The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/brave-browser-will-pay-surf-web/ <comment><USER2> Brave is just an intermediary that replaces ads with other ads. It's an adnetwork delivered as a browser that creates ad inventory _on top_ of the page instead of within it.

That being said, the tokens are basically worthless. This is not what the digital advertising industry wants and Brave is not going to get any decent advertisers with this. They'll end up with the same shady affiliate/performance marketers running CPA ads currently infesting all the 'content recommendation' widgets.

<comment><USER3> This was tried during the first dot-com boom as well!

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

<comment><USER4> It's different from AllAdvantage with the addition of market mechanisms to correctly price the attention consumed by ads.

That's why users get tokens for viewing, why users can turn the ads off entirely, and why the tokens are tradeable on exchanges. It creates a built-in feedback mechanism. If BAT is priced too low, then everybody will opt out of ads (because it won't be worth it to them), very little BAT will be available on the market, and advertisers will have to bid up the price of BAT to run their ads. If BAT is priced too high, there will be excess ad inventory, no advertisers will buy in, and the price of BAT will fall until it reaches an equilibrium.

AllAdvantage.com failed in a large part because they mispriced the rebates going back to users. They burned through all their VC cash, didn't provide enough value to advertisers, and went out of business. Brave avoids that by letting the market make the pricing decisions.

This is something that couldn't have been done at all before cryptocurrencies, which is what makes this project somewhat interesting.

<comment><USER2> Why would advertisers bid higher when this is not the only channel and comes with less targeting and increased fraud potential?

Why would users opt-in at all to see ads when they're already blocked?

There seems to be missing component of _why_ both sides want to interact through the Brave network.

<comment><USER4> > Why would advertisers bid higher when this is not the only channel and comes > with less targeting and increased fraud potential?

Brave's model - like all ad-supported ones - depends upon them getting very big, enough that they get a substantial fraction of total user attention. They're going for this by blocking all existing ads, which in today's web makes the browser significantly faster and less annoying. They're at about 5.5M users as of January 2019, up from 3M in July 2018. That's still a long way to go, but it's growing fast.

> Why would users opt-in at all to see ads when they're already blocked?

Because they get money for it.

<comment><USER5> > Because they get money for it.

When that becomes a real motivation, it'll collapse the system, because view- fraud will either overwhelm honest views or Brave will be forced to take invasive measures to try to prevent such fraud.

<comment><USER6> I believe view fraud is exactly what happened to the dotcom-era company that offered to pay users. I recall reading about it in Michael Lewis' book "Panic!"

No wonder Brave is trying to pay people with a useless e-token.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the privacy crowd drawn to Brave couldn't care less what the (current) digital advertising industry wants.

Anyone who's been involved in the current ad-tech industry knows it's a total tire fire of fraud, technical incompetence and deep hostility to end-users.

Brave's model is very interesting and also a threat to the current ad-tech cesspool, so there should be no surprise to see attempts to misinform people about the model.

Brave doesn't replace ads with other ads.

Brave is a browser first, with an economic layer that will support all sorts of opt-in economic activity in a privacy-respecting way.

The tokens have a market price of more than zero.

Advertisers already include brands like Vimeo and Vice, and many within the ad industry appreciate the model Brave is attempting.

Using on-device machine learning to deliver relevant ads, while at the same time protecting privacy by not sending that data over the wire is a rather brilliant idea.

It certainly remains to be seen what advertisers are convinced to trial this approach, but predictions based on a very wonky understanding of the Brave model aren't particularly interesting.

<comment><USER2> If you want advertisers, you need to care about what the industry wants. Obviously that's for Brave to deal with, not the users, but showing ads for money is an ad network.

Microtransactions have been tried many times. I spent half a million testing it. Didn't work because of user behavior. And unless users are buying with their own money, it's just converting the BAT they earn from ads into BAT they pay the publisher. This is an ad network.

Even the block-and-replace-ads model has been tried before. Everything from iframes to browser toolbars. Again, this is an ad network.

If you have to use language like "economic layer" to describe your business model, you're either hiding something or you don't have one. Or we can just use the standard definition: brave is a browser-based ad network.

<comment><USER8> Brave doesn't need advertisers though, it needs users. Once it has users then advertisers need Brave.

I don't see how Brave has to win over advertisers at all, they'll come around when Brave can offer some non-insignificant amount of money to them.

<comment><USER2> Advertisers have several supply paths to inventory and what gets chosen is a complicated series of decisions. Brave is just not very enticing. Having a large user base isn't useful if there isn't effective delivery and performance. It's always possible to get the low-end performance marketers because they'll buy anything if it works but it won't be good quality.

Also the current trade of content for ads makes sense. When it's opt-in, I fail to see why users would enable ads if they can get the content for free anyway. And if the ads are all low-end spam then I definitely don't see why they would choose them.

It's a very tough 3-way marketplace to bootstrap where the user has all of the control and none of the incentive.

<comment><USER9> > Brave is just not very enticing.

Sure, but folks I know use it because it has other utilities than just block ads (like use less power, for instance) whilst retaining the compatibility that comes with being based on Chromium.

> Also the current trade of content for ads makes sense.

When the rate of folks blocking ads keeps increasing, does it though, in the long run?

> When it's opt-in, I fail to see why users would enable ads if they can get > the content for free anyway. And if the ads are all low-end spam then I > definitely don't see why they would choose them.

I hope you do realise the number of ifs and buts in your assumptions?

> It's a very tough 3-way marketplace to bootstrap where the user has all of > the control and none of the incentive.

I realise that you are intimately familiar with the industry, but it takes a substantial rethink to overhaul something as entrenched as the online ad business.

There's novelty to Brave's approach, I don't think anyone can deny that. Browsers are gateway to the web, equally how Google (homepage) is, and folks are right to take that market on, instead of taking the giants like Facebook and Google at their own game.

I would like to refer you to how telegram has replaced browsers for most folks I know (they literally use it to search memes, videos, photos, links); and how WhatsApp has replaced email. The ads would be where content is. If browsers increasingly act as arbitrators of that content, then they're best placed to monetize it, as well, imo.

It is another matter for folks who simply detest ads, they're not intended users Brave is targeting, but some folks do feel guilt blocking them and wouldn't mind a middle ground. Also, you must realise that a large portion of the internet don't use any form of ad-blockers whatsoever, and when they stumble on Brave (because it is great for battery life and other features), they'd be more than happy to keep seeing ads that aren't all encompassing and privacy respecting, I'm sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My understanding is they've been taking money "on behalf of creators" who never signed up and pocketing it. That's reason enough for me to not use the product. Sounds like it could be construed as fraud. Eich got pretty defensive on Twitter and this whole thing came up here before too [2].

[1] [https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/12/24/brave-browser- is-c...](https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/12/24/brave-browser-is- collecting-donations-on-your-behalf-did-you-know/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736759)

<comment><USER7> Actually that's not true.

An earlier version of the browser let early adopter users direct where Brave's own marketing budget of BAT tokens was sent to, including sites that hadn't yet signed up.

If those sites didn't sign up, the tokens would eventually go back into the marketing budget pool of tokens, to be distributed to other sites (not to Brave).

That's very different to the mischaraterisation you mention above, but no surprise as Brave's model is a threat to the current fraudulent ad tech ecosystem.

They did make changes to the product immediately after that episode though. Now if you want to donate to a site that hasn't registered your browser will try for a period of time, and if the publisher doesn't sign up the tokens are returned to you to distribute elsewhere.

<comment><USER10> Sounds like it wasn't much of a mischaracterization if there was a bunch of outrage and then they backtracked completely.

<comment><USER7> The mischaraterization, which you seem determined to double-down on, was an attempt to paint Brave as a fraudulent company trying to build a 'patreon for thieves'.

Any honest onlooker doing the barest of research would understand the absurdity of the claim, but the amplification of that mischaracterisation was (and is) clearly aimed at herd programming to try to suppress Brave's growth.

<comment><USER10> I can see how you might view it that way. On the other hand, let's say Chrome started replacing all non-Adsense ads on every site you visited with Adsense ads -- without notifying the webmaster no less. Then, if the content creator decided they'd like their cut of the revenue, they had to sign up for Adsense. And if they didn't, Google would just pocket it 90 days later. I don't think you'd be as sympathetic to Google in this situation? Would the courts? Just because it's a small up-start business, or just because it's crypto related, doesn't make it exempt from fair dealing.

I'm not saying its a Patreon for thieves, and that doesn't make what they did less unsavory IMO.

<comment><USER7> Your scenario doesn't reflect how Brave's model works at all - it just reflects various misconceptions on your part.

Brave does not replace publisher ads with their own.

Brave does not block first party ads. Google's search ads display. Facebook's ads display. Twitter's ads display.

Brave does block other ads by default, and as a user agent, it's reflecting the valid, ethical choices of the user not to load the untrustworthy content and scripts from these poorly-coded, user-hostile third party ad networks.

If a user opts-in to Brave's ad ecosystem, then they've also made a decision about what content funding model they want to support.

There are many browsers out there, but till now there's really only been one privacy-invading ad model.

Now we have not just another browser, but another ad model which respects privacy, and after all we've learned about the current ad-tech ecosystem I'd prioritise user agency over all other considerations.

If the primacy of user agency begins to take hold, then the market will adapt and survive and even thrive within this new model.

<comment><USER5> > Brave does not replace publisher ads with their own.

It absolutely both blocks (many) pre-existing ads _and_ places its own ads. Those are both overt features of the browser.

