Ask HN: Developer portfolio? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm thinking of working on a "portfolio as a service" for developers as a side project and I would like to get some feedback.
I've always wanted to build a small personal portfolio website but the thought of having to constantly maintain it has kept me from doing so. I know there are several portfolio services out there but personally I have yet to find one that suits my needs. Most services seems to aggregate data from various social sites and automatically build my page. By doing so they basically duplicate my LinkedIn profile without adding much additional value. My hypothesis is that there are a few key elements missing that would be especially useful for developers:
1. Timeline-based. Instead of having a static page with a list of skills and projects I want to understand how the skillset and interests of someone have developed over time. What did you work on 5 years ago? 1 year ago? How was that influenced what you are interested in now? You may have a lot of Java projects on Github, but if you haven't touched Java code in 5 years there probably is a reason for it. Even though sites like LinkedIn and Github contain some of this data it usually isn't presented in a temporal manner.
2. Incorporating real-time data such as commits, posts, comments, etc into the profile to get a true sense of who you are and what you are interested in right now. Think of aprilzero.com, but for developer/professional data.
3. A project showcase. I think this is a pretty important (perhaps the most important) part of a portfolio, but hasn't received the proper attention on many portfolio sites.
4. It should be beautiful. If I use such as site as part of a job application I want it to look good. This may go without saying but many of portfolio services I looked at were not aesthetically pleasing enough for me to consider using them.
What are your thoughts? Are you using any portfolio websites/services? Why or why not? Would appreciate any feedback. <comment><USER2> I use careers.stackoverflow.com as a portfolio and am pretty happy with it; but it does suffer from the lack of functionality that you point out (it mostly aggregates and links to data).

The issue I have in general is that most people just wanna see pretty websites in your portfolio; which (as a server-side guy) is increasingly outside of my domain. Linking to a github instead of live-projects solves this except that:

1\. Most my github repos are private (and so invisible to most visitors unless I invite them to the project)

2\. There's no good way to highlight certain files/directories in github. There's no way to say "I wrote this class over here, and these unit tests over there, and all these controllers, so check those out".

I would love a portfolio tool that solved both issues: Allow me to pull highlights from private and public repos that show off key elements that I'm proud of (and if it's a private repo, don't give access to anything I didn't explicitly highlight). Highlight it in a beautiful/graphical way, allow me to comment in it and guide the viewer through a tour of code, of sorts. That kind of tool would be amazeballs.

<comment><USER3> That's a good idea - and sounds a lot like ... Documentation. Or possibly "Literate Profiles"

I don't mean that crassly, just I think that Sphinx is close to that, and could just get tipped over the edge if we try hard.

I like the idea and it _should_ be doable with a few tweaks to something like Sphinx.

<comment><USER2> Good points, but I was thinking of something more curated and streamlined than documentation. Perhaps Sphinx meets Bespoke.js ([http://markdalgleish.com/projects/bespoke.js/](http://markdalgleish.com/projects/bespoke.js/))

<comment><USER3> Glossing over the private repo issue for a moment, and bein totally GitHub centric

1\. Have each repo contain a 'presentation.rst' file, and they have simple format - header, '.. literalinclude' directives (done right) and commentary. Other highlights can be comments on issues, comments on pull requests etc

2\. The presentation is formed in js/doco style with two columns - code on one, commentary on another.

3\. Timelines that show where the literalinclude was committed, and along which are the other highlights in some rollover form

4\. The whole timeline is created from all the presentation.rat files in all the listed repos.

5\. Why not link in blog posts as highlights too? Any URL could easily be linked, with a commentary

This is looking fun

<comment><USER2> Very nice, and I love how it's github-centric (and you could incorporate it into your workflow).

OP: whaddya think? Is this trending in the direction you were thinking?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, this is great. I'm drafting up some specs now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this would be really interesting, however I would think you need it to have a lot of customizability. ie: not all my github projects are relevant, or something I would want to marked extensively over others, so you would need a way to filter the content of the feeds.

And I do think it's important with integration to github/bitbucket etc, linkedin with more. If I am to use yet another portfolio site, I would want to do the least amount of work as possible in setting it up.

I'm very interested to see where this will be going, and wish you the best of luck. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I totally agree that selecting which information/projects get included is a must-have that I forgot about.</comment></comment>


Google Accused of Wiretapping in Gmail Scans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/technology/google-accused-of-wiretapping-in-gmail-scans.html?hp <comment><USER2> Everybody is quick to remember how gmail users accepted the terms and how the ads pay for the free service, but for me the most interesting part of the article is what happens for those that send emails to a gmail account?

This person never agreed to have its email scanned. Never agreed that its email address would become an index key on a profile to serve ads. Never agreed that its writing/attachments, commercial or not, would be part on how Google makes its money.

I've heard about people manipulating HTML forms to submit lower prices when shopping online. What happens if I send a poem that I wrote to a gmail account and append a Terms of Service to it, basically saying if Google scans this email with commercial intent they must pay me money? Is something like this even possible?

<comment><USER3> Substitute for Google's silicon assistant a human personal assistant of the intended Gmail-using recipient. "If any person other than X reads this proprietary poetry, they owe inerte big bux!"

The mail recipient chose Google to handle his email. He could also have chosen some random human to assist him with handling his email. There is no difference.

If you wish to correspond with such a user, you must trust him not to show your email to parties you find obnoxious. If he betrays you in that regard, your beef, such as it is, is with him, not the parties he hired to handle his email.

<comment><USER4> As stated in the case, most users don't know what the assistant is doing. So by your analogy the assistant is reading the mail without permission and then secretly using what they learn to make money for themselves.

In such a case, we would certainly blame the assistant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google makes a good point: if it's illegal to scan emails to serve ads, doesn't that mean it's also illegal to scan emails to filter spam and prioritize email?

<comment><USER6> There's a difference: filtering spam and prioritizing mail is something that's done for the benefit of the user. However, scanning e-mails to maximize ad revenue (they can charge the advertisers more for "relevant" ads) is Google using the contents of your e-mail for their own benefit.

<comment><USER7> Revenue which pays for the FREE service. If the choice was gmail with ads or no gmail I know which I'd choose.

<comment><USER8> > Revenue which pays for the FREE service

Google also scans e-mails in paid Google Apps accounts.

Edit: correction to myself. Whilst paid Google Apps accounts still show ads and Web Clips, Google now have this statement:

 _If you are using Google Apps (free edition), email is scanned so we can display contextually relevant advertising in some circumstances._

[http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60762](http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60762)

the implication being that the paid accounts are scanned only for virus, spam and Priority Inbox processing.

Sorry, I was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google also has to scan your email to index it, for searching. And as far as privacy is concerned, that is the biggest danger, the NSA (or whoever) being able to ask google for all email with a certain keyword in it.

To summarize, they scan for spam filtering to make email usable, advertising to make it free, and indexing for searching.

I don't see how web based email can function without scanning it. And frankly, I don't see how high quality spam filtering can be done without scanning and sharing data across users in general, not specific to web mail.

<comment><USER10> What does it even mean to "scan" emails? If Google receives the email, saves it to disk and later retrieves it again, maybe reformats it, is that really fundamentally different from a technical point of view? It's all bits and bytes after all.

