Asking for Feedback on Our Startup:  Coordinatr.com - <AUTHOR> http://coordinatr.com/ <comment><USER3> PG says to get your site out early and often, so thats what we're trying to do. We're far from finished, but feel its about time to take the ultimate test, and show the news.yc crowd.

Our Site: <http://coordinatr.com> is a site designed to give you the necessary tools to quickly and effectively coordinate plans with your friends, without any unnecessary garbage to slow you down. Check out our FAQ for more info: <http://coordinatr.com/welcome/faq>

Please take a moment if you would to take a look at our site, and let us know what you think. Thanks in advance for your feedback and/or criticism.

<comment><USER4> Congratulations on all your hard work. It's a nice looking, easy to use site. That said, here are a few issues.

1) It has a very silly name. The whole fad of misspelled words has run is course. I think it automatically associates your site with the whole concept of "yet another web2ish site", which simply won't last forever.

2) There is a serious lack of screenshots on the page. Show me what you do and how you do it, before asking for my email. Also, a screencast wouldn't hurt.

3) The calendar doesn't automatically highlight what today's date is. I think it should.

4) You don't seem to support Unicode. This is a huge mistake, which is quite typical of American startups. I created an event on purpose with the name "Questa è una prova". It got converted in an unhelpful "Questa ? una prova".

5) In the list of invitees, you cut the names down to the first part of the email addresses only. So now all I know is that I invited "info", not info at johnsmith.com.

6) In the profile area you only have settings in place for city/state/zip. Again, very American centric. And it's a bad thing (TM).

7) In the confirmation email, if email@example.com invites firstname.lastname@example.com, you send emails that look like this: Dear info, info has invited you to...

<comment><USER5> Speaking as a human being rather than a L337 haxxor (or however the kids spell it nowadays), I think a photo of happy friends hanging out on the front page would be preferable to screen shots.

<comment><USER6> That might make it seem kinda fake with stock photographs and all.

<comment><USER5> Better "This feels fake" than "What the fuck does this do? Looks like they want me to read the FAQ…"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a way you could get people to start inviting without registering. You let them go through the whole thing, and add their own address at the end. They hit send, but the mail to the other people doesn't actually go out until they've finished the registration.

That way, they're more invested in actually going through with it than if they have to register to even get in.

<comment><USER8> Whether Front-loading or end-loading registration requirements is more successful seems to hinge on which is greater: (1) the user's expectations coming into the site (2) how great the user finds the site once he's using it.

If your site has a low value when the user signs up but this value builds as he uses it more (eg. networking sites) then you're probably better off front- loading the registration requirement. My experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Your name is so 2006. By choosing this name you immediately set yourself up as an also-ran instead of an innovator.

2\. The first thing you did was ask me for e-mail and password. You did not give me a chance to try out your service. You did not give me a chance to see what it's about. You were unable to get me to type in my e-mail.

3\. Your site is all about people and social events -- why are you using business-speak to sell it? Micro-events? Would a teenager or a college kid think that a "micro-event" is a cool place to be?

4\. I didn't think your site was ugly until I read your "faq" asking why the site was so ugly. Then I was like .. hmm .. I think he's right ...

5\. What determines if a user will switch from an existing system to a new system? if (valueAddFromNewSystem - painOfSwitchingToNewSystem) > (valueFromOldSystem * lazinessMultiplier), then people will switch. You have no control over the values of valueFromOldSystem or lazinessMultiplier. Here's my question to you: How do you think you are doing on the values of valueAddFromNewSystem and painOfSwitchingToNewSystem?

<comment><USER3> Some people like the name because it actually relates to what we're doing. Some people don't. If you have a better idea, we would love to hear some suggestions!

I understand your concern about micro-events but micro-blogs seem to be pretty popular, so we're thinking this is a good way to describe the area we're targeting.

For your number 5, there aren't a lot of people using events sites right now. Evite is by far the most popular, but no one is going to use it if they're going to a happy hour tonight, thus we are attempting to increase the valueAddFromNewSystem through exercises like this (user feedback) while minimizing the painOfSwitchingToNewSystem by simplifying registration and streamlining the process to get up and running.

It might also be applicable to add in an additional variable, which is painFromOldSystem. Attempting to perform a task while being hindered by banner adds and a confusing interface may go so far as to drive a person to a new site/service. While we obviously have no control over that, that variable is rampant in this market segment, so we like to factor it in to our decision making process.

Good point about the FAQ. We were attempting to have a light hearted, entertaining FAQ, but it isn't coming across that way to most people. Definitely looks like some revisions are in the future.

Thanks again for the recommendations!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the instant feeback thing on the left - very slick!

My only complaint is that it forces you to sign up if you want to view the event details. I can do this with Facebook already.

I'd like to see more details in the "You're invited..." email. That way I could invite people like my parents (who vaguely understand email, but not how to sign up for this kind of service) to quick & easy events.

Forcing a sign up to see the event's message board, or something, might be a good compromise.

Site looks very nice! Very uniform design style - I don't love how all the headings are lower case, but that's probably a personal preference thing.

<comment><USER11> Yes that instant feedback thing is slick! But I thought it said facebook - <USER2> I got a little jaded. It must be me.

<comment><USER12> I saw that, too, for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'll briefly preface my comments with the fact that when I've submitted sites to YC in the past, people have tended to focus on superficial things (IMHO). Maybe because it's easier to do that in a short span of time.

You've got a nice start, so take all of my comments with a grain of salt, of course:

\- The front page is generally boring (screenshot? at least a photo of happy people?). I think other people have touched on this.

\- There are too many things to click on the front page. Why are there two links to the "about" and "faq" pages? Are these the elements that you want people to focus on?

\- In the same vein, there's too much text in general. I think engineers tend to overestimate the amount that people actually read on the web. I don't think you need to "dumb down" your site -- it's just that showing, rather than telling, tends to communicate more.

\- The "create event" page is snazzily designed, but ultimately seems more like work than like fun, and it's one of the core interactions of your site.

\- You can purchase contact importing scripts online for less than $100; I'd recommend it.

\- Random: why have a FAQ if there aren't many users to A Q F? My experience has been that I nearly always guess incorrectly the questions people might ask.

\- Why is the "logout" link under "Profile"? I had to click around awhile to find it.

\- There's a lot of talk of "friends," but how much do you want to integrate social-networking features into the site? The more friction you have for other people to use the site (eg, if invited people have to "sign up"), the less likely they are to use it.

\- General thought: How do you plan to differentiate yourself from Facebook, Renkoo, Evite, Skobee, and many other startups who have tried (and mostly failed) to solve the problem you're solving?

Congrats on launching and best of luck.

<comment><USER3> You bring up some very good points, most of which we have been concerned with and have been debating about as well.

Quick Question: \- In terms of too much text, are you referring to the about us and FAQ pages? Or was that an "across the board" comment?

We're taking the approach of a little goes a long way. A lot of sites inundate you with content and functionality...they give you a pneumatic nailer when all you needed was a pushpin. We're trying to give you a pushpin and maybe some picture instructions. As you pointed out, many other sites have failed at this already, so it's key for us to receive and closely analyze user feedback to see if this is indeed the correct approach to be taking.

Thanks again for your candid feedback...it is greatly appreciated!

<comment><USER13> I was speaking in general terms, but the specific thing that brought that to my attention was the welcome notification -- the yellow box filled with "stuff you can/should do" after you sign up. My hunch is that it would be intimidating to new users -- there's too much text and perhaps too much ambiguity as to what's the next step.

It sounds like you guys have a good attitude for improving the site -- my only other suggestion is to log every single action users take, and base your product changes on such data, not on hunches like the one I offered above. :)

<comment><USER3> Completely agree about too much wording. Eliminate half of the words on the page, and then cut the remainder in half again, right?

We're trying to walk the fine line between an intimidating amount of words and not having enough content to accurately convey what we want to say. The welcome and all other wordy areas could definitely use another once over.

Thanks for the response!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ditto almost everyone else's comments, especially about registering first. I'll also add my (highly personal) opinion about something else:

There seems to be a disconnect between the appearance of the site and the verbage. The design is excellent: simple, straight forward, and very professional. Build by pros who will be around for a while. Something I wouldn't hesitate to adopt.

Then words like "garbage", "vespa with tassles", and "kick in the pants" make me wonder if this is a bunch of script kiddies with a hobby. I know that makes it light-hearted and cute, but after a while, it just gets tiring (and risky to you). Just my 2 cents - who knows, maybe others like that.

Great job! Keep us posted.

<comment><USER3> You're right, that was trying to be light hearted about boring topics. Definitely worth modifying if it's coming across in the wrong context.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The site looks good. I don't know if these things were covered already, but I went through and made a list of things that I would change. I sent it to you on the "Feedback" form too.

Notes on Coordinator:

Home page after login: Text says "Sorry, you currently don't have any events listed."

