Ask HN: Deaf wannabe entrepreneur faces networking issues. How to work with it? - <AUTHOR>

I'm almost completely deaf and it severely inhibits my ability to meet groups of people to the point that I avoid groups. Despite this, I'm still willing meet people or at least understand the transition process of making ideas reality.
Is anyone deaf or met one that is deaf as well? How deaf are you? What was the experience like? As in, were you able to understand in groups? And also able to pitch ideas well? How do you handle using phones/teleconferences?
Ask any question of me if you want. I don't mind any questions.
edit: guess html not enabled, strange '<p>' <comment><USER2> I had an employee for four years that was deaf. Deafness came for him at an early age due to a very advanced infection - I don't recall, but, perhaps Spinal Meningitis. Possibly able to get the cochlear implant, but, doctors gave it a very low chance for success. It was thought he would never walk, he never went to a special school. He could read lips well and could verbalize some things.

As an employer, it wasn't too bad. He telecommuted, so, most conversations were over ICQ. However, at times dealing through Florida Relay was troublesome. He did go to Linux and PHP user groups from time to time, but, mostly to meet people for contact later. He was a T9 SMS rocket. At times, communicating very complex thoughts when we were face to face ended up with me typing in a terminal window or writing on a legal pad. We didn't meet face to face frequently, and I did learn some ASL - only to find out that he didn't know ASL. He got into his late 30s-early 40s without ever using ASL and it didn't seem to bother him.

Interviewing him face to face was a little difficult, but, I brought pen and paper as I had dealt with deaf clients in the past while consulting. I had a prepared offer letter with me - just needed to fill in the amount.

We communicated quite a bit over ICQ about non work-related issues and he never really seemed to want to change much. He just wanted to work in a small office or out of his home, collect a paycheck, play xbox/ps3 and that was that.

So, the fact that you want to do something puts you a step ahead in the game. Many people, deaf or not, don't like groups. In fact, I would bet a large proportion of the readers here resist groups except with very like-minded people. I think ambition outweighs shyness. The desire to succeed will push you to do things that you might feel are initially uncomfortable, but, after a while, you'll adapt.

To make an idea a reality, it should be no different between us. You need to design your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), potentially code it, get people interested and using it. On the Internet, most communication with clients isn't verbal. Working in a pairs environment or finding a partner that will work with you might be a little more challenging, but, I would suspect you should really have that much difficulty. I know plenty of people that intensely dislike talking on the phone and prefer instant messaging, email, IRC, etc.

At the point it comes time to pitch your idea to get further funding, you will probably hit a roadblock that will be much more difficult. With Florida Relay, it was very difficult to detect passion - and by passion I mean the belief in an idea, the excitement of discovering a new solution, etc. Investors use verbal cues to detect how well you understand an idea or how well you'll be able to adapt to change or how much you believe in the idea. A translator just might not convey that as well which means your idea probably needs to be more technically sophisticated, documented, or thought out.

I don't really think you'll run into too many issues that any other reader here isn't going to encounter. Get your idea together, write a skeleton document, figure out what it takes to get from point A to B, develop an MVP yourself or with someone else, launch it, figure out where to go from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, the early parts sound pretty much like except I eventually decided I wanted a bigger challenge beyond games and something more realistic and balanced (sometimes), reality.

I actually liked groups, I really do. You can see me sometimes chatting in groups online. Unfortunately, due to my deafness, it's keeping me back from some groups unless there's unlimited time and understanding. I even bombed some (important!) group interviews because of time constraints.

I'm guessing Florida Relay is the text-relay service? I was so excited to hear about something like this and when I tried it on two mates, the first thought it was a prank and immediately hung up. The second kind of knew it was me but said it was like talking to a cold person. This made me fear that even seeking employment is difficult since I can't do phone interviews or followup calls without creeping them out. So I try to emphasise how great I am, just have some initial difficulties with phones (I dislike how a lot of entry level jobs in IT require phone use).

I've actually been working on the MVP (prototype) for some time, it's not quite what I want it to be but I agree it's a good start.

Cheers

<comment><USER3> > This made me fear that even seeking employment is difficult since I can't do > phone interviews or followup calls without creeping them out.

When I have a phone interview, I tell them I'm deaf and people are usually happy to do it over IM.

Text relay is iffy, especially if it's the interviewer's first time using it. I would never use video relay for a technical interview since the interpreter won't be familiar with the terminology.

<comment><USER4> Phone interviews bother me too. I am pretty sure I come through a little dimmer because I often ask the question to be repeated. It never occurred to me to prevent a potential misconception by letting the interviewer know that I have difficulty in hearing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi, I'm a deaf wannabe entrepreneur like you. I use hearing aids. I cannot communicate well i.e. it is impossible for me to assert myself in groups or even in noisy environments like crowded restaurants with individuals or small groups of 2-3. I don't know ASL. I struggle with accents too as I was born and raised in Delhi and moved to USA just one and a half years back for graduate school. I cannot use a phone (use Relay which can be extremely frustrating for the non-deaf person on the other side of the line).

I've come to the conclusion that I need a cofounder to pitch my ideas/MVP. It is a bit painful because I love presenting, I've been told I'm a natural. I have no problems pitching my idea, I can speak articulately. The problem comes whenever someone from the audience has a question. I can't hear the question. The workaround is to have them IM the question to me from their laptops but that can be as frustrating as Relay as the conversation isn't really very freeflowing.

I also hate groups. I hate socials and parties where I barely know the people there, I'm mostly standing in a group unable to follow the conversation and they end up being really boring. As you can imagine, meetups where I do not know _anybody_ are much worse. But the bottom line is, you need to adopt a different strategy. You need to build up contacts and use email/IM to pitch your idea instead of pitching on the spot. Collect visiting cards/emails.

Also remember being deaf, you have a big social network that you can tap in. I developed a MVP for delivering public announcements to phones in textual form (developed a webapp, Android app etc) and through the HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of Florida) I managed to get a meeting with executives from Continental Airlines. At the meeting, my professor at graduate school did the pitching and his pitch was incredible, I just couldn't have done it as well as he. About 80% of my communication with the professor was via email, I met with him face-to-face about just 8-10 times in the 7 month period the project was running (when I had to demo something). All the ideas and progress reports we did it through email. So it all comes down to finding the right cofounder (my professor would check his email every 15 minutes and preferred email to phone and face-to-face meetings with everyone).

<comment><USER6> I apologize up front for my possible ignorance, but maybe you could use a service like Twilio so that people could text message you questions. Then have it notify you via the screen when a new question comes in, so that you can address it at your convenience? It would take some time to set up, but that would definitely impress me if I were an interviewer, knowing that you made your own question&answer system!

<comment><USER5> I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't an IM client be equally sufficient? Typing on keyboards is faster than texting but still slower than talking and requires attendees to bring their laptops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm profoundly deaf too. My experience is people care less about that and more about your willingness to get stuff done.

You've already got a good start by just being on HN. That's how I ended up in my current situation working for a startup.

I've worked for other companies big and small. Nobody really cares that you're deaf, although I can imagine it'd be difficult when you're trying to get an elevator pitch across. Haven't had to do that yet. You naturally figure out methods of communicating with people, especially on a one-one basis, as you start working with them more. Group situations have always (and probably always will) suck for me, though.

As for teleconferences, we have video relay here in the US so I've used that. Probably just as painful for me as everyone else in the conference, though.

It's a good thing that so much is done over IM/email/IRC these days, that makes things a lot easier for folks like us. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm profoundly deaf from birth. In an in-person group conversation, understanding is impossible with all the verbal back-and-forth. One-on-ones are _vastly_ easier. People are initially awkward about the new way we have to communicate (repetition, paper, laptop), but they are always understanding. Access services help.

I recently was interviewed by a co-founder of a startup for an internship position. He lives in San Francisco, I'm on the East Coast. We used Skype and he was very nice, very open to instant messaging. To code, we used an EtherPad clone. But it's difficult to convey your passion like this, because there are two inputs: video and text. It's hard to appear passionate visually while you're typing, so there's a kind of disconnect.

How I handle phones: I ask them if they can text, email, or instant message instead. Never did teleconferences, but they sound like a nightmare. For in- person stuff, my college provides me access services for free. I practiced like hell with approaching people, understanding spoken language with the cochlear implant (got it three years ago), and speaking accurately, so conversations are no longer the sweat-inducing terrors they used to be. It turns out that most people didn't care I was deaf.

Consider a VP (video phone). Acts just like a phone, but a middle-person interprets both ends of the conversation. Naturally, there is a lag between translations. Be sure to let them know.

