smart phone.

<comment><USER10> I look at innovative services/apps that target the elderly as something that may not be as relevant to the current elderly generation, but in 10-20 years when more tech-savvy people have aged there will be a huge need for services like this. Elderly people in even 10 years from now will own smart phones.

<comment><USER11> I totally agree. It's about fixing problems ahead of time. The only problem is that without a drive now, the tech could disappear, and when it finally does become relevant, an argument might be made that "it didn't work before, so it's not going to work now".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From an UK perspective, their crossing are way to wide. If you have a shorter crossing, the crossing is less of a factor, (also shorter total cycle times).

The problem, is that you holding up all the other traffic for one pedestrians. Get the crossing length correct, have the elderly person cross at the start of the green then the time is sufficient.

Also changing the timing as one junction intermittently makes the coordination between set of traffic signals harder and can be big disbelief.

Notwithstanding, the wide junctions allow more space for cyclists.

<Disclaimer>: Dynniq sometime customer sand once-upon-a-time subcontractor </Disclaimer>

<comment><USER13> Considerably easier to do this than rebuild the cities with narrower streets, though. If only you could do cement with a responsive layout...

<comment><USER12> You can split the crossing, so that the pedestrian does not have to cross the Northbound and Southbound at the same time.

<comment><USER14> We have that here but not everywhere.

There is a stop at the median (which would require median) for 4+ lanes. U have to push the button again in the middle.

Also have some that activate the whole crosswalk, but u can stop at middle of u think u don't have enough time, can push button for the remainder of trip

What I hate more than slow people, fast people and people on bicycles.

I cringe each time someone decides to run across when everyone is already focused on the people already walking at normal pace to exit the crosswalk.

Super dangerous.

I have clipped a guy on a bicycle(just bumped rear tire, hardly any damage and cyclist was fine), and almost hit 2 kids and adult ( all different instances)

<comment><USER12> Countdown helps. Traffic Signals in London, an amber numerical countdown display, indicating to pedestrians the time remaining to cross the road. This discourages pedestrians and cyclists to start to cross.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, it also encourages drivers to gun it when there's only a few seconds left on the countdown ("I still have seconds to get through the intersection!") - which increases the number of cars running red lights.

<comment><USER16> The countdown is only shown when the pedestrian crossing is on green. Drivers don't get a countdown on their green signal. Most also have a plastic shield around the countdown so you can't see it from where the driver is sitting to avoid people preempting the signal change.

<comment><USER15> This works on crosswalk-style crossings, but not on 4-way intersections.

<comment><USER12> Incorrect, It is used in London on thousands of junctions, hundred of 4-way intersections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's not quite the same thing but I can verify that certain Scandinavian countries really expect you to "get a move on" when crossing the street. There isn't enough time to walk across crosswalks in Denmark, for example, if you don't have some spring in your step.

<comment><USER18> Is that not OK? In the UK I get the impression you can trundle along at any speed and assume the people in the cars have the decency not to mow you down until their lane is free even if the green man is red now.

Jay-Walking though is crazy as a law. I prefer NOT to use traffic lights where traffic allows.

<comment><USER12> Well in UK there is no Jay-Walking Law (Pedestrians have right of way).

The crossing time is set at 1.2 m/s, to complete the crossing from the end of the Green.

<comment><USER19> >Well in UK there is no Jay-Walking Law (Pedestrians have right of way).

In California at least, pedestrians have the right of way, but Jay-walking is still illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slightly of topic: A while a go I visited South Korea for the first time, and got weird looks whenever I pushed the button at crosswalks, that and the button talked back...Next day I'm again at a crossing with our Korean client and push the button, she starts laughing and tells me: I had no idea your were blind :) Turns out the button only calls out when it's safe to cross.

</comment><comment><USER21> If the app has the ability to mess with the traffic light timings, what is stopping hackers?

<comment><USER22> Hopefully the publicly exposed API call into the traffic light network is "I am old, at [x]", not "Set traffic light time to [n] at [x]". Hopefully.