No reason to be sorry. I would change to: "No events listed (or, You haven't planned anything yet!). Click here to add an event!" or something that provides a way to change the fact that there are not yet any events.

On creating an event: The date box doesn't have a default date shown. I can't see what today is. Maybe make the current day show up a different color or have days in the past grayed out.

On friends: Longer names get extended past the box representing friends, instead of wrapping or adjusting.

Contact Us link at the bottom of the page should bring me to a page with forms to fill out, not attempt to open outlook or whatever program I use for email. If I want to email you with these, provide your email address on the "Contact Us" page.

Last thing, the pages don't have a "What's next" button. Meaning, After I add friends, I'm brought back to the page to invite more friends. There's no "Thanks for adding friends. We'll let you know when they accept. Here's the button to go back to the home page."

<comment><USER3> Just read your feedback from the site, but thanks for the follow up! The calendar stuff is getting fixed ASAP, as are the friend names. We will be following up on the other items in the coming week.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide your input. Please let us know if you have any other suggestions as you continue to use the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Show, don't tell.

I kinda get what you're doing, but a screenshot or infographic would quickly communicate if it was worth the user's time.

I'm not sure whether I think a big "sign up" button would be better than the two big form fields you have from a conversion POV... But it'd be easy to measure/test. Given most of the big boys have a signup button, I assume your way would convert less well.

Having a different color for strong tags is a bad idea. They look like links.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely agree. The strong tag css has been changed.

We'll look into the rest of the suggestions. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Uh, People really need to get over that Flickr-style of naming their products. In particular with long names. It just looks stupid.

Good luck, though.

<comment><USER7> What alternatives would you suggest?

<comment><USER18> Coor.di.na.tr!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I went to your site, skimmed the FAQ, skimmed the "About" page, and I still don't know what your service actually does or looks like. All I know is that you think email is bad for coordinating "micro-events", and so I'm guessing that somehow you're going to help me organize my micro-events without email (which is a problem I didn't know I had).

I know _what_ you're going to try and help me do, but I have no idea _how_ , and until I see that it's a _how_ that actually makes my life easier, I still haven't seen a problem in my life that needs to be fixed by you.

Would like to see screenshots or something.

Just my $.02, probably nothing original. Best of luck to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. That's probably the most common issue people have mentioned and it's something we're going to address very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My first impressions of the site were good. I like the design. I found it funny that one of the first pages I hit was the FAQ where you downplayed the design.

Anyways, the ui looks and works pretty slick. My only complaint was that when my form submission failed the error message was kind of small and initially below the fold, with no error indications above the fold. Otherwise I thought the site was really well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. What page was that error on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I just set this up to coordinate a local user group and I've got to say it's pretty nice. Looking through these comments, I can see they've incorporated a lot of the feedback. Here are some observations (turned into its own blog post):

[http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/using- coordinatr-t...](http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/using-coordinatr- to-run-a-user-group/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Beautifully designed, except for that damn feedback button. Why is everyone copying what I think I first saw on Draftmix?

It's not easy for people to read sideways.

Put it at the top or bottom of the page so users don't have to cock their head to one side. This seems like a curse of knowledge problem---you and most of us on HN already know what it says because we've seen it before. That doesn't mean it's easy to use, though.

<comment><USER23> quick followup to the feedback button, the 'Let' in 'Let us know...' is cut off when viewed in Safari. Cut off meaning covered up by the feedback block.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Kudos for the nice simple styling and layout! A few minor points:

\- would be great to highlight today's date in the calendar

\- I don't know about the general populus but I never allow any site to import my gmail/yahoo contacts. The address book also links to plaxo. Can't you implement an import yourself?

\- would be great to add a google map widget

<comment><USER3> Great comments, thanks!

\- Updating the calendar date item is on the top of the list of things to do.

\- The address book uses plaxo for now, but plans are definitely in place to replace it with our own import mechanism.

\- As for the google map widget, we currently have a mapping feature using google maps if you enter in a location for each event. Is this what you are referring to?

<comment><USER24> Aha.. cool.. I see the map now! Another suggestion: Coordinatr would be a great app if all my friends were regular users. However, I am guessing that a lot of people would rather use their regular scheduling tools (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar) to keep track of events. Those calendars don't have as rich a feature-set as coordinatr but are still the first point of schedule tracking. Anyway, my point is: coordinatr can really set itself apart by somehow integrating with these calendar systems (something like how xobni attaches itself to Outlook, but something simpler)!

<comment><USER3> We're definitely going to integrate with Google Calendar and are currently looking into integration with Outlook and other commonly used calendars. Great recommendation..thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I see in the FAQ you guys compare yourselves to email. I was thinking your real comparison is the phone. I'm not sure why I would use this service instead of just phoning someone.

Perhaps I'm not the target market though. Otherwise, good luck to you. It looks like you put a lot of hard work into this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you ever said to someone "a bunch of us are heading to _____ for _____. You should come."? This is the kind of situation we're targeting. If you can easily inform everyone you want to at once, we've shaved a good bit of time off of your phone calls.

<comment><USER25> That's just it though... rare is the time when I want to inform "everyone I want to" to come out for drinks in a casual setting.

One or two people max is the norm for a casual get together. Again, I think this is where I'm not in the target market... as you get older, your desire for large groups of people wains.

:-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know. Are there ever times when the phone is inconvenient to use? For example if you're at work, are you free to call your friends and arrange a get together or is that frowned upon?

I'm not trying to convince you to use our site! I'm really interested in your demographic and if there's any value we can add to a situation like yours. Thanks again for your feedback.

<comment><USER25> No. The phone is always convenient. More so than the internet. (And I have a laptop and work online all day)

I'd see value in maybe an sms service that could hold all my buddies numbers... that might be worth exploring... so I could, say, sms your site with "drinks after work @ cheers" and it would forward that to the "Drinking Buddies" list.

<comment><USER3> That functionality is actually very close to being released. We'll keep you posted on when it's available for use. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The site looks good, but this wouldn't make 'micro-event' planning any easier for me. I just text my friends. I only make one message and send it to my 'friend' group. You would have to improve upon that for me to sign up.

I understand this is early stage, so this is basically food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nice job, 3 comments

1) If I fill a time in 24 hour format for example 23:00 you need to parse it correctly and understand its 11pm.

2) Let me add users to an event I already created.

3) Let me add people's IM instead of email. Especially critical for events that are in the next few hours as emails aren't always checked as often.

<comment><USER3> All great suggestions...thanks for checking out the site!

Just an FYI, once you create an event, if you edit it, then you are able to add more friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Registered, when putting in contact info you should go ajax with it, cause I put in all my data first and then anticipated that it would still be there if I clicked "Add [formofcontact]".

Other than that, it's a cool concept ( i had a similar idea ) and it's very well executed/designed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's an idea for increased contacting functionality.

Let the event manager call a certain number and record a message for the invitation, then have it call everyone and play that message. That way, you have an advantage over picking up the phone and calling people one by one.

</comment><comment><USER29> Screenshots. A picture is worth a.. you get the idea. Three or four nice screenshots of your interface on the front page, or at the top of another page (how does it work, FAQ etc.) Not having those was an immediate turn off for me.

<comment><USER3> That's starting to become a recurring theme. Will definitely look into it. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Bad name. Taking a long word and removing the last vowel just doesn't work. It's not snappy enough, and hard to remember/spell. Unlike flickr it doesn't sound like a brand, it sounds like "coordinator.com" was too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER31> Agreed with others on having to provide an email address right away. I think it's better to build some trust with the user first, by showing them your site before asking for an email address.

Good luck. I hope you kick evite's butt.

</comment><comment><USER32> I like the look and feel of your site. Creating an event is pretty easy.

</comment><comment><USER33> You should do _fields required_ on the client-side, it now requires the complete server round-trip. Edge-case but still :)

Btw, congrats on launch.Cheers:)

</comment><comment><USER34> The ShareSpace tag is brilliant. I don't know if you came up with that yourselves or were inspired by another site, but either way nice work.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Other people actually came up with the concept, but we came up with the name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The moire effect in the background is distracting.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're the first to mention that one. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a sample event that we can see for helping us evaluate your site? Everything I've seen so far looks good.

</comment><comment><USER36> Seems like it might be a good idea, but having to register just to see what it's all about is rather off-putting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, and see some other replies for our approach. We thought that by minimizing the registration requirements to just an email and password, we are making it as painless as possible for now until we can get a better flow in place. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> i like it more than evite for sure. there are some little issues but i am sure you will work those out. some of the UE needs work like adding info to the profile. no biggies though. i am looking forward to see how the event ID can be use to show fotos, vids, friends, etc.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback! What exactly did you not like about adding info to the profile? Any other suggestions you can make?

Let us know what you think of the sharespace page once you get some content tagged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is an EVIL site. It sucks in your gmail contacts without even asking for confirmation. And I can't delete my account once I create it.