If you have any personal questions don't hesitate to contact me (see profile). You aren't alone. If you hadn't made this thread, I would have myself when I make a startup.

</comment><comment><USER8> Networking isn't a prerequisite for being an entrepreneur. Many entrepreneurs work from wherever they are and enjoy a mobile lifestyle and do all communication electronically - even networking.

The most effective networking I've done has been via discussion forums like webmasterworld and via email lists. It's also way more time efficient.

If you are worried that you lack a core skill or lack funding and need to network to find a co-founder or investor, just be straight with the folks you are communicating with - tell them you're deaf and you'd rather communicate via text mediums like IM, email, etc.

If you have a skill set that is core to starting a company, put it to work and good partners or investors will find you as they see how talented you are.

Learning sign language is not hard, so if you do find a great co-founder and you need to work in person, you'll probably find they'll put in the effort to learn ASL. Us geeks enjoy learning new languages.

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> The networking issue is because I'm close to finishing a MVP and need funding to take it further (especially since I'm not good in some aspects). I can only learn so much.

I am quite straight with people on my disability to the point of giving a very accurate analogy of my deafness. So I'll keep trying that!

I don't know ASL though. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi,

long time lurker here, but now felt compelled to open an account and post.

Your post hits very close to home to me. I'm deaf on my left ear, nearly deaf on my right ear after being born hard of hearing and having a series of hearing losses during my childhood and teenage years. I can't phone, can't understand anything on TV, podcasts etc. but can converse quite well in one- to-one talks and very small groups of 2-3 people. I don't know any sign language. I have massive problems in noisy environments or really large groups. Accents are also difficult. Lip reading and a hearing aid helps. Luckily I've had amazing parents who made sure that I received a good education and can speak and write very well. I also like presenting and speaking in front of large groups. Unfortunately too many deaf people have really weak spelling and oral speaking skills.

Networking has long been something that I dread and tend to avoid. I am a young German marketing consultant (freelancing mostly for other consulting groups and startups) and - as yourself - a wannabe entrepreneur. So networking is a must. I constantly have to find new clients, new projects, new trends and markets to tap into. My biggest problem is that phone calls don't work. I ask for IM or video chats via Skype instead. It's still a massive problem when the other person doesn't know about your disability yet or when you're dealing with a conservative client (typically people in larger companies). Phone calls are an issue which I have not yet fully solved.

Some advice:

* I hate approaching people as the environment is often noisy and it's akward to explain that you're deaf or hard of hearing. When attending conferences or meetups ask for the list of attendees beforehand. Try to set up meetings and plan your pitch. Most people will be understanding and you have a list of people you can connect with. Wear nametags always. Have really minimalistic business cards ready with only your name, your company and your e-mail address and your skype/IM handle. Turn down meetups where you know it will be extremely noisy or where there is background music playing. Ask attendees for personal meetings the evening before or day after instead.

* Get yourself an iPad or another tablet where you can demonstrate your product for other people to see. Have it with you always.

* Obviously: Ask for IM or Skype video chat instead of phone calls. Better yet: Set up your own secured Jabber chat server for technically inclined clients or contacts and if possible a secured chat site, too.

* Have an incredible elevator pitch ready for IM, e-mail etc.

* (I know it sucks) On your website - should you have one - always say you're deaf or hard of hearing. It establishes trust and causes people not to be surprised when you decline phone calls.

* Ask other people to introduce you and if necessary explain that you're deaf/hard of hearing. Use other people, even your parents. Don't be too proud for this but always explain why it is important for you and what you gain by it.

* Create a blog where you demonstrate knowledge of tech, markets etc. This makes it easier to evaluate your skills without contacting you. Same goes for social networking.

* If you have a product, a popular website or a lot of people trying to contact you use a virtual call center which collects and answers questions, contacts and mails/IMs everything to you.

* Be incredibly persistent. It's very easy to get discouraged when getting a bunch of new contacts and each one requests a phone call. I set myself a goal to get ten new contacts per month to a face-to-face meeting or an IM chat and reward myself when hitting the goal.

* The best though would be to work in large companies or in a larger team. Solo freelancing or starting a company yourself without being able to phone is incredible hard if not downright impossible (I tried it myself). Ultimately you need people who handle phone calls for you and who assist you in handling issues with clients. It really takes a lot of weight off your plate. The only reason why I'm doing freelancing is that right now I have stable clients who pay the bill.

Best of luck and feel free to contact me anytime.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not deaf but have fairly limited hearing on one side, so much so that if an alarm goes off and I am on my wrong side I wouldnt know.

For interacting with people I have come to realize that I instinctively use signals form the persons lip movement. I cannot lip read from that signal alone, but it helps me to disambiguate what one is saying if I can see their mouth move. A side effect is that if I am not wearing my glasses I will have difficulty following you.

For one on one I can manage relatively well by situating myself advantageously. But for groups, interviews and telephone calls it becomes harder. I also have to know what language you are using. If I guess that wrong, and even if you are using a language I know, I can hardly make out what you are saying. This has put me in odd circumstances: someone starts speaking to me in my native language, when I expect that person to be speaking in English. In such situations I am usually fairly lost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Try a vibrator: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Vibrating_ale...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Vibrating_alert) Works for me! Lip reading can only help so much. Try mouthing "Island view" to people and they definitely misunderstand you.

What's your native language if you don't mind me asking? Learning a second spoken language is pretty impressive. I could only grasp written languages as my understanding of spoken languages was pretty difficult.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your suggestion, that should really help. About the second spoken language, it is not that impressive in India. besides the fact that I lost my hearing later, and that too on one side. In India a grasp over three languages is usually the norm, proficiency of course varies. My native language is Bengali, though I picked up its written form fairly late. Mainly because my schooling was spread over a number of states and each has its own language.

Another round of thanks for initiating this nice thread, hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Networking doesn't have to be face-to-face.

I built my company with a partner who I'd only met in person _once_ before we started the company. We'd worked together online for seven years, though, and knew each other very well.

Sure, networking has value, and it's important during the fundraising process...but if your skills are strong in other areas, focus on those. Let your partner do the networking, if you aren't comfortable with it.

Also, don't let the networking urge get too strong. Building a great product is the single most important aspect of starting a company, so don't get distracted by what you're not good at; do what you do better than anyone, and you can find someone to work with who is great at the other stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm great at functionality and technical bits but ensuring aesthetics as part of targeting the demographics is making me quickly appreciate the efforts of UX/Graphic designers. However, to come across one without coming across as an exploiter, or to be exploited, or to be guaranteed some effort is something I lack in. So far, most are "interested but can't commit" the rest think it's too risky.

So yes, networking for me is more than seeking funding, it's to seek partners among other things.

Being deaf and not socialising means a lot of setbacks down the line. Think socially awkward misunderstandings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was born with hearing until I was three or so, at which point my hearing in both ears started declining for some unknown reason until I was profoundly hearing impaired. When I was sixteen, I got a cochlear implant in my left ear; I can hear well enough in day-to-day situations that people often don't realize I'm deaf, but I still can't do much with phones, so we're sort of in the same boat; regardless, I do understand where you're coming from.

It's still difficult for me to understand conversations in groups and ongoing environments. What I usually end up doing is the simplest approach: I say up- front that I have hearing problems and that it would really help me if people tried to speak in turns. I also try to choose my battlegrounds -- a secluded room as opposed to the middle of a busy coffee shop. The idea is that I give myself every possible advantage.

If that fails, I ask people to write something down, or to repeat themselves.

I'm pretty good at pitching ideas and leading discussion when I can leverage the environment like that. Phones are pretty much impossible for me to use, though, unless I'm in a very quiet environment. Some of that could probably be alleviated by practice, but a lot of it, I'm afraid, is just due to environmental noise/noise on the line/noise in their background/no lips. Teleconferencing is a bit better, if only because there's usually a chat option to clarify things that get mixed up in audio.

Whatever you do, though, don't give up. People can be remarkably accommodating if you tell them up-front what your problems are; don't let the one surly guy ruin your day.

I'm a native English speaker and learned Mandarin Chinese for a while (tones and all) and am still learning Japanese (6 years now). I currently live and work in Japan, using Japanese every day, and dealing with strange accents in English. It was a challenge at first, but I held my ground and now I've been here for four years.

