We Don't Want to Run This Ad but Forced To - <AUTHOR> https://www.seroundtable.com/basecamp-google-ad-28161.html <comment><USER2> Went to my default search (DDG) - Basecamp is the first result on top and then third result. Wikipedia page about them is also on top to the right side. Disabled adblocker - surprise surprise, got same results :) .

Opened Google without adblocker - now that's pathetic - two ads on top from Monday and Teamwork companies, then third result is Basecamp. Wikipedia result is below the fold, 8th result.

This is one of the reasons why I dropped Google as main search engine two years ago and opened it maybe five or ten times this year (for non-english highly sepicific queries). Google search is simply not the top one now and privacy concern too.

<comment><USER3> Try searching for building materials, The entire first page is pretty much just ads. I did a local search for garden tiles, 9 actual search results, somewhere between 7 and 22 ads (depending on what you count as "one" ads).

In many cases Google is just an online ad catalog, not a search engine.

<comment><USER4> It's been this way ever since they delisted product pages, at the same time they started charging for "shopping" tab listings.

Idk if it was a coincidence, but it seems like that exclusion filter was (and is) overly aggressive.

IMHO, this spawned the era of fake reviews and crappy commission websites. Google forced multiple layers of un-needed middle management, which of course spawned multiple layers of advertising. (Search ads to find reviews site. Banner ads on review site. Commission links to get to actual product page. Instead of just search and click product page.)

The same perverse "layering" system seems to have happened for recipe sites, although I'm not sure why. Search results list tons of home chefs, reviewers, and the crappy sites that think adding 3 paragraphs of shitty narrative improves the quality of their knock-off recipe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, I had wondered why companies advertise on their own name. The other day I was looking up ad word ideas, and the cheapest option was to run it against a top player in the field. Search volume was as high as a generic search, but only cost 1c instead of $4 for the generic keyword.

Couple that with how most people click the first link on the page (no accident mind you), it's just downright extortion by Google.

<comment><USER6> Which brand did you check? If the disparity is really as high as 1¢ vs $4 then my guess is the brand is sending cease-and-desist letters to people who advertise on their trademark.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on search ads. This is coming from my experience _buying_ search ads pre-Google)

<comment><USER7> that is wrong. [https://itlaw.wikia.org/wiki/GEICO_v._Google](https://itlaw.wikia.org/wiki/GEICO_v._Google) Google has been doing this since forever.

<comment><USER8> Your comment does not contradict parent, it supports it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty normal, especially when their are lots of rival companies doing the same thing. I used to work for a food ordering company and they felt they had no choice but to advertise their own name as rivals were using their brand name as a keyword. It wasn't cheap either, some weeks it could be as much as a few hundred euro.

Personally, I feel it crosses am ethical line. As a customer if I search for foo.bar and the first couple of result are for rival companies then Google isn't providing me with the service it claims it would. And as a business I would be forced to effectively double spend. Firstly, I would be spending time and effort on SEO to get to the top of the rankings, and then spent again to get to the top of the adverts that are obfuscating the real search results.

I know Google is a for-profit company operating in a free economy, but they still have to be ethical in what they do.

<comment><USER10> I'm not buying it. Why does Google "have to be" ethical?

If Google has to be ethical, doesn't Uber have to be ethical?

If Google and Uber have to be ethical, doesn't Blackwater/Xe/Academi have to be ethical?

<comment><USER11> Since we're in a free market economy, we really _should_ be forcing companies to be ethical by voting with our dollars (or, in today's online work, site visits).

The problem is not enough people give it enough thought.

> If Google and Uber have to be ethical, doesn't Blackwater/Xe/Academi have to > be ethical?

The problem with this argument is Blackwater/Xe/Academi serve a specific niche that inherently straddles the line of ethicality. They're not akin to Google or Uber; they don't have "general purpose" products that everyone needs/wants. Ergo it's not as black and white as Google and Uber (which in itself isn't as black and white as we'd like to think).

<comment><USER10> Wait, do I hear you correctly?

Google and Uber have to be ethical because we expect them to be, and Blackwater does not have to be ethical because we don't expect it of them?

<comment><USER11> > Wait, do I hear you correctly?

Not precisely. Mainly I'm saying we can more easily affect Google and Uber's ethics than we can Blackwater, because we're generally not going after the services that Blackwater provides. Add to the fact that Blackwater doesn't always operate within societal norms, and the issue becomes complex.

Is it ethical to kill someone? What if that someone is killing other people? Google and Uber don't have to worry about that. Blackwater does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
        this site lets companies advertise
        against us using our brand

Well, to be fair the "site" lets anybody advertise for any search term.

Would it be better if some companies would be entitled to exlusively advertise for certain terms?

I don't think so.

<comment><USER13> Google knows what they're doing. Being a private enterprise, they can block you from "buying" the competence name (TM) to put your own product.

Just try to buy "Google" term to advertise your business (let's say you are Dropbox and want to buy "Google" and "Drive")... Yeah, they had it blocked. But you can buy "one drive", which is unfair albeit legal. It's not as the terms in dispute were "project", "management", "time", "team". It's the brand name, which incidentally in the case of Basecamp has zero relation with what they're selling.

If Google wanted a fair play they would come with something akin to the Trade Mark laws built in house.

<comment><USER14> "If Google wanted a fair play they would come with something akin to the Trade Mark laws built in house."

Said by someone who has no idea about trademarks. Trademark. For what class? For what country?

Most trademarks have only a few classes. So you may be allowed to sell stuff because trademark XYZ only covers shoes. You can't sell computers with "Apple" brand but nobody can forbid you to sell apple (to eat). Who owns a brand? Budweiser beer is owned by Budweiser USA but they don't have the trademark in most European countries. This would get extraordinary complex very quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another interesting one is trustpilot. According to web shop people I know, it's well known that people who complain require less motivation to write than satisfied customers. So the model is basically that you're forced to pay them to motivate positive reviews to compensate for the negatives.

<comment><USER16> Or it's just that most interactions with stores are really mediocre. If I buy something in a store, it was reasonably priced, it gets delivered within the promised time frame and is not damaged then that's very much par for the course in terms of what I expect from a webshop. It's not "5/5 AMAZING store, will always buy things from here!", it's just so much easier to slide downwards on that scale than move up.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. It's just that in the internet era you can have a restaurant with a queue of everyone who's ever gotten food poisoned, or served late, or served the wrong food, standing outside forever. The thousands of satisfied customers aren't visible.

And TP's business model is to build that queue of dissatisfied people so that you have to pay to compensate for it.

<comment><USER17> That's a good point, perhaps ratings need a way to indicate the the number of satisfied customers instead of keeping them invisible.