<comment><USER21> I'm sure at least as much effort will be placed, as that of automation in cars :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Another version detects visually impaired pedestrians and activates the > ticking sounds that tell them whether the light is red or green.

As a visually impaired person I think the ticking sound should be on all the time at traffic lights. When I visited Madrid and Barcelona recently that was the way they handled it.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think this is a social problem, not a technological one. If there's an elderly person taking longer to cross, stop and wait, or help them out. I haven't read of any significant road-rage caused by elderly taking too long to cross traffic signals.

We've been doing this since cars became mainstream, not really sure why we need to add an app and sync the traffic system with this app.

Is there really a problem here to solve?

<comment><USER25> A six-land dual carriageway means that there's definite possibilities that drivers won't see him, and are traveling at a speed where a sudden stop is actively dangerous.

We solved this with crosswalks. Now all we're doing is adding dynamic timing based on pedestrian movement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interestingly, I often have the opposite problem here. The walk light turns on and I'm done crossing the street a good 45+ seconds before it actually lets traffic go. It would be nice if it somehow knew no one else was waiting to cross and let traffic go.

Of (not that I would ever do this) someone sees an opportunity and jay-walks but the walk light still turns on because they also pressed the button.

<comment><USER27> When I would walk to/from work in Mountain View, I'd often jaywalk because it would be far less disturbing to traffic than crossing a crosswalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how they're gonna deal with abuse. What's stopping an idiot from flooding every single light with requests and making them slower than default, disrupting the entire traffic?

Why couldn't it be a physical button on the traffic light itself instead of an app? Seems easier to use and would limit abuse to a single location at a time.

<comment><USER12> Similar apps I seen, only connect via bluetooth to light not general internet. Making flooding much harder.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Old people's tech-using skills and Bluetooth's reliability... a match made in heaven

<comment><USER12> Maybe that why only 10 people used it.

<quote>Most potential users are elderly and often wary of relying on unfamiliar technology. "We had to approach them one-on-one and show them how the app worked on their phones. Once we did that they were keen to get involved, but the barrier was very high. We held a presentation and put an advert in a local newspaper with a circulation of 2,000 and 10 people came forward."</quote>

<comment><USER29> 10 people responding to an ad seen by 2000 is actually a decent success rate. Print ads aren't very good for anything other than keeping the company in the front of the reader's mind. They're great for companies like big chains ("Next time you want fast food, come check out the new BigMac for just $x.xx"), but not for people trying to elicit specific actions immediately ("Download this app now for increased walk times")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> couldn't we simply have crosswalks that have 3 buttons for short (bike) medium (normal walking) long (need extra time)? Seems like it would be cheaper and more accessible than an app.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is wonderful. Light timing where I live is appalling and while I'm a fast walker it must be terrifying for elderly/disabled people. Quite a lot of American city infrastructure is really hostile to pedestrians.

<comment><USER32> Even better would be to just fix the light timing, and make the roads safer for all pedestrians, not just those using this app. This is a blatant band-aid on a more significant problem.

<comment><USER12> Fixing the light timing is harder than it sounds. Too long for pedestrians (When there is no demand and lots of wasted time), encourages drivers to not fully comply with the signals. At least with this app, it minimised the extended crossing time to only when needed. The drivers can then see the mobility impaired pedestrian crossing and confidence remains with the timing.

<comment><USER33> Use a puffin crossing. [http://www.driving-school- beckenham.co.uk/pedestriancrossing...](http://www.driving-school- beckenham.co.uk/pedestriancrossings.html)

<comment><USER12> Puffins are good, but detection is always hard and central co-ordination is reduced.

How about Countdown at junction or at standalone PedX ? [http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/4572.html](http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/4572.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> A startup in Scotland lets disabled users press the cross button by tapping an app on their phone. Conceivably the app could tell from movement whether the person was crossed before communicating it's safe to let cars go again.

