Wreckage of UTA Flight 772 - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/2BpKA

<comment><USER2> Beautiful, but the article fails in delivering the actual coordinates:

[https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=UTA+Flight+772+Memori...](https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=UTA+Flight+772+Memorial&data=!1m4!1m3!1d2308!2d11.9546529!3d16.8642515!2m1!1e3!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x0%3A0xba48584b70b42544!3m8!1m3!1d841!2d11.9546529!3d16.8642515!3m2!1i1366!2i683!4f35!4m2!3d16.8649384!4d11.9542113&fid=7)

<comment><USER3> Wow, looking at the desert on Google Maps is _crazy_. Does anyone know of any desert Street Views?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You Might Be Sick of These ViralNova and UpWorthy Article Titles, But Not as Sick of Them as You Will Be After Reading This One

</comment><comment><USER5> Stolen in full from [http://imgur.com/a/2BpKA](http://imgur.com/a/2BpKA)

</comment><comment><USER6> I plugged in the actual coordinates (16.86554, 11.95371) in Apple Maps and their image is pretty interesting too. The whole site is swept over by sand and you can actually see the memorial. I took a screenshot for those without Apple Maps, here: [http://i.imgur.com/1SiHKGS.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/1SiHKGS.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> So does viralnova just steal other people's content and post it as its own?

<comment><USER8> Pretty much. Hope the mods ban that site, along with Upworthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is terrible.

Let me get this straight: you get $170 million from the Libyan government for a terrorist attack. You are from the Congo. And the best thing you can think to blow the money on is to put rocks in the desert, so rich white people can see it on Google Maps? You couldn't have, I don't know, built a hospital or a school or something that would actually help people who are still alive? I imagine that much money could go pretty far in Congo.

<comment><USER10> It was a French group, La Fondation de l'Attentat du DC10, that put up the memorial. There's no indication that the cost of the memorial was anywhere close to $170 million.

I suppose you can argue that we should never build memorials, since we could better spend such money on other things.</comment></comment>


A venture capital firm says it invests in people "pre-idea, pre-team" - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/12/no-team-no-idea-no-problem-this-vc-will-fund-your-startup-anyway/ <comment><USER2> EF solves a real problem in the UK.

Our universities don't exhibit anywhere near the same 'entrepreneurial culture' vs the US equivalents (although this is slowly improving - thankfully). We also don't have the big tech companies (google/fb etc) with the means to compete with banks/hedge-funds for the highest quality engineers/PMs. In the US, these institutions serve as natural breeding grounds for startups. Without these environments, it becomes much more difficult to find like-minded people to develop ideas and raises the time/cost associated with doing so.

I joined EF on the current cohort for this reason and have been surprised (to the upside) with my fellow cohort members. They have managed to recruit some exceptionally talented and motivated people who would be difficult to find otherwise. Also, apart from the cash investment (which just serves to pay your living costs), they have a great network of industry contacts, alumni and investors.

The jury is out on whether the EF model will succeed in producing valuable companies. However, given the level of technical talent it is attracting, they are definitely solving a real problem and I believe it will outperform the YC- style accelerators who have been struggling in Europe. Hopefully they will open the investment fund up to alumni in the near future :)

Message me if you have any questions - would be happy to answer.

<comment><USER3> So, in a nutshell, EF is trying to recruit people from different areas who wants to be entrepreneurs, but doesn't have an idea/team, and EF will create suitable teams out of these people and give them money to build some product?

I have a question. Who exactly will decide what the product would be?Is this something those people would decide among themselves, or the EF would put them on a particular project idea they think is suitable for that team?

<comment><USER2> You have complete freedom over who you work with and what you work on. They fund you unconditionally for the first three months and you can walk away at any time if you want to.

Their website is actually pretty informative: [http://www.joinef.com/our- programme/](http://www.joinef.com/our-programme/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > 10% of applicants are accepted after multiple rounds of interviews and even > a logics and computing test.

It's interesting to note that they are trying to hire entrepreneurs the same way Google was trying to hire programmers 10 years ago.

<comment><USER5> It's actually moderately appropriate here if they're "drafting" out of school. (Potential versus having real work to show)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The 30-year-old with a PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University plans to set his "media-truth-detector" loose on what he calls Russian propaganda, mostly against his native Ukraine._

Unfeasible and uninvestable, but good if you want to get an EU grant I guess. Who is even the target market? Meanwhile just follow all russian, ukrainian and western media sources and compare them.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reads like an Onion headline.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm at month 3 of the EF process. Happy to answer any questions :-)

<comment><USER9> > _pre-idea, pre-team_

Assuming this was true for you? do you have an idea & team now? How long were you funded/hired without these two in place? Theoretically how long can one last in the program if you dont find these 2?

How long have you been burning their cash, have you raised other funds? You could be considered an even Riskier (debatable) investment than the alternate of an actual startup with an MVP actively looking for funding, so does their percentage reflect that? Did you pay an entrance fee as well?

Thanks!

<comment><USER10> They fund individuals for a fixed, three month period, during which you are free to work on whatever and with whomever you want.

After three months, they invest £10000 (in exchange for 8% equity) in all teams that are settled on an idea and seem promising.

There are no fees of any kind.

(disclosure: I'm on the current cohort)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "We are probably the most risk-seeking investors in the world," said Matt > Clifford, EF's co-founder.

This is a great quote, but the reality is more like: "If we didn't start a firm that invests in companies before they exist, we wouldn't have any dealflow."

> Despite the risk-–30% of the entrepreneurs EF funds drop out without ever > creating a company –Clifford said he has no difficulty finding investors for > his venture firm.

Most prospective LPs can't get into top funds, but in markets like the one we have today, they don't go home. They funnel their money into second, third and fourth-tier funds. There were a lot of these in the first .com boom.

</comment><comment><USER12> Similar to sports agency and drafting young athletes. Will tech hiring become televised events with sideline commentary?

</comment><comment><USER13> So they give you a couple grand. What other value do they provide? Seems like a bad deal for people who actually have good ideas and can execute.

<comment><USER14> I've never been through the programme, but I've worked with several people who have.

Most young entrepreneurs who "go it alone" tend to pick up a network of useful contacts - advisors, introducers, investors, corporate buyers, talented potential co-founders/employees etc - over a period of a few years. EF are very good at speeding up that process, so when you're starting your first company you've already got a base of people around you who can provide you with the support and connection you need, without you devoting large portions of your time to it.

It's easy for young entrepreneurs to downplay the importance of that network because there's a selection bias towards confident naivety amongst people who've decided to set up their own company rather than following a safer, more established path (I know I did when I first started), but looking back on it, objectively I'd say joining them is a good idea for almost any graduate entrepreneur.

Having someone who, without any real effort from you, can represent you to a VC from a position of power, make warm introductions to large numbers of angels in your domain, find you really good candidates for early-stage roles in your company, or introduce you to people in big companies who're actively looking to buy products from startups is a blessing you can almost overlook if you've got it but helps you avoid some serious pitfalls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is such a thing as too early. The valuation for the 8% equity here really bites.. you're getting smaller investment than a top tier accelerator and you're going through that 'accelerator' at such an early point in the product that your next step is likely another accelerator. I get that these programs can have value, but the likely outcome is messing up your cap table. It also is a bit awkward to start a start-up when your personal finances don't give you months of living expenses -- this seems like a recipe for large # of failures and taking bad money when you're too early for good money.

</comment><comment><USER16> £10k for an 8% equity stake, how does this compare to other funding in London? The article mentions the "Founder Institute" provides £1k for 3.5%.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't YC give 120K for 7%? An incubator/accelerator that isn't as good as YC (and therefore has less to offer) should have a better deal than that to make up for the difference. Given YC as a baseline, an investment of 10K GBP == 15488 USD should be taking _less than_ 0.9% of the company.

<comment><USER18> >An incubator/accelerator that isn't as good as YC should have a better deal than that to make up for the difference

Only from the perspective of someone being recruited by both YC and the alternative. If YC isn't an option (as it isn't for most people), then it doesn't much matter whether or not YC is offering a better deal to someone else.

<comment><USER19> And at some point your only option is Vinny, who hangs out all day at the bar over on 4th. His deals can be...problematic, but he'll give them to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> MOST accelerators will outright reject, if not make the barrier to acceptance vastly higher for any company that went through a "pre-accelerator". Being in a pre-accelerator makes it far harder to get into an accelerator. So pre- accelerator is really a misleading name.

But change the name of these organizations to "VC firms" or "angel groups" \- much better description.

</comment><comment><USER21> don't understand why they keep saying it's a VC in the article. It's a startup accelerator

<comment><USER22> Because outside of the HN bubble an accelerator is the pedal next to the brake in a car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like they are trying to manufacture startups like Lou Pearlman manufactured musical acts.

I doubt there will be a tech startup equivalent of the Backstreet Boys, though.