These guys are potentially HUGE email spammers (why else would they pull in emails without asking) and NO PROFILE DELETE??? Hello.. look at what happened to Facebook when they tried to pull that crap.

STAY AWAY from this site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow...slow down. You didn't like that after you clicked the "Done" button, we thought that you were done? And no, we don't currently have a way to delete your account, but NOTHING in your account is currently public! We will have a way to delete accounts in the future, but we need to figure out what to do with the events you've created, comments you wrote, etc. So settle down, and if you have specific concerns, let us know and we'll work with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You spelled "coordinator" wrong

<comment><AUTHOR> wow...thanks...that's really embarrassing...

<comment><USER5> Ha, I'm sorry. The name annoyed me too. However, keep in mind that the average web user probably has only heard of one "noun+r" website: Flickr. If you can withstand the heckling from the in-crowd, you probably don't need to change your name, unless you think up something awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't be sorry, I thought your post was funny. It's good to see a sense of humor when providing the feedback. I was going for the same humor but apparently it's not coming across that way...

We do face challenges from this domain name and we're still open to possibly using another. If anyone does come up with something they think is better, please post it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> so it's renkoo but with a better tumblr-inspired design. that's pretty nifty. definitely need to add on more features but this looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think we need to add? It's certainly not done, but I'm curious what everyone thinks is missing and what they would like to see added. Our goal is for it to always remain lean and fast so some "features" will ultimately be sacrificed to keep it simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Great work. Do I have to register to use it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, for now, you have to register. We tried to make it as painless as possible though, so try it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I like it. Design is great!

</comment><comment><USER11> Love the design!

</comment><comment><USER42> any plans for twitter integration?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how we would integrate with twitter. What are you thinking we could share between the two?

<comment><USER42> allow me to be alerted of events i am invited to, rsvp to events, and create events over sms, let all of my twitter friends see that I am attending X event

could be a good way to spread virally if people see in their twitter feed 'susie is attending X ( coordinator.com/event/X )'

doesn't necessarily have to be twitter

just some kind of sms integration would be nice

if u really want to be the evite of small events, i don't want to have to go to my browser to create an event, if me and joe are chilling at a dive bar, hey lets make this a coordinatr event. sms is the easiest way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, and we're building out sms as we go. We already have the infrastructure to accept input on specific events so we'll be turning that on in the not-to-distant future. Creating events from sms is a little more tricky...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> you bash email (which i like, don't see what's wrong with it) but i didn't see how you notify my friends instead of by emailing them.

personally, i'm only really available by AIM and email. maybe the target audience includes cell phone users and you send text messages or something? it should say how you contact ppl near the top of the FAQ.

<comment><USER3> Our intention is not to really bash email, but say that it is not the be all and end all for coordinating individuals. It's a great tool to use in conjunction with other means of communication for conveying our message, which in this case is event information. We should probably emphasize all avenues of communication that we support. Thanks!

<comment><USER43> you compare using email to plan things to drunk driving, so i think that counts as bashing.

it's your decision if you want to market yourselves that way, it could be for the best, i dunno.

glad to hear you'll add details about what communication you use.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Build 2017 [video] - <AUTHOR> https://channel9.msdn.com/?wt.mc_id=build_hp <comment><USER2> The technology demonstrated today should have everyone concerned. Satya talked about the responsibilities that we, as technologists have... but the power isn't going to be in OUR hands, it's going to be in the hands of the people who own the technology we build. The world outside of tech needs to see this.

<comment><USER3> So, capitalism?

<comment><USER4> Indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I should say -- tracking people through video and image recognition in a hospital or in a factory is creepy and awesome at the same time. I can't decide just yet.

<comment><USER6> "Find me the person who ate the last piece of cake in the fridge."

<comment><USER7> I've always been baffled at the 'last piece' cult. That piece is no more important than any other piece of the cake. What's with all the emotional baggage surrounding it?

<comment><USER8> My dad frequently eats the last cookie in the box or last piece of cake. He then leaves the container there. It's slightly different than normal "last piece" cult, but really frustrating when you're looking forward to the one piece of cake after you mow the lawn, open the container, and realize there is none left.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I've ever eaten cake after mowing a lawn. That's an unusual combo; and I've mowed a lot.

<comment><USER10> Agreed.

Last beer though...

<comment><USER8> We would have big problems if he started putting empties back in the fridge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> The beginning of this keynote is very unusual, instead of the "pumped up check out our new products"... he's talking about the responsibility of technologists? Guessing Microsoft has some cool AI stuff coming.

<comment><USER11> Yep I think you are right. Satya just mentioned bots. Also, I'm pretty sure they'll show off Microsoft Home Hub in Windows 10 today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Data has gravity and computation will move to it."

Eloquent as always.

<comment><USER13> Beats the old 'developers! developers! developers!' script for sure.

<comment><USER14> Nothing beats "Developers! Developers! Developers!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Real-time translation is the type of technology that has practical implementations. I could care less about finding designers on LinkedIn via a voice command. But if I am stuck somewhere in another country and unsure where to go or how to communicate, I guarantee I will be happy to have that translation service available.

Here is an idea for a service: You lease the translation service for the term of your trip for a dollar a day. You can lease on demand for 24 hours for 5 dollars.

<comment><USER16> FYI "I could care less" is probably not what you meant.

It's "couldn't care less" [1].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw)

<comment><USER17> "I could care less" is an idiom, it means the same thing as "I couldn't care less". (This may seem somewhat odd, but it's perfectly natural once you know it started out as sarcastic.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Parkinson's device is awesome

<comment><USER15> I'm not teary eyed at all.

I am so impressed by the device and her reaction. Something so small can give someone just enough sense of control in their lives. It's incredible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anyone know of some high-quality (meaning: good reporting, high signal-to- noise ratio), live, textual ("SFW") commentary stream covering the event? (blog? twitter? reddit? some IT news agency?)

<comment><USER20> In my experience it's better to wait for everything to be digested and released in text format. There's just too much bullshit to cut through. Live events are a world of cringe that I can't handle anymore. Last one I watched was NVIDIA's "Tom" incident, never again. Anandtech did a good job with the live blog, and that event was like 95% bullshit and 5% content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6kRl430h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6kRl430h4) . youtube

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting that many, if not most, presentations is done on MacOS.

<comment><USER23> A lot of demos are, but the actual presentations are in PowerPoint. I was watching the people in the booth run them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So far it has been Azure Build, not Microsoft Build. Everything is about azure so far.

<comment><USER25> There are two keynotes: one today and one tomorrow. The one tomorrow will be about Windows et al.

<comment><USER24> I wasn't aware of this. This makes more sense. I thought they have abandoned Windows for a second ;)

<comment><USER26> They have however swapped the order of presentation, which might say something about priorities. Previous MSBuilds have all been day 1 Windows, day 2 Azure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sorry if this sounds completely dumb but I can't hold it:

Can anyone explain what's with this: "you are running ML algorithms in the cloud, and we enable you to run them locally!"

Can't we already run them locally??? Why not run them locally in the first place if speed and low latency is required?

</comment><comment><USER18> This conference is going really really well. I am impressed at the products.

</comment><comment><USER27> Speech recognition failed 2 times before managing to translate the Chinese speech: the sentence to be translate was (in Chinese) "AI is fantastic". Isn't this ridiculous ?

</comment><comment><USER27> Watching this now... am I the only one who thinks it's a breath of fresh air compared to the mess of the JS world?

</comment><comment><USER27> Machine learning procedures stored inside a SQL server ???

How ugly can that be?

</comment><comment><USER18> They are using iOS device.

</comment><comment><USER18> Terminals in browser is the next cool thing.</comment>


Engineers of Jihad: Connection between Violent Extremism and Education - <AUTHOR> http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10656.html <comment><USER3> This was completely predicted by Peter Thiel in Zero to One. There's a common set of personality traits, a little related to Asperger's, where one works from first principles, is less influenced by what other people think, has less groupthink, and is more comfortable being outside of social norms.

This is a trait shared by entrepreneurs, engineers, and extremists. There's a high overlap between the three.

Social norms are powerful. People outside of them often see better ways to do things (or what they believe to be such). Constructively, they might start a business to fix the world. Destructively, they might blow up what they don't like.

That's a kind of short summary, but the book explains this much more convincingly and eloquently.

<comment><USER4> " _This is a trait shared by entrepreneurs, engineers, and extremists. There 's a high overlap between the three."_

Are management-level terrorists coming from former entrepreneurs? None of the top people in al-Queda were engineers. Bin Laden did come from a family that runs a huge construction company, but he himself never did anything in that area. Within ISIS, many of the top people were either career military or religious. Shaker Wahib al-Fahdawi al-Dulaimi was a computer science student, though.

