Show HN: A browser extension which blocks chat/helpdesk widgets - <AUTHOR> https://hellogoodbye.app <comment><USER2> I don't mind the help desk widget if it's actually there for when you have a question. The problem is that they almost immediately morphed into to growth marketing tactics with bots saying hi and asking _you_ if you have questions.

That's just irritating.

<comment><USER3> Please describe a time you've had a question and successfully used a chat widget to solve it

<comment><USER4> I use intercom to provide support for my service. Yes, it pops up and asks if you have questions on the homepage. Yes, it checks in on you after using the site for a week. But I get almost a hundred support requests and questions a week through it, and most weeks I get zero through Zendesk email.

For most small businesses like mine these chats go straight to the phones of the founders. You've got a direct line to the most knowledgeable person about the service.

So to your question, many people use them successfully.

<comment><USER5> This is my experience as well. I mainly installed Intercom for support, but it also works great for sales. I don't initiate chats on my home page, but I do on my pricing page and I talk to high-intent potential customers every day. I pay Intercom because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think.

<comment><USER6> _because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think_

This literally describes 90% of successful marketing tactics.

<comment><USER7> Even technical too. Take for example apps made in electron. HN and reddit quickly start squabbling about electron itself and quickly forget that value is perceived based on productivity or leisure. Unless and until the app is extra ordinarily egregious and the performance penalties outweigh the benefits, it really doesn't matter.

We, software devs, can be unnecessarily pedantic and nitpicking.

<comment><USER8> > Unless and until the app is extra ordinarily egregious and the performance > penalties outweigh the benefits, it really doesn't matter.

On the short term, yes. But as soon as I'm not required to use Slack anymore, I will remove it from my Mac and advise anyone against it.

So on the long term, I'd say a business would be better off not making the balance so precarious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's the URLs from the extension in UBlock rule form:

      ||widget.intercom.io/
      ||connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk/xfbml.customerchat.js
      ||assets.producthunt.com/assets/upwigloader.js
      ||js.driftt.com/include/
      ||crisp.chat/

(These can be copied directly into UBO's My Filter section)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have also added this to the GitHub repository. Just download it from the website [https://hellogoodbye.app](https://hellogoodbye.app)

<comment><USER10> How would i go about using it with a Pi-Hole? Do I just add [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye/master/filterlist.txt) to the list of block lists? I don't see a redirect IP on your filter list (something like 0.0.0.0). Do I have to manually edit it?

Thank you!

<comment><USER11> You can not do this with Pihole, because Pihole can only block entire hosts/ip-adddresses (and not only specific scripts on a host.)

That's why you should keep using uBlock Origin/a browser content blocker, even if you use a Pihole.

<comment><USER10> Ah, I see. I will get UBO, right away.

Thank you for helping out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish chat/widgets weren't a thing on the web. It's not that it's bad but I think it's annoying how they just pop up from everywhere (mostly bottom right). It's mostly an interface/UI problem. I wish they do it like Apple, where Apple Support has options like "Call" and "Chat" and when you click on it, that's the only time the widget appears.

<comment><USER13> I think I've used an unsolicited chat widget maybe once. What stood out to me was that the entire experience is setup to be a poor one for the user by default. Click a link on the page and the session is lost. Links sent through the chat don't add target=_blank, either; I'd imagine that the percentage of chat sessions terminated by accident is awfully high. In which case, in trying to help, the support rep is merely adding to the user's frustration.

And that's ignoring the users who get frustrated with the giant, in-your-face pop up. At least they don't have sound. Yet.

<comment><USER14> Every chat widget that's popped up has been accompanied by a sound for me, which is incredibly irritating.

<comment><USER15> This is one of the reasons I keep my speakers muted by default. Poorly behaved websites and software will be poorly behaved regardless of your wishes. Having your speakers off prevents in-page scripts and ads from annoying you. If you can't keep your computer/speakers muted, then you can still mute the browser itself, at least on desktop.

<comment><USER14> I usually listen to music via the browser, so that's not a great option for me :/

<comment><USER16> Pulse audio let's you have one browser process playing, and then mute other processes. I make a special profile to just play Spotify and other media. Open a new profile for work (well, per project)

<comment><USER17> Isn't it terrible that one has to explicitly do all these while the normal experience for people who don't know about such options is bad?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know chat widgets can be used in super irritating ways and people love to hate on them recently but I think they can greatly improve the user experience for the user and the vendor when done right e.g. have a prominent easy to find chat button on every page, that doesn't automatically pop-up with a stock message, where the chat operators are available and able to help you.

On the website for a Chrome extension I sell, 90% of my support requests (mostly from paid users) come in through the chat widget. The low latency communication compared to email means I can solve support requests faster, with less effort on both sides and the sender ends up happier at the end.

Having to receive, read, write, wait etc. over several emails is really painful and sucks up time on both sides even for simple problems and especially for complex problems. It can take several emails to understand a simple problem because most users aren't that precise e.g. "I upgraded but I can't access the paid features". I'm considering pushing all users to use the chat widget by default for support queries because of this.

I wouldn't be against using some chat bot automation either (which people also complain about) to deal with common requests for the initial request message because it's really hard to 100% eliminate FAQs being asked. Especially if you're a solo founder, you want time savers like this.

<comment><USER19> Who's sitting on the other end of your chat window?

<comment><USER18> Me right now, so a human that's able to help with pretty much any query. I can understand how having to use a chat widget with someone unhelpful replying would be a bad experience though e.g. a sales person when you had a support request, or a bot that can't help with your support request.

Most chat widgets are set up to forward chat messages via email if there's nobody around and both sides can jump back on the chat widget later if they're both available at the same time which is still an improvement over just email in my opinion.

<comment><USER20> has anyone ever asked for help understanding the terms of service?

<comment><USER21> Not the one you replied to, but I have been working for a customer service of a large platform for 10 months now and no one has ever asked a question about the ToS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Will we ever be able to visit sites in peace again? We've got chat popups, cookie notices, social widgets, google amp, subscription popups...I'm sure I'm forgetting other annoyances and I haven't even talked about the 20 tracking scripts degrading the experience invisibly on each page. On mobile it's getting almost unbearable!

On the other hand, everyone seems okay with the idea of trading privacy for free stuff...

<comment><USER23> Newsletter signup modals. The company I work for discussed doing that for our site and I died a little on the inside that day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What annoys me most of all about these things is when they _immediately_ popup when I first visit a site - no, I don't have any questions, because I haven't even looked at a single word of text yet!

<comment><USER25> And then they send you a message first to pressure you in to talking as well as making you feel watched

<comment><USER26> And then you get a pop-up asking to subscribe to the newsletter of a company whose product you know nothing about.

<comment><USER27> just like in a physical store. when you're shopping for clothes and some overeager sales assistant comes to hovers around you asking if you need any help. sometimes it's useful but sometimes it's annoying and you just want to be left alone to look yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> While I applaud the effort that went into this, I'm not sure what this gains over adding a handful of additional rules into your current adblocker.

Many adblockers use the EasyList of blocked domains/files, but somewhat lesser known is the EasyPrivacy list which already blocks many of these helpdesk and chat widgets [1].

1 - [https://easylist.to/easylist/easyprivacy.txt](https://easylist.to/easylist/easyprivacy.txt)

<comment><USER29> I agree. This is a great idea for a browser feature, but for me personally, I would rather do a manual blacklist through /etc/hosts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have added it as a list form to download.

It's available on the website [https://hellogoodbye.app](https://hellogoodbye.app)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've used those chat widgets a lot and they are by far the best way to get customer service issues addressed. They respond faster than the phone line, it's async so I can use the bathroom while they look up details, I can post links, I never have to repeat myself or ask them to repeat. Blocking these widgets seems like a terrible idea.

<comment> m-p-3 I would just wish these widgets would remains as inconspicuous as possble, but remains easily available. If it pops up while I browsing the website for info, I already hate it.

I wish chat support was offered more, I hate calling Dell Support for a technical issue.. last time I used some kind of chat with the it was for customer service/sales, and told me I had to call for tech support. It would have been easier to send pictures through the chat, oh well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've done it like this (not shown, this is not an ad).

Have an image at the right bottom. People can click and only then the chat widget opens. This means very fast loading of the page and only if people click on the widget there is contact with a third party server. I think it's the best of all ways. There is an easy way to contact for the visitor, but there is no in-your-face marketing technique used on potential customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's actually an awesome way of handling this.

<comment><USER32> This should be _the_ standard way of doing things and nobody should think of anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Personal goal: avoid making the kind of software that other people make browser extensions to get rid of.

<comment><USER34> Why's that?

Intercom/etc are incredibly useful both to businesses and customers alike. But not necessarily all customers, I respect that.

There will always be someone who doesn't want a particular feature, etc. That doesn't mean it isn't valuable to someone else?

<comment><USER35> One of the problems is that the UX of these features is always pushy and obtrusive. The designers want to stick it in your face to make sure you use it (probably because decisions about resource allocation are based on how frequently they're used). The result is that even potentially useful functionality gets presented in a way that's obnoxious and makes people resent it. It's like Clippy, but for everything.

<comment><USER36> They can be configured that way, but they can also be configured to hover quietly in the bottom corner until someone clicks the icon. That's how we use intercom, and it's definitely been a useful channel for support and for prospective customers to ask questions.