So you can do it too.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not deaf so I'm afraid I can't give personal experience, but I guess what I would do if I couldn't casually join in conversations is:

* Participate in the online versions of the networking groups first... Get people to know your personality, who you are, and the fact that you're deaf

* Wear a namebadge at events so that people can put your face with your name and you won't just be some random

* Ask any "Formal" networking events if they could invite a SL interpreter to come, and try to get some sort of video coverage of any talks so that other hearing impaired people can watch them online

* "Buddy Up" with someone with better hearing so they can network with you, introduce you, and if nescessary, explain you need a bit extra help with participation

* Take a small computing device so, if you can't read lips, you can still read typed answers

I'm sorry if any of these are patronizing, as I said, I've never been in that situation before. FWIW, I think buddying up is probably the most helpful idea.

Best of luck, and if you're in Brisbane, Australia, I'd be more then willing to come hang out with another programmer, regardless of how their IO ports work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers! I'm actually based in Sydney and quite dry (How are you able to type? Haha). And unfortunately don't know sign language. But the rest are great tips. Aside from DTrejo's IRC networking startups, do you know any local ones?

<comment><USER12> My suburb was only one away from Fairfield, which got _fucked_ , but I was perfectly fine except for a loss of telecommunications at one point.

There is a fairly active meetup community in Australia... I know there's a Hackerspace, a Functional Programming group, a LUG, Alt.Net Sydney, there's a Brisbane Hackerspace group # #hsbne on Hackerspace...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pardon my ignorance but are there any iPhone apps that convert speech to text (Dragon etc.) in real-time? It doesn't need to be 100% perfect but it could help a lot. I personally wouldn't have any problem whatsoever speaking clearly/slowly into a phone if it meant someone else could understand me. Everyone loves to talk. You'd be a walking proof that someone wants to listen.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be pretty useful. I was reading something like that a while ago by a different company to dragon. Here's Dragon Naturally Speaking iPhone App of it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsge4iM-FTE>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the founders of Keen Guides - <http://www.keenguides.com/> \- is deaf. I got to hear their pitch as part of LaunchBox09 and it was spectacular: a large impetus for them to create their company was to enable the deaf and hearing impaired to participate in Museum tours, etc.

<comment><USER15> Catherine is a good friend of my wife (through the deaf community), Keen certainly fixes a problem that my wife comes across all the time when we travel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a really interesting situation, certainly not one I'd thought about before. My knee-jerk reaction was "well, this sounds like something you should start a company to solve." (ASL to speech apps?)

I'm rarely the pitch recipient, but I'd be interested to know how people would respond if you carried a video of your pitch on your phone. Sure, you'd have to iterate it a lot, and that's trickier with a video, but it might enable you to deliver the initial message clearly.

The other idea that comes to mind is . . . what about an interpreter? Could you go to events with a friend (or, ideally, a cofounder) who you can communicate with, who can then relay that information effectively?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't really have any close contacts or any friends remotely interested in joining my ambitious pursuits short of we'll try it out when you're done.

I don't know sign language though. That's an interesting idea to have ASL to speech apps but I think it would work strongly if there was gloves with tags so the software could automatically read it.

<comment><USER17> You weren't born almost completely deaf, were you? (I ask because your writing is so good, and you said you don't know sign language) Can you speak at all? If you can speak, I'd suggest getting two phones (at least one blackberry) and fire up an IPRelay call. Have whoever you want to speak speak into the phone, then you can read the text in close to real time, and speak right back. You could let the operator know that the call is going to be a multi-person call.

I've worked with a bunch of deaf people (i.e. more than 5, most the day). Half of them could read lips, and that helped out a ton. One guy could read lips and approximate speech, although in very limited english, but it was fine communicating with him.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was brought up to pronounce pretty well although I try to say some new words as I read them. Sadly, I know so many long words but can't say it offline which makes me come across as incompetent in some cases.

The two phones sound like a impressive idea. Has it worked before?

Also where did you work with deaf people?

<comment><USER17> Sorenson Communications. I wish I picked up more ASL while I was there, but the deaf people I worked with made it almost unnecessary to know ASL because they could read lips so well and we often had interpreters nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, I'm glad you posted this question -- there's more of us deaf guys here than I'd realized.

I am also profoundly deaf, as a result of bacterial meningitis shortly before my fifth birthday.

That said, I have less of an entrepreneurial bent than you do, in that I work in a consulting/professional services role for a small company rather than starting my own. I'd like to start my own someday but I have some of the same concerns that you do, and I'm not sure how to address them either. :)

Groups are very difficult for me. This is partly because they tend to break down into a bunch of conversations that are really hard for me to follow, so I tend to be afraid to jump in and really say anything since I worry it will be off-topic -- so I generally don't speak much in groups unless someone asks me a specific question. Doesn't help that I tend to be really introverted in general, too.

As far as phones go, when I interviewed with my current company they were cool about doing the initial "phone" screen via IM, so that hasn't been a problem. We use IM heavily for internal communications anyway so it's not a big deal for me, and most of our external clients use it as well. We've used Campfire in the past in lieu of teleconferences, or at worst my project manager/account exec will be on the conference and relay any critical information I need to be aware of.

Anyway, if any of the deaf folks here would like someone to shoot the breeze with or whatever, feel free to drop me a line (email's in my profile, please mention HN in the subject line) -- I'd like to have more people in my circle of acquaintances who are in a similar situation as me and understand some of the unique issues (like teleconferences) that we have to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am hearing, but my wife is deaf (since birth), and she does fairly well with cochlear implants. Here are some comments I have as a connected outsider.

* Know your strengths and weaknesses. I see a lot of great ideas on this thread to help with communication in groups, with new people, etc. But the main point is to learn where your weaknesses are, and address them specifically. There is such great technology around today. Figure out what your specific problems are, and look for solutions. Sorenson video relay for calling, or the myriad of IM based ones. Google voice for voicemail transcription (not perfect, but usually very helpful, and better than it being unlistened to). Campfire or other IM's for project planning. Quick demos/demo video available on your smartphone or tablet (Picture/video worth 1k words right?) Technology should be your bread and butter, leverage it to help ease social pain points.

* Have a good co-founder. As PG states (<http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>) you should almost always have another co-founder. If this person is hearing, great, they can more easily integrate in different social situations. If not, GOTO 1 (but also have the other benefits that PG lists).

* Have a great product, and believe in it. A good MvP should tell a lot more about your skills and vision than anything else.

* Put yourself out there. The easiest way to fail is to not try at all. Investors are looking for good products and teams. Being deaf doesn't interfere with that at all.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am deaf, use hearing aids, and know only enough ASL to get in trouble. For socializing in groups I can't help much (I'm still trying to figure that one out), but for taking questions at conferences or presentations, you should consider CART. For phone calls, if you want to avoid the coldness of Relay, consider the VCO variation.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is what I used sporadically throughout college to understand those professors with a particularly heavy accent, and consists of a person in the audience typing out the audience questions on a laptop or transcribing machine. You hold a pager-like device which the typing is transmitted to. There's a slight delay while they type, but I found CART transcribers on a whole to be quite a bit better than Relay transcribers, in terms of speed. The downside is that it is expensive, $100-$200/hr here in the States, so it's only viable for important presentations. I was lucky in that my university had an accessibility program and covered this expense for me.

For phone calls (not so much busy conference calls, too slow), IF you are confident in your speaking voice and want to be able to convey the emotions behind your words, see if you have Voice Carry Over (VCO) available to you. This variation on relay is a 3-way call between you and the person you want to talk to, with the relay operator on the line as a non-speaking party. They will type the speech of the other party out for you, and you can speak for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER20> Joakal, after reading a bunch of comments on this thread it seems like you have a great group of people with whom to start your own online meetup.

You could organize it to be in a private IRC at a certain date and moderate the discussion. IMs could be used for people who want to breakout and have private conversations. It doesn't have to be limited to those who can't attend a physical meetup, but maybe at first just to test the waters.

This post was really inspiring, thanks for having the courage to ask the question. So many people will find excuses not to do something and it's so invigorating to see people who, literally, stop at nothing to succeed.

Best of luck to you!

</comment><comment><USER21> In this case, the internet is definitely your friend. Also, it is worth noting that there are a lot of technical people who graduate from RIT and pick up some ASL while there to better interact with the NTID students. At some point you may be able to use that to your advantage, though It is really up to your creativity or luck to figure out how.

In any case, good luck.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not deaf. I have a different handicap. (I have a compromised immune system and get ill from spending time in group situations.) I have spent time looking at examples of other people who made money via the web. I think if you want to make it as an entrepreneur, you can. You just have to be realistic about what your limitations are and work with it. "Realistic" doesn't mean to me that you just can't do something. It means to me that sometimes you can do it, you just have to do it your way.