> If a user opts-in to Brave's ad ecosystem, then they've also made a decision > about what content funding model they want to support.

It's not really a content funding model, since whether Brave shows (and derives revenue) for ads or not (and whether it blocks the ads the content supplier has decided to place or not) has nothing to do with any agreement or payment to the content source; it's a browser funding model.

The _content funding_ model it (indirectly) promotes is the covert "organic" advertising model, where rather than being separated and distinguished from the editorial content, the promotional content is integrated with and inseperable from the organic content.

<comment><USER11> >and places its own ads.

No it does not, I've been using the Brave browser for over a year on desktop, with the users ads activated

This is the most common seen misconception on HN about Brave, Brave is not replacing ads with it's own ads

It just doesn't work like this

A great comment from a Brave team member about that misconception on Reddit:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/bby4um/the_la_ti...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/bby4um/the_la_times_latimescom_one_of_the_largest/ekn0706/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> former user of their product. originally presented to me as a chrome alternative with the ad-block built right into the browser itself and not as a javascript extension. But as the product has evolved, they've changed in ways to monetize it themselves. While they still block ads, they're deciding which ads they want to block now based on how sponsors compensate them. As a bonus, they're throwing you back a bone to put up with their new business model. Brave has inserted itself as a new middleman between the advertisers and web users.

<comment><USER13> Someone else accused this of being a pyramid scheme.

But this sounds more like a protection racket.

Beautiful ads, govnah. Would be a shame if somfin' 'appened to 'em.

<comment><USER14> That's what AdBlock Plus did...

<comment><USER15> And still does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a lot of negativity here about brave. But the fact is that the web desperately needs a new financial model, and as far as I can tell brave is a lot further along on that than any other project.

Would anyone like to argue that the present web financial model is fine? Or would anyone like to point to someone else who has an alternative that would be workable and is anywhere near usable?

And let met add one more point. Any workable alternative is not going to be perfect, so the fact one is not is not, at least alone, a reason to not use it.

But again, let me ask all the brave critiques, what is your alternative? And by that I mean that can be used by your average user, not something only a techy can make work.

<comment><USER17> >The web desperately needs a new financial model

I don't agree that the web needs any financial model at all. Content creators want a financial model and advertisers wants to continue to be in business, but neither of those desires indicates a "need" for a single financial model for the web.

<comment><USER16> No, content creators don't want a financial model, they need one. If they don't get money from creating content they have to spend their time doing something else. And today they get that model from the centralized advertising model. Until someone comes up with a different financial model, that is where they will stay.

<comment><USER17> Before the centralized advertising model, the web existed and had content. There are ways that people get paid without advertising, including donations and premium content subscriptions.

The mother of a friend of mine lives in a low cost of living area and makes her entire living from writing gay BSDM anime fan fiction. She has more than 1k monthly subscribers, no ads.

The web does not need attention merchants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Today, there's no way for users who receive BAT for viewing ads to swap their digital currency for dollars, but Eich says Brave will partner with cryptocurrency exchanges to make that possible."

So people can pay to buy tokens but can't sell them, seems legit.

<comment><USER19> You can buy and sell them on exchanges like Coinbase. It'd probably be a bad idea for Brave to get into the cryptocurrency exchange business - it's a tricky business, and it's not their core competency.

<comment><USER20> Also Coinbase is giving away 10 U$ worth of BAT if you look at the videos about Brave and reply to questions in a test correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think what Brave is doing might be misunderstood: it seems like a brilliant take on the current problem facing content creators... I think of Brave as trying to reach a common ground-- help content creators make a profit, put the consumers out of the current dragnet misery. That said, there might still be opportunities for different (not necessarily controversy-free) solutions, like the ones that are set in motion:

\- Net Neutrality violating deals by ISPs/BigTech.

\- Users forced to install apps (in a bid to escape the browsers).

\- Native advertising, where ads are indistinguishable from actual content.

...and so on. Is Brave's model any worse [0]? For better or for worse, things will continue to change.

[0] IIRC, they have more than 10M installs. I reckon, if they hit 100M or so, they'd be _fatal_ to the ad-networks. I don't see any other tech today wielding that kind of threat? Adblockers might have higher installation numbers, but they don't solve the problems for the content creators, so they are not really the solution to this mess we are in, imo.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have been using the brave browser for a few months now. I think the concept is great, and possibly one of the best uses for crypto currency. In my case I want to disable ads entirely and use the auto-pay system to pay publishers directly when I read their content. It also has a "tip" button so you can send extra with one click if you really like the content.

Edit: There seems to be a ton of negative comments in this thread from people who have never actually used the Brave Browser. I would encourage anyone who is interested to actually install it and try it. The ads section is completely opt-in. The "auto-contribute" and "tips" features can be used without the ads. I feel the "auto-contribute" and "tips" features are what would really appeal to most HN readers.

</comment><comment><USER22> This seems like one of those ideas that's great in theory but not in practice. I don't care about paying or even being paid when browsing the web...I just want to be left alone.

Also this particular implementation is rather shady.

See podcast:

[https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/francis-pouliot-on- th...](https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/francis-pouliot-on-the-network- effect-of-money-and-why-tokens-are-scams)

<comment><USER23> I frequently find myself confronted by paywalls and demands that I turn off my ad blocker. I can usually find a way around it, but things would be so much simpler if I could just click a button to pay the site a fraction of a penny.

<comment><USER24> That's a neat idea. Could be a YC startup idea. A subscription service that gives you access to all the paywall content let's say 10/month for 50 articles and you don't even click a button just read. Rather than seperate paywalls, ads etc.

<comment><USER25> Are you describing Blendle[0]? Access to paywalled content on a pay-per- article basis.

[0] [https://launch.blendle.com/](https://launch.blendle.com/)

<comment><USER24> I didn't know about them, but looks like they are doing exactly this.

<comment><USER22> I remember getting on their beta list 3 years ago. Seems like they're still in beta...that cannot be a good sign.

From what I remember, they're a closed platform. One must use their apps to get access to full article content. That's a nice solution for their partners, but not for the broader web (85%+ of the websites you stumble across that are not TIME, NYT, Economist, etc).

Blendle is a nice experiment, but I wouldn't consider it a solution to the problem being discussed here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So, let me get this straight. If I set up an old computer in the corner and script it to just meander around the web 24/7 using Brave, I can rack up a ton of useless BAT tokens/currency/whatever?

<comment><USER27> Like crypto mining through a third party? Does Brave even care as long as the person paying them thinks it's real?

<comment><USER28> Probably not but only until "they keep thinking it is real"

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vincent-toups Looks bad to me.

I'll be 100% frank: I never want to look at another advertisement again and I'm ok if the entire economy tanks because of it.

</comment><comment><USER27> They've literally selected for a userbase of people who dislike advertising enough to go out of their way to find and use a largely unknown browser.

I doubt that the people who downloaded it to avoid advertising will sign up for this without paying them a lot.

<comment><USER7> Most people are sold on Brave due to privacy / speed / battery life.

Baking a transactional layer into the browser allows things like rewards for ad participation, but I think microtransactions to pay for gated content will be the more interesting aspect over the longer term.

I only use and recommend Brave now, but have no intention of turning on ads.

<comment><USER29> > Baking a transactional layer into the browser allows things like rewards for > ad participation, but I think microtransactions to pay for gated content > will be the more interesting aspect over the longer term.

People have tried microtransactions in lieu of ads, many, many times over the past decade. Hardly any users are interested, and those that aren't don't want to pay enough to keep the lights on at the websites they are visiting.

This is an idea that's incredibly popular in techie circles, and falls flat on its face with the rest of the world (Along with 'floss twice a day', 'just run your own mailserver', 'manually updating my OS/browser/dogsitting app is better, because I can control what runs on my computer', and 'compile all the software you run from source'.)

<comment><USER7> Integrating a digital wallet into a browser elevates money to a first-class citizen on the web.

That changes everything about microtransactions.

I now have one location to top up and manage my wallet and can effortlessly pay for content across the web in a consistent, familiar way.

The historical approach of endlessly getting out a plastic card and typing private information into a multitude of different forms will seem terribly old-fashioned.

<comment><USER29> People have tried this too, and it has failed.

<comment><USER7> Which other browser has done this?

<comment><USER30> Remember Flooz?

<comment><USER31> Was Flooz a browser or just a digital currency? 1999 was a very different time as well for the internet. In particular, ads and trackers were not even remotely as pervasive and invasive.

<comment><USER30> It was an IE Toolbar, like everything back then

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't think that this kind of thing is the solution, but when I click on a link on HN, in a browser with no blockers installed, and I see this - [https://ibb.co/jhDfC5k](https://ibb.co/jhDfC5k) I can't help but believe the web is broken, and we need some sort of fix.

<comment><USER33> I hate ads as much as any reasonable person, but I don't think this is an example of the web being broken. Wired is a magazine, it shouldn't be at all surprising that they would try to monetize their content. They have the right to be as obnoxious as they like about it.

What's broken is the model of advertising on the web, the unregulated cesspool of greed, malware, tracking and dark patterns that led the public to inevitably reject ads wholesale as soon as it became widely known that it was possible to do so, and easy to implement.

It's business and corporate interests that have to find a way to survive on the web, but the web itself will be fine with or without them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I find these kind of bait-and-switches to be really tasteless. Company X is created originally with the sole purpose of blocking ads and privacy trackers - and then decides to monetize using some kind of "good" ad. (I'm looking at you, AdBlock Plus.)