Targeted advertising is creepy to humans, because there is some notion that the computer "understands" what you are sending and builds up a profile about you. But, if you take a sober technical point of view, it's hard to accuse Google of anything. Maybe Google should educate it's users more how those ads are generated?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In light of the whole NSA thing, it's difficult to see where this registers on the scale of importance/relevance. Let's say Google is guilty of scanning email text for ads. What does that mean? Judge then orders G to stop, and they do. G pays a big fine(which is nothing to them). Will people feel safer about their Gmail afterwards? I guess filters will be out of the question unless you opt-in for Google to scan your email, which I suspect most users will. Some big ol' wall of text EULA/ToS next time you login, you'll have to accept... or at first you'll deny and your emails will be a mess... then you go back and accept.

<comment><USER4> It's highly relevant. If we say Google can scan your email just to support an arbitrary business model, how can we make an argument that the NSA should be prevented from doing it in the name of national security.

It isn't a good thing for Google to try to make loss of privacy seem like business as usual.

<comment><USER3> That's easy.

You signed up for Gmail knowing how your email service is being paid for.

As for National Security, well, the hell with it! No role for a nation or security unless I get to define the parameters of my privacy!

Snowden 2020! (When he'll be over 35 ;)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Google lawyers are presenting a clever argument, which on the surface looks quite sensible. But the accusation is not about scanning, but _wiretapping_ , which, as the judge notes "primarily used to create user profiles and to provide targeted advertising". It is not the same as sorting out email or looking for virus signatures in attachments.

If you follow Google's notion of _implicit consent_ to such practices, then any traffic online can be lawfully intercepted and profiled. When you send data over a third party router, you give permission to spy on yourself. I don't think so.

<comment><USER13> > If you follow Google's notion of implicit consent to such practices, then > any traffic online can be lawfully intercepted and profiled. When you send > data over a third party router, you give permission to spy on yourself. I > don't think so.

I disagree. Google is not intercepting traffic willy nilly: you _sent_ the traffic to Google, when you emailed firstname.lastname@example.com. Comparing Google reading traffic that was transmitted to it with a wholesale "any traffic online and be lawfully intercepted and profiled" is exaggerating the scope of what is going on here.

Also, what is the prosecution hoping to gain here? If they win, and Google can't serve relevant ads… are we out of a good email service? (I suppose Google could still try to serve ads, but they just would be in the dark w.r.t. the email content.)

<comment><USER8> > you _sent_ the traffic to Google, when you emailed firstname.lastname@example.com

How about when you emailed @guardian.co.uk? @specsavers.com?

Under the covers they're using Postini + Gmail. Did you consent to sending that traffic to Google?

Wat about people living in LA, who have no option but to send their traffic to Google when they e-mail their local Government at @lacity.org?

NOAA, State of Wyoming.. the list goes on.

[http://www.google.com/intx/en_uk/enterprise/apps/business/cu...](http://www.google.com/intx/en_uk/enterprise/apps/business/customers.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And how is scanning your email different from scanning your facebook posts both private and public. If the plaintiff wins, bye bye advertising supported services.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Do we know that Google is only using this information to show Advertisements on Gmail? What else does it do with this information? (Suggestion to Google: Trade stocks automatically ;-)

2\. Does Implicit consent argument make sense?

3\. Perhaps scanning for spam can be done without looking at content? Or looking at content at the client side instead of server side?

Lets for a moment assume that this is perfectly valid business model. Then what stops Windows from sending MS keywords, pictures and everything else from your home computer. Or sensor information from android/iphone to the parent companies.

Not to mention every car/house that was made by now should be sending everything you speak inside the car to GM/Ford/Builders?

Something does not sound right to me. A TOS should not allow a company to do whatever it wants with data.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, how did they manage to find a judge who seems very knowledgeable on tech issues?</comment>


Datacenter Locations Driven by 19th Century Politics - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/21st-century-datacenter-locations-driven-19th-politics-george-moore <comment><USER3> Prior example is what is now the SPRINT phone company, started as the Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications, which someone at the SP had the bright idea to monetize after the telephone long distance monopoly was broken up.

<comment><USER4> What do you think came first, the name or the acronym?

<comment><USER3> Like GNU, why shouldn't it be deliberate creation of an acronym that spelled a word?

Or if I'm misunderstanding your question: the network already existed due to that name because they already had all the right of way for the same reason UP did.

IIRC (it was a while ago) MCI came first and some VP at the SP was inspired by that to try to provide external service over their existing resource. After all they were in the transport business with a big infrastructure setup, so transporting bits was pretty natural.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > In 1859 the US Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, strongly favored the > southerly railroad route from New Orleans to San Diego: it was shorter, had > no major mountains to traverse, and had lower operational costs due to lack > of snowfall to clear from the tracks. However, in the 1850s no Congressman > from a northern state would have voted for a southerly railroad route to aid > the Confederacy's slave-based economy, and no Congressman from the south > would have voted for a northerly route.

I feel like this overlooks the other main reason to prefer a northern route - the north was where most of the people and industry were. The midwest and northeast were much denser than the southeast, and it was important for railroads to serve industrial hubs like St. Louis and Chicago, which had onward connections to the northeast. A San Diego-New Orleans Route is "shorter" only if you overlook the extra 850+ miles to get from New Orleans to Chicago, plus the additional travel within California (probably by ship). There are good reasons to prefer the northern alignment that was chosen, and Jefferson Davis' motivation was just as political as the northern Congressmen who opposed the southern alignment.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting , one of the reasons GCHQ moved to Bletchley Park in WW2 was it was very conveniently placed in terms of the GPO network at the time.

<comment><USER7> Pardon my ignorance, but what was the GPO network?

<comment><USER8> The General Post Office phone and telegraph network.

Formed in 1660 as a government department to provide postal services - <USER2> Charles II, the one who got rudely interrupted by Cromwell's republic. Took on telegraph, telephone and radio transmission as they were developed. As a government department until the 50s or 60s when they became a state owned company, they always had a distinctly "comfortable" relationship with the intelligence services right back to their inception. Opening post, intercept stations at cable landfalls, etc. Phone and post have since been privatised.

Tommy Flowers, creator of Colossus, worked at GPO Research Station Dollis Hill. Pre-war in the 30s he'd been working to create all electronic phone exchanges.

<comment><USER3> BTW it was Charles I who lost his head thanks to Cromwell — Charles II was the restored monarch. Interesting that the post office was important enough to be chartered almost right away after he assumed office, despite all the other things going on at that point.

<comment><USER8> Of course it was, and I knew that, or at least used to. Not quite sure what brain was thinking. :)

Royal Mail goes back to Henry VIII or Elizabeth's time, perhaps further, but it was _royal_ mail only then, not for the mere public yet. I think that might have come before the Civil War, and before post offices. Don't know what happened to Royal Mail during Cromwell's time. Given the start date of the GPO, post might simply be one of the many things that had legislation between Civil War and restoration. All those were thrown out and re-legislated or forgotten.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I got the feeling it was a brain fart, so I hope starting with "BTW" made it come off as a friendly note.

I know, I know, this is the internet so I should have coughed up a bolus of lava, skewering your entire claim based on a trivial misstatement, and claiming that your motivation was to support that political party I detest.. I apologise for letting society down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was such an interesting article!

The only nitpick item I'd mention: isn't kind of crappy that the U.S. gov. gave the Union Pacific railroad pretty much a monopoly of that 200-foot right of way piece of land? I mean, i could understand if the railroad used it for their own uses, which from a functional perspective, i understand and agree...But for this railroad to turn around and authorize others - and I'm sure they charge everyone for this! - to then use that land, just seems sort of unfair. I understand that it's "convenient" for other entities to only work with that single entity; but that still seems a monopoly to me. So, forevermore, the Union Pacific railroad will get money for use of this land, that they were given so many years ago; well, that sucks.

