Why designing for open source can be difficult - <AUTHOR> https://gilli.is/journal/why-designing-for-open-source-can-be-so-difficult <comment><USER2> Oh boy, we're redesigning VLC interface those days, and does this article is spot on on numerous part we've seen.

0\. A lot of things are not-intuitive, and we've had to do basic UX and looking at our users to understand what the needs where (we don't use telemetry/spying). And it took a lot of time...

1\. And yes, this requires to rethink some of the basics stuff for VLC usage.

2\. And the nerd-porn part is very true: we solved it with 3 layers of access. Simple usage should be direct, Advanced usage for normal users should be within 2 clicks, and Geek/Pro options can be further away.

And we will have options for different usage of VLC that will impact a bit the UI (but we're making that as simple as possible, to not make the codebase too complex -> more time)

3\. Finally, a lot of things had to be decided without consensus, and that requires leadership that is not the usual way we work.

I can share some of the work, if some people care...

<comment><USER3> > we're redesigning VLC interface those days

why?

<comment><USER2> > why?

Because this is the now main complaint we receive and because the usages are changing.

But we will do our best so that the people who just use the basic player don't have much changes for them.

<comment><USER3> > But we will do our best so that the people who just use the basic player > don't have much changes for them.

Ok, thanks, I hope so ;-) I was asking because for me the UI is fine and usually when software gets "redesigned" for no apparent reason it means features get removed because "simplicity".

<comment><USER2> > I was asking because for me the UI is fine and usually when software gets > "redesigned" for no apparent reason it means features get removed because > "simplicity".

We are not removing features. If a feature is removed, it is a bug, and it will be fixed.

Seriously.

<comment><USER4> Hmmm, how about the problem bug you can't have "[" or "]" in the directory name of media files?

eg: /home/user/stuff/foo [192kb]

Worked fine with VLC 2.x, but VLC 3.x won't find the files in the directory.

It was _really_ annoying having to go and manually rename lots of directories, recreate .m3u files to match, etc. Wasted hours on it. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I prefer serving the average user who doesn't have time to dive into the > settings and tweak everything before he is finally able to use the product. > Striving for ease of use removes the need for most settings.

Serving average users by providing sensible defaults is a good idea but why does so many think that removing settings is a natural next step?

I've joked[0] about making a slide deck and start selling training to every modern software company :

> _Have your cake and eat it too!_

> How to please all your customers at once - Combining sensible defaults with > the forgotten art of making your software configurable.

[0]: [https://erik.itland.no/courses-id-like-to- teach](https://erik.itland.no/courses-id-like-to-teach)

<comment><USER6> Multiple configurations are a maintenance burden. So, all else being equal, it's better not to have them. That said, not all else is equal, and configurability can indeed increase the user experience. But if your defaults are so good that very few people take advantage of the settings, you're better off dropping them.

<comment><USER7> At what point does user experience trump the ability to use the software at all in the first place?

UX designers are often seduced by reductionism because it makes their lives easier and combined with various hand-wavy aesthetical rationalizations, proceed to ignore several immutable aspects of reality:

Developers of an open source project usually have little insight into how their project is actually being used out in the real world. They only know about their use cases and (if they're lucky) that of their co-maintainers and bug reporters.

If at some point in time, an option was added to make some piece of the project do "x" instead of "y", it is overwhelmingly likely that the option _was put there for a very good reason_. Just because you don't know the reason doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

If the project has more than a few dozen users worldwide, then it is extremely likely that for every UI widget, command-line option, or configuration setting, there is a non-trivial subset of users who rely on that thing being there for their workflow. Remove it, and at best you lose those users. But more often you make them angry as well.

When looking at others' code and designs, it is a very human trait to assume that the person who created it didn't know what they were doing and that the way _you_ would do it is better. I get this and I fall into this trap more often than I would like to admit. _But it is almost always wrong_. We often look at the code in a vacuum and don't see the context under which is was written and why it is still there.

I've watched this happen time and time again with various open source projects: Person (or team) creates a successful project, maintenance of the project shifts to a new person or group who decide that the old project was "unmaintainable" and decides to a ground-up rewrite into what they _think_ is going to be a better version of the same thing. When in reality, all they have done is written a new, far less useful version of a somewhat similar thing.

Citation: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you- should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never- do-part-i/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _Adding features and settings is fun and often done without much second > thought. In the end, it results in a bloated beast that causes a lot of > confusion and frustration, especially among the type of users most open- > source projects are missing, the average user who just wants to get things > done._

A few large open source projects have tried to improve usability by removing features and options. Look at the history of Gnome 1 through 3. Professional UI experts were paid to produce usability advice for Gnome[1], and the Gnome developers responded with the wholesale removal of configuration options across dozens of major programs[2].

Mostly I actually liked this, because I prefer clean programs that I don't have to mess with. But a lot of other users were unhappy, because many desktop Linux users prefer knobs. Which is fine!

But what about Windows users and open source applications? Here, success may be more of a mixed blessing. I've heard several open source maintainers say that their Windows users are more likely to get angry with volunteer maintainers, and to display the sorts of behaviors mentioned in [3]. So widespread popularity isn't always a goal. Sometimes people just want to make a niche tool for other enthusiasts.

So it's worth asking whether any given project is seriously trying appeal to "the average user who just wants to get things done." Some are, some aren't.

[1] [https://people.gnome.org/~calum/usability/ut1_report/report_...](https://people.gnome.org/~calum/usability/ut1_report/report_main.html) [2] [https://ometer.com/preferences.html](https://ometer.com/preferences.html) [3] [https://medium.com/@fommil/the-open-source-entitlement- compl...](https://medium.com/@fommil/the-open-source-entitlement-complex- bcb718e2326d)

<comment><USER9> > Sun GNOME Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Sun Microsystems, Inc

Do you know the story behind why Sun was doing this work? I had no idea they were involved in this major culture shift in Gnome. I thought they were more invested in CDE.

You can see their focus - business users, scientists, creatives - and how that might have led to the current design philosophy of Gnome.

<comment><USER10> > Do you know the story behind why Sun was doing this work?

See e.g. [https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/sun-joins-gnome- foundati...](https://www.gnome.org/press/2000/08/sun-joins-gnome-foundation/). Quote:

> Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced it is joining the GNOME Foundation [..] Sun > also announced it will adopt GNOME 2.0 as the future desktop for its > Solaris[tm] Operating Environment.

Be warned, above announcement is from August 2000.

<comment><USER11> OpenSolaris used Gnome2 by default until Oracle killed it.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h And I believe OpenIndiana is still using MATE as their default DE, which is... sorta funny actually; the fork/continuation of OpenSolaris running the fork/continuation of GNOME 2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > part of the reason why more designers don't contribute to open source is > that often it requires you to rethink the entire product from the ground up

I think that's the key. Unlike software development, where you can improve things here and there incrementally, with design you need to have an overall view of what you want to do, where you want to get, how the final product should look. You can't tweak a margin here, add a border there over time, it doesn't work.

And indeed, I suspect that's also why there are so few designers contributing to open source. Anything of value they might suggest often means a big redesign of the app, which nobody will be willing to do. It's a tricky issue, to which there's no easy solution other than spending a lot of time and/or money, both of which are often lacking in open source projects.

<comment><USER13> > Unlike software development, where you can improve things here and there > incrementally, with design you need to have an overall view of what you want > to do, where you want to get, how the final product should look.

There's a downside to this too though. Take swagger-ui[1] for example. A few years ago I installed it at my company. It was great. Then managers wanted more features, so I peaked into the source and found it wasn't too hard to augment the HTML/JS. I added a search bar to filter HTTP APIs by dynamically altering the JSON document. I added a button to generate a PDF. I added a drop down to select release version from a database. It was quick and easy and hackable.

Then they got sponsored and redesigned it from the ground up "professionally" using React. I recently tried to upgrade to the latest version and... the level of complexity has gone up several orders of magnitude. Whereas before I just opened index.html and started hacking, now there _isn 't_ an index.html at all. It's all a labyrinthine nest of components and configuration files that somehow get magically compiled and bundled with some build process and I have no idea how to even start porting my features over.

I suppose it all makes sense to full-time React developers, but seeing as I mainly work in embedded Linux drivers, I don't really have a desire to learn React since I was previously coerced into learning AngularJS which I now regret.

So I guess my point is: if you pull in professional designers to design your FOSS, it may become less accessible and hackable for non-designers like me.

[1] [https://github.com/swagger-api/swagger-ui](https://github.com/swagger- api/swagger-ui)

<comment><USER14> I don't understand how professional designers lead to React. It sounds like funding let to more complex design and more complex development, but those two don't lead to each other. I highly doubt many professional designers will insist that you have to implement their design with a specific library, much less do so themselves.

<comment><USER13> Professionals are going to use the latest and greatest tools at their disposal, aren't they? For web developers, that seems to be esoteric frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte, Webpack, Babel, etc. etc. etc. whatever the cool kids are using these days)

Compared to non-professionals who stick with tried-and-true glue (vanilla js, html, php, python, etc.)