We are already used to seeing the number of reviews next to a rating score, but maybe we can add an additional "total number of customers" or a percentage of reviews-to-customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article motivated me to figure out why I see those ads in the first place. If you're on uBlock Origin, go to the dashboard and look for a filter list under "annoyances". Mine was switched off.

</comment><comment><USER18> When I search in the Dutch App Store for 'Coolblue', a big online retailer here, the first thing I see is an ad for the 'Bol.com' app, the biggest online retailer here (our Amazon-like website, with the same shady partner practices). Below that is the actual Coolblue app.

So this is what happens when the competitor pays more for ads on your own name than you do.

<comment><USER19> however in this came, basecamp, is close to generic and easily associated with products and activities.

<comment><USER20> From [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/base- camp](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/base-camp):

> base camp, noun, a main encampment providing supplies, shelter, and > communications for persons engaged in wide-ranging activities, as exploring, > reconnaissance, hunting, or mountain climbing.

Meanwhile from [https://basecamp.com/features](https://basecamp.com/features):

> Basecamp combines all the tools teams need to get work done in a single, > streamlined package. With everything in one place, your team will know what > to do, where things stand, and where to find things they need.

I'm not sure 'basecamp' as a generic word has anything to do with project management, or any of the other things that basecamp.com product offers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There was a time, before Google existed, when the "top result" was not assumed to be the "best" result. The researcher was expected to examine more than just the first entry in a list of citations. Google advertising targets users who place considerable confidence in the ordering of results, despite not knowing the details of the algorithm used.

<comment><USER22> Google was always extremely proud of the fact that, unlike Yahoo, Altavista, etc., you couldn't buy the top spots. The organic results looked very different from the couple one-line ads at the top or side.

Now, if I search without an ad block for something like "screws" I get

1\. Two ads that look like search results (same 3-4 line excerpt, same links into internal results, same "more" dropdown), except for a little box that says "Ad". This takes up 1/2 of my screen.

2\. A full-screen height worth of map and links to physical stores (have no idea if they're paid for or not)

3\. My results

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> previous posts:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20871677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20871677)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20874268)

and direct link to twitter thread:

[https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016](https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016)

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the only thing at fault here is Google's UI. I don't have a problem with companies having two tracks to the front page of Google (organic and paid placement), but the ads take up so much space at the top, and they are so poorly differentiated from organic results.

My analogy is the yellow pages, which is two things: A vehicle for ads, and a reference list of phone numbers. The sections are distinguished, by white/yellow pages for business/personal numbers, and with ads standing apart and looking different on the page. And YP never screwed with alpha order. They can make their money on ads and you can use the phone book for its raison d'être: a list of businesses/people.

</comment><comment><USER25> > this site lets companies advertise against us using our brand

As they should. If your product is an alternative to $bigbrand then this gives you the best visibility.

> When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own > brand name, you're forced to pay up if you want to be found. It's a > shakedown. It's ransom.

No. Your brand is the first actual result. You might argue that four is a bit much or that it should be clearer that these are adds (can you even see those when running an ad blocker?), but "our competitors are running advertisements" is definitely not a shakedown or ransom.

<comment><USER26> Advertisements look like real search results, though, and being able to bury a company just because you're paying money to run ads using their name ( _not_ a generic search term) is just bad behavior.

<comment><USER25> Last paragraph. If 4 ads is "burying", what about 3? 2? 1?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why do people still use Google? [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp)

<comment><USER28> Why should I use an inferior product (duck) on so many metrics? If you really want to disable ads and tracking uBlock Origin fixe the issue.

<comment><USER29> 80% of the time DDG results are "good enough" and I'm contributing zero data to the Alphabet Empire.

If the first page of DDG doesn't yield results it's about a second's work to do the same search, but with !g appended anywhere in the query.

<comment><USER30> A process which is unnecessarily cumbersome. If DDG wanted people to use it, they'd make the top five or so bang switches clickable. Click and it redoes the current search pretended by a bang.

<comment><USER31> Ooh, seeing "if they wanted people to use it" and "clickable" in the same sentence gave me feelings. To me, having to take my hands off the keyboard is the exact opposite of usable.

<comment><USER30> Okay...

If you scroll with your keyboard, how do you get back to the search field more quickly than with the mouse?

If you scroll with the mouse, how is a one-click solution _with the device you already have in your hand_ not more efficient?

BL: DDG makes bang switches unwieldy. They should fix that.

EDIT: The / key is DDG's shortcut for going back to the search box. That helps a little. Doesn't mean that a clickable button wouldn't help usability a ton. Additionally, since editing a search is probably the most common use case (rather than replacing the search terms entirely), going to the search box should start with the cursor at the beginning or end of the box, rather than with the whole field highlighted.

<comment><USER31> I use Vimium, I don't scroll, I just press the letter of the field I want to get to. However, pressing the / key will take you back to the search box no matter where on the page you are.

<comment><USER32> So because you use Vim to navigate the web, you think DDG shouldn't add better mouse UX that will most likely increase their conversion rate and make the site better for everyone else?

<comment><USER31> No, because I use Vim to navigate the web I think the mouse is less usable. I think DDG shouldn't add clickable Google redirects because they aren't that necessary and are an antipattern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Could adblockers disable/filter these specific types of ads ("brand ransom"), including competitors?

Naive algorithm: if (search term exactly matches the domain of one of the ads) { disable_all_search_ads(); }

(Extend to handle partial matches, alternate spellings, etc)

</comment><comment><USER34> The Google tax is real. Merchants see it as a cost of business, consumers are insulated from it to the point where all they see is a wonderful " _free_ " product from Google.

The reality is if we didn't have to do defensive ads on our organic results my company could probably offer 30% lower pricing. But because there's no easy way to discriminate against google ad clickers we have to charge the Google tax to everyone, as most businesses do.

The end result is that nobody cries foul to the search monopoly and its cost to society. Google gets to charge monopolistic pricing without anyone noticing.

</comment><comment><USER35> And they wonder why we block ads.

If I search for medicine, maybe they'll show me an ad for homeopathy. Maybe I'm gullible.

If I search Reliable Product X and I get an ad for Garbage Product Y...

Eventually, doesn't this de-value Google's own brand as being the place where you go to find... what you typed into the search bar?

<comment><USER36> It does! But adblockers work in google's favor here: they make it impossible for competing ad agencies to grow

Google doesn't have an awesome ads platform at this time. They just have no competition

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Might trademark law have something to say about this practice?

<comment><USER38> In the US the only things that matter in trademark are Lanham Act matters, specifically whether there's a likelihood of confusion (ignoring for the moment active use in commerce and other infringement elements). Simply returning a competitor's ad when searching someone else's trade name isn't enough (citation needed).