<comment><USER10> It isn't crappy, it was necessary.

The 200-foot right of way was so that construction materials could be gathered from either side of the route of the track, to build the track itself.

In 1862, the midwest was practically empty and most of the land was federal land. The construction crews may have been hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the nearest quarry or gravel pit.

>SEC. 2 . And be it further enacted, {Right of way granted.} That the right of way through the public lands be, and the same is hereby, granted to said company for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line; and the right, power, and authority is hereby given to said company to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, {See Sec. 3, 1864 .} earth, stone, timber, and other materials for the construction thereof; said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of' two hundred feet in width on each side of said railroad, where it may pass over the public lands, including all necessary grounds for stations, buildings, workshops and depots, machine shops, switches, side tracks, turn-tables, and water stations. {U. S. to extinguish Indian titles. sec. 18, 1864 .} The United States shall extinguish as rapidly as may be, the Indian titles to all lands falling under the operation of this act, and required for the said right of way and grants hereinafter made.

Also, in the early days of steam locomotives a train had to stop every seven miles for water. That meant that every seven miles a water tower and the equipment to fill the water tower had to be built.

If right of way, and all of that free land hadn't been granted, there would have been no transcontinental railroad.

One of the first "real" railroads, the B&O railroad, was created by the governments of Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio and had a very similar legislative deal (though that didn't prevent years of litigation by canal companies to stop the railroad) to deal given to the companies covered by the 1862 Act the because it is impossible to build a railroad unless the land is given to the constructor for free.

Looking forward, if the government gets behind the colonization of Mars or some other place, the deals will be the same "Hey Company X, build all of this crap on Mars and we'll give you the entire northern hemisphere" and then 200 years later people will be upset about the fact that Company X was given half of Mars.

<comment><USER11> > It isn't crappy, it was necessary.

You've explained why it was necessary to give access and rights to build. It doesn't explain why that included secondary rights (i.e. the ability to monetize other uses of the land) exclusively, or perpetually, Which is what I think the poster you replied to was trying to say.

It may be true that the deals couldn't be made another way, but it certainly isn't obviously true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> See also: The relationship from horse to space shuttle. [http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html](http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html)

<comment><USER13> Please note that, while amusing, this is mostly false. Especially the space shuttle part of the story: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge- chariots/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/)

<comment><USER12> Interesting.

The article says the standard is 4' 8", and the South mostly used 5' 6". 8" variation seems like not that much when you're dealing with something as imprecise as a wagon wheel.

I don't know though. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >> This same river water is now used for the adiabatic cooling of the modern datacenters along this route.

This sounds like a major climate change related vulnerability.

<comment><USER14> What triggers people on this comment? Water is a scarce resource, about to get scarcer at that latitude; data centres need cooling; ergo, vulnerability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel like all these discussions should make some mention of how the US government felt this was their land to give

<comment><USER16> I mean, it legally was. The fact that we effectively stole it from the natives, is immaterial to that.

<comment><USER17> *conquered

<comment><USER18> No, a lot of it was just outright treaties and contracts that were then later ignored.

And there is/was legal theories of war, which weren't applied to the "savages" back then.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


There is a WhatsApp 'backdoor' - <AUTHOR> https://tobi.rocks/2017/01/there-is-a-whatsapp-backdoor/ <comment><USER2> > Signal does not have this vulnerability, but WhatsApp has it.

That might need a footnote or something. TheGuardian is reporting: Moxie Marlinspike of OWS said Signal planned to make blocking notifications an option for some users and use non-blocking notifications by default.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/14/whatsapp-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/14/whatsapp- vulnerability-secure-messaging-apps)

<comment><USER3> With this option it is still possible to use the app securely. WhatsApp is insecure for everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Still not sure if the vulnerability is intended, but the idea of sending garbage is great. The vulnerability is definitely fixable even if you want to have security disabled by default.

Edit: after some thought, it is not that easy. If you resend garbage of the same size and then after some time you click "resend" and send batch of messages of the same size, then you likely have confirmation enabled.

So users who have confirmations disabled should send garbage too, when they open the application after some messages were resent.

Again, the idea is great, but needs more thought to make a working solution. Cover traffic is not simple.

<comment><USER4> Good point. You could:

If notifications/blocking disabled (newbie setting):

Send re-keyed ciphertext immediately.

Random time later send garbage (automatically discarded by client)

If blocking enabled:

Send re-keyed garbage immediately.

When consumer notices the popup some (random) time later,

\- and clicks "re-send": send re-keyed ciphertext

\- and clicks "discard": send re-keyed different garbage.

However, note that if a compromised server MITM, they will probably be able to tell the difference between garbage and actual message (because the server provides the bad key, so can decrypt the immediate response message). It's really not trivial. Don't roll your own crypto... :-)

<comment><USER3> > Random time later send garbage

Random is bad because you need some random distribution and by gathering statistics server can determine if your distribution of delays match. Delay until really clicking the button would be highly individual. That is why I said "when they open the application".

<comment><USER4> True, if you did this, you'd want to either match the (empirical) distribution, or, as I believe you are suggesting, just pretend the (non- existing) button was pressed shortly after the user opens the app next time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: The Clip - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/littlebonsai/the-clip-by-littlebonsai

<comment><USER2> I hope they will get the money they need to launch their product. Anyway, now when people oseruse or misuse the word "design", I can point them to The Clip (which is a simple and effective example) and say "See this? The work behind it is what we can call design.".

<comment><USER3> Really? Come on, can we have higher standards?

Seems a lot of kickstarter stuff is just premium takes on infomercial products.

"Hey look, it's a light you can put anywhere and you just touch it to turn it on!

But wait, it's made from a single block of aluminum, from a fair trade factory and costs $50 instead of $4."

Revolutionary!

No but seriously, $10 for something that doesn't look more complicated than a fork to manufacture? I'm all for supporting cool new ideas and great design, but this isn't it.

<comment><USER2> I'm not saying it's the best example of what design is, and even less that it's revolutionary. But I do think that it is a good example in that it is simple and effective and I hope people can easily see what I mean when given this example. Of course the best design example would be the wheel, but it is so good/great/awesome that most people can't see how amazing it is and how it shows the power of abstraction of the human mind, which is in big part what design is about (whether it is for objects or programming or whatever). This is because the best ideas seems natural and obvious after someone had them and said it. This is why I think this Clip thing is a good example, it's much more simple and way less obvious than the wheel.

About the price, I mainly agree with you on that, but it was not my point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They do a very good job presenting their product but the price point is way too high in my opinion for what the product is. (10-12.50 per unit based on the kickstarter pledge values)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here, but sheet metal and tin snips are pretty cheap at Home Depot.

If they weren't $10.00-12.50 each I could see ordering a pack.

</comment><comment><USER6> For "internationals" like myself it's minimum $35 to pledge and receive 2 clips. That's way too much. I'd pledge $10, no more.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.amazon.com/ACCO-72010-Binder-Clips- Silver/dp/B001...](http://www.amazon.com/ACCO-72010-Binder-Clips- Silver/dp/B0017YQMBE)

<comment><USER8> I don't think you watched the video. This is a bottle opener. Whereas you're linking to a cable management device.

