Ask HN: How to plug a knowledge gap in a startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi all. I've been running a "startup" for just over a year. It's a website aimed at people in the local community, of interest to generally everyone in the area.
We have some interest from advertisers that barely cover the bills, let alone salaries etc. We do have a product to sell on top of this, basically just premium features for those that want them (mainly local business owners) but have not yet rolled that out.
I'm a developer, another co-founder is a developer and the final co-founder is designer/UI person. I can run a business bookkeeping wise; where we need help is with sales and marketing.
We do all the usual twitter/facebook stuff but we need help with proper marketing aimed at getting average people to use our site, not just the tech circle we've built up so far (circa 4K people). We also need someone to go out and get businesses paying us for the premium features and secure advertising. We've been looking for someone for a while but no one in our circle fits the bill, it's mainly all programmers or designers.
So my question. Where do you go/what do you do to find people to plug a gap in your startup's expertise. Someone that doesn't mind not getting paid but has some entrepreneurial spirit and can take a risk, just like the rest of us.
I've no idea where to start. Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Plug this gap by reading and doing, not by hiring.

The main reason is that you're still in the early stages of establishing a product/market fit. As Steve Blank (alongside others) says, that means you need to "get outside the building." The people who are in charge of defining and envisioning the product -- the founders, or some subset of the founders -- need to be the people seeing why their product is or isn't selling.

If you feel totally unclear on how sales even works, then read a book or two (starting with Steve Blank). And see if you can meet someone who either buys or sells in the industry; buy them lunch for some guidance and tips. It might be tempting to bring on board someone like that, but dividing up responsibilities early will make it vastly harder to identify real gaps in product fit. Bring on sales people only when you have a consistently replicable process for selling.

In terms of marketing to end-users, you're kind of in a difficult spot in that your target market seems pretty diffuse, therefore not easy to target. If you can come up with a segment of potential users who could be unusually passionate about the product, see if you can reach those people. Go where they are; get endorsements from the people they like. Optimize your viral loops to reach or be useful to those people.

Now, if you have 3 co-founders, it's not necessary for all 3 to sell and market. I'd suggest making it a primary job of 2 of them.

By the way, this advice might be different in the case of other kinds of knowledge gaps. But for sales/marketing, this increasingly and by far seems like the winning strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it not better to get someone in who is actually good at the job rather than me doing it reluctantly? I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable in a sales role.

Another reason for wanting someone else to do it is so I can dedicate my time to developing.

<comment><USER2> Yes, those are the common reasons that founders hesitate to sell. I'm sympathetic, especially with the developing part -- superficially it seems like optimal outcomes are generated by everyone focusing on their core skills.

But the first major sales are almost always going to come from a founder and/or CEO. So even if the optimal choice is not you, it's probably at least _one_ of the founders; he/she may be very uncomfortable in the role but should be able to do it. (By the way, I'd speculate that the optimal person is you, not either of them.)

There are a few exception cases, where someone delegated to a sales person and it worked out. But I think this is a case where those are truly rare exceptions.

[http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/12/startup- sales-...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/12/startup-sales-why- hiring-seasoned-reps-may-not-work/)

[http://steveblank.com/2009/09/07/the-customer-development- ma...](http://steveblank.com/2009/09/07/the-customer-development-manifesto- the-death-spiral-part-3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree with a lot of the comments listed here. As the visionary, it is important for you to be as close to the market as possible. I've worked in Sales at a startup with an early-stage product addressing an emerging market need. At that stage, it is imperative to have agile and product-minded people "selling" the product (Mark Leslie's The Sales Learning Curve speaks to this and might be a good read for you).

Happy to chat with you more about my experience with this if it would be helpful. Feel free to email me at joel at box dot net

</comment><comment><USER4> Definitely what aamar said. I'm a developer, I spend a lot of time outside my comfort zone talking to people and groups, sometimes even in person bleh, but it's got to be done.

You have to fill as many roles as you can, including adapting to fill those roles, until you can afford not to.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like your ideal person is someone with a background selling ads for local newspapers...

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, as there should be a lot of those kinds of people looking for a job I'd think, especially from local newspapers.</comment></comment>


Viber Founder Threatened with Arrest - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/09/delta-threatens-to-call-cops-on-viber-founder-for-using-voip-app-on-plane/

<comment><USER2> No one is ever locked up for making calls/using an app. You get questioned for not following direct orders from flight attendants. Up there, they are the law. If they decide you are endangering the flight they can inform the captain who decides to make a diversion to offload you sooner. Then you get not only questioned by police but also a hefty bill from the airline for the disruption caused.

<comment><USER3> The law is the law, not arbitrary statements of poorly trained people.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to jot down random thoughts and ideas at any time/place? - <AUTHOR> Preferably a cross platform app.
Back when I lived on only one computer at a time, I used Microsoft OneNote. It worked real well until I realized the pitfalls of proprietary software and formats, and sure enough, I was bitten by them when I found I couldn't access any of my old notes files on the Mac version.
My next favorite was Ulysses [0] because of its drawer/shoebox UI and the plaintext Markdown format, but since they moved to a dumb (IMO) subscription model, the deprecated paid version has been mysteriously or coincidentally becoming too buggy for me on newer macOS versions.
I'm looking for something that basically just puts a pretty interface around a folder hierarchy of plaintext (and possibly image/sound) files, and is compatible with any cloud storage providers (iCloud Drive, Dropbox etc.) so that macOS-only will be enough if it saves in regular plaintext, but ideally it would also have iOS [+Android/Windows] versions.
I'm currently looking at Quiver [1], and would like to see what HN uses.
[0] https://ulyssesapp.com
[1] http://happenapps.com/#quiver <comment><USER2> I use and develop Standard Notes :) Simple and private. [https://standardnotes.org](https://standardnotes.org)

<comment><USER3> I didn't notice until after I'd posted that you already mentioned SN here. :)

Love it. Thank you for your work. Please don't stop.

<comment><USER2> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use my own app I made for this exact purpose, BulletNotes. You can use the hosted service I provide [0], or you can host your own easily with the directions linked on the GitHub page [1].

The main way I use it for fast entry is I have an IFTTT integration setup to take any incoming text messages, and store them as a note in my Inbox that I can sort later.

Then I have my Pebble watch setup to have a one button press voice to SMS to my IFTTT number. So I just raise my wrist, hold the 'up' button, say my note, and send it. Done.

If voice to text won't work, I can send a normal text, an email, run a terminal command, use my Alfred workflow, send a chat to the Telegram bot, or even make a voice phone call.

[0] [https://bulletnotes.io/](https://bulletnotes.io/) [1] [https://github.com/NickBusey/BulletNotes](https://github.com/NickBusey/BulletNotes)

<comment><USER5> Same, I built my own as well ([https://notational.co](https://notational.co)) inspired by Notational Velocity ([http://notational.net/](http://notational.net/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use the Notes app on iOS. It's decidedly lacking in a lot of features that other richer apps have, BUT, it is the only thing that is constantly there, whenever I need it. It's followed me around for years on all my devices, and I can search through it rather easily.

For me, for the sort of quick/random thought logging, quick accessibility trumps features any day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Notes is my backup/"scratchpad" as well, but it's impractical for me for the following reasons:

— Too easy to accidentally edit notes. I've occasionally destroyed some notes by "butt dialing" when I forgot to turn off the phone and put it in my pocket, which caused them to be replaced by random text. To avoid that I have to password-protect and hide important notes, which is inconvenient if I don't necessarily need privacy on them.

— Cannot view creation date, afaik, only modification.

– If I ever cannot (or don't want to) use the Notes app then I can't access my notes.

— Cannot add audio or link to arbitrary files on local storage. Can't link to other notes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I usually dump them into Google Keep and then forget about them.

<comment><USER8> I dump them into Google Keep and set a reminder for that particular note.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For journaling, I use a markdown file in a private git repo. I can access it on MacBook easily enough but use mosh app on my iPad to login to a private server.

I try to organize my entries pretty well, so they are easy to search. However, there is no folder hierarchy. No links or images.

I was using Pages for my journal, it was good solution if you are in Apple's ecosystem. But I like automatic builtin back in git's workflow. Sometimes, I take notes in Pages for a few days, then move them over to markdown file. This is slowly becoming my preferred workflow as it allows me to review my previous notes instead of just continue to add at the end of the file.

And when I jotting down random ideas, I prefer pen and paper. Stuff like things to do, random ideas for projects, etc. If I store them electronically, I will never look at them again.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _If I store them electronically, I will never look at them again._

That seems to be an actual problem for everyone, isn't it?

Maybe a notes app could try solving it by doing the Facebook-like thing where it occasionally shows you a random note from the past. :)

Or suggesting similar past notes when you write a new one that matches them. e.g., if I'm writing down an idea I've had for a role-playing game, the app suggests past notes with RPG in them.

<comment><USER9> That is interesting UX issue to resolve.

For me, a physical note occupies space on my desk but rarely ever gets in the way. I can look at it if I want but it is not annoying like notifications in cell phone or pop ups in desktop apps. This includes both, sticky notes and notepad.