<comment><USER5> > but he himself never did anything in that area

Other than earn his degree in civil engineering?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_life_of_Osama_bin_Lad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_life_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Education_and_politicization)

<comment><USER6> He probably earned it because his family is in construction and so it was the 'path' for him.

This is different from some suburban geeky guy who likes computers and decided to study electrical engineering in university. It reflects on his personality more.

<comment><USER7> The bar for being an engineer is so high these days. Even being an engineer isn't enough.

I know some Scotsmen who might be upset, but they aren't true Scotsmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My hypothesis: The study of engineering simply brings people from less developed countries to the West, where they are exposed to the seeds of radicalism.

They study engineering for many of the reasons that we do: Aptitude in the preliminaries such as math, interest in the subject matter, practical applicability, and employment prospects.

There may be a couple of additional factors: Engineering has a cross cultural appeal, whereas fields such as the humanities and social sciences may be seen as solving "first world problems" for lack of a better term. And, engineering is in theory apolitical, meaning you can do interesting work without the risk of getting in trouble.

If I were a parent of a bright teenager living in the third world, I could think of worse things than sending them to study engineering in the West.

<comment><USER9> I think that is a hypothesis worth investigating. A good data point to look into would be what educational backgrounds do Western extremists come from.

<comment><USER8> My only data point is an old one, and probably good for no more than comic relief: The Salem Hypothesis.

But a potential difficulty interpreting data on Western extremists is that the higher education system tracks students into disciplines, to a considerable extent, based on their math ability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tunisian here. My country is sadly known as the first exporter of ISIS fighters. I couldn't agree more with this! It is mostly attributed to the educational system. Engineering studies are focused mostly on math and physics and albeit present, Languages are treated like scond-class subjects. You end up with a generation of students who are effective engineers (to an extent) but who can't think at all. They are not taught philosophy, arts and even the logic of mathematics is obscured by the nature of testing.

<comment><USER11> I think more than what we are taught in engineering, the field itself tends to attract more conservative minded people (maybe because it's a safe field?). There's also correlations shown between religiosity, conservatism and studying engineering.

<comment><USER12> Could it be because conservative people tend to be disciplined which requires certain amount of will in the first place ? Just a theory...

<comment><USER13> I don't think that's it. I'm afraid I know of plenty of undisciplined people that lean far right.

<comment><USER14> The conservative people I know certainly like to _talk_ about discipline...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of course, knowing that extremists are usually engineers only helps you if you have a known extremist and want to guess his profession. Extremists are a pretty small group, and engineers a much larger one, so I'd have to assume that extremism is still very rare among engineers, meaning knowing whether someone is an engineer or not is completely useless for predicting if they're an extremist.

But hopefully, you've got a STEM degree, and can figure that fact out out yourself ;)

<comment><USER16> >> But hopefully, you've got a STEM degree, and can figure that fact out out yourself ;)

Sadly I bet someone in some ostensibly serious conversation will suggest increasing attention based on major (the person making the suggestion will have no understanding of statistics).

I don't think it's totally useless information as it informs us about the type of person who joins such groups. It might be useful in terms of tailoring counter-extremist propaganda. If the most susceptible to recruitment are of group X you want to make your counteroffer tailored to group X.

I can't think of a good example for transnational groups but it could be that after removing a government (or whatever you call ISIS) prioritizing reconstruction/aid projects that need local engineers is an effective way to reduce the likelihood that insurgencies start at all.

Also from the summary, if you're afraid of communist extremists you need to find work for English and International Affairs majors and you're really in trouble :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I studied insurgency/extremism more actively I would always hear the assertion, generally voiced in advocacy of increased foreign aid or nation building efforts, that extremists are generally recruited from the ranks of those left behind by the political and economic worlds and violence remains their only recourse. It's a nice narrative because it feels intuitive and provides an addressable problem, the downside is that it's not really true[0]. The 9/11 hijackers were very well educated and not impoverished and while this work looks awesome (can't wait to read it!), there has been previous work that showed that extremists do tend to be more educated than not.

My working hypothesis on why extremists tended to be more educated was (is at least until I read this book?) that educated people are just more likely than uneducated to do the unconventional in any sense, including extremism, since they're aware of more options and know/can learn how to pursue them.

It had occurred to me how it always seemed like the attackers had engineering masters degrees in their little [bios|obits] but I figured that for some reason I was just not noticing the social science degrees. It's nice to see this book and data in general on the subject. I find it interesting the engineers are more likely to split towards right-wing extremism when the extremist ideology is highly likely to be religious or have religious pre- conditions. I generally get the impression that engineers are _less_ religious than their liberal arts counterparts, perhaps the engineers that remain religious are more inclined to become more so?

[0] At least in expeditionary attacks and transnational orgs like AQ, generally attacks on targets in places not at war (i.e. 9/11, Mumbai, London, Madrid etc.). I'm not 100% sure about insurgent attacks that could be termed terroristic so it might depend on the definition you're using.

<comment><USER17> When it comes to actual attacks, there are more engineers. When it comes to merely joining the ideology itself, however, there are few engineers.

      'We realised immediately that this was an invasion, but we couldn't fully process the thoughts. My mother sat there shaking her head from side to side and said: 'Nothing bad will happen.' We were not Shi'ites who they hated. We were just Yazidis who they wanted to have control over.

      'We quickly put long dresses over our night dresses. We then ran out onto the street to see the fighters who were approaching. They waved their black flags with white Arabic writing on them in the air.

      'The first faces we saw from the passing vehicles were known to us. Regardless what jobs they did before, whether they were craftsmen, teachers or doctors, all of our Arab neighbours seemed to have joined up with ISIS.

Source: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3462146/Raped- beaten...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3462146/Raped-beaten-daily- Forced-abort-child-Left-bathe-blood-multiple-husbands-abused-Yazidi-details- nine-months-hell-ISIS-sex-slave.html)

This echoes stories from what happened in ex-Yugoslavia, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even older stories from Israel's independence war. The same story keeps repeating : a lot of people who lived in areas with lots of muslims suddenly found that nearly all of them hold extremist ideologies. Enough to kill and rape at least. And the thing is, we don't even know most of the time that this happens.

What I think is that most people can't be bothered to actually do anything. If the effort they'll put into their life doesn't include getting an education and the sacrifices an education demands, it likely doesn't include fighting and the sacrifices that demands.

<comment><USER18> > This echoes stories from what happened in ex-Yugoslavia, Sudan, Pakistan, > Afghanistan, and even older stories from Israel's independence war. The same > story keeps repeating : a lot of people who lived in areas with lots of > muslims suddenly found that nearly all of them hold extremist ideologies. > Enough to kill and rape at least. And the thing is, we don't even know most > of the time that this happens.

Not sure if it is good for my ulcer, but here goes.

I think its a bit of a jump to go from those examples to "lots of muslims".

In all instances i see situations where you have lines drawn as much, or more, based on ethnicity than religion. That the two often blend over in various places, because certain lineages has held to certain beliefs over generations, is a confounding variable, not a causation.

Never mind that i wonder how many plays along to save their own bacon. Humans will be humans when push comes to shove.

Lets not forget that Europe had its 30 year war over a disagreement on Christian doctrine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ITT: plenty of silly speculation from people in armchairs about what they would prefer the causes of extremism to be (ignoring the well-researched book full of evidence written by experts). A lot of "No, all of the experts must be wrong and I alone am right. I'm an engineer and I'm /smarter/ than my peers, not more easily radicalized". Do you not immediately see how people with this attitude are so easily swayed toward extremism of all stripes?

But we've been pretty effective about doing away with the humanities in our culture. The sneering, the derision, the contempt in which many STEM people hold those from the humanities is disgusting, and this is one side effect of it; our best weapons to combat terror and extremism are not engineered or built -- there is nothing stopping terrorists or extremists or radicals from understanding technical facts about the world and building things according to their desires. Crafting a weapon or circuit or bridge does not require that you think critically about society or culture. Engineers even here rarely think about how their work effects others, simply about the technical problems involved (wonder why so many engineers are complicit in surveillance/backdoors/etc?) since that is how they are trained (perhaps a throwaway ethics course jammed into an already-overloaded schedule in college).

The way to combat extremism is with culture; a strong, vibrant culture with art and dialogue and critique and critical thinking. Every time a kid tells you he's studying philosophy and you say "remember in 5 years I'll want fries with that lazy humanities scum, get a real job" you're throwing our culture away.

When our culture is gone and something like ISIS comes knocking, it's difficult to point to the iPhone or reality TV and say "look, our values are different from (better than) yours". We need to point to poets, philosophers, public intellectuals, artists, and say -- look. Our people are free to create* where yours are not.

*So long as their creation has wide appeal and does not step on too many toes and can be mass-produced and turned into a viable business model.

Contrast the argument with and without the asterisk.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe engineers are just more likely to be _effective_ extremists?

<comment><USER20> > Maybe engineers are just more likely to be effective extremists?