<comment><USER9> [http://www.amazon.com/Acco-Brands-Inc-Bankers- Silver/dp/B002...](http://www.amazon.com/Acco-Brands-Inc-Bankers- Silver/dp/B002ZZ7MWM/)</comment></comment></comment>


Audible and audiobooks, the fastest growing part of publishing - <AUTHOR> https://thebaffler.com/latest/successful-people-listen-to-audiobooks-caplan-bricker <comment><USER2> _> Amazon, is to book publishing what Facebook and Google are to magazines_

Unfortunately, this is a very accurate analogy.

I like listening to audio books and Audible is definitely very convenient, but I am 100% sure that in the not so distant future Amazon will completely destroy the whole publishing ecosystem in US and that will have horrendous effect on the quality of what is being written and on the availability of things to read.

Audible is good, _because_ it's not sustainable. It's good, because it benefits from the infrastructure that would not exist if books were created for audio instead of paper.

If Audible get _really_ popular, it will just become a centralized long-form podcast service. They're already edging that way with "originals".

It's amazing that after seeing this process repeated again and again in the lat couple decades, people _still_ can't predict when it starts to take pace in yet another industry.

Technically, no one stops any book author from hiring a voice actor and then selling the result from their website directly. This doesn't require a middleman. Yet, how many authors do you know that actually do it?

<comment><USER3> I think Audible works though because of the monthly subscription and the fact people get credits a month in exchange for a book. This credit is purchased at a lot lower cost than paying for the book outright. But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for something to spend their credit on this month.

A different model than someone actually knowing the author, waiting for the release and then buying it directly from them. It's essentially free money for author/publisher so they are all rushing to the platform.

<comment><USER4> > But it's sold on the basis that people will stay subscribed and thus end up > with books they wouldn't of otherwise bought as they are looking for > something to spend their credit on this month.

Why would someone feel pressure to use a credit? A person can have several extra credits at time. The credit system has a lot of advantages for Amazon, but time pressure isn't one of them.

<comment><USER5> Credits expire and there is a max of 6.

<comment><USER6> it's 1 year from 2 April. I was thinking about canceling with the old policy but maybe not anymore. right now I have 3 unused credits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People complaining forget what the industry was like before audible. It was terrible. Audiobook cost an absolute fortune, and selections were very limited. Audiobooks in the late 20th century were, I imagine, simular to paper books in 18th century. Something most of the population could not afford to own.

I have been listening, and loving, audiobook for a very long time audible was, and still is, a breath of fresh air.

Combined with the similarly lax attitude to drm as the amazom kindle, removing drm is simple.

Audible has created a market that publishers were either ignoring completely or extreme price gouging (or some of both) .

<comment><USER8> Before online audio books we borrowed then from the library for free.

<comment><USER9> True, before MP3, we used to borrow CDs from the library and copy them to tape, too. Libraries were brilliant as an impoverished student :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Instead of Audible, I recommend downloading audiobooks for free from your local library.

The San Francisco Public Library uses an app called "Libby." (I think most major US libraries support it.) It's free and convenient. No complaints.

<comment><USER11> FYI, Libby is an app made by OverDrive, (which is in turn owned by Rakuten).

Although OverDrive has published multiple open letters proclaiming their dedication to accessibility, they have done relatively little in this space. In one disappointing conversation with a senior executive, I was told that if they can't charge libraries more for a feature, they won't add it. To my mind, the definition of accessibility is making decisions that make a product more accessible _even if doing so does not make more money_.

Given that OverDrive has 90% market share in the US, it's a pity that this is their attitude toward accessibility.

<comment><USER12> "To my mind, the definition of accessibility is making decisions that make a product more accessible even if doing so does not make more money."

Their clients (libraries) are the ones providing a service to end users. It's up to the libraries to determine what's important when selecting a supplier or developing a custom solution.

Imagine I download an app on my phone. And I find it can't be used with a screen reader for some reason. Who is responsible here? Me? Google Play? The app publisher? The outsourced developer who did the coding for hire?

Now imagine the same situation, but:

\- the app publisher being a US entity which takes federal funds

\- the app being assembled wholly from existing community-maintained open source projects

It seems obvious to me that the party providing the service, and not the developer of the underlying software, is responsible.

<comment><USER11> I agree that libraries have some responsibility here. But as it happens, my conversation with this OverDrive exec was pursuant to a letter signed by librarians representing hundreds of libraries, asking OverDrive to offer a particular accessibility feature, and giving detailed reasons for why it would help library patrons.

Even with this supporting information and the backing of hundreds of libraries, OverDrive was not interested because they didn't think they could profit off the feature.

<comment><USER12> In the letter from the librarians, was the feature described as:

A) Must-have (e.g. if we don't have it, we'll be breaking the law, and so can't/won't renew the contract to use Libby), or

B) Nice-to-have?

If A, then I'm surprised at OverDrive's response.

If B, then I'm curious to know how much the librarians offered to pay.

If OverDrive can't make a profit from a feature, then either it's not that important to the people who hold the purse strings, or the feature is too expensive/complicated to build/deploy/maintain.

Is there something stopping the libraries from using a different vendor, or developing a solution that meets their needs? (As far as consumer software goes, Libby doesn't seem that complicated at the front end, but perhaps there are lots of complex third party integrations at the backend, to support licensing/DRM/whatever?)

<comment><USER11> I don't think they said it was legally required, just that it would be very beneficial. They didn't offer a price, nor were they ever asked how much they'd pay. But I'm not aware of any platforms that charge extra for their accessibility features. Are there any?

The reason there isn't much competition in the space is that OverDrive has a huge lead, and it is very complex on the back end. NYPL is doing good stuff with the SimplyE project, which they are offering to other libraries as well. Hopefully this will spur innovation in the space, in many regards!

<comment><USER12> "But I'm not aware of any platforms that charge extra for their accessibility features. Are there any?"

My point isn't that OverDrive should itemise their pricing, it's that market participants generally only invest money in R&D when it is expected to make them more money. And if customers signal that they value a feature at $0, then that feature is likely to go to the bottom of the list.

If I buy a licence to a platform, that enables me to provide services to my users, then of course I can only use the features that come with that platform. If I want additional features, of course I can ask for them. But the platform provider will prioritise things based on what will make them money (get more new customers, reduce existing customer churn, or increase revenue per customer).

From what you've said, it sounds like OverDrive has no competition, so the impact of accessibility features on customer retention and acquisition is zero.

If so, then OverDrive needs to be incentivised by either:

A) More money from existing libraries (what I asked about above), or

B) Threat of competition, which would affect future customer acquisition+retention (which the SimplyE project you mention may provide).

<comment><USER11> This has morphed into a big conversation that misses the point: OverDrive claims to care a ton about accessibility and publishes open letters proclaiming this. Then, when customers come to them with accessibility suggestions, they have zero interest in implementing them.

This wasn't based on difficulty of implementation (it was easy), and OverDrive never asked how much it would cost or whether libraries would pay extra to have the feature. They did not care enough to even have a conversation with the librarians about it.

<comment><USER12> "This has morphed into a big conversation that misses the point"

That's the nature of conversations :)

Sometimes you make a point, and people say "That's a great point. I'd never thought of it like that before."

And sometimes people have different opinions. Sometimes what is 'the point' for one person, 'misses the point' from another person's perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really enjoy audiobooks, but I dont think Audible is letting the medium flourish to its full potential.