[https://neatebox.com/local-authority/](https://neatebox.com/local-authority/)

</comment><comment><USER35> If anything it should give less time to encourage a more active elderly population.</comment>


ASP.NET and F# - Creating MVC web applications in F# - <AUTHOR> http://cs.hubfs.net/blogs/tomasp/archive/2010/05/09/14050.aspx

<comment><USER2> First off, I love F#. I use it extensively for offline data processing, managing our build process (via FAKE), and general purpose Windows scripting. I've also dabbled in DSL creation, and if you follow any of examples it really is pretty easy to do. As Don Syme (F#'s creator) has said, F# is a lot like a statically typed Python (with lots more syntax).

But I wouldn't use it with ASP.NET. Learning F# is pretty heady and it would give your average .NET developer fits to learn it. You'd lose an advantage of using the .NET platform then - it's pretty easy to get average developers to be productive in .NET/C#. Forcing developers to learn F# would grind productivity to a halt.

Also, because of the whitespace requirements, F# is lousy in the webforms view engine. (Perhaps a Mako-like templating engine for F# would make sense).

Stick with C# for your web work and your libraries that your web site are using. Life will be easier.

If you really want to delve into F# on the web, these guys did a framework designed to be used with F#: <http://www.bistroframework.org/>

They also did a .NET port of the django templating engine: <http://ndjango.org/>

<comment><USER3> Most of the time, we use F# on the backend, using C# as little as possible. For web apps, that usually means the ASPX files themselves. For the MVC controllers, writing them in F# seems to work great.

The largest contention point arises when we pass F#-ish types to the ASPX page for rendering. It works, it's just that the C# required at that point can be sort of ugly.

Also, don't forget WebSharper, which provides a way to write all your client- side code (JavaScript) in F#. It handles all sorts of things, including async RPC calls. <http://www.intellifactory.com/products/wsp/Home.aspx>

<comment><USER2> The Intellifactory guys really know their F#. But this seems too much like WebForms and MSAjax for my tastes. After a while autogenerated javascript and HTML becomes very problematic, to say the least. If I want javascript, I'll just write it myself.

Now what I'd really like to see is an F# stand alone webserver - that would operate outside of ASP.NET/IIS. I envision a functional Request/Response pipeline, where you can augment the pipeline using function compositoin. Perhaps this could even handled by a computation expression or workflow. ( For those unfamiliar with F#, this is one of the killer features. See how simple it is to handle Async or parallel processing in F#).

Chris Smith has an interesting example of a Session State workflow in his F# book - I would like to see someone attempt that with a full fledged server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, good article, but I think it does more to expose Microsoft's inability or unwillingness to integrate F# into the .Net platform the way C# is.

He had to create a C# web project, as Visual Studio doesn't support that for F#. He had to create a C# LINQ-to-SQL project to generate model classes as there's no support to do so in F#.

This saddens me greatly. Here is a potentially great language in the .Net ecosystem and the support for the most basic of things is missing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone used the WebSharper framework (<http://www.intellifactory.com/products/wsp/Home.aspx>) designed for F#? It looks like it addresses several issues I have with web development in general and F# web development in particular ...

<comment><USER3> We've started too, but not on any sizable projects yet. The guy that does our UI stuff loves it, and looking at the code, it looks pretty easy.

To keep apps interactive, you have to doing a lot on the client side. To keep sanity, you want to use a decent language. WebSharper seems to fix both of those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you get to write all your business logic in F# and there are no needless sources of headaches, I guess that could be pretty nice if you already use ASP.NET.

<comment><USER5> The main headache-inducer I've encountered is that to really get the benefits of F# I'd like my model objects to be immutable records, but the ASP.NET MVC model binding infrastructure (along with the binding/serialization/etc. parts of a lot of other .NET frameworks) assumes mutable model properties (and default constructors). You can create a custom model binder, which works but isn't 100% satisfactory for other reasons.

The example gets around this by just using LINQ to SQL generated C# classes as the model, but that's a big compromise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somewhere I read an article about how easy it is to create your own view engine for MVC. Given F#'s facility with DSLs, it seems it wouldn't be too infeasible to make an F# view engine too.