No , it's just that the educated are just more likely to become ideologues (thus more dangerous) because more articulate than the common thug. Ben Laden was an educated man, al-Zawahiri is a surgeon, al Baghdadi has a PhD . A lot of them actually spent time in the West, even in US and the culture shock triggered their hatred for the western civilization, the women roaming free in the streets, uncovered, the "debauchery", ... it went all against their upbringing and they can't accept people living in a different culture than an Islamic one, and they are also worried in would "infect" the culture back home. That's partly why Saddat was murdered, because he was turning Egypt into a place way too "westernized", along with the peace with Israel.

As for the thugs who become terrorists like the ones who killed 130 people in Paris, Jihadism give them a divine justification for their violence, like religion give them a justification for their hatred of the west or their misogyny. They feel one with themselves since they can express their violence while, they think, following their religion to the letter, since the enemy is just a non-believer,worse a atheist thus can be killed and the killing be sanctioned by their "god". But these thugs aren't ideologues, they are the useful idiots that get strapped with the explosive belt, while the ideologues stay safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Students of the humanities, like those of the "pure sciences", tend to have "more sophisticated and less closed views of knowledge than do students in engineering . . . Scientists learn to ask questions, while engineering students, like followers of text-based religions, rely more strongly on answers that have already been given". Engineering students from all backgrounds, they suggest, share a more rigid outlook than students of science and humanities. Intolerant of ambiguity, they show a preference for authoritarian systems and have more simplistic views about how the status quo can be changed. Far from them being more "religious" than other Muslims, it seems that it is the Islamist vision of a "corporatist, mechanistic and hierarchical" social order, combined with "well-regulated daily routines" that attracts them, and accounts for their over-representation.

<comment><USER16> This actually sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. As some anecdata, AQ at least a while ago was notoriously paperwork heavy (systems!), I forget the book (I think it was out of West Point) but they got a ton of data essentially out of their meticulous funding spreadsheets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I want to know is, are senior engineers 100x more likely to be extremists? Is Steve Wozniak the next Osama bin Laden?

<comment><USER23> No, just more likely to be a 10x extremist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thought experiment: replace "engineers" with "followers of Islam". The math still checks out, but suddenly I'm not so comfortable discussing the sociological/psychological reasons behind the correlation.

<comment><USER16> Except it doesn't. IRA, LRA, KKK, Mormon extremist groups, Cubans (for a while if you got hijacked you could safely assume you were being forcibly redirected to Havana), Nationalist movements too numerous to count etc. No one who has seriously studied violent non-state actors believes that Muslims are more prone to violent extremism than any other group.

Islamist groups have certainly gotten the "best" press for a while and have the most prominent groups whose stated goals essentially boil down to "world domination" (but their plans for world domination have only slightly less chance of success than mine, so relax on that front). That, however tells us exactly nothing about the propensity of Muslims to become extremists.

Extremism is no more common among muslims than it is among any other large group unless you limit your definition of extremists to Islamic extremists.

Edit: grammar.

<comment><USER24> Pardon my bayseanity, but the article discusses P(Engineer|Terrorist), not P(Terrorist|Engineer). I'm saying that a similar claim holds for P(Muslim|Terrorist), while your point is regarding P(Terrorist|Muslim).

But this is way off topic and my argument has nothing to do with Islam. I'm just pointing out how easy it is for us to play couch sociologists when weighing the merits and problems of "Engineering" culture, vs how difficult it is to hold a similar discussion about the issues of "standard" religions or cultures.

<comment><USER16> Neither direction is significant. Given reasonable definitions of terrorist (and the ones I think are best) terrorists are not significantly more likely to be muslim. In order to make that the case you need to extend "terrorist" status to a lot of groups that are really governments or insurgencies and not give "terrorist" status to a lot of Christian and political anti-government groups.

 _P(Muslim | Terrorist the US currently gives a shit about)_ is interesting, especially given the propensity to regard certain terrorist groups as criminal elements for political reasons.

Also interesting, other countries sometimes negotiate disliked groups onto our lists to legitimize their crackdowns (ironically the crackdowns can push the group to actually become terrorists. Hi Turkey!) and make their international fundraising efforts effectively illegal.

It is important to refute you because the implicit points when you talk about "how difficult it is to hold a similar discussion about the issues of "standard" religions or cultures". It isn't difficult for scholarship to have that discussion. It has been had. It disagrees with what you suggest to be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Let's see if we can avoid a flagkill this time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9118943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9118943) . Perhaps the soothing presence of a princeton.edu domain name will do it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe it's simply that (civil) engineering is the go to higher education path that is vouched for by parents in arabic cultures? As it is considered one of the few pathways of upward mobility plus and crisis/future proof. At least from my experience in german higher education, that was my takeaway.

Would be reluctant to read too much into personally traits, when there are convincing other explanations.

</comment><comment><USER27> So can the TSA do engineer profiling? Seems like it would be more accurate?

<comment><USER28> More accurate than what? If you're implying it would be more accurate than profiling Muslims, I think you are incorrect. Muslims as a group make up 1% of the US, but a generous, biased study [0] found that they are responsible for 48% of deaths from terrorism since 9/11\. From this it follows that the average Muslim is responsible for approx 48 times more deaths than the average American of any religion.

And this is without considering whether the TSA considers categories that have more predictive power than simply being Muslim, e.g. following a particular kind of Islam.

[0] [http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly- attacks...](http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html)

<comment><USER29> Nitpick, Deaths due to TERRORIST attacks. Not arbitrary deaths....

"From this it follows that the average Muslim is responsible for approx 48 times more deaths than the average American of any religion."

^ This statement is false as it assumes all deaths are from terrorist attacks, based on your previous statement of 48 times more likely to commit TERRORIST attacks, of which has a silly low death rate compared to ANYTHING else in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The left has managed to grasp control of academia, and shut other groups out[1]. I imagine the pattern will be reversed in countries where social studies means quran interpretation.

[1] [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal- major...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on- campus-yes-were-biased/?page=all)

<comment><USER31> There is no left, there is no right. There are two levers, connected to nothing, which we pull occasionally to quell dissent and give the illusion of self-determination.

We are like children in a shopping cart, pretending we're at the helm - <USER2> aren't.

<comment><USER28> Where is the evidence for this? What are the points where Barack Obama and Donald Trump are actually colluding by supporting something that the average American would oppose?

<comment><USER32> You don't need a conspiracy for that to work. Elected officials in any country have different incentives to pass laws that will favour different groups. If some groups are more persuasive (or coercitive - "think of employment") than others (eg, the public at large), this leads to these groups having an influence out of proportion with their membership.

<comment><USER28> I didn't mean to imply a conspiracy with "colluding". Just tell me what the issues are where Barack Obama and Donald Trump are actually on the same side and the American people would really want someone on the other side. What was your point about employment, for example?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I do wonder about their source data. I find it hard to believe that they have been able to perform proper surveys.

Thus i wonder if what we end up with is a speculation based on the identities of those found to have performed spectacular operations in the name of some group or other.

And there i suspect we will find more engineers, because you need a certain set of skills and methodological thinking to pull them off.

Their equivalent of a engineering corps basically.

</comment><comment><USER33> Interesting theory here:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/)

Basically applying reason to religion might end badly if religion is not weak enough to die in the process.

</comment><comment><USER34> > Using rigorous methods and several new datasets, they explain the link > between educational discipline and type of radicalism

Do they literally mean that the analysis was "rigorous", or do they just mean that some kind of quantitative analysis was performed?

</comment><comment><USER35> For a less-volatile example, my anecdotal/observational experience is that mathematics cranks (the angle trisectors, circle squarers, anti-Cantors, and so on) are disproportionally engineers, and in particular electrical engineers.

</comment><comment><USER36> Probably also because engineers know how to use the new technology and how to make the bombs? i.e. how to develop the new weapons.

<comment><USER37> Engineering teaches that there's always a way to create an outcome. To not take 'no' for an answer. To dig into underlying fundamentals and figure out why things are the way they are. It also encourages you to find solutions to problems that you can implement itself.

It's only natural that someone who grew up in a shithole, that studies engineering would be attracted to terrorism as a way of solving political problems. It's the path that you can walk all by yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Since we know that every second (software) engineer is a 10x genius Ninja, we're already talking about some extreme stuff right there.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Main argument according to reviews is the gap between aspiration and achievement that occurs when engineers' expectations of success are not met is what drives many of us, apparently, to join extremist groups.

The explanatory and predictive power of, "just sore losers" seems weak.

A review of the book (FT, paywalled) summarized other arguments about polarized, binary thinking, and an inability to accept culture, ambiguity, and a lot of what I see as sanctimonious bullshit the way non-STEM students do.

Defense of any principles (right, left, or religious) is considered extremist and dangerously reactionary these days.