My main concern is that audible is missing the long tail which naturally forms in any price sensitive market, where older products tend to depreciate to the point where they find a buyer. With paper books I can find an old book for cheap and that is great for a lover of words.

Audible distorts the audio-book market with its credit system: as far as I can tell they never discount older or less popular works, cutting off the long tail of potential readers. Why waste a precious credit on an audiobook who's physical cost is now fraction of its cover price?

More marketplace competition, and price / demand sensitive business models would be welcome.

<comment><USER14> There are often good deals to be had on Amazon for audiobooks, as others have mentioned older audiobooks can be found for as little as $2, though for moderately popular ones its more like $10-15.

Very popular audiobooks don't go on sale as often, but even the complete set of Stephen Fry read Harry potter 7-book-series, hundreds of hours, can be had for as little as 20 bucks sometimes.

<comment><USER13> OK maybe that's my problem, I'm browsing solely through the audible app where I do see price difference, but I've never seen discounts signaled as such. Also I'm usually racing to spend credits before they expire, so price is less of a factor.

<comment><USER15> Audible has daily deals and lots of sales. Also, Kindle unlimited + whispersync means lots of cheap audiobooks. Lots of classics are available at $0.99. I recently got latest Pride and Prejudice narrated by Rosamund Pike for $0.99

Check /r/audible

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For people worried about Audible's dominance here, there's _starting_ to be a countermovement among indie publishers, and I assume big publishers would also support competition.

* Chirp, from Bookbub: [https://www.chirpbooks.com](https://www.chirpbooks.com)

* Authors Direct: [https://authors-direct.com](https://authors-direct.com) (from Findaway Voices, which helps indies produce audiobooks)

* Overdrive and Hoopla are bringing library-purchased audiobooks to people: [https://www.overdrive.com](https://www.overdrive.com) [https://www.hoopladigital.com](https://www.hoopladigital.com)

Audible tries to get people locked into multi-year exclusive distribution contracts, and a lot of people go for it given their current hold on the market. Hopefully, demand will start rising for these other distribution channels.

</comment><comment><USER17> For me audio books don't replace regular books, they supplement them, by expanding my reading time and by getting me to read books I'd otherwise not. I often end up with both the physical or e-book plus the audio book. Sometimes I start with the audio book, especially if the book is challenging, then later switch to the non-audio book. Sometimes I jump back and forth. Yeah, crazy.

Down sides? Choice. (You want a different translation of The Brother's Karamazov? Ha!) You still need a hand, or at least a finger, to pause or go back, like when your mind inevitably wanders. You can't share an audio book with a friend, a downside of e-books too. And then there's the whole mind- wandering thing. I can't multitask. I can't listen to an audio book at just any time I need my hands for something else. The context switch is a buzzkill.

The key to a good audio book, in addition to the book itself being good, is a good reader, so here are some of my current faves with splendid readers: A Clockwork Orange narrated by Tom Hollander; Lincoln in the Bardo, Nick Offerman; Mrs Dalloway, Juliet Stevenson; Lolita, Jeremy Irons; and Milkman, Brid Brennan.

<comment><USER9> Part of what you're talking about is what bugs me about Amazon and the publishers. When I buy an audio CD, I can have it "auto-ripped" and available to download immediately as an MP3. I wish the same applied for more expensive physical copies of books, too - I wish they would also offer me a digital copy for my own convenience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm ready for when I can have my books read to me with machine learning à la WaveNet or similar, effectively cutting out the middleman and making a very cheap audiobook version. Google Books can already do this with epubs but it's not at the same level as a professional audiobook however.

<comment><USER19> Oh please no, not for me. A well-read audiobook becomes an integral part of the art form. An example is the recent Beastie Boys book, which is read by the two of them, plus a whole host of guest readers. Some of whom completely transform the experience.

<comment><USER20> I agree, a well-read book can really make it. A bad reader not only makes a good book boring, it also works conversely. For example, Ready Player One was a mediocre movie, an alright book, and the audio book was really great (i.e. I also enjoyed the story itself much more because of the telling).

If you just want to read books without the effort of reading, and have "audio books" be cheap, text to speech is totally there. You'll miss some intonation, but modern speech engines are beyond understandable. If it would be just about understandability, try espeak (apt install espeak). An absolutely awful voice, but copy any decently sized text (maybe a pg essay) and listen to it. I find that after 30 seconds to a minute, I've adjusted enough to perfectly understand it, and after 4+ minutes I forget that I'm listening to the most horrendous voice known to mankind. And if you want to nerd out some more about our brain's capacity to understand speech and adapt to things that don't even resemble speech anymore, try whistling languages. I'm always amazed how understandable they can be.

<comment><USER21> I was thinking of Ready Player One, and how it's reading really was part of the experience. Did you mean to bury the lede that it's read by none other than Wil Wheaton?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Audible's greatest assault is on my wallet. So many audiobooks on that platform are exorbitantly expensive.

<comment><USER23> Yep. Fifty hours of Netflix is fifteen dollars a month. Fifty hours of Audible content is close to a hundred bucks. Now, two dollars per hour is cheap compared to traditional entertainment like movie theaters and DVDs but downright insane compared to YouTube and Spotify.

<comment><USER24> Hmmm, 100 hours of audible content would run me about 3 books. So around £18 when buying bulk credits. Or £24 when buying monthly.

But I was taught to buy books by weight. Which has turned out to be good advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I just love audio books. I listen to them while walking the dog, working out or doing chores around the house.

<comment><USER26> I've tried it a few times, but I have a few problems with them:

I can't skip boring parts, like long descriptions or other annoying parts.

I zone out from time to time when doing other things, and I have to skip back and try to find where I lost track.

Sometimes I have to go back and reread numbers, names, and other important info, but that's much harder with audio.

<comment><USER27> Boring parts are the reason I do audio books (which in my mind I still call books on tape). I listen primarily to massive ancient works like The Illiad, Parallel Lives, and Herodotus' Histories that are impenetrable to me in text because they have enormous sections devoted to lists of ancient names or inaccurate dimensions of Egypt that I can just zone out to during a drive.

Of course you can skip those parts in text but if you half listen to them you get to say you heard the whole thing and you begin to appreciate the role they played in the work and the influence they had on later authors and politicians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> re: " Audiobooks are the fastest growing part of publishing..."

I hate to jump in and jump off topic but statements like that really annoy me. First, when a market is tiny but growing even small increases look amazing as a percentage.

And then there's the maturity of the publishing market itself. Anything new that's growing is going to be growing more than the otherwise mature no-growth market.

The question here is: How much new incremental business is this actually creating? Or, much like music CDs years ago, are most people simple trading one format for another newer one?

Yes, those re-sales still count but it also creates a false sense that the market itself is actually growing; that new buyers are coming on board. Again, ask the music industry if they regret getting hooked on the "bonus" revenue from CDs. And how that not only drove people to downloads, but that false growth created a false peak that made the digital crash hurt even more.

Again, please pardon the somewhat off-topic-ness.

<comment><USER29> Audible alone did over $3 billion last year.

"Major publishers have confirmed to Good e-Reader that 1 out of every 10 books sold is in the audio format ...

HarperCollins stated that downloadable audio accounted for about 25% of all digital revenue in the recent first three months of 201"

[https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/good-e-reader- global...](https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/good-e-reader-global- audiobook-report-for-2019)

Hardly tiny.

<comment><USER28> Thanks. You missed the point. Good job.