You might ask whether state bar ethics rules have a different take? And the answer is yes, with results all over the place. This DDG search may be of interest: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bar%22+buying+competitors+keywo...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bar%22+buying+competitors+keyword&t=ffab&ia=web)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's true. When I searched for a Tier 1, popular university by their acronym (XYZ), 2-3 other unrelated Tier 2 results were in the top above it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I tried to find garmin basecamp, but this IT company is squatting the results with an add. How could google let some no-name steal from garmin?

<comment><USER41> I get [https://www.garmin.com/en- US/software/basecamp/](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/software/basecamp/) as the first result when I search for 'Garmin Basecamp', so I'm not sure what your point is.

I'd also argue that Basecamp (the service) is more known than Garmin Basecamp, _especially_ in these circles, DHH is definitely not some 'no-name' :)

<comment><USER40> My point is that Basecamp does not have a just claim to be no. 1 when you search for the term basecamp.

<comment><USER41> Which isn't the point of the initial complaint from Basecamp, their point is that they _are_ the number 1 search, but even being the number 1 search places them below several spaces advertising for 'Basecamp'. If Garmin were the number 1 space, perhaps the argument would hold less weight, sure :)

<comment><USER40> They are not number one for me. Nor is Garmin. A nonprofit organisation working with student living spaces are no. 1 for me. No one is owed any position on google results, as they are not universal.

<comment><USER42> The point is, when they're the no. 1 result, they're kind not because there is two or three competitors that shows up as ads above the search results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In my case a competitor used almost the same name us, ran ads against our brand, and google wouldn't do anything about it.

</comment><comment><USER43> What do you expect? Big companies like this don't exactly have slogans proclaiming "don't be evil"

</comment><comment><USER44> I have seen worse, in the escape room industry, some even use the name of the competitor in the title. I'm pretty sure they were able to get them down the few times I saw it happens, but it was certainly not quick nor easy.

</comment><comment><USER45> I can't find my tiny violin for Jason anywhere; too bad. :(

This is the most entitled blog post I have ever seen. As much as I personally dislike Google et al. I don't believe the ownership of a trademark or even just a brand entitles you to be the top of page for that word.

Also... if someone is searching for Basecamp specifically (i.e. using the search team "basecamp") they likely aren't going to click an ad for something they aren't looking for.

I have a very hard time feeling bad for Basecamp in this situation.

</comment><comment><USER46> Can't Basecamp trademark their name and then pursue a trademark claim against Google, or is it too late for that?

</comment><comment><USER47> FWIW Amazon does exactly the same thing. If we want the buy box for our own brand, we have to advertise.

</comment><comment><USER48> There's no force involved here, this is just Basecamp being upset they now have to pay Google for what they do.

Basecamp made a value judgement that the value google provides through its search results is worth the price of paying for ads. This is revealed preference in action, Google has done nothing wrong here other than be the best at what they do.

</comment><comment><USER49> They were not forced.

<comment><USER50> Of course they were forced, if being forced means "having force applied to". Did they HAVE to do it? No. Were they forced to? Yes, of course.

Much in the same way that you don't _have_ to work but are very much forced to.

<comment><USER51> Their choice is either do it, or lose a significant portion of their business. For some business, maybe not Basecamp, it would mean going out of business if you don't have enough visibility on Google.

Because Google has a quasi-monopoly on Internet search, something that ideally should be a neutral infrastructure service.

<comment><USER52> Google also use their near-monopoly in web browsing, obtained by leveraging their search monopoly, to hide and downplay direct URLs to sites so that people don't know any other way to get there than via their search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is not ransom, it's protection money, or monopoly rent in economics jargon.

For an amusing experience, look up "programming questions answered" on Google and Bing and see where Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange show up. If they do. Google serves up a "hongkiat" site that mentions them, but you would need to step deeper that I did to actually find either.

Does this mean that SO and SE are refusing to be coerced?</comment>


This woman has a plan to fix SF's housing crisis but homeowners won't like it - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8782235/san-francisco-housing-crisis?

<comment><USER2> For homeowners, there is no crisis. There is a wonderful time of prosperity. Homeowners are, by definition, not going to like any solutions to their prosperity.</comment>


Telnet BBS Guide - <AUTHOR> https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ <comment><USER2> Anyone interested in this should try to "telnet telehack.com"

It's a simulation of arpanet/usenet from around 1985-1990, which includes 25,000 hosts and BBS's, thousands of files from the era, a collection of adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of programs to run, simulated historical users, and more.

More information here: [http://telehack.com/](http://telehack.com/) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telehack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telehack)

</comment><comment><USER3> Let me take this opportunity to promote this awesome, free documentary by Jason Scott about BBSs. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary). It's on YouTube. I discovered it in 2005 but only watched it a few years ago. It's so good. Looking forward to trying BBSs over Telnet.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are two[1,2] BBS (in Japanese) related to airplane addons development for YSFlight[0] simulator: first is related to C.K.Packs[3], and second is related to ORANLEED COLLECTION[4]

[0] [http://ysflight.org](http://ysflight.org)

[1] [http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/cgi- bin/joyfulckp/jo...](http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/cgi- bin/joyfulckp/joyful.cgi)

[2] [http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/cgi- bin/joyfuloran/j...](http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/cgi- bin/joyfuloran/joyful.cgi)

[3] [http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/ckp/](http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/ckp/)

[4] [http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/](http://mrsandj.sakura.ne.jp/ht/oranleed/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Are these still active? How many people actually use them? I'd love to join, as my first internet encounter was in the windows 95 era.

<comment><USER6> I know this one is active: [https://bbs.fozztexx.com/](https://bbs.fozztexx.com/)

<comment><USER7> It is slow, but it works fine. It even detects using xterm with 209x75, with ASCII character set, and allows overriding them if the auto-detection doesn't work (I don't know what other possibilities are supported; maybe PC character set with DOS ANSI.SYS? and presumably also shellinabox, which I have not tried). They support both by telephone and internet; I didn't know they still did that. Also, the menu does not resemble the picture in the web page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I enjoyed BBSing in my youth and appreciate that BBSes are still around. But two factors that are missing today are 1. BBSes were local to me (reflecting the people in my city) and 2. It was "hard" to find then and connect to them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow...a flashback to the 80s! That US Robotics modem was my pride an joy (same one they have pictured, but came out in the early 90s). My first modem was a 300bps, and 2nd was 2400. This was a huge step up, and was painful waiting for BBS's to upgrade their 9600's to get that sweet speed. IIRC, it took about 7 minutes to download a 1.44MB floppy.

<comment><USER10> From what I remember of the 56kpbs days it def took longer than 7 minutes to d/l 1.44mb

<comment><USER11> I remember about 10min/MB

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my top ten favorites on HN, ever.