It would be like if Jenkins got a sponsorship, so they hire professionals who rewrite the entire thing in Rust because it's the best suited for the job by the professionals' reckoning. Never mind that barely anyone knows Rust compared to Java.

<comment><USER15> > _Professionals are going to use the latest and greatest tools at their > disposal, aren 't they?_

Some might do that. Others might well tell you they have a professional obligation to make sound engineering decisions rather than chasing trendy ephemeral fashions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The FOSS development model is best suited for modular software where you have a relatively stable core and dozens of independent plugins for different purposes by different authors, all implementing a well-defined interface. Any new contributor adds stuff in parallel, without being blocked.

Other kinds of software which are a particularly good fit are non-end-user- facing middleware and libraries implementing a standard or a protocol. That standard or protocol pretty much describes what the software must do, and FOSS software often becomes the "reference implementation". Think of zlib, libpng, ffmpeg.

For the regular monoliths you need a team that is much more well-knit and communication and focus is key. Each unit of code has a lot of dependencies and it can quickly get out of control without any "social" coordination.

<comment><USER13> > and dozens of independent plugins for different purposes by different > authors, all implementing a well-defined interface. Any new contributor adds > stuff in parallel, without being blocked.

This reminds me of Jenkins, which is the most nightmarish piece of software I've ever worked with. The plugins are of such wildly varying quality that it's hard to tell if something broke because of a plugin you just upgraded/installed, because the VM Jenkins is on got upgraded etc. And it's plugins all the way down. Plugins built on plugins. So if you try to file an issue with one plugin, they'll often just point you one plugin down the stack.

You get what you pay for, I suppose, and obviously a lot of people like the tool.

<comment><USER15> Jenkins goes south because the people using the system aren't the people configuring the system.

Consider instead a system like emacs, firefox, or mpv. Where the plugins/extensions/scripts are selected and configured by the person who's actually using them. Choosing what they want ignore what they don't, the result is a system that's understood by the person who actually uses it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I agree with the article and am facing the same challenges in my own startup: how much, and what, to open source?

It's a platform that offers a simpler way of building serverless backends [1], and so it's naturally targeting developers. As a developer myself I know how much I appreciate things being open-source and free. At the same time it would come with huge business model challenges in my case and kind of erode what my product is all about (simplicity and having things taken care of for you).

While the article does not really offer any answers, I'm curious if anyone else has any experience to offer in this regard?

[1] [https://encore.dev](https://encore.dev)

<comment><USER18> I'm in a similar position as you. Our decision was to open source our underlying framework but none of our infrastructure code: [https://github.com/simiotics/shnorky](https://github.com/simiotics/shnorky)

Our customers pay us for peace of mind, which takes work (and automation) beyond the core functionality of the open source product.

Happy to discuss further.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't think that the "nerd porn" is as negative as the writer believes. If we compare FOSS to proprietary enterprise software we see how little regard proprietary vendors often pay to what engineers need at the expense of adding check-list features that attract "business" decision makers. The ability to enhance, operate, monitor, test are so much stronger in FOSS products because they are written for engineers by engineer. This can of course be taken too far, but it is, IMO, a reason why FOSS can succeed in displacing proprietary technology.

</comment><comment><USER20> This minimalism fetish is grating. Guess what you need to "just wants to get things done"? Features. If you're in luck, these are standard features, but if not, they will be exotic features that would never be built under that "less is more" philosophy. And it's misleading to think that by only implementing the most popular core features, you'll make the most users happy. Projects often _rely_ on those power users using their software, as these same power users will then advertise it by visibly creating great stuff in it and document it on sites like superuser.stackexchange. Not to mention that while every single exotic feature may only get used by 1% of your userbase, chances are most users will at some point need at least one such feature and would get disappointed by its lack.

A lot of highly popular contemporary open-source tools are feature-rich. Foobar, Winamp and VLC are all full of stuff you won't need (but what this stuff is depends on you) and extendable. Notepad++ has perhaps the largest number of menu items I've ever seen in a program. Not to mention browsers (whose feature creep is legitimately dangerous, and yet necessary), classic linux tools, office suites, IDEs, PDF editors... Even in the author's example (a sync tool), I'm not sure I agree. Dropbox with its (relatively) minimalist design was fun until at some point it broke for me (getting stuck in an endless sync loop). With some debug info, I may have found the issue and gotten it to work. The way it was, I just switched to Onedrive.

A more reasonable rule is probably "don't include features that could be split off into a separate tool without loss of efficiency or functionality".

<comment><USER21> > A lot of highly popular contemporary open-source tools are feature-rich. > Foobar, Winamp and VLC are all full of stuff you won't need (but what this > stuff is depends on you) and extendable.

I'm not sure if you're implying that Foobar and Winamp are open source. They aren't.

<comment><USER20> Oops, I should have said freeware. (Though I thought of foobar as being OS for some reason -- probably from its aesthetic and design. Winamp, of course, predates the big wave of OSS for Windows.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I recently released an open-source framework for machine learning debugging. Proper discipline can be the difference between wild success and a your project slowly sinking, like a stone to the bottom of a river.

Why? Because a customer adopting your product is risky, dangerous, and uncertain for them. They're squeezed for time to learn your paradigm. They're staking their reputation on the line with a boss, coworkers, and company.

The great irony is, that by adding features to support one additional customer, you harm the ten customers you already have. Ten happy customers become eleven "okay" customers, then twenty unhappy ones. Make the interface too complex? People will quit. Too many widgets, settings, and knobs will torpedo a project in no time.

</comment><comment><USER23> I personally prefer that applications have ideal defaults instead of removing features. It should be easy to pick up an application and use it, but if you want to change something, you should be able to. This can be by using the settings dialog, or for particularly advanced features, by editing a config file. Some users have needs that cannot be met by a bare-bones application, and usually these users depend on Open Source applications that either implement their needs or allow them to change it for their uses.

</comment><comment><USER24> Lots of this rings true, but i disagree about people only want to do the fun things.

First of all often what one person considers boring another considers fun. Optimization was used as an example, but often optimization can be really fun (its like a puzzle). More generally, in my experience with an open source project that has both volunteers but a majority of paid devs (MediaWiki), often the volunteers are motivated by making it work well for their niche and will take on really annoying projects important to their niche that have been ignored by the paid devs as not being cost-effective or a priority for whatever reason.

</comment><comment><USER25> > All this clutter is followed by adding optional themes as a solution to the > complaints people have about the user experience, which, in my opinion, can > never fix the problems because they go much deeper than the superficial > surface, and that is all that a theme can fix.

There's one case I've run into where themes are great. That is when one wants to improve a craggy FLOSS interface. Invariably a craggle will ask for an option to turn the ugliness back on and a non-default theme provides the perfect place to do that.

</comment><comment><USER26> Bibliographic info for that sweet engraving is here:

[https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/corliss-s...](https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/corliss- steam-engine/)

[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13511601M/Appletons'_cyclopa...](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13511601M/Appletons'_cyclopaedia_of_applied_mechanics)

</comment><comment><USER27> In general I feel that developers are very poor clients. Designers are better off finding freelance work or donating time to a non-profit they care about imo.</comment>


A Clever Way to Tell Which of Your Emails Are Being Tracked - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/03/ugly-mail/ <comment><USER2> Uh... clever? I had to scroll back up and double-check the date to make sure this article wasn't 10 years old.

Is the author not aware that for the last decade or so every email program/service in the world prompts the user to load images to purposely thwart image tracking?

<comment><USER3> > _Is the author not aware that for the last decade or so every email program > /service in the world prompts the user to load images to purposely thwart > image tracking?_

While that is true, people say "yes" because things don't display properly. Often elements like emoticons and whatnot are also remote images!

"Display remote images? Yes/No" is an all or nothing proposition, in other words.

The e-mail client, rather, should determine which images will display in a visible way and reject all others even if the users says Yes. It should not fetch images whose tags don't specify a width or height, or that specify one less than 16x16 pixels, and those that are positioned such that they will be clipped, or clipped by something else, so that even if filled with fetched content, they will not be visible. Basically: calculate the set of image tags that refer to images which will be obviously visible to the user. Prompt for those, and do not fetch the rest regardless of the answer.

<comment><USER4> At least recent versions of Thunderbird do allow domain-by-domain loading.

Of course, the standard user has no idea what that means, how to judge where the email comes from, or what any of the options mean beyond "see the pretty pictures", but, hey, one step at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell This is where I usually jump in and mention a web app I wrote:

[https://emailprivacytester.com/](https://emailprivacytester.com/)

Sends an email to you which checks to see how much stuff your email client is leaking. Turns out some email clients load remote content even before you click "Load Remote Images"

<comment><USER5> Thank-you. I didn't realise until I tried your tool that gmail is leaking out the fact that I'd opened an email. It runs through a proxy but it is still possible for it to uniquely identify that the email has been opened.

<comment><USER5> Just noticed that under Settings > General > Images it is possible to turn off the loading of external images. That fixed it, no longer is it loading the images up.