One would hope that before laying the critical foundations to discredit educated conservatives (who largely take STEM degrees), academia might dedicate some thought to resolving why there are people with debt-funded $100k+ graduate degrees who read horoscopes, Piketty, and can't calculate a tip.

<comment><USER39> "Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry." — Charles Sanders Peirce, "First Rule of Logic"

What does studying people who "can't calculate a tip" has to do with understanding extremism/intolerance? Seems the cap fits.

Edit: I'll also add that I'm STEM and I don't agree that "binary thinking", "intolerance of ambiguity", etc are bullshit things, so watch out when you put a whole category of people in your camp. I'm rigorous in rationality and I've come to this stuff through my own questioning, watch out because the non- conservative can also put an aggressive rethoric to use.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: good places to find developers in Canada? - <AUTHOR>

We're looking to hire developers in Canada (anywhere, they can work from home). What are some good places (job boards, mailing lists, etc.) to start looking at? <comment><USER2> Another avenue is to find mailing list and google groups for either the technology you're using or the business that you're in.

For example there is a jobs.perl.org for finding perl developers.

Also there seem to be tech job listing service associated with sites that developers may frequent like stack overflow (<http://careers.stackoverflow.com/>) and TechCrunch (<http://www.crunchboard.com/jobs/>). I just saw a job advertised in my city while visiting stack overflow.

Good luck, C

PS I'm a developer in Canada that works from home and I know of a number of developers that also work form home (or are capable of doing so). If you let me know what you're working maybe I can help.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're willing to accept someone from 'anywhere' in Canada, mind if I ask what the obstacle would be to 'anywhere' globally?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, there are legal/tax/etc. reasons beyond my control in this case :)

<comment><USER3> I suppose that makes sense. Never been involved with an international hire, so I was just curious. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Face to face is by far the best. Attend conferences. Meetup.com is an excellent resource. If you live in a major city, look up all the developer meetups in your area and start attending.

</comment><comment><USER5> Same as in the US. Try craigslist, kijiji, linkedin, and facebook

You can also contact universities or colleges in order to hire their graduates or co-op students.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'll bite, I'm in Canada tell me about what you're working on? Based on your personal site and Funky Monkey it's tough to discern what you might be up to.

<comment><AUTHOR> email sent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.jobbank.gc.ca> monster.ca

</comment><comment><USER8> Workopolis.com is the big Canadian job site</comment>


The Emacs Widget Library - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/widget.html <comment><USER2> What's the news here? The widget library has been around since 2000. The comments seem to have devolved into yet another vi/emacs debate, but the article isn't about emacs per se.

</comment><comment><USER3> After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

<comment><USER4> Emacs is not just an editor, it's a text-mode Lisp machine.

If you like this idea, it does make sense to try it. Some people love Evil, a Vim emulation layer on top of Emacs.

I do all my computing using just StumpWM, Emacs, Firefox and xterm. I'm much happier than with my previous setup. Curses-based CLI applications don't compose well. They are little silos.

In contrast, on Emacs everything is hackable and alive. There's a wealth of classic packages (calc, dired, gnus, ansi-term, ess, auctex...) and modern ones (org-mode, magit, notmuch, pdf-tools, projectile, ivy, company...) that can let you craft a great environment.

Even if you are not a fan of huge customizations, I'm not either, small tweaks that adapt everything to your preferred workflow really do increase productivity. For example, my agenda view on org-mode emulates a kanban board.

I prefer to do as much of my computing as possible on a text-mode Lisp machine for this reason. Everything is friendly and customizable alive. I do web stuff on a regular browser inside a container: Firefox + Tridactyl. And plumbing is left to Unix, either NixOS or a simple Linux (Arch or Slackware) on xterm.

I find that trying to move stuff that naturally falls into one of these platforms (Emacs, Web, Unix) into another one makes me unhappy. For example, trying to browse the web on Emacs or composing emails on a web browser.

<comment><USER5> What type of container do you use for your browser?

<comment><USER4> Just firejail (despite the name it has no association to Firefox):

[https://firejail.wordpress.com/](https://firejail.wordpress.com/)

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firejail](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firejail)

It's super easy to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Emacs can embed gtk widgets [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsXWidgets](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsXWidgets)

<comment><USER7> One step closer to Genera. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing I tried to make in Emacs was a window at the top which shows the lines that you do not see that are unindenting from the currently visible indentation. It would act almost like a header. Next, would be to display these vertically inside the space created by the indentation itself. I don't see how to pack more source code context information on a screen than that

<comment><USER9> did it work? can you share?

I imagine a sticky header for the last line of any text from another level, is that would you built?

<comment><USER9> edit: found a plugin that does it nicely for org-mode :) org-sticky-header</comment></comment></comment>


Where does your plastic waste end up? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2018/11/where-does-your-plastic-waste-end <comment><USER2> Article connects the plastics ending up in the ocean to the exports to recyclers, but it never shows how that would work. Are the recyclers dumping the stuff they don't want into a nearby river?

</comment><comment><USER3> This article did not help me to understand the economics of recycling.

<comment><USER4> If you're truly interested in the economics of the waste industry, the book Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter was a good introduction: [https://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion- Dolla...](https://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion- Dollar.../1608197913)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> May be not relevant but somewhat related to the title - Some plastic ended up at the bottom of Mariana Trench

[https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-48230157](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48230157)

</comment><comment><USER6> In general, anything that is billed as a low-effort way to accomplish X that anybody can do is probably not very useful. You see this in health scams, financial scams, etc. It is likely the same way with the environment. We are now finding out that encouraging plastic recycling was probably environmentally worse that if people had been allowed to just throw it all away in a landfill.

Other well-intentioned efforts that resulted in bad outcomes:

Discouraging plastic bags -> Increased CO2 for cloth/paper bags Banning DDT -> likely millions of deaths from malaria over the years Opposition to nuclear -> more dependence on carbon heavy sources of energy (see Germany)

</comment><comment><USER7> I live in Indonesia, here people don't even separate compostable, recyclable, and junks. Everything is just mixed and piled together like a man-made mountain at the central garbage dump site. One day there was even a homeless trying to make some money out of picking up recyclables who died from getting avalanched by the trash... It's really disheartening to hear..

Does anybody know any resources on the economics of trash processing? I wanna explore the possibility of doing such a business in a sustainable way

<comment><USER8> I have some contacts in the industry and, as far as I know, sustainable waste processing is expensive and people are always trying to avoid it even if legally mandated. It is down to government regulation to force businesses to process waste in certain ways.

I think you'd have to find what your government legally requires in a certain waste management area and work within those parameters

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the insight!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Makes me rethink my use of plastics....

</comment><comment><USER10> I didn't realize that it's cheaper to export used plastic than process it within the country.

<comment><USER11> I'd imagine minimum wage has something to do with it. Plastic is cheap, labor is not. Most west coast states are over $11/hr. Of course that is not a lot of money, but it is when you're paying that labor to recycle pennies worth of plastic. It's not economical because the plastic has to be (mostly) clean of contaminants in order to recycle it without lowering quality too much. So there's also a lot of water involved. Diminishing returns.

<comment><USER12> According to the article, there's a huge disparity just in transportation costs, before wages even begin to factor in:

> Today, Recology, San Francisco's employee-owned recycling company, pays > £230-to-£390 to ship a container of recycled plastic across the Pacific–a > fraction of the £2,700-to-£3,100 price tag for transporting that same > container across the United States to plastic processing plants that are > mostly located in the South, according to Robert Reed, a company spokesman.

<comment><USER13> Transportation costs most likely include labor costs.

I am betting the crew on the container ship do not make US wages.

Similarly, why there are no cruise ships that only stop at American ports, so the labor can be foreign. Also, why American river cruises are so expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "To cite one example, American recyclers sold 101 tons of plastic waste in Thailand in the first six months of this year–a 1,985 percent increase over the 4,409 tons sold during the same period in 2017."

Hmm.

</comment><comment><USER14> Complete sidebar here, but that domain made me think that maybe the name needs to be changed to _International Geographic_ ;)

</comment><comment><USER15> "Where does _your_ plastic waste end up?" is the title of the piece and while it seemed to be on the UK edition (.co.uk domain and "UK" selected in the top right), it opens with "When President Donald Trump signed legislation", also after a not-too-deep skimming of the article it seems to mostly revolve around the US.

And now I'm confused. Is it really about the UK? Is the title just bad for _this_ edition (should be on .com). Was the story planned to be for the US edition and then just moved to the other one? Nitpicking, I know - but this is what I noticed first and even after a little digging I'm none the wiser.

</comment><comment><USER16> From the article: "I hate seeing my country as the dumpsite for the developed world," said Yeo Bee Yin, whose full title is Minister for Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change, and Environment. She declared that "no developing nation should be the dumping site for the developed world."

This hypocrisy is appalling. They just have to stop importing those plastics with the false promise they are going to recycle it or dispose of it properly while they get paid for it.