</comment><comment><USER24> Isn't that just an entrepreneur-in-residence?

</comment><comment><USER25> also, "pre-birth" and "pre-kindergarten"

<comment><USER26> Well, over 90% of getting funded by VCs is stuff that happens before birth, so yes, that is literally true.

<comment><USER27> Michael, what you've just written is a gratuitously negative comment[1] that adds nothing. Guess what, 99.999% of getting funded happened in Earth's prehistory of 4.5 billion years, at any point during which things could have gone differently and precluded humanity and culture. Out of the remaining 0.001% - 45,000 years - scarcely ten thousand consisted of the establishment of western civilization and only the scant past few decades have established an Internet and a culture where literally anyone in the western world with an idea can start making it a reality, on a physical (if not cultural) level - i.e. physically nothing is required that the average person cannot access. Physically you do not need access to anything except knowledge and culture, which are actively working to take away. You are stealing.

The way to expand this opportunity is not to focus on the first 99.99999% of history, but the next ten years. You add nothing and take significant amounts away from that. I'm sick of your negativity. Here's a fact: I'm not asian, but asians are far more likely to get funded. SO WHAT! How does that change whether _I 'm_ taking the time to build something?

Michael go build something. Anyone can call people names. People should downvote your negative comments on sight. Besides being policy here, anyone who is downvoting you is literally creating good in the world. Because you are actively preventing the expansion of a culture of building. We might not have the power to get a sixty year old who had to go work early in life and received no formal education funded, regardless of this person's merits or ideas. But we can - and should, are required to - downvote you, and contribute to a positive culture where in five years, when that person is sixty-five, and has spent the past five years building something, he can be.

 _[1] the definition of which is that it is not new, not useful, not insightful, and adds absolutely nothing while being negative. Similar to if you said to a commenter: "by the way YOU SUCK at every skill, when compared to Mozart at music". This is undeniably true, he started at the age of four and specialized very hard. It is a comment nobody would disagree with on a literal level. It is also an absolutely worthless comment that adds nothing: the only reason anyone would write it is so that they could say the word "YOU SUCK" and then weasel out of it. Of course you should get downvoted, so hard you delete your comments which add nothing. Go build something, Michael._

<comment><USER28> Using a throwaway account to attack someone is not cool. If you have the balls (or the equivalent for the other gender), stand up and make the comment in your own name.

<comment><USER29> (same user, I lost the pwd). I wouldn't touch Michael's negative comments, nor do I want to prop up criticism with a username. he needs to just stop posting gratuitously negative thing about startups (most of what moves him to comment), which are not constructive, and it's up to the rest of us to downvote gratuitously negative things until he learns that this is not the forum for them, unless he starts phrasing them constructively. the other respondent already tried to make this about me ("Until you're a successful founder from a bad family background and no history of founding startups, no ivy league education"...) so I am glad that I didn't get into this under a normal account. this does not seem like a productive thread.

<comment><USER30> Notice how other people in this thread can level criticisms at both the topic of discussion and towards one another while flying their own handle?

Notice how you cannot do this?

<comment><USER29> given that my main point is that this level of discourse is totally inappropriate for hackernews, there is no reason I would engage in this. it's like feeding a troll. if there were something substantial to discuss, that would be a different story.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What small thing whould you change in the world if given the chance? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Convince everyone to try and truly understand their enemies (or people that hate them,or people that they hate).

Whether you want to resolve your differences or destroy each other,don't do it without understanding your opponents and their motives. It's too easy and tragic to wrongly presume a person's motives and beliefs.

This is the smallest change I can think of,every thing else looks like a much bigger problem.

<comment><USER3> That is thoughtful and so true, experienced that myself. More people need to be made aware of that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would change myself, make myself a vastly more intelligent, good looking, lively and spontaneous person, and yes I will throw in immortality to the mix, I will so to speak rewrite my genes to become a perfect being so to say(I now wonder if perhaps according to the grandfathers axe paradox the resulting being will still be me), then I will proceed to try to change the world, having lovely fun along the way.</comment>


Access directly your SQL databases via HTTP. In full security - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kawansoft/aceql-http/blob/master/aceql-http-4.0-user-guide-server.md <comment><USER3> Look similar to postgrest, but younger project under (L)GPL license.

[https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest](https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest)

[http://postgrest.org/en/v6.0/](http://postgrest.org/en/v6.0/)

<comment><USER4> These tools like Postgrest are super fun but in the end, I always end up needing an API for secure business logic. At that point, these tools where "your DB is your API" just become another part of your backend rather than replacing the backend, and the value of that isn't clear to me.

It's awesome for hobby projects, but I wasn't able to figure out how to use it to build a SaaS app.

<comment><USER5> Postgrest includes security(paired with PG's row level access). plus if you go the way of pl/python or other languages built-into PG(includes javascript, c, etc, etc), you can get very far before you have to go add more layers. But even if you do, it can still be pretty great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not just set up a SPARQL endpoint, which seems to be the recommended standard for accessing data over Web platforms?

<comment><USER7> Where is this recommended ? Also SPARQL as a query language is about "how" you want to get to your data (the relationships you traverse changes your final result) as opposed to SQL which is about "what" you want, set algebra. Not to mention the super grotesque format and the performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What problem is this trying to solve?

<comment><USER9> I've written a dozen internal dashboards where something like this would have been useful. Rather than writing server side code to craft queries and return results, you can add arbitrary queries easily to the front end. Just use a read-only DB account and you are golden.

Is it the right way to do it? No.

Is it something you can stand up in a few hours so you can work on the things that keep your startup afloat instead? Absolutely.

<comment> munk-a This sort of tool would be nice for PoC - but if you're using it for production anything and have any customer information (or really, any information of value) saved in that database... it would be terrible - <USER2> off an R/O connection.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a little clarification: the architecture is 3-tier, databases are not directly exposed; the software includes an authentication layer and firewalling rules: you have fine granularity on tables & columns access per user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This sounds like an awful bad idea, but for very quick prototyping.

</comment><comment><USER11> rest and odata?</comment>


Flexible Feature Control at Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.instagram.com/posts/496049610561948/flexible-feature-control-at-instagram <comment><USER2> I was part of the team that designed this. AMA.

<comment><USER3> How does this work in a developers local environment? Does it hook into the same central service or do you need re-define the gate in all environments?

<comment><AUTHOR> At Instagram we have split dev and prod enviroments; gates are shared between dev-servers, but split from production.

For testing, we have context managers that let you do "with temporary_gate('gate_name', value)", so there's not much boilerplate in overriding/testing your code within a gate constraint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, I was hoping it was about their iOS or Android app.</comment>


Ringelmann effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringelmann_effect <comment><USER2> This seems like one of those things to me, where all of us know about the phenomenon, but Ringelmann (in this case) got to name it.</comment>


Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-ai-gender/fearful-of-bias-google-blocks-gender-based-pronouns-from-new-ai-tool-idUSKCN1NW0EF <comment><USER2> Alternate wording: "Google's Gmail autocomplete no longer assumes gender."

From the article:

 _> Gmail product manager Paul Lambert said a company research scientist discovered the problem in January when he typed "I am meeting an investor next week," and Smart Compose suggested a possible follow-up question: "Do you want to meet him?" instead of "her."_

So really, this is a fairly reasonable decision whereby it doesn't infer gender from signals such as profession.

The article doesn't address this, but I wonder what it would do given an explicit gender, e.g. "She's the investor I am meeting next week."

<comment><USER3> So what does it follow up with? English doesn't have a non-gendered way to say "Do you want to meet him/her?"

Is the idea just to eliminate all useful suggestions that contain genders?

<comment><USER4> To my ear, as a 34 year old native English speaker from Scotland, the phrase "Do you want to meet them?", meaning non-gendered singular pronoun, sounds absolutely totally fine and not strange in even the slightest way, and always has done since I was a child.

<comment><USER5> If Google had made this change quietly I suspect no one would have even noticed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When will this madness end? There will always be people offended by something. I'm pretty sure there are individuals claiming that NOT suggesting their pronoun deprives them of their identity, dignity or whatever.

This is getting ridiculous.

<comment><USER7> > I'm pretty sure there are individuals claiming that NOT suggesting their > pronoun deprives them of their identity, dignity or whatever.

This would be similar to how feminist movements in languages that systematically distinguish men from women push to get the language changed so that women are referred to as men ("there shouldn't be any difference between a waiter and a waitress"), while feminist movements in languages that don't draw the distinction push to get the language changed so that women are referred to explicitly as women ("we should acknowledge that women can be waiters too").

If feminism demands one of these things, it surely can't also demand the other.

<comment><USER8> ...OR....

Different groups of people call themselves "feminists," and don't agree with each other about changes they'd like to see in the world.

It's kind of odd to me that people (like you apparently) don't understand.

<comment><USER7> What is it that you think I don't understand?