<comment><USER6> I have a lot of privacy concerns about what Google itself does with my data, but I do like knowing that they help prevent others from surreptitiously gathering data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any email client that permits this to happen automatically is user hostile. I really hope that Gmail doesn't do this by default.

But I use mutt, so I'm not worried. If I really have to read an HTML-only email, I have mutt configured to pass the HTML to links for rendering, but in a way that links runs confined and without access to the Internet (or anything else) in order to do so[1].

It's been a few years now, and I don't feel I've really missed anything by going back to a text-mode email client. By being able to optionally render HTML as text, I can still read the occasional HTML-only email that I need to (for example: order confirmations). The rest of the time, plain text works just fine.

[1] [http://www.justgohome.co.uk/blog/2014/02/mailcap-html- apparm...](http://www.justgohome.co.uk/blog/2014/02/mailcap-html- apparmor.html)

<comment><USER8> Are you sure Mutt's not doing this?

I read my mail with Emacs, but according to [https://emailprivacytester.com/](https://emailprivacytester.com/) , when I click on a message, Emacs parses the HTML and inserts images into the buffer. This is default behavior with the `notmuch` mail reader

EDIT: Chat with dkg on the #notmuch IRC channel shows there's a patch to fix this that isn't in a release quite yet.

My point: Be careful, even if you're using a "dumb" mail client! :)

<comment><USER9> A typical Mutt configuration relies on the entry for text/html in ~/.mailcap. It's quite common to use lynx for rendering, as in the following:

        text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput

Since lynx doesn't load images, that would be safe from this kind of tracking. But another configuration using a different renderer might allow it.

Furthermore, it is also possible to prefer the plaintext version of an email if there's a choice. From my ~/.muttrc:

        alternative_order text/plain text text/html

I can't remember ever being put out by not being able to read messages that fetch images from the web. Even if I have to open a URL, I do it in Firefox, where I run RequestPolicy.

<comment><USER8> Are you sure lynx doesn't fetch _any_ external resources? Some text-mode browsers (I forget if elinks or w3m does this) fetches external CSS by default so they can attempt to render fonts on the the 16-color terminal. :)

The "right" way of doing this (calling lynx in a network-restricted cgroup/chroot/container) sounds like a pain.

<comment><USER9> Lynx doesn't support images, CSS or script. It does support cookies and redirects (by default it prompts for both). Basically, it renders the bare HTML of the page you open, without fetching external resources. If you find it behaves differently, make sure your lynx command isn't actually symlinked to links (or another text browser with graphical/enhanced capabilities).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't Gmail serving image from it's own proxies acting as a protection against this kind of snooping?

In my understanding, opening the image loads the image from Google servers so it never hits the tracking website...

Am I right?

<comment> mike-cardwell It still leaks whether or not you viewed the email and what time, even if it doesn't leak the IP you came from.

Also of note: Fastmail also uses proxies in this fashion too now.

<comment><USER11> > what time

Not necessarily. Does Google cache the image when receiving the email, or when you view it?

<comment> mike-cardwell Google only fetches the image when you first view it. At least it did when I tested it when they first started doing it.

<comment><USER12> That still seems to be the behaviour, so it still works for open tracking just not the additional meta data. Fantastic tool you've created by the way!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not a clever way, it's primitive, and does not monitor many advertising agencies (just 3 of them).

The clever way would be to discover ALL advertisers AND prevent spying on our emails.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've always had these assumptions:

If you open an html email, you are being tracked.

If you click on a link in an email, you are being tracked (plain text / html)

Is there any email clients someone can recommend that force plain text in multipart emails? Or convert html emails to be viewed as plain text if the email isn't multipart?

<comment><USER15> mutt?

kmail used to be hugely anti html in emails so they may have more options than most for avoiding it.

In thunderbird, which is my current MUA, you can choose View > Message Body As ... > Plaintext and it will display everything it can in plaintext. There's also Simplified HTML and Original HTML as options.

> _convert html emails to be viewed as plain text if the email isn 't > multipart?_ //

Not sure if that's what thunderbird is doing but it appears to be (if I send a HTML-only email to myself the thunderbird will display it as plaintext).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just installed he extension and it seemed to give a few false alarms. One email chain with just a few acquaintances mailing back and forth was flagged.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Ugly" "sneaky" "disturbing" "unsettling". The article's author made quite an effort to present a a long-established (and _relatively_ harmless) practice as a horrible thing. What is funny in the era of really disturbing practices in invading our privacy.

<comment> mike-cardwell If companies sent letters, which when opened, silently and without your knowledge sent a signal home to tell them that the letter delivered to your house had just been opened, would that be "harmless"?

Personally, I would consider it, ugly, sneaky, disturbing and unsettling. But then it's ok on the Internet because this sort of tracking is easy on the Internet right?

<comment><USER17> Let's stretch the analogy a bit further. If the company representative is talking to me face to face and watching my reactions (Do I hear? Do I understand?) is that unsettling? Do people cover their faces when they are in a shop/bank? No, it's a natural part of the communication.

Email is just a form of communication. I believe, ut's not that harmless that someone received the confirmation that his message was opened. Of course things get a bit complicated when someone gets too much information, but simple opening emails/clicking links is something we should accept. When we are walking down the street hundreds of people see us, see what we do. Most people do not have a problem with that. I really can't understand what is so different in case of online activity, despite the fact that we are familiar with other people seeing us in real world and the Interent is still a mentally new territory for us. And this distinction between the off- and online privacy is something what actually can inhibit the development of online society imho.

<comment> mike-cardwell This is all down to what the user _expects_. When the user is having a face to face conversation with somebody, they _expect_ and _accept_ that person will be able to look at them and note their facial expressions and what they're saying. When somebody is sat at home opening a letter or an email, they don't expect the sender to know that they're doing it. Yes, many geeks understand that the sender will be able to see that they're doing it, but the average non-geek does not understand this.

<comment><USER17> Yes, you're absolutely right. However, I believe that the proper direction is to change the people's expectations towards "I'm aware that typical consumer technology doesn't offer me anonymity, just like I can't expect to be anonymous/invisible on the street with typical behavior" instead of luring them into the illusion that the internet is some completely separate world.Off- and on-line will interweave more and more and society should adjust their expectations accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's "Yesware" \- sloppy. This has been done for years and years such that it's pretty much common practice with any service that sends email now. And any half-decent mail client asks you before loading external resources. I guess it'd be nice if they specified why it matters.

</comment><comment><USER19> as much as i'd like another "don't be evil" "debate" gmail shouldn't work like that.

[http://gmailblog.blogspot.ie/2013/12/images-now- showing.html](http://gmailblog.blogspot.ie/2013/12/images-now-showing.html)

correct me if I'm wrong, but the tagging support page is for "creative pages" with doubleclick, not emails:

[https://support.google.com/dfp_premium/answer/1347585?hl=en](https://support.google.com/dfp_premium/answer/1347585?hl=en)

EDIT: ok well, turns out i'm wrong and here's how to turn off automatic image loading

[http://now.avg.com/disable-gmail-automatic-image- load/](http://now.avg.com/disable-gmail-automatic-image-load/)

</comment><comment><USER20> > Specifically, they know when you've opened an email sent by one of their > clients, where you are, what sort of device you're on, and whether you've > clicked a link, all without your awareness or consent.

No they don't, I don't do HTML mail.

</comment><comment><USER21> Weird. HTML message viewing in claws-mail refuses outright to load external images without an explicit request from the user. I have no idea why anybody would want or implement behavior different than that...?

<comment><USER22> you do, it's because the big companies who write e-mail clients that the bulk of the population use, the same companies also are involved with advertising. There's no big money behind building a good quality privacy enabling e-mail client, or browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> the simplest (and also spartan) way to protect yourself is to set your email reader to not show pictures. so you read your emails without pictures and then you explicitly allow pictures for those emails you trust (from family, friends, etc.)

"every action IS a reaction"

</comment><comment><USER24> Let me save you the trouble of even using the tool:

Yep, every email sent from a company to you for marketing purposes has a beacon and link tracking.

If you're alarmed by this, you should also know that every website you visit can track your IP, your OS and version, and your browser and version.

<comment><USER25> I think the real value is in seeing who's tracking that you wouldn't expect. Yes, most know that marketers are tracking the hell out of us, but there may be use cases that many are not aware of.</comment></comment>


Outsouce testing of hard to find bugs - <AUTHOR>

The CIO of my startup wrote to me "I think you are familiar with some startup blogs and forums", and asked if anyone has any experience outsourcing part of QA, at least for time-consuming hard-to-reproduce bugs.
We sell a data sync application, and in rare cases, it can cause data loss.  It is really hard to reproduce, but is possible.  It can take me 3 to 5 days to figure out the cause (usually a race condition or something like that).
We may or may not outsource this, just wondering if anyone has any experience or commentary on this situation. <comment><USER2> most of the QA team for my 9-5 is outsourced. what type of info are you looking for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Where do you outsource to? How is the QA doing? Are you a startup or bigger company? Were there any growing pains associated with outsourcing the QA?