Why? It's history from a time when most people did not have access to the Internet (when there were no commercial ISP's, no fiber or cable to the home that carried digital signals), and BBS's were the only way you communicated electronically with groups of people via a mostly text-based computer...

</comment><comment><USER13> Once this internet fad is over, BBS will return!

<comment><USER14> It took me several years of exposure to see the point of the internet. I had been running my own BBSes for quite a while by then.

We already had email more or less, at least in ways that mattered. And the experience was non-commercial and personal, with operators putting a lot of time and effort into their quirky online worlds.

Some of it's still around if you go look for it, but I can't shake the feeling that we lost something worth keeping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ah, count me in the nostalgia pool too. Had lots of good times and good friends in the 412/724 BBS scene.

And what a great outlet for creativity! Drawing ANSI, modding Renegade, composing MODs for other people to download. It was great.

</comment><comment><USER4> Link to _Telnet BBS Guide > Downloads Lists_ page[0]

[0] [https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/lists/download- list/](https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/lists/download-list/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Huh, I've never used a bbs before and it's very cozy.

</comment><comment><USER17> It would be even more fun if you could search for other Telnet BBSes over Telnet.

<comment><USER18> If only there was some kind of telnet google that would hunt down telnet bbs's, crawl them and make them searchable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I run a hobby BBS, but it is a ghost town, no active users.

<comment><USER19> My bbs is telnet://chksmak.cnetbbs.net:2600</comment></comment>


Why Has Germany Been Effective at Limiting Covid-19 Deaths? - <AUTHOR> https://kottke.org/20/04/why-has-germany-been-effective-at-limiting-covid-19-deaths <comment><USER2> At the bi-weekly RKI press-conference[0], the head of the RKI mentioned almost in passing that R0[1] has been brought down to 1. Talk about burying the lede! So out of the exponential phase, and now trying to get R0 below 1 as well as optimising other figures.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu0gIhKRy04&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu0gIhKRy04&feature=youtu.be&t=858)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number)</comment>


Ask HN: Heroku, PostgreSQL, Clojure - <AUTHOR>

Is there anyone here working with Heroku, PostgreSQL and Clojure who can help me? I am stuck trying to run Postgre locally. I know I am handicapped with a Windows machine but any help would be appreciated. Here are my questions in SO:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19204548/how-do-you-connect-to-local-postgresql-in-heroku/19207088#19207088
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19201133/postgresql-log-autovacuum-launcher-started-is-hung-apparently
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19197944/what-is-the-best-way-to-organize-project-files-in-heroku-with-clojure <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19204548/how-do-you- conne...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19204548/how-do-you-connect-to- local-postgresql-in-heroku/19207088#19207088)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19201133/postgresql- log-a...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19201133/postgresql-log- autovacuum-launcher-started-is-hung-apparently)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19197944/what-is-the- best...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19197944/what-is-the-best-way-to- organize-project-files-in-heroku-with-clojure)</comment>


Why It's Not Helpful to Say "I Don't See Color" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/an-injustice/to-my-fellow-color-blind-white-people-i-dont-see-color-doesn-t-mean-what-you-think-it-means-157959f6a97f <comment><USER2> > It shouldn't have been Mike's job to teach me. However grateful I am to him > and other patient friends and colleagues over the years who have educated me > where I previously felt I needed no education, people of color should not be > responsible for teaching ignorant white people how ignorant we are. And, > trust me, we are all ignorant.

No, _you 're_ ignorant for being naive to reality and not straying outside of your bubble. I think it's a bit unfair to pretend to be a spokesperson for an entire race of people and act like you're the only "enlightened" person out there. When people say "I don't see color" it is meant to say they don't discriminate against others based on color of skin, which is the right thing to do. It has nothing to do with not being able to see the plight of others in this society. If you needed a class to teach you that, then your priorities are completely out of whack.</comment>


Sixteen APL Amuse-Bouches (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://vector.org.uk/sixteen-apl-amuse-bouches/ <comment> jim-jim-jim Forks and hooks interest me. I always thought they were a cute little feature of APL and J, but I've actually found real world uses for them writing Haskell at work. The little APL knowledge I've picked up has made me much more comfortable with tacit programming in the latter language, probably to the annoyance of my colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think I'm officially never going to be smart enough to _get_ APL. Perhaps that day will come, but until then I find it hard to tell between these two viewpoints:

(1) APL is another form of Perl golf, showing off basically. The fact that so few people would be able to read it makes code essentially write-only and any enthusiasm for it as a serious language for communicating ideas between _people_ is quackery; or

(2) APL truly is readable, and if only I had received the right upbringing from an early enough age then I would have a mind capable of becoming APL enlightened, but it's ok that I don't because the virtue is that the next generation, at least, will all be able to revel in the language's brevity. Just because I can't look at _(+\%^,)•[x,}]•_ and instantly recognize it is a JPEG parser, it doesn't mean APL is a language without virtue.

Perhaps a better analogy would be with character languages (eg CJK) where it's quite apparent that billions of people function (no pun intended) productively using them, and yet these writing systems will almost certainly remain forever inscrutable to me.

(A counter-point to _that_ is that I believe character reading and writing issues in terms of illegible handwriting are a much more significant societal problem in China than they are in the West.)

<comment><USER3> As I like to put it when I have to come up with a "fun fact" for corporate icebreaker activities, "I have programmed in APL for money". It's not really that hard.

The notation is certainly a stumbling block if you're trying to read these articles out of context. How do you even "read" something like "5⍴⍳20" in your head when it's that unfamiliar? But that's the same as anything else, what does "for (x = 0; x < 10; i++)" mean to someone who's never seen it before? So when you can see that as "5 rho iota 20", at least you can pronounce it. But when you're actively using the language you know what ⍳20 means as easily as you know what "1 through 20" means. "Reshape 5" is just as familiar. So it takes only a glance at 5⍴⍳20 to visualize a 5x4 matrix of the numbers from 1 to 20.

Once you start thinking that way, the majority of what might seem like show- off tricks or being clever are just the paradigm of the language. The idea of creating a vector of things, applying a true/false test to every element to create another vector of 1s and 0s, and summing those or using them to pick elements out of another vector is a super powerful tool that lets you express a lot of ideas in a compact form that describes the algorithm without getting bogged down in writing explicit loops. What's the average of these numbers? The sum divided by the count. In APL you just write that down. In many other languages, you write "I wish to declare a variable 'i' of type 32-bit-integer. Set 'i' to 0. Compare 'i' to ...". What does any of this have to do with an average?

Now of course in an article where the author is actually showing off how clever you can get, and the topic of many items is some obscure mathematical concept, it's going to be harder to read than the average program.

<comment><USER4> > The idea of creating a vector of things, applying a true/false test to every > element to create another vector of 1s and 0s, and summing those or using > them to pick elements out of another vector is a super powerful tool that > lets you express a lot of ideas in a compact form that describes the > algorithm without getting bogged down in writing explicit loops.