Also another part of using pen and paper is drawing capabilities. Sometimes I have ideas that will take too long to describe in words, but one crappy flowchart grabs everything about the idea.

And delete function in real world is so hard to replicate in electronic devices. When you are done with a physical note, crumbling the paper and tossing in trash is so satisfying.

With all that said, all my physical notes are temporary. They are either to do lists which get done in next few days or ideas that get transferred to more permanent place such as journal or blog post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I have a small spiral pad, I use that otherwise I will use Google Keep and later translate it to paper

</comment><comment><USER11> I use a pen and paper. Moleskin notebook and a Coptic multiliner 0.5. I also bought a pen loupe to keep the pen with the notebook . The multi liner drys so fast that I can never get a smudge.

For electronic notes I use the notes app from Apple.

</comment><comment><USER12> Used Quiver for a while but it didn't support mobile editing for a while so I switched to Bear.

[http://www.bear-writer.com/](http://www.bear-writer.com/)

<comment><USER13> I love Bear. It's just the right amount of organization without getting in your way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I use Trello. I have an android app to jolt down ideas on the go. or macOS app to do the same while working in office. Trello syncs across devices which is awesome. My basic idea (one liner) goes as the card title. and description of the card have the implementation details (which i write down when i am at leisure, probably using macOS version)

</comment><comment><USER15> I use Apple Notes. I have no problems with it seamlessly syncing nearly what seems like real time with my desktop and mobile iOS devices.

<comment><USER16> I use Apple notes as well for its simple UI and limited options (which I find a plus).

I jot a lot of notes though, and still prefer revising on pen and paper so I wrote an Apple script that prints all notes in a given date range and I then review/consolidate them.

I try to do it once a week, and it works pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use my personal journaling/habit-tracking app, [https://github.com/ioddly/meditations](https://github.com/ioddly/meditations) , so I can keep everything private. When I'm out and about, I'll store them on Google Keep and transfer them manually when I get home.

</comment><comment><USER18> Consider using Bear or Zoho Notebook. Both of them available for iOS and macOS (Zoho also has a web app), has very quick sync and clutter-free UI (Bear has more, advanced formatting features also). Zoho Notebook is free, Bear is $2/month.

</comment><comment><USER19> I use Apple Notes but would prefer a different interface/app. I have yet to find an alternative with solid support for tables, though. Tables are the only reason I moved to Apple Notes from SimpleNote (which I otherwise really liked)

</comment><comment><USER20> My fountain pen (Faber Castell with an italics nib) and a Lechtturm 1917 notebook (A4+, squared).

<comment><USER21> Faber castell mechanical pencil, lechtturm 1917 A5 notebook, and my own bastardisation of bullet journalling which is functional and simple (like the original idea) without the washy tape and page wasting pictures.

Personal experience is you can't beat pencil and paper. No need to charge, login, sync etc. If it has to be on a computer plain text files for me, though I like me some markdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> TextEdit or org-mode, then forget I made them or even don't save them

</comment><comment><USER23> Simplenote for general ideas

Trello card for actual tasks

</comment><comment><USER24> I send myself an email

</comment><comment><USER3> Standard Notes.

</comment><comment><USER25> evernote, email, vi</comment>


Bitcoin: who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5951.0 <comment><USER2> Why link to some random forum post? This is a terrible submission.

There has been much speculation on the subject, you could have chosen from a lot of decent articles like this:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_davis)

or this:

[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/10/race- unmas...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/10/race-unmask- bitcoins-inventors/43535/)

I'd rather read posts from above-top-secret than the bitcoin forums.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, the comments on that forum are certainly an interesting insight into the weird sort of paranoia/megalomania that leads people to become Bitcoin zealots -

"Satoshi definitely saw this as a strike against the malignant forces that national fiat currencies and the parasitic monetary/finance system has become.

Enslaving us all in unpayable debts and endless taxation for wars and bankster bonuses ... it is now a criminal system that will go down in history and those at top aren't doing squat to change it, except personal enrichment. (Oh but we are chasing bad guys playing poker online, trading goldbits and smoking weed on their couches ... whatta a load of BS)."

</comment><comment><USER4> "Satoshi Nakamoto was the pseudonymous person or group of people who designed and created the original bitcoin protocol and launched the bitcoin network." -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Satoshi_Nakamoto>

\-- I think that pretty much sums it up ... likely one or more people who wanted to remain anonymous.

<comment><USER5> This is only speculation as the source cited for this info on wikipedia is a wired article which is not very good for factual information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The stronger the bitcoin exchange rate is, the more stories I see about bitcoin. Or is it the other way around?

<comment><USER7> Well as its value seems to be driven almost entirely by a combination of hype and fanaticism... either way really :)

<comment><USER8> What else do you propose would set its value? It's not exactly correlated to precious metal so the exchange value is really the only definition isn't it?

<comment><USER9> The value is set just like for other currencies. Really no difference there, no matter how much some people are trying to say that there is some "real" value behind other currencies. Nothing has a "more real" value behind them, not even gold. It's all based on how limited the supply of it is, and the value of the transactions done it in. That's how all currencies get valued.

The "problem" with Bitcoin right now is that _much_ of its _new_ value is based on rumors and hype. But it's _base_ value (say that of ~$15 or so) is pretty real, as real as it can be. But most or all of the difference between $15 and its current price of $25 or whatever it is now, seems to have been made mostly on hype, and I hope it ends soon. And this is only happening right now because the transaction value is still pretty tiny of around $200 million or so. Get that to $200 billion or $2 trillion, and then this shouldn't happen as often or with as much variability.

<comment><USER10> Almost all bubbles began with a "new" thing that propelled demand for a "new economy".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More dense information than in this forum thread here:

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto>

</comment><comment><USER12> The wise creator of the future currency of the planet. Start using Bitcoins here! - <http://thebitcoinmaster.blogspot.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> Why does it matter?

<comment><USER13> The creators of bitcoin still control something like 25% of all bitcoins, which gives them a huge amount of leverage in manipulating the bitcoin economy. So it's interesting that nobody knows who they are.

<http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf>

<comment><USER14> Where did you get that, out of that PDF? The number 25% sounds extremely high.

I have read this PDF before, a while ago, and I don't remember that stat. A quick glance tells me that they say that 2 addresses have over 500,000 Bitcoins, but that's just 4.6% (or more, obviously) of the total 10.7M issued so far. And there's no proof that this is the creator of Bitcoin. In fact, it's more likely one of the large exchanges!

So, please help me understand your statement. If it's buried in the text of that PDF, my apologies.

<comment><USER13> On page 11, it says that Entity A has 78k addresses and 2.8M bitcoins, and is distinct from known large exchanges.

The implication is that some early adopters (possibly the creators) have stockpiled bitcoins in that entity.

<comment><USER15> Entity A is most likely a largest bitcoin pool (they own only a little commission on this money).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm betting it's PG ;-)</comment>


'Most sophisticated tunnel in US history' discovered between Mexico and Arizona - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/07/us-mexico-smuggling-tunnel-arizona-sophisticated <comment><USER2> "... the tunnel ran from Mexico to a disused Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant..."

Should have used "Los pollos hermanos"</comment>


MongoDB Apocalypse Is Here as Ransom Attacks Hit 10,000 Servers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/mongodb-apocalypse-is-here-as-ransom-attacks-hit-10-000-servers/ <comment><USER2> The same story on Ars has had a bit more traction (120+ comments).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13345947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13345947)

</comment><comment><USER3> "hackers have now hit around 10,500 MongoDB servers. That's about 25% of all MongoDB databases accessible via the Internet. The attacks don't target all MongoDB databases, but only those left accessible via the Internet and without a password on the administrator account."

25% of mongodb installs externally accessible lack a fucking password on the admin account.

They deserve it. Maybe it will teach them something.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you, but to me it is a problem that goes back to the people who made the decision of allowing admin accounts without a password. In a world where software stacks have multiple applications, programming languages and databases, it happens that people are not experts in everything. They make mistakes. Then there is a huge pool of companies who have poorly skilled devs coming from the Wordpress/Drupal/Prestashop/Etc background who many times don't actually know anything about security.

Then there is the fact that MongoDB is known for having a very bad reputation among software engineers. I could personally write down many horror stories that I experienced myself, plus all the things you get to hear from friends and tech blogs.

Maybe after this attack some companies ban it from their software stacks. I really hope they do so. The world would be a better place without MongoDB.

<comment><USER5> > it is a problem that goes back to the people who made the decision of > allowing admin accounts without a password.

No. Just.. no.... Security of YOUR system is YOUR responsibility.

> In a world where software stacks have multiple applications, programming > languages and databases, it happens that people are not experts in > everything.

Hire one.

> Maybe after this attack some companies ban it from their software stacks.

Or maybe decision makers realise that yes, you do need to pay for skills.

<comment><USER4> >> it is a problem that goes back to the people who made the decision of allowing admin accounts without a password. > No. Just.. no.... Security of YOUR system is YOUR responsibility.

I agree. But what you are saying has nothing to do with whether a database should have sane defaults or not.