I think they all agree that they'd like other people to change as an acknowledgement of their power.

I also think that they can't both use the same justification to argue for opposite changes. What did I miss?

<comment><USER8> "they" is not a homogeneous group.

"they" are different groups that might use the same label. They can absolutely use the same justification, to argue for opposite changes.

Their justification could be as simple as, "We want to be respected," and different groups of feminists disagree with each other about how best to achieve that goal.

Sure, it's even worse if you personally land in the crosshairs, but from your example it sounds like the feminists are working in different places with different languages. And perhaps the problem of gaining respect requires different solutions in different areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Google's technology will not suggest gender-based pronouns because the risk > is too high that its "Smart Compose" technology might predict someone's sex > or gender identity incorrectly and offend users

Nobody cares when touch keyboards predict the wrong pronouns, so why would the same service in an email client be any different?

<comment><USER10> I agree. It seems a bit hyper sensitive to me. Esp when it's a machine that's predicting it, and not a human.

<comment><USER11> Bias is one of the new hot topics in ML. People act surprised that a face recognition software trained on a database of white people is unable to properly classify pictures of people from all around the world. The algorithm is only learning the data it was fed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is fine. Guessing gender based on things like name is terribly error prone. Imagine if you have a name like Taylor. But I'm sure everyone who wants to be annoyed by this will find a way to be annoyed.

<comment><USER13> Now that you point it out, I'd imagine that aside from any bias pronoun choice would also be one of the least _accurate_ suggestions offered. When somebody writes "my cousin is in town, do you want to meet", it's basically impossible to do better than a coinflip chance - and that's if offering a pronoun next was even correct. So it's no real surprise that they didn't spend a bunch of effort on debiasing a feature that would still be wrong if they succeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Men have long dominated fields such as finance and science, for example, so > the technology would conclude from the data that an investor or engineer is > "he" or "him."

Err, so the AI correctly predicts that statistically you probably intend "him", but we limit the utility of the tool because that would be discriminatory? I know it will get it wrong sometimes, and you can say it re- inforces stereotypes, but if it will get it right most of the time based on strict statistical inference, seems like it could at least be configured. It seems to be a case where the AI is a bit too accurate... I don't disagree with their decision, I think given the circumstances it's actually a brilliantly safe move and keeps out of the fray as much as possible.

> "The only reliable technique we have is to be conservative,"

I know this is just whimsical, and a horrible logical equivocation on my part, but that's kind of funny that a large tech company decided being conservative might actually be useful in some cases to help protect against liberal outrage...

<comment><USER15> Yes, the goal of the modern Civil Rights Movement has basically been to say "in these areas, even though Bayesian inference produces statistically valid results, we as a society have decided that it's immoral to use it."

What axes are OK to use Bayesian inference on and what are not is a philosophical and historical question with lots of practical implications across politics, economics, actuarial science etc. It's really worth thinking about. But here's a start: in general, people are more forgiving of inferring data from mutable traits than immutable ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it just me or does it seem like the only people getting upset in these situations are the people offended by others trying not to offend others? It just doesn't seem like a big deal either way. It's weird that people automatically view actions like this as some sort of moral command, and thus feel so strongly about it. At the end of the day, it's just a design choice to reduce inaccuracies.

It's not something I would've thought to do myself, but I can see the reasoning for it. Bias in AI is a real issue, and it's wise to consider it earlier than later. Sometimes it's something more culturally visible, like in this situation, but oftentimes it can be much more subtle and insidious. This step isn't going to fix much but it's part of a bigger effort to make considering bias one of the priorities. Ignoring bias in our AI will make our AI more human in all the bad ways.

On the other hand, Smart Compose already seems like a bad idea to me. It's good for their AI but bad for humans. This pronoun action feels like a micro optimization for this technology's social impact, while the entire feature itself is a small net harm for society, in my opinion. It's a subtle dampening of our personal voice and nuances.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, people are getting worked up about a good faith trade off in software features made by a company trying to create products useable by, preferably, every single person on the planet. And since gender is something were are - right now, whether you like it or not - revising our understanding of, it makes sense to wait until you have a better solution to the problem.

I mean, autocorrect can only take you so far anyway, your gonna have to change it a bit anyway and I assume most people with two brain cells knows the gender and preferred pronouns of the people mentioned in the convo and knows how to use them properly even if they don't have a clue about the pronoun debate. This is an edge case, but still something they saw value in avoiding a mistake in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When's the Hebrew language version coming out? There are many languages for which this "solution" is completely impracticable. On the other hand, there should be no problem with Turkish or Persian.

<comment><USER19> They'll have a fun time with Korean where depending on speaker and audience different word declensions are used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Which pronoun(s) will be used by Google AI to address future AI tools and robots?

[https://www.wired.com/story/robot-gender- stereotypes/](https://www.wired.com/story/robot-gender-stereotypes/)

 _> Robots don't have genders—they're metal and plastic and silicon, and filled with ones and zeroes ... The problem is that even if a robot isn't gendered, and even if it doesn't look human or even animal, you'll tend to want to gender it._

</comment><comment><USER21> Great, now Skynet is going to believe there are 38,000 genders when it goes online.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't know whether other people do this, but when using voice recognition software, such as Google's, I "learn" what it is likely to understand, and then modify my statements to be more easily understood by the software. This is very useful when sending text messages, for example. I am able to quickly send a message in just a moment.

However, because of Google's limitations, the language I use is modified. Their "AI" is shaping my use of language, and thus, how I communicate with others. Multiply this by millions (billions?) of people, and this could have a real impact on culture.

What is Google's responsibility, in this regard? Certainly they shouldn't ignore the ways their technology could affect society. They should be making conscious, deliberate decisions. This is dangerous territory; and not an easy one to navigate. I am glad they seem to recognize that.

</comment><comment><USER23> Gender is a big thing to get wrong in person. I am a man, If someone referred to me as "she" or "her" I would correct them. I wouldn't expect any less from anybody.

When it's a machine doing it though, some unknown piece of metal spitting out a form message, it seems it would be easier to forgive.

</comment><comment><USER24> For people who are eager to think this is a don't-assume-gender charade: try misgendering a cis person next time you're out, and see how much they don't care. _You_ are who this is for

<comment><USER25> I don't follow. I get misgendered quite commonly. It doesn't bother me at all. Is it supposed to?

<comment><USER26> I've never been offended by getting misgendered, but hearing people get misgendered does, at times, bother me in the sense that it can make the sentence difficult to understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Heaven forbid that the millions of mindless sheeple using "Smart" Compose actually have to read and edit their email before hitting send.

If Google really cared about combatting bias, they would just use "she/her." At least it would be grammatically correct.

It's not about taking a political/social stance to them, it's about making life __convenient __for their users by removing any form of cognitive processing necessary

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm confused by any outrage over this.

It's a tool that's meant to predict things, and they weren't able to successfully predict something that is used extremely frequently in lots of conversations. So they decided, after 'several' other attempts, that they were best off not trying to make suggestions.

If you can't do something right after repeated attempts, don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I read the article and I find this fascinating. I am happy they are giving it some thought. Pronoun political correctness (a.k.a. thoughtfulness or respectfulness) aside, if our society's training data leads AIs to make assumptions, we should be aware of it and be careful to detect it.

An incorrect pronoun isn't going to kill someone -- but we are gradually handing over more and more decisions to technologies that rely on AI/ML. Perhaps investigations into incorrect pronoun assumptions can lead to improvements in assumption errors in other areas (e.g. you think your self driving vehicle doesn't need radars and that only using cameras is sufficient? Just because it looks like a big fluffy cloud doesn't necessarily mean you can safely fly/drive through it).

Back to just pronouns though: if someone says "My teacher assigned me to read Act I of Macbeth tonight", most people would avoid a reply that uses he/she until an indication was given or they'd just ask "Who's that, Ms. McFadden? Yeah, I know, she assigns way too much homework!". If a human can be smart enough to get it right, then I'm glad folks are working on AIs getting it right too (or, for now, not making assumptions until they can get it right).

The fact that AIs are advanced enough for us to be thinking about these kinds of details is wonderful! :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd like to point out how long-hanging fruit this is for Google to address gender imbalance and gender inequality, especially given Google's much larger issues with their policies around inappropriate sexual behavior. You'd think more significantly, Google could work on establishing better policies and a more equal workplace culture.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anyone care to guess what the ratio is between trans people that are offended by the pronoun issue vs liberal college kids that are offended on behalf of the trans community?

Yes I realize that saying this on hacker news or reddit is grounds for heavy downvotes and hate mail but good god people. This is all political gaming, not compassion.

</comment><comment><USER32> If automatic suggestion tools had more than a markov chain like understanding of language they likely would have been able to identify this as a use case and had a culturally appropriate UI. As is, completely blocking references to gender is the only way to fix the issue.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is this gender pronoun controversy primarily in English speaking populations? In other languages, almost every word is gendered. How will they tackle this problem of assuming gender in them?