For me, my handicap is something of a "test" for other people: A lot of people don't understand and won't accommodate. They get discarded fast. I have come to view this as a kind of time saver. :-)

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER23> Joakal, you may not meet many people in your area, but definitely check out #startups on freenode (<http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=startups>).

</comment><comment><USER17> Oh yeah, the 12" dry erase boards work awesome too.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if you could hook something like Mvyu media viewer glasses to an iPhone or Android TTS app.</comment>


Brokers use 'billions' of data points to profile Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/brokers-use-billions-of-data-points-to-profile-americans/2014/05/27/b4207b96-e5b2-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html <comment><USER2> Quick google search found this document detailing the various groups and clusters that one of these brokers uses.

[http://reference.mapinfo.com/software/anysite_segmentation/e...](http://reference.mapinfo.com/software/anysite_segmentation/english/2_0_1/PersonicX_Binder.pdf) [pdf]

Which cluster do you fit in?

<comment><USER3> Oh man, search for "married sophisticate" and read the "day in the life of" section for the group.

I wanted to kick someone's ass so badly after reading that.

<comment><USER4> There's something really unsettling about those sections but I can't quite put my finger on it

<comment><USER3> Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's the way her life is built around buzzwords, brands and hopeless consumerism.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure, I got the same feeling from the other profiles.

<comment><USER5> That's because the vast majority of "western civilization" (and not only) revolves around marketing lies.

We're all living in Amerika.

<comment><USER4> Ist wunderbar!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "Consumers can't manage this process by themselves," Brill said. "It's too > big. It's too complex. There are too many moving parts."

As someone who works in ad-tech, for a company that uses some (anonymized) data from brokers: I'm constantly astonished by the complexity of the industry. It's certainly too complex for a consumer to figure out. I often have a hard time remembering who talks to who and which companies go where. Just take a look at this notorious (in ad-tech) infographic produced in 2010:

[http://www.adexchanger.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/09/LUMA-D...](http://www.adexchanger.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/09/LUMA-Display-Ad-Tech-Landscape-for-AdExchanger.jpg)

That's probably missing half the players and data flows, and it's also 4 years out of date. Things haven't got simpler in that time.

<comment><USER7> You're going to throw about 200 brands at me and call it complex? Is this a joke? Have these people heard of computers?

It's a flowchart. It looks like you haven't even tried to create a list of players. If it's less complex than SQL double-hop then it's not complex.

<comment><USER6> I didn't create the chart. The point I was trying to make is that each of these companies is a player in the industry and has either tracking data of their own and/or they're connected (directly or indirectly) to various data brokers. The chart greatly simplifies reality - it it represented all the interconnections between individual companies it would be vastly more complex. It can't do that because most of these connections are known only to the companies involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"The extent of consumer profiling today means that data brokers often know as much – or even more – about us than our family and friends, including our online and in-store purchases, our political and religious affiliations, our income and socioeconomic status, and more,"_

And this is where the NSA/FBI will go to collect data in the future. If, miracle of miracles, we manage to get the government out of our daily lives, they'll just write NSLs to these guys and in one swoop pick up tons of information from dozens of sources -- including data about people we associate with, since no warrant will be required.

These guys were doing "interesting" things when I last looked five years ago. Who knows how bad it's gotten since then.

ADD: I've thought this thing through several times, and the only way forward I see is either outlawing _any_ collection and aggregation of private data outside of that directly needed to provide service, not ads -- or making all information collected from any source publicly available to all. I don't see the middle ground. (Sadly)

<comment><USER9> I'm more worried about the people who don't need the NSL's to get access to this data. Banks, credit card companies, employers, etc. There's a huge potential for abuse that's more likely to affect your average person who isn't a political dissident.

<comment><USER8> It's good that we can worry about different things, but you're kind of making my point for me -- if the information is available commercially, all you have to do is 1) have a business relationship with the broker, and 2) punch in a credit card number to get it, no matter who you are.

What we're seeing is that the brokers aren't very keen on having everybody and their brother coming by to check out folks, so it's a quasi secret type of information. That's the worst of both worlds.

By the way, I keep hearing that phone companies have already set up e-com sites for Law Enforcement to retrieve phone tracking records (which do not require a warrant) Punch in your department's credit card number, type in the guys phone number, and get a record of everywhere he's been. Pretty cool stuff if it's true, but, as I note, folks who do this stuff aren't very keen on letting the rest of us in on the action.

<comment><USER9> I'm not disagreeing with you on the meta-point. I'm just saying, even if you're not afraid of the government you have reason to be afraid. As an aside, I think HN gets this message backwards. I think it strikes a stronger chord with people to talk about what their boss could do with this data than what LE could do.

<comment><USER8> Don't know, don't care.

I find debating whether the ship struck the iceberg on the left-hand side or the right-hand side a bit of a distraction from the effort underway to board the lifeboats.

<comment><USER9> Its relevant to convincing passengers the ship has a hole in it in the first place.

<comment><USER8> But it's not an either-or choice. In fact, the more approaches, the better. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _"You'd think if there was a real problem, they'd be able to talk about something other than potential."_

When the lobbyist starts talking in these terms I know they are worried. Sort of 'prove we abuse it' challenges are common in the intelligence community.

That said though, what exactly would you want to be true here?

</comment><comment><USER11> You know what I would love to see as a solution to dealing with this threat:

A clearinghouse where everyone could register to receive every report from every company collecting information on you, then a regulation that requires all companies collecting and brokering information about you have a legal obligation to send you all the information they have on you and keep you updated of changes, and a report profiling the customers that bought that info on you.

I doubt this market it going away, so the least we could do if require this industry to keep us informed of the information on us and how it's used.

<comment><USER12> I don't see exactly what the threat here is. How am I being harmed by someone choosing to show me an ad for something relevant to my interests than something that's not?

I'm not saying that I'm not being harmed, just that I don't see it. Are companies quoting me higher prices than if I was in the lowest-income bucket or hiding lower-cost alternatives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recall reading somewhere that the leading data point predicting car accidents was the driver's credit report, but this was decided to be private information in that case so car insurance companies were forbidden from using it. Where do you draw the line for this sort of information? It seems that PII (or Personally Qualifying Information in this case) is quite easy to find if there is someone trying hard enough to find it.

<comment><USER14> In the US it's common to use credit report information to price insurance, definitely not forbidden in any way. I'm not sure about the rest of the world. See

(1) [https://www.statefarm.com/about-us/company- overview/company-...](https://www.statefarm.com/about-us/company- overview/company-profile/insurance-industry-issues/use-of-credit-in-insurance- scoring)

(2) [http://www.allstate.com/about/credit.aspx](http://www.allstate.com/about/credit.aspx)

<comment><USER15> Credit score isn't allowed in pricing of insurance for a lot of states, including California. It depends state to state though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I once had a peek at a slide deck from another marketing services company, with very imaginative cluster names.

If you're in Australia you should wonder if you'd be filed under "Bogan Dreams". Or "Guns and Trucks" if you're in the US.

</comment><comment><USER17> The different segments mentioned in the article reminded me a LOT of what the Cozzano's campaign managers in Neal Stephenson's Interface [1] did when segmenting the population to target the campaign messages.

As a consumer, it's a bit terrifying how little control I have over this data. It sounds like they have deeply personal details on people who have absolutely no idea what has been collected and sold to marketers.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_\(novel\))

<comment><USER18> This is no different than what President's Organizing for America did:

 _The tool kit was custom-built for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign. It digitally linked data on millions of American voters, including their email addresses, through Dashboard as well as through social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, to an army of staff and volunteers knocking on doors in the key swing states._

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama- digital-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital- campaigning-dashboard)

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama- digital-d...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data- machine-facebook-election)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _the system of commercial surveillance that draws on government records, > shopping habits and social media postings_

Also, your cable television viewing habits. Probably your Internet viewing habits (as seen by your ISP) and telephone habits as well. "Consent" in those cases are called "terms of service" in common parlance.</comment>


EFF adds ASCII art to its DNS - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.ca/2658609

<comment><USER2> So, they don't use IP Telephony then?

You're aware you can add whatever you want into DNS, it doesn't have to mean anything that computers understand right? you /could/ make your A records the intro to Star Wars- but nobody will be able to use your site.

TXT is a much better option imho, or.. y'know, not doing this.

<comment><AUTHOR> TXT isn't an option because the records themselves are unsorted. Use the above command without the pipe to sort looks weird, but not as weird as TXT would.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately our DNS service doesn't allow NAPTR records, so we had to go the TXT route. Here's a large wooden object:

dig +short txt log.netkine.com | sed $'s/\" \"/\\\\\n/g'

<comment><USER4> I get this. I can't make out what it's supposed to be.