<comment><USER30> This comment breaks the site guidelines. Would you mind reviewing them and following them when posting here?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just wish Audible had adopted a Netflix-style distribution system rather than an Amazon.com style one. Watching all the Netflix I want costs me fifteen dollars a month. Listening to all the Audible content I want would cost me hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month because I'd have to purchase each piece of media individually.

<comment><USER31> Until you want to read a book that isn't currently available. Maybe it's different on the American Netflix (and similar), but currently none of the streaming services in Denmark have all seasons of x-files.

I prefer buying things to renting them, but of course with modern digital distribution you often end up renting them even when you "buy" because of DRMs.

Maybe I'm old, but I just don't get modern media consumption. I mean, if we look beyond DRMs (and maybe you can crack Amazon's), then you'll own 120 books in 10 years as opposed to the Netflix model where in 10 years and the same amount of money, you'll own 0 books.

<comment><USER32> Some of us don't care about owning. I always gave 95%+ of my paper books away, long before I started reading digitally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My problem with audio books is that they are long, and I can't skip around, and listening in bursts of 10-15 mins ends up being inefficient and disorienting.

I've been using Spokn, which provides narration of high quality articles from HBR, NYT, etc. Works a lot better for my schedule.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have used Audible for a long time, but have recently switched to Libro.fm. Pricing is the same as Audible, and my local book store gets a cut.

<comment><USER35> Does it have drm?

<comment><USER4> No [0]

[https://libro.fm/membership](https://libro.fm/membership)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've been an Audible subscriber for a fairly long time (2011), and really enjoy the format. I really wish it wasn't tied to Amazon, though. The recent increase of their "digital book burning" is pretty egregious, and it's weird to own books on Kindle and Audible that are no longer even available for purchase.

There are, fortunately, some authors that publish their audiobooks direct, and others that put their work free on archive.org. However, the vast majority are Audible-exclusive, and it keeps me locked in.

</comment><comment><USER37> I absolutely love Audio Books, I think I went through maybe 25+ audio books, mostly non fiction, in 2018 alone. It is a fantastic way to maximize dead time, but generally I think non music audio is going through a sort of renaissance.

While the author of this post is really distraught about Amazons dominance with Audible I do think in some ways non music audio is much bigger than just Audibooks for example Podcasts are on the rise and at least for the moment they are totally open. I also think Amazons hold with audio books will be difficult to maintain especially as technology and AI gets better. Why pay them when a great sounding AI could read your book to you.

As a little shameless self promotion I have been working on a side project that does exactly this, it takes any Article or PDF from the web and converts it to great sounding audio so you can listen to it on the go. It sounds pretty good, and it's a great way to maximize your dead time and stay informed on the go.

If you want to check out my project you can find it here:

[https://articulu.com/](https://articulu.com/)

<comment><USER38> I've been using your app for 2 months on the free plan after seeing you link it here.

The site dailymaverick.co.za which I frequent has built in AI-read voice for articles provided by a third party service. For some reason, Articulu fails to convert some of the articles, which curiously also do not have a converted audio for their third party service. The failure state is not very graceful.

There's a couple issues with organising my recordings (there's just a queue at the moment), the seek bar, continuing where you left off and renaming recordings.

Also why do I use up credits in the free plan when I listen to the same article more than once?

<comment><USER37> Thank you for using the app, sorry that your having those issues. I will look into all of those.

Any chance you can shot an email to firstname.lastname@example.com, so we can see the account, and let us know if your on iOS or Android. Any of the Failed URLs will also be really helpful so we can make the scraping more resilient. We are working hard to add features that help organize articles better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I used to really love Audible because they _had_ excellent customer service. Now I only tolerate them. One more instance of needing to send a dozen back and forth emails to their so-called customer support repeating the same message over and over and getting increasingly frustrated and upset because not a single goddamn one of their offshored drones actually bothers to read what you write before responding about something entirely unrelated and I will terminate the service I've had with them since 2002. Watching a company you loved dealing with destroy the human side of its service makes me very sad.

</comment><comment><USER40> I hate Audible, with a passion. They have drm, so I can't listen in the app I like, and the prices...Back in secondary I've been listening to audiobooks at the rate of approximately one book a week. I've used polish libraries for the blind which were legal, free and had everything I wanted (almost). I can't even imagine how much money I'd spend if I had to use Audible instead. Actually I wouldn't even be able to, as I'd been listening on a Rockboxed[1] player, not a smartphone. [1] [https://rockbox.org](https://rockbox.org)

<comment><USER41> Technically you can download audible .aa files and convert them to whatever format you want, default ffmpeg can handle the conversion.

<comment><USER42> How does one do that?

<comment><USER43> OpenAudible.org

Then I wrote a script.

[https://github.com/smutt/mp3_split](https://github.com/smutt/mp3_split)

<comment><USER42> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Audible (audiobooks generally, but generally just Audible) is my primary form of long-form media consumption. I don't watch TV, I don't watch movies, I don't listen to very much music. I probably consume 100-150 Audible books per year, on top of another ~50 Kindle books, and 20-30 pdf/paper books.

With promos and everything else, my average cost per Audible book is about $5. I guess I spend about $1k/yr on books, maybe a little more. Some people spend about that much for cable tv. I feel like I get a lot more value out of books.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well, you are free to not do it

In fact I can't stand podcasts or similars for the most part as I can't do some things while listening to it. Maybe driving but that's it.

As much as it's nice to learn stuff, at some point it is just shallow edutainment (as much as I like some of the science yt channels)

<comment><USER46> I like podcasts because it turns things that I used to absolutely hate doing like dishes or gardening into somewhat enjoyable for me.

<comment><USER47> I could not agree more.

Audiobooks and podcasts are one of my favourite things. If I need to concentrate there's music - if I have to do some mundane physical task that used to bore the bejeezus out of me, I now have them.

I even enjoy the mundane tasks - as gives me time to enjoy the information pumped into my ears, and actually get something useful done at the same time. (Today I decided as spring was hear, I'd spend an hour removing the worst offending weeds from my garden).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Microsoft had ebooks until pretty recently but I only found out about it because of the news about the cancellation of the service. Google Books added audiobooks a while ago but why they don't advertise on YouTube videos and podcasts I'll never understand.

</comment><comment><USER49> I am a real big fan of audiobooks but unfortunately am forced to pirate them because Audible only works with DRM. I would love to buy audiobooks legally but even if I consented on principle to DRM (I do not), my MP3 players do not support DRM.

<comment><USER50> Here you go: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19768543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19768543)

No excuse now :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> We run an ebook to audiobook conversion service and most of the growth comes from places like web serials and fanfiction:

[https://Auditus.cc](https://Auditus.cc)

</comment><comment><USER52> Imagine finding out that the New York stock exchange were buying and selling shares on their own account. They see you bid, execute a trade in between, and then fill your bid. This is fundamental, you can't be the global marketplace and be a trader.

Take this one stage further, imagine finding that companies listed of the NYSE had NYSE directors on their board? Imagine finding that this year's hot IPO is a company owned by NYSE. This is what happens when Amazon become the publisher.

It is time to break up Amazon

</comment><comment><USER53> I can't resist the temptation to ask given this thread is on HN (a community I love) and Audible is a passion... for those who love Audible and Audio books, would you mind sharing 2-3 you particularly enjoyed? I'm always hunting for new ones. Here are some I would recommend:

Management

1\. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People

2\. Getting to Yes Great book on negotiation in life and business

3\. The Hard Thing About Hard Things On management

4\. Influence The psychology of persuasion

Non-Fiction Recommendations

1\. River of Doubt True story of Teddy Roosevelt's exploration of a previously unchartered region of the Amazon River where he and his team almost perished.