</comment><comment><USER34> Wait... So because the real world data doesn't align to our ideology, we're going tell it to ignore the facts

<comment><USER17> And what exactly is the real world data actually saying and how does it disprove Google's "ideology"?

<comment><USER25> It's saying that word X is usually associated with "her", and Y with "him". Often, reality has a sexist bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> replace(/^(him|her)/gi, "them")

Here you go Google, I fixed it for you

<comment><USER36> you nailed it, Step 1: Over engineer the problem to virtue signal for a culture war win. Step 2: Maintain control of culture. Step 3: Profit

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's getting too much...this whole ideology will self implode.

</comment><comment><USER38> I, for one, applaud this move.

These times are indeed hyper-sensitive, and ridiculous exaggerations do occur. This is not one of them.

Gender dysphoria is a real, crippling, dangerous mental illness. Maybe in the future there'll be some pill or simple brain surgery that fixes it. Today, there's none of that.

Gender reassignment surgery generally helps. Calling people their preferred gender helps, as a complement or substitute to surgery. It's a hacky, inelegant solution, perhaps disgusting to some, but _it fucking works!_ Goind the extra mile to avoid misgendering people is reasonable.

"Imagine if we could give depressed people a much higher quality of life merely by giving them cheap natural hormones. I don't think there's a psychiatrist in the world who wouldn't celebrate that as one of the biggest mental health advances in a generation. Imagine if we could ameliorate schizophrenia with one safe simple surgery, just snip snip you're not schizophrenic anymore. Pretty sure that would win all of the Nobel prizes. Imagine that we could make a serious dent in bipolar disorder just by calling people different pronouns. I'm pretty sure the entire mental health field would join together in bludgeoning anybody who refused to do that. We would bludgeon them over the head with big books about the side effects of lithium."

From [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were- mad...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man- not-man-for-the-categories/)</comment>


Ask YC: What methods do you use to manage your time? - <AUTHOR>

I've been trying GTD. <comment><USER2> \- Start work at 9am

\- Work for five hours till 2 (with short break for snack), only on very important stuff, no distractions/interruptions like email/chat etc. This time is for writing, designing, coding.

\- After lunch, work on emails, planning, organising, less important stuff etc for 2 or 3 hours

\- Finish at 6, personal stuff afterwards

As long as there are no distractions, and I get 5 hours of uninterrupted, valuable work done every morning, then I end up being very productive. Much moreso than the old 14 hour days I used to work where all activites run into each other and blur into endless drudgery.

<comment><USER3> This according to me is the only way of getting any useful work done...get 5-6 hours of solid work done before lunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think there's a single method that is optimal for all people. For example, I think there's an inflection point in your optimal strategy when your tasks pass the point where you can actually do all of them.

For myself, I like to reframe the issue. Instead of "Look at all my tasks, which one is highest priority?", which takes lots of mental energy, I just concentrate on NOT doing things that don't support my goals. This allows me to tackle small chunks and build momentum.

One of the best ways to get something done is to NOT do things that don't contribute.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find GTD extremely attractive, but any attempt to implement it in my life (and I've tried a few times), has been an abject failure. A few things I've found helpful, though, to minimizing time-wasting generally are:

1) Stop playing video games, or if you can't bear the thought, add some "friction" to make it harder to do without thinking (in my case, I have a few favorite Windows games, but since I have a MacBook, I need to open a VM to play the game. That additional requirement forces me to think whether I really have the time to do it.

2) Do repetitive tasks in groups (sort of obvious).

and 3) (I've had some success with this, but it's extremely hard to stick to) Don't leave your email client open unless you absolutely have to- continually interrupting the current task to see the most recent ad from Amazon, or some email forward, is a huge time sink. Surprisingly few emails are actually urgent.

</comment><comment><USER6> Structured Procrastination, RescueTime, and some tips from Marc Andreessen:

<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the_pmarca_guid.html>

<comment><USER7> The point about using 3x5 cards to keep track of stuff you actually get done and then to make a quick hit list for tomorrow seemed especially useful to me.

I just found out about <http://gootodo.com/> which allows you to use email to manage your lists, too. Gootodo lets you send it emails using specially formatted recipients that determine where in your todo list the email item goes. Then you just have it mail your your list in the morning. It might not satisfy the "where did all my time go today" itch but it sure seems to do the trick for tomorrow's tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1) Work on 1 computer, receive email on another (KVM switch works well for me) 2) Always follow this order: write code, write blog, read blogs. 3) Stop eating out -- it's not actually faster (at least when you work from home making something right there is faster and cheaper) 4) Just do it. Don't procrastinate. Don't check things online (download stats, visitors logs, etc.). Don't distract yourself with work that doesn't get you anything. 5) Stop watching TV when you have something interesting or arduous to do. Finish it first. 6) Stop playing video games when you have something interesting or arduous to do. Finish it first. 7) Don't over think posts on news.ycombinator.

\-- Get back to work. :-)

<comment><USER9> It's funny how often now people say "write blog" in context of working: "sit, code, write blog, read blogs". I would even say that "twittering" on a regular basis feels almost like a job for many.

The word "blog" has completely lost its original meaning. In fact there aren't any real blogs left anymore. Most of them are more like expanded resumes (programmers acting smart) or nothing but souped-up press-releases (corporate "blogs") or sales pitches mixed with recruiting efforts (guys like joel).

Are you sure you write a blog? Does it have anything not related to work? Like real topics we all think about and discuss in a public setting: like jokes, sex, politics, sports? If not, it's not a blog, it's your personal PR outlet where you're simply selling yourself.

Sorry for ranting. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I stop trying to manage my time and just DO the things that I need to do.

<comment><USER11> I agree although...this might help too.

I assign a dollar amount to a task or just create a block schedule for a few important tasks and prioritize that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sophisticated, and only a first step to get some kind of traction, but using it can make a real difference to me:

a) Define your main project

b) Choose an activity that you like and that comes naturally as procrastination

c) Choose a reasonable time ratio between them, and respect it

As an example, every hour of surfing the web _has_ to be (sooner or later) compensated by three hours of work on the main project.

<comment><USER13> It feels better if you do the same backwards: for every x hours of work on the main project you _reward_ yourself with an hour of surfing.

Also, saying you _have_ to do something is disempowering language that drives you to rebellion. Remember yourself why you _want_ to do it. Think of the consequences of both doing it and not doing it. If after that you still don't want to do it, don't do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A Ouija board and Mac Mail's todo list. Some spirits keep spelling out "GTD" (the book remains on my shelf), but I just haven't found the time to read it.

</comment><comment><USER15> There is a plenty of good web applications for this. I use OrchestrateHQ for to-do lists, 30 Boxes as a calendar and 37signals' Backpack for notes.

</comment><comment><USER16> HN's procrastination block.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's a good idea to manage tasks, not time. Which is what GTD aims to do, isn't it? And only the chores should be managed--things that you wouldn't spend your time doing if you had the choice. Real work should be enjoyable, and when you try to manage it, it turns into a set of chores.

</comment><comment> a-priori I use Things as a task manager as a sort of 'GTD-light'. I haven't found the need to follow any particular system religiously.

I also use RescueTime to keep me in line.

</comment><comment><USER18> I keep a todo list in my text editor and work on high priority items on the list until they're done. That's about it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I use Smacklet.

<http://www.smacklet.com>

</comment><comment><USER20> Todo lists for direction, RescueTime for tracking, 8aweek for blocking wasteful sites.

</comment><comment><USER21> A combination of a Tangible Vision, Mindmap and a task/objective list

</comment><comment><USER22> For me, this pretty much sums it up:

"What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?"

from

<http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

</comment><comment><USER23> I use omnifocus. It will be perfect on iPhone. Now, it's only of limited use. I use it more for organizing my thinking then my day down to the hour. I find if my thinking is organized, and I know how to do what I want to get done, managing time just happens without requiring further effort. If your thinking isn't organized all the time management in the world won't help you.

</comment><comment><USER24> what the hell is time management?</comment>


Jeff Bezos unveils his sweeping vision for humanity's future in space - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/jeff-bezos-unveils-his-sweeping-vision-for-humanitys-future-in-space/ <comment><USER2> The title makes it sound as if he has given up on humanity's future on Earth

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe he should unveil his vision on how to pay all of his employees enough so they don't need food stamps anymore before talking nonsense about space.</comment>


Marriott says 500M Starwood guest records stolen in massive data breach - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/30/starwood-hotels-says-500-million-guest-records-stolen-in-massive-data-breach/ <comment><USER2> Really amazing how Monzo is informing it's customers who might be affected: [https://monzo.com/blog/2018/11/30/marriott-data- breach/](https://monzo.com/blog/2018/11/30/marriott-data-breach/)</comment>


How Slack Got Ahead in Diversity - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-slack-got-ahead-in-diversity/558806/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> > What's notable about this is that Slack has achieved it without a designated > "head of diversity," a role...