<comment><USER8> Some links to create your own engine in asp.net mvc: [http://www.singingeels.com/Articles/Creating_a_Custom_View_E...](http://www.singingeels.com/Articles/Creating_a_Custom_View_Engine_in_ASPNET_MVC.aspx)

[http://amazedsaint.blogspot.com/2010/06/creating-custom- view...](http://amazedsaint.blogspot.com/2010/06/creating-custom-view-engine- for-aspnet.html)

Unrelated, but every time I see an F# article I think of a quote from Juval Lowy I heard on the Dot Net Rocks podcast (I think), which went something like "Yeah, with F# you can just slam your fingers onto random keys and it will be valid code"

(edit:formatting)

<comment><USER9> _...and it will be valid code_

There are a lot of subtleties to the syntax that are not easy for someone new to the language to figure out, especially if you are new to the functional family of languages. The error messages are not always helpful. I can see F# will be a great tool for certain problems, and once you are really proficient I can understand making a statement like this.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, just found Juval's quote entertaining.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


iOS cache_encryptedA.db contains unencrypted geo-locations harvested by apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.corbiaux.be/blog/?p=8

<comment><USER2> iOS 6 - which is because this is a 3GS.

Welcome to 2012!

[http://www.binaryintel.com/iphone-forensics-location- informa...](http://www.binaryintel.com/iphone-forensics-location-information- mfc-2012/)

Nice screenshots, though?

Your device has to be jailbroken to access it. This file doesn't show up in device backups.

Now - tried jailbreaking an iOS 7 device and seeing if it was still there? That might actually grab some headlines.

(Though, that might be a little hard for anyone who's decided to PIN / password lock their phone - since your phone has to be unlocked now to approve pairing to an unknown device ....)

<comment><USER3> We're in 2014 and a second hand 3GS still costs more than many of the cheaper newly manufactured Android phones. I'm pretty sure plenty of people are still using them.

</comment></comment><comment> nezza-_- IOS = Cisco Internetnetwork Operating System

iOS = Apple's mobile operating system

As someone who works/worked with both it always irritates me when they're spelled 'wrong'.

<comment><USER4> The first word of the title gets auto-capitalized no matter what you put inside, so you have to go and manually edit it to "iOS" afterwards. That's why you frequently see "IOS" and "IPhone" at the beginning of the title if the links are recent and no mod has edited it yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> but I do have to admit I spelled it as "IOS" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't this just part of assisted GPS? iOS caches the locations of recently seen wireless access points to speed up location services.

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

<comment><USER6> Yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminiscent of the consolidated.db debacle:

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone- tra...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking- prompts-privacy-fears)

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said: i didn't think this was something new. It was however not foreseen that this particular app would be harvesting my location, hence the surprise.</comment></comment>


Army Imitates Apple To Draw New Recruits - <AUTHOR> http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/technology-finance/e3i5597024fecf11e33a55a40695b480511 <comment><USER2> Good luck with that. Lipstick on a pig and all that.

Apple - beautiful stuff in a gorgeous museum setting, representing some of the best human technology on the planet, giving people creative power not accessible to the masses even 10 or 12 years ago.

Army - come try our simulations of serving 3 or 4 years when your signed up for 1 tour, getting shot at and attacked with bombs so American VIPs can prance around markets in body armor for TV cameras, and experience the fun social pressure to kill innocent kids from your dominionist sergant who you also depend on to not die. All in a fun apple like museum setting. I wonder if they have a simulation for desperately trying to get disability from the VA for 6 or 12 months for PTSD, finally turning to alcohol to escape the nightmares of random bomb blasts and the haunting look on the dead faces of the kids or innocents you were ordered to help kill, and then finally being rejected for drinking. That one sounds fun. I want to play that one in this nice new store.