<comment><USER34> Yep, absolutely. Same for us. And only for logged in users, at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anyone else freaked-out when a bank or something like TD Ameritrade uses Facebook's chat? I mean, they don't know enough about me already, now they have to know exactly how much I have in my brokerage?

</comment><comment><USER38> I wanted to share my experience as a startup co-founder that uses Drift as both a sales tool and a help desk tool.

We started using drift on day one of our product launch. Creating a user experience that is intuitive and "makes sense" from the get-go is not my forte, and we wanted to give users who were using our product a quick way to get help. We added the drift "chat icon" to the bottom right corner of our screen as a permanent way to make it easy to get in touch.

Over time, we've evolved our usage and now have a permanent menu-icon which opens the chat window, rather than a permanent icon that floats. This is a better user experience on mobile, as well as just generally being less intrusive.

As a support tool, Drift has been IMMENSELY valuable. We're able to respond to user requests, on average, in under 48 seconds (we monitor this). Rather than a user getting "blocked" on an issue while waiting for a help-desk response, we're able to address problems in under a minute, rather than minutes or hours. This aligns with our values as a business, and Drift has helped make that possible.

As a sales tool, we've begun utilizing drift landing pages in experiments, and also as a way to help clarify questions during the sales process. Because we're mostly an "enterprise" sale at this point, it has had less of a utility as a sales tool, but I see the virtue there.

As a consumer, I dislike when companies configure their chat widget to immediately prompt me after a couple of seconds of scrolling on the site. This is a configurable setting that they've opted into, and I would prefer if companies would not do this. Hopefully, over time, the statistics will show that this is a poor user experience, and companies like Drift will discourage this in the mean case, and rather encourage it only in critical moments in the user funnel.

One of the challenges in marketing is that we tend to always devolve down to the mean when creating products. Having worked in ad-tech, I've been both witness to this, and fallen for this trap. We're often willing to sacrifice a large percentage of our user base for features that show an aggregate lift, rather than asking ourselves if there are other features that can cause similar lift but not alienate other segments of our population. This is the balance that needs to be struck when using a tool like Drift, and I'd encourage the team at Drift to lean into helping customers understand this balance.

That being said, I have a lot of faith in David Cancel, Elias, and the team members at Drift to sort this out. They're smart, they're growing rapidly, and they'll adjust as needed.

<comment><USER39> Hey there, wjossey! I'm an engineering lead on the Drift conversations team. Would love to hear more about what you think of Drift. Interesting point about user base alienation, is there anything specific that comes to mind in that area? Anything you think Drift could be doing better?

<comment><USER38> Reached out on LinkedIn. Happy to chat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Chats popping up, covering a considerably big part of the screen and auto playing a sound – that's what's so annoying about these! If there were just a small icon and text that would open up only when the user acts on it, that'd be fine.

Here's the master filter list [1] published by this site that can be added for uBlock Origin, with tidiochat added by me at the end (I can't sign up for GitHub just to send a PR for this):

        ||widget.intercom.io/*
        ||connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk/xfbml.customerchat.js
        ||assets.producthunt.com/assets/upwigloader.js
        ||js.driftt.com/include/*
        ||*.crisp.chat/*
        ||*.intergram.xyz/js/*
        ||widget.mfy.im/*
        ||connect.podium.com/*
        ||app.hubspot.com/*
        ||static.getchipbot.com/*
        ||static.zdassets.com/ekr/snippet.js^
        ||www.couchbase.com/webfiles/1552355627964/js/contact-popup-form.js
        ||tidiochat.com/

[1]: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye/master/filterlist.txt)

<comment><USER40> I made a GitHub Issue with that suggestion for you: [https://github.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye/issues/16](https://github.com/bcye/Hello-Goodbye/issues/16)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I was once considering a switch to sprint... had gone through the process of picking a phone, selecting a service level and was half way through checkout, BAM! in your face chat, "Can I help you?" Cancelled entirely.

Same thing happens with Dell, I don't think it's possible to get through an order and checkout without an intrusive chat opening up on you.

I don't mind if it's an icon+label off to the side in a fixed position, it's handy if you want it. But when it opens up and interferes with you using the site in question, you lost me as a customer. And I'll actually engage with the chat to let them know they lost me because of it.

<comment><USER42> Aside from omg, buy your phone separate and month to month the contract.

You should use chat widgets to get discounts.

You can almost always get an extra 10-20% off from a lot of places via cs staff because that's what they're allowed to give and they're incentivised to give it to you because they want good survey feedback.

Dell and Lenovo are notoriously bad with this to the point I exclusively place orders through their chat staff.

<comment><USER41> I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's just so annoying to me.

P.S. I always buy the phone outright, was just getting it through the carrier, the price was competitive.

<comment><USER42> Fair enough.

And yes, the inefficiency of it all makes my eye twitch uncontrollably also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> can it block 'this website would like to send you notifications' popups too? those irritate me more than chat widgets

<comment><USER44> in firefox > options > privacy > permissions > notifications > settings, you have "Block new requests asking to allow notifications"

<comment><USER17> There are sites (can't recall now) that show the notification dialog as a layer that somehow beats the browser setting.

<comment><USER45> The ones I've encountered that appear to bypass Firefox's "no you can't ask" setting are just rendering a mockup of Chrome's, well, chrome over top of the page. It's a pitiful attempt because the UI they're faking looks nothing like the browser I'm actually using (beyond rendering Chrome's UI in a page loaded by Firefox, they'll show Windows OS buttons when I'm using a Mac, or comically they'll do the reverse when Windows is still far and away the most common desktop OS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Very cool -- the widgets are getting a little out of hand these days, I prefer when they stay minimized or at least out of your face. Thank you-- will definitely try this out!

Also love the Cruip design, makes it very slick!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for the kind words, did you use the buymeacoffee link? (guessing from your username)

<comment><USER46> Yes :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you so much, you really made my day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This doesn't bother me nearly as often as the inevitable popup asking me to "sign up" with my email address. Does anybody _ever_ enter an email address into these things?

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm probably inviting a modification, but I'm pleased to say this has no effect on the simple help desk I made for React and Node: [https://github.com/unleashit/React-Help- Desk](https://github.com/unleashit/React-Help-Desk)

Not sure why anyone would have a big issue with help desks (unless they take over your screen in an annoying way). Next will someone come up with a contact form blocker?

<comment><USER41> I'm pretty sure the entire point of this is because of intrusive self-opening chats for conversion, not help.

<comment><USER48> The ones that are intrusive, I agree. But I think that's more of a design issue that isn't particular to help desks (which I think can be very useful to people of done tastefully). If only someone would write a plugin and that could single out all intrusive UX, I'd be the first to install it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I thoroughly recommend installing NoScript. I've set it to only trust first- party-domain scripts and those from a few hand-picked sites.

This does occasionally mean I'm confronted by a broken site or feature, but all I have to do is look at the list and work out what's missing. It's usually an obvious CDN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know you could set it that detailed, thanks for mentioning that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's interesting how much work is done to remove try things from the web (vs adding to it) to make it usable.

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting thought...

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I totally agree that the chats popping up can be annoying. We've been using Intercom for a while now at geocod.io, and changed the settings last year to not have automatic messages. The icon is still hovering in the corner, but you have to actively press it to reach out to us.

</comment><comment><USER52> Daniel's "No, Thanks" add-on for Firefox and Chrome can do this, as well as hiding other similar web annoyances.

[https://www.kiboke-studio.hr/browser-extensions/](https://www.kiboke- studio.hr/browser-extensions/)

<comment><AUTHOR> didnt know that

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I feel like chat widgets have become the new email popups. Extremely annoying when you get asked if you need help one second after landing. Not to mention that many widgets also play a sound.

Saving this extension for later to go over the source. :-)

</comment><comment><USER54> Just want to point out that the author Bruce Roettgers is "an 16 y.o. and like to build stuff." Great job and keep up the good work!

[https://github.com/bcye](https://github.com/bcye)

<comment><AUTHOR> haha thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why don't you collapse it instead of killing it ? I sometimes need that chatbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can temporarily disable the blocker when you need it.

Why I don't collapse it? I find the solution above better, since I still really find it annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I find them useful, but they often block the screen too much. See [https://pulumi.io](https://pulumi.io) on mobile for example, the site is complete blocked.

<comment><USER57> That site should be a UX 101 case study for bad UX, at least on mobile. First there is a cookie warning. Ok meh. Then the chat pops up in the way. Click x and it goes full screen. Click back and I'm back on HN. Go forward and I see the site again. Scroll and the chat goes full screen again. Click the full screen chat x and finally I get to view their website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I honestly liked the website more than the extension. And disliked the promotion of having productuhunt before the brand. For the same purpose, I already use kill sticky headers.

</comment><comment><USER59> Is there a GitHub link? I can't seem to find it on mobile.

<comment><USER60> Doesn't help on mobile, but I use this chrome extension that allows you to view/download the source of other chrome extensions a lot: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome- extension-s...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension- source-v/jifpbeccnghkjeaalbbjmodiffmgedin?hl=en)

Edit: Found the GitHub page: [https://github.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye](https://github.com/bcye/Hello-Goodbye)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for helping out there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Ublock Origin with all lists enabled deals with almost any ads (excluding some crazy js, Umatrix and Violentmonkey injections are more suitable for such stuff)

</comment><comment><USER62> Can't uBlock Origin already solve this problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> I also created a uBlock origin filter list. Download it on [https://hellogoodbye.app](https://hellogoodbye.app)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It is quite sad to see, that authors of websites can not see the problem themselves, and we have to "fix" it ourselves :(

<comment><AUTHOR> i dont think itll end soon :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> This seems like the case of anything that is possible is bound to happen at some point ie. the combination of all possibilities

</comment><comment><USER65> Can you please add blocking of "Please agree to use cookies" hollyguacamolle?