Well done. It's in the company's culture DNA and not the responsibility of a separate group. It's great that they do it quietly like it shouldn't be a big thing. Like saying there's little sexual harassment, it's good but shouldn't be there to start with.

Might even be getting some moneyball advantages.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll be quite interested to see if this leads towards more productivity and other marks of a better company.

But it sounds cosmetic to me.</comment>


Why decentralized social networking never makes it - <AUTHOR> https://upon2020.com/blog/2018/08/why-decentralized-social-networking-never-makes-it-ever-heard-of-crossing-the-chasm/ <comment><USER2> > Trending cannot be implemented at all … I don't mean to pick on Mastodon > specifically, but it's the latest whose growth is disappointing.

Actually, trending _was_ implemented by Gargron, but user outcry against it basically caused him to scrap that feature.

Edit: [https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/7702](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/7702)

Here's a major user feature for why people switch to Mastodon and Pleroma: better tools for users and admins to manage spam and stop harassment at an individual and community level.

Edit2: It's pretty funny that "Trending" and "Mastodon" got mentioned here, as I forgot that in the outcry this was one of the pieces of feedback:

> [...] maybe you should not be defining the roadmap based on Hacker News > thinkpieces.

<comment><USER3> That issue thread is pretty unpleasant to read. Good on Gargron for that incredible amount of patience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly? Because decentralized social networks are usually implemented by people who have an inaccurate mental model of what the population at large wants in a social network. There's a lot of noise online about how this feature or that feature is addictive tracking-based anti-civilization satancode or something, but outside a loud and hardcore fringe, users actually want this stuff. Good feed ranking depends, for example, on building accurate models of user preferences.

If you listen to the loud fringe, you'll end up with a product only the fringe wants to use.

<comment><USER5> > you'll end up with a product only the fringe wants to use.

Is that a problem? I mean, my first thought when I hear this is, "yeah, broad adoption is totally necessary." But, then I think about it more.

\- Is it a problem for indie developers to build games that appeal to niche audiences?

\- Is it a problem for software developers to build CLI tools or advanced software that solves very specific problems at the expense of user friendliness?

\- Is it a problem for communities to be built around specific problems and for them to adopt very specific, focused codes of conduct or moderation?

Maybe it's OK to have a bunch of small, separate decentralized networks instead of one big decentralized one? With something like Facebook, sure, the point is to have everyone in one place. But one of the big points of systems like Mastodon is that small communities are better than big ones. Small communities are easier to moderate, more flexible to adapt to novel situations, and faster to pivot when things go wrong. Having niche adoption in that scenario could be kind of a feature, in the same way that having niche adoption for a game probably means you're getting something more focused and custom tailored to the people who want it.

It might be that not every social network needs to appeal to the overwhelming public at large. It mind end up being completely acceptable to have a social network that's very specific to one or two communities.

In that scenario, the death of Facebook might not be, "here's a replacement, everyone get off." It might be death from a thousand cuts; "here's a dozen replacements, there's probably at least one you like more."

<comment><USER6> Unless Facebook is replaced by one other thing, network effect will keep people on Facebook as well as one whatever else might suit a culture they're in.

Edit: that said, there's no reason that an obscure subculture adopting a different social networking technology couldn't lead to that tech becoming universal. Facebook rose through a certain high-prestige subculture adopting it but with the Internet tending to creating different association patterns, high-prestige/"early adopter" may not, in fact, be the leaders of adoption in the future.

<comment><USER5> Well, but that's the thing. Do you have only one network, and does everyone belong to the same network?

I was on Facebook for the network effect - then I got into indie game development, and all of the other game developers and gaming press are on Twitter. So I dropped off of Facebook and moved to Twitter. I still pull up Facebook occasionally to cross-post something to friends, but it's a different tool for a different purpose.

In theory, nobody wants to join multiple social networks. In practice, I don't see people actually all that worked up about logging into multiple sites. My siblings jumped to Snapchat with no problem even when they were still using Facebook. When I started moving away from Facebook I told them to start emailing me - also wasn't a problem, they handled it fine. I run a small Discord server specifically for people who want to talk to me about the stuff I build. It's a really tiny community, but it's still a useful enough tool that I'll probably never build a Facebook page for anything I release.

So those are maybe 3 or 4 tools that have successfully migrated communities off of Facebook. There are maybe 1 or 2 communities left that I have to take care of, and then I could just flat out delete my account. Certainly I'm only checking Facebook maybe 2 or 3 times a week now because of a few stubborn holdouts I haven't convinced to move off yet.

Network effect is definitely a thing - but it's probably not all or nothing. It might be fine to replace Facebook for only for one or two communities. It might be fine to say, "Okay, all of my college friends are on X, but all of my professional contacts are on Y, and my hobby model train community is on Z." And multiple small, federated social networks are likely to be better at serving small communities than something like Twitter or Facebook is.

How necessary is it to you that there be one service that you use to contact literally everyone? I was on the side of "pretty necessary," but the more that I think about it, the more I realize that distributing my contacts across multiple services is not actually all that much of a problem for me. In fact, it's often quite helpful, since it allows me to tailor content more.

<comment><USER6> " _I was on Facebook for the network effect - then I got into indie game development, and all of the other game developers and gaming press are on Twitter._ "

Sure, if one has one reason to be on a network, getting off it is fairly easy. But if one has IRL professional-collegues, friends, family, and multiple special interests with friends, then it's hard for all those to switch.

" _How necessary is it to you that there be one service that you use to contact literally everyone?_ "

Well, you want to be able to be-contacted-by a variety of people. Facebook can wind-up indeed just one of several of the networks the average person is on but that doesn't it won't remain the largest and quite possibly not much smaller than today.

<comment><USER5> The point wasn't that some people have only one reason to be on Facebook, so they can switch off for one alternative - quite the opposite. It's that you have multiple reasons to be on Facebook, and they can be eliminated individually rather than in one fell swoop.

Most people are probably part of several communities on Facebook. There's probably not one completely homogeneous demographic. If your IRL professional colleagues are on it, maybe someday they switch to something that's really good at work communication and that doesn't have stupid app spam because it's built specifically for professionals. Maybe your friends and family switch to something that does closed circles and off-the-cuff communication better like Snapchat.

They can go to separate platforms, and you'll just sign up for two services. Those communities (usually) don't need to overlap. So what people call the network effect of Facebook may really be many different, small, isolated network effects, each of which can be individually attacked by separate services.

If that's the case, you don't need a Facebook killer. It's fine to have six or seven completely different Facebook killers that each eat just a few limbs off of it and then go off and do their own things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" In summary: we have plenty (too many, in fact) protocols suitable for decentralized social networking, so just pick something"_

I pick email: [https://hackernoon.com/email-re-skinned-as-a-social- network-...](https://hackernoon.com/email-re-skinned-as-a-social- network-c33b175f3a9e)

<comment><USER6> This seems like a great idea (one I've picked-over in my mind). Has anyone done more than the outline in this page?

<comment><USER8> I've actually been working on this exact idea combined with a few other features. The main finding so far is that adding a simple contact list to your email that blocks all messages from senders not in your contacts has some far reaching potential. The biggest one is how it can drastically reduce spam: not worrying about whether some website is going to abuse or share your email is a big advantage. The other big win, is that you don't have to be as secretive of your email address if you don't have to worry about being plagued with spam for life. I plan on making this a public service in the next few weeks.

<comment><USER6> Well, white lists are great until someone useful wants to find you out of the blue or until companies require email verification for something then wind-up spamming you.

The ideal would be a "feed" as well as an ordinary list of messages.

Also, it would be nice to have this sort of thing run either on a server or a client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because it's very hard to build something with all the features that people expect in 2018. It takes a serious amount of time and money.

Our company (qbix.com) made $1MM selling apps for iOS and Mac, and reinvested most our profits over 7 years into building just such an open source decentralized social network. Here is a video about it:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI)

You can find the entire general purpose platform here: [https://github.com/Qbix/Platform](https://github.com/Qbix/Platform)

And even though we had done all this, we have not yet started to popularize it. We wanted to get the kinks out first.

Examples of stuff you should have at a minimum: user accounts, onboarding, pub-sub, transactional emails and sms, notifications on all platforms including web push, real time updates via web sockets, privacy and access control to content, multi user collaboration, one click invitations, easy installer and updater scripts, caching resources locally, indexing and relationships across domains, authentication across domains (github.com/Qbix/auth) with seamless experience across domains and more.

And then you should probably also integrate with local address books, support uploading and sync from gmail and other sources, support payments on all platforms eg applepay and androidpay, and so on.