Exactly. APL's syntax and terminology is a bit odd. But what you're describing there should be a concept known to anyone familiar with a functional language. It seems you've just described what I would call mapping a function over an array. Indeed, a very powerful construct, often lacking from more procedural languages. Or, sadly, often eschewed by programmers even in the languages that do have it.

APL makes me think of Forth. Because of its idiosyncratic terminology (e.g. functions are "words") and unusual syntax (strict RPN), it is considered more exotic than it really is.

<comment><USER5> > But what you're describing there should be a concept known to anyone > familiar with a functional language. It seems you've just described what I > would call mapping a function over an array.

The other powerful notion is that arrays become mapping functions over their index.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An APL is a very compact programming language, from Wikipedia:

> APL (named after the book A Programming Language)[2] is a programming > language developed in the 1960s by Kenneth E. Iverson. Its central datatype > is the multidimensional array. It uses a large range of special graphic > symbols[3] to represent most functions and operators, leading to very > concise code.

Took me some time to realise what I was even reading about, let alone the content!

<comment><AUTHOR> "An APL is a very compact programming language" is grammatically incorrect.

"An A Programming Language is a very compact programming language."

As described by the ever-pleasant Dijkstra:

"APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past"

<comment><USER7> hm. "An APL" sounds fine to me! i'd say that, grammatically, "APL" (and other acronyms) become independent from their expansions.

e.g. would you say that expressions like "the FBI's policy" or "multiple DUIs" are grammatically incorrect? expanding the acronym gives "The Federal Beaurau of Investigations's policy" and "multiple Driving Under the Influences" which sound wrong, but the original expression is fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> The FBI stands for "The Federal Bureau of Investigation." "The FBI's policy," as such, is grammatically correct.

English isn't a common language in Poland, is it?

<comment><USER7> my english is fine, thanks. my point was: splicing the expansion of "DUI" into a sentence will often make it ungrammatical, but that doesn't matter, because the acronym functions as a separate thing. analogously, expanding "an APL" into "an <A Programming Language>" and calling it incorrect is a weird way to judge a sentence.

anyway, i guess i was just in the mood to argue about something pointless online! have a nice day :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looking at Advent of Code solutions, I'm not sure if APL is really so much shorter or if it is rather a styling of programming.

Some day2 solutions from reddit [0]:

APL:

        0{⍺⋄s←⍵⋄c←s[f+⍳4]⋄99=0⌷c:0⌷s⋄i a b l←s[c]⋄s[3⌷c]←(0⌷c-1)⌷a(+,×)b⋄(⍺+4)∇s}{j←⍵⋄j[1 2]←12 2⋄j}⍎¨','(≠⊆⊢)(⎕NGET 'data')

Python:

        def R(I,x=12,y=2,O=__import__('operator')):
            q=p=[*map(int,I.split(','))];p[1:3]=x,y
            while p[0]!=99:o,a,b,c,*p=p;q[c]={1:O.add,2:O.mul}[o](q[a],q[b])
            return q[0]
        R(inp),next(100*x+y for x in range(100)for y in range(100)if R(I,x,y)==19690720)

K (APL derivative)

        f:** ({~99=x@y}/) {i:x@y+!4;n:@[x;i@3;$[1=*i;+;*]/x@i@1 2];(n;y+4)}//
        d1:@[.-1_1:`2.txt;1 2;:;12 2]
        f(d1;0)
        d2:{@[d1;1 2;:;x]}'z:+!2#100
        {y+100*x}/*z@&19690720=f'+(d2;0)

Another APL one:

        ⎕IO←0
        s←⍎¨','(≠⊆⊢)⊃⊃⎕NGET'p02.txt' 1
        f←{i←0⊣p[1 2]←⍵⊣p←s ⋄ ⊃p⊣{i+←4⊣a b c d←p[i+⍳4] ⋄ p[d]←(a-1)⌷p[b](+,×)p[c]}⍣{99=i⌷p}⊢0}
        f 12 2 ⍝ part 1
        +/100 1×∊{0::⍬ ⋄ 19690720=f⍵:⍵ ⋄ ⍬}¨1+,⍳99 99 ⍝ part 2

Ruby:

        def exec_op v { 1 => method(define_method(:a) {|x,y,z,m| m[z] = m[x] + m[y]}), 2 => method(define_method(:a) {|x,y,z,m| m[z] = m[x] * m[y]}) }[v] || method(define_method(:empty) {|a,b,c,d| nil }) end
        def run_program i i.each_slice(4).to_a.map {|p| exec_op(p[0]).call(p[1], p[2], p[3], i)} end

[0] [https://old.reddit.com/r/adventofcode/comments/e4u0rw/2019_d...](https://old.reddit.com/r/adventofcode/comments/e4u0rw/2019_day_2_solutions/)

<comment><USER9> I think it makes better sense to compare how APL looks in the wild versus Python/Ruby/Java whatever. Rosetta Code shows this pretty well. There are dozens of examples where the APL program is one line and the Python/Perl/Ruby/C#/Whatever is ~1/3 page if I recall correctly.

So that might prove your point better now that I think about it lol. Python can be written like the user did above, but I've never written it that way or seen anybody at work that has. Most of the APL I've seen (except for the really old school kind) looks like oneliners.

<comment><USER10> Actually, my experience is that APL in the wild (as practiced by those who are just trying to do their job) is not very terse at all. It looks like an old- school procedural language. Since APL is an incredibly proprietary community, it can be a bit hard to find public examples of "industrial" APL style, but this looks similar to what I remember is written at places like SimCorp: [https://github.com/Dyalog19/SA3/blob/953e591eace72bb1c147d19...](https://github.com/Dyalog19/SA3/blob/953e591eace72bb1c147d1914734a78d7af50baf/DUI/Core/JSON.dyalog)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why didn't Dijkstra like this?! I get that APL is an acquired taste but these programs are beautiful. It pains me to read of such a visionary being so close-minded to a radical and succinct way of expressing algorithms.

<comment><USER12> [https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/Dijkstra_Letter.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/Dijkstra_Letter.htm)

<comment><USER8> J can be considered APL 2.0 and it fixes Dijkstras complaint since it is ASCII only.

<comment><USER13> The character set is not Dijkstra's complaint. His preferred language, ALGOL 60, also uses characters like × ÷ ≤ ¬ ⊃. ASCII wasn't really the definitive standard it is now when Dijkstra wrote that APL was a "mistake" in 1975.

<comment><USER8> Then what does Dijkstra criticize?

> The fact that the printed or written word is apparently not the proper > medium for the propagation of APL may offer a further explanation for its > relative isolation; at the same time that fact may be viewed as one of its > major shortcomings.