                             P!**9N#
                            9=  #(a:?4
                           {w   Tj(d w?#
                         @(d   !nPx   A>4
                        P=W  @{d :   9=w\;
                       V:   9a# td P:d  tj
                      {w  9=W# Px @=#  F=+
                    @(d  {d  #@= P=   P=@:
                   P=#  WJ#sjP:WP= a?tx(a#
                  P=@=d  gawV= 9=     wawa\;?
                 {w :    #9:w       @!9_axw
               @{d 1d P9:wd    P9na\;=# WSgmN
              P=W @=9=w    9{  # #:w   W4Wmm
             Pn  #(vj   P{aW    #{d     W4Dm
            !a P9nW    !w#     P:d        mW
          #{d@:w##    {d9:/4  P=
         P=WP=@=w/#  Px{J4Pd {a
        P\;H1w Aw9j#  :m?(J:W{d
       Ynwwaa*:wW## {d  9=V:d
       \;44#WWRav*# tj 9:d@=
       A?WW#W#W#w==d@(d !a
        A?WWUWQ#mNs4:W td
         As*XUW#UWNsj@:d
          #wv!W4W WW?=#
             bw?9*9!="

<comment><USER5> a log...

<comment><USER6> it's big, it's heavy, it's wood

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interestingly, with OpenDNS, this does not show up using the _any_ query:

        $ dig @18.104.22.168 any eff.org

        ; <<>> DiG 9.9.2-P2 <<>> @126.96.36.199 any eff.org
        ; (1 server found)
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 61530
        ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

        ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
        ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;eff.org.                       IN      ANY

        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        eff.org.                3756    IN      A       220.127.116.11
        eff.org.                6413    IN      NS      ns6.eff.org.
        eff.org.                6413    IN      NS      ns2.eff.org.
        eff.org.                6413    IN      NS      ns1.eff.org.
        eff.org.                507     IN      SOA     ns1.eff.org. hostmaster.eff.org. 2014031300 3600 1800 604800 1800

        ;; Query time: 380 msec
        ;; SERVER: 18.104.22.168#53(188.8.131.52)
        ;; WHEN: Fri Mar 14 22:26:33 2014
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 153

Though, explicitly specifying the NAPTR type does display it:

        $ dig @126.96.36.199 -t naptr eff.org

        ; <<>> DiG 9.9.2-P2 <<>> @188.8.131.52 -t naptr eff.org
        ; (1 server found)
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 65029
        ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 23, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

        ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
        ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;eff.org.                       IN      NAPTR

        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   300 10 "" "                 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                 " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   310 10 "" "                     !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                     " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   320 10 "" "                         !!!!!!!!!!!                        " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   100 10 "" "                          !!!!!!!!!                         " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   110 10 "" "                      !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                    " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   120 10 "" "                   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                 " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   130 10 "" "                !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!              " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   140 10 "" "              !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!            " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   150 10 "" "            !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!          " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   160 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!     !!!!!!!!!!!!!!         " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   170 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   180 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   190 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   200 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   210 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   220 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   230 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   240 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   250 10 "" "     @@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!         " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   260 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!          " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   270 10 "" "     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!           " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   280 10 "" "            !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!            " "" .
        eff.org.                6304    IN      NAPTR   290 10 "" "              !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!              " "" .

        ;; Query time: 507 msec
        ;; SERVER: 22.214.171.124#53(184.108.40.206)
        ;; WHEN: Fri Mar 14 22:28:22 2014
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 1876

With other resolvers such as Google public dns, or DNS Advantage, it _does_ show up with the _any_ type. Can anyone explain, why it doesn't show up with OpenDNS using the _any_ type?

</comment><comment><USER8> Not the only ones:

      dig ch whois.cloudflare @lee.ns.cloudflare.com

Note its TCP only to prevent abuse. Also overloading the Chaos protocol to avoid messing with real DNS.

</comment><comment><USER9> My first thought on seeing that is it would be great for a DNS amplification attack. Not sure the value as an advertisement though...

<comment><USER2> I think it's too big for UDP, it'll renegotiate TCP for anything over a certain size.

thus DNS amplification is impossible because spoofing the TCP source would fail a handshake.

<comment><USER10> The size is 1876 bytes, DNS servers which support EDNS will do up to 4096 byte replies in UDP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What happens if someone chops up binary data such as a copyright movie file BASE64 encoded into DNS text records? Does all the DNS operators with that in the cache become illegal file sharers then?

<comment><USER12> Not binary data but: [http://decss.zoy.org/](http://decss.zoy.org/)

Loot at entry 9, they use a similar hack to distribute the DeCSS (DVD DRM decryption program) source code through DNS.

> Mark Baker noticed that you could do the request to any nameserver. Which > means for instance that the DeCSS source code is available from the DVDCCA's > nameservers !

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the whole thing unsorted: [http://pastebin.com/z7BzEnhC](http://pastebin.com/z7BzEnhC)

and in case you want to learn about NAPTR: [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2915.txt](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2915.txt)

<comment><USER14> Regular expressions in DNS records? That sounds like it would be an easy possibility of exponential resource consumption: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDoS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDoS)

After a quick Google, it turns out some versions of ISC BIND were vulnerable to this... but I'm almost willing to bet a lot of other software that handles NAPTR could be as well.

<comment><USER15> Hopefully they use re2[1] or a similar regexp engine without backtracking.

[1]: [https://code.google.com/p/re2/](https://code.google.com/p/re2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would love a how to....

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.cambus.net/storing-ascii-art-in-the- dns/](http://www.cambus.net/storing-ascii-art-in-the-dns/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's brilliant! (reminds me; wasn't there a blog that was published in HTTP headers once?)

<comment><USER18> [http://www.nextthing.org/archives/2005/08/07/fun-with- http-h...](http://www.nextthing.org/archives/2005/08/07/fun-with-http-headers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> looks like someone had a little too much time on their hands...

great work though</comment>


LZW and GIF explained - <AUTHOR> https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~amer/CISC651/lzw.and.gif.explained.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm writing my own custom gif encoder in C and found this incredibly helpful along with a couple other references. But this one in particular is very helpful in understanding how I would structure my C code. One of the few pieces of the puzzle left for me to figure out is how to write to a variable bit stream as byte is the lowest you can easily read/write in C.</comment>


A collection of abstract patterns - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/perspectivesonatheme/patterns <comment><USER2> The first thing this reminds me of is [http://tvtropes.org/](http://tvtropes.org/). The subject matter may be a little different, but the idea is the same: cataloging and indexing conceptual information that is relevant to humans.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Controlled defects > ... > hpv vaccine: from a parent's perspective, it can > admit that their kid needs to be protected from something that the parent > prohibits; it's an admission of weakness of their authority

Interesting example. Could vaccines themselves be considered an example of controlled defects?

 _edit_ : I also notice the "Streisand effect" is listed here. If memory serves, that is about an attempt to forbid the distribution of a photo of her luxurious beachfront home—which thus became a much bigger story. But at first I thought it was about her declining any kind of rhinoplasty to avoid tampering with her voice ( _edit_ which is hearsay). Certainly there are many "corrective" surgeries which only call much more attention than the original "defect."

<comment><AUTHOR> That does indeed fit, using the interpretation that introducing a pathogen in a controlled manner has its own risks, but may prevent the relatively severe effects of an infection. I'll add it as an example in the next push.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are fairly standard concepts for architects. Engineers deconstruct problems into implementations. Architects abstract problems into the rules that govern them. Both arrive in similar places, but usually for different reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> The dichotomy I usually use is between science and engineering. Science is about breaking systems down into components. Engineering is about composing components into systems. This project is very much on the science side of that. It doesn't propose any courses of action or anything. And yes, most of the concepts are pretty standard. The purpose of the project is to put them all out in the open so they can themselves be studied, and also so we can have a shared langauge about this sort of stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, but if you're a functional human being, you don't _need_ patterns.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's like saying you don't need math. For the most part, in everyday life, that's true, but there are cases where functional human beings disagree, or we find ourselves in novel situations that we don't know how to handle. In those cases, we need new ways to think and communicate. Intuition works great for catching a ball, but you'll need math to land a rocket on mars.