2\. Endurance True story of Sir Ernest Shackelton's journey to be the first to reach the south pole. Arguably one of the greatest survival stories of all time.

3\. The Disappearing Spoon Story behind the periodic table, the elements, the people who discovered them and the context under which they were discovered. Learn a lot about day to day things you don't put much thought into.

4\. Business Adventures Bill Gates was interviewed and asked what his favorite business book is - this was it (out of print for 40 years until 5 months ago). It's a collection of about a dozen 1-1.5 hour true business case studies (20th century). A lot of them were seminal events in corporate America (for example, the event that resulted in modern day insider trading laws, the creation of the income tax, etc). You'll enjoy this if you like business books.

5\. Creativity Inc by the cofounder of Pixar. Good story.

6\. Alchemy of Air Story of the investors of the Haber-Bauche process to convert nitrogen in the air to ammonia (the key component of artificial fertilizer, gas and gunpowder). Arguably the greatest discovery of the 20th century if you take into account the fact without this process, Earth's arable land mass can only sustain 2bn people. It also has resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths by allowing wars to wage on indefinitely

7\. A Short History of Nearly Everything A fast pace, well written science book by Bill Bryson that covers what we know about the creation of the world thus far. You'll enjoy it.

8\. The Boys in the Boat Very inspiring story about the men's 1936 olympic gold metal rowing team

9\. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Very inspiring story by the creator of Nike. One of the best memoirs I've ever read.

10\. Lessons of History by Will Durant Short and extremely thought provoking. Stylistically tough to get into but once you do it is quite good.

11\. Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World The first half of this is better than the second but overall a very enlightening book about the impact of the Mongols, broadly considered to be Barbarians but in actuality far ahead of their time (first to broadly use printed currency, a postal system, a judicial system, military engineers, etc).

Fiction / Fantasy Recommendations

1\. The Martian Awesome story and as realistic as fiction can get. Was a great listen.

2\. Theft of Swords great story about two lovable characters. It is part of a trilogy

3\. Red Rising Part of a trilogy, great listen but worth caveating it is an extreme hunger games like story that is quite violent

4\. Name of the Wind Epic fantasy adventure, one of the highest rated books on Good Reads. Absolutely worth it but at 30 hours may be a large commitment as a first book

5\. The Way of Kings This book gave me heart palpitations... again, a large commitment but I can't drop it from the list

6\. Lies of Loch Lomura A very fun adventure story; reader's voice takes a moment to get used to but once you do it is very fun and endearing

7\. Mistborn Great story in a unique world

<comment><USER4> Science Fiction: The Bobiverse Triligoy [We are Legion (We are Bob)] is a hilarious story about a character not unlike the average Hacker News reader that finds himself in the enviable position of having his consciousness uploaded into a Von Neumann probe (self replicating space exploring robot). It has a good humor, the same attention to details The Martian has, nerdy pop culture references, and several moments of philosophical musings. Ray Porter does fantastic narration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Hmm...

Is it legal to read a book outloud on Twitch?

</comment><comment><USER55> This article has taken the thoughts right out of my mind. I struggle, as an achiever type, to "waste" time and therefore fill my mind with audiobooks from the library as well as audible.

The need to unplug is real.

</comment><comment><USER56> I think that article would have been better in audible form ;)

</comment><comment><USER57> Tried parsing through the first few paragraphs; can someone offer a tl;dr of how Audible is assaulting leisure time?

Is it because Audible can be listened to while performing other tasks or going about your day, and it removes the previously quiet, uninterrupted time of the day to ponder?

<comment><USER58> Kinda, but I admit to being confused as well...

'It's simplistic but not entirely inaccurate to say that Audible's parent, Amazon, is to book publishing what Facebook and Google are to magazines: the troll under the bridge whose idea of a toll is to devour consumers and competitors whole.' and

'On the train to get coffee with a well-meaning writer twenty years your senior who will advise you to "climb the ladder" like she did. By listening, you partially reclaim the lost hours, preserving some ghost of an alternate universe where you don't have to do what you're doing, and you're on the couch reading the old-fashioned way instead.'

Personally, I find audio-books almost completely different from active reading... mostly distracted entertainment rather than true immersion.

<comment><USER23> Audiobooks are rather unique in that you have to maintain a degree of mental discipline to avoid giving into the temptation to treat them as background noise. My personal strategy is to stick to lighthearted podcasts when I'm doing something that requires cognitive attention like web browsing or gaming and save the audiobooks for truly routine tasks like commuting to work or cutting the grass. I've also gotten good results from reading the first chapter of a book to firmly place the characters and setting in my mind and then switching to the audiobook.

<comment><USER59> I'm similar, except when I'm at the computer I only listen to music. I could turn on a podcast, but will hear absolutely zero of what is said.

Podcasts are great for the gym, drive, and yard work though.

For books, I prefer to read. The pacing of reading allows me to think more deeply about the content. Admittedly, I do not read a lot of throw away novels. If I did, maybe they could take the place of podcasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> My problems with Audible

\- I cannot search for a new book on Audible - I need to go to amazon, buy there and come back.

\- I cannot get my podcasts on Audible app.

\- I cannot manage the books on Audible (same issue with kindle). There is one screen for seeing the whole library - sometimes I want to put books on a high shelf cos I know I won't go back to them ... ever.

\- Why can I not get a text version of each audible book for free? and vice versa. It annoys me to pay twice - especially when there is explicitly a kindle / audible sync designed to allow you to listen to page X then read from page X. It's like they thought it would be good but then failed to sell the idea to publishers.

\- Why can't authors put out their own readings (I think this is a publisher issue - but I think the whole market could 10x if authors just released audible books like podcasts, polished or not)

\- Listening takes _longer_ than reading. So there is a big incentive to write scripts for audible only books - shorter and more radio play like. But mostly audible is just the after thought.

\- Frankly I know there is something there - it's just hard to see what the real market will look like when we find it.

<comment><USER61> Part of these issues are due to the in-app apple tax. Audiobooks and ebooks would be 15% more expensive.

Searching and buying audiobooks and ebooks works fine on Android where Audible is allowed to provide their own in-app payment system.</comment></comment>


Once again I'm disappointed - <AUTHOR>

When redesigning icons and distributing as a new operating system become acceptable in the industry and by the most innovative company of the valley ? I remember the film "Pirates of the Silicon Valley" and see that Engineers working until mornings with cigarettes to create the most desirable products for the humankind as stressed out. Nowadays it is all industrialization 9-5 shifts and all the software is redesigning the existing elements and improving the most minor details. Who uses notification center for gods sake ? iOS 8 ? what is different from iOS7 ? I remember the major details between Win95 and 98 and I think none of the companies nowadays will produce such big developments anymore! It is all finance companies now, just the number of sales at the end of the day. I cannot endure the view that an IBM guy took over the Company that is actually built against the same IBM for only financial issues. Where did the vision go ? I promise myself I will only use Mac Computer of the Apple Company from now on. <comment><USER2> What the hell are you talking about?</comment>


Judge refers copyright troll Richard Liebowitz for possible Discipline - compiler-guy https://reason.com/2019/11/14/more-on-the-judge-the-lawyer-and-when-the-grandfather-died/ <comment> compiler-guy This is a secondary source, but the primary source is a Smoking Gun article which sensationalizes far more than it needs.