<comment><USER2> an outsourcing company in india. QA is reasonable. larger company. growing pains, yes.

in my experience, one of the bigger issues we have is with the staffing cycle. the product is older and complicated. testing it isn't easy for someone unfamiliar with the industry as well as someone who has english as a second language. it takes time for any new team member to get adjusted.

on top of that, the turnaround on jobs in india is quite rapid, since their tech industry is (or, at least, was) growing rapidly. so its a constant cycle, new person -> learns -> experienced person -> quits -> new person</comment></comment></comment>


OpenSimpleLidar - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar <comment><USER2> Hi everyone. I am the author of the OpenSimpleLidar. If you have any questions about this project, you can ask them here.

Here is another my Lidar project: [https://github.com/iliasam/OpenLIDAR](https://github.com/iliasam/OpenLIDAR)

That project has a wiki: [https://github.com/iliasam/OpenLIDAR/wiki](https://github.com/iliasam/OpenLIDAR/wiki)

A big article in Russian about it: [https://geektimes.ru/post/275442/](https://geektimes.ru/post/275442/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the same low-cost triangulation approach used in other inexpensive laser rangefinders, like the one on a Neato vacuum: [https://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:995686/FULLTEXT0...](https://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:995686/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

It's dramatically different from the $20k+ LIDAR units you'd find on a self- driving car, which generally use time-of-flight.

<comment><USER4> 100% this.

Any laser scanner you'd put on a vehicle is going to be ToF, as far as I know. While this is useful for indoor sensing, you'd completely wash out the laser illumination once you have to compete with sunlight.

This would be better described as a structured light scanner. The principle is more similar to what something like a Kinect uses than a Velodyne/SICK/Hokuyo etc.

<comment><USER5> Some out there are pursuing non-ToF systems: [https://blackmoreinc.com/](https://blackmoreinc.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gene-h The scan rate and accuracy may not be the best, but the fact that they are using a linear photodiode array impresses me. The fact they were able to do all this for $35 is even more impressive, and I await the day I can purchase this from chinese electronics hobbyist websites.

<comment><USER6> Me too! I've been looking for something like this, but wasn't been able to find anything. Very nice to see this here, perhaps I'll build one if I have time at some point, or order one if it becomes available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for this. When I first started working in LiDAR nearly ten years ago the cheapest hardware you could acquire was $25,000 and completely proprietary.

It's nice to see a simple hardware hack for playing with the technology. Maybe this will encourage some intrepid engineers to build the next wave of hobbyist point cloud collection devices.

There are lots of fun applications like home surveying to 3D model generation.

<comment><USER8> Velodyne?

<comment><USER9> Personally, anywhere I can't see a price without contacting a sales rep from the company I hesitate to call hobbyist.

<comment><USER10> I agree, definitely not for hobbyists. List price seems to be $8,000 if you're just buying one of their cheapest product.

[http://velodynelidar.com/docs/news/This%20Palm- Sized%20Laser...](http://velodynelidar.com/docs/news/This%20Palm- Sized%20Laser%20Could%20Make%20Self- Driving%20Cars%20Way%20Cheaper%20_%20WIRED.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems... dangerous? Project states it uses "3mw 780nm Infrared IR Diode Laser". 3mw is enough to damage your eye if you don't blink or turn away. Since it's infrared, you won't blink, or possible even notice anything (there are no pain receptors in the retina) until it's too late.

Wikipedia list "780–1400 nm (near-IR) - Pathological effect: cataract, retinal burn"

<comment><USER12> In the US 5mW is the legal limit for laser pointers. I think that can be used as a guideline, 3mW IR is much less energetic than a 5mW green/blue laser, perhaps it's not powerful enough to cause huge concern? But I agree no amount of laser is safe for the eye. Police LIDAR guns are 905nm at 50mW, that can technically damage you too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIDAR_traffic_enforcement#How_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIDAR_traffic_enforcement#How_it_works)

<comment><USER13> The limit for visible light is as high as it is because of the blink reflex. An IR laser, having a beam you don't perceive as being bright, won't make you blink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's also a company called Scanse that has a very affordable LIDAR unit, and a ROS driver. Not open source hardware, but at $350, a pretty good deal. They use the Garmin Lidar Lite v3, which has an I2C interface, and all measurements are actually computed in the sensor. The sensor itself is around $120. They also use a shaftless gimbal motor, with a slip ring, which allows for continuous rotation.

scanse.io

They were also generous enough to leave an exploded CAD model of their design on their kickstarter page, about halfway down, just in case you wanted to see whats going on inside, or perhaps make your own, as its mostly commercial off the shelf parts, with a custom PCB to control the motor.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scanse/sweep- scanning-l...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scanse/sweep-scanning- lidar)

</comment><comment><USER15> Joe Grand developed a similar product for Parallax a while back, with a lot of interesting technical details on his site: [http://www.grandideastudio.com/laser-range- finder/](http://www.grandideastudio.com/laser-range-finder/)

<comment><USER16> The laser range finder you linked to is different than the OP's 360 degree scanning LIDAR (... as the former doesn't scan!) :-)

</comment></comment><comment> le-mark What kind of precision can you get with a device like this? The image on the github page looks very imprecise, like on the order of cm of error. If one were to scan a 3d model, could one get sub millimeter resoluton for example?

<comment><USER17> According to the hackaday page [0], the precision is indeed in the order of centimeters: 5 cm at 2 m and 10 cm at 3 m.

[0] [https://hackaday.io/project/20628-open-simple- lidar](https://hackaday.io/project/20628-open-simple-lidar)

<comment><USER18> The Neato sensor does anlittle better, about 2cm at 5m

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still don't quite understand how this works. Main components are:

\- Laser

\- Lens

\- TSL1401 line image sensor

I was always under the impression that LIDAR includes a time-of-flight measurement, which does not appear to be the case here - the TSL1401 sensor has integration times and pixel transfer times in the range of dozens of microseconds, a timespan in which light travels dozens of kilometers.

<comment><USER20> Based on the diagram, I believe they're estimating distance based on parallax rather than time of flight

<comment><USER19> I agree.

The wikipedia article on LIDAR says

"Lidar [...] combine[s] laser-focused imaging with the ability to calculate distances by measuring the time for a signal to return using appropriate sensors and data acquisition electronics."

So this is not LIDAR. Still impressive though, I love the simplicity!

<comment><USER21> The LIDAR acronym doesn't specify the specific measurement technique, although Time Of Flight is by far the most common. There are other designs with interesting differences, for example Strobe[0] which varies the frequency of the transmitted light and measures the freq and phase delay of the returning light rather than straight delay.

I believe this design still qualifies as LIDAR, just with significantly worse performance than a typical system.

[0] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/sel...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self-driving/gm-cruise-snaps-up-solidstate-lidar-pioneer- strobe-inc)

<comment><USER22> As far as I know "varies the frequency of the transmitted light and measures the freq and phase delay" is the standard way of measuring ToF in case of lasers. You modulate the laser diode by a signal of a wide range of frequencies and you subtract returned signal (after cleanup). The observation is done on a spectrum. Low frequencies give you wide range but low precision and high frequencies higher precision but lower range but you can use them enhance precision of the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Did the same exact thing back in 2015 that used the omnivision sensor in wiimotes, having the benefit that the sensor readily reports the position of detected infrared spots, so no cpu-heavy postprocessing needed. The 20MHz clock for the sensor was taken from CLKOUT from the controlling avr cpu, so only three parts on the rotating part (laser, cpu, sensor).

I would recommend adding a slit and a bandgap filter to reduce the amount of non-laserlight, because i had big problems with false positives from stray light (sunlight etc).

</comment><comment><USER24> This is super awesome! I've been taking Udacity's SDC and I wanted to play with some LIDAR mapping on my own. Been debating for the longest time to get the Neato XV-21 LIDAR but it doesn't really make sense to get an obsolete hardware that people salvage from old vacuums. I wish s/he will sell the PCB on a crowd-funded run like Crowd-Supply or Tindie

<comment><USER25> You can buy 360 degree lidar dev kits for a few hundred dollars:

[https://www.seeedstudio.com/RPLiDAR-A2M8-Laser-Scanner- Dev-K...](https://www.seeedstudio.com/RPLiDAR-A2M8-Laser-Scanner-Dev-Kit-with- Adapter-Certification-p-3000.html)

[https://www.seeedstudio.com/RPLIDAR-360-degree-Laser- Scanner...](https://www.seeedstudio.com/RPLIDAR-360-degree-Laser-Scanner- Development-Kit-p-1823.html)

<comment><USER24> I was going to buy the RPLidar when they did a fire sale on the first generation. But I read there was some refresh rate error so I didn't pull the trigger. Do you know if the Sweep (by Scanse) is comparable to the RPLidar (Dev version)?

<comment><USER26> it is not, afaik. The sweep has greater range in theory but its data is much noisier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What happens when someone looks into the laser? Is the damage cumulative?