<comment><USER5> This was my attempt to joke about the fact that every time design patterns in software architecture are mentioned, someone pipes up about how design patterns aren't useful in functional languages because it's all built in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting ... but I still prefer WikiPedia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wikipedia is an incredible resource and I have relied on it heavily in the development of this project. But for specific areas, an integrated, specialized approach gives you more control over things like organization, format, and what content to include or exclude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Upvoted and donated. Some concepts that could really help my day-to-day way of thinking.</comment>


Gateway and Merchant account - <AUTHOR>

We need a payment system for our website where we'll be able to reserve an amount against a buyer's account and settle it after wards. During the settlement we would transfer part of the buyer's deposit to a seller. We cannot go with Amazon FPS, PayPal or Google Checkout. What gateway and merchant account would you suggest? <comment><USER2> Most IPSPs support this kind of functionality, it's called a pre-auth.

You can place a hold on it for a 3-5 business day period, depending on the issuer and gateway details.

It's hard to suggest a company to deal with without knowing more about your location and other details but more IPSPs will do this. Also, please make sure you have your own merchant account, do not get sucked in to have a third party arrangement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our customers are largely going to be located in the US. Right now we are thinking of going with Authorize.net or Braintree for the credit card processing.

<comment><USER3> I looked into both of these companies last year and made the following observations back then:

Braintree looks _great_ , but you need a rather large minimum monthly to sign with them (6 figures, can't remember the cutoff then). But they seemed to be the class act at the time.

Authorize.net just does not inspire trust, from their business practices to their flaky infrastructure (plus they've been a major target for attacks). They _do_ have some pretty neat public APIs you can use.

Good luck! This is not an easy area.

<comment><USER4> Thanks @hga for the nice comment, we certainly try. Regarding the volume minimum, we did away with that about a year ago.

@j1477 - here are a few resources that may help you in your search for a solution:

1\. You mentioned reserving an amount on a credit card. You can do this one of two ways. First, you can authorize a credit/debit card and then settle it at a later date. Authorizations do go stale after a few days (the general rule is 7 days, but it varies bank to bank) so if the time between authorization and settlement is greater than ~7 days, you'll need to reauthorize to complete the transaction. Also, authorizations cannot be settled more than once. For example, you can't authorize a card for $100 and then settle it twice, each for $50.

The second option is to do an Account Verification request. Here is more information on that: <http://bit.ly/NlKuG>

2\. The second thing you mentioned was "transfer part of the buyer's deposit to a seller". I may not understand this correctly, but this sounds like you're collecting payment on behalf of a third party, which is known as aggregation and is one of the highest forms of risk in payment processing. Here is more information on that: <http://bit.ly/775RkJ>

If you're looking to transfer funds to payout out another provider, you could also move the funds via electronic funds transfer (EFT) from your bank to theirs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks bryanjohnson. I was wondering if you work for Braintree and if you could please tell me who at Braintree I could contact as a new merchant? I would like to discuss our business model and see if we could achieve the same effect without putting ourselves in the higher risk category.

<comment><USER4> Yes, sorry, forgot to mention that I am with Braintree. You can contact Eric at ej at getbraintree.com and he will be able to provide some guidance.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any high frequency trading hackers - <AUTHOR> What are the current challenges in high frequency trading?<p>Can anyone suggest me few tasks [like implement foo algorithm], so that I can directly jump into those tasks during my free time <comment><USER2> There are a lot of problems with HFT (high-frequency trading) that basically boil down to proximity to the exchange. If you haven't paid for a colo inside their datacenters you can't well expect to use the usual HFT tricks of putting in requests for things you don't want and then never making actions on them because your 40ms latency to the exchange will mean that the guys in the colo have acted on your move. I heard someone say that they got a colo for 10,000 a month (sorry, I don't have a source for that) so that kind of edges you out of really good HFT. Another thing to know is that you are running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to grab pennies off a railroad track that is running bullet trains (I love that analogy). i.e. very dangerous. Slight mistakes can cost you hundreds of dollars ever 20ms until you hit ctrl+C in your script! I do wish you the best of luck and I hope you will write about your progress/experience in HFT on HN in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for alerting me! I am a newbie to this field, but love to explore the pros and cons of the current algorithms used in HFT. Sure! I will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> HFT is, as the name suggests, all about speed - sub-millisecond latency in some markets. It requires a lot of physical and expensive resources, not to mention an extremely deep knowledge of the mechanics of whatever contracts you wish to trade and the exchanges they are traded on. Basically there's a reason this field is played only by the big banks and hedge funds. (I bank I know spent at least $10m setting up an HFT desk)

Algo trading is probably a much better option: basically trading off the back of quant/stat analysis you have done with respect to prices (or relative prices). You'll learn lots about whatever contracts/instruments/markets you're interested in, plus get to flex your geeky skills. And you can do it from a laptop at home over a regular intenet connection with some cheap, if not free, trading platform or api.

<comment><USER4> Is it actually still possible (with that I mean realistic) to make a profit that way? You'd say the banks have seized all algorithmic trading oppertunities, if you try something like that at home you'll always be second violin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been working on an algorithmic trading system using machine learning, it is not HFT currently. It is currently daily (24h+ held equities), the intra- day side (~5-60 minute held equities) will come very quick after I feel comfortable with the machine learning side of things. The source of data will change, and a few tweaks to the actual trading system and it will be running intra-day. The HFT will only come around once I can get a small colo that can achieve the necessary <40ms transactions to get the benefit of the pre-window before orders actually hit the open market.

<http://edwardworthington.com/>

Sorry the interface was thrown together over a weekend (The actual back-end application was the primary focus for the last year as it was just me looking at it via command line) and quickly designed it with a large AJAX load at the beginning, I'll eventually change it to a static load then do ajax polling to update the data.

I cannot recommend any particular reading sources as I've been working with my financial buddies, that have been feeding me tips and doing my own discovery on the internet.

This was just a side project of mine but has turned into a really nice application. It is always calculating the better strategies (out of over 50 possible different methods/functions with variables ranging from 0-260 that are used to indicate open and close signals in any number of combinations). It has improved its strategy over the last week taking it from estimating ~60% to ~70% gains YTD. I have no doubt it will eventually get over 100%.

I'd love to collaborate with anyone wanting to get into this stuff as I'm flying solo.

<comment><USER6> Where do you get the data? I've found that access to (inexpensive) sources of data to be a problem. For backtesting, I'd love to get historical data; even a sample would do. A long time ago, Island used to make their data available. Then they were bought out by NASDAQ, and no more data :-(

<comment><USER5> I've been collecting data from various places, originally while I was building the framework I simply downloaded yahoo daily data to test against.

Now I've been downloading and recording tick changes from my broker, Optionshouse.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hadn't started implementing any systems yet, but earlier this year I ordered these and they've been ultra-educational at least for figuring out how to get started, vocabulary, etc.:

High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470563761>

Inside the Black Box: The Simple Truth About Quantitative Trading <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470432063>

Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470284889>

<comment><AUTHOR> Add to the list <http://helwr.posterous.com/trading-354>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You won't find a better place to ask than: [http://www.wilmott.com/index.cfm?&forumid=1](http://www.wilmott.com/index.cfm?&forumid=1)

<comment><USER9> There is a fledgling Hacker-News-for-quants at <http://quant.ly>.

The site is still building critical mass, but most of the current users are experienced quants & HF traders. (Disclaimer: I launched the site)

<comment><USER10> I nearly launched quantly.com a year ago. Almost bought the .ly but held off on it. Surprising to see someone using the domain here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd suggest maybe look at algo trading rather than HF, it's much more accesible to outsiders, plus you can use the algorithms on places like betfair and stand a decent chance of actually making money.

<comment><USER12> Do you have any suggestions on where to start reading on Algorithmic Trading? Perhaps also a way that I could test algorithms against the market, without actually risking any money?

<comment><USER13> You can buy historical 'tick data'. Be forewarned, however, that simulations run on this kind of data are not the same as real trading since it doesn't reflect the bid/ask. Also in my opinion and experience, price alone is insufficient data for analysis. Also don't forget to figure in total execution cost as it makes a huge difference in the evaluation of algorithms, not to mention the 'bank roll' necessary to allow any 'edge' to play out. Trading simulations are an engaging software problem, but they aren't such a great approximation of actual trading, at least in my experience.

<comment><USER5> You can also download daily tick data from Yahoo Finance for free, They offer bid/ask, volume, and adjusted closes.

<comment><USER14> "Tick data" refers to trade by trade execution data. Daily data is end of day summary data. If you are doing HFT, you need tick data and the market depth. Huge volumes of data compared to daily close data.

<comment><USER5> Aye, Tick data is needed for HFT, no doubt there. I was actually talking towards this thread which mentioned that they should try algorithmic trading first. Which you can build a successful system around daily closes, as long as you plan to hold your equity for over a 24hr period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In the big picture view it seems that HFT is becoming a crowded trade. I would think the competition would be a huge challenge. Maybe you should try to start off in foreign markets where there is some breathing room - if that's possible.