<comment><USER13> Brace yourself. Dijkstra was complaining about the fact that APLers wanted a computer available in order to write programs! He thought the only sufficient way to develop programs was to first conceive a mathematical proof of the program's correctness, then write the proof and the code together. I think this is part of what he means when he talks about the future of computer science, although it's not clear whether he actually thought this methodology would become common. I probably have more sympathy for this viewpoint than most, but I think it's obvious that it has not held up well.

Like many of Dijsktra's complaints about APL, this one is ironic because APL today is one of the best embodiments of the idea that code should be communicable without a computer. APLers will gladly discuss ideas with each other by writing APL on paper or a blackboard, or even by speaking it out loud. A few people have remarked that this is a unique feature of array languages: other programmers will write things down, but only array programmers use their own language to do so.

<comment><USER8> From Iversons autobiography [https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm)

"To our surprise, the two teachers worked at the blackboard in their accustomed manner, except that they used a mixture of APL and conventional notation. Only when they and the class had worked out a program for some matter in the text would they call on some (eager) volunteer to use the terminal. The printed result was then examined; if it did not give the expected result, they returned to the blackboard to refine it."

"... the initial motive for developing APL was to provide a tool for writing and teaching. Although APL has been exploited mostly in commercial programming, I continue to believe that its most important use remains to be exploited: as a simple, precise, executable notation for the teaching of a wide range of subjects."

The antipathy between Dijkstra and Iverson makes no sense to me. Was Dijkstra just misinformed about APL?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most people are misinformed about APL, but Dijkstra took this to a spectacular level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> APL is like if we assigned a number to every word in the English language. There are about 60,000 words: sixteen bits would do it. We could use base 64, so every word would be reduced to three characters. Wouldn't that be an improvement? </sarcasm></comment>


Ask HN: Do Anyone succeeded at a start up using a new/unknown language? - <AUTHOR> Is it bad to try a new programing language (new to Scala, earlier java/nodejs/python dev) in a start up if we have the time to learn. <comment><USER2> A startup's primary focus should be getting the product out and getting customers. The language should be something that you are comfortable with, unless it is critical to the success of the product, in which case you should hire people who know it already. Can you clarify why you think that you have time to learn?

Learning to be able to write functional code will not be enough. You need to be an expert in it - the kind of expertise that is gained with years of writing code in it, knowing debugging techniques as second nature, idiosyncrasies and best practices, where your productivity in the language has reached peak levels and you don't have to think of how to do something in the language, and can focus on solving the problem for the business.

This is more true of languages than of frameworks or tools.

<comment><USER3> One exception I've found in practice is Go, which being a simple language, can be picked up rather readily. Early code isn't idiomatic but still fairly readable and maintainable. Python could be another which make sense in order to use a simple framework such as Flask or possibly Django. Scala would be on the other end of the spectrum and a definite no no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> using Crystal Lang on a production app with Kemal.

If one gets used to breaking changes and gets to know the inner bits of ones language and libraries and it's less risky.

If one is using very complex stacks and hoping/waiting for other people to fix things, it's much more risky.</comment>


Is Amazon's Kindle Destroying the Publishing Industry? - <AUTHOR> http://blogkindle.com/2011/05/is-amazons-kindle-destroying-the-publishing-industry/ <comment><USER2> I love this, a beautiful example of disruptive innovation:

-Authors get up to 70%, as opposed to 5-15% -Far less trees are killed

-Eliminates the role of the publisher / physical distribution channel, which claimed the lion's share of the profits without adding creative value

-Marginal cost of distributing an extra book is on the order of cents

I've not read a hardcover book since getting a Kindle.

<comment><USER3> The publisher isn't a distributor. Rather, they provide editorial and marketing services and a hell of a lot of inputs that are largely invisible to the end user. The lions share of the profit doesn't go to the publisher -- who typically nets as much as the author after paying for all the pre-press stuff -- but to the _distribution channel_. Which is Amazon (insofar as they're trying to take over and merge the roles of distributors/wholesalers and retailers).

<comment><USER4> Isn't that true of all businesses though (music, movies, games, and other media)?

<comment><USER5> It's true in games.

But it wasn't true in music---the industry was vertically integrated.

For instance Virgin Megastore sold records in London, and world wide.

Virgin Music produced those records.

Virgin Music Group (known in the US as EMI) handled distribution of the records to out-of-chain companies.

Virgin even broadcast under the label Virgin Radio, and sponsored festivals such as the V-Festival.

That's just one example, but the whole industry was integrated to various degrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The publishing industry is already dead. It's been dead for years.

By 'dead' I mean that the number of copies any one book is expected to sell is pathetic compared to other industries. A book that sells 100k copies is doing extremely well, whereas an album, video game, or movie that made similar numbers would be a disasterous flop. Advances, the main value that publishers provide to authors, have shrunk to the point where you could draw a bigger advance (on better terms) at an ATM with your credit card.

I'm hopeful that the democratization of publishing will allow new types of author to succeed, now that ownership of a printing plant isn't a barrier to reaching your audience, and revitalize the publishing industry. It really can't get much worse.

<comment><USER7> It is good that power is being transferred away from a small number of publishers, but that power is being transferred to an even smaller number of platform owners like: Amazon, Google, Sony, Apple etc. To me, it just seems like a shift in power from old media entities to new media entities.

<comment><USER8> This is certainly a concern, but I think it is very encouraging that the major players- Amazon, B&N, Sony, etc.-- have done a fairly decent job of keeping the devices "open enough" that you don't need them to get your works onto Kindles, Nooks, etc.

Amazon, for instance, might curate its bookstore and censor "offensive" books, but you can still always transfer books using USB (there's even software like Calibre that makes the process fairly painless). I don't have a Nook, but my previous Sony EReader had the same capability-- I actually buy quite a lot of the books for my Kindle from outlets like Smashwords, which cuts out even Amazon as the middleman.

Still, I think its worth keeping in mind that it is Amazon's choice to allow us to transfer content to our Kindles. They _could_ make that irritating or difficult-- and do it at any time. Given that, it is certainly worth being wary, if optimistic, about their policies.

"Trust by verify".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Historically, publishers provided at least two valuable services: distribution and marketing. They captured the value they were providing by "taxing" distribution (i.e., adding a profit margin for themselves). ebooks make distribution cheap and easy making publishers unecessary in that role.

Marketing is still valuable, but publishers never directly charged for that (as far as I know), hence their dilemma.

</comment><comment><USER10> The major role of the publisher has always been to make sure copies of a book sell.

They select work they think will be commercial.

They pay advances to authors so the author can live while they're writing.

They baby step books to market with limited printings, and then test / edit / revise and tweak cover art etc.