I have met teams working on other projects including MaidSAFE and Solid by Tim Berners-Lee. The missing piece is all the user-friendly apps and components. It's a bit like when the Mac and Windows came out, personal computers finally got much more massive adoption. Or like when the Web became good enough to compete with AOL. It takes time for open source to catch up to proprietary software, but once it does, it is a force to be reckoned with.

PS: If anyone wants to join our project to either contribute (design, development in PHP or JS, or grow the community) get in touch by emailing greg+hn @at@ qbix.com

</comment><comment><USER10> Well, I'd say marketing issues have an effect here too. Lots of 'alternatives' don't really understand that average Joe doesn't specifically care about decentralisation (or privacy/censorship resistance/whatever else they're marketing the product on).

They don't hate said things, they just don't care about them as much as finding interesting people to follow/groups to be a part of, joining in an active community, finding information about things they're having trouble with, being entertained, etc.

But most decentralised systems seem to be marketed on the assumption the decentralisation side (and the philosophical aims of the service) are the only important thing, and hence don't really appeal to those outside of the tech crowd and those with a desparate need for avoiding censorship.

Secondly, the UI is often worse than the centralised or commercial alternatives, with very few systems (Mastodon arguably being of the exceptions) looking or feeling as modern or responsive.

Finally, plain old network effects have an effect too. The more people who use your service, the more popular it'll become, since more people they know will be encouraged to join in.

But to achieve that, you usually need to put time and money into marketing your product and attracting as many early users as you can. That's hard work, and it's not fun for a developer.

What is fun for a developer is to play around with programming languages and data structures and protocols and frameworks and all the new shiny stuff they saw on Hacker News. So all the effort goes towards making a technically fancy system, whereas none of it goes towards actually getting people to use said system, or getting the word out in general. Get away from the code editor and get into community building.

(Though to be fair, that last one is also a problem with most new social networking sites in general, decentralised or not. Every modern Reddit or Twitter alternative feels like a programmer's fun pet project rather than a service they're marketing to people)

Either way, I think that covers it. The lack of certain features like trending content doesn't matter as much as how these systems don't market themselves correctly and put little work into the things people actually care about.

<comment><USER3> >They don't hate said things, they just don't care about them as much as finding interesting people to follow/groups to be a part of, joining in an active community, finding information about things they're having trouble with, being entertained, etc.

>But most decentralized systems seem to be marketed on the assumption the decentralisation side (and the philosophical aims of the service) are the only important thing, and hence don't really appeal to those outside of the tech crowd and those with a desparate need for avoiding censorship.

I think it used to be that way but (at least from what I've been hearing) a lot of non-tech "normal" people are starting to realize the problem with censorship. They might not see that it's a symptom of centralization yet but they definitely are starting to care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Because social networking isn't a new idea and people don't care about it enough to switch to a new network anymore.

Once upon a time there was Friendster, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook... Digitizing your connections and friends was a new and exciting concept. Now everyone has been connected and we've seen it's not always a great thing. I don't think it's interesting enough of an experience to replicate rebuilding a network elsewhere at this point.

</comment><comment><USER12> New social networks are a huge opportunity. Decentralization is just an architectural consideration, not significant to users. A novel user experience is needed to disrupt the market leaders. Clones of existing interfaces with "decentralized" ideology are not appealing products to most humans.

<comment><USER13> Except for the fact that a decentralized service can split. This will affect users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The main reason they don't make it is simple: network effect [1].

However,

"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"

Ie. the more oppressive and tyrannical Facebook (and Twitter, and the US government) becomes, the better the alternatives become. There's a reason the shit Snowden uncovered was meant to be kept secret. It wakes people up.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect)

</comment><comment><USER15> The problem is that a technical means-- decentralization-- quickly becomes an ethical stance. Then that ethical stance outweighs every other concern in irrational ways, including growing the network.

<comment><USER16> > ...a technical means -- decentralization -- quickly becomes an ethical > stance...

As in blockchain?

<comment><USER15> Blockchain isn't an ethical stance as much as a mad scramble to cash in on something.

What I'm talking about is something like what happened with Retroshare. They created a friend-to-friend social graph that could facilitate file-sharing, chat, etc. Then the users quickly figured out that bootstrapping an F2F network is extremely difficult unless you are in the same physical proximity as your peers (e.g., a college dorm). Otherwise there is no easy way to do key exchange.

So the idea was introduced that you could have these bootstrap servers (not sure what they called them) so that all the new users who couldn't download anything could use them to do a key exchange with at least one other random peer, thus entering the network that way.

But such a user is no longer building an F2F network. Instead it is some kind of friend roulette network where you trust random nodes only because the software would be unusable otherwise. Worse-- at the time Retroshare data wasn't onion-routed so the user was shuttling data unencrypted data among untrustworthy nodes, and encouraged by other users to shuttle share data for friends-of-friends because that would presumably improve your connectivity.

At that point everyone except little LAN F2F islands would have only been slightly worse off with a Facebook-style app where Retroshare devs surveilled the network and spent all their time denying access to whatever they considered bad actors.

It goes without saying that FLOSS devs would never build a Facebook-style app. But there is at least one other piece decentralized app I know that did essentially the same bootstrap roulette as Retroshare.

The only way that can happen is if users and devs _feel_ like they are doing something righteous by using such a piece of software, rather than just leveraging a tool to do a job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is only slightly on topic, but I think that "problems solved" is an extraordinarily good way to look at B2B companies, but a suboptimal one for _most_ B2C companies. With exceptions; consumers have problems too. Many Europeans are currently dealing with wasps in great numbers because of the heat wave. Solving that is a potential business. But even though you _can_ formulate what, say, Snapchat does as the solution to a problem I just don't think that's a very useful way to look at it. It has more to do with entertainment value and trends. Those are things that are much harder to quantify.

<comment><USER18> Need for entertainment and trends can be user problems. I would argue that Snapchat and the likes solve a user problem : boredom and need ton express without leaving trails...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "To use a specific example, here's a problem worth solving with decentralized social networking-style technology that occurred to me last night. It is a real problem with real time savings and other important benefits attached. (Note: you could actually get people to pay for social networking! What an idea!)

Imagine you are the "resposible adult" who takes care of an elderly relative, or a child, with a complex, chronic disease. You are probably middle-aged, female, family-minded, and have your hands full. Other than juggling your family and your job, you also need to find the right specialists for young Bob, organize rides to and from treatment, get second options, research conditions, get prescriptions filled, supervise that Bob actually takes them on time, keep all the other relatives updated, draft them for particular task ("can you take him to the physical therapist on Tuesday"), listen in to some on-line self-help groups, being a Mom of course etc. etc."

I was just in this situation taking care of my mom after her stroke and I don't think this kind of service is very compelling. Most of mom's friends don't know much about computers in general. Some don't even own a computer. taking some time to make phone calls, text messages, email, and letters is well worth it. It absolutely has to be done personally (well I think so at least).

</comment><comment><USER20> "Why would you eat an orange when you could drink a coffee instead?"

Yes there are heavy mathematics behind the structure of both types of network, and it's true that without centralization the network itself can't reach a certain limit. But this is a double-edged sword, this is only true to the whole system's perspective and it's completely different on the node (user) level graph-theoritically. Also, the article forces certain needs on the users. There are lots of us who DON'T want to magically find anyone or be found magically with a keyword, nor interested in "trends" \- this is heavily misleading for we still don't have proper metrics for it and won't have one for a while because the problem implies building fault-tolerant reputation networks (that are decentralized by the way)

</comment><comment><USER21> Is the Cambridge Analytica scandal a valid problem?

<comment><USER22> What would stop a group like CA from setting up Mastodon nodes and passively sucking down all that data? What would stop them from sock puppeting?

<comment><USER23> Two things on the CA part:

1\. Mastodon is closer to Twitter than FB. Things are public by default. Users even have an RSS feed.

2\. Get off targeted-ad-driven platforms and the Cambridge Analytica business model goes away and this stops being an issue.

I don't know if sock puppets can be eliminated on any large platform.

<comment><USER24> It would seem that point 1 makes it even easier for companies to slurp everything about a person.

Point 2 is only true if the data has no other use. Political parties might find a lot of value in discovering Mastodon users whose posting habits indicate that they are currently voting one way but are disatisfied with that party. Insurance companies might also be interested about users being part of groups for people with certain mental or genetic diseases. I can imagine a sort of "reverse glassdoor" site where employers can pay to get a complete profile of everything an applicant has ever done or said online. The CA business model works very seamlessly with ad targeting, but that is by far not the only use for such data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The problem that scuttlebutt solves for me is that it works offline first. I can post and read past posts from my friends, or friends of friends, quite easily while on a plane, or at a cafe that doesn't supply internet. I can also block users that I don't like, or create entirely new networks for a specific problem such as the author suggested.