>> In a world where software stacks have multiple applications, programming languages and databases, it happens that people are not experts in everything. > Hire one.

You seem not to know much about the real world out there. Companies are struggling A LOT to find ANY people at all.

>> Maybe after this attack some companies ban it from their software stacks. > Or maybe decision makers realise that yes, you do need to pay for skills.

More money is not going to magically increase the pool of skilled software engineers around the world. If all the companies in the world increased what they pay, nothing would change, besides the fact that they would spend more money.

<comment><USER5> > [...] sane defaults [...]

Defaults - sane or not - lead to exactly these types of situations. It encourages "it's good enough" thinking, and dilutes the feeling of responsibility.

> You seem not to know much about the real world out there.

yeah, yeah... yawn.

> Companies are struggling A LOT to find ANY people at all.

Uhm, not companies that are willing to pay good money for good devs/devops/sysadmins.

> More money is not going to magically increase the pool of skilled software > engineers around the world.

I would argue that it is the software developers' job to develop software. It would be a sysadmin/devops type person to look after the infrastructure, and make sure it is properly secured. I see _so_ many job ads for a single role (developer, engineer, CTO, whatever) and then a jobdescription for "must be able to do everything related to any aspect of all our IT". Hilarious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm being all "get off my lawn", but I feel this is an almost inevitable result of attitudes about new stacks, the rise of the bootcamper, and hackathons-turned-product. In theory that young hipster developer that fits the mold would be just a junior on the team, and their enthusiam and foolhardiness towards moving fast and breaking things would be tempered by more mature team members and operators. However, I think we're seeing a world where 2013 bootcamp grads are the seniors and the cult of hacking and iterating and breaking things means situations like this will become more common.

<comment><USER7> As a young hipster developer, I agree with you 100%. Modern startups have generally been taking an approach that is totally dismissive of long-tail risks such as this one.

I think it is extremely unfortunate that financial incentives are currently stacked against engineering responsibly -- a startup that tries to actually secure a well-built product will need to spend an often unaffordable amount of money or time doing so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why do so many MongoDB installation lack a password on the Admin account?

I tried search for me info, but could find anything. Was this the default? Procedure given in a popular tutorial? It seems pretty insane.

<comment><USER9> It was the default for at least a year I think. They changed the defaults, but that didn't impact any existing default configs...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there a tool for checking mongo vulnerabilities?</comment>


How to Get to Genius - <AUTHOR> http://jamesthornton.com/blog/how-to-get-to-genius <comment><USER2>
      > Thoughts are the neural activity in your brain, and they
      > get stored as physical objects -- the neural connections.
      > They get stronger as you think more about them and they
      > can go away too – so we have a scientific explanation for
      > the adage, "Use it or lose it."

Why do people feel this constant urge to sprinkle their fluff posts with not- even-semi-correct pop-neuroscience? He clearly doesn't know anything about neural plasticity, so why cheapen everything by pretending?

<comment><USER3> That's pretty much a direct quote from MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung's TED talk:

<http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sebastian_seung.html>

The idea that neural connections (synapses) grow stronger from learning is well supported...

"synapses grow stronger when we're awake as we learn and adapt to an ever- changing environment" ([http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/news/sleep- tempers-growt...](http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/news/sleep-tempers- growth-of-synapses/842))

"Most contemporary neuro-scientists agree that learning takes place at the neural switch points – the synapses. Research has shown that experience can change synapses: they can become either stronger or weaker; and this change can persist for a lifetime. Changes in synaptic conduction are without doubt the basis for learning and long-term memory" ([http://www.mentalspaceresearch.com/english- articles/expandin...](http://www.mentalspaceresearch.com/english- articles/expanding-the-neuro-in-nlp)).

"One area of change is the synapses, the connections between neurons, which are altered as the brain receives stimuli. "What happens when you're awake is you produce an overall strengthening of synapses," Dr. Tononi said. "That's good, because that's how you learn."

But that is unsustainable in the long run, because stronger synapses require more energy and material, and there's a limit to how much of both is available. "It's as if in the morning you start with a V-6 engine," he said, "and in the evening you find yourself idling, but you're running a V-8." Stronger synapses are also bigger, but the brain cannot grow bigger or denser. "If you strengthen synapses because you learn, soon you'd reach a point where you can't learn further," he added.

So Dr. Tononi and a colleague, Chiara Cirelli, have hypothesized that during sleep, the synapses weaken. The downscaling is across the board, so that the synapses' relative strength is maintained. Those that have been used (those involved in learning) stay stronger than those that haven't."

(<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29obslee.html?_r=1>)

<comment><USER2> Take a look at the passage I quoted.

He equates "thoughts" and "neural activity." That's either a vacuous statement (because, assuming materialism, all mental activity is neural activity) or embarrassingly oversimplified. Similar situation for the following two sentences. I'm not disputing synaptic theories of memory/learning; they're common sense these days. Moreover, I'm sure he's derived his presentation from (hopefully sound) science.

But nothing is gained from faux-scientific, superficial neuro-bla. Nothing at all. Reality is much more complicated: usage is but one mechanism by which synaptic strength is modulated. There are several others. Nobody really understands how learning works, or how "thoughts are stored" (whatever that is supposed to mean). Sure, synaptic connections change after learning episodes. But that tells us shit about how to become a genius, or why a (HIGH-LEVEL -- neuroscience has no clue how stuff like this works!) phenomenon like sudden perspective shifts leads to breakthroughs.

So why cheapen solid pop-psychology with insufficient grasp of modern neurobiology?

<comment><USER3> "How thoughts are stored" is the entire premise of Sebastian Seung's (<http://bcs.mit.edu/people/seung.html>) TED talk it was referencing -- "I Am My Connectome".

The importance of perspective shifts isn't a new idea -- Alan Kay stresses the same thing ([http://www.ted.com/talks/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful_idea_abo...](http://www.ted.com/talks/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful_idea_about_ideas.html)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure why this was front-paged. Twice.

I disagree with the premise that a mere mortal can spontaneously boot strap him-self to a higher plane of thinking through a simple change in perspective. Revolutionary breakthroughs are a product of obsession and hard work. Aha moments are built on top of a lot of grinding. The Principia Mathematica stands testimony to this.

This post could have been written in a much more terse manner. There is a very low information density. We don't need wireframes and tangentially related TED talks to understand this stuff. It feels pedantic at best.

<comment><USER3> It says it's takes "a lot of grinding":

"Developing these rare or unique perspectives usually takes a deliberate and devoted focus on something. Einstein said, 'It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.' Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour rule. He says, 'Studies suggest that the key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. It's simply practice, 10,000 hours of it — 20 hours a week for 10 years.'"

Think of it this way, if you were omniscient -- meaning you perceive everything, you see everything from every angle -- you would have total perspective. But we're not omniscient -- our perspectives are relatively sparse, but the more associations/connections you make, the the more your perspective grows and you start to see a "bigger picture".

You don't develop understanding by learning raw facts -- understanding comes from relating to other things. It's the connections that matter.

<comment><USER4> I will concede that it covers it tangentially before the article starts veers from psychology into questionable neurology.

However, the author of the article definitely comes from the camp which mistakes the perspective shift as more important than the hard work. How? Let me count the ways.

1.Sadly, this article succumbs to the myth that Einstein was bad at math. Einstein had fully mastered integral calculus and differential equations by the time he was 15 and achieved full marks for most of his high school subjects. His huge amount of ability allowed him the critical perspective shifts. The author mistakenly thinks dwarves have the vision of giants.

2.The section "Insights from Weak Association" slips into this solipsism with gratuitous flair. I don't believe the "NeuroLeadership Journal" is peer reviewed. However, according to the esteemed, Mark Beeman detecting weak associations may help problem solve. How wonderfully useless. This precedes which states how understanding the problem is "easy" after all.

3\. Perspective before focus. This is the title of the third section Sadly, you will not get perspective if you do not focus. Being able to see differently is a product of sweating over it a million different ways. You have it backwards. Tight mental frameworks are the product of focus. Thinking about how you can revolutionize the field before studying it is premature optimization.

I believe that I am exceedingly clear both in my arguments and my opinion of the blog post.

<comment><USER3> 1\. It doesn't say Einstein was bad at math, it says his math skills aren't the reason he is considered a genius.

2\. The Google TechTalk it references explains "insights from weak associations" in more detail: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeJSXfXep4M>

3\. If you don't have perspective, how do you know the thing you're focused on is of any importance? You can see practical examples of this everywhere:

"One of my favourite tuppences for engineers struggling to find a bug is 'breadth first not depth first'. This can be annoying for someone working through complex technical details, because it implies that the solution is actually much simpler if they only looked...I coined this saying because in software matters I find that if we force ourselves to examine the top level considerations first, before tunneling down into the detail of a particular line of inquiry, we can save enormous time" ([http://ria101.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/hbase-vs-cassandra- wh...](http://ria101.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/hbase-vs-cassandra-why-we- moved/)).

<comment><USER4> 1."Einstein wasn't a genius because he was most skilled in math -- he wasn't"

Pretty ambiguous imho. And it blatantly plays upon that misconception. "Just" sticking with a problem for a long is not an easy undertaking as the passage makes it out to be.