Nobody is forcing Malasya to take anything, in fact Malasya is happily engaging in a bid with other countries to import that garbage for the best price.

If these countries weren't lying this all time and only took the plastics they can actually cleanly dispose of or recycle, the West would be (at a greater expense is true) getting rid of them properly during all this time.

<comment><USER17> Did you even read the article?

<comment><USER18> From the commenting guidelines:

 _Please don 't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."_

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


The singularity bug - <AUTHOR>

 Reading about the humble programmer and bugs, I wonder if our society has a deep bug in it that is going to be discovered just in time for its destruction (society).  The context is global warming, IA, the price of inequality, the flow of immigrants over the border of the Mediterranean sea.<p>Google is the kind of ads, but the new ads are going to be replaced with a "way of living", a golden garden for thought, a new culture with the deep bug to be discovered at singularity time, to late to be neutralized. <comment><USER2> You undererstimate Human diversity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't you know that the world is flat? and where it is not is going to be drone sterilized.</comment></comment>


Haredim only make half the salary of others in hi-tech industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.jpost.com/jpost-tech/haredim-only-make-half-the-salary-of-others-in-hi-tech-industry-640303 <comment><USER2> It can be converted into an ism if somebody wants but any time you have a dominant personality type in an industry I think there is a bias against other personality types.

Personality is the hidden variable behind a lot of the discussions about sexism, racism and classism.

In the ecological model - you want everybody - just not all at the same time.</comment>


Behind AlphaGo - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@giacaglia/behind-alphago-9833c6413f66 <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to know if there were similar techniques employed for AlphaStar and AlphaGo, with DeepMind's use of LSTMs, etc...

<comment><USER3> From my understanding AlphaStar used a LSTM to determine the actions of its agents, but it had a transformer to draw attention to a subset of the inputs

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> DeepMind reduced the problem to search using the two Deep Neural Networks. MCTS is an old technique but it clearly worked here</comment>


George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://worldview.carnegiecouncil.org/archive/worldview/1975/07/2555.html/_res/id=sa_File1/v18_i007-008_a010.pdf <comment><USER2> "It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs."

"One feels, as with Napoleon, that he _can't_ win, and yet he somehow deserves to."

So far as that goes, he resembles so many candidates for so many offices.

But it is at this point where the true fascist emerges (compare Mishima or Le Corbusier):

"Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all 'progressive' thought, has assumed tacitly that all human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain."</comment>


Growing user signups via data and analytical thinking - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2013/02/26/rational-growth-pdf-an-intro-to-growing-user-signups-via-data-and-analytical-thinking/

<comment><AUTHOR> A very interesting eBook on growing user numbers. Warning: First you'll need a product and a trickle of signups to actually optimize.</comment>


What Is the Difference Between Wireframe, Mockup and Prototype? - <AUTHOR> http://brainhub.eu/blog/2016/04/20/difference-between-wireframe-mockup-prototype/ <comment><USER2> I really disagree with thinking about the interactions that late into the process. I think that, today, interactions are at the core of an application instead of just being eye-candy.

Putting your wireframes in a prototyping tool allows you to quickly test and figure out if the interactions that will drive your flow are good or not. You really don't want to know this only when you're done choosing your fonts/colors and aligning everything.

With the "wireframe prototype" you get a good idea of the structure and the main interactions. The mockups can give you the look of the app. The final high quality prototype is also not always super useful, and should be used, imho, as a communication tool with the clients if they need it.

<comment><USER3> To me, a wireframe specs out the UX and shows all possible user interactions. A mockup is a static representation of a wire frame with design added. A prototype is a working representation of a wire frame with the design added. Though the functionality may be simulated or mocked.

<comment><USER4> IMO, prototype may have very different look and feel vs. the mockup. An Excel spreadsheet might be a reasonable prototype for core functionality.

Demo is where you combine look and feel with core functionality. It can still be very hacky under the hood and use pre-rendered output etc.

Granted, this assume complex functionality. If your reusing a common pattern like website with checkout then it's a non issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is a nice table describing all three : [https://camo.githubusercontent.com/7ddc56aa95ab03ebf7194a3fa...](https://camo.githubusercontent.com/7ddc56aa95ab03ebf7194a3fa90b21ead6cbc7d0/687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f4166506e4e54352e706e67)

</comment><comment><USER6> Not about the op but I've always hated the name "mockup". Maybe it because it seems less technical than other terms used in the design process such as wireframe and prototype. I also dislike the way the word sounds. I often use alternatives like sketch or draft since they describe an output that is usually fairly short in the time frame of construction and open to future change. I hate the name mockup so much I think I may have opted to honestly not use the app Sketch if they had named themselves Mockup.

<comment><USER7> "Comp" or "layout" would be the more technical terms for that, though I've found they're generally less understood.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Generally the difference is that programmers make the prototype, designers make the mockup, and no one makes wireframes.

</comment><comment><USER9> My UX dev colleagues say they now skip "sketch" and "wireframe" and most of "mockup", and proceed directly to what I'll call "high-fidelity mockup". This is possible because they have fully embraced UXPin. I'll not use the term "prototype" because I limit that term to coded artifact. And on top of the speed benefits of skipping sketch and wireframe comes the fact that the development goes twice as fast because they skip "prototype".

</comment><comment><USER10> It says functionality is represented in a wireframe. Doesn't wireframe simply shows structure? That is, which elements goes where. The functionality is shown in a prototype.

<comment><USER11> Mateusz Warcholinski mentioned _Balsamiq_ [1] as an example of his definition for a "wireframe" tool.

Therefore, instead of trying to parse his description of "wireframe", it may be better to just look at Balsamiq's capabilities: [https://balsamiq.com/](https://balsamiq.com/)

To me, it looks like his idea of wireframe is something "clickable" ... such that it launches another fake page, but not _functional_. A Balsamiq/wireframe tool is something non-programmers like designers and business leads could use to communicate a UX/UI.

[1]Mateusz Warcholinski wrote: _" My favourite tool to do it: Balsamiq"_

<comment><USER12> Tad snarky.

<comment><USER11> I didn't intend it to be. I advised the questioner to simply do what I did myself : ignore the definition that Mateusz Warcholinski wrote which is open to misinterpretation (as this HN thread shows and Mateusz has acknowledged) and simply go to balsamiq.com.

After studying Balsamiq, work backwards from that to get an idea of what he meant by "wireframe" and whether or not it has "functionality".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the overall point of this article is spot-on: the goal is to iterate over the understand - design - build - use cycle, with each iteration working from the _known_ to the _unknown_ \- by pinning down those design and architecture decisions that can safely be made early.

With regards to "when should one introduce interactions / logic / UI" decisions, I think it depends on the sort of application you're building, who is the user, and what are the risk factors that need addressing.

If the goal is to build a simple blog-like site for a mom-and-pop shop, then you might want to _start_ with paint & chrome, because while many platforms could suffice, the importance of front-end gloss might drive implementation choices.

If the goal is to build a geodetic-measurement app for plate-tectonic specialists, perhaps you want to start with the engine, without which the entire effort is pointless.

To me it's all about

\- Achieving a shared vision early then refining

\- Surfacing risk areas early then addressing

Past that, how many iterations you need and what you call them is mostly semantic, once you understand what you're trying to achieve.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for feedback guys. I agree that in various companies those terms might have a bit different definition.

I wrote this, because I couldn't find anything good enough describing this topic. We often got aks by our our customers or first-time-founders - What is the difference? And why and how they can do it?

</comment><comment><USER14> Blog about design; presented with a massive self-linking clickable image with no hint of content below the fold.

</comment><comment><USER15> why is this article at the top? this is like web dev 101 stuff

<comment><USER16> A lot of developers still don't do this often, don't do it properly, or don't know what to call what they're doing. To you it may be 101 stuff, and it is to me, but if you were educated in front of, say, a form designer, that's a hard habit to break.

<comment><USER15> Wireframe, mockup, prototype,

those terms are arbitrary to some extend. You can have any degree of interactivity with any of those states.</comment></comment></comment>


Is there a list of Hacker News clones? - <AUTHOR>

I've heard that the source code is available online.  I'm not a programmer, I'm an artist. I just have a insatiable interest in what the entrepreneurial hacker community is up to.
My favorite twitterfeed is @newsycombinator (by a longshot, and its a bot!), and I want to see if a similar community could be created for art.
So my thought was: is the hacker news format successful for other communities?  Since the source is available, what have other people made with it? <comment><AUTHOR> I think I should correct myself -- when I say that I want to create a clone news community "for art", I really meant "for artists".

On hacker news, you don't see a lot of articles called "Look at this awesome new app!" -- instead you see stuff about the guys who made this "awesome app" and all the successes and failures that they've overcome.