</comment><comment><USER26> The vertical he gave seems to do just fine with centralization. Asana and Trello are very popular for the work-tracking use-case.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hmm, wouldn't forums, community sites and places like HackerNews count as "decentralized social networking"?

<comment><USER28> So a company doesn't own hackernews? If the hn servers just go down, everything stays up because it's all distributed across a network?

<comment><USER29> decentralised != distributed.

People could argue that Facebook effectively has a monopoly on social media so that is a "centralised" source since you have to go to Facebook to access it.

Yet pockets exist (e.g. HN) outside of Facebook, ergo decentralised.

I do agree though, it is not distributed which has a different meaning.

Checkout dat project, ipfs et al for that.

<comment><USER28> Hn is still centralized... It's a garden of its own... Just as Twitter and Reddit are all centralized. All forums are also centralized. All centralized means is one organization controls all the data/rules for that service. If they shut down or go out of business you lose all the data unless you backed out up somehow. Moderators on forums, Reddit hn, etc all have final say on what stays and goes... Though that could overlap a little in decentralized networks where the node owner has some control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Because the vast majority of the target market of social networks doesn't care (or even know) if it's decentralized.

Next question.

</comment><comment><USER31> When ipv6 is popular, it is the time of centralization and death.

<comment><USER32> In what way does IPv6 condone centralization more than IPv4?

(My prior assumption was that IPv6's lack of strict need for NATs means that in an all-IPv6 world it is easier for anyone to run a server, versus today. But I don't specialize in networking, so I'm all ears for other takes on this.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What are they kidding?

\- Decentralized YouTube ([https://d.tube/](https://d.tube/)) is almost in the Top 10K most popular sites in the USA ([https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/d.tube](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/d.tube)).

\- Decentralized Reddit ([https://notabug.io/](https://notabug.io/) , [https://blubit.space/](https://blubit.space/) , etc.) has ~1K daily uniques.

Both sites are built using our [https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun) ! Soon they'll even integrate same private/public keys so you can reuse your same account across many different dApps.

This will only strengthen the network effect, and make decentralized apps take off even more.

Also note, Mastodon is federated, you still "belong" to a server.

<comment><USER34> _has ~1K daily uniques_

I'm not sure that makes the point I assume you are trying to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Because people who run the social networks run into the capitalists who explain to them how much money they can make.

Centralizing that network is how you profit.

Humans are greedy.

<comment><USER36> Or, humans require basic resources to survive, like food and shelter, and our society currently requires you to have money in order to obtain those things.

<comment><USER37> I don't think is fair to characterize Facebook as something that originated from the founder's urge to cover basic needs such as food or shelter- their own or anyone else's for that matter. In fact startup mode pretty much demands you forget as much as possible about those basic needs by putting the startup at the center of everything you do.

<comment><USER36> The tone of the comment was that people who write software are greedy and just want to cash out. The point is that people can't eat or pay rent with principles or "likes", so at some point they need to try to make money to survive, and that does not make one "greedy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What do you call the Web?

<comment><USER39> Some people call it Facebook

<comment><USER40> That's too narrow. There is also this search box in the middle, where you can type and get to Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Decentralised social networks, like decentralised currencies, are solving the wrong problems.

</comment><comment><USER42> I already have a decentralized social network and it works great, it's called brain. If my brain is not capable of remembering people then are the connections really meaningful? I don't mind using email, forums, IRC and various chat apps. And even better meeting people in the real world. It's great that everything is not unified, it would become too boring.

I am sure some other technologies will come up but most of those solutions are trying too hard to be the next thing that replaces all the previous technologies.

<comment><USER32> That works well if your brain is specialized correctly to actually keep track of all this. During my undergraduate, I personally was semi-regularly accosted by strangers who knew me and, only after at least half a minute's conversation, I finally recognized as not-strangers. I don't handle people well (but computers are far easier to debug), so the more of it I can offload externally so that I can focus my brain on what really matters, the better. Comparative advantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The real reason why centralized networks currently cannot be replaced by decentralized alternatives is that being centralized allows a company to do secret, evil-but-lucrative deals under the table without having to reach any sort of social consensus.

Centralized solutions are not impeded by moral factors; they can optimize for user acquisition and profitability instead - They can corrupt the government such that new regulations work to their advantage. They can promise key external decision makers lucrative future contracts or positions in exchange for favors (e.g. onboarding lucrative customers)...</comment>


New Java Security kills lots of online games and emulators - <AUTHOR>

With the new Java Security update, lots of online games and emulators that use the platform just stopped working. Only projects that are still alive with new versions of the software to include full support for the new protocols will still work.<p>javatari.org is an example. It is a multiplayer Atari 2600 Emulator, and is the only Java based Atari emulator that we found working as of today... <comment><USER2> Does changing the security level in Java Settings change anything, or is this directly related to protocols being removed?

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a good emulator! It is a pity to know that many good projects will just die.

</comment><comment><USER4> A prime example of 'code rot'.</comment>


Is Palmer Luckey right about Magic Leap being a tragic heap? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/magic-leap-one-palmer-luckey <comment><USER2> 99% of this article is quoting or rehashing what Palmer said in his blog post here: [http://palmerluckey.com/magic-leap-is-a-tragic- heap/](http://palmerluckey.com/magic-leap-is-a-tragic-heap/) and 1% of explaining that the claimed "fiber-scanning display" was not EL-wire, but some lasers to a DLP.

Just read the original blog post, its more organized and clearer than this rehashed news article.

<comment><USER3> It was discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17848887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17848887)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When considering whether or not Magic Leap will succeed, I think it's helpful to set aside all the hype and speculation and just look at the Magic Leap One for what it is.

As far as I'm aware, the Magic Leap One is the best AR headset on the market today, at least in terms of the hardware. Compared to its stiffest competition, the Hololens, it's lighter on your head, has a wider field of view, is $700 cheaper, and features eye tracking, a 6-DOF controller, and a dual-focal display.

But is that enough? Even with all those improvements, it's still a $2,295 headset with a fairly small FOV and several significant technical constraints. Clearly it's not ready yet for mass adoption with general consumers, so the question is; what's next? Is Magic Leap planning to release an updated version in a couple years that's less than half the price and technically superior to their existing headset? Can they last that long without any major revenue source? Or do they have other means of becoming profitable (perhaps commercial applications of the tech)? Still lots of unanswered questions here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Magic Leap has applied for hundreds of patents and dozens have already been approved:

[https://patents.justia.com/assignee/magic-leap- inc](https://patents.justia.com/assignee/magic-leap-inc)

Even if the product fails the process might end up being quite lucrative.

I actually suspect this is the reason VCs are comfortable to hand over the ridiculous amounts of money.

<comment><USER6> For what purpose, cross licensing instead of being bashed as derivative of Microsoft patents?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Palmer Luckey is a MAGA troll who donated at least $10k to pay people to "shitpost" during the 2016 election.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/23/oculus- ri...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/23/oculus-rift-vr- palmer-luckey-trump-shitposts)

Why would anyone take his opinion trashing a competitor to the product seriously?

<comment><USER8> That's nothing compared to what he's doing now. [https://www.wired.com/story/palmer-luckey-anduril-border- wal...](https://www.wired.com/story/palmer-luckey-anduril-border-wall/)</comment></comment>


Fed Gives 220 Million Startup Funding to Wives of Morgan Stanley bigwigs - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411

<comment><AUTHOR> " Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment."

</comment><comment><USER2> This is too surreal, I'm not sure if I believe it or not. Is the US really that screwed up?

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, Rolling Stone has a reputation of being fairly accurate, if not unbiased. So yes, probably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not a US citizen, but if that's true, it is sick.</comment>


Chromebook Developer Setup Guide - <AUTHOR> http://afaqdar.blogspot.com/2013/10/5-different-chromebook-developer-setups.html

<comment><USER2> What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy.

Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot of people when you can't use the same apps/devices as you can on a your 'normal' machine.

A $999 XPS 13 or MacBook Air looks pretty inviting, even at 3X the price of a $299 Chromebook when you realize how much productivity gain there is when you don't have to dink around with the OS and aren't limited in your app selection.

<comment><USER3> With crouton, there are very few Linux apps that you can't run on a Chromebook. While I haven't tried it with SublimeText, I have run Eclipse on my Chromebook. It's not the smoothest experience, but it can get the job done.

So far, Arduino and IntelliJ are the only apps that I haven't gotten working on my Chromebook. The former relies on some x86 libraries that obviously won't work on an ARM processor, and the latter prefers the Oracle JVM which is just too much of a pain for me to set up when OpenJDK and Eclipse work well enough. I've also had some issues with my VPN (IPSec Xauth PSK).

I probably wouldn't recommend a Chromebook as a full time development machine, but it can certainly be done better than just a fancy SSH terminal. It's served me well enough when I've needed to work on the road. It's the best traveling laptop I've ever owned.