<comment><USER35> This has always been Brave's monetization strategy. And it's also completely opt-in. By default the software simply blocks ads, runs incredibly performant, and has a large number of built in privacy respecting features which can be toggled on a per site basis (scripts, tracking, etc). If the user wants to see native ads, they can. If they want to see 'cleaned ads, they can. If they want to see no ads, they can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This idea is very interesting. It reminds me of how YouTube shares their ad revenue with content creators, and that in turn grows YouTube's network and business.

Similarly, the act of web browsing is content creation. It's data creation. Very valuable data.

If users are currently blocking ads in their power, why not entice them back by allowing them to make an appropriate amount of money from the data that only they have the power to give to others? 'Sell your data.'

The more one browsed or shared of their data, the more one would get paid. It's simple business.

It sounds like a model that would bring diversity to the economy.

</comment><comment><USER37> I started using Brave a few weeks ago. Not because of privacy concerns - mainly out of curiosity.

One thing I did NOT expect is the noticeably faster performance. (Presumably due to the lack of ad content loading.)

This is a big deal at my house. We turned off wired Internet service to save money during a job search. (There's only one HS vendor in our neighborhood. (And this is in Austin. Go figure.) We're tethering our phones and foregoing any high-bandwidth use cases.

Has anybody published performance benchmarks?

</comment><comment><USER38> According to the article, Eich will pay you in a "cryptocurrency" which cannot be exchanged for cash.

> Brave will give users a 70 percent cut of its advertising revenue, which > Eich estimates could work out to about $5 a month. Brave will pay users with > its own bitcoin-style "cryptocurrency" called Basic Attention Tokens or BAT, > which has traded for as little as 12 cents and as much as 46 cents over the > past 12 months, according to CoinMarketCap. Today, there's no way for users > who receive BAT for viewing ads to swap their digital currency for dollars, > but Eich says Brave will partner with cryptocurrency exchanges to make that > possible.

<comment><USER39> > Today, there's no way for users who receive BAT for viewing ads to swap > their digital currency for dollars, but Eich says Brave will partner with > cryptocurrency exchanges to make that possible.

I'm confused by this statement - there are currently several exchanges you can use to trade BAT for USD. Is this suggesting that the UI will be made more clear in the future, or are users actually blocked from withdrawing BAT from their wallet?

<comment><USER40> Right now Brave require a creator account to be linked to Uphold which automatically exchange BAT to USD (at a 1.95% fee). Uphold balance can also be withdraw to a bank account in the US or to other cryptocurrency.

<comment><USER6> I remember simpler times of the Web 1.0 age when Epinions would just mail me a check every few months. Outside of the reviews I wrote on their website, I didn't have to lift a finger to get paid.

<comment><USER39> But you did have to share your address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brave Browser on Android has been my goto since 2017. It's the Chrome browser, but with an adblocker, which obviously the main Chrome app doesn't support.

That said, I really don't like this scheme. Paying users with a worthless e-coin while putting your own ads on top of blocked ads? Why would site owners opt in to this? So they can monitor 2 different ad systems present on their site?

Not to mention, the conversion probability of a user who blocks ads is much lower than that of someone who sees ads daily. So how much would you really be earning by serving ads to people who specifically downloaded an adblocking browser?

</comment><comment> phoe-krk FTFY: _The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Watch the Ads_

If you do not want to watch any ads on the Internet, period, here's nothing the Brave browser can offer you than uBlock Origin cannot.

</comment><comment><USER41> Currently, there is no way to actually make money by using Brave, it's essentially Chrome with some adblocker pre-installed.

<comment><USER42> I'd rather use Chromium with uBlock than install Brave.

<comment><USER43> I'd rather use Firefox with uBlock Origin installed.

Remember, uBlock still displays ads, uBlock Origin does not display ads.

<comment><USER42> Thanks for pointing that out. I actually use uBlock Origin as well myself. I prefer Chromium because it supports hardware acceleration on Linux, which Firefox doesn't consider to be important enough (even though they pride themselves on open source).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm a fan of Brave's mission, and the browser itself is great (basically Chromium but faster), but the practice of hiding publisher's ads but showing their own, which may or may not end up compensating the publisher, seems fairly unethical.

I think a couple things would make it less objectionable and more awesome:

1\. don't block verifiably "clean" ads by default, which basically means lightweight, no JavaScript, etc. Something like AMP for ads. If a publisher wants to show their own ads, given them a reasonable way to do so without buying into the whole centralized Brave/BAT system.

2\. don't allow users to keep the money they "earn" from viewing the replacement ads. Ideally hold it in an escrow smart contract that automatically sends it to a charity if the publisher doesn't claim it after a certain amount of time.

3\. come up with a way for publishers to easily allow users to pay per- article. I don't pay for a WSJ subscription but occasionally I want to read an article. Let me easily pay, say, $0.25 per article, otherwise I'll continue to find ways around your paywall.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can't wait until someone automates it.

<comment><USER7> I'd say good luck with that.

To acquire BAT at scale fraudulently from rewards will likely cost more than it's worth, and to convert it into fiat will require going through KYC / AML processes AND avoiding being flagged by Brave's fraud analysis.

I don't think they've published anything on fraud analysis, but what their research team has published is indicative of the calibre of Brave's team: [https://brave.com/research/](https://brave.com/research/)

<comment><USER39> > to convert it into fiat will require going through KYC / AML processes AND > avoiding being flagged by Brave's fraud analysis.

Are they going to require KYC to withdraw from your wallet or something? Otherwise I'm not sure what keeps people from withdrawing and trading on whatever sketchy exchange they want.

<comment><USER46> > Are they going to require KYC to withdraw from your wallet or something?

yes, afaik.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sounds interesting but I just do not want to support a company with Brendan Eich at its head.

</comment><comment><USER48> Kinda reminds me of Ad Buddy from the series Maniac.

</comment><comment><USER49> NetZero is back, baby!

</comment><comment><USER50> "All Advantage" circa 2000. If anyone cares to recall.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm still waiting for Brendan Eich to apologize for donating $1k to the campaign to to pass Prop 8 which held up same sex marriage in California for five years.

</comment><comment><USER52> Brave got to where it is because Brendan Eich is the face of it.

Everything I've seen about the browser seems tied to him, and generally his interactions with people seem testy and confrontational.

It's ironic that Google owns the browser and ad network. Brave wants to change that by creating a new browser and ad network. But until they can make brave less tied to him it'll be hard.

<comment><USER53> You could say the same about Apple and Steve Jobs. Please post legitimate criticisms for Brave/BAT. Your comment reads like a hit piece.

<comment><USER52> I stand by that I wrote 100%. He is a polarizing figure and that is impacting Brave. The early adopters they need care about this facet of the founder. If you don't recall his financial support of that controversial anti-gay ballot measure in California, you are either being ignorant or dishonest, I'm saying the people they need to adopt Brave care about this, not just me.

Full disclosure: I'm working on an alternative to Brave in the crypto space. But I'm not shilling it here.

But speaking about disclosure. What I find interesting about discussions of Brave are that many people chime in here without specifying their positions. I don't have BAT nor shorts on them. Do you have positions, do you own BAT or have a financial interest in their success?

<comment><USER54> Polarizing figure can be a good thing, especially for early adopters and getting a foothold in the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I stopped using Brave because of this exchange: [https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1118689481777766400](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1118689481777766400)

>Our value add is free speech. A free speech browser. With a free speech app store. With free speech money. (Bitcoin.) We don't care about saving advertising. We care about saving free expression. Fundamental difference. Fundamental USP.

Edit: Not talking about anyone's politics here, I'm talking about Brave's focus on advertising - not end user's freedom.

<comment><USER56> Looking at that exchange, The person who said that is making a fork of Brave, so...</comment></comment>


Podcasters are seeing encouraging numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/apple-podcast-analytics-first-month/ <comment><USER2> From the article:

> the few listeners who do skip ads continue to remain engaged with the > episode, rather than dropping off at the first sign of an interruption.

I'd bet that this is because fast-forwarding through podcast ads is pretty trivial. If podcast apps tried to do anything to make the midroll ads unskippable, you'd probably see a different pattern. (Here I'm thinking of things like online video ads and the TV networks' fight against the TiVo 30-second skip button.)

For my part, I often skip through ads that I know have no relevance to me, but listen to ones that might have relevance. It also helps that many podcasts bring their own humor to the ads rather than just reading the ad copy verbatim, so there's still some entertainment value even if I know I'm not going to buy what they're selling.

<comment><USER3> I suspect why the majority of people don't skip is because the ads themselves aren't terrible. The worst aspect of ads is repetitiveness, which is why Hulu with ads is unwatchable. Of the podcasts I listen to which are typically rated high on popularity, the ads typically aren't repetitive: they feel ad-hoc since they are done differently per episode, where it's almost like it's part of the entertainment. The only repetive ads I'm aware of are from Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History, which start to get tiring because they are exactly the same episode to episode.

<comment><USER4> I think at least some of it is how podcasts are consumed compared to other media. I (and I think most other people) listen to podcasts while doing something else, (jogging, washing dishes, driving, etc), which both makes pulling out my phone to fastforward through ads difficult, while at the same time, its easy to just shift my focus to whatever else I'm doing until the ad ends, making them less annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like there's a lot of great podcasts coming out in the last years. Every time I tell myself I'm getting back into podcasts I usually subscribe to 10 of them, then the backlog gets too huge and I delete everything again.

My new strategy is just to subscribe to one or two. Usually ones with seasons and not weekly / monthly and one common topic which helps me stay attached to it.