As an artist, there comes a time where you don't want to look at other people's "awesome new art". You want to read about what drives them, or how they got started (and in the process learn about their awesome new art). I want to read about what's going on in the art market, and what people are predicting for the future of art. I want to read articles from the curator's perspective, from the collectors' perspective, the viewer's perspective.

I think the best way to get this is a non-visual system user-driven aggregation system like HN. Y'all have an awesome community of smart people submitting compelling articles... I'm simply jealous.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found a few: <http://www.uberlook.com> for web design and graphics. <http://bitlynews.com/> looks like its for trashy news.

And here's some defunct ones that were mentioned: markenomics newsmogul

<comment><USER2> Bitlynews was a contestant in the bitly API contest. They take the most popular shorturls and display it using an interface similar to Hackernews.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhhh, I get it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The most prominent I know of are quant.ly and forlue.com

There was also nickb's New Mogul, but that's dead. There was also another education HN clone by the person behind BrainRacer, but that's also dead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know why they die out so quickly? Is it just because they didn't generate enough interest? It doesn't seem like it'd be costly or time- intensive to maintain.

<comment><USER3> Well in New Mogul's case, nickb has been gone for a long time, and has basically vanished. The domain expired a while ago and he stopped paying the bills when he vanished.

BrainRacer's edu news site was shut down due to a lack of traction mainly, but it would probably be best to actually ask the founder as to why exactly.

Fwiw, I also ran a short-lived HN clone for a few months (also for education news) but killed it; mainly because of a lack of traction, and I didn't care too much to keep it up. Only about 15 registered users were on it, and only 4 active submitters, including myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm afraid to put a ton of work into learning how to do this if it's just going to fail when I don't get that critical mass of users.

<comment><USER3> Well, it's very simple to actually run a site running on news.arc

The guide here <http://arclanguage.org/install>

and the how-to-run-news file you extract make it simple to have it up and running in under a couple of minutes. It's just a question of whether you want to run it. I just did it to try out arc and see how HN ran in the back, but it got expensive to run it in aws all the time with no actual users or tangible benefit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the guide, it looks perfect. What server/host did you use?

<comment><USER3> AWS with an Ubuntu 10.04 32 bit ami

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> in terms of tools that may power some of the clones out there, in looking around i see this one:

<https://github.com/antirez/lamernews>

which powers a couple of sites. this one's demo site seems down:

<https://github.com/jaekwon/YCatalyst>

not entirely sure what sites it powers. these may help you find some of the more community-specific clones out there.

<comment><USER5> <http://lamernews.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://arclanguage.org/forum>

</comment><comment><USER7> Hacker News works for programmers because programmers work in text and Hacker News is pure text. I don't think it would work for artists, I think you need something much more visual.

<comment><AUTHOR> Text is still the best way of discussing ideas, even among artists. My concern is that a similar service won't get any where near the critical mass in terms of its user-base... which may be because we're more visual ;)

<comment><USER7> Hm, what about a subreddit? It's a bit more visual, and comes with (at least the potential for) a built in audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Brilliant idea, I've never been very far below the surface of Reddit. I'm a big fan of the @newsycombinator twitter account for mobile reading -- do you know if there's a way of making something similar for the reddit subgroup?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HTML5 Ping-Pong Game - <AUTHOR> http://cssdeck.com/item/preview/594/ping-pong-game

<comment><USER2> That is cool. I love the touch of the little dust explosions off the paddles. For anyone else that wants to start playing with canvas, let me relate a gotcha that drove me absolutely nuts. And if I'm mistaken on this, someone please set me straight.

The issue: You can _not_ paint pixels directly onto a canvas. Instead you create a buffer of specified dimensions, indicate what colors to make its pixels, then overlay that buffer onto the canvas at a specified location. So it is possible to wrap that functionality up into an api that lets you simulate direct pixel painting, but it is not possible with raw javascript. Lines and other shapes, on the other hand, can be rasterized directly onto the canvas.

<comment><USER3> What if you paint a 1px line?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there any good tools/frameworks for HTML5 games yet? Every time I see a rundown of how a developer made an HTML5/JS game, the common complaint from that dev is that the tools are far from mature and they had to recreate X and Y by hand.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice job! I was looking for something like this for a project I'm working on. Just FYI - If I resize the window to the width of the paddles I can play forever :) <http://imgur.com/ukxi8>

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice. I like it.</comment>


NGINX as a SPDY reverse proxy for Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://blog.victorquinn.com/nginx-as-a-spdy-reverse-proxy-passthrough

<comment><USER2> semi-optimal setup; ip_hash might give you issues if you have to server a lot of mobile-clients (at least here in europe), because of central proxies used by mobile-providers. this one might help if you need stickyness: [https://bitbucket.org/nginx-goodies/nginx-sticky-module- ng/o...](https://bitbucket.org/nginx-goodies/nginx-sticky-module-ng/overview)

instead of "if ($host !~ ^(api.yourdomain.com)$ )" you should use a "server_name api.yourdomain.com;" \- directive for your proxy_config and a catch_all - server{} block that consist only of "return 444;" to avoid that "if"-processing on any request.

oh, and you might want to use "ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1440m;" for better performance (adjust the timeframe accordingly, i've seen values from 10 minutes up to 48hours like google)

> SSL certs tend to be rather confusing ... no not, really, but i leave it up > to you to figure out what a key is and what a cert :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks so much moduloo!

This is very helpful, I'll definitely be using this to update my nginx.conf file!</comment></comment>


I still recommend AES-256 - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2009-07-31-thoughts-on-AES.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had a couple of people asking me if I'm reconsidering my recommendation of AES-256 in light of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=732545> \-- the answer is that I have considered and decided not to change my recommendation.</comment>


Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés - <AUTHOR> https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20140185 <comment><USER2> TL;DR: "We find that participating (French) firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous résumés."

<comment><USER3> The same thing was found in Australia when tested in the public service.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I generate technical reports for Wordpress plugins - <AUTHOR> https://wpplugincheck.com/articles/introducing-technical-reports-for-plugins/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks I write plugin reviews at [wpplugincheck]([https://wpplugincheck.com](https://wpplugincheck.com)). Recently I started measuring code metrics for a few plugins such as:

The technical report includes stats generated from phpmetrics such as Lines of code, Cyclomatic complexity(CC), code violations and CC chart. I also check if the plugin creates news database tables and give a brief summary on the technical side of things. I don't really consider cleanliness/size of the code in the reviews unless it is way beyond the average.

Let me know how you like it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Very well presented website - I like it a lot.

Would be interesting to see some reports about the real estate plugins available for Wordpress. I did a quick review myself and did not find any really high quality plugins but would be good to see some more detailed analysis.

This is a short article I wrote about real estate plugins in WordPress:

[https://smallbusinessforum.co/why-an-alternative-to- wordpres...](https://smallbusinessforum.co/why-an-alternative-to-wordpress-is- needed-for-real-estate-websites-ff82de096d93)</comment>


Why is the UK making such a mess of A50 negotiations? - <AUTHOR> https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-is-uk-making-such-mess-of-a50.html <comment><USER2> The psyop isn't working.</comment>


Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Heads to Florida to Take on Elon Musk's SpaceX - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/15/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-heads-to-florida-to-take-on-elon-musks-spacex/ <comment><USER2> Have we crossed the point where more private money is going into space flight than government money? Always makes me wonder what would happen if one of Russia's Oligarchs decided to build their own rockets.</comment>


Teamviewer Alternative – What to Consider – A Follow Up - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I posted an article. Within a couple of hours it was flagged by a few users who did not find any value in it and removed.
Normally I would have just let it go. But through the day the article went viral got posted onto social media. We've received multiple responses from readers who found it useful. So I've decided to respond and put the idea in the right context. The article is about Remote Assistance and how it relates is the future of Tech Support. It is not about the details of the security breach. But rather what it means for Teamviewer's business and what we all can learn from it. The article is aimed at people who use remote support tools with customers for tech support.
And it's pointing out what is critical to factor in when choosing a remote support tool. What is your customer's perspective.
What will remote support look like in the future. And how that applies to your choice of remote support technology. If you're interested in that perspective you're welcome to stop by and read. http://ow.ly/X8rS307kkz6<p>Otherwise you're more than welcome to move on. <comment><USER2> Everyday many stories get flagged on Hacker News. Some do well in other channels.

My advice is to take that as evidence that writing for the audience on Hacker News may require a different approach than what might work on social media.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, That's good advice. H

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It may have been flagged because of the shrouded/abbreviated URL. Try posting the full native URL.</comment>


Some Older Teslas Won't Charge and Screen Stops Working - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/worst-case-scenario-for-older-teslas-coming-to-fruition-1839105865 <comment><USER2> Sounds like a phone.

I have had internal combustion engine cars where the lead-acid battery would not stay charged, and that will cause the screen, engine, everything else to not work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous Discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21258024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21258024)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912065](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912065)</comment>