I think to succesfully imitate apple, the army will have to stop sucking first. The problem isn't the Army Brand sucks or the Army store sucks, the problem is the army sucks right now.</comment>


Going underground: inside the world of the mole-catchers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/mole-catchers-britain <comment><USER2> _Roger Sharrock, in 1660, advised his readers to cut up red herrings, burn them, and place the pieces in the mouths of molehills. In a pinch, garlic or leeks might also work. "I have not tryed these ways," Sharrock added, "and therefore refer the Reader to his own tryal, belief or doubt."_

Were the moles puzzled to death? "Mrs. Mole, have you seen this? Who left this fish here?" "Ignore that, Mr. Mole: it's just a red herring."

</comment><comment><USER3> Cursed moles, bane of my suburban yard. Often I've fantasized building a mole hole bot, chasing them through their tunnels. How they'd flee in terror!

</comment><comment><USER4> Some one has to post the classic jasper carrot sketch "Iv'e got this mole"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93mgyE2ctwg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93mgyE2ctwg)

no subtitles unfortunately</comment>


An Awk Primer   - <AUTHOR> http://www.vectorsite.net/tsawk.html

<comment><USER2> Shorter and IMO more practical introduction to AWK, [http://gregable.com/2010/09/why-you-should-know-just- little-...](http://gregable.com/2010/09/why-you-should-know-just-little- awk.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> For small tasks is a great tool for rapid text processing ... but I still prefer Python for complex text processing. Not so sure how popular is AWK in the non-Linux/Unix world.</comment>


Setting Up a Document-Based App in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://talk.objc.io/episodes/S01E145-setting-up-a-document-based-app <comment><USER2> OT: can someone here tell me why there's a continue reading button after a single paragraph that just repeats the heading? I've seen this trend on other sites and it's incredibly frustrating, especially if it forces a page reload

<comment><USER3> I would think it's a measure of "user engagement" in a way - how many users care to actually click to read more vs. just skim the first little bit and click away.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The app they are building is a Markdown editor that can evaluate code snippets live by sending them to a REPL. This functionality was inspired by Emacs org- mode, they go into some details in the first few minutes of the video.</comment>


How I Got the First Paying Customers for My Startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@JonTuckerUSA/how-i-got-the-first-paying-customers-for-my-startup-in-10-days-e6054495a672

<comment><USER2> Enjoyed reading but have to say that 1) this is a ridiculously crowded market and 2) there are some very good options that start at free (Olark, Zopim). But, best of luck and nice job on breaking the revenue seal.

Edit: Many apologies, I misunderstood the service. $97/month for actually handling the inquiries (up to 500/month) then sounds like a bargain.

Edit: I went back and studied the website more closely and while it does describe the service you mention, it doesn't seem as clear as it could be. The spotlight seems to be on the web chat window which is a very well-understood mechanism and it's hard to get past that to understand that you are actually wo/man-ning the chat sessions. I would really work on making that cleare because at $100/month, it's a no-brainer for a lot of business types.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you might have mis-understood what we do. My fault (you're not the first).

In short, we're not a software company.

We manage the live chat for website, so they don't have to. We're a service business.

<comment><USER3> I actually misunderstood this as well from reading the blog post. I thought it was silly to be entering such a saturated market especially with companies like Olark.

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated - let me know what you think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fantastic write up! A couple of nice take aways from this:

1) Give away the product -- I love how you started up a GoToMeeting and got the product running on a site right there. I know you mention that conventional wisdom says to get the customer to validate by paying first, but that seems like a brilliant move.

2) Don't give away the farm -- I would have stopped right there, I imagine. "Hey, they loaded up my stuff on their site. I'll get 'payment' from them in the form of a testimonial for the site. That's validation enough." Nope, you turned them into a paying customer. Even better, and you can still get the validation.

3) Don't over think everything -- Even though I have been successful in the past, I often over think things. I have to figure out all of the models before I can launch. The actual model rarely looks anything like what I thought up because in reality, it takes running the business/product to really understand the model.

I'll be watching for the future updates!

<comment><AUTHOR> Re #2

At first, they said (on a Friday) "we'll talk about it *next Monday" (which was almost two weeks).

I casually said "ok that's fine. For now though, let's take it off the site since we know it's working - that will give you guys some time to make the decision without any pressure."