The ones I enjoyed most in the last weeks are:

My best find this year, interviews with prisoners in San Quentin Prison produced by prisoners: [https://www.earhustlesq.com/](https://www.earhustlesq.com/)

Currently listening to this one and it feels like House of Cards as a podcast: [http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html](http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html)

The famous: [https://serialpodcast.org/season- one](https://serialpodcast.org/season-one)

<comment><USER6> Slow Burn is incredible. I haven't enjoyed a serialized podcast as much as that since the first season of Serial. I haven't been able to find many other serialized podcasts in the same vein. Sad that Slow Burn just ended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 2017 for me was the year of the podcast. I came across podcasts such as The Daily from the New York Times, a 20 minute rundown of the day's biggest stories, and Hardcore History from Dan Carlin, 4-6 hour epics. Alongside podcasts on politics, tech, and more. Podcasts are consuming my TV, movie and music streaming time.

My biggest issue are the ads, they are very generic and it seems the same types of companies dominate the space. Primarily services like zip recruiter, blue apron, and other subscription types. Also, the ad reads are very hit or miss when done by the podcast presenters.

I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad model right (personalized ads, professionally read) along with suggestions and curation of suggested podcasts.

<comment><USER8> The ads have worked on me. My family gets two Blue Apron meals a week and we bought a Casper dog bed. Some ads I find genuinely entertaining. For example, one podcast has very long audible podcasts that I enjoy listening to. I don't subscribe to that service, but I have bought books that they discuss.

Most of the time though, I do skip through them.

> I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad > model right

No thanks. That means I'm being monitored beyond just counting my download of an MP3. I'm happy that the ads are about as personalized as the ads in a magazine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one that thinks more ads in podcasts are a bad thing? I am the 10 percent that skip ads. But more ads will force users to act soon

<comment><USER10> I think there is a breaking point, but considering that most people who watch TV (at least here in America) seem to be okay with watching 20% advertisements....I think there is a lot of headroom in the amount of ads on podcasts.

<comment><USER9> What I really find interesting. The really big podcasts in Germany are all ad free. Maybe patreon maybe donations via sepa bank transfer but no ads at all. There are exceptions yes. And that is ok. But what I find worse are platforms which try to hog the listeners to themselves. Spotify or Google play music podcast. The joy of using podcasts is the same as the internet you just need a podcatcher instead of a browser and can listen to anything you want anywhere anywhen. And also with apps with great user interfaces. How come someone would even want to listen to Spotify podcasts without 30 second skips, chapter marks and most importantly resumable playback where you stopped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a good opportunity for people to recommend some excellent and well-researched podcasts for various topics.

"Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin is such an example and I wish it was easier to find other such podcasts of similar quality.

<comment><USER10> You mentioned a history podcast, so just remember, you asked for this. I don't think anybody matches Dan Carlin for presentation (although his historical accuracy can be lacking) but here are some that are probably the most approachable.

* History of Rome: A narrative history of Rome from foundation to fall of the western empire

* Revolutions: A long series of various revolutions around the world (American, French, Haitian, etc. etc.)

* The British History Podcast: Chronological history of the British Isles, very detailed, hundreds of episodes in and the Normans have not showed up yet.

* When Diplomacy Fails: Covers various political/military events throughout history. Currently doing a deep dive on the Korean war.

* The China History Podcast: Episodes on all topics from Chinese history from ancient times to the Mao era

* The History of Byzantium: Picks up where History of Rome ended and continues the story until (theoretically) the fall of Byzantium.

* The History of England: Similar to British History, but moves at a far faster pace, currently in the reign of Henry VIII

There are of course many many more, but these are probably some of my favorites.

Shameless Plug: I create a podcast on the First World War called History of the Great War. I think it is pretty good, at least the more recent episodes.

<comment><USER12> I came here to recommend (1), (2) and (6) - and frankly, I prefer both Mike Duncan's and Robin Pierson's style over Dan Carlin's, as the latter easily becomes grating to my ears. Give me Duncan's deadpan humor any day.

Thanks for the other podcasts, by the way!

<comment><USER10> I also prefer Duncan and Pierson to Carlin, but I have come to accept that I am in the minority. I have not actually listened to the last few Hardcore History episodes because I can't handle Carlin's "quote voice"

<comment><USER13> I look forward to checking out your podcast! I'm just following Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast and he's nearly up to WWI historically, would be a nice segue to new content.

<comment><USER10> My advice, skip the first 30ish episodes, they are rubbish, I had no idea what I was doing, and I have not had time to go back and fix them. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> People are dual broadcasting their video feeds in podcast version. Radio stations are also releasing their daily radio ep's in podcast form. Paid shows also release a audio only as a teaser to get people to subscribe.

Its basically free promotion of your show, just release it in mp3 as a podcast and let it trend.

Example, Joe Rogan has his 3 hour daily video show, but he also broadcasts his show in audio only. His mp3 podcast version is one of the most popular podcasts out.

[http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry- rankings/](http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/)

</comment><comment><USER15> A little self-promotion here, but I've been working on an app for listening to, sharing, and talking about podcasts. I listen to well over 20 hours of podcasts a week and was always frustrated with how difficult it is to share episodes I've enjoyed.

We have a very tiny beta right now with < 100 users, but if you like podcasts you might like it! (you can sign up at [https://banter.fm](https://banter.fm) OR just email me, steve @ banter.fm)

<comment><USER16> If you had a web version I could use without leaning too heavily on the "listening to" part I'd be much more interested

As it stands my knee-jerk reaction when I clicked was "aw it's just a podcast app - I already got one of those"

Good luck though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm hoping someone rolls podcasts into a music subscription service so that I don't need to listen to these ads. I know that Spotify has done this a bit, but iirc their selection is pretty limited.

<comment><USER18> I have no issues with ads being left in.. hit the skip button 3 times on the phone and you are past the ads.

JRE.. skip the first 5-7 minutes until you pass the "Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night all day!" and you are set as well. Same with Tim Ferriss.. but there it's about 4 minutes

But mostly I listen to the ads.. they are usually less than a minute anyway (especially since I listen to everything at 1.5 speed... some at 2.0)

<comment><USER19> Then, Rogan has an entertaining way of reading the ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Turns out Evan Williams was right, but much too early.

<comment><USER20> Or maybe he set podcasting back 5 years by giving up on it ;-)

If he was a true believer, he'd have realized Medium isn't the long-form content he was looking for. He didn't fully commit to Odeo, and that's why he gave up when Apple made its move. I still remember thinking "Fuck!" when I saw that "Try our new thing twttr" banner at the top of Odeo. I liked where they were headed.

Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form text on a computer.

Medium.com should have been Odeo 2.0

It's just so much richer to listen to a monologue, or socratic debate, in most cases. @ev should pivot Medium into being the biggest podcast publisher in the world, by sponsoring every high quality podcast and building a better version of patreon for podcasters. There's a lot of amazing people that should be podcasting and are not.

<comment><USER21> > Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form > text on a computer. Medium was a bad idea.

LOL I would obviously prefer reading long form text on a book, but do you really prefer audio to digital text? Story telling is one thing, but for most of what I'm reading I think a low-bandwidth, search-free environment (audio) is a bad match.

<comment><USER20> I learn a lot more from audiobooks, podcasts, and youtube videos these days than from any other source. I listen at 1.5 or 2x speed and find it as close to an "I know kung fu" experience as it gets.

<comment><USER18> Agreed... difficult to read a book on a run or while walking to the train station

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a paying listener of Sam Harris's Waking Up - He has a lot of interesting guests and I get create book recommendations. I have also been enjoying the weeks and ezra klein's work, and heard "where it began" is good.</comment>


Show HN: Tired of doing coding interviews on Skype? We've built this - <AUTHOR> http://remoteinterview.io <comment><USER2> I've written code in a few job interviews (and been in the opposite position, asking someone to write code in an interview). In all cases they were more interested (rightly so) about the conversation around the interpretation of the question, discussion over the analysis of the problem and logic required to satisfy the problem. The act of writing the code was very much secondary. Like "now prove you could implement what you just described". Decontextualised appraisal of the resultant code written seems somewhat to be missing the point. Perhaps other places do things differently but this seems to be based on a shallow analysis of the interview process as I have experienced it.

I can see that there are facilities for discussion in the app, but when the examples say "this guy's fast" and show up and down-voting based on scores, and then arriving at a hiring recommendation based on those scores... that seems to point squarely at a mechanical hiring process. Then again it says "top coder" rather than "best software engineer" or "most competent developer". Maybe it's a cultural thing.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that "This guy is fast" is not the right way to judge but we just meant to demonstrate rating feature. Every interviewer can rate and judge in a subjective way.

Disclaimer: I am part of remoteinterview.io team.

<comment><USER4> I once worked with some very, very successful direct marketing people, and along the way gathered some stellar advice on common advertising tropes. One of these is, "don't talk down to your audience."

Few people challenge this axiom of marketing, but the real insight lies in identifying what's "talking down". It's easy to assume that you must _intend_ to talk down to your audience in order to fall in to this trap, but it's just as easy for down-talking elements to enter your marketing organically.

"This guy is fast" talks down to your audience because it assumes that there is no more subtle way to illustrate the rating feature, which can also be understood by your audience.

You should change this ASAP. The people conducting coding interviews are often programmers, and this overly simplistic means of evaluation will make them feel objectified in a big way. They will associate that objectification with this tool, and they will avoid it at all cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> I for one, do take speed as a measure too when interviewing a candidate. This and how quick he came up with a solution, very much show how good the candidate is.