</comment><comment><USER66> I wish browsers would simply block everything that animates, with a per-site opt-in for sites like YouTube where I expect video or motion.

Define "animation" loosely enough and it could encompass chat pop ups, subscribe-to-newsletter pop ups, artsy "intros", scrolljacking, and other unexpected distractions.

</comment><comment><USER67> Thank you, had to do manually do this through my adblocker every now and then.

<comment><AUTHOR> glad this is helpful :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I love you

<comment><AUTHOR> ok?

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Thanks, this is useful. Now my list of annoying internet content I wish for blockers for looks like this:

\- Chat popups: Solved

\- GDPR popups: Unsolved

\- In-Page popups: Unsolved (get our newsletter, xd)

\- Notifications: Semi-solved

(- Clickbait-blocker [All caps titles, listicles, stupid questions, annoying thumbnails]: Unsolved)

If anyone could help me with these I'd be very, very grateful.

<comment><USER70> GDPR is good for you. It is for your benefit to be able choose what is stored on the website about you.

It is the websites that are making the banner look so annoying just to make you quickly click "OK, I agree" button.

<comment><USER71> Consent must be obtained for tracking, right? The law requires that it's opt- in?

So when the GDPR is properly enforced and implemented, there should be no difference to the end user between blocking these content elements vs. clicking No or ignoring the element, as the default is that consent has not been given.

<comment><USER41> I wonder how many sites actually use the banner's "OK" _BEFORE_ they inject the ads and analytics scripts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Why would have such kind of extension?

Yes, it's annoying but mostly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER73> \- Startup invents chat widget \- Chrome extension to block widget I love the internet

</comment><comment><USER74> neat; why haven't I thought of this before.

</comment><comment><USER75> No link to the source code

<comment><AUTHOR> in the top right corner of the website or here [https://github.com/bcye/Hello- Goodbye](https://github.com/bcye/Hello-Goodbye)

sorry i didnt make it obvious enough.

<comment><USER75> I saw the octocat at the top right, but it's not a link - tapped it 20 times without success (mobile chrome)

<comment><AUTHOR> does it still not work?

<comment><USER75> Works now (and looks differently - a black octocat on white triangle backgroud; previosly it was a purple shadow on black bacground)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> is there one that stops the GDPR/Cookie law popups that litter the web?

<comment><USER77> Most can be killed with a 'kill sticky' bookmarklet which comes in handy for increasing all kinds of real estate problems.

[https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky- headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> nearly 500 votes, top of show, but chrome web store shows zero users. I don't think popularity on hn anymore indicates product market fit.

</comment><comment><USER78> Congratulations. You have just helped take away the #1 support mechanism for our SaaS. Can I just redirect all my irate customers to your email when they cannot reach our support team within minutes like they do now after installing your extension?

<comment><AUTHOR> The extension allows the user to temporarily show the widgets, in case the user does need support, but yes it would actually be a lot of fun if you would redirect them to firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER78> Funny, you know I think the commenters on here and PH are mainly hobbyist or work in large corporates and don't actually have to run a web service to make profit it seems. The comments about cookie privacy and GDPR etc. just proves that they don't have a clue about the legal aspects of running a web service.

Yeah I get that some sites use popup chats that are annoying as heck, but by and large, they are a tool to get more engagement and interactivity with the visitor.

Perhaps I should write a Chrome extension that removes credit card forms from all web sites so people aren't forced to send money to anyone. Who knows, might even make it to #1 on ProductHunt.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think those people that are commenting on here and PH are mainly people that are annoyed that 50% of their browser screen is taken up by widgets, while they are being followed around by 20 trackers (seriously why do people need facebook, google, adobe and crazyegg analytics on their site)

These widgets are just being abused to extract just a little more conversion rate.

You're just missing the point.

By the way, what do you think about my offer? I was being serious, would be funny to have all the support emails redirected to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: An iOS app I made for my wife and decided to share: Just Puppies - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/id917516772

<comment><USER2> Nice. But where do you get these photos? Do you pay to get them? Not sure about the copyright implication here, especially you are offering paid version.

<comment><USER3> I agree, copyright and proper attribution will be a big deal here. Does the photo set change on any timely basis?</comment></comment>


Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret?tag=softwaremotivation <comment><USER2> Awhile back, HN users rguzman, peng, and I (met on HN and) built <http://idonethis.com> based on the Seinfeld productivity secret and launched it on HN. We got some great feedback and kept moving forward with it.

We recently crossed 200,000 things done ([http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/22/idonethis-announces- it...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/22/idonethis-announces-its-first- milestone-200000-completed-tasks/)) and a bunch of people have told us that it's helped them tremendously.

<comment><USER3> Great stuff! but, why have you not used big oversized X's? These blue check marks dont give enough satisfation as big red X's. Test it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This might be the 10th post I've seen on Hacker News about Seinfeld's calendar.

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=seinfeld+ca...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=seinfeld+calendar&start=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair comment. I'll search first in future.

<comment><USER5> I'm glad you posted, I had never seen it before and found it to be very valuable. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _[I]t is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes... Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next._

A recent New Yorker article quotes singer Tony Bennett on his practice regimen as saying "The first day you don't do the scales, you know. The second day, the musicians know. The third day, the audience knows."

<comment><USER7> I've heard this saying but in the context of martial arts. "The first day you don't practice, you know. The second day, your coach knows. Third day, your competitors know" I wonder what about origin of this saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This concept has actually been turned into a pretty decent website.

<http://dontbreakthechain.com/>

<comment><USER9> Nice. I knew about the technique, but didn't know there was a website dedicated to it. Has anyone made an app dedicated to this?

<comment><USER10> If you mean a mobile app, there's a Don't Break The Chain[1] iPhone app that I use on/off. It's free with a premium version with no ads at $5.

There's apparently an Android app out there[2] as well.

[1] [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dont-break-the- chain!/id31356...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dont-break-the- chain!/id313567772?mt=8)

[2] [https://market.android.com/details?id=com.geolinx.android.do...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.geolinx.android.dontbreakthechain.pro&hl=en)

<comment><USER11> > "Don't Break The Chain[1] iPhone app that I use on/off"

You may be unclear on the concept! :)

<comment><USER10> Definitely, it's an area I need to work on significantly ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This technique works best if, for your particular goals, there exists an _x_ such that "Doing _x_ every day will help me meet my goals" is true. If you're a stand-up comedian, _x_ is fairly clear. For many people (including me), it's not obvious that such an _x_ exists. (It's still probably worth looking for it, though.)

</comment><comment><USER13> There is one really important thing that needs to be brought-up: Being consistent is important. But it is more important to choose the right things to be consistent at.

Some of us are really consistent at watching our favorite sitcom. But how, exactly, does that help our businesses? Couldn't those precious minutes be spent doing something to help advance our businesses?

<comment><USER11> Here's us committing to an average of one User-Visible Improvement to our startup per day:

<http://beeminder.com/meta/uvi>

It's not quite the same as the Seinfeld calendar strategy in that we can in fact break the chain, we're just forced to maintain 1/day as an average.

(Anyone reading this thread who wants to try something like that, use the invite code SEINFELD and I'll get you hooked up.)

<comment><USER13> That's an awesome idea. My main goals are: 1\. One Thing - do one thing to advance my startup 2\. Exercise

<comment><USER14> Suggestion: Swap the two. Exercise first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well. There is yet another minimalist implementation of this - <http://sein- cal.co.cc/> that works very well for "I (don't) want to do X" and check for each successful day.

In principle, it would be exactly like a full-year calendar on the wall.

Edit - This was our weekend hack some time ago. Feedback on the application is welcome.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there a way to abstract this into a service that has an api ?

You could setup your daily goals and the Tenacity API ( a name just invented <http://declancostello.com/tenacity-api/> ) could be updated by different clients.

Tenacity could check an RSS feed to see if you've blogged every day ( like yahoo pipes )

It could parse an email sent to a custom address ( like idonethis )

Flashcard Software like anki could have a plugin that would access the API

twitter hastags, github checkins etc.

It would provide you with a dashboard of all the things you care enough about to be doing every day.

I'm not sure I'd like it to email me like facebook when I've missed some goals, but it might be a productive option.

I don't have the mojo to develop anything like this but would it interest other developers?

</comment><comment><USER17> I wrote a free weight tracking web app based on this idea. You track your weight daily. It gives you some simple analytics on your weight over time. It's a small thing, but tracking your weight every day helps it drop over time and keep you accountable to your diet.

I'm 285 days in a row and I've lost right at 40 lbs. It works.

<http://thediet.org/>

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always found this productivity idea weak. I might set out 1 hour a day to accomplish a task, but if my heart isn't in it, it's just an hour of low- quality work--I may as well have not done it at all or waited for an optimal time.

However, I do see how this could be useful for tasks which aren't creative or need much thinking. Say for example, brushing teeth after lunch.

<comment><USER19> But at least you've done something. When you see it's not going well, you might stop early but it's still better than skipping it, because the _next_ day, when you _are_ ready, the stuff you were doing is one-day-fresh, not two- days-fresh. If you put it off until "an optimal time" you'll both make it easier to keep putting off and spend more time catching up to where you had previously been.