If there's a glimmer of a winner they pour money into advertising in magazines, to PR people, etc.

They pay for exclusive positioning to get it at the front of your B&N store locally, pay reps to go out on the road and talk to local book stores, etc.

So if the end-goal for most authors is to make a living from their writing, how is publishing going to be disrupted?

Authors are still going to need advances.

Reps may no longer hit the road to independent bookstores, but they certainly might hit the road to meet influential bloggers.

Advertising dollars will still help raise awareness and sales.

So while the publishing industry is certainly going to transform, it's certainly not going to be destroyed.

</comment><comment><USER11> What this means is the little guy has a shot to have a big hit due to the massive distribution power of the kindle/nook/iBooks platforms. It's the same phenomenon as app stores for software or blogging for news or iTunes for music.

Major companies controlled major distribution. Now they don't. Of course an empire built around a competitive advantage that no longer exists is going to necessarily shrink.

It would be folly to think otherwise.

<comment><USER12> It's true that the little guy has a shot at massive success without an intermediary like an agent, a publisher, and massive marketing.

The flip side of this is that there will be more and more and more small, "vanity" books being sold in small quantities. Disintermediation is about the long tail. The little guy still has very little chance of scoring a major success, but lots of people will be able to write and make a few bucks for it.

Being a part-time author is now a serious proposition.

<comment><USER13> The narrative fits the US hopes and dreams very well, so well in fact that many believe it. I'm not saying people shouldn't be allowed to publish (and in fact they are) but this is a lot like the "I would be a rockstar if someone would just give me a break" story in music. Are we swimming in out-of-nowhere hits now that nearly everyone can buy everything you need to record/publish for less then a four-track recorder? No. The reason people aren't billboard no 1s/NYT bestsellers/directing the next Paramount isn't that the man is holding them down, it's that they suck at it. More cash won't change that much (an editor and a staff helps, but it's not a cure-all either).

That said, sure, the concept of books is in serious need of help and e-readers including kindle do help some. I know several people who hadn't read a book since high school but suddenly got used to reading on kindle/nook/their laptop/phone and suddenly trade suggestions and (gasp) purchase actual books. This is a positive, seeing as getting them to sign up for a library card or even giving them (no strings) a physical book to read was usually met with suspicion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know the kindle will make me consider strongly having a book edited and indexed by someone I pay instead of a publisher.

<comment><USER15> Only useful if you can afford to pay someone to edit and index your book.

<comment><USER14> Compared to lost work from actually taking the time to write it, those will be negligible costs (for programmers).

<comment><USER15> For programmers, absolutely.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Rudolph Runner - <AUTHOR> http://albertxing.github.io/rudolph-runner/

<comment><USER2> After playing a while the game induces hallucinations, especially after a good run where you stare at it for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes items generate too close together to successfully jump them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps. This game was designed to be fairly difficult. Because there is no leveling system, the only way to make it fun or even addictive is to make it (slightly unreasonably) hard.

This strategy has been used very successfully in popular games like Flappy Bird and 2048.

That said, I agree that sometimes it may be impossible to complete a jump. This is a bug, and I would need to spend some time tweaking the generation constants to avoid this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This would be a cool one to port to Scratch and add to the Code Club syllabus: [http://projects.codeclub.org.uk](http://projects.codeclub.org.uk) I would guess it's pretty doable in Scratch.

</comment><comment><USER5> I cannot even jump on the smallest obstacle (bug?), but I live edited the code and set the jump dy to -200 and I am in the air for over 2 minutes. Other than that, nice game.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the Impossible Game [0]. Very similar game mechanics, just missing platforms that can be landed on. (Or, at least, I didn't get far enough to see them).

[0] [http://www.flukedude.com/theimpossiblegame/](http://www.flukedude.com/theimpossiblegame/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This game is actually a lot simpler than the one you link to. Just jumping.

It was originally inspired by the Chrome T-Rex easter egg ([https://plus.google.com/+FrancoisBeaufort/posts/LUtLvQYMFZK](https://plus.google.com/+FrancoisBeaufort/posts/LUtLvQYMFZK))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is what inspires me to continue learning more about programming, anyone else feel the same way?

</comment><comment><USER8> The art is great, but this is another example showing that javascript games just don't work that well, like not even close to old flash games.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sometimes when I hold down space the reindeer jumps reliably and sometimes it just doesn't... needs to be perfect in order for high scores.

<comment><USER10> I agree. Without knowing where I may land because my jump height and duration is random I cannot skillfully succeed in the game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for trying out the game - I greatly appreciate your feedback

Every time the spacebar is pressed (on keydown), the reindeer jumps - so the key to the game is to time the jumps such that the reindeer both clears the snowman, and has enough room to make another jump if necessary. As noted by lowglow, holding down the spacebar does not get you very far.

The initial vertical velocity and downward acceleration are constant, so the height and duration is not random.

<comment><USER11> On Chrome the height and duration aren't random... on FF they were mostly non- random, but here and there a jump would be significantly higher (up to the height of the screen.

I didn't play for long, but it wasn't playable in FF for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Brings back old memories of Moon Patrol. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER13> I like the game for an open-source project, but as a serious project, it's not very difficult to program otherwise(no pun intended).

Not sure if anyone knows, but the game is very, very similar to the Google Chrome Unable to Connect to the Internet game.

For those who don't know about the game, disconnect from Internet, open google chrome, hit any webpage, and once you see the "Unable to Connect" Dino, just hit the "up" arrow on your keyboard for hours of fun...

<comment><USER14> > I like the game for an open-source project, but as a serious project, it's > not very difficult to program otherwise(no pun intended).

I don't think that's a very good comment. Obviously this isn't the next Angry Birds, but it's a fun diversion during the Christmas week. It's a game a hacker should love - it's obviously just a simple clone of something else, but it's one obviously made for the right reasons (probably learning and/or "shits and giggles") and comes from a spirit of whimsy.

Or I could just be high on the Christmas tree air freshener my girlfriend put in my car. :)

Happy Holidays.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with both of you - it was inspired by the Chrome T-Rex easter egg. However as pionar mentioned it was mostly for leaning (actually, it was mostly for "shits and giggles").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is lots of fun to play. My one Christmas wish would be to have power-ups that can make Rudolph fly.

</comment><comment><USER16> Works on mobile, tap = spacebar, although the visuals sometimes lag, ending your run. (On an iphone)

</comment><comment><USER17> Inspired by Google Chrome's hidden game with dinosaur? :) Same control, same layout.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Addictive. A little on the difficult side but very fun. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER19> Pro-tip: holding down spacebar doesn't get you very far.

</comment><comment><USER20> Frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER21> alternating between spacebar and up arrow is helpful to not trigger double jumps.