<comment><USER5> But like any test-taking situation speed depends upon your frame of mind. Candidate can clutch because they're hyper-aware of the time pressure. Not how they'd normally behave. SO there's a lot of noise in that measure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, also, as a programmer I don't usually like someone looking at my code over my shoulder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few similar tools have popped up recently. Like this one, they look pretty good, and like improvements over skype et. al. However, they seem to solve the easy part of the problem and not the hard one.

The problem is evaluating a candidate. For that, one likely needs to do some live-coding in some capacity along with several other things. While the existing tools are subpar, they are good enough. The hard part is what questions to ask and how to go about judging the answers as to produce a good hiring signal without alienating candidates.

You can tell that remoteinterview is trying to address the real problem from their marketing copy. However, I am highly skeptical that giving team members the ability to up and down vote with comments on an etherpad + video is a big chunk of it or even an "in".

If I were working in this space I would only worry about how to produce evaluation materials given some information about a company and a candidate. It very well may be that it is not easy enough or possible to do that at scale or cost-effectively, but that seems to be the thing companies struggle with, not having to use skype.

<comment><USER7> If you're looking for product that takes a more serious stab at actually being able to evaluate the candidate during a coding interview, check out [https://coderpad.io](https://coderpad.io).

We let you execute pretty much any code as you write it in real-time, letting you observe how a candidate approaches a problem much more holistically.

<comment><USER8> What sold me on coderpad.io was the README_IF_YOU_ARE_HACKING_ME file in the working directory. Contents below:

Hello! Hope you are enjoying CoderPad. I've added this file because a lot of people have emailed me voicing security concerns. Usually these concerns are to the tune of "programming language X lets me run Y system call."

They're not wrong, you can run any system call! Security in CoderPad happens at the LXC sandbox layer. You are currently in an ephemeral container that will be destroyed upon your departure. You are welcome to run any privileged operation you can get your hands on. CoderPad is, after all, the highest fidelity programming interview tool there is.

That said, if you do manage to uncover something like privilege escalation or data created by other users, I want to hear about it. You can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com, and I look forward to hearing from you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Tired of doing coding interviews on Skype?_

No.

\</comment><comment>--

This is the problem with question based marketing messages. You'd be better off going with something like "Skype isn't the most effective solution for technical interviews." or "Everything Skype brings to coding interviews and more." That way, even if I'm completely happy with Skype, I'll probably still have a look.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, we are developers mostly. But I guess you should visit the site (which was our main intention with posting to this awesome place)

Please do have a look, it would be great if you tell us what do you think of our idea :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seriously? Commenting _while_ the sausage is being made?

I'd prefer you tell me what sausage you want, then you can comment on the taste. But commenting on the way I turn the casing machine handle to the left, rather than the standard right, is going a bit too far.

<comment><USER11> Yes and no - part of a coding interview shouldn't just be can they get to the answer, but how do they get to the answer. If the solution to someones FizzBuzz is simply pre-coding the answers and printing them to the screen line by line, checking that you haven't reached the X limit in the request, then yes - you made it output everything correctly, but seriously, that's not someone who I would want working for me. In this case, you should also be judging how someone makes the sausage, and how they use the casing machine.

On the other hand, another part of a good interview should be the conversation surrounding the coding exercise. Seeing if someone can come up with a better solution, or even explaining their thought process. Just because they cranked the casing machine to the left doesn't mean it is wrong either.

Either way you should definitely be reserving your thoughts and evaluation until the end, since people can easily make mistakes and quickly turn around and impress you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My biggest problem with coding interviews is not the actual communication tool (Skype/etc) but rather that the developer is pulled completely out of their environment. Take away my vim/snippets/custom key bindings/ide plugins/etc and then ask me to code? Feels like you're cutting off one of my arms right before you measure my performance.

<comment> why-el If you are asked a question that you think you can't reasonably answer without your environment, then either you are too dependent on it or the question was unreasonable. In both scenarios just tell the interviewer that and I am sure there will be other ways.

<comment><USER13> It's more an issue of comfort through familiarity for me, and I'd imagine, for most programmers in general.

Sit me down in front of Visual Studio and I can write code just fine. It's just I do so while consciously thinking about the editor and how I'm using it more than I would in my preferred vim environment, where things are largely subconscious through familiarity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm guessing it will take a bit of work to support multiple languages/frameworks/platforms. A simpler solution may be to allow an interviewer to spin up a machine with the image/environment of choice (AWS, DigitalOcean etc) and do some kind of screen sharing with markup - easy to circle some code on a touch screen tablet. Interviewers typically specialize in languages and platforms, so every interviewer can maintain their favorite "interview machine image".

The feature I like best is the group comments - I would recommend restricting read access by all interviewers until everyone's feedback has been read by the interview co-ordinator, and the everyone gets to see all the comments during the hire/not group discussion among a possibly distributed team.

Also, I'm wondering why take on (what I assume is) the rather onerous task of supporting voice chat? Wouldn't it be simpler to adopt Skype (thru an API?) rather than fight it? My humble two cents: focus on where you're adding value, not call quality, security etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Skype API hmmmm that's a nice idea, since WebRTC is in early stages. And it is actually helpful for others to see each others comments. This helps them not make redundant votes and each comment is a unique comment. I understand why you suggest that though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great implementation for a bad practice, idea. This tool IMHO encourages the worst interviewing practices.

      I'd prefer to hire like this:
      1. Collect resumes/recommendations
      2. Ask candidates to implement a simple project (~8 hours)
      3. Ask remaining candidates with reasonable/better solutions to come on-site.
      4. See how behave during code review of their project
      5. Give them a small simple problem to solve
      6. Ask them to tell you their solutions time and space complexity
      7. Ask them to write a unit test for their solution
      8. Ask them to code review your solution to the same simple problem and contrast it to theirs
      9. Ask them 1 or 2 simple theory questions that demonstrate their understanding depth. Maybe "How does virtual memory work and why was it invented".
      10. Buy them lunch/supper.

This focus of this is 1. Can they produce 2. Can the work on a team 3. Do they grok computer, with 1 and 2 being weighted more.

<comment><USER16> > 2\. Ask candidates to implement a simple project (~8 hours)

I've never understood why employers seem to think asking for 8+ hours free work before even possibly getting an interview is fair to the applicant.

<comment><USER15> Its more fair then the "what can I make you code under pressure, without references, while I stare at you" tests, and its more like what you are hiring them to do. Its also good for figuring out who you don't want to fly across the country to interview with you. It also lets people self select and go- I don't know how to do this- maybe this isn't the right job for me. I'm assuming these tasks are toy tasks and the company isn't getting IP value from them- I'd let your candidates open-source what they build, so long as they don't say why they (really) built it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a large community of musicians who supplement their income with Skype lessons these days. For $45 I can have an hour with some of the best musicians in world and folk music for example - heroes whose CDs I listened to as a teenager. Whether they're in Florida, Dublin, Germany or here in Seattle, location has stopped being a barrier. It's awesome.

But Skype and Google talk are both terrible for it; there's no easy place to show notes (of the wordy kind or the musical kind), a mock instrument would be great too, to show learners new chord shapes, for example. And the audio encoding on the video streams are optimized for speech, making music a bit warbley at times.

It'd be great to see tools like this adapted to music lessons, and I bet it's more sustainable business with more opportunities to create real value (store lesson plans for example).

<comment><AUTHOR> This and remote teaching (of code etc) are few of the things tools like these can adapt to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> CSS nitpick: check it out on a large/wide screen, the header is messed up due to (I assume) percentage-based font-sizing + the fact that the logo is not scaling accordingly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me look into it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If this was a website where I could practice solving algorithm problems and people could comment at points during the playback, I would totally sign up.

<comment><AUTHOR> ooh, that is a nice idea! But not within our scope :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks promising until I say this 404:

[http://remoteinterview.io/notBrandedandUgly](http://remoteinterview.io/notBrandedandUgly)

Brand your 404, it's part of your site and this generic hosting 404 template with references to WordPress doesn't do you any favors !

<comment><USER21> You are judging a landing page for a product beta by the looks of the 404 page?

<comment><USER20> I judge a book by it's cover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> His string manipulation is very good!

<comment><USER23> I noticed this too. Plus they're using a bad example. Looping an array with "for..in" in JavaScript is one of the most known antipatterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try Sococo for this - share docs, desktop, apps, webpages, or all at once. Use the web app or download the full-featured one. Sign up or participate as a guest.

My point is, there are full-featured collaborative tools that an interviewer can use already. {I work at Sococo}

<comment><AUTHOR> Sococo is nice :)

People use Hangouts + Docs usually for this type of work. Hence, our interests in making this tool.

<comment><USER5> Yeah plenty of room in the product space right now. Not sure which will win - purpose-built apps for situations, or general-purpose integrated apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks promising! Surely gonna lessen the hassle of conducting a remote coding interview.

<comment><USER25> I have used this tool as an Alpha user and I am pretty much satisfied with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I recognize Stephen Merchant's face used as 'Tim Burke' in the 'Hire the Best Candidate' section. Are these all famous mugs, or is that the only one? I don't think I recognize any others.