They made the decision by Sunday, paid Monday, and we were back online quickly = )

It's ok to push, if you're providing value and it seems to be working

<comment><USER5> _" ok that's fine. For now though, let's take it off the site since we know it's working - that will give you guys some time to make the decision without any pressure."_

This tactic is likely to be useful to more than just those working in the early days of a startup. Nice move!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> THANKS HACKER NEWS!!!

Tons of great feedback received, summarized below:

\- Explain the service better (i.e. we're not a chat software)

\- Answer the main question directly (i.e. how can you possibly know enough detail of the business to answer visitor questions)

\- Answer a few other basic questions (chat system included, 24 / 7, etc.)

Here's what I've done so far:

\- Revised headline to (as of 12/24 am) "Website Chat Support, Done For You", and also sub headline- will tweak it a bit

\- Added FAQ section to the page

\- Revised testimonials (with approval of course) to speak more to the main question of "how can you know enough about my business?"

\- Included REAL EXAMPLES of chat lots to show how this is working for a diverse group of clients

\- (coming soon, recommended by a HNer that I can't find the name of in my logs - comment here for credit) I'll be testing the impact of changing entire focus of home from "here's what we do, it works, here's why, blah blah blah" to "Test Us Out on Your Site Right Now" using the preview feature that pops up our chat on your website right away (i.e. you're connected directly to me via chat). We got bombarded from HN traffic (yay!) but I think that could work REALLY well if I streamline it a bit (and make the feature looks better of course - hacked quickly).

In short, THANKS for all your feedback. I'm taking action as fast as I can (got quite a few customers, so building some backend stuff as we speak) and wanted to say thank you!

Happy holidays!

</comment><comment><USER6> In short, sales. Marketing and publicity don't really provide benefit unless you're offering a free service to end users. My own startup reached front page of HN. Total sales resulting from that: about $0 (or negative dollars if you count server costs). Every sale is because I directly approached clients I thought needed my software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said.

We're not doing helpareporter.com anymore for now (might later). The right publicity to the right market can work well, but this isn't focused enough for us yet. There's bottom of funnel work we can do better for now.

We got signups from the HN traffic. I totally understand that HN traffic doesn't covert in some cases - it's not been insane conversions for us, but it's working. That wasn't my goal from the post (I've never published to medium / haven't been active on HN), but cool surprise.

<comment><USER6> To clarify my above comment, I was referring to just my own experience and that focusing more on a traditional sales process worked better for me. And I liked your blog a lot because it talked about the sales side, which we don't hear enough about on HN sometimes (skews toward growth hacks and publicity).

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally understand.

Have a cool post coming soon re: great process for building a solid prospect list (sounds bland, but there's some magic to it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome post! Should be included in [https://yourfirstcustomers.com/podcast/](https://yourfirstcustomers.com/podcast/) and [http://www.unscalablestartup.com](http://www.unscalablestartup.com) :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Will check out the podcast and the book - Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great story, thanks for sharing! I just have one question - how do your support team members get the information to handle the inquiries and how is the information updated? Do you have a sort of training sessions with the customers?

<comment><USER9> That seems like the huge and I mean huge oversight here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great questions! Sorry for delay in responding (been hectic last 24 hours)

The value of what we do seems to be that we're available for the visitor, we do our best to help (fast response, personable, etc.), etc. And if we don't know the answer, we commit to getting them in touch with the right person on your team (i.e. a lead for you, and a happy visitor).

We go through a detailed on boarding process to get the info we need. We study the ins and outs of your site, and also ask questions as needed before starting the chat service.

If we don't know the answer to a question, we are honest with the visitor (visitors appreciate transparency rather than halfway answers - i.e. like a cox.net, ATT, Verizon, or other similar website chat team). We then offer to connect them with someone on your team via email to get an answer asap.

I know this sounds simplistic, but it's working well.

I'm going to put together a case study on the site, and possibly deeper blog post about tackling this part of the problem, as it's a THE QUESTION so far. If you want to check it out, drop your email on the site (there's a "follow our progress" button on the blog posts).