Here is an article about about wall street programmers leaving the big boys to go at it alone.

[http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/28/high-frequency-trading- pers...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/28/high-frequency-trading-personal- finance-programmer-pay.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Challenges:

* The need for speed, at every level of the architecture (network, tcp/ip, hardware, app)

* Reducing order (send/ack) round-trip times, this generally means putting your servers in a data cetre as close to the exchange as possible (co-located, if the exchange offers it). If your trading across multiple exchanges simultaneously it gets trickier.

* Sourcing market data - can you source direct from the exchange, rather than through a 3rd party like Reuters? Again, it comes down to how fast you can re-act to the market.

* Back-testing - you need historical data to test a model, then you need a way of testing the model - what are you going to test against? How are you going to simulate the exchange?

* Expense - it's expensive - market data, co-location etc etc all costs, as others suggested. HFT is generally short term positions, with some arbitrage strategies holding positions for less than a few milliseconds. A medium term (intra-day) type strategy requires less intensive (expensive) technology as your not trading to capture market prices that might only be extant for a few milliseconds.

</comment><comment><USER17> Light speed seems to be a pretty important problem - the added benefit being if you crack that nut, further employment will be unnecessary.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, but causal loops would be a bitch.

<comment><USER17> Oh, well, what's one more type of pollution? I think a world with causal pollution would be a more interesting one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What value does HFT create?

<comment><USER20> HFT provides liquidity which reduces everyone else's cost and/or exposure to short term risk.

Low-latency trading though costs everyone. Nobody actually needs anything faster than a fill in a blink of an eye. The only people who think they do really need smarter match engines or to stop taking advantage of people

<comment><USER19> Where does short-term risk come from? And what's the difference between HFT and LLT?

If anyone knows of good high-level reading material on the subject, I'd appreciate a link so I can spare you more dumb questions.

I admit to having drunk some of Mark Cuban's Kool-Aid, as well as Jon Stewart's and that of some other liberal sources. Their argument, as far as I understand, is that HFT doesn't provide value proportionate with that which it extracts from a system designed to connect investors with entrepreneurs.

The idea has an appealing simplicity, especially given recent history, but don't know very much about markets, so I thought I'd ask people on the other side of the debate for their take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maxeler Technologies (<http://www.maxeler.com)supplies> turnkey FPGA-based acceleration that supports high speed trading with trading latencies on the order of a few microseconds. Software development for the accelerated platform begins with a client's "known to work" proprietary code, which Maxeler accelerates. When latency is an important performance factor, the Maxeler trading server needs to be collocated in the exchange.

</comment><comment><USER22> Get in touch with savvis to do a colo at NJ2.

</comment><comment><USER23> One of the best book I read about electronic trading is Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners.</comment>


Web 2.0, Microsoft, and the Costs at Scale - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/web_20_microsof_1.html <comment><USER2> "In the future, being a developer on someone's platform will mean being hosted on their infrastructure."

What about Moore's law, though? In 20 years one might be able to buy a PC with the calculating capacity of Google's whole server farm for a couple of thousand bucks...

<comment><AUTHOR> _'... What about Moore's law, though? ...'_

You are correct that Moores law helps but only to a point. It's not computer processing power that is the bottleneck at the moment. It's the telephone companies and Internet access. The ability to push that data around the Internet. What we all need (idealistically) is our own feed, independent of the monopoly that currently exists.

I happened to be listening to a _Brewster Kayle_ talk on this particular problem (ITConversations ITC-400, _Universal Access to All Knowledge_ , 1Hr38m, 45Mb, 2004DEC16 ~ <http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail400.html> ) and he goes into great detail explaining the problems with physical distribution of information via networks.</comment></comment>


The Fifth Force of Physics Is Hanging by a Thread - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/the-fifth-force-of-physics-is-hanging-by-a-thread <comment><USER2> There's no evidence of a fifth fundamental force yet they make a big deal out of it. Might be worth reading the article just for the historical facts presented in it. Would I take it seriously? Please don't.

</comment><comment><USER3> > He floated a hollow copper sphere in a tank of water and placed it near the > edge of a cliff. In 1987 Thieberger reported that the sphere consistently > moved in the direction of the edge, where the gravitational attraction by > the surrounding rock was smaller—just what you'd expect if there was indeed > some repulsive force that counteracted gravity.

Hmm. Wouldn't the water in the tank be attracted towards where there is more rock and thus introduce a slight slope which makes the floating sphere move towards the cliff? Like when you have a helium filled balloon in a car and accelerate: the balloon moves to the front (because the air gets pushed to the back because of its inertia).

<comment><USER4> Hmmm no. The balloon (and the sphere) are pushed in the direction opposite to the sum of the forces applied to the surrounding fluid. Since the surface of the fluid is always orthogonal to those forces, there is no reason for a floating object to move in any direction but up with respect to the surface of the fluid. In other words, the fluid is not sloping, it's your head that's tilted :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > which was sensitive to a quantity called the baryon number, denoted B. This > is a property of fundamental particles that, unlike mass or energy, doesn't > have any everyday meaning. It is equal to a simple arithmetic sum of the > number of even more fundamental constituents called quarks and antiquarks > that make up the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei.

This has to be the longest way possible to say "the number of baryons"

The article in general is long-winded, poorly explained and poorly understood.</comment>


Proposal for Mt. Gox: New "Goxcoin" blockchain - <AUTHOR>

Assuming that all the MtGox bitcoins are gone, this is my proposal.
MtGox creates a new blockchain called "Goxcoin". The genesis block will distribute coins to all the cheated customers. Each customer will need to generate or be issued a Goxcoin receive address.
Since the MtGox failure is going to affect a sizable percentage of bitcoin holders, this alternate blockchain has a viable chance of succeeding.
What do you think, HN? <comment><USER2> I think people should lose their money and learn why it is a bad idea to keep your bitcoins in something pretending to be a bank, an exchange, and other things all in one.

<comment><USER3> This. You want a currency with no meaningful regulation or protection? You take the bad with the good.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a proposal for changing some of the bad into good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I propose the protocol enforces a random shutdown period for days at a time. This would be for no reason other than "market cooling".

Also, the logo should be a frappuccino.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this would be a big nail in any coffin that Bitcoin may or may not have.</comment>


Tell HN: The front page of Hacker News has been deindexed from Google - <AUTHOR>

You can confirm this by searching for 'hacker news' in Google; the #1 ranking URL is /newest, rather than the front page. This isn't term specific - the site doesn't appear for other terms that it usually ranks well for, such as "news.ycombinator.com" or "hn".
I've checked the usual technical reasons (html head canonical/robots meta tag, http headers, robots.txt issues) but I don't see anything untoward.
I'll keep looking into it, but I'm posting this here in case the admins/mods have made any changes recently that could have had an effect. There's a possibility that the URL has been removed by Google for some particular reason, though I can't think of many pages that deserve it less than HN.
I'll update this thread if I see anything, but hopefully someone else will post an answer before I figure it out.... <comment><USER2> It's not that PG has a grudge against Google (or vice versa) or anything like that. I believe that search engine bots crawl Hacker News hard enough that PG blocks most crawling by bots. In the case of Google, he does allow us to crawl from some IP addresses, but it's true that Google isn't able to crawl/index every page on Hacker News.

Here's a link where I answered the same question about three weeks ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837004) , so this isn't a new issue. In fact, PG has been blocking various bots since 2011 or so; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661) is one of the original discussions about this.

And to show this isn't a Google-specific issue, note that Bing's #1 result for the search [hacker news] is a completely different site, thehackernews.com: [http://www.bing.com/search?q=hacker+news](http://www.bing.com/search?q=hacker+news)

In general, I think PG's priority is to have a useful, interesting site for hackers. That takes precedence and is the reason why I believe PG blocks most bots: so that crawling doesn't overload the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that Matt; I didn't see that recent post or your comment, so sorry for dragging you back here to repeat yourself.

Looks like I'm going to have to stop relying on searching 'hn' when using a different computer, and start typing in the full URL. First world problems are such a burden.

<comment><USER2> No worries at all. I don't think the HN thread from three weeks ago made it to the front page (I happened to see it while browsing on /newest). I figured someone would notice and ask about this, so I'm happy to have the chance to explain.