</comment><comment><USER27> You built it! awesome! I can't tell by the survey monkey landing page you set up. Looks like some awesome graphic design work though. Post to HN when you are ready to launch, not just to gather emails.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are gathering emails to see how much signups to expect at the launch time. And then prepare our app/server for that type of traffic. As a HNer, I know it sucks not being able to directly try the app. But we figured this was a necessary step to take :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is it using WebRTC or some proprietary plugin?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, yes we used SimpleWebRTC as our base plugin (highly recommended). Some minor modifications though. Other than that, we setup a TURN server as STUN doesn't work at many times. That was it I guess.

<comment><USER29> I've had good results with OpenTok ([http://tokbox.com/opentok](http://tokbox.com/opentok)).

We used that after halfway successfully setting up our own TURN server but not trusting its current reliability, security, and ability to work in the future and not wanting to spend any more time and resources on it.

[http://www.tokbox.com/blog/webrtc-and-signaling-what-two- yea...](http://www.tokbox.com/blog/webrtc-and-signaling-what-two-years-has- taught-us/)

<comment><AUTHOR> tokbox was our backup plan :) WebRTC is very unreliable as of now. So we will still test how current solution works for the beta users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I see you have used Firebase. I am very interested to see how you have achieved this without a solid backend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good eye :) We have a thin nodejs server too, we use it mainly for the linkedIn login system (since Firebase doesn't do linkedin by itself yet). Firebase is highly recommended. We didn't have to deal with creating our own REST server and handling the security of the thing. That too when you want to build a MVP to test the idea quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> You should mention that I won't be able to access the app instantly and will be notified later.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion. We will modify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [https://codility.com/](https://codility.com/) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> codility,interviewstreet etc are mainly used to filter out the noise. The usual action after shortlisting from codility is to have a real-time/one-to- one conversation and to analyze the thought process of the candidate. Our tool comes in handy at this point. To have a discussion based test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looks nice, but how is it efficient than screen sharing and watching him code?

<comment><USER3> This tool combines code editor, compiler and Audio/Video/Text chat with powerful rating system. All in web without installing anything.

Disclaimer: I am part of remoteinterview.io team.

<comment><USER34> How well does it deal with java maven projects (if it does deal with it at all)?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are currently using ideone's api.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> something similar [https://www.hackerrank.com/x/codepair](https://www.hackerrank.com/x/codepair)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. But I guess there is still room in this space. The problem with hackerrank is that they are trying to get their hands in all of the hiring process.

The fact that most people still use Hangouts + Docs shows that the problem is far from solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What languages does it support?

<comment><USER3> More than 10 languages so far including JS, C++, Java, ObjC, PHP, Python and Ruby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> And so the commodityfication of "the coder" begins.

Imagine if you wanted to hire an electrician, but before you let them into your house, you ask to follow around to see them connect and cut wires? Then you would judge their skills by how fast they can cut and put back together a wire. Thats the level that this "screen sharing, watch him code" does.

Is this field that much hammered by pretends?

"Top coder" is repulsive.

<comment><USER38> I would argue that electricians are far more commodified and that the trend this is a part of is the opposite of commodification.

An electrician is usually licensed, which means they are above a certain, fairly low bar. The average person is far more concerned with avoiding the worst electricians. Beyond that price is the biggest factor and the electricians are interchangeable. Give me the best price for soy that isn't rotten.

In coding jobs, employers are trying to identify the best, worst, etc. You can argue against this as a test of quality & qualities, but the net effect is not commoditization.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the objective of this tool and many others is to improve the ability of the employer to identify skills quickly and without false negative...

<comment><USER37> "Identify skills quickly" thats exactly what this tool does not do.

It identifies the most needy/desperate engineers.

Anyway, I for sure would not sign up for such a thing, it tells me the recruitment agency or potential employee views software engineering as "typing code skills", like hacker-typer.com. In my opinion a software engineer works more closely to the business and requirements elicitation than just implementation.

<comment><AUTHOR> no, that example on the page is just one type of rating the employer can give. After all, these are private comments about the candidate. Employer will write what matters to him.

Like to me speed does matter, someone unusually fast at coming up with a solution would definitely get my upvote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> For me this makes it easier to filter out companies. If I see remoteinterview.io I would simply move on to the next company .

<comment><AUTHOR> Why?

<comment><USER39> Because I don't believe software is built around the ability to memorize algorithms from computer science courses and recite it. Even if you apply the algorithm, you are still coming from learned memory, something you read and recanting with slight variations.

If it was based on the specific technology and questions and in the context of their business problems, I would understand. I hated memorizing sorting algorithms and be asked to pretend like I'm reaching an epiphany as I'm doing the problem live. Frowning profusely, and slowly writing the solution, and emerging as if you just solved a complicated physics equation.

Tell me to build a small project in the stack you are using, if I don't think I will be able to do it, it will show.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Vim gf-command improved - <AUTHOR> Since a week ago I remembered myself of the awesome gf-command in Vim, which allows you to open the current filepath under the cursor in a new buffer. I thought to myself: Why am I never using this? Oh yeah, because this only works for filepaths relative to the buffer. As a javascript developer most of my time, that won't help since I have webpack-configured projects which allows me to do some super cool absolute imports, but throws away the complete usage of the awesome gf-command.
So I started a Vim plugin called gfi (goto file improved). The goal for me was to create a plugin that is plug 'n play, zero-configuration required for you to enjoy this simple but efficient plugin.
So how does it work? When using this plugin your regular gf will be remapped and when pressing gf it always tries to resolve the file under the cursor using atleast the following logic:
- relative to the current buffer
- relative to Vim's current working directory
- based on the git directory it is located in
Implementing these 3 checks for every filetype made sense to me. Just having these 3 checks already makes gf already much more efficient want useful.
If these 3 fail to retrieve a path then some filetypes may have additional checks. Javascript-like projects can be webpack-configured and thus may use absolute imports. These are done by checking the package.json in the root of the project.
Golang path resolving for the import-statement is also taken into account. Since these imports are directories, the directory will be opened rather than a file, but it's still more efficient, since gf does not open directories by default.
A goal I have is hoping for contributions for as many languages as possible so that the gf command will be more useful for many more developers.
If you have feedback or like to contribute, send me a mail or do your contribution via https://github.com/kkoomen/gfi.vim <comment><USER2> What's the difference between this and a properly setup file type plugin? As here [0] with python lets you open imported modules using `gf`.

[0]: [https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a87b72cc316e065d66dcbcf7ec1c...](https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/a87b72cc316e065d66dcbcf7ec1cde330adef3a3/runtime/ftplugin/python.vim#L30)

<comment><AUTHOR> Another thing I just tested using "includeexpr", "path" and "suffixesadd" is that it is not possible (as far as my knowledge goes) to let vim open files correctly if the import path is a directory. Which my module does very well for javascript-like projects.</comment></comment>


Televangelist says God told him he needs 4th private plane - <AUTHOR> https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/653202002 <comment><USER2> This is off topic for Hacker News.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> "In a tube surrounded by demons"

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=AdH2DGSXjss#](https://youtube.com/watch?v=AdH2DGSXjss#)

</comment><comment><USER4> A real God would have told him he needs hundreds of private planes, not a mere four.</comment>


Sites built using the StackOverflow platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.stackexchangesites.com/ <comment><USER2> The official directory is at <http://www.stackexchange.com/directory> . I believe it's opt-in, but it's got quite a few sites.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone here used a free, open-source SO clone? Any thoughts on which are good or bad?

<comment><USER4> The best hands down is OSQA the english CNPROG fork, written in python. See <http://osqa.net> and, for an example of the site actually running: <http://meta.osqa.net>.

The developers for OSQA are currently building a tool to import a StackExchange dump. Two thumbs up for simple migration!

There is also a promising one in ruby called Shapado.

For a comprehensive list, evaluating project health and pointing at demos, check out this StackExchange answer: [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack- overflow-...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow- clones/37953#37953)

<comment><USER3> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An alternative to rank/crowd source stack exchange sites:

[http://buyersvote.com/categories/the-best-stackexchange- com-...](http://buyersvote.com/categories/the-best-stackexchange-com-sites)

</comment><comment><USER6> isn't startups.com a SO site? it's not listed

<comment><USER7> It is, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I simply can't believe so many people are paying that exorbitant price tag ($1600 to $16000 an year) to have zero-profit niche Q&A website.

It doesn't make sense financially, and they could sponsor free software development of the already mentioned clones.

<comment><USER9> Someone mentioned in another HN thread or a comment somewhere else that none of those sites are actually paying anything yet, so maybe they're hoping that by the time they have to start paying they'll be making enough money to make it worthwhile.

<comment><USER10> A few site owners have indicated that they will be paying for StackExchange, but I suspect you're right that most won't.

[http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4118/will-you-pay- fo...](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4118/will-you-pay-for- stackexchange)</comment></comment></comment>


New XPrize competition looks for a better underwater robot - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/new-xprize-competition-looks-for-a-better-underwater-robot/ <comment><USER2> I can't wait to see what kind of cool technology comes out of this. It's unfortunate there is no R&D funding provided. As someone who works in the underwater robotics industry, it's fairly simple to make something that will work at 100m. 2000/4000m is something else entirely. This essentially precludes anybody but existing organizations with already developed capabilities from participating(i.e. WHOI's REMUS 6000, which is my early favorite), If anyone has some money sitting around and wants to form a team, just drop me a line!</comment>


The market for driverless cars will head towards monopoly - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/06/09/the-market-for-driverless-cars-will-head-towards-monopoly <comment><USER2> Completely misleading title. There's a big difference between an oligopoly and a monopoly.

Couple of ways to differentiate:

1\. car sharing ownership by the members.