<comment><USER6> The thing you're looking for is the class of the laser. Class 1 is completely harmless, class 2 is harmless unless you intentionally stare at it, class 3 is immediately harmful and class 4 is the kind of laser that cuts bone and metal.

I'm not sure what class this is, but it should be mentioned somewhere.

<comment><USER16> The BOM[0] specifies that this is a "3mw 780nm Infrared IR Diode Laser" with a link to eBay[1].

I'm finding 780nm 2.5mw and 3mw laser diodes rated at classes 3B and 3R. See [2] and [3]. The 3B class rating is given for a high end Edmund Optics laser which most probably gives out the "full" 3mW. A 3B class laser is "hazardous for eye exposure" [4].

So... hard to say, but not great?

I fondly remember a sticker that was on a lab's (very scary) laser: "Do not look into laser with remaining eye"...

[0] [https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar/blob/master/Total...](https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar/blob/master/TotalBOM.xlsx) (XLS file)

[1] [https://www.ebay.com/itm/322300023463](https://www.ebay.com/itm/322300023463)

[2] [https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=14...](https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=1487#7796)

[3] [https://www.edmundoptics.com/lasers/laser- sources/780nm-3.0m...](https://www.edmundoptics.com/lasers/laser- sources/780nm-3.0mw-modulation-elliptical-beam-laser-diode-module/)

[4] [http://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/3B/](http://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/3B/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Having only played with simple breadboard stuff years ago, could someone explain how the wiring works when connecting to something that's spinning?

edit: found it in case anyone was curious: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_ring)

<comment><USER29> Slip rings are noisy and wear out. A lot of scanning LIDAR systems use a rotating mirror with stationary electronics to avoid them. You could also use stationary magnets with coils on the rotating part to transmit power (basically a mini-alternator on the spinning side), and IrDA or something to communicate.

<comment><USER18> Exactly what the Neato 2nd gen does. Coils for power and IrDA for data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> With the latest Tesla crash in the news, seeing the point cloud got me thinking.

Since mirrors do not create the specular reflections required for LIDAR to work, does this mean a box truck covered in mirrors would be able to render at least the LIDAR portion of an autonomous vehicle useless?

Sounds like an attack vector to me.

<comment><USER30> It would only apply to a mirror that's offset to point your LiDAR to the sky or at some odd angle. If it's a flat mirror, it will just see itself approaching from 2x the distance / speed between the car and mirror.

<comment><USER14> Do I interpret your comment correctly as saying there is some redundant system that is specifically looking for anomalies in sensor readings? Would a top of the line lidar system be able to "understand" that its current inputs were resulting in erroneous outputs?

I am reminded of one of the recent Japanese satellites that was effectively an infant mortality, because of some quirk in its redundant systems. I've forgotten the details, but more or less, there were cascading failures across a primary system, its secondary redundancy, and its tertiary redundancy. So the feedback loops designed by the engineers to be negative, and mitigating, ended up being positive, and therefore aggravating, in the cruel vacuum of space. It came down to some error in an orientation sensor, and somehow, the redundant system actually ended up relying on information from the primary system. The boosters designed to slow down the rotation relied on the notion of the satellite's actual rotation, according to the original sensor.

As the story goes "Does the machine ever give the right answer given the wrong inputs, Mr Babbage?" Nearly 200 years later, we may finally becoming around to seeing that the woman that asked the question had a point, and Charles simply dismissed it out of hand.

<comment><USER30> I'm only suggesting that mirrors work both ways.

If you stand 1m away from a mirror, you will see "yourself" 2m away as a reflection. (1m you:mirror + 1m mirror:reflection) If you move 1m backward, you will see the reflection now 4m away (2m you:mirror + 2m mirror:reflection). Speed works the same way, if you step toward the mirror at 1m/s your reflection will approach you at 2m/s.

The same thing applies to LiDAR, either it sees the mirror and calculates the proper distance, or it sees the things reflected in the mirror at 2x actual distance and/or 2x relative speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As somebody with software engineering experience but little hardware experience, how do I get started with building my own Lidar? I notice he provides STL files for base plates and a component list [https://hackaday.io/project/20628/components](https://hackaday.io/project/20628/components). Still not too sure how to start though.

<comment><USER16> There's a bit of work, especially on the PCB side (there are 3 separate ones). You would have to order PCBs based on the Gerber files, and all of the components, and have a way of soldering them (they are "surface mount", which adds to the complexity).

Overall, it would be much easier if the "final" PCBs were sold as a kit. Assembling this kit would be much easier (and fun) then starting from scratch.

<comment><USER32> > Assembling this kit would be much easier (and fun) then starting from > scratch.

What is so fun on assembling a kit? The populate-the-PCB is probably the most mind-numbing part of the whole hardware engineering business. Design and debugging is where it's at

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A cool project would be an autonomous LIDAR-enabled vacuum cleaner, that would actually map out the room it's cleaning to optimize its path.

<comment><USER2> Neato and Xiaomi vacuum cleaners have integrated Lidars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's kinda surprising to find comments in Russian in code :) [https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar/blob/master/Firmw...](https://github.com/iliasam/OpenSimpleLidar/blob/master/Firmware/lidar4_main_code/encoder_handler.c#L32)

<comment><USER35> It just translates the code above it into Russian (or perhaps the one above translates it into English?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Oh man this is cool! Now we just need OpenSimpleLaserWindow and we can listen to conversations and track people's movements just like the CIA!

I forget where I read about this, but essentially, as you speak, your sound waves vibrate nearby windows, and these vibrations can be picked up with a laser and translated back into sound.

<comment><USER37> There's a few ways you can do this. The cheapest is to just get a laser and a photo diode. It's rough, but you can get sounds. An interferometer works better. It's harder to make and more expensive, but in the hobby range, at least to get decent quality. There's tons of videos and documents that you can find showing you how to make either. You can also do a lot of cool measurements with these setups

<comment><USER36> I had never heard of an interferometer, it actually sounds like something out of a movie haha. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER37> The design is extremely simple. The hard part is aligning things. That's actually the hard part about most optics. If you're really OCD you need to be even more.

Here's a little animation of one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA1qG7Fjc2A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA1qG7Fjc2A)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Shipped with a ROS driver?? I love you. I've beeen stuck on v1 Xbox 360 kinects.

Ima build this immediately.

<comment><USER39> The new Intel Realsense D435 is giving us fantastic data, and I've got two of them plugged into ROS.

<comment><USER40> This is great to hear. The new D400 devices look quite promising on paper but I have seen virtually no 3rd party reports on how well they perform in the real world.

Are you using the D435 outdoors as well?

<comment><USER39> We've only done some quick tests outdoors for now, as our device will only operate indoors. But it works well, even when pointed into the sun. Email in profile, send me a message if you want some sample video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Dig little deeper on Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/user/iliasam3/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/iliasam3/videos)

Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER42> Can Lidar provide the topography of a sidewalk?

<comment><USER43> Yes, but this system won't. It's an infrared triangulation system, not a LIDAR and at 780nm it probably won't work outdoors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> My flatmate has a robot and he has a laser that does 3d scanning of a room, pretty much like this but 3d.

</comment><comment><USER45> What is the maximum range of this?

<comment><USER18> Well, do you want an eye-safe laser? And want to operate outdoors?

The Neato is about 5m indoors, 2m outdoors with a sun shade. That reflects a lot of effort fighting the "sun blindness" problem that having a powerful IR source shining in through your picture window causes for the vacuum cleaner.

Practically, you want to modulate the laser so that you can filter for an AC signal.

<comment><USER46> > "sun blindness" problem that having a powerful IR source.

Just point out it's not as bad as one would think since sunlight has much less IR than visible light energy. The deeper IR you can go and the narrower your filters on the receiving side the better.

Other issue I had dealing with an IR comm link 30 years ago was it sucks compared to RF because your sensor aperture is very small compared to an antenna. And as you mentioned the the ground floor is much higher with IR than RF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I really want to know the math behind the triangulation process

<comment><USER48> You know the angle of light entering the lens. The tangent of that angle gives you the ratio of (the distance between the lens and the laser) and (distance between the laser and the target). Which lets you work out the distance between the laser and target.

Trigonometry rocks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> nice, high quality LIDAR are quite expensive for any robots still.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is not LIDAR.

<comment><USER51> It isn't time of flight, but I'd say that it is lidar.

<comment><USER50> No. I'm sure that you _could_ argue that _technically_ , if you go by the literal acronym, it is "LIDAR", I really don't think that flies. When you use the term LIDAR, you imply a certain amount of robustness and error rejection you only get using ToF.

Sticking the same parallax technology people have been using since the 80s on a board and calling it "LIDAR" isn't really honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Pretty cool. This could be a good primer for Uber devs.

<comment><USER53> Last article that was talking about Uber I asked why LIDAR wouldn't have lit up that lady up. The response was "LIDAR might have been disabled"... as if that was any sort of acceptable scenario.

<comment><USER54> "Because I was driving with my eyes closed" or "Because I wasn't looking" would be the human equivalent. Imagine if the driver used the same excuse, when asked why she didn't see the pedestrian and take over.