<comment><USER3> Hey Matt,

I'm sorry to reach out to you directly on a public forum like this, but my company's website encountered a major negative SEO attack last month and we were hit with a manual penalty by Google today. I thought you might be interested to hear about what happened, and I of course I would like to resolve it as I do my best to always keep my company's SEO efforts within Google's guidelines. Please reach out via email to me at firstname.lastname@example.com if we can help each other fix this! Thanks again for everything you do to help make the web a better place, and in advance I understand if you're too busy to respond.

Best regards,

Mike B.

<comment><USER4> Don't apologize to just Matt, you're pseudo-apology and better-sent-as-an- email question pissed me off. Why would you take up three extra lines with a BS platitude and a signature? Please keep a personal request for assistance to better-suited channels.

<comment><USER5> Just downvote and move along, why the hostility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mmm, seems kind of like a feature. In fact, maybe PG should robots.txt google entirely. It seems like HN has been getting mentions in other media with increasing frequency. If you can't find the site just because google doesn't doesn't list it, then I have to wonder what you are actually doing here. This wouldn't be the first way that HN sets a bar for new users either; the "Create Account" form is already hidden under "submit".

HNSearch works great for HN specific searches anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> This has happened before, and usually has a non-pitchforky reasoning (e.g. PG pulled it temporarily because of network/server issue). I'm sure it will be back soon, and we will have a rather reasonable answer as to why. There are way to many google employees, that frequent and enjoy HN, for it to be banned for some arbitrary reason

<comment><USER8> And of course, the network has specific functions for censorship as required by child protection laws. "Just a network error" really doesn't guarantee that the network wasn't doing something nefarious itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are using DuckDuckGo, you can use the !hn bang to send your query to hnsearch.com

<comment><USER10> This is trivial to do in any modern browser without DDG.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this old thread, where pg had blocked most of the Google bots, and it caused Google to think the site was down:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661)

Could be a similar issue? I'll take a look.

<comment><AUTHOR> pg also commented that he doesn't want traffic from Google anyway: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808990)

In which case, he should add: <meta name="googlebot" content="noindex"> to the html head of every page.

(I have to say, that's a smart way of avoiding any Eternal Septembering, but it'd be a shame. I often use Google to find old HN threads that I vaguely remember from months or years ago.)

<comment><USER11> you may want to consider using hnsearch.

<comment><USER12> (Google's search is often better for this purpose as it has features like synonym/typo fixing and as it indexes entire pages lets you match keywords across entire threads: hnsearch is myopic on individual posts.)

<comment><USER13> Yup...

Even sites with good search functions are often still way outclassed by google search with "site:..."—and most sites don't have good search functions...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Matt Cutts browses this site. Maybe he knows the reason why?

<comment><USER15> Indeed, he showed up: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5955374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5955374)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The .org site hasn't been delisted, so it's obviously not based on content:

[https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.org](https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.org)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is most likely the same reason digg's frontpage was deindexed. There's no "content" per se, it's just links. Someone will notice, add an exception, and all is well.

Unlike Digg, HN has a substantial amount of content in the comments pages though, which are heavily indexed.

Edit - All the comment pages are still indexed just fine. It's /only/ the front-page. Which, imo, doesn't really matter anyway.

<comment><USER18> Sounds like overaggressive spam detection.

<comment><USER19> This sounds like the case. Google is getting aggressive with its Panda updates, and as a previous commenter noted, the HN homepage is just links. Since that triggers Panda, it's a good bet that Google went a little overboard (not unprecedented).

<comment><USER20> > the HN homepage is just links. Since that triggers Panda

To be more specific, Panda is triggered by low quality/duplicate content. 'Penguin' is triggered by spammy/bad backlinks.

I'm not saying you're wrong (a page of links would look pretty low quality to google's algo), I just wanted to add on for clarity's sake.

<comment><USER19> Yes, I see where I was unclear. It's not the links themselves, but the lack of original, robust content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Please don 't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to firstname.lastname@example.com._

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> I too had noticed this. It's unfortunate because searching via Google with site:news.ycombinator.com in the query is much better than HN's own search when you have a good idea what you're looking for (spearfishing search vs BFS)

</comment><comment><USER23> This isnt the first time this has happened and I suspect that it wont be the last.

</comment><comment><USER24> The pagerank has fallen from a 6 to a 3 as well.

</comment><comment><USER25> Google is evil. Screw them. I refuse to use Google or their services. Make the switch. They deindex a lot of sites they don't agree with. Not saying that is the case here but they've been known to do it.

<comment><USER26> Link backing up your claims?</comment></comment>


Compiling Lambda Calculus - nils-m-holm http://t3x.org/clc/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Seeing how Scheme is enjoying a temporary HN frontpage resurgence:

This is from the same author as the more popular:

"Scheme 9 from Empty Space" "A Guide to Implementing Scheme in C"

which walks you through the design and implementation of a portable Scheme in C89, with awesome cover art to match the name.

([http://t3x.org/s9book/index.html](http://t3x.org/s9book/index.html))

</comment><comment><USER2> How does this relate to [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/the-imp...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/the-implementation-of-functional-programming- languages/) or [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/impleme...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/implementing-functional-languages-a-tutorial/) ?

<comment> nils-m-holm The book by Peyton Jones et al is certainly broader, covering denotational semantics, pattern matching, polymorphism, list comprehension, type-checking, laziness, garbage collection, etc. It has also quite a few chapters on Miranda, Wadler's (one of the co-authors) favorite language.

Compiling Lambda Calculus (CLC) concentrates on one thing: compiling untyped lambda calculus (or its incarnation, Scheme) to abstract machine code and then to C. It goes more into the depths of lambda calculus and has more examples (like Church numerals, etc). It also contains the _complete_ source code to all compilers described in the text.

I would argue that CLC would be the better choice for a beginner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looking at the table of contents, it seems like an implementation oriented version of part 1 of "Semantics Engineering with PLT Redex" by Felleisen et al. Anyone know what abstract machine it uses? I'm guessing Landin's SECD machine since that seems to be the most common.

<comment> nils-m-holm The book uses a virtual stack machine that may be thought of as an ad-hoc implementation of the SECD machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find larger text bodies in a grotesque font hard to read. A serif font would be friendlier.

<comment> nils-m-holm I think it is excusable in this case, because there is a lot of leading space between the lines and most paragraphs are short.

Have you tried reading a few pages? It grotesque really distracting in this particular case or is it just your general experience?

<comment><USER5> If you're not making any money from selling your books, why not make them available for free? They will reach a much wider audience.

<comment> nils-m-holm (1) People do not value free stuff.

(2) To some people (like me), a few 100 EUR per month can make a huge difference.

<comment><USER6> I do value free stuff, but I also value you as an author. Happy to pay for my PDFs of your work.

<comment> nils-m-holm Good to hear, thank you!

And I agree, the generalization above was too broad -- I also value free stuff!

<comment><USER7> But as a generalization I think it holds true. On average, free stuff is not valued very highly by the general public. Or rather, a person selected at random will not perceive much of any value is something given away for free.

<comment><USER8> Bought a copy, into chapter 2,good read so far, font is readable too as far as I can tell</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk Races to Exit Tesla's 'Production Hell' - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-races-to-exit-teslas-production-hell-1530149814 <comment><USER2> paywalled ; is there a workaround?

<comment><AUTHOR> Outlined link:

[https://outline.com/5CcYvM](https://outline.com/5CcYvM)

<comment><USER3> Its not the same article

<comment><AUTHOR> It could possibly be a locally cached url if their shortlinks are recycled It may be worth opening in an Incognito window / clearing cookies to see. I'm not associated with them but links are frequently posted for paywall articles using it as the workaround ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)). From the US on a clean browser session it appears to be working for this article. I was also able to access it by searching the title on google in an Incognito window and following the link as an alternate workaround.

It's a fairly detailed article with some interesting information, so is worth the read if you can get to it. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Install Firefox Focus. Share the article to it.</comment>


Is Craigslist the world's biggest bordello? - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10190334-93.html <comment><USER2> With any technology you get the good and the bad. The Internet just happens to allow a greater quantity of both to appear.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the path to become a 'future' angel investor or a VC - <AUTHOR> As a programmer - I understand simple definition of angel investment and venture capital say for a startup to get funded.
But turning table - if I aspire to become a angel investor or venture capital - what is the learning path to be a succesful investor. Can anybody please shed light on where a noob would start.
If there are any angel investors / venture capitalist - what its like working on your day to day jobs. Challenges vs Perks. <comment><USER2> You can start by being my angel investor!

[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1011881829](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1011881829)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skylerapp....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skylerapp.skyler)

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I have seen, at least in VC, is most come from the finance side. A common pattern seems to be an undergraduate degree and MBA from a top school and a few years of investment banking experience.</comment>