2."David Rock is a thought leader for the brain-based approach to coaching. David coined the term 'NeuroLeadership' and co-founded the NeuroLeadership Institute, Journal and Summit. He is also the founder and CEO of Results Coaching Systems,"

His resume speaks volumes.

3.I was working a matrix multiplication algorithm this weekend. I improved by 13x over the naive case. It ended up being one of the faster ones among my peers. How? I ground it the fuck out. I read 4 papers. I coded for hours on end and when I wasn't coding I was thinking hard about it. You cannot see the vista if you deign not to climb the mountain.

<comment><USER3> But if you just started coding, before you read the papers, you wouldn't have had as much success. You had perspective before you started. Take it to the extreme -- what type of algorithm would a completely naive person have produced?

Insight: \- the power of acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception called intellection or noesis.

-an understanding of cause and effect based on identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight>)

How would you have been able to come up with a new algorithm without understanding why it works? Perspective is understanding "why".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2313755>

</comment><comment><USER6> Practice, practice, practice.</comment>


I Prefer My Professor's Illegible Handwriting To Your PowerPoint Presentation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.carolynworks.com/?p=297

<comment><USER2> In my experience:

A lecturer who is speaking and writing on a chalkboard (or equivalent) usually knows the lecture well and is writing to emphasize and explain key points.

A lecturer who is using PowerPoint often does not know the lecture well, and is trying to hide behind the slides or use them as notes to remember what to say.

Both may be experts about the domain they are discussing, but much more often the chalkboard presenter knows the _lecture being given._

<comment><USER3> The best lectures I've seen have powerpoint & chalkboard, sometimes with an overhead projector. Each have their purpose.

1\. For displaying text, graphics, animations, etc a powerpoint presentation is great.

2\. The chalk board is great for pulling out important equations that will be used throughout the lecture (not lost on slide changes) and to interactively work through a problem. You can draw something out and then ask students what to do next and then execute.

3\. Overhead slides are great to manipulations on complex forms. For instance showing how a parser works on a piece of text you can use a pen to mark up the text. Or to show how different actions can effect a system. For instance if we increase the interest rate, the line moves like this etc. This allows you to answer questions in real-time in a visual way.

<comment><USER4> I see some professors use pen tablet input on computer slides during a lecture. This is similar to what you describe for overhead slides. In practice, they also seem to use it for the things you describe for the chalkboard.

My favorite video lectures are Gilbert Strang teaching Linear Algebra with nothing but a piece of chalk and a whole lot of chalkboards (the kind that slide up and down, revealing other chalkboards underneath). I can't think of any way those lectures could be improved by any sort of technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First, let me say that there's a huge difference between teaching presentations (presenting material that students will need to use and be tested on later) and idea pitching or research presentations (where you want people to leave with a general idea and a pointer to the material).

My algorithms professor wrote out the whole outline of the presentation, then would do the whole thing on the board as he went. I loved it.

That said, powerpoints have a very worthwhile benefit in that redistribution is trivial. If you're fortunate enough to be in an Operating Systems course where you're writing an operating system, there's a large amount of stuff where details are very important that can get screwed up when twice- transcribed. Something like a powerpoint is invaluable.

I think the best presenters use both powerpoints (for main ideas) and a (chalk|white)board, for actually working through it.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of my professors likes to print out all of his slides (which can be up to 50 for any given lecture) on transparencies. Then, when he's showing them on the overhead, he'll stand there and underline things, make check marks (while saying "check please"), etc. Draws smiling faces when something good shows up ("now the numbers are already there for the ALU") and frowning faces for problems ("we have to insert a bubble in the pipeline"). In the end, each slide ends up full of lines, boxes, checks, and faces.

<comment><USER7> I had an excellent prof. who did this with a Tablet PC using PowerPoint's annotation tools. It seemed like a really natural use for a pen-based computer, and made for a good mix of results- nice, readable slides, but with the spontaneity and temporal benefits of a good chalkboard lecture.

<comment><USER8> I use Tablet PD with Windows Journal. In addition to what you say, other advantages over chalk are the brightness, the colors, and the ability to instantly post the lecture online. Later I transcribe the lectures into text and just copy the illustrations. Plus, I don't have to deal with chalk on my shoes, pants, and lungs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had a professor whose lecture 'notes' where a series of overhead transparencies that were _written_ out by him in wet-erase marker. The thing that frustrated me that most about them is that they were in essay-style. The _entire_ transparency was _packed_ with words, just a huge block of text. No separation of different ideas, no bullet points. The only breaks from the huge blocks of text were when he needed to show a graph.

It really frustrated me because unlike when a professor writes all of that stuff out on the board, he was able to _breeze_ through the material _without pause_ in barely enough time for anyone to write anything down. I was really frustrated at those lectures because I couldn't find a balance between taking notes and actually paying attention to what he was saying in the lecture.

<comment><USER10> We had the OHP handwritten essay style of lectures as well, primarily in maths, but I seem to recall one computer science topic that stooped that low. We definitely had one pre-prepared essay type, but most of these were lecturers would just freely write on OHP reels instead of the blackboard. I found that a lot worse, due to people trying to write legibly/exaggeratedly on blackboards but writing 'normally' (and totally illegibly) on OHPs. But my sympathies for the overhead essays, I've been there.

<comment><USER11> On the handwriting note; some of the lectures at UW in bifurcation, chaos and some others were part of the 'UW Engineering Extension' program ( or something similarly named. ) It was really great because only the best professors with the best handwriting got to be on TV. Enrolling in the class on campus was a double bonus because we got access to the video recordings of the classes, the teachers lecture notes, and, of course, got to sit in the room with the professor ( if a matriculated student at the main Seattle campus ) and ask questions to our hearts content. The downside was that if we asked a stupid question, it was beamed to the rest of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I generally find criticisms like this a bit odd. The issue seems less about PowerPoint than it is about how the message/information gets presented and used. It's sort of like blaming the web for websites where companies just cobble together some of the hardcopy content from brochures and newsletters.

<comment><USER13> Powerpoint _is_ how the information is presented. Her post is all about how using a chalkboard leads to a better presentation of the material and increased focus. I like to teach using the chalkboard or whiteboard, and prefer learning that way as well.

There are some use cases for slides. A picture or graphic too complex to be drawn on the chalkboard. Animating an example (I've seen Steve Jobs use this to good effect). In my lectures I strive for a minimal slideshow, lots of chalkboard examples, and live demos of example code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I went to a CS theory class this semester which was taught in a computer lab by a teacher drawing notes into Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. I ended up switching into a compilers class, which is taught by a professor writing notes on a blackboard, and I can already tell it will work out so much better. It's surprising, but it seems the old fashioned way is the best way to learn concepts, even in the high tech field of computer science.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could that be because the chalkboard notes were neater? Or the professor didn't have to worry about getting the technicalities just right?

<comment><USER14> I think it's because the professor was off to the side, drawing on a tablet, while we were staring at the screen it was projecting on. It also didn't help that we were in a computer lab, with huge 22 inch iMacs in front of us, making it hard to see the screen and basically impossible to concentrate. When a professor writes on chalkboard, your eyes tend to follow them around the room, rather than staring at what they wrote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the best points for chalk over powerpoint is that it's easy to diverge from the script if you need to. A good teacher adapts to the needs of the student(s). Secondarily to this, chalk allows for a script that is more interactive to begin with (eg, "who can give me an example of an abelian group?" followed by verifying the axioms).

But, while powerpoint may be a fundamentally weaker medium, I think part of the problem is that a lot of people are simply bad at it. Having an optimal presentation requires a lot of attention to things like pacing, and separating content between the powerpoint itself and the delivery. I get the feeling that a lot of people don't look further than content. Hint: if you print your slides and distribute them as notes, they are not optimal for at least one of those purposes[1].

[1] However, optimal slides printed out with room to take notes during a lecture can often be made into optimal notes by a good student.

</comment><comment><USER16> As an avowed chalkboard lecturer, I can totally understand where the OP is coming from, and I can add a few more reasons why chalkboards are better:

1\. Non-linearity---it's easy to reconfigure the lecture on the fly if I'm chalking it out on the board.

2\. Interactivity---I can ask for and actually use examples from the students when working through something, and I can even ask the students to come up and write something on the board when appropriate.

3\. Real estate---In a good classroom, I might have seven or eight times the area of chalkboard as I do projector screen, and I don't need to erase anything until it's all full. That makes it much easier to refer back to earlier points. It also gives everything I wrote a "place", and I can refer back to what I had "over there on that board" sometimes two or three classes later, and if I don't need the precise content (just a general reminder), that's often enough to refresh it in students' minds.

4\. Editing---Have you ever been in a PP-based lecture where there were some errors in a formula or graph or equation? (It might be better to ask if you've ever been in one _without_ errors...) These are hard to edit out, and if the slides for students to look at later, how often does the prof correct them first? I had a theory class in grad school that was _terrible_ for this.