<comment><USER55> So motorcyclists here have an acronym "SMIDSY" \- stands for "Sorry mate, I didn't see you" \- which is almost universally the first words out of a car drivers mouth after they've driven into a motorcycle.

<comment><USER56> Which is because almost universaly motorbikes move faster than traffic and between lanes. So unless you stare at your rear view mirror constantly you may well miss them aproaching. Alas, at least here seeing a motorcycle driving at/under speed limit is an exception, not a rule.

<comment><USER57> Parent poster was talking about car drivers hitting motorcyclists.

You're saying that car drivers don't check their mirrors correctly when manouvering, which to me sounds dangerous.

<comment><USER58> Not saying I agree, but he leaves room open for other alternatives such as hitting a motorcycle while weaving within a lane. You won't hit a car that way, but you might take out a lane splitting bike.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's Writing Masterclass - <AUTHOR> https://taimur.me/posts/notes-from-malcolm-gladwell-s-writing-masterclass-part-1 <comment><USER2> There's a review[1] on Amazon that speaks to the kind of books Gladwell writes, and it's both funny and perhaps contains a shred of truth. It goes:

 _"There 's a school of thought that runs something like this: the average US citizen isn't very bright, has a limited attention span, and has an appetite only for the superficial. So if you want to write a book about something you feel to be important, you have to sugar the pill - with lots and lots of sugar and make sure it's a very small pill indeed.

Hence the style "American-Folksy." In this genre the author leads the reader gently along by means of first-person narrative, tons of anecdote, and just the gentlest hint of new information here and there. The lexicon is undemanding and the pace is calculated to be just brisk enough to prevent the onset of catatonia while being leisurely enough not to require any strenuous intellectual activity on the part of the reader. It's basically DisneyWords.

This is a well-tried genre used across a wide variety of subjects. In Search of Excellence and The Omnivore's Dilemma both use the same style despite their contexts being very different. And Weiner uses American-Folksy here for precisely the same reasons and to precisely the same effect. The purpose of American-Folksy is to take something that could have made a somewhat interesting 6-page monograph and stretch it out into a book-length peregrination."_

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer- reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/re...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer- reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=145169167X)

<comment><USER3> I used to fall into the camp of being frustrated at Gladwell's books.

I would buy them, read them, learn from them, but be frustrated I spent that time and only really got one nugget from the book.

Then I became an adjunct professor. Teaching in my first course, I noticed that even the brightest students would ask me to go over content again with additional examples and it brought me back to these debates about Gladwell's books.

I decided to split my class in half, into group A and group B and run an experiment (that wouldn't impact the student's marks).

For Group A, I would give a detailed two hour breakdown of "Topic #1" explaining each element of it carefully and slowly. For "Topic #2", I would give only a thirty minute breakdown of the topic comprised of three anecdotes applying the topic.

For Group B, I would give the detailed two hour breakdown on "Topic #2" and the thirty minute anecdote series on "Topic #1".

Then I quizzed them.

Both groups performed better on the anecdote topics by a fairly significant margin, and not only had the class average performed better, but, I found that many individuals who often struggled on tests were performing FAR above their averages.

When I look back to the business concepts I remember, it's never long convoluted blog posts, or books covering an array of concepts. It's ideas that can be expressed in a few words (Jelly Effect, Tipping Point, Purple Cow) and then are beaten to death with examples.

There seem two be two reasons, first and foremost, not every anecdote, example, or explanation resonates the same with each person. So by increasing the number of examples you give, you are increasing the likelihood of an individual reader being able to understand.

Second, just like we learned in elementary with spelling and times tables, to truly 'learn' something repetition and reinforcement are really important and increase the likelihood of people being able to recall and apply the concepts that are taught.

Gladwell and others present just one or two nuggets of brilliance across their books, but, I think most educators would agree with me, that it is because of that repetition and variety of example's that most of us understand and remember the concepts they were trying to teach.

<comment><USER4> So you're saying that reading notes from the MasterClass isn't a great use of time :)

<comment><USER3> It could be a great use of time to get the initial core nugget of info, but, unlike the Masterclass course itself you now have to find your own way to repeat and reinforce it. If you are the kind of person that can give yourself a structure of daily practice to implement a new concept more power to you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Despite owning some of his books, I can't say that I am a fan of Gladwell's writing style. But his Revisionist History podcast (revisionisthistory.com) is, by far, one of my favourite things to listen to and I highly recommend to give it a shot.

<comment><USER6> I came to Revisionist History with a healthy skepticism of Gladwell. I echo your sentiments about its worth. The semi-connected episodes 4,5,6 from season 1 about education hooked me.

I also enjoyed Saigon 1965 (S01E02) and the one about McDonald's french fries but more importantly the beginning of the war on fat in America (S02E09).

He unearths some good perspectives in the podcast and it doesn't have the pop- sci feel that his books do that get my BS detector going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly off topic, but I was thinking of doing Neil Gaiman's storytelling course [1] on masterclass.com. Wondering if anyone here has done it and found it useful (or otherwise)?

[1] [https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches- the-...](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-the-art-of- storytelling)

<comment><USER8> I'm only on the fourth video so far in his class but already I'm finding it useful, if for nothing other than having validation that it's okay to write the kind of stories you want to write. It's also quite interesting to hear the backstory to some of his books. If the first four videos are any indication, I suspect the rest of the course will be well worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whatever you think about the content, you have to admit Gladwell is a remarkably engaging writer.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't believe marketing culture has gotten to the point where someone is pre-announcing Part 2 of his notes and offers to notify you if you subscribe.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey, didn't mean for it to be subscribe-bait — I'd originally planned to do it all in one, but it took me a fair bit of time just to go through the first chunk of the course and write up coherent notes. Breaking it up into parts made it a lot manageable!

<comment><USER11> Don't listen to OP. You did good. Thanks for allowing me to get a notification when it's ready, instead of just making me rely on my memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The best way to read Gladwell is his articles in the New Yorker. His books are just a magazine article's worth of ideas in book length.

<comment><USER12> I feel like many if not most books are that. They turn into the same idea stretched thin so they can fill a book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's the ketchup conundrum? Is he saying that there is only one tomato based condiment? Or one maker of ketchup? Neither is true.

<comment><USER14> Heinz ketchup has 80% market share in Europe and 60% in the US. Anybody can make ketchup, it's one of the simplest condiments, like mayonnaise or maybe even salt. Yet it seems only Heinz can sell ketchup; the question is why.

<comment><USER15> The thing is, different ketchups taste vastly different. There are actually several other best-selling brands of tomato ketchup in Germany but they all taste very different from Heinz, and, in one case, objectively worse (bland). I used to think that Heinz' taste is simply due to the ridiculous amount of sugar they pack into it but it turns out that the low-sugar Heinz variety is almost indistinguishable, taste-wise.

So I'm not convinced that it's as simple as all that. I'm not saying marketing doesn't play a role but it's definitely not the only thing.

<comment><USER16> >I'm not saying marketing doesn't play a role but it's definitely not the only thing.

The 'bliss point' might play a major role, amongst various other factors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_\(food\))

<comment><USER17> This is literally just responding to someone saying "people buy more Heinz ketchup because it's tastier" by saying "perhaps it's because they made it as tasty as they could".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Step 1: take a bunch of research out of context and spin a nice bedtime tale that the data doesn't really support.

<comment><USER19> As a wise man[2] once said, "the plural of anecdote is Gladwell"[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468) [2] Ok, me

<comment><USER20> I thought [1] was going to be a link to itself ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This might have been interesting, but, as a source of truths, it did not age well. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small- change-m...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change- malcolm-gladwell)

</comment><comment><USER22> For those leveling the criticism that Gladwell's style is too simplistic and unacademic, is this stylistic form simply a product of the author or a product of a publishing industry that knows their audience will choose digestible prose over dense manuscripts (and sponsors authors and their books accordingly)?

<comment><USER23> Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, nor is either exclusive with other notions like reader expectations and capabilities being guided to some extent by the most popular and/or readily available material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In the few times I've read (or started to read) one of Gladwell's books I always think "This book would make a great article".

</comment><comment><USER25> If you haven't heard this before, listen to Gladwell's unhinged thoughts on which race/nationality/region (he seems to use the 3 interchangeably) is best at basketball:

[https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond- vs-...](https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond-vs-kd-embiid- for-mvp-and-the-rise-of-podcasts-with-malcolm-gladwell-and-chris-ryan-the- bill-simmons-podcast-ep-442)

Absolutely wild and the host is just along for the uncomfortable ride. I still have no clue what he was thinking.

There are hits, there are misses, and then there are whatever that was.

<comment><USER26> For those who prefer skimmable text, it's summed up here: [https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill- simmonss-...](https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill-simmonss- podcast-deliver-1830449233)</comment></comment>


Show HN: I've Made a Simple implementation for find up in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ojizero/gofindup <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone is welcome to comment or suggest any improvements</comment>


HomeJoy Irony – Testimonial Turned YC Trash Talk (scroll Down) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ycombinator.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see. This?