The grad student version of this advice, which I heard from several people and more or less followed, was "once you start your thesis, write every day, at least a sentence." It's good advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A diary app implements this: [https://github.com/dev1/kotivox/raw/master/kotivox- screen-1....](https://github.com/dev1/kotivox/raw/master/kotivox-screen-1.png)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is why HN needs improvements. Jerry Seinfelds productivity secret has been leaked on HN plenty of times. How come no one flags this?

</comment><comment><USER22> This can't be reposted too much. This secret changed my life.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hmmm, can't be that great of a system. The guy never made it as a comedian and works in computers or something.

<comment><USER24> Seinfeld was a successful comic. The end goal for a lot of comedians is to parlay it into an acting career, which Seinfeld did. Forbes estimates his net worth at $800 million. If that isn't a successful comedic career, than I'm not sure what is.

<comment><USER25> "woosh"

As much as I like most aspects of Hacker News, this place is easily in the running for most humorless site on the entire Internet.

<comment><USER26> Actually that's one of the things I like about HN. So easy for a community site to degenerate into a handful of long-running in-jokes, applied to the topic of the day.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are banks offering me jobs, but not tech companies? - <AUTHOR> I'm in need of some tough loving professional advice.
Background: early 20's, no college degree, significant work experience (full-time, contract, and high-profile internships).
I've spent the past few months applying for "career jobs"; hoping to focus my time and efforts over the next few years on progressing up the ladder within one company. As someone who takes ownership of their work, I'm tired of jumping around from gig to gig as an outsider and really want to take pride in being a dependable, go-getting team player for 'Company X'.
So, after casting a wide net, I started hearing from recruiters--mostly banks/financial institutions and large tech companies--almost immediately. Interestingly, the application process for the banks were the most organized and I received my first offer within a month. The tech companies on the other-hand couldn't quite figure me out... For starters, at one tech co. an interviewer insisted on knowing my salary requirements, and because it was a company I really wanted to work for, I responded by saying "flexible". She asked me again, and I told her about a job offer from a bank and she looked up to say, "who wants to work at a bank?". The interview ended abruptly and the next day I found out the company wasn't going to proceed.
While all this was going on, I was truckin' along through Google's application process. Considering how competitive Google's hiring requirements are, I was not feeling optimistic until they invited me to the final, on-site interviews. I left their offices (which are awesome btw) feeling really good. I honestly thought that it could not have gone any better. Unfortunately, the next day I was told they were proceeding with different applicants. My heart dropped into my stomach; I had come so far, tempted by the possibility of being a part of the dreamy Google culture, only to be shot down in the end.
Despite not having a college degree, I'm a fairly straight-arrow professional. I take work very seriously, and so I dressed-up (coat and tie) to all my interviews to reflect that. Considering the stark contrast in culture between banks and Silicon Valley tech companies, is this character trait playing against me at places like Google? I can't help but over-analyze the situation as all my cards seem to be falling on one side of the table.
I'll take any advice I can get from the HN community. Thanks everyone. <comment><USER2> When interviewing, do your research and wear the appropriate uniform, so to speak. A little overdressing goes a long way - tweed sportcoat might be fine for an interview with a golf-shirt and dockers office, but it's probably inappropriate for a Tevas and baggies workplace (though dockers and a golf shirt is fine).

If you are the kind of person who wants to wear a suit everyday, then working at a bank is more likely to provide a better cultural fit - it's as simple as that. In other words, take each interview seriously enough to know when under- dressing is ok.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Sorry! My Prada's at the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck-you-flip- flops you pretentious douchebag!"

No, but in all seriousness, I get (and appreciate) what you're saying. Considering my less than conventional educational background, I just wanted to exude my seriousness in the workplace. But as you mention, culture is extremely important at Google, and I trust that they have interviewed enough people to know who "fits" their organization; regardless of one's capacity to do the job.

<comment><USER3> I think you are over worried about your educational background, and its kind of messing with you. If google or anybody thought your background was crappy, you wouldn't be interviewing there at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree with what others have said, it good to dress appropriately (typically a notch above what people at the firm typically wears). That said, I don't think you should focus too much on clothes.

Google, the better I-banks, etc. will have a recruiting process that's professional enough that they won't reject applicants because they were a bit too formally (or informally) dressed -- especially for a position that won't be customer-facing (I'm assuming you aren't applying to sales jobs).

I'd call up the firms you've interviewed for and ask what they liked and didn't like about you, ask them to be honest. Most interviewers will answer!

<comment><USER5> > _Google, the better I-banks, etc. will have a recruiting process that's > professional enough that they won't reject applicants because they were a > bit too formally (or informally) dressed -- especially for a position that > won't be customer-facing (I'm assuming you aren't applying to sales jobs)._

I disagree. The recruiting process is still based pretty much entirely on human judgement. If you come into a t-shirt culture wearing a suit, it hurts you. The interviewer is looking at you thinking "why is this guy in a suit?" and it's a strike against you, just as surely as coming underdressed would be. You don't want to give the interviewer superficial reasons to vote "no hire".

> _I'd call up the firms you've interviewed for and ask what they liked and > didn't like about you, ask them to be honest. Most interviewers will > answer!_

No, they won't. Most large companies have policies against revealing why a candidate was eliminated. Revealing that info opens them up to litigation. "Oh, you say I wasn't hired because I don't know Python, but then you hired this other guy who doesn't know Python. Must be because I'm [some trait that probably wasn't a factor but might be grounds for a lawsuit if I can convince 12 random people on a jury]".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) Unless you have moral problems with the business domain, why not for a bank? Good salaries, interesting / challenging work, usually mature career development programs, ....

2) I had similar experiences. While our situations differs in some key aspects (I'm much older, have university degrees, long work history), my work history has also not been the text-book IT career path for most of the time. I also found banks much more interested in me than IT firms.

3) My speculation on why that is: Banks are better (in light of recent bank problems, maybe "more willing") at risk taking. Your circumstances make you less predictable than a candidate that has a "standard" career path. Big corporate IT is a lot about minimising risk. IT chooses the candidate that poses the least risk of a bad hiring decision. Banks may be willing to accept higher risk for higher potential return. My speculation is based on conversations I had about this topic with a small sample hiring managers at banks and IT HR managers I worked with.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm guessing that company that was insistent about the salary was doing so because they knew they'd be paying below market rates, and once they knew you had an offer from a bank who typically make above-market offers they probably thought it would make little sense to proceed with you.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't "get" Google's interview process. I've gotten to the final interview twice. Both times I felt I had nearly flawless interviews. I've heard that Google's recruitment philosophy is that they would rather sacrifice many good candidates than take the chance of letting a bad one slip by. I call BS on this. Like most things in life, getting an offer from Google requires some amount of luck. Don't take it hard that you didn't get in.

</comment><comment><USER9> > She asked me again, and I told her about a job offer from a bank and she > looked up to say, "who wants to work at a bank?".

I wouldn't have mentioned who the other offer came from. It's not something they need to know.

Are you actually flexible? Surely there's an amount you like. I would have said something like, "I have an offer for $X a year, but I'd much rather prefer working for you, so my minimum would be $Y," where $Y < $X.

<comment><AUTHOR> From my point of view: she insisted on knowing, so I figured by mentioning the bank offer that she would get a sense of my salary range and in-turn value to another company.

Honestly, as someone who has an interest working with large data-sets, I took her remark ("who wants to work at a bank?") as somewhat insulting. This specific interviewer was not a hiring manager, but rather questioning me for "cultural fit". I asked how long she had been with said company and she admitted "less than three months," which surprised me. I really got the sense that her hating on banks was regurgitated water-cooler verbatim, because she definitely had no experience working for one.

As a young professional working in technology, I think banks present interesting big-data challenges.

<comment><USER10> A lot of recruiters are idiots, for one, and two, their main skill is in manipulating people, i.e. sales. The shady ones will always do what they can to get a leg up, including bad mouthing companies that they are not representing, I've had it happen more than once when talking with a recruiter.

That said, I work with other software developers who have worked for a few of the major banks and they said it was awful, basically, I don't think its bank- specific, but there is a major divide between a company that's primary function is to produce software and one whose isn't, and banks do not exist to produce software, its just a means to and end for them, so projects are managed as such and developers are treated as such.</comment></comment></comment>


The OpenOffice.org Mouse is Real - <AUTHOR> http://notes.husk.org/post/235896208/ooo-mouse <comment><USER2> I'd like to thank them for creating a better parody of themselves than anybody else could have.

<comment><USER3> When did OpenOffice become a shorthand for 'bad usability'?

I mean they're basically just cloning Microsoft Office (There's a joke there but I'll avoid it). I can think of a bunch of problems with OpenOffice but I've never felt they had a particular problem with usability, not compared with Microsoft Office nor with your average Windows or Linux app.

Don't get me wrong there is always room for improvement and they used to do some crazy stuff years back (like have their own desktop) but I'm fairly certain that's in the past.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that they're "basically just cloning microsoft office". No good usability work comes from basically cloning.

Taking ideas / inspiration from Microsoft Office is great, it's a successful product. But basically cloning just means it works sort of like office, but different enough to be annoying, with no attention paid to designing the overall user experience. It's the same reason Gimp is such a nightmare for Photoshop users.