[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/cathy-seibel/richard- lie...](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/cathy-seibel/richard-liebowitz- folo-128543)</comment>


The Credit Card Prank - <AUTHOR> http://www.zug.com/live/83057/The-Credit-Card-Prank.html <comment><USER2> I always thought the signature was more about attribution rather than security. It's the thing that keeps you from later claiming that you had no knowledge of the transaction.

<comment><USER3> They can check the signature if you challenge a transaction. If it doesn't match, that supports your claim, otherwise it weakens it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some other signatures to try:

\- VOID

\- this is a stick up

\- <a large swastika>

\- I do not agree to pay these charges

\- <the name of your waiter>

</comment><comment><USER5> i think the reality is that if it's signed, however you choose to sign it, it protects the merchant from a chargeback ... Although, signing it with a stick figure is interesting. I wonder if the bank would consider that negligent if you decided to contest the charge.

If you had real guts, you'd contest the Mariah Carey charge. Seems like you have a strong case that you aren't her.</comment>


The Most Controversial Magazine Covers of All Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/the-most-controversial-magazine-covers-of-all-time/ <comment><USER2> Most Controversial _American_ Covers of All Time.</comment>


How we built a 50,000 strong email list in 5 days - <AUTHOR> http://michaelhallsmoore.com/blog/How-we-built-a-50000-strong-email-list-in-5-days

<comment><USER2> I think two key elements from their implementation, which I would not suggest copying for your implementation, are

1) Don't tell people you want their email address because you want to mail them.

and

2) Ask them for their friend's email addresses, too, and see #1.

If you try pulling either of these stunts, most reputable mailing providers are going to hit you with the banhammer. You'll have deserved it, too. If, on the other hand, you a) tell people you want their address to mail them and then b) do a proper double opt-in, your response rates _will_ drop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Patrick, I agree with these points actually. I guess I didn't make that clear.

I don't think I mentioned in the article to ask for their friends' email addresses though, did I? I'll have a re-read.

At the time, I seem to recall that we very specifically mentioned to our users that they would gain their high score ratings (over time) AND they would be notified of PopJam's launch, via email.

I'm very much a "white hat" guy - so if there's anything you think in there that may be considered grey/black, let me know and I'll remove it from the article. I'm all for best practices.

<comment><USER2> I'm just looking at the implementation on sockandawe.com today: the prompt for submitting an email address is, quote, "Submit your score to the leaderboard and find out your global rank.", and then the prompt for a friend's address is "Challenge your friend to beat your score."

Neither of those is exactly best practices for collecting addresses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhh...I see. Unfortunately, we don't own SockAndAwe anymore (we sold it rather soon after it was built!), so have no control over what is put there now.

However, I think it would be prudent to add your suggestions to the article and warn users who go and visit it now. I'll make those changes this evening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> seems like getting 10 million people to come to your site was the key ingredient

<comment><USER4> The most surprising is that only 50,000 of them converted into email signups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish we had had more time to A/B test the signup - but we only implemented it on day 2. I will certainly know better if it ever happens again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is destined to result in poor deliverability for them in perpetuity due to a step change in volume combined with spam complaints. I would not do this. (I run a profitable ad-suppoted daily email list.)

<comment><USER6> Do you mind sharing what your daily email list is?

<comment><USER5> Sure, "priorsmart litigation alerts". Here is a review/description: [http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/08/patent-litigation- al...](http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/08/patent-litigation-alerts.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Inbound newsletter traffic is the last hope for organic traffic to any kind of media site. Otherwise you're in SEM arbitrage land and that's a losing game.

Anyone who reads this and decides to run a newsletter should keep the grid a simple list and give people choices to help conversion. AVOID the temptation to include too many graphics or colors in the communication. The only picture should be the crap people are supposed to click on and maybe your sad logo.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the 1 attribute colleagues should have to make workplace better? - <AUTHOR> Examples: * Understand the difference between facts, and opinions, when presenting arguments * Don't constantly underestimate the time taken to finish a specific task <comment> Engr-Student I can't ask that they all be able in 1 day to create without aid, internet, or reference from a 286 and command line interface the source and compiled code for Mindows 2020. It is a wish that is unrealizable.

Realizable is a commitment to set aside personality and personal agenda to realize the maximum delivery of value to the organization.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You would definitely make the great colleague/leader, and I would hire you!</comment></comment>


TomTom Sold User Data to Police, Motorists Then Targeted With Speed Traps - <AUTHOR> http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/04/back-fire-tomtom-sold-user-data-to-police-motorists-then-targeted-with-speed-traps.html

<comment><USER2> This was on reddit a week or so ago. I thought the top comment on the article there explained it reasonably, so I'm just going to quote it here:

"Here's the situation:

-TomTom, when you first set your GPS up, asks you if you want anonymous time/location travel data to be sent to TomTom. You can say no if you want. This has been going on for years.

-TomTom sends this anonymous data to authorities and governments with the idea that it will help them know where to build new/better roads etc. This has been going on for years.

-TomTom finds out that Dutch police are using this data to set up speed traps. TomTom, as a courtesy, lets everyone know what the Dutch police are doing, while they decide what to do about it.

And somehow the headline we get paints TomTom as evil jerks for this? They are the ones who let you know about what Dutch police are doing. This is a press release that they issued. They are warning you."

<comment><USER3> The problem as I understand it is that TomTom didn't give the data as a courtesy, they sold the data. Sure, it's good that they've been transparent when they found out about what the Dutch Police were doing, but I don't think it was clear that they would sell your data to government agencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was this data only sold to Dutch police or to US police departments as well? The article is not very clear on this, but mentions Dutch police specifically. Regardless, California drivers beware, police have been really cracking down hard on speeding since last month.

<comment><USER5> > _Was this data only sold to Dutch police or to US police departments as > well?_

If the data was sold to US police departments, things could play out very differently. Highways under MUTCD jurisdiction (basically any roadway receiving FHWA funds) are supposed to set speed limits according to prevailing traffic conditions (specifically the 85th percentile speed, see [http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part2/part2b.htm#section2...](http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part2/part2b.htm#section2B13) ).

A lot of times speed limits are set by statute with no engineering studies behind them to justify the limit. If the Tom Tom data point out that traffic is exceeding the speed limit at a location, that would be evidence that the posted limit is actually too low and the limit should be _increased_.

<comment><USER6> It's disturbing how seldom local jurisdictions follow the MUTCD. Just in case one does, though, I'm sometimes tempted to pull over next to those black- hoses-across-the-roadway speed measurement devices and spoof a lot of extremely fast traffic with a pair of hammers or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not worried. I own a TomTom and know how bad their data is.

</comment><comment><USER8> We read about this last week did we not?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2491729>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2490690>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2497611>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2494170>

Etc.

<comment><USER9> right. let me search before i submit...

/sarcasms :)</comment></comment>


The saving grace of Apple Music? Human beings - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@stevenlevy/what-have-they-been-smoking-at-apple-music-2c0fba900234#.oukdz4i6y <comment><USER2> I agree - the human curation is great and beats Spotify (plus family sharing). Sadly, the bugs with offline playlists are really frustrating.</comment>


The Epidemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-epidemic.com <comment><AUTHOR> In case you missed it, first, watch the video on the website, then click on the link provided there, which leads you here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiyBGUmTip4&t=123](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiyBGUmTip4&t=123)</comment>