> _"Homejoy would not be where it is today without YC. Not only is the alumni > network incredibly supportive, but the YC partners go above and beyond—time > and time again—to help founders." Adora Cheung, Founder, Homejoy (YC S10)_</comment>


Building sustainable microservices – our opinions and advice - <AUTHOR> https://building.echo.co.uk/microservices-opinions-and-advice/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the Author of this. Feel free to ask any questions!

<comment><USER3> Thanks a lot for this post.

Could you expand on the techniques you use to implement idempotency in your workers/queues and in your rpcs?

I have seen a mix of doing nothing if there is nothing to do, locking, using a idempotency key and so on. But I am always curious to see what others do.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, basically all of the above. We rely heavily on database row locking and then checking if it's already done. Sometimes you just don't need to check to (for example, just updating a timestamp)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: IAvisa – Explore visa requirements worldwide - <AUTHOR> https://iavisa.com/ <comment><USER6> Maybe the OP or the makers of this website don't know, but there is a _definitive_ source of visa, passport, and transit permission info that the IATA already publishes to help airlines determine whether they should allow you on a flight. It's called Timatic.

It includes such detail as country of travel origin, country of passport issuance, nationality, duration of stay, country of transit, visa/papers held.

I would go to that source first than any other cobbled together fancy looking website that someone is hawking as a advertisement. And I don't know why someone would bother trying to duplicate Timatic by gathering their own info, which is guaranteed to be out of date. Honestly I don't even know how some small team could keep up with the 100x100 combinations of country/destination paperwork requirements.

It's found through the airline websites themselves, as they have to subscribe as a service, like: [https://www.united.com/web/en- us/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i...](https://www.united.com/web/en- us/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i=TIMATIC)

Edit: The OP's website is already so slow and low in info content, and Timatic while ugly, works. Why was this even a website worth posting about?

<comment><USER7> Fwiw even timatic is wrong. I visited your link and entered India and Turkey as departure and arrival for Indian nationals.

The system advised me to apply for an eVisa, however eligibility criteria for eVisas is exclusive to folks who have a valid EU Schengen visa. Someone who casually relied on the result without reading further would have missed this.

The bottom line is travel is expensive and visa rejections have long lasting consequences. It is foolish to rely on anything except the official immigration department website of the country in question, or an official third party who is appointed by the government.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's fair to say TIMATIC is wrong in this instance - it does say visa required and eVisa is acceptable. It did not say the eVisa can be obtained by everyone.

<comment><USER7> Sure but what good is selective, technically correct information for someone who would generally use this as part of making their travel plans. If you are going to end up checking official sources anyway, then you are better off with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Where did you get these phone numbers (for the United States)?

> Police - <USER2>

> Ambulance - <USER3>

> Fire - <USER4>

> Traffic police - 993 Mobile phones - 112 or 911

> Non-emergency ambulance - <USER5>

> Police hotline - 1800 255 0000

> Traffic police - 6547 0000

None of them seem to be correct, except for 911. In the United States, 911 is the same for police, ambulance, fire, and "traffic police". Also, non- emergency ambulance/police are all varied depending on your current location and are usually administered by the county/city/district that you're in. There is no global number (that I'm aware of) that is the nearest non-emergency police/ambulance line.

</comment><comment><USER10> I will submit my user story as an attempt to offer feedback on the site. I live in the United States and am traveling to Mexico next week.

I put in from: United States to: Mexico. The information I received begins with "Visa Required: Yes". This is news to me, as I have traveled in this manner several times and never had a visa. I don't have a visa for next week, and so I am now worried that I won't be allowed in to Mexico.

The next text presented is "Mexico city is the capital city of Mexico. Mexico is found in North america. Citizens from United states need visa to enter Mexico. In the Mexico country page you can find more tourist information about infrastructure and attractions." I do not think this text was written by someone who is a native English speaker. Some tells include not following English rules for proper noun capitalization, missing articles, and weird diction. This makes me less likely to trust the information. Is that fair? Maybe not. But it suggests the page has not been copy-edited or checked for accuracy. This text also reiterates that I would need a visa.

Then the next text says: "If you have a valid Canada, Japan, Schengen, United Kingdom, United States visa or are permanent resident you do not need visa to enter Mexico for up to 180 days." I do not understand what is being claimed here. If I have a US visa for Japan I can enter Mexico without a Mexican visa? I think what it's trying to say is if I carry a Canadian, Japanese, Schengen (EU), United Kingdom, or United States passport (not the same as a visa), I can enter Mexico without a visa for fewer than 180 days. But this is in contrast to the above text and header which claim I do need a visa.

Finally, I clicked on the Mexico page and saw that although it was missing a lot of essential information, it did tell me it's OK to possess marijuana in Mexico. A brief Google search does not make it clear if this information is correct -- I see a lot of information about how they're going to legalize but haven't yet. I am extremely concerned that this website is making a claim that, if incorrect, could get someone in serious legal trouble.

I then clicked "Visa information". This gave me a list of countries that require and do not require a visa to access Mexico. The list of countries that do not require a visa is enormous, far larger than the number above. What explains the inconsistency between the lists above and the list I'm looking at here? Even more baffling, immediately below this list of countries is text repeating the claim above that people with Canada, Japan, Schengen (EU), UK, or US "visas" do not need a visa for Mexico.

I am not trying to be negative. I am simply sharing my experience trying to use this website for a very simple use case as an actual user. After using the website, I am more unclear and concerned about my upcoming travel than I was when I started, and now I need to seek out external information to find out what is true and what is false.

<comment><USER11> The part about people with a visa for Canada, Japan, Schengen area, UK or US is just as the website says. It is not about passports. A person from a third country who holds one of above visas can enter Mexico without a Mexican visa.

[https://www.inm.gob.mx/gobmx/word/index.php/paises- requieren...](https://www.inm.gob.mx/gobmx/word/index.php/paises-requieren- visa-para-mexico/)

<comment><USER10> Okay, so the correct information is: Most countries can travel to Mexico without a visa (for tourism for 180 days or less). Separately, nationals of other countries which would require a visa can travel to Mexico without a visa if they have a visa or non-citizenship permanent residence from the CA/JPN/EU/UK/US.

Thanks, I appreciate the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It says "Amsterdam is the mail city of Netherlands" and "Currency: Dutch guilder".

I wouldn't trust a website with such low quality text and information, especially not for advice on legal/travel documents.

<comment><USER13> Reads like satire! Now I'm genuinely sad the dutch currency isn't the Dutch Guilder...

<comment><USER14> It used to be, pre Euro :)

<comment><USER13> TIL! Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Your data is wrong. I put in from "United States" to "Israel", and it said a Visa is required, which is not true unless the visit is longer than 3 months.

Also, the very first time I used it, I typed in "USA" to "Germany", and it treated the unknown string "USA" as a country, and told me a visa was required, which is also not true.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is a very though subject and cannot be treated so easily.

Visa policies might be very different from one country to another, updated quiet often etc.

What you believe to be the source of truth on the internet might not be the actual truth. For personal reasons I recently had to know whether or not a Visa was required for a personal short travel to Russia for a Mauritius citizen. Various information can be found on the internet, some says yes, some says no. Your website says a visa is required. However, a visa is not required in this case.

It's very tricky to get the correct information, always up to date, and your website can lead to people having issues entering a country.

<comment><USER17> Furthermore this website is dangerous. People travelling you thailand are advised by their embassies to bring 20,000 baht. It's often not checked on arrival but people have been thrown in jail cells and deported because of this.

Visa information is no joke. You should always get it from the local embassy website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very misleading b/c layman may think just b/c you're travelling from A to B, you're required/not required to have visa, which is not true, it depends on the passport you hold regardless of your origin of your trip. For example, if you are travelling from Canada to the US, the site says you don't need a visa, but in fact if you do not hold Canadian passport, you may need to apply for ESTA.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info, I thought the process of A: home country, B: destination country.

If you go on the site and check, going from the US to Canada the meta title is: Canada visa for United States citizens but I get your point, will make it more obvious. Thanks, good feedback!

<comment><USER19> There's a bunch of special cases along these lines - As an Indian citizen, I'd normally need a visa to visit Mexico / Costa Rica but I live in the US on a work visa which means that the visa requirement is waived.

This is just one citizenship, country pair and I assume there's a lot more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Small usability tip: When you specify your source/destination country and submit the form, the countries you entered should ideally _still_ be in the form on the results page.

As it is, I'm from United Kingdom, checking out a country to go to, I see and read the visa information. If I want to check out another country, I have to enter I'm from United Kingdom again.

And I always feel the question of "what am I looking at?" is best answered by looking at the form. I know the information is displayed in other places on the results page, but still, the form is the part of the page the user has already interacted with, and are familiar with.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wife is from Philippines living in Denmark and we had to go to Jordan, Aqaba. Your page will say I need Visa which is true but it's given on arrival because of the entry point. Wife is another matter, she has to get it in the Jordanian embassy in Berlin as Denmark only has a consulate. The Jordanian webpage information has not been updated for ages and is wrong. The embassy is somewhat helpful but it took me several calls to figure out how to do the return postage for the passport as danish mail had discontinued this product a year earlier. Also first thing wife will usually do is google visa <country> and end up on a advertisement with a high premium on the visa and a crazy fee when you realize the mistake and try and cancel. Would be great with a place to get a quick overview of the normal price and a place to comment and discuss the challenges you sometimes run into.