<comment><USER5> Gimp isn't a nightmare for Photoshop users just because of usability. It's a nightmare for Photoshop users because most of the features we rely on (say, layer grouping and layer blending effects) are flat out missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is actually going to be popular amongst electronic musicians who perform live. Two-dimensional analog position data that you can map to effects sliders and such, plus the joystick, plus all the mod buttons? Not too shabby. Might let yo do things with one hand that'd be complex at best to do with two hands on a mixer.

</comment><comment><USER7> It sure looks like a 3D rendering to my eyes.

<comment><USER8> unless it was photographed in outer space or hard vacuum, judging by the shadows alone, it is a 3d rendering (not to mention speculars, pinhole etc etc..

<comment><USER9> From the second sentence of TFA: "Many people doubt it's real, especially as the images of it are renderings"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This will be really great for designers who do a lot of formating and dragging things around the screen with little typing. You could set borders, padding, alignment, columns all sorts of things to make documents look really nice.

<comment><USER11> Maybe... except it's horribly ugly. I don't know any designers that would use it. They'd immediately reject it for the aesthetics alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am surprised it is missing a horizontal scroll wheel- although it could be programmed to use the vertical wheel in combination with another button. Does Apple have some kind of patent coverage on the little trackball scroller? I use that for horizontal scrolling in spreadsheets quite frequently.

I generally find buttons and other physical controls much more usable than touch style interfaces and would be willing to give this device a try to see how it compares with the Space Pilot. <http://www.3dconnexion.com/spp/index.php>

</comment><comment><USER13> OpenOffice is getting ridiculous. All we want is a super-fast client with capabilities on-par with office 2003. YComb should fund some company to do this; load times are getting way out of hand, especially on the mac.

<comment><USER14> What are they on macs? I get 7s cold and 3s warm start on my quite dated linux laptop. Which I'm ok with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you want more more buttons I recommend this: <http://retail.contourdesign.com/?/products/23>

I can't imagine using using a mouse like that.

<comment><USER16> That's not a mouse, it's a controller for media production. Key phrase: "pairs with your mouse"

<comment><USER15> I know... I have one and use it every day.

I do a lot of video editing, but I'm also a programmer. It turns out to be great for both and for anything else.

My point is that it's a great way to get more buttons if you feel like you need them. You can map the buttons to do whatever you want depending on the application, so it's useful in other contexts as well.

It's a good companion to a mouse because it uses your other hand. You aren't going to be typing with one hand when using the mouse, so it's great to have a bunch of single buttons available for common tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It could be a photo but the keypad is fake. The image shows too much smooth colour distribution to be an unmodified photo.

No sane product designer would propose a keypad execution like this anyway. There is a massive ergonomic difference between thumb typing and pressing with the tips of extended fingers - put your fingertips on the keypad of your phone with your hand stretched out to see what I mean.

</comment><comment><USER18> The undeniable proof of the blog posting: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougerino/4077512246/>

Blog posting of worse comedic quality than the actual mouse and if he is serious well then I fear for his logical thinking.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, up-voted you by accident. The link you posted came after the "if you doubt the conference is true" comment, it is just proof that there was an OOoCon conference, which frankly I find hard to believe myself.

Somehow I thought you were linking to this post: <http://openofficemouse.com/blog/?p=25>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm still waiting for the foot pedals.

</comment><comment><USER21> The many-button mouse is appealing as way of reducing movements between mouse and keyboard.

But it's even better to just stay on the keyboard and skip the mouse altogether. Mice have to be the number one source of computer-based tendon injury. Fortunately, the standard laptop is relatively "ergonomics".

<comment><USER22> They should have just put a laser tracker under a keyboard. Then you'd have a 104-key mouse and you'd never have to move your hands again.

<comment><USER23> <http://www.combimouse.com/>

<comment><USER24> I had the exact same idea a few days ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure about the future of a product most people think is a joke.

<comment><USER26> Like the red swingline?

<comment><USER27> Can someone explain that joke(?) ?

<comment><USER5> Before the film Office Space, there was no red version of the swingline stapler. After the film, they were inundated with requests for a red version of their stapler.

So they manufactured it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This would be very useful for WoW.

<comment><USER29> I'd say Starcraft won't be against it either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's not that far off from other products offered by Logitech [http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices...](http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/5092&cl=us,en)

here's a 15 button mouse built for World of Warcraft <http://campaign.steelseries.com/us/>

</comment><comment><USER31> Hey openoffice mouse, I'm real happy for you and I'mma let you finish. But iMac's hockey puck was one of the ugliest mice of all time.

edit: seriously, I'm joking.</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone actually used Parse.com to build anything more than an MVP? - <AUTHOR>

There was a good amount of publicity when it launched, all of my developer buddies said "cool, definitely worth a try, next time I need to hack together an MVP".
Since, it's been bought by Facebook and all of my friends have forgotten about it (much like hoodie, meteor and few others I can't even recall tbh).
Even now, I'm working on a project we started a few weeks ago and parse seems almost perfect, but still, we went with a weird hybrid/multi server postgres/node/php solution instead, without even seriously considering it.
So what has your experience been? <comment><USER2> We're releasing our iOS app (feels.com) next month on Parse, including Parse Core, Parse Push, Parse Analytics and IAP – pretty much all our backend except for S3 – Our experience has been awesome and we'll definitely be applying for FbStart to get some of those free Parse credits :)

</comment><comment><USER3> We built slightly more than an MVP, but eventually we needed to get into this hybrid situation. Now we're trying to get off of Parse, partly cause it's limiting and partly because its expensive.

It can handle more than an MVP, but it depends on the product.

<comment><AUTHOR> The question is: is it really cheaper to run and maintain your own custom stack/server network, than getting these guys to do it, when you factor in the amount of time it takes/hiring staff, etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe Yo uses it in production, and they have millions of users (if not exponentially more). Although of course, the DB interactions from what I'd assume aren't too complex.

</comment><comment><USER5> We use it for push in production, and it has worked very well (we haven't had a single issue with it thusfar). Haven't used any other parts of it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use it for Push notifications in everything I do that requires it. I have never used any of the other features.</comment>


Paul Buchheit: The next big adventure - <AUTHOR> http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/10/next-big-adventure.html

<comment><USER2> Hmm..Do I really want my friends to have this much information about me? Do I really want ALL my friends to know that I spent 2 hours over the weekend (not working, but) checking out videos of buffy 'the body' on youtube? I find the updates on facebook mildly annoying, but this friendfeed thing is truly scary. What happens when your boss requests to be on your friendfeed? or your wife, or girlfriend, or mother or not-quite-best-friend? Saying yes or no could significantly alter that relationship for ever.

I wish you well Paul, but I hope you don't put us all in trouble.

<comment><USER3> I didn't quite get it. Does FriendFeed list EVERYTHING you check on the web or do you add stuff manually?

<comment><AUTHOR> It only lists things that you have explicitly shared, such as delicious bookmarks, youtube favorites, blog posts, etc.

View my feed to get a better idea of what that looks like: <http://friendfeed.com/paul>

It's just the handful of things that I chose to share with friends, and not all of the AMAZING pics off of reddit or anything else embarrassing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At Google, Paul coined the phrase "don't be evil". I'll recommend a new phrase for this company: "don't look at porn".

<comment><AUTHOR> It only lists things that you are already sharing on sites such as delicious (and only if you add those services).

See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=61675>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, what's the exit strategy - I can't see "getting bought by google" as being quite so fulfilling for you guys:-)

</comment><comment><USER6> _"... With FriendFeed, you list the people you want to keep in touch with ..."_

Without having looked at the beta, have you solved the _"Damn I have to enter my friends list again!"_ problem? This was a PIA with twitter (insert N other apps) and is a dampener on joining other sites.

<comment><USER7> I have an idea: a website that just keeps a friends list. OpenID-compliant, no additional functionality. Open API. Everything else feeds off it.

No money-making strategy, though. Maybe it should just hide under the umbrella of an already successful megacorp who wants to use it for their own service, like Yahoo or, like you mentioned, Facebook.

<comment><USER6> Chris Messina is working on something like this ~ [http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2007/09/21/announcing- oauth-10-pu...](http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2007/09/21/announcing- oauth-10-public-draft-1/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My girlfriend will like this. There will be nowhere for me to hide!

Suppose people will find this useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congratulations!

A nitpick on the logo: that color combination seems terrible for text readability. I find it plain uncomfortable to look at. I strongly suggest pumping up the contrast between the border and the core of the text at least.

I don't care much for the OSX/Vista-like gloss effect either, and I think it's out of place in the frontpage, which otherwise looks pleasantly plain (a la Google, reddit).

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea alot. I do have concerns on privacy and questions about how the whole process is simplified, however I have no doubt that Paul et al have implemented some clever techniques to handle all of this.

Looking forward to trying it out!

</comment><comment><USER11> Congratulations PB! Nice photo in the Times!

</comment><comment><USER12> Woah, now google even breeds BIG BROTHERish spin-offs! :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> pretty lame. Probably I might be wrong, but as it is, doesn't look good. I just don't want to surrender my username/passwords to some third party.

<comment><USER14> "FriendFeed aggregates all of your activity from the sites you choose using web crawling technologies similar to those used by search engines. _For most sites, all you need to provide FriendFeed is your username, and the FriendFeed crawler will automatically find and broadcast all of the actions you perform on that site._ For other sites, or for services that contain private data and require special forms of authentication, FriendFeed takes advantage of the APIs provided by those sites to collect your activity.

From their FAQ: <http://friendfeed.com/about/faq#how>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> differentiation from Plaxo pulse?