One "big" advantage for PP isn't even unique to it: sure, I could post a PDF of my slides for students to read later. You know what I do instead? Snap a photo of the chalkboards after each class and post that.

The only reason to use projected slides IMO is when there is a long formula that students don't have to write down (e.g. it's in the book) that I need to point to, or a particular graph or diagram that needs to be precise. For these things, I stick a PDF of the formula or diagram on the course website, and pull that up during class to talk about it... briefly, before going back to the chalkboard.

</comment><comment><USER17> I vastly prefer handwritten presentations to Powerpoint presentations, but because it's so dynamic.

First, look at content. When you're delivering a Powerpoint presentation and a great side conversation arises, you are pressured to return to the content of your slides before you divert too far. If you don't, then you've lost your visual medium for interacting with your audience. Granted, sometimes it's better to refocus, but it's arrogant to believe you can always anticipate the best direction a conversation can take ahead of time. Anecdotally, my favorite classroom memories of school involve the teacher abandoning plans for the day because students were passionately interested in a side conversation. I'll note that none of those teachers used Powerpoint slides.

Next, there's form. Most subjects are easily broken down by bulleted lists, but that doesn't mean that it's always the most effective way to transmit information to others. Some Powerpointers are talented enough to genereate lots of high-quality picture-based slides, but they're few and far between. I've met some of these talented few, and they're always clearer on a markerboard, because they are able to dynamically change their diagrams as I ask questions and comment.

I realize Powerpoint works better for some scenarios, but if given the choice, I'll choose the guy with the marker in his hand every day of the week

</comment><comment><USER4> In this day and age, when the slides to so many academic lectures are available for free online, a professor standing in front of a chalkboard in the same room as you seems to give more value for money.

What value do you get from a professor reading his slides to you, versus just downloading them and reading them at your leisure? With the professor at the chalkboard, however, you feel like you are getting more of his thought processes with more spontaneity. And more of a feeling that it is OK and encouraged to stop him with questions, and maybe even diverge from the day's planned lecture on occasion.

I wonder if universities with professors standing in front of chalkboards will start to attract the best students over time.

</comment><comment><USER18> On a tangent, Powerpoint is seriously painful for a distance learning class. To be fair, a person standing at a podium or sitting at a desk and talking into the camera is painful too. The lack of movement is a killer. Think "worst TV program I ever had to watch".

I was filling in at a community college for one of the techs who was running the distance learning classroom for a biology lecture. The person teaching it had the camera pointed at his face while he went on in a monotone lecture voice with small breaks of drawing on an overhead. Everyone in the classroom fell asleep. When he called us asking for questions, I had to mute our mikes and wake people up. I taped the lecture, but would have hated to watch it again.

</comment><comment><USER19> i once wrote some notes, scanned them, cleaned them up with thresholding and a raster to vector tool, and then added used them as images (sole content) in a powerpoint presentation. it was a lot of work and loses many of the advantages listed in the article, but it did get a lot of positive comments (the audience was fairly academic, however, so most people in the audience grew up with handwritten overhead notes and so found it "familiar" rather than just "weird").

</comment><comment><USER20> There's also a distraction issue: you can write while the professor writes, and they can't really talk coherently while they're writing. With a presentation, they can start talking while you're still taking notes.

Additionally, having to write out content in longhand slows down the amount of info you can cram into a lecture.

<comment><USER11> > Additionally, having to write out content in longhand slows down the amount > of info you can cram into a lecture.

I'm not sure if you meant that as a positive or a negative, but that was the biggest advantage for me when I had chalk board classes. If you can't write down everything you want to say, your students can't either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good chalk education took a while to develop, same with slides education.

</comment><comment><USER22> _I Prefer My Professor's Illegible Handwriting To Your PowerPoint Presentation_

With the right font in your PowerPoint, you can have the best of both worlds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Touché.</comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Caterina Fake, co-founder, Flickr - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/1654092781

<comment><AUTHOR> No successful company has had ever been the product of just one person.

\- Caterina Fake (@caterina)

<http://startupquote.com/post/1654092781></comment>


Show HN: All You Can Optimize on Your Website in a Single Report - <AUTHOR> https://www.dareboost.com <comment><USER2> Feedback for @damienj: * Your Terms & Conditions link is a PDF that downloads vs displays inline. That's super weird, and I thought I got a report without signing up. Nope, it's your ToS.

* The paginated loading of HTML/CSS validation does strange things with the loading bar. I was trying to drag it to the bottom, and it kept moving itself upward as it loaded new pieces. Doing the deferred loading is cool, but it would be better to kick it off async and have it run to completion, versus waiting for scroll-per-page.

* In the downloaded report, there's no indication of what the grey circles are (average top-1000 result).

* Detected Technologies is odd, it only lists comScore for the site I tested - should that include Google Analytics, Facebook Graph, etc.?

* The Table of Contents isn't clickable to get to the related sections.

* The color-coding of sections doesn't mesh mentally with the counts presented. I have something in green (Success) with 7 tips, and something else in red (Issues) with 7 tips as well. Is that good or bad?

* I didn't check the "short" report option, but I'd like to see just things-to-fix in its own report, with details of how to fix them. As-is I have a 35-page report with no clear indication of what the biggest problems are, just the biggest per-category. I realize the webpage already does that, but unless I'm the sole developer I would want to send a hit list out to my team as a PDF.

* Your own page is only 99 out of 100 =)

All of that aside, this looks really useful. It's like a prettier version of [http://www.webpagetest.org/](http://www.webpagetest.org/) \- a lot of the same info, but a much better / more modern presentation. A good pricing hook might be a free (scheduled) report once a month, with the top-level warnings included but a paid option for the full detail.

Good luck, and congrats on "SHIP IT"!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks _a lot_ for this great piece of feedback.

\- T&C : that was a fast fix for something, it will be solve as soon as we find a few minutes

\- lazyloading on W3C listings: agreed and noted

\- PDF/average top-1000 result : indeed, we have to add that!

\- Detected Technologies: Yes for Google Analytics, that's odd. No for social widgets. We are mainly focused on CMS and frameworks.

\- Table of Contents: you're right

\- color-coding: it will be changed soon. New policy will be: if you have one issue at least in a given category, the category will be red (for now is based on the average grade of the category).

\- "short" report: you're not alone, we add you to the list, but still to few people

\- 99/100 damned!

"A good pricing hook might be a free (scheduled) report once a month"

> you have that daily for free (from you're dashboard, you can create a > "monitoring"). Paid options allow to use the tool on other pages than > homepages and to use advanced settings (custom bandwidth, authentication, > etc)

Thanks again! (and sorry for typos)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This would be great if you didn't need to register to get advice from tests. There's no obvious reason to require it (your website says it's free, after all). There are several other test sites that do not need registration to do so.

<comment><USER4> However, I did like that it unlocked the page without having to reload when I registered! Nice touch!

a few small spelling mistakes: En savoir plus. (is that being cute, or just not xlated yet?) This page do not provide information to social networks.

Still overall I am quite pleased with the report quality! And I like that it tells how to fix things like https, Open Graph, etc.

I am curious why my images load slowly though! It takes four of my images (png/jpg) from 1.56 to 1.95 seconds to load. They are 13kB to 32kB. One is 111kB. Any ideas? Is that just the server's fault (hostmonster)? Would it be worth it to host the images elsewhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> Single Page Applications are great ;)

spelling mistakes > thanks a lot, it has been fixed! (correct answer was : "not xlated yet"!)

Thanks for this positive feedback too. About your issue with your images, have you test your website from the nearest test location from your hosting provider? (latency can hurt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems very similar to Google's Pagespeed [1], but after registering and diving in a bit, I see some very useful extra features.. recurring monitoring for one, cache/connection simulation, and some other niceties that GPS doesn't give you.

Very nice!

FWIW, I don't share the hatred of registration that the others here do. I don't think it's asking a lot for an email address and a password after you perform a useful service for someone.

[1]: [https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah we indeed share some checkpoints with GPS (because we're using it, and YSlow too)

Thanks for this great feedback, and thanks for your point of view about registration, that's very valuable for us to have both sides, that's a difficult choice (anyway, inorder to offer the free monitoring,we need an email address!)

<comment><USER6> You force me to register to see the blurred text.

Ok let's take some time to create a temporary email address because, well, your product looks refreshing.

I put down the email address (the one I just spent time creating!) and a password. Your now reject my temporary email address as being temporary !

If I eventually give up, and give you my real email address, will you send my _any_ email ? That one would be unsollicited, and you can be sure that people who created a temporary email address will mark your emails as spam, which may destroy your sender reputation...

People who give their real email address may not mark your emails as spam. But people who take the time to create a temporary email address will, with very high probability.

<comment><AUTHOR> The email address will be used if you create a _free_ monitoring, to send you weekly digests and alerts in case of quality issue / slowdown on your monitored page. So yes, we reject temporary address as we don't want to analyze daily your webpage if you're not reading our e-mails.

<comment><USER6> What if I just want to see the blurred text?

<comment><USER5> Then just freakin' sign up already! With the amount of time you've spent typing these screeds, you could have registered, decided you didn't like it, and killed your account about 10 times over.