<comment><USER4> Android Studio, who is based on IntelliJ, didn't like the fact that I was running OpenJDK on my notebook but it worked. You should probably check on IntelliJ again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chromebook Pixels continue to drop in price on EBay and they are an absolute STEAL if you are willing to put in the work.

The hardware presentation is better than my rMBP 15. I just don't like having to jump through hoops to get it to do what I want.

They could have sold a lot more had it had a native Linux option OOB.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since I primarily work with C, SQL, or Python, Chromebook and crouton has worked just fine as a development machine. The only drawback has been that I can't seem to natively get the terminal to support more than 16 colors, which makes vim look rather bland. I can enable the full 256 for use with the solarized settings if I use tmux (tmuxing to your localhost is rather strange, admittedly), but the lack of scrolling on tmux sessions is a little annoying.

</comment><comment><USER7> While this is probably very helpful to Chromebook owners, it doesn't make me want to use a Chromebook for development, or understand the choice.

If the hardware is particularly good (is it?), why doesn't someone make it easier to just straight up run Linux from the hard drive? I mean no weird scripts, SD cards, etc. but just a proper distro like Debian.

<comment><USER8> > If the hardware is particularly good (is it?),

With the exception of the Pixel the advantage of most Chromebooks is that they are cheap and fairly nice in terms of portability.

> why doesn't someone make it easier to just straight up run Linux from the > hard drive? I mean no weird scripts, SD cards, etc. but just a proper distro > like Debian.

That's what Crouton does for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If Google came out with a 13" Chromebook for around the same price, I'd buy that in a heartbeat. The 11" version is just too darn small for my beefy hands.

<comment><USER8> HP is coming out with 14" Haswell Chromebooks next month that look fairly nice. Usual HP caution applies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting that there are ways to keep Chrome OS around. Most developers I know using one just go pure Ubuntu and don't care at all about keeping Chrome OS as a dual boot option or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have been using original Samsung Chromebook for PHP work. All I really need is browser based ide like ShiftEdit and ssh access. This is my setup: [http://amerkhalid.com/php-programming-on- chromebook/](http://amerkhalid.com/php-programming-on-chromebook/)

I miss debugger when developing on Chromebook but everything else seems to just work.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've got my install documented (and scripted) here:

[https://github.com/appsforartists/pixel_webdev](https://github.com/appsforartists/pixel_webdev)

It uses crouton to setup a bare minimum dev environment, using Sublime as the editor. It's designed for people who use ChromeOS for most things, but want a good text editor on top of that.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you get around replacing chrome OS with linux and reflashing the firmware with uboot, you'll lose GPU acceleration (3D and 2D). ARM is pretty shitty about releasing specs for their GPUs, so the Chromebook GPU (Mali T604) remains unused.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the thing that has always held me back from finally pulling the trigger on A chromebook pixel is the fact that you have to dismiss the "developer mode" popup everytime you boot. I guess that is a bit of a nitpick though and it otherwise seems like a solid machine.

<comment><USER15> I don't get it. If Linux or Windows is the end goal, why not start with a Surface Pro (2)?

The startup popup is annoying, but that's at most a one-off per day. It's the pixel's trackpad, mushy keyboard, and weak screen hinge that turns me off from using it as a dev machine.

It's great for couch surfing or as an ipad replacement, but I expect a dev machine to be more than a screen and a cheap price.

<comment><USER16> How's Linux on the surface pro? I'm worried that it'll be a device driver scavenger hunt.</comment></comment></comment>


A simple palette application that is written in Tornado and Pillow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gkmngrgn/palette

<comment><USER2> I wrote something similar in javascript a couple years ago and have some suggestions:

Have a look at the WCAG contrast ratio and luminance functions to gauge similarities/differences between colors. If you are looking to extract a theme those formulas are gold!

What sort of hashing/tolerance are you using for grouping? Using the above you can specify a tolerance level, and use sqrt((r1-r2)^2 + (g1-g2)^2 + (b1-b2)^2) to get a diff and then compare that with the tolerance.

</comment><comment><USER3> I helped write a library called colorific to detect a colour palette given an image. You might find it interesting. <https://github.com/99designs/colorific>

We blogged a bit about how it works too: [http://99designs.com/tech- blog/blog/2012/05/11/color-analysi...](http://99designs.com/tech- blog/blog/2012/05/11/color-analysis/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, thank you for your sharing. It's awesome library and I think to use colorific in my project. we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

But it seems to need improvement to support Pillow, latest version of Python2, etc. I still didn't try but I'll examine it. Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, we built it to work well on logos and vector artwork, but it might not work so well for photographs. Anyway, see what you think. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I started to use colorific for palette. it's good, and i think to support also your project. thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would have understood the title if it had just said written in Python. Most of the time I don't really care what libraries are used.

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, it's my carelessness. I fixed the description of github repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is it?

<comment><USER6> Seems like you post a picture to it and it returns the colour palette used. Seems pretty useful if you're into that kind of thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you're right. I wrote it to create color palette for company logo. It's useful for designers or theme creators.</comment></comment></comment>


Real URLs for AMP Cached Content Using Cloudflare Workers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/real-urls-for-amp-cached-content-using-cloudflare-workers/ <comment><USER2> Between Google's browser market share and Cloudflare's internet dominance, I'm getting quite worried about the speed at which large changes like this are occurring. Google rolls out an experimental feature with no standardization in Chrome and here it's already supported by Cloudflare and in the wild.

<comment><USER3> > experimental feature with no standardization

Web Packaging was originally proposed in 2015 as a W3C draft ([https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-web- packaging-20150115/](https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-web-packaging-20150115/)) and the Signed Exchanges spec as an IETF specification ([https://wicg.github.io/webpackage/draft-yasskin-http- origin-...](https://wicg.github.io/webpackage/draft-yasskin-http-origin- signed-responses.html))

There is also an open source project implementing it that anyone can use ([https://github.com/ampproject/amppackager](https://github.com/ampproject/amppackager)).

<comment><USER2> Web Packaging in the W3C draft was a completely different idea - there's not even a single mention of signatures. The "specification" you linked is actually a standards draft published by Google. And the open source project is again, another Google project that only benefits their AMP ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> These are currently drafts and are evolving with feedback, but Google is working with standards bodies and feedback from the web community.

<comment><USER4> ...and what r1ch says

> Google rolls out an experimental feature with no standardization in Chrome > and here it's already supported by Cloudflare and in the wild.

still remains a valid argument to what you just stated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mod_bsp - Brainfuck Server Pages - <AUTHOR> http://nanoweb.si.kz/manual/mod_bsp.html <comment><USER2> Everytime I see something about brainfuck I can't help but think someone really felt like procrastinating.

</comment><comment><USER3> Brainfuck is the programming equivalent of BDSM. It's all about having fun in the most masochistic way possible. In this case, a little sadism is also involved. The author shares the source code, but not the comments.

<comment><USER4> I can't imagine what you'd think of Malbolge[1] then.

[1] <http://esolangs.org/wiki/Malbolge>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This almost makes me tempted to write a web app framework in Unlambda.

Almost.

<comment><USER6> They're didn't really write a web app framework in brainfuck, they just plugged a PHP interpreter _of_ brainfuck into a module for apache.

I mean, yeah, you can make web pages, but that hardly justifies the nomenclature "framework".

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but why not aim higher? Er, lower?

Besides, unlike brainfuck, Unlambda is actually a plausible language for writing nontrivial code--painful, but not inconceivable.

<comment><USER6> Given enough human effort and turing completeness you can make anything with anything.

Everything is feasibility and pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> mod_ook could be out any day now.

<http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/ook.html></comment>


IOS 7 app redesigns - <AUTHOR> http://ios7redesigns.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> These are interesting to look at, but I really think we will see more variation than people are expecting. Maybe it will take some time, just like with the original iPhone OS, but devs and designers are going to find a way to make unique UIs while still conforming to the overall design cues.</comment>


Show HN: Nearby Shops - Open-Source food delivery and Hyperlocal app - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SumeetMoray/Nearby-Shops-End-User-Android-app <comment><USER2> When I first saw this I thought this is perfect for all the people in India trying to pitch a hyper local app, now they can at least have less development to worry about. Then I see this is developed in Hyderabad. You know your market.

Of course the tech is only part of the battle, getting people to use it, the logistics, the local veg vendor to use it etc, plus the $5mil to hire SRK to say he uses it...

<comment><AUTHOR> lol ... $5mil to hire SRK ... very much true ...

Yes you are correct tech is only the part of the battle ... but its an important one ... lot of small business are not able to compete with big business ... due to lack of good software ...

consider you have to spend 50 lakh rupees to build an app such as swiggy and zomato ...

now you dont need to and you can instead spend 25 lakhs in marketing ...

if marketing done wisely ... you dont need to spend 5 Million to hire SRK ...

Thanks for your inputs by the way ... enjoyed !</comment></comment>