<comment><USER16> not associated with plaxo's awful PR history...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> sounds pretty cool, if only i had more friends who would actually use this...

</comment><comment><USER18> Congratulations!</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good indicators of what one is good at? - <AUTHOR> Asking this in the context of helping a friend who is going through a sort of career rethinking. I have never done something like this so I thought why not ask the smart folks of HN. <comment><USER3> This is something i struggled with!

I wanted to be great programmer, i put in many hours but never became great tho i made better money then friends who i considered great and became a tech executive instead.

I wanted to become a good chess player but failed here too.

Someone suggested 23andme DNA test. After i figured out I've genetic potential of absolute pitch, I've managed to teach myself name of the notes i hear. It took just 10 hours of practise to master this.

I always recognized them but did not have name for them.

Second, i found I've high twitch muscle fibers, which are goood for mass - <USER2> i immediately joined gym and made good progress. It's still work in progress but i can see the size difference.

</comment><comment><USER4> Being good at things is more a function of practice/effort (and less a function of innate talent) than most people think.

Your friend should list the things they really enjoy doing and try to find the one that has a reasonable tradeoff between fun and future income.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/home/en- us/strengthsfi...](https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/home/en- us/strengthsfinder)

Give that a crack</comment>


Divine Inspiration Fallacy - <AUTHOR> http://justinkan.com/divine-inspiration-fallacy

<comment><USER2> People balk at Lean Startup because it tends to come off as patronizing, reductionist, and antithetical to innovation. The stereotypical "lean" startup is so tethered to short-term customer feedback that it will produce, at best, an incrementally improved version of whatever product customers were already using. In other words, aiming for what customers will want a 2 months from now, as opposed to 2 years from now.

To some extent I think this criticism is justified, but it's important to remember that even if big bets and profound insights into what customers want turn out to be correct, "non-lean" startups still need to be agile enough to adjust what they're doing on the margins through fast experiments. Getting 95% of the way towards having a product someone will pay for just is not good enough. To use Color Labs as an example, it can also be argued that Color was REALLY close to being successful, they just messed up distribution, and that had they used a small-scale, more iterative roll-out approach things would have been different.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the idea behind the post (your startup idea does not come from the mouth of God, a fallacy many have had including yours truly), but it's basically just saying "do Lean Startup instead of a big launch." Why not both?

It's possible to run "in Stealth" and "Lean" and do a number of key learnings and Product/Market Fit tests ahead of time, then come out of "Stealth" with a big launch. (Case in point is Betable, where our Sheila, our Head of PR, ran a great launch). I really do think you can have your cake and eat it too. It's possible to be a Lean Startup and have a big Launch. You just need to put a Chinese wall between your marketing ("off the radar") and your PR until Launch time.

Edit: It's worth noting that what Justin is advocating that startups _not_ do, which is a Color-style massive launch before any tests are done, is a completely valid point.

</comment><comment><USER4> Excellent post by Justin Kan.

The other part of the fallacy is thinking that nobody but you could have thought of the idea you're thinking of, or conversely in our patent damaged world, that if you thought of it independently then you can't be infringing a patent because what you thought up was 'obvious.'

Both thoughts are wrong of course. If you're going to build a business around a concept these days it seems like you should always file a provisional patent if only to force the due diligence on patent infringement ahead of time.</comment>


Memcached – Caching Beyond RAM: Riding the Cliff - <AUTHOR> https://memcached.org/blog/nvm-multidisk/ <comment><USER2> The way I understand this proposal, the idea is to find at which request rate the latency of a storage configuration (eg, 2x Optane) explodes. If your request rate is above that rate, get more RAM. I'm not sure I understand how to figure out how much more RAM? Until the latency goes down I guess?

Also what about diurnal patterns? Can there be a way to dynamically react and save power..

Interesting reference to the morning paper. But don't get how that fits into the story?

[https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/10/26/robinhood-tail- latency-a...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/10/26/robinhood-tail-latency- aware-caching-dynamic-reallocation-from-cache-rich-to-cache-poor/)

<comment><USER3> 1) Super workload dependent unfortunately. Probably "easiest" way is to set up test systems with enough RAM and disk space. Then either slowly reduce the RAM or start from a low point and slowly increase until you hit your target; there's a command for memcached to live-adjust the RAM limit.

2) dunno! For RAM that's super hard. for disk I'm hoping tiering will do something. ie; for on-peak you can add extra NBD space then remove it off- peak.

3) referenced tail latency because most of the testing focuses on displaying latency outliers and how the system generally minimizes them.

<comment><USER4> I thought the RAM estimation was (1) benchmark your backend, (2) benchmark your memcache<->backend, (3) measure peak traffic performance requirements, (4) provide enough RAM that you reduce the latency to acceptable levels during peak traffic. If you don't have measurements of the first three you're shooting from the hip. It is workload dependent, but the more measurements you have, the better you can estimate. (Used to be mandatory so you could do trend analysis and purchase your new gear in time for inevitably outgrowing the old stuff)

<comment><USER3> Ah my point of reference was more "how do you go from memcached RAM to RAM + disk?" not "how do you go from no memcached to memcached".

If you don't have any cache layer at all, that's a standard approach.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't the RAM + disk just be an extension of that method, though? It's like in the article, you test a subset of the system (RAM+disk) to find its limits, then you compare that to your other measurements and load requirements, and replace RAM with RAM+disk where it's cost and performance appropriate. But I might have missed part of the analysis

<comment><USER3> The article was significantly cut down for brevity, so any detail of how to find the right balance is beyond the scope :)

The original question was that it can be really hard to determine how much adding RAM will offload from the disk. IE: with extstore recent objects are served by RAM and never disk, so they don't count against your IO balance. If you're coming from a RAM backed system that has 500k requests per second, it's going to take some creative introspection to figure out how much RAM you'd need to keep the disk accesses below 400k, or whatever your target is.

Along those lines I just suggested a simple experiment. which is to just take an existing fully specced instance, add a disk, and test a few RAM settings to see how it looks. Most actual users of extstore have just done that since they're extending/replacing an existing cluster.

There're actually other ways you can simply read the numbers out of memcached but it just takes more effort or familiarity with its internals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bad hardware/badly configured hardware can add more latency than software even if it runs in the same rack.

RDMA NIC + nvme got 90%+ latency reduction over noname NIC + sata ssd for Alibaba in a large DC environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have something more detailed I could read about that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not trolling but a real Questions.

Under what scenario would Memcached be better than Redis in 2019 if you are starting new?

<comment><USER7> Memcached scales vertically. Redis is single threaded. Multiple cores are wasted.

<comment><USER8> An official position is that one should run multiple Redis servers per machine and scale by splitting datasets between them

<comment><USER7> Which doesn't necessarily help if you have certain shards that are hit heavier and it's more maintenance.

Also, if you are running on prem, you can optimize your VM for cores/RAM. At least on AWS, you can't perfectly optimize your core count versus RAM vs speed.

But then again, if I were running on prem, I might use Redis because it handles use cases by itself that it would take Memcached+ other servers to manage. With cloud hosting, I could use managed purpose built services if I needed more features than Memcached can handle by itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Latency matter when you have a lot of roundtrips -- ie databases</comment>


People Hate Bankers Because People Are Ignorant - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-16/people-hate-bankers-because-people-are-ignorant <comment><USER2> Some good points at the beginning, but then I got to this gem:

 _" The 1 percent preys on the 70 percent of U.S. illiterates, not because they are poor but because they don't know enough to make informed decisions."_

Since when is taking advantage of people's ignorance an ethical defense of one's behavior? This is crass victim-blaming. Sure, one could argue that most profit in most businesses directly results from some sort of information asymmetry, i.e., between the two parties to any given transaction, compounded across all parties in all stages of any given value chain. But this is different. If you're offering predatory financial services and products to underinformed people who are ill-equipped to bear the risk of what you're luring them into, you are acting _at best_ amorally. And amorality is a generous assessment in many of the cases that have come under scrutiny in recent years.

One can mount plenty of credible, justifiable arguments for banking and finance. "People are suckers" is a pretty lame one. Yes, more people ought to learn about personal finance, and about the basics of finance in general. This is partially a failure of our education system, which used to teach these things in now-ridiculed subjects like "Home Economics." (Which we ought to dust off, update, add some additional rigor to, and bring back into the standard high school curriculum. But i digress.)

No matter the case, this sort of sentiment does its author no favors. It undermines the rest of the piece, which makes legitimate points.

<comment><USER3> Ethical defense? Where do you get that from? Commonsense tells us that the author could not possibly know the moral intentions of that 1% and uses <metaphor> to illustrate a fact known to all of us and relevant to our life in general - that Ignorance can lead one to take the role of prey.

Your other little gem is 'Sure (!) one can argue that most profit in businesses ,,.. results from information asymmetry'. Since I myself must now press on with ensuring my customers don't know what I know, I can only think how uncomfortable you must be in the modern world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Right. Except bankers don't understand finance either, but they think they do.

And when they showed that to the world by breaking the entire financial system, instead of having to pay the price of hubris, these champions of capitalism instead got access to the public treasury because they were too big to fail, and were consolidated into banks that are now too bigger to fail.

And now they're paying the media to say that people hate bankers because they're not as smart as them.

<comment><USER5> "Except bankers don't understand finance either, but they think they do."

Amen to that.