2\. price

3\. style/selection

4\. safty

There's no complex training(like ms office) and it's not free so not sure there's a way to run away with the market.</comment>


Why The iPhone has a 3.5" Screen - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/

<comment><USER2> Let's also add that it is 3.5" screen with a 3:2 ratio. If you picked a different ratio by this logic, you could have a different size screen.

I do wonder, going by this logic there probably should be 2 form factors for handhelds: one handed operation, two handed with the device fitting in one hand comfortably. After that you are in tablet territory.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure why this is phrased as iPhone vs Android like there aren't 3.5" Android devices. I own one, in fact, and chose it over the larger Samsung phones for the same reason. It's nice how the Android ecosystem caters to those who prefer devices of any size.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a SGSII in my hand right now and I can reach every part of the screen with my thumb. Either I have huge hands (I dont't) or the OP has really tiny hands.

</comment><comment><USER5> Holding a Galaxy Nexus in my hand right this instant, I can hit every relative green part that the author shows on the iPhone on the Galaxy Nexus.</comment>


Is There a List of Questioning URLs? - <AUTHOR> http://IsThereAListOfQuestioningURLs.com <comment><AUTHOR> Just a stupid list I made to track some of these single serving sites that have a question as their URL.</comment>


New York Police Set to Deploy 1,200 Bodycams Around the City - happy-go-lucky https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/04/07/us/ap-us-nypd-body-cameras.html <comment><AUTHOR> My prediction? Illegal police behaviour will continue to be unpunished. What police need is an independent, civilian, internal-affairs division.

One that does not do street beats, and isn't expected to investigate its co- workers.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not being mandatory and uploaded to 3rd party servers means this is dead on arrival.

<comment> purple-again 3rd party servers is a good thing for accountability and the only real downside is the exhorbant cost that will be charged for it.

<comment><USER3> The other downside is that a lot of raw footage that normally would not be available becomes available.

As a trivial example, consider cam footage of a raid on a home where a couple happen to be having sex.

We already let our 911 calls be played on cable news, I can't see body cam footage being any different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> it's not even close to enough. there are 34000 uniformed patrol officers in the NYPD. 1200 is tiny, even for a pilot program. also, knowing the NYPD, I'm sure they will be looking for any excuse to consider the program a failure and not roll this out to the whole force. they're allergic to accountability and consider the general public to be their enemies.

<comment> purple-again 3% is tiny for a pilot program? I would say that's an overly large investment for a pilot program.

<comment><USER4> for a department with a significant problem with excessive force and a terrible reputation in the communities it is supposed to be protecting and serving, 3% is an unreasonably small program. police bodycams needed to happen 10 years ago, honestly.

<comment><USER5> The purpose of a pilot program is not to alleviate the problem, it's to work out kinks, and get a preliminary measure of efficacy in a constrained environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who watches the watchmen? David Brin.

Puplic cellphones everywhere do the job way better. If there was a appthat would emg switch on recording near you so the amount of evidence gets bigger that would be nice.</comment>


Soundex – a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex <comment><USER2> Metaphone is a much better alternative to Soundex for phonetic indexing of English words. Phonetic indexing is an interesting concept, and inspired by Metaphone, I was able to write algorithms for Malayalam[1] and Kannada[2], two Dravidian (Indic) languages. They work well for searches and suggestions.

[1] [https://github.com/knadh/mlphone](https://github.com/knadh/mlphone)

[2] [https://github.com/knadh/knphone](https://github.com/knadh/knphone)

<comment><USER3> Thank you, I am a frequent user of your olam dictionary. Is there a JavaScript port of mlphone available ?

<comment><USER2> Thanks :) There isn't one in JS, but it should be really easy to port.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone interested in this should also look at the metaphone and double metaphone algorithms. Soundex handles American English names decently well but metaphone and double metaphone work better for more general cases

<comment><USER5> Also, Kölner Phonetik if you work in a German-language context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is important to distinguish two use cases of phonetic algorithms:

\- Recovering English spelling from English pronunciation. Soundex and Metaphone are good at this.

\- Undoing the torments of Eastern-European sibilants in various transliterations of surnames, e.g. Tchaikovsky, Tschaikowski, Tchaïkovski, Ciajkovskij, Tsjaikovski, Tjajkovskij, Tsjajkovskij, Csajkovszkij, and Czajkowski. Here, Double Metaphone or Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex do a better job.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daitch%E2%80%93Mokotoff_Sounde...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daitch%E2%80%93Mokotoff_Soundex)

<comment><USER7> The second category essentially concerns spelling variations. Years and years ago I built a tools for searching old documents and to deal with all the spelling variants these contain I implemented something called the Gloria Guts algorithm, which ranks words based on how much their spelling differs. As I recall it worked much better than sounded for our data set

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > as pronounced in English

I was curious about whether or not there was an IPA version (which would then work for any language) -- one of the first results I found was Eudex, which looks a little different (since it's a hash of the pronunciation) but more versatile.

[https://github.com/ticki/eudex](https://github.com/ticki/eudex)

<comment><USER9> But how do you map from written form to IPA phonemes? For instance french is going to have a big problem there. Foie /fwa/ is a good example as has o, i and e written, but you pronounce a and some sort of u...

<comment><USER10> Why? All you need is the rules that govern French writing. They clearly exist, else humans couldn't read French either. It can't be harder than English where the rules amount to "look it up in the dictionary".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> After using this, metaphone and other interesting similarity metrics for data cleaning in OpenRefine, I was looking for a python library that had these sorts of similarity metrics.

I found this quite interesting (and comprehensive) project that includes regular string distance (fuzzy search) methods, fingerprinting methods and a huge number of phonetic metrics including 7 different soundex methods: [https://github.com/chrislit/abydos](https://github.com/chrislit/abydos)

A few others worth mentioning:

Scala: [https://github.com/rockymadden/stringmetric](https://github.com/rockymadden/stringmetric)

Java/Scala: [https://github.com/vickumar1981/stringdistance](https://github.com/vickumar1981/stringdistance)

Postgres: [https://github.com/eulerto/pg_similarity](https://github.com/eulerto/pg_similarity)

R: [https://github.com/markvanderloo/stringdist](https://github.com/markvanderloo/stringdist)

Clojure: [https://github.com/Yomguithereal/clj- fuzzy](https://github.com/Yomguithereal/clj-fuzzy)

</comment><comment><USER12> During my graduate degree, I was looking into phonetic search, and a lot of the papers I stumbled across were using an expanded version of soundex called Phonix[1] as their basis of new algorithms. However, I had a lot of trouble finding an implementation I could use, so I implemented it in Python.

After that I build a search engine programme that would look up swear words that were phonetically similar to input terms, as I thought that my fellow students might get a laugh looking up their own names. In the end, neither Phonix, double metaphone nor Soundex really produced any funny results.

plugs:

\- Blogpost: [http://olsgaard.dk/phonixpy-phonetic-name-search-in- python.h...](http://olsgaard.dk/phonixpy-phonetic-name-search-in-python.html)

\- Github repo: [https://github.com/olsgaard/phonetic_search](https://github.com/olsgaard/phonetic_search)

[1] Gadd, T. N. "'Fisching Fore Werds': Phonetic Retrieval of Written Text in Information Systems." Program 22, no. 3 (1988): 222–37.

</comment><comment><USER13> I learned about this when digging through the PHP documentation. They have the function built-in [https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.soundex.php](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.soundex.php)

In a similar vein, Levenshtein distance is also built-in which is very useful for fuzzy searching [https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.levenshtein.php](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.levenshtein.php)

<comment><USER14> I once built a search engine for web agencies that you could search through by the technologies they worked with. All I did to make it fast was index all the data for a company into a few blobs and then fuzzy search the text blobs with Lucene, which used Levenshtein distances under the hood. It was lightening fast, stupid simple and all hosted on the same VM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Clipper had SOUNDEX function, which was used to search in flat-file databases for descriptive names. SEEK SOUNDEX("Smith") and SEEK SOUNDEX("Smythe") would return the same result. [https://www.itlnet.net/programming/program/Reference/c53g01c...](https://www.itlnet.net/programming/program/Reference/c53g01c/nga0031.html)

But Harbour, an open-source implementation of Clipper superseded it with Metaphone - [https://harbour.github.io/doc/hbnf.html#ft_metaph](https://harbour.github.io/doc/hbnf.html#ft_metaph)

</comment><comment><USER16> I once trained unsupervised character embeddings and used levenshtein distance with embedding cosine as character replacement weights. And it worked better as a similarity metric than soundex

<comment><USER17> Sounds interesting. Can you expand on what you mean by "with embedding cosine as character replacement weights"?

<comment><USER16> Edit distance allows for insertion, deletion and substitution. Some allow custom cost for substitution (e.g. characters closer together on a keyboard have lower substitution cost than other; for typo normalization). What I describe in my comment is to use the cosine similarity between learned character embeddings as substitution costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm always annoyed that spellcheck/correction on iOS is really flawed in that is doesn't try to take a guess at phonetic matching so you can't just guess at how something is spelled phonetically you often have to have the first X letters correct.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is a python implementation of the same by me - [https://gist.github.com/codemaniac/4b23ea0b324a25c580b1192cd...](https://gist.github.com/codemaniac/4b23ea0b324a25c580b1192cdf66327a)

<comment><USER20> And I have an implementation in Lua/LPEG: [https://github.com/spc476/LPeg- Parsers/blob/master/soundex.l...](https://github.com/spc476/LPeg- Parsers/blob/master/soundex.lua)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've found phonetic similarly algorithms like this to be very useful for data cleaning work, especially when your data generating process involves transliteration. That is, if your users know Language A but your data involves Language B, your users will record terms from Language B with highly varied spellings that nonetheless sound very similar when pronounced. Phonetic similarity algorithms help you cluster these spellings together by sound so you can map them to a canonical term from Language B.