This is not helpful criticism in the least - most people don't object to sharing something as innocuous as an email considering they just did something nice for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's asking me to sign up to read the suggestions, Quora-style. Yucky yucky. Consider removing that please.

<comment><AUTHOR> please read last comment!

We're not really Quora-sized (4 founders - 25yo).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool.

There's never enough of these type of tools.

An alternative of this site which I have used in the past is: [http://www.webpagetest.org/](http://www.webpagetest.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! WPT is great and we love it, but we would want to go further (with quality checkpoints, not only performance ones) and with a easy-to-use GUI (lots of our users are not very technical people)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great start. I work a lot with web performance monitoring tools. This is definitely a fresh approach.

I would definitely build out features/checks that other tools aren't doing at the lower price-point. For example:

* Geo-location speed comparisons (e.g. performance from New York -vs- Sydney). You seem to be halfway there, just need to add the comparison graphs.

* Bandwidth speed comparisons (e.g. 4G connection -vs- 100Mb Fibre). Most people don't test their websites on slow connections.

Well Done. Ping me if you want some assistance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! comparisons are indeed part of our roadmap, we have some mockups, but nothing we are really proud of for now! I would be glad to have more of your feedback, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > DAREBOOST may use the User's trademarks and logos for commercial purposes on > any document or in any medium throughout the term of the Contract.

Why not just politely ask a business for their permission when you want to use their logos rather than requiring it in your ToS?

I'm disappointed because this looks _really_ nice and we're just getting starting on a new revision of our site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand what you're saying. I take full responsability of the inconvenience - as I'm the one that have added this line :)

If you don't want us to do so, just drop us en e-mail, and we will not and never do so.

About the background of this line: "politely ask a business" > unfortunatelly, it takes time, we are 4 young guys and are dealing with bigger companies. We were facing issues to get answers, we were losing time, and for the one and single goal to add a logo on our homepage and to help us to make a living from this startup...

If you want to be more confident about us: [https://www.dareboost.com/en/about-us](https://www.dareboost.com/en/about-us)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for sharing your reasoning but you're asking for far more than a logo on the homepage. Perhaps you could add a checkbox at signup that says something like, "Will you allow us to use your company name and/or logo on our homepage?"

That will give you a good idea of how your customers feel about this. It's probable that many people are signing up for your service and are not authorized to give you permission in the first place.

Good luck to you and your team. I'll think about sending in the email you mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer. That would be an idea, but it's still an additional checkbox and we like to keep it simple, because asking thousands of users just to use 10 or 15 logos does not really worth it.

But I agree that theoretically T&C allow us to do more than using logos on our own website, I'll try to find a way to add a restriction on what we can do without explicit consent.

Thanks! (my nickname is simply 'damien' in my pro email address if you want to send me directly the mentioned email)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems really nice - signed up.

But - you really, really need a native english copywriter to go through all of your english text. It's full of small mistakes which detract from an otherwise good first impression.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. We look forward finding someone able to help us to grow the business (we're all engineers...) and to be native english, and still be able to speak a technical english. Not easy, but we will as soon as possible!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are a couple misspellings that I've noticed, plus some awkward phrasing. Maybe get someone else to look over the copy on your site? This looks really helpful otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for that. We're some french guys and we try to do our best, but for now we did not have the chance to hire someone to correct that. There's a "red thumb" on the left of each tip, you can warn us about misspellings with it, it will be widely appreciated :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These automated tools are always cool, but from where did you take that we should "Define at least <h1> and <h2> titles in your content"?

<comment><AUTHOR> SEO purpose, semantic way to define important content

<comment><USER3> Heading tags also have extreme usability and accessibility features. Screen readers love using them to jump around pages.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're totally right! Thanks for the update.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's kind of annoying and hypocritical when you give my website the accessibility suggestion that you shouldn't use target="_blank" when the page I am on is riddled with links opening in new tabs. I dunno I don't see that as getting a 0/100 for having 20 when your results page has 56 of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> This suggestion only apply when using mobile testing with our tool. We do not penalize target="_blank" on desktop websites.

And unfortunately, for now, our service still needs big updates for mobile UX, but most of our users only use us on desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would appreciate the ability to add a custom user agent to the request so that this could run on sites that detect a mobile user agent and change accordingly.

This is good stuff. Great performance checklist.

<comment><AUTHOR> From our homepage, under the URL field, you can select a mobile device (Nexus) rather than Firefox.

With a paid account, you can customize any HTTP Header (and more)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! you're a lot from the U.S., feel free to test your website from our New York test location !

</comment><comment><USER16> Just curious, what is the technology used to control browsers programmatically to carry out such tests?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use Selenium and some proxies to collect data

<comment><USER16> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats guys!

Just a quick suggestion, try to do something server side instead to use `.blur` css class.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We know, that's currently not an issue for us if you want to bypass it, as the advice are available after free registration!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> FYI: your text blurring on the signed-out analysis page can be defeated by some very simple twiddling with the page source. You may want to render the blurred text to PNGs or something instead of trying to hide it with CSS.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes we know thanks. Not an issue for us as registering is free. The idea is just to get you to create an account and to try our monitoring feature!</comment></comment>


New Lisp and Functional Programming Comic Novella - <AUTHOR>

In honor of April 1st, I've put together a little comic tale with many twists and turns- I hope you'll enjoy it!<p>http://www.lisperati.com/landoflisp/ <comment><USER2> WhyTheLuckyStiff vs. Conrad Barski!

This battle will be truly epic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like something someone might make while on acid.

<comment><USER4> That's a compliment, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.lisperati.com/landoflisp/panel56.html>

lol. great

<comment><USER6> Shouldn't you have "SPOILER ALERT!" next to that link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There still will be trees?

</comment><comment><USER8> Love it. Thanks. :)</comment>


Ask HN: Amazon changed my password - <AUTHOR> I got this email just now http://pastebin.com/1x2snJs8, apparently Amazon just changed my password because they believe it got leaked somewhere. Has this happened for anyone else recently? <comment><USER2> It appears you are not the only one :

[http://www.dailydot.com/technology/amazon-netflix- password-c...](http://www.dailydot.com/technology/amazon-netflix-password- change/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I got that email this week or last. I assumed it was related to the LinkedIn break.</comment>


Lightweight Filesystem sandboxing with eBPF - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/803890/ <comment><AUTHOR> code is now available: [https://github.com/sandfs/LibSandFS](https://github.com/sandfs/LibSandFS)

<comment> T3OU-736 This damned cool, and neat!

I do wonder if this can be combined with something like whitelisting based on some criteria. A _very_ unthought-through version would be checking a SHA-512 sum of a binary or some such.

Either way, a neat tool in the toolbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Linux users keep being jealous of OpenBSD's pledge(2) and unveil(2) system calls.</comment>


"I am so bored" is girlish - <AUTHOR> http://search.twitter.com/search?max_id=20225331130&page=6&q=i+am+so+bored After seeing http://whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com/ and http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ i was thinking of making a similar site.
Thinking of an idea i was reminded of a friend who keeps iterating "I am bored!"
and why not create a site IamsoboredWhatthefuckshouldIdo.com and doing a search on twitter for "I am so bored" I found that most of the people who tweeted "i am so bored" are girls or women! <comment><USER2> exact phrase

<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+%22I+am+so+bored%22></comment>


Understanding the Russian Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-you-need-know-understand-russian-revolution-180961214/?no-ist <comment><USER2> What's not often mentioned when discussing the revolution was that western powers, including the USA immediately invaded the Soviet Union to attempt to overthrow the government. This explains a lot in the ensuing history, including the paranoid militancy of the Soviet Union.

<comment><USER3> Yes, there are some fascinating pictures of Allied troops marching through Vladivostok in 1918. [1] The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. [2]

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare)

<comment><USER4> >The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US.

One of the pillars of the Bolsheviks world view (based on the Marx's economical and political class theory) was "worlwide revolution", and it was really happening in many parts of the world at the time (almost whole Europe was basically on fire and China too - one can see why US had reasons to worry especially given the active communist movement in US back then) And for Bolsheviks it wasn't just passive view though, they did for example tried to militarily help German revolutionary comrades and if not for the new Poland state and army which happened to be on the way to Germany, the 20th century in Europe may have looked somewhat differently.

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1918%E2%80%9319#Background) :

"The Bolsheviks were also implementing a new strategy, "Revolution from abroad" (Revolutsiya izvne—literally, "revolution from the outside"), based on an assumption that revolutionary masses desire revolution but are unable to carry it out without help from more organized and advanced Bolsheviks. Hence, as Leon Trotsky remarked, the revolution should be "brought on bayonets" (of the Red Army), as "through Kiev leads the straight route for uniting with Austro-Hungarian revolution, just as through Pskov and Vilnius goes the way for uniting with German revolution. Offensive on all fronts! Offensive on the west front, offensive on the south front, offensive on the all revolutionary fronts!"."

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War) :

" Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other communist movements and bring about other European revolutions."