Your own analyst tells you half the mortgages in the pile are toxic. But the banker tells the analyst to shut it and make the pile look good so the bank can sell it to 'investors'. Some banker.

<comment><USER6> Seriously. People hate bankers because bankers are ignorant to their own behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Distrust of bankers is deep-seated and centuries old. In times past, usury was a sin.

Obviously there are important advantages to society from having a modern financial sector, but the public is not entirely wrong to be suspicious of the ill-gotten gains of financial wizards who conjure profits by shuffling numbers around rather than performing more obviously useful work.

<comment><USER8> What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages?

<comment><USER7> In principle, the main advantage is fast and efficient allocation of capital.

The disadvantage is that human beings are greedy, fallible creatures and they're often more interested in enriching themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "People shouldn't hate bankers because it is their fault they accept misleading information."

</comment><comment><USER10> Basically: We shouldn't regulate banks because people will still dislike bankers.

Likability isn't really what we're going for.

</comment><comment><USER11> Most people's understanding of mathematics, astrophysics, chemistry, biology and plumbing is much lower than their understanding of banking. They are, indeed, largely "ignorant" of these topics. But I'm not aware of commonplace hatred of mathematicians or plumbers etc.

There's a big world out there, and the term "renaissance man" exists because it is no longer possible for anyone to have excessive knowledge outside of a few chosen interests; thus the notion of a connection between ignorance of a topic and hatred of its masters is quite ignorant indeed.

People hate bankers because they are individuals who have chosen to master a field whose intellectual demands are only barely above-average, but have a very large window for disproportionate rewards.

<comment><USER12> While I more or less agree with your conclusion, as one of extreme simplicity I think there is a major flaw in your hypothetical. Most people don't regularly deal with chemistry, biology, and astrophysics. Plumbing is rather commonplace and while I would't expect an average person to understand the intricacies of a complex system, they know enough to simply "get by" by fixing small issues if they choose.

<comment><USER11> Good point. Perhaps a better comparison would be doctors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Look, the only reason people are suspicious of conmen is that they're not good at telling which of three cards is the Queen."

</comment><comment><USER14> Why do people hate bankers: simple, banking isn't easy and the literature is too complex.

While not about normal everyday banking, there has been much research into financial statements of public companies and the readability of these reports [1]. Basically, how can most people understand banking/financials when the general readability of the documents has gotten to a point where even an MBA does not understand parts of them? Now, go into any local bank branch and the documents they have for consumers is just as vague, difficult to understand, and "transparently" informative.

As for simple. Banks have gotten better at this with mobile apps. But branches still neglect simple customer demands: stay open beyond normal working hours (9am-5pm), allow easy payments via ACH/Wire, and reduce the complexity of the loan process to name a few.

[1] [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1868591](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1868591)

</comment><comment><USER15> If people really understood what bankers do, they'd hate them even more.

For a start, the fractional reserve system is simply parasitic, the very foundation of our financial system has a built-in backdoor through which the banks extract rent.

</comment><comment><USER16> No, people hate bankers because they are leeches, as demonstrated by this article.

</comment><comment><USER17> The 2008 crisis showed that systemic risk in the repackaging business far outweighs the fine print in retail investment products. If people are upset it's not due to _their_ ignorance but because of the _feigned ignorance_ of those experts whose job is to study and understand risk, especially at government regulatory offices. The sporting equivalent would be for a commissioner to wax eloquent about the 'glorious uncertainties of the game' when the reality is a less-than-glorious certainty of match-fixing scandals.

</comment><comment><USER18> Retitle: people are easy targets for bankers because people are ignorant.

</comment><comment><USER19> Samuel Johnson defined bankers in the eighteenth century as "One that trafficks in money". Italian Kings in the fifteenth century had them expelled or executed. Solon of Athens couldn't stand them either. The three major Western religions also forbid the collection of interest on loans, further casting bankers into the depths of hell /s

</comment><comment><USER20> Conclusion does not follow. People are certainly ignorant, but even an idiot can see that the TBTF banks are filled with useless douches who'd be out on their ears if it weren't for sugar daddy government papering over their mistakes in the name of systemic stability.

But then, what would you expect from someone paid by Bloomberg?

</comment><comment><USER21> People are stupid about everything, not just finance. That doesn't imply causation of hate.

</comment><comment><USER4> That third question is a bunch of shit anyway</comment>


Romney's private email possibly hacked, authorities investigating - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/romney-campaign-says-republicans-private-email-possibly-hacked-authorities-investigating/2012/06/05/gJQAbgGtGV_print.html

<comment><USER2> "On Tuesday, the website Gawker reported that an anonymous hacker had signed into Romney's personal Hotmail account."

Hopefully he changed his AOL Instant Messenger password in time...</comment>


Show HN: Ejecta, A Fast, Open Source JavaScript, Canvas Implementation for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://impactjs.com/ejecta <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great response so far!

I also wrote about some implementation details of the Canvas API and the challenges with OpenGL in my blog:

<http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2012/09/ejecta>

<comment><USER3> Thanks very much for open sourcing this. Keep up the good work - <USER2> you post is great... great information, and great code. Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I purchased ImpactJS after picking the "Creating HTML5 Games" book about it. I was really surprised with the quality of the toolkit and how responsive the developer is. I think it was the best investment I made this year and I can't wait to release some games.

<comment><USER5> I'm very happy with impact. It's well designed and easy to extend. After quite a bit of exploring different frameworks and engines (including writing my own), I think impact is my long term game dev solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ImpactJS is a fantastic tool and Ejecta solves a real problem in a smart way. Phobos Lab does awesome work.

<comment><USER7> This guy is a hacker in the truest sense, I read a blog post over a year ago about him tinkering away on this. It didn't seem he'd take it this far. It's a great achievement and I'm glad he's been insightful enough to keep it free.

<comment><USER8> I used Impact two years ago on something and I was so impressed with the API simplicity and power (not to mention the fact that it ran very well). This guy does great work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any plans on making it usable without XCode? (or a Mac, for that matter.)

Since the users just write javascript code, as long as you give them a way to insert that code into an app, they wouldn't really need to use the XCode build system at all (I know, app store rules would need to be addressed...)

<comment><USER10> DirectCanvas from appMobi (I work there) is based on iOS impact (and enhanced) - <http://www.appmobi.com> . No need for a Mac or XCode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks like a great way to build iOS games in HTML5.

If he could to get this to work as an Android project it could be used to build games for OUYA.

</comment><comment><USER12> I want this in the browser. Throw away the DOM, and let's just have canvas and JS. Skip loading any HTML or CSS. It would be great.

<comment><USER13> In fact -- why do we even have browsers?

If only there were some popular write-once run-anywhere VM, we could pretty easily get away from this weird document-oriented web thing forever.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, like Java. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That the canvas API is implemented with OpenGL is very impressive. CocoonJS [1] (a similar project for Android, as noted in the comments below) seems to have taken the same approach.

On a completely tangential note, given that the main desktop browsers now sport hardware accelerated canvas implementations, is there a performance difference in 2D graphics rendered with canvas vs. WebGL?

[1] <http://ludei.com/tech/cocoonjs>

<comment><USER15> webgl can be much faster because you can draw many primitives with one call. there's a lot of overhead from js down to gl.

<comment><USER14> Then what is stopping browser vendors from implementing canvas directly in gl directly, making canvas more or less a wrapper?

<comment><USER16> Canvas is directly implemented in gl (or directx) in most browsers at this point. WebGL is still faster like the poster above says because you as the programmer an can make optimizations that are not possible with the canvas api like drawing many things with one call.

[http://blog.tojicode.com/2012/07/sprite-tile-maps-on- gpu.htm...](http://blog.tojicode.com/2012/07/sprite-tile-maps-on-gpu.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't JS performance going to suffer if it's using a custom build of JSC that can't JIT?

<comment><USER18> Native iOS doesn't have JIT

<comment><USER17> The browser certainly does. Or is this only an alternative to a WebView in an app store app?

<comment><USER19> even google wasn't able to include a JIT in Chrome for iOS

<comment><USER20> Safari uses a JIT. Other browsers and UIWebView based applications are not allowed to access the JIT, apparently because it is a security risk. Even lua based apps are not allowed to run luajit because code generation on iOS isn't allowed within apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting! I created Node-Five with a similar goal in mind (low-level graphics and audio from the HTML5 spec):

<http://documentup.com/arturadib/node-five>

Glad to see someone had the same idea for iOS :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Pretty cool.

What about the support for Android, any plans for that?

<comment><USER23> I was curious about that too. With android support, it would be a good alternative to Corona (use js instead of Lua).

For iOS, an added benefit of is that JavascriptCore uses Nitro, unlike UIWebView.

<comment><USER24> JSC as used by an app store app does not use Nitro. As the post stated, JSC is a private framework and the only way to use it in an approved app is to import the source into your project and build a copy of JSC that is bundled with your app. Since the JSC that you use is contained within your executable, iOS doesn't allow the write and execute permissions in memory that would be necessary for JIT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Reminds me of CocoonJS (basically the same idea, also support for Android but closed source).

<https://vimeo.com/45506217>

Neat in any case. Looks like a nice implementation.

</comment><comment><USER26> Really great work! One question belonging to this, do you know how to used 4x5 ColorTransform Matrices with JavaScript and WebGL/OpenGL? I can't find anything about this on the I-net.

</comment><comment><USER27> As far as I am aware, ImpactJS is unfortunately only for tile-based game development on canvas. Has this influenced/limited Ejecta in any way?