</comment><comment><USER22> When I implemented Soundex, an extension I did was to also return alternative hashes, for skipping of common surname prefixes. I didn't end up using it in production, so I can't say whether it would've helped, in practice.

[https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket/soundex/#%28def._%28%28li...](https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket/soundex/#%28def._%28%28lib._soundex%2Fmain..rkt%29._soundex- nara%2Fprefixing%29%29)

</comment><comment><USER23> Interestingly, `soundex` is bundled along with the standard functions in most commercial software. In one of my first search function I wrote, I used `soundex` to run against previous search words and suggest a known search word as 'did you mean?' to catch the spelling errors. This is around 2008-2010, and was an easy way out of what Google search was doing at that time. It was quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is used by several states to assign driver license numbers. [1]

[1] [https://www.community-insurance.com/learn-how-to-read- your-d...](https://www.community-insurance.com/learn-how-to-read-your-drivers- license-number/)

<comment><USER25> I wonder why Wisconsin went through the trouble vs some incrementing id. It seems like it was understood 2 people could end up with the same number so the last two digits were added. That would rule out the benefit of unique ids without requiring a single central system to ensure uniqueness.

It does make it harder to fake an id, perhaps that was the motivation.

Edit: Some more interesting info for the states that implement this. Also, TIL Illinois drivers can appear to have the exact same DL number. [http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html](http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/numbers/dl_us_shared.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It seems that something like this is in play in the Hacker News search. The first results will be alike, but the rest are using some soundex-like algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER27> See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone)

</comment><comment><USER28> Used this in my last project. If you're curious, a lot of databases support Soundex searches natively.

</comment><comment><USER29> Why is this only for "names" and not words or even phrases in general?

</comment><comment><USER30> Based off of whose pronounciation?

<comment><USER31> It's the first sentence of the article:

> _Soundex is a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound, as pronounced > in English._

<comment><USER32> Yes, but whose pronunciation? Barbara, for instance, can be pronounced with two syllables or three.

<comment><USER33> It works by favoring false positives over false negatives. In the specific case of Barbara, it doesn't matter how many syllables, because non-initial vowels are ignored.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Turbine - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine <comment><USER2> The Trouble with Tesla:

Like a number of people I have gotten together a number of flat disks to try and make a working Tesla turbine (yes it was easy to build and it did work.) and then I tried hitting the web-sites for some information to improve it.

First problem I ran into, many of these sites seem to be ran by "true believers", they lack not only turbines doing real jobs, but even real numbers for the machines they have built.

Some of the claims are for more energy out than energy in, something I know is impossible! When you see that claim, you know you are dealing with a kook or a con-artist. Second problem, a lot of them seem to think that they are going to make fortune when everyone starts to using Tesla turbines instead of IC engines. Because of this they have on purpose left out some of the construction details on their web-sites. Anyone who tries to build a Tesla turbine without figuring out the fine details will have piece of junk as far as performance is concerned.

Third problem, I have _NEVER, EVER_ seen what appears to be a reliable report on the performance you can expect from a Tesla turbine. Can it be 25% efficiencies? I believe so. Can it be a lot more? I don't know. Additionally, I do see a lot of problems trying to get it to be better. It just is not worth the money and effort to me personally to try and do all the things needed to find or create the better designs.

________________________________________

Common problems promoters of Tesla turbine designs do not mentioned:

Disk Mass:

Because it is easy to stack a large number of disks in a small volume some of the web-sites about Tesla turbines like to report in Horsepower per cubic inches to show how much better than IC (internal combustion) engines Tesla designs are. Of-course in real life how small your engine is matters less than how heavy it is, and it is easy to make a heavy Tesla turbine. In terms of horsepower per kilograms weight Tesla turbines do not do that well unless the disks are very, very thin. Thin but strong disks however turn out not to be so easy to make or cheap in costs as you would think at first.

Disk Speed:

Tesla turbines can spin very fast when they are not under any loads. Very fast indeed! Because of this it is easy to surpass the strength of most common metals and plastics used to make the disks just by using input feed pressures in the 100s of PSI if you are using compressed air or a steam boiler. Once a high speed turbine starts to fail due to centrifugal effects any unbalanced forces will quick tear the disks apart to the point that the breakup of the disks acts more like an explosion than anything else. This high speeds problem add two more concerns - balanced disks & gearing down the speed.

Balanced Disks:

The high rate of rotation means any imbalance in any of the disks will generate large side forces that even if they do not interfere with the operation of the turbine, they will drastically increase the wear and tear on the bearings holding the main shaft of the turbine. Gearing Down: Tesla turbines are well know for their very high speed/low torque output. One needs a very high gear ratio to reduce the rotation rate down to something usable with most machinery, but one does also gain a high torque on the geared down output. However, the low torque of the Tesla turbine's main shaft means it is very sensitive to the friction of the main pickup gearing and bearing, plus that gearing will need to operate at a high rate of speed as well.

Disk Spacing:

The performance of the Tesla turbine depends on the boundary layer, a simple rule (not a fixed one) is the best performance is with a gap between the disks of 3-5 times the thickness of the boundary layer. However, this layer's thickness depends on what fluid you are using (i.e. air, water, steam, condensing steam, combustion gases, ....), it's speed when injected, it's temperature at all points inside the turbine, and the same for the pressure and still a number of additional factors. I noticed very, very few sites try to figure how thick this layer is, then space out the disks according to that data.

Flat Disks:

Now here is the true real killer of Tesla turbine efficiency. Imagine a simple Tesla turbine, a stack of 11 flat disks each 10 inches in diameter with a .1 gap between them and an exhaust hole in the center 1 inch in diameter. The surface area for the driving fluid entering the Tesla turbine is the (Circumference (or Diameter times Pi) * the width of the input area) = (10 _Pi)_ (10 _.1) = 10_ Pi square inches or about 31.4 square inches. But the exit hole is only one tenth the size. So any fluid entering a Tesla turbine gets slowed down while inputting energy into the Tesla turbine and at the same time must exit from the smaller area of the exhaust hole. But notice it gets worse, the area of disk gaps doing the exhausting is (1 _Pi)_ (10 _.1) = Pi or about 3.14 square inches but the area of the hole is .5_.5 _Pi or about .79 square inches. Exhaust Hole Size: To solve the two above problems we have to do two things, both affect the efficiency of the turbine. First we have to make the Exhaust hole closer in size to the surface area of outer surface. So we get sqrt(10Pi /Pi) = sqrt(10) = about 3.16 in radius if we exhaust from one side only. This of-course does not take care of the surface area of the exhausting disk gaps which are still too small at 6.32_Pi _10_.1 about 19.87 square inches. To make up for this we need to taper the thickness of the disks so as to increase the gap size between the disk's surfaces as they near the center.

________________________________________

Problems resulting from trying to fix the above:

Non-Flat Disks: Making the tapered disks is no longer the simple design most people claim the Tesla turbine as being. It requires a precision lathe instead of just cutting out sheet metal.

Balance and vibration:

The metal disks need to be make of a very uniform material so that they can be balanced easily.

Boundary/Gap spacing:

With tapering disks you start to lose the ideal gap for efficient operation, if you change the taper to increase the flow the efficiency drops and the total power output drops. If you don't taper the disks to get efficient power conversion you get restricted flow and the total power output drops. Balancing how much taper is enough is again something I see missing off all the web- sites out there. Add in the fact that if you are using steam, combustion or other hot gases the nature of the fluid flow changes in different parts of the Tesla turbine as energy is extracted and gases cool because of this. Your disk design just became a major job.

Exhaust Size:

K.E. = .5 _Mass_ V^2 as the fluid in a Tesla turbine tends to flow at the same rate the disks spins. If the exhaust hole is .1 the size of the outer diameter, a very rough guess is that the fluid exits with only .1^2 = .01 or 1 percent of the original K.E. This suggests that we can convert 99% of available power to useful output. That is why you see people raving about how great Tesla turbines are going to be. However, at that size of an exhaust the outflow is very restricted by the small exhaust hole and we get very little power. The redesigned exhaust is .632 the diameter of the input giving us the exhausting fluid as still containing 40 percent of the original K.E. So we have already seen the turbine drop from 99% to about 60% efficient. The restricted area exhausting from the disks into the exhaust hole 'suggests' 19.87/31.4 or another one third drop in efficiency. So already we see a big drop in possible performance and the disk gap issues will only make things worse.

Disk Surface finish:

Again something rarely looked at. It should be clear that if the disk surface was perfectly smooth there would be very little drag to transfer K.E. to the disks. However, too much drag just turns the K.E. to heat in the disks and fluid. So what is the best finish to have on the disks? I have a guess, but that is all it is.

________________________________________

Conclusions:

Building a simple but low efficiency Tesla Turbine is easy, however the moment you decide to make a real power plant from one the work needed is on the same order, maybe more to develop and build a I.C. engine. Tesla turbines do have a lot going for them, but high end designs are not that easy to make otherwise lots of people would be using them today already.

Earl Colby Pottinger

Reference [https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/tesla-turbine- efficien...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/tesla-turbine- efficiency.238364/page-2)</comment>