<comment><USER2> Yes communnism represented a real threat to the American ruling class, the threat of workers taking matters in their own hands. We must also look at the US labor history which is among the most violent in the world, (except Tsarist Russia) After many bloody labor wars, US labour was basically crushed in the 20's only to rise again in the 30's and then be mostly deestroyed after WW2 again.

[https://chomsky.info/nothing-for-other-people-class-war- in-t...](https://chomsky.info/nothing-for-other-people-class-war-in-the- united-states/)

<comment><USER5> > Yes communnism represented a real threat to the American ruling class, the > threat of workers taking matters in their own hands

No offence but we know exactly what Trotsky and Lenin represented ... and it very much wasn't "workers taking matters in their own hands". This may have been unknown at the time, maybe even to those men themselves, but it is not unknown to me, or to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not sure what to expect from the article which can't even get names right. It's Sukhomlinov, not Suklominov.

<comment><USER2> A minor difference in an anglicisation of Russian which can vary anyway.

<comment><USER6> Not really. Suhomlinov is pronounced very differently from Suhlominov.

EDIT: It's as different as Sherlock Holmes versus Sherlock Hlomes and roughly as grating to one's ear.</comment></comment></comment>


Taxman unleashes its 'snooper computer': what information does its have on you? - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/return/taxman-unleashes-snooper-computer-information-does-have/ <comment><USER2> It's stupid that we have to do our taxes. The government should and is more than capable of sending us a bill and expecting us to pay it.

<comment><USER3> The article is about the UK, where that's the case for about 2/3rds of taxpayers. Unless something's gone wrong, there's usually no bill or refund involved either: the tax authority and employers communicate to try and keep the amount deducted from pay correct.

The people who do have to file return are those with more complex affairs that can't be dealt with automatically yet (for example, the self-employed and landlords).

<comment><USER4> Yes, and even many of these people can and do submit their own tax return using the online 'self-assessment' form, and have the government calculate the tax they owe.</comment></comment></comment>


Samsung bullies victim of exploding Galaxy S4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/business/samsung-fire-hazard-coverup/

<comment><USER2> Not the first time, and I agree with the final remark of the video "Samsung, go fuck yourself" because it demands the victim to sign away _all_ rights to talk about this and future incidents.</comment>


Chinese Python: "Translating a programming language" - <AUTHOR> http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translating-a-programming-language/

<comment><USER2> I discovered a fascinating book once. It was written for English speakers, and explained certain Japanese words. There were, I believe, about thirty chapters, each covering ONE Japanese word: introducing the cultural background needed to truly understand the word; explaining all of its rich, subtle meanings... an attempt to teach the idea the word truly represented. The thesis is that many important single words simply have no direct, concise translation, to an English word or phrase.

Most mainstream programming languages today - from C, to Python, to Perl, to Java, to Javascript and Lisp [0] - were created by someone who was at least fluent in English - if not having that as their native language - and who "grew up" as an engineer by working with and studying other such languages. I wonder what kind of influence that has had on their design. Consider the if/then/else idiom that most programming languages have; or the while loop, or perhaps even the common OOP concept of classes (sets) and instance objects (members of a set).

Soon, if not already, there will start emerging higher-level, general-purpose programming languages that are conceived, designed, implemented and evolved by someone (or a group) that cannot read or write English, but has been fluent their whole life in Mandarin - someone who is a product of Chinese culture. Or Hindi, and India. Or Tagalog, and the Philippines. Some language and culture vastly different from that of the Germanic and Romance tongues, like English.

I wonder what those computer languages will be like. Obviously there must be similarities; it's still going to have to run on some hardware derived from von Neumann architecture, almost certainly. And it's difficult for me to imagine the subroutine / function call abstraction not being present in some form or another. But then, the only natural language I know well is English. Perhaps there are alternative forms I have not imagined yet.

The linked article describes an important start, I think. Even if it's technically just a different keyword / identifier mapping, perhaps it will start the gears turning in native Chinese speakers' minds.

[0] I consider Ruby a current "mainstream" language like Perl/Lisp/etc., since it was derived from the other languages mentioned - see this post by Matz: [http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby- talk/...](http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/179642)

Edit: fixed a few typos.

<comment><USER3> Was the book you saw perhaps this: [http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic- Japanese-Grammar/dp/4...](http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Basic-Japanese- Grammar/dp/4789004546)

That book more than any other helped really solidify my japanese, precisely because it did what you say: it functioned as a foundation reference to the core of the language.

As for people with very basic modes of thought that are so different that their expression of logical statements would be different... Logic is logic. Its english grammar is a thin abstraction over its mathematical form, so I would be surprised if non-english-conceived programming languages would be dramatically different (aside from syntactic ordering perhaps).

Actually writing that sentence forced me to think of one such way a Japanese- inspired programming language might differ dramatically: since the subject of each verb is often left unstated in conversational japanese, you might have primitives that set the current 'variable context' and then all messages after that yet before the next 'variable context' change would go to that variable. something like:

foo(a, b, c){ talk_to(a) bar(b, c)

bar would implicitly actually be bar(a,b,c) (or a.bar(b,c) if you prefer).

This example seems pointless, but there might be other worthwhile ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think translating the language itself makes that much of a difference. What most beginning hackers really need is the ability to search and read forum posts and code from a bunch of advanced hackers who already went through the problems they're having. Obviously English has the most depth in this regard. Chinese and Russian might be "deep enough" to get you to a decent level.

Beyond those three languages, I get the sense it drops off very quickly. I wouldn't want to be a monolingual Mongolian or Estonian trying to get Haskell help during a late night coding session, for example ...

some previous discussion on a similar topic here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=894489>

</comment><comment><USER5> Chinese as a programming language has gained some market among Chinese programmers. There's government backed 汉编 which has little value, but there's also an cooperate-run programming language named 易语言, it's quite good. It can compile natively, object-originated, has all the features of VB, even support cross-platform UI (Win32 & GTK, IIRC).

<http://www.dywt.com.cn/eftx/jdyx.htm> (in Chinese)

An actual use case of 易语言 I can think of is the 360Safe, the No.1 anti-malware tool in China, part of its UI is written with 易语言

<comment><USER6> Interesting, I'm not familiar w/ Chinese programming jargon, but I can almost translate the feature line word for word:

> 完全面向对象,跨平台,支持Unicode、多线程,垃圾自动回收,类型反射,静态编译,动态类型装载等等

Completely object oriented, cross-platform, [with] Unicode support, multi- threading, garbage collection, reflection, static translation (?), and dynamic type something (装载/zhuangzai, but I'm not sure what it means in this context-- ah! DLLs?).

The semantics & translation are much easier than what you would read in the newspaper.

<comment><USER7> I'm native Chinese. Here's my translation of the forementioned features:

"completely object-oriented, cross-platform, support Unicode, multithreading, GC, (type) reflection, statically compiled, dynamic type loading, etc"

I believe "dynamic type loading" must refer to something similar to DLLs here.

Though I'm not so sure about the whole idea of programming languages in various "human languages". It's the same doubt I have with internationalized domain names: not everyone can read/type it if they want.

It's fine if the the purpose is to teach primary school kids about programming (even though this isn't so good a reason: I know now in many primary schools in China, kids are taught English starting from grade 1), but for any serious programming it's better done in English, esp. in a world globalization and outsourcing dominate the software engineering field.

I'm a strong believer that every human being on the planet should speak at least one common language in order to have basic communication and understanding of other cultures. A few hundred years ago it was Latin; then French; now obviously it's English. And I'm quite happy to see the computer science field is standardizing on English.

<comment><USER6> > statically compiled

Ah, of course. I forgot what "compile" actually means!

I don't know, these words seem like a _really_ thin gloss on their English equivalents.

A Japanese mathematician I know will mentally translate all the terms in a Japanese-language math paper to English. "It just sounds silly otherwise." I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese programmers do the same thing.

<comment><USER7> Modern Chinese nouns, esp. in technical fields, tend to be word-by-word translation of their original/English terms. It's crazy to invent a new set of terms for the same thing.

Unfortunately most Chinese translation of computer science/programming books are just garbage. The irony is that if you cannot understand a translated sentence in Chinese, try to revert it (usually word-by-word) back to English and then suddenly it rings the bell. That forces me to read the original one instead ...

I heard Japanese have better translation though ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Arc should be ported to Chinese; it looks like you'd get much shorter programs out of the deal. And that's what language design is all about, right?

</comment><comment><USER9> By utilizing the potential tersity of CJK characters in the language syntax, English-speaking programmers could make their programs much shorter wrt lines of code.

Because there's thousands of CJK characters to choose from, why not just use 印 instead of 印出 for 'print', or 如 instead of 如果 for 'if'? By using bracketing syntax instead of Python's indentation, we can cut down lines of code.

Here's your example using a terser style (the strings and comments would still be in English):

#!/usr/bin/env zhpy

# 檔名: while.py

數= 23, 運= 真

當(運){

      猜= 整(輸入'Enter an integer: ')

      如(猜 == 數){

        印'Congratulations, you guessed it.'

        運= 假 # this causes the while loop to stop

      }否如(猜<數) 印'No, it is higher than that.'

      否 印'No, it is lower than that.'