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure I understand what's the added value of the service offered : unless you have a deep understanding of your customers business, what are you going to chat about on their website with their potential customers ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question.

The value of what we do seems to be that we're available for the visitor, we do our best to help (fast response, personable, etc.), etc. And if we don't know the answer, we commit to getting them in touch with the right person on your team (i.e. a lead for you, and a happy visitor).

We do have a good onboarding process / workflow to make sure we know enough about the customers business to help visitors (see other HN comments in the thread), but the core value is that we're there, personable, and do our best to help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> congrats - I agree with your approach of getting a real business working before worrying about solving every possible problem that will arise.

It took my startup 6 years of hustling to become profitable (we're around 50k users now) and we did it basically just as you are doing it - creating a product that people wanted, and then just adding features and solving problems as they became known to us rather than trying to anticipate things that may never wind up being important. It feels a bit like flying by the seat of your pants unfortunately but I think it's always going to be that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jake.

Well said re: avoiding "trying to anticipate things that may never wind up being important".

Today is the "flying by the seat of your pants" day ha. I underestimated just trying out a post on medium. It's been great though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great. Congratulations to just taking the leap and getting it done and proven.

How are you thinking about scaling it? How to understand every websites issues and provide a live Customer Service?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks April.

We've got a solid process for managing chats for a diverse group of websites.

\- We go through a detailed on boarding process to get the info we need. We study the ins and outs of your site, and also ask questions as needed before starting the chat service.

\- If we don't know the answer to a question, we are honest with the visitor (visitors appreciate transparency rather than halfway answers). We then offer to connect them with someone on your team via email to get an answer asap.

As simple as this sounds, the attention and transparency goes a long way based on what we're seeing.

As far as scaling, we've got numbers around what it takes to manage a customer at various website traffic levels (prices are based on website visitors), so I've got an idea of how we'll scale for customers vs chat team.

<comment><USER13> What about a way to escalate to my own team via chat? That way you field general inquiries and make it look alive (chat that goes to "leave a message" just sucks), but the moment someone is getting serious or has an in-depth question, you can tx them to me.

I think this is s good idea. At my last company, we did live chat, and it was _very_ popular. But the constant interruption to our few developers wasn't feasible. And later, it was hard to get salesguys to make sure they were really always available. Taking the front load off is excellent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could definitely be done.

Right now, we don't escalate via live chat but instead connect them via email quickly.

The bulk of our customers don't seem to be using live chat now, so doing an escalation / transfer process via live chat could be a source of confusion and friction. For now, we'll stick to email connections (working well), but it's on my list.

Thanks Michael!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You always use the customer's chat system? Or do you include your own chat system to streamline things in your backend?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use our own chat system. Very streamlined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I assume you're answering many (maybe all) of these chat requests personally (at least to start). Do you operate 24/7?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, running myself for the moment - but on boarding a team member or two to help in the next few days (been preparing for that part as part of running it myself).

It's 730am PST to 9pm PST right now. Will be expanding shortly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Jon! Congrats dude!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Darrin. Been fun so far.

<comment><USER17> I'm sure the first few customers signing up is a really satisfying experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely! Getting to that first customer signup ASAP gives you a TON of motivation right out of the gate.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Kindle (2011) Teardown - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/itdojo/amazon-kindle-2011-teardown-faster-processor-fewer-chips/2974

<comment><USER2> Er, why and how would a serial flash be used as an e-ink controller? More likely the built-in e-ink controller on that particular Freescale processor is being used. [http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?co...](http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX508)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that looks like a mistake in the article.</comment></comment>


E.W.Dijkstra Archive: On hygiene, intellectual and otherwise - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1054.html

<comment><USER2> Not my favorite kind of argument: (1) Show in detail how "the establishment" in some historical controversy was spectacularily wrong. (2) Use this as proof for the superiority of your own position in a completely unrelated modern debate.