</comment><comment><USER22> too addictive :-)</comment>


Ask HN: While applying for jobs/while hiring, what are the pain points? - <AUTHOR> I am really curious about the job marketplace websites, there has really been no innovation in that space. It has always been more like a classified website, where company posts and users when they find something good, they apply.<p>Is there some innovation? Could you list your pain points either while hiring or applying for jobs or some way to improve the current situation.
Thanks <comment><USER2> After 40+ years, you STILL have to manually add your resume to a million different sites and services. Hell, I looked at a LinkedIn job yesterday that wanted me to sign up for 'neuvoo' crap to apply. Wasn't one of the original benefits for job applicants supposed to be a single resume to maintain and easier job application? Seems like you do more data entry now then back in the 80s when you could just hand your resume to a recruiter that would re-work/re- type it if necessary, submit it to relevant companies, and come back to you with a list of places wanting to interview you...

Also, not having even rough salary ranges in the ads can result in wasted time.

 _edit: clarify resume thing_

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah i can totally get it. But how do you expect it can be improved. Auto scanning of Resume and importing the fields from it should do the job?

<comment><USER2> eh - standardized resume 'format' (file format)? 'scanning' is just stop gap because recruiting agencies have no incentive to play nice together.

 _edit_ clarified to file format

</comment></comment></comment><comment> non-entity Just a few pain points from an applicant point of view.

\- Way to much signal to noise. When scrolling through a job board, it's already rare to see a job that makes me thing "I have to apply to this". What's wire however, is that I have to sift through pages of the same garbage jobs reposted by a dozen different recruiting agencies. Also "promote jobs".

\- Useless filters: I remember one site I went on let you filter by industry. So I entered a few and searched. 90% of the results were certainly not in the industries I selected. I'd rather get 0 results than pages of irrelevant ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha i can totally relate to it. Too much noise, in this industry. Do you think it'll be better if you get a curated list of the companies you'll be a perfect fit for? How do you want the list to be curated, on what basis?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Let me tell you an example right now. I saw a workday role that Linkedin suggested that I should apply. I clicked apply on Linkedin which redirected me to the workday site.

The workday site has an Apply with Linkedin button - which I clicked, I mean, I had already wanted to do that before.

Now workday asked me to create an account in their site (wtf?!) not only that but they didn't accept a silly password (why do I need a strong password for a throw away account and why do I need a throw away account for your site?!)

Very similar patterns with other companies... In the end I just gave up, I don't want it badly enough to be tortured in creating accounts and filling details on every company I ought to find interesting / apply when I am already very happy at my job.

If it was friction free, directly from Linkedin with a recruiter calling me to talk about the role, maybe it could lead to something?

I also am not interested in having an up-to-date CV or tailor CV to roles. I already have my Linkedin account and do not look for jobs very often.

And please, no code challenges as well. I do not have the patience to study algo101 to do some tests under 2h in your buggy web UI that doesn't allow me to troublehsoot a problem how I would in my work environment. Amazon keeps directly contacting me saying how interested a particular manager is in my work and how I would be a great fit but it is impossible to talk with a person without first showing them I can pass their buggy UI 101 algo tests under a different environment from my day to day.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah ikr, but how do you expect a company to judge you on the basis of a 2 to 3 hours interview. Obviously if you work for some enterprise, you can't show off your projects due to some nda. So there needs to be a standardised way, do you have any other way to determine an individuals worth from the perspective of the recruiter

<comment><USER3> I am fine with take home exercise or white boarding / full day interviews. Automated challenging before talking with anyone I am not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to see anonymous feedback from rejections. Sometimes employers want to give feedback, but it's uncomfortable to do directly or they don't want to deal with someone begging them for a chance if it's a near miss. Sometimes it would be nice to "waitlist" someone if they're qualified for a job but not the best candidate, especially when it's not certain the best candidate will accept the terms.

<comment><USER5> Waitlisting, or I as I like to call it, ghosting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Vague / incoherent / cut-and-paste job descriptions.

"MUST HAVE 5-10 years experienced in [trivially learnable, provided you have solid general skills] languages / APIs X,Y,Z,W,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V. Meaning if you have 4.7 or 11.5 years of experience, don't bother applying. You can be Jeff Dean or Linus or Guido -- but if you don't have 5-10 years in ALL of these then please don't waste our time or yours. Not that we have any idea what we mean when we say 'years of experience', or why this magical number matters, anyway."

</comment><comment><USER7> There are hundreds of websites, thousands of positions but it is really hard to apply a specific filter. Systems are ridiculously inadequate. I really cannot understand how a website for remote jobs doesn't have a "globally remote" filter. Also, filters are very generic while companies are looking for very specific experiences like domain, framework etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm, you make a good point

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a job seeker, the job postings tend to list a myriad of technologies or requirements. I find that many of the 'required' technology experience is really optional or the level of experience is overstated.

Also, the posting boards do not do a good job of finding truly entry level positions. I constantly find postings that want 5 years of experience or says 'senior' in the title. I get this is mostly an issue with the poster and not the site, but the site could scan for number of years or 'senior' in the title.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah that's there because companies don't want to waste time training employees when they know that those guys will leave after a year or two where half the first year gets spent training if he's a fresher. But i see your point, and i don't think the website can do anything here it's the recruiter who needs to step up

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing I've thought about is no site lists timelines. I understand there's a reason for that, but it can result in wasted applications. If a company is taking 8 weeks to decide, it's probably not a great fit if you already have another offer you're looking to move on in say the next 2 weeks. I don't know if there's a good way to fix this since I can't think of an incentive why companies would want to list a timeline.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah most companies are not in a hurry because they'll be spending 10000s of dollars after picking the person. obviously they don't mind delaying by a few weeks if they can get a better candidate

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mainly some interviews themselves, when you get asked questions from a textbook that nobody has realistically had to know in their day to day job for the past 25 years.

</comment><comment><USER11> Third-party HR applications.

And it's not too broad a statement to say _HR_ is the pain point. I've avoided many interesting jobs when I see an HR Gauntlet of Despair requirement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry could you please rephrase and if possible elaborate on 3rd party hr applications</comment></comment>


The Quantitative Easing (and Fall) of the Roman Empire by Malchow and Thiel [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5386693ce4b05d183bf2dd16/t/53aca2bce4b0dcbdb88aad86/1403822780199/Malchow_QuantitativeEasingofRome.pdf <comment><USER2> That was worth the 20 minutes to read. No new information, but reinforces the problems of debasing fiat monies.

<comment><USER3> The reason we (as a society) inflate currencies is because of "sticky wages". People are loss averse and react much worse to a 5% pay cut than positively to a 5% pay rise.

Because of this, businesses needing to adjust downwards because of competition/technology/market changes can't.

Inflation is _a_ solution to this problem</comment></comment>