}否 印'The while loop is over'

印'Done'

<comment><USER10> I think that's a good argument _against_ using character count as a measure of program length. i.e. translating 印 to print does not improve the program in any way, so it shouldn't score better in any measure of complexity.

<comment><USER9> 'print' is 5 characters long, 印 is 1 character long. Though in most fonts, CJK characters are twice as wide as Latin, so better make that 2 chars long. 5 chars vs 2 chars over an entire program adds up. In non-indentation languages, that can mean 3 lines can be put onto 1 line. Shorter programs are more readable, have less errors.

<comment><USER11> Shorter by token count, not byte count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Eat your heart out, Obfuscated Perl! :-)

This might be misplaced effort - the many chinese coders could be helping improve standard Python, libraries, i18n in various Chinese dialects, etc. - but this is still fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sweet. That program is in traditional Chinese, BTW. It must be from TW or HK. People in China would be using simplified.

I've also seen Japanese programming languages before.

</comment><comment><USER14> Done <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/haifu.html></comment>


Samsung Player, Android rival to iPod Touch, to launch at CES - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/12/samsung-unveils-galaxy-player-android-based-4-inch-touchscreen-ipod-touch-rival.html

<comment><AUTHOR> How well will Android's advertising-centric app economics work with these devices?</comment>


Ask HN: Accounting Software with Best API - <AUTHOR> We're looking to streamline our accounting entries, integrating it with our online platform, and develop additional tools for our users, there are a few options.
What is your experience with programming for your accounting software? Would you recommend it?
Any suggestions would be helpful for myself, and others. We're specifically looking for software that is meant for small, and medium sized businesses. <comment><USER2> I have played around with erpNext in the last few weeks. It looks very nice with lots of functionality and good API. Its also open source.

You can find it here - [https://github.com/frappe/erpnext](https://github.com/frappe/erpnext)

Its more full blown ERP then just accounting software though.

They seem to have separete project for only accounting as well:

[https://github.com/frappe/accounting](https://github.com/frappe/accounting)

<comment><AUTHOR> That looks awesome. It's definitely something to look into. For the time being we don't have the resources to set something like that up, but it's good to know for the future, thanks!</comment></comment>


Silver Swan Automaton - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Swan_(automaton) <comment><USER2> Sure it's not an Alto, but the Bowes Museum page contains links to the swan's restoration in 2008.

[http://thebowesmuseum.org.uk/Collections/ExploreTheCollectio...](http://thebowesmuseum.org.uk/Collections/ExploreTheCollection/TheSilverSwan.aspx)</comment>


What Are the Most Disappointing Albums? - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/what-are-the-most-disappointing-albums/ <comment><USER2> I would prefer charts based solely on album sales, metascore while interesting is full of bias. There are some artists who cannot be scored below certain thresholds either because of likability or political correctness. However total sales is usually a better indicator and longevity of sales, as in how long after initial debut did sales stay good.

<comment><USER3> But what if there are people who buy the album, only to find out later that it was disappointing? Or fans, who buy the album regardless of quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Idlewild_ scores 72 which is pretty solid but makes the 'top 20 disappointing' because the previous two Outkast albums averaged 90+ and a straight arithmetic difference is used (with percentage of previous two it would rank somewhat lower).

<comment><USER5> A bit of New York Yankees or Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR) syndrome. If you don't win the championship then it is a disappointment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You get 24 years to make your first album, and 24 months to make your second.

<comment><USER7> Sadly no, you get 18 months to make what your label wants your first album to be, then if you're lucky you get 35 years to make what you wanted your first album to be. This was starting to change, but the gaming is starting a new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a band member or solo performer, it must be grim to sit contemplating an album which you yourself know is no good, and is likely to be career-wounding, but which you'll more or less have to release anyway for contractual reasons or for the money.

<comment><USER9> I suppose the thing to ensure is that you don't get into a contract where you have to do that. If you are releasing bottom-of-the-barrel tat for money just to be popular and sell albums, does that mean that the first release you put out was drivel just to be popular? Thought-provoking eh?

They could just put out an album that's completely different, like Tom Jones did when he didn't want to release another Sex Bomb...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Metallica should be an honorary member in any such grouping.

<comment><USER11> In the inconsistent group for sure

<comment><USER12> I'd say they've been consistently mediocre for the last while

<comment><USER13> They have the consistently great part up to (and possibly including) the black album. Then they start to fall into the disappointing category.

<comment> at-fates-hands I'm still trying to figure out what happened to them. I guess a multitude of bad things happening all the same time?

After Jason left, and St. Anger came out, I just checked out. At the time there were so many other great metal bands to see and hear which completely eclipsed them.

<comment><USER14> Death Magnetic isn't too bad. Not Puppets good. But I listen to it every once in a while, where St. Anger was the most disappointing thing I ever experienced musically.

You have to remember St. Anger was a full 6 years after they put out anything original. They were trying to rekindle the old stuff, but it's hard to remember how it was to be hungry after being on top for so long.

If you ever saw the making of St. Anger documentary, you knew there was no way it was going to be good. James went into rehab 1/2 way through production out of nowhere. Everyone was angry with each other. Krik just wanted to play and then hang out with his horses on his ranch. Lars forgot how to drum. It was really bad.

Then all of a sudden they finally adjusted to being sober and hey, look at that. Something pretty good.

<comment> at-fates-hands I saw the documentary and it was pretty eye opening. It was a complete train wreck, and Bob Rock and everybody else around them telling them St. Anger was going to be as good as the black album was pretty cringe inducing. The Crazy Cabby scene I thought to myself, "Jesus man, just tell them it sucks, just be honest. Someone has to have the balls to tell them this is horrible."

My favorite part of the documentary was when Jason quit and was playing with Echobrain and James and Lars went to go see him. He totally fled the scene and wouldn't talk to them. Even years later, he's still bitter about what James did:

[http://loudwire.com/jason-newsted-why-he-left- metallica/](http://loudwire.com/jason-newsted-why-he-left-metallica/)

Death Magnetic is pretty decent. After hearing interviews with James saying it was a return to the thrash metal of Master and Ride the Lightening saying they were going back to their roots, I was pretty disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Granted it's not all that new, but Calling All Stations by Genesis was probably the worst I've ever heard. It did so poorly it killed the tour and put the band into hiatus. Pretty impressive results for a band that had been on top for decades.

Yeah, they lost Phil Collins, but forgetting how to write music or lyrics was a real surprise. George Starostin's review nailed it...

<comment><USER9> I've never heard that album but looking it up, I never realised that Spock's Beard's drummer had a hand in it, and Ray Wilson. Wow, never knew that thanks!

I think I have a couple of Ray Wilson albums he brought out on the Inside Out label before it went bust in Germany - there was a rerecording of "Inside" on it but I can't remember any of the other songs because they start, introduce a verse and then end without any instrumental breaks, which I was hoping for...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shouldn't they count the 4 albums with the largest variance in the average between the four albums?

> We determined the overall average score for all of these > artists and then > looked at how much an individual artist's > average album deviated from this > score.

Wouldn't this make a consistently below average artist count as an inconsistent?

</comment><comment><USER17> Took me a while to process the graph, since Random Access Memories was not where I expected it to be - based on my own experience, I expected it to be strongly _disappointing_.

<comment><USER18> _> was not where I expected it to be - based on my own experience, _

The disconnect happens because you're comparing your individual taste to a _meta_ score -- an _aggregation_ of other critics' reviews.

Everybody will dislike or be disappointed in something that the majority will like.

<comment><USER19> I find critic reviews to be of minimal value. My personal likes and dislikes are not correlated to critics ratings.

Music reviews can be very political or based on popularity of the artist(s). In gaming a very low score can almost always mean a very flawed game. In music a low score can just mean that artist didn't progress enough or wasn't what is in fashion right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Mos Def's (Yasiin Bey's) The Ecstatic is a classic, not surprised to see as an unexpected success.

<comment><USER21> Agreed great album. Not surprised to see Lupe's LASERS on most the disappointing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish The Ventures made the list somewhere, maybe in most consistent, but I would guess they do not have enough reviews to fit the criteria of the article.

[http://www.markprindle.com/ventures.htm](http://www.markprindle.com/ventures.htm)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this article that I didn't know before reading it. I know that some albums are disappointing. That sometimes successful albums from an artist are followed by unsuccessful ones. This is a bit like saying that the sky is blue, water is wet... Unless of course I'm missing the point, which is entirely possible.

<comment><USER23> There's a difference between the vague "yeah, some albums are subjectively disappointing" vs " _these_ albums are disappointing for _these_ objective criteria".

Yes, the sky is blue. What shade? what's the gradient? what factors affect it? what causes a staggeringly "sky blue" color as opposed to blue-tinted overcast? how does looking thru a projected shadow affect what's seen? I had an art teacher point out that the lesson on painting landscapes included explaining to kids that the sky comes all the way down to the horizon, something that startled most of them.

Yes, you know. How well?

<comment><USER24> > "these albums are disappointing for these objective criteria".

Except that the actual scores used to make this "objective" analysis are largely subjective.</comment></comment></comment>