There was a submission some time ago which used the same device to argue against global warming. Since "the powers that be" had been wrong in the case of Galileo, then _obviously_ the mainstream belief in man-made climate change was the same kind of wrong-headed belief in unscientific dogma. I have seen the same kind of argument for Creationism - since science was wrong in the case of the ether and frenology, then obviously the theory of evolution is also wrong.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, the arguments that FDA is using today to combat the use of checklists (also for sterilization) are almost exactly the same.

These arguments make a lot of sense when there is a common cognitive error. For example, the cognitive error that caused mistake A is also causing mistake B. I don't have enough domain expertise to say whether or not that was the case in this article, for its intended purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone have a source for the history related in the submitted article? I know routine aseptic precautions were opposed by quite a few doctors in the nineteenth century for quite a while, but I've never read anything about detailed reasons (other than convenience) given for not washing hands regularly or sterilizing instruments. How much of this is on the historical record, and how much of this is story-telling by Dijkstra, who was quite an able story-teller?

<comment><USER5> I would think that this is parable rather than history. Some of the giveaways are the dig at "operational research" and the mention of the DoD (which a meticulous writer like EWD would have known did not exist until much later).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "...if sterilization of the knife really helped, everybody would be able to operate and that would be totally intolerable."

Crazy. What?

Humans never cease to amaze me.

<comment><USER7> All guilds, and physicians are a guild, hate anything that breaks the mystique.

Home schooling empirically works with non-professional instructors. Teach For America will take any warm body with a college degree and subject students to their care for a few years, without negative results. Private schools routinely outperform public schools, even with similar student pools.

But still, the guild controls education with an iron fist, because if you let non-guild teachers teach, then there will be total anarchy. Or if you paid guild teachers based on skill rather than age -- because, after all, the guild warrants that all guild members with ten years of continuous service at one guildhouse are exactly equivalent in skill in every way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And the resistance to these ideas continues to this day, seemingly unabated. The consequences are all around us, in our mailboxes.

</comment><comment><USER9> A great man that knows how to put current issues in historical perspective. Yet, his case here doesn't rest so well: software hacking without a plan has generated good software, _after applying cleanup, refactoring, and what not._

A great read.

<comment><USER10> Knuth made TeX. What did Dijkstra make?

<comment><USER11> Dijkstra made the "THE operating system".

THE was the first multiprogramming operating system beating IBM to the punch.

The THE system apparently introduced the first forms of software-based memory segmentation (the Electrologica X8 did not support hardware-based memory management)[1], freeing programmers from being forced to use actual physical locations on the drum memory. It did this by using a modified ALGOL compiler (the only programming language supported by Dijkstra's system -- Dijkstra implemented the first compiler for ALGOL) to "automatically generate calls to system routines, which made sure the requested information was in memory, swapping if necessary."

Apart from this, Dijkstra is the inventor of all shortest path algorithm (used in the link-state routing in the Internet), opened the self-stabilizing systems field, which was again very influential in several internet and sensor networks protocols.

Dijkstra refused to classify himself as a theorist or systems person.

BTW, Knuth would probably be the first person to object to your comment.

<comment><USER10> It was a real question. Only an idiot would question Dijsktra's well-known contributions to CS. My issue is that his profuse judgmental statements about practical system-building strike me as misguided. When I read those of his writings he sounds like an intolerant theorist in a bubble.

From the web pages I've read, it's not clear that THE was ever used. It's also not clear what Dijsktra actually did on Algol. Indeed I always thought it was Naur, not Dijsktra, who is associated with making the first good Algol compiler. Also, Dijsktra is described as having "led the team" on these projects, which is ambiguous.

I'm happy to be wrong, but it would certainly be interesting if Dijsktra's disastrous (to my mind) pronouncements about how to make software were grounded in deep experience with successfully making it. It would be much less surprising if they were grounded in brilliant theoretical work and a habit of telling other people they're doing everything wrong.

Edit: it's my fault for being cryptic, but inventing algorithms does not count as what I meant by "making" something, i.e. building a working software system that people use. Anybody who's heard of Dijkstra knows that he invented algorithms.

Edit: but then I like Beethoven better than Mozart too :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>