</comment><comment><USER28> Cool. This sounds a bit like Game Closure (<http://gameclosure.com/>)

</comment><comment><USER29> The quicker you guys realize it the better, Flash is the better choice.

</comment><comment><USER19> Apple needs to just buy you out right and include this in safari.

</comment><comment><USER30> Just wanted to tell this is some really cool work you've done.

</comment><comment><USER31> Any actual benchmarks?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't done any formal benchmarks. A quick test with 1000 sprites runs with 60fps on the iPhone4s.

Also try loading this in Mobile Safari and compare it to the video: <http://www.phoboslab.org/crap/bezier/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bugger. There goes my pet project. Nice one phoboslab!

</comment><comment><USER33> The word "Ejecta" sounds dirty. I feel weird just typing it.

<comment><USER34> You're probably not old enough to have had a walkman?</comment></comment>


The Truth Behind RIM CEO Outburst - <AUTHOR> http://www.singularityhacker.com/2011/04/truth-behind-rim-ceo-outburst.html

<comment><USER2> Here in the middle of North America, we won't see this sort of thing on main stream media, which is interesting on two counts:

1\. How does the BBC get away with this, when multiple US news organizations don't?

2\. Why doesn't the US main stream media (which in this case would be the "business press" I suppose) publicize this sort of thing? Sports team managers cracking like thiswould be all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not a RIM fan by any means (I love my iPhone), but I think Lazaridis did the right thing in ending that interview.

Of course, standing up to people isn't enough. RIM's real challenge is to make competitive products. Will they do it? Showing spine in the interview seems to say yes, but what they actually have on offer right now seems to say no.

<comment><USER4> The right thing to do would have been to be honest about exactly what arrangements they made months ago (at the time); if that was "we fully comply with the laws of nations in which we operate, including providing copies of messages stored on servers in those countries to competent national authorities", just reveal that. BESes hosted within a given country obviously must comply with disclosure (which is probably easier to effect on the exchange server itself, since there are LI products for Exchange already).

The actual technical architecture of the BES blackberry product, as designed, should resist these threats; it was just the blackberry messenger product which was at risk.

RIM's unwillingness to be upfront about this calls the actual BES architecture into question; they could trojan the BES servers or client devices if they really wanted, and no one would really know any better. It's possible that they agreed to sell a backdoored version of blackberry client devices in the affected markets, too, so even if you're talking to a strong BES in the USA or Canada, your communications can be locally compromised by intelligence/police agencies in your home jurisdiction.

When it comes to security, you have to assume the worst; the onus is on the vendor to show that bad things aren't done, or ideally can't be done.

This is pretty much representative of all the problems RIM has commercially (not just the security issue); they lack competent and effective leadership. They're pretty much the anti-Apple; multiple chiefs, none of whom are decent.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator Gets The Sequoia Capital Seal Of Approval - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/16/y-combinator-gets-the-sequoia-capital-seal-of-approval/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, legal question here, since I don't know exactly how this deal is arranged. Is this a fund in the traditional angel/vc model, or do they just now own a chunk of Y Combinator? And if so, do they therefore own a small chunk of past YC companies still in the portfolio?

If so, it would seem my startup is now partially owned by some of the many angels and VCs who turned us down, which will really kill some of my revenge fantasies :)

<comment><USER3> The article states this is a third fund owned by Sequoia and managed by YC. More than likely some of Sequoia's investors got intrigued and wanted to get into the YC game, but didn't feel like taking their money elsewhere because Sequoia has been good to them. Best of both worlds.

<comment><USER2> It was more of a joke than a serious question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really don't understand this. Why would YC want to manage a fund and investors? Is it more likely to get Sequoia to invest down the road?

<comment><USER5> * YC gets:

\- $2M more to invest in startups (more money can't hurt and they clearly enjoy what they do)

\- Sequoia investing in YC makes YC that much more trustworthy in the eyes of a lot of potential investees and potential acquirers of their startups. Also YC's reach in terms of potential acquirers and potential round 2 investors probably increases.

\- It gets YC startups almost all the advantages of having Sequoia as an investor without the dilution of a large Sequoia investment (eg: opens a lot of doors for the YC startups to get their products in the marketplace.)

* In return for $2M, Sequoia gets:

\- YC acting as a filter / very high quality pipeline for them

\- Early access to YC deals (though not exclusive)

\- Most likely, great returns on the $2M itself in the long term.

<comment><USER6> _It gets YC startups almost all the advantages of having Sequoia as an investor without the dilution of a large Sequoia investment (eg: opens a lot of doors for the YC startups to get their products in the marketplace.)_

I want to emphasize that this one isn't true. We're not claiming any such advantage. Sequoia won't be a direct investor in these startups.

<comment><USER5> Kudos for ensuring "truth-in-advertising" even when it's someone else (me) doing the advertising for you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Question for paul: your limiting factor is not money, but time, right? Are you just going to say yes to more interviewees or will you interview more startups? Will YC alums take a more active role between funding and demo day?

<comment><USER6> Because of the recession, money started to be the limiting factor. We didn't feel like we could prudently expand when there might not be any more returns for the next several years.

We are probably going to invite more startups to interviews, and we definitely hope to accept a higher percentage of those we invite. And yes, we're going to encourage YC alums to help the other startups. They already do a lot, but we're going to set up more ways for this to happen.

<comment><USER8> Is there an estimate of how long YC needs in order to become self sufficient?

<comment><USER6> It would be very hard to guess, because it all depends on accidents of liquidity.

<comment><USER8> Isn't that were numbers start to kick in?

60 per round @ 10 years is 1200 startups?

Actually, that brings up a completely different question: Can YC scale to the point where you can't remember most of the names anymore?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most important part of this for me is a 50% increase in the number of startups funded. I approve of anything which increases our chances.

Of course, in the long term, this will mean that Y Combinator will be more sustainable if it is drawing interest from outside investors.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sequoia is doing this just for the publicity, or just to find out more about Y Combinator. $2 million might well be worth the price for information about how Y Combinator is doing, since it is a very popular but secretive fund.

</comment><comment><USER10> Enormous. Shows the YCombinator model is working, or in the future it'll be working. (which it will)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this could be a way for Sequoia/Ron Conway to find good companies ahead of other investors. This way, they'll know all about the current crop of YC companies and will be able to spot the winners from day 1.

After all as investors, pg would probably have to report what companies he has selected for the program

<comment><USER10> surely if Sequoia or Ron Conway rang any YC startup _today_ the startup would fall over themselves to meet?

<comment><USER5> The problem is, Sequoia or Ron Conway need to have heard about the startup for them to call it. By investing in this fund, they not only get to hear about it before others but also get to monitor each as it grows, find out more about the co.s than other investors, which would help them make a better decision on whether to invest directly and at at what valuation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love Robert Morris' crunchbase bio: "... He has published extensively on wireless networks, distributed operating systems, and peer-to-peer applications. In 1988 his discovery of buffer overflow first brought the Internet to the attention of the general public."

I think we know that the "discovery" of a vulnerability is never enough to get the general public interested...I didn't hear a peep in the MSM about the huge Debian/SSL debacle.

</comment><comment><USER12> Everybody is over speculating the significance of this. This just means more opportunity for each of us to seize. All of you can continue debating why this is good or bad, but I am going to go finish my YC application.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is this the first step towards a YC IPO?

<comment><USER5> Venture capital funds (which is what YC is very very roughly) don't do IPOs because a public company has to produce returns _every quarter_ with some degree of regularity and VC returns are always very very skewed. I can bet YC will never do an IPO.

More importantly, you typically do an IPO to raise money for your operations. VC funds raise money from private investors. So it doesn't usually make sense for VC funds to do an IPO.

<comment><USER13> It's not something they would rush into for the reasons you point to, but it's not unheard of (e.g Harris and Harris), and if the goal of YC is to maximize the number of companies they can fund then an IPO may make sense at some point.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Learning material about storage of gaming telemetries in column storage? - <AUTHOR> Hi experts,
I'm looking for learning material regarding the following information:
- Event based social game telemetry ETL with high frequency (let's say 50K JSON strings per second as a start) and high volume
(Think some events like game_load, level_beat, purchase_made)
- Must be loaded into a columnar database (think Vertica)
- Data modelling of the telemetries for business/data analysis
I can skip the first two points as I don't have control over that, but could be interesting to know the technology considerations. I think "Data intensive Application" would be a good read for those two.
I'm mostly interested in the last point -- how should I model the telemetry data, so that they can be easily used for business analysis? For games we typically look for answers for:
- How does an A/B test fare (engagement/revenue)
- Game Level difficulties
- Are we giving out too many coins? (Game economy)
My main concern is: with the introduce of columnar store, I see more and more often that we model the data into very wide tables. I understand it's done so for speeding up query speeds (less joins), but data modelling is also about business side, so how do we approach the problem?
Sorry for throwing a vague problem but that's the best way I can do... <comment><AUTHOR> The reason for this question is that I see a lot of books talking about the ETL part (e.g. Design Data Intensive App, and tons of others), and also a lot of books talking about the business analysis part (data science/analyis/mining), but except for Inno/Kimball I see very few books talking about data modelling FOR COLUMNAR DB, FOR GAME TELEMETRY DATA, etc. And I'm realy really not sure if star schema/dimensional modelling still makes sense as everyone I talked replied that in the age of big data, columnar database, we need very wide tables where we can find every fact we need and every dimension we need.</comment>