<comment><USER22> Exactly - visas aren't quite as black and white as the website appears to make out. There's visa on arrival vs having to go to an embassy/consulate (and there might not be one in the country you're currently in - it's not impossible to get yourself into a state where you have to travel back to your home country to be able to apply for a visa to your intended destination). Plus certain visas actually give you right of entry to other countries (for example if you have a US visa, you can enter nearly forty countries visa-free, some with caveats).

<comment><USER23> > _visas aren 't quite as black and white as the website appears to make out_

There are many of these sites and none of them ever has information that can actually be trusted.

The truth is that entry requirements are much too complicated to treat with a single uniform method, and the only reliable way to know what you have to do is to visit both your country's foreign ministry website and the website of the foreign country's consulate in your own country. Maybe the foreign country's foreign ministry website as well.

And even then, for some countries with somewhat shaky administration and rules you still won't be sure of what you need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wouldn't recommend this website for visa information. For example, I put in "United States" -> "Peru" \- it says visa is required and when clicked on more information it takes me to a page where it lists which countries require visa for traveling to Peru. In that list among the visa required countries, it shows "united states" and in no visa required section it has "united statesa"

</comment><comment><USER25> Yet another issue: Hong Kong and Taiwan are not listed as options.

No matter what your political views are about the situation, the fact is that they have separate visa rules from mainland China and should definitely be listed.

</comment><comment><USER26> For anyone who is actually looking for this information, here is a site that Airlines use:

[https://www.traveldoc.aero](https://www.traveldoc.aero)

You can input your Origin and Destination, Passport info and select one way or round trip/transit etc and see the relevant information, up to date.

</comment><comment><USER27> Cool site. However, I found that it seems to search/replace "us" with "United States" in certain places where it's not expected, e.g.:

"A bUnited Statesiness visa requires an invitation from a company..."

<comment><USER23> Otherwise known as the "clbuttic mistake":

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/266...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2667634/The- Clbuttic-Mistake-When-obscenity-filters-go-wrong.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Incipit of the "About us" page:

>We warmly welcome you, our dear client! If you read these lines it means you have a concern, or you just want to know who is behind this site. And we want to know so let's get together!

(follows a lenghty explanation of how to use Iavisa and on what is a Visa)

So they don't even know who they are?

Yet in the "Terms" page there is this little pearl of wisdom:

>Thirdly, it's time to talk about protecting your data, a very special topic nowadays. It is your responsibility to keep your phone and access to the web app secure. It is not recomended to jailbreak or even root your phone, which is the process of the removing software restrictions and limitations imposed by the official operating system to your device. If you do this, it could make your phone vulnerable to malicious, viruses and malware programs, compromise your phone's security features and it could meant that the web app won't work properly or at all.

</comment><comment><USER29> Alternative: [https://visalist.io/](https://visalist.io/)

<comment><USER30> Yeah, that's by @1hakr. He made a Show HN about 8 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18640880)

Since then, he went on to launch a crypto trading tool that is making him $2k/month: [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-i-built-a- cryptoc...](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-i-built-a- cryptocurrency-trading-app-that-makes-4k-mo-1a0b19fdc4)

<comment><USER29> Wow. That is impressive!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The site seems to aim at providing a quick and easy way of accessing this information that is lower reliability than say, going and looking for each bit of info yourself.

So I see the value.

What I think you need to clarify and improve on is: 1- Making sure people understand that your info might not be perfect/100% accurate. 2- Provide links for people to verify any data points that are of particular value to them.

For example, on the US, there is a point about weed with the following answer: "In some states you can, in other it is illegal."

To be clear: even in states where it is legal, the Federal government considers it illegal, and your use of the substance even in a legal state will disqualify you from Visa eligibility. If you buy it and then lie, you are also breaking your Visa eligibility.

So, while your offhanded answer can be great for gathering a birds eye view on a lot of data points, users can't really place too much trust in the completeness or accuracy of any one answer.

Explaining this and linking to other sites for more in-depth info, like in the case of the USA VisaJourney.com - would great improve the usefulness of your site.

Basically, don't try to be an authority when you are not. Instead provide something that is missing; a better connection of high level, low accuracy info.

As it stands, I feel your site is more a danger to others for relying on it, than it could provide benefit.

</comment><comment><USER32> What's your source of truth? Ideally it would be Timatic.

Also a good disclaimer to add is that this concerns visa for short visits.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like how Australia is located in the continent of Ocean

</comment><comment><USER34> There's some search/replace issues in the text. For example, it seems 'us' was replaced with 'United States' which results in India's visa info having this sort of text: "You mUnited Statest apply at least 4 days".

</comment><comment><USER35> Your copy could use work:

[https://iavisa.com/fast-united-states-visa-for-australia- cit...](https://iavisa.com/fast-united-states-visa-for-australia-citizens)

> In order to United Statese

</comment><comment><USER36> A good, friendly site for this info is much needed. But, as many have pointed out, this is a particularly tough problem to solve as the source of info is itself unreliable.

I checked India to eSwatini and was not surprised to find that the country was still listed with its old name, Swaziland. The visa situation for this pair is complex with a visa preapproval that's needed and a visa to be obtained in eSwatini not at the border but at an office in the city (which you are allowed to go to). And, naturally, none of this is documented anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER37> First search and already wrong. I, as a Pole, don't need a visa for Malaysia. How do I know? I entered the country just a few months before without any problems.

<comment><USER38> I feel compelled to point out that, with respect, all you really know is what the situation was _at the time you entered_. Not only are visa/entry requirements complex, they are also fluid - adding to the chorus of reasons why this is not a subject that cannot be approached lightly. There really is no such thing as an MVP when it comes to what is essentially legal advice. You're either accurate or you're dangerously wrong IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> what's your data source? if it's not timatic, how do you guarantee it's accuracy? or is accuracy not this "product"'s main concern?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've collected the information from various websites including wikipedia.

<comment><USER21> It's going to be hard work to build something reliable about the need for visa or not. For me just linking to the relevant government website and other contact information would be useful. And possible a way to comment.

Info about avoiding those unofficial visa sites would also help a lot of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would never, ever, ever trust a third party for visa requirements.

A product like this is conceptually flawed, because it is defeated by better judgement.

</comment><comment><USER40> The title of the post says "explore visa requirements". So I go to the site, select "travel from USA to France" and hit the button. The only thing I see about visa requirements is "Visa Required: Yes". Nothing else. Not much to explore. The fact that a US citizen does not need a visa to travel to any Schengen country is besides the point.

</comment><comment><USER41> Can't use their contact form - it's just not working, so posting it here:

Hey there,

Tested your website - putting travel from Ukraine to Switzerland and Germany and your website says visa required, however it is not for 90 days for Ukrainian citizens holders of the biometric passport. Please update.

Also your website is really slow. Let me know, if you need hints on optimization for loading.

Alex

</comment><comment><USER42> IATA has a website, I am not sure what additional service from the new service [https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/IN-India-passport-visa- heal...](https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/IN-India-passport-visa-health- travel-document-requirements.htm#)

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting overview of requirements.

I use [https://www.viselio.com/](https://www.viselio.com/). They take it a step further and offer a fully automated visa application form. Just enter the country you want to travel to and they take care of the visa.

</comment><comment><USER44> In addition to the many problems pointed out by others:

1\. When I click on a country name, I see country information and have to click on a tab to see visa information. Poor user experience.

2\. The "visa required" list for a country is not sorted alphabetically. It's just an unusable mess, really.

</comment><comment><USER45> On the US page, it says they drive on the left when they actually drive on the right. [https://iavisa.com/united-states/](https://iavisa.com/united-states/)

<comment><USER46> Maybe it means the side of the car the driver sits on?

Edit: it doesn't. Just incorrect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Uh, it says people drive on the left side in the United States. Also, there's some weird caching artifact. When I repeat the search for a different pair of countries, it takes me back to the results of my previous search

</comment><comment><USER43> Nice overview.

I use [https://www.viselio.com](https://www.viselio.com). They take it a step further and offer a fully automated visa application form.

</comment><comment><USER48> Needs more information. Also, needs to understand the many nicknames/aliases countries have, e.g., US, "U.S.", "America", "England"...

</comment><comment><USER49> It doesn't look correct to me. According to your website "no visa required" for Americans include only "american territories bermuda canada".

</comment><comment><USER50> Low-priority, but a lot of the text needs to be broken into paragraphs so it's not just giant oil spills of text.

</comment><comment><USER51> Why there isn't Taiwan(R.O.C) in the country list? I can't find it even in the web page source code.

</comment><comment><USER52> I like how the social media logos just go to the website front pages. If you ever need a link to twitter.com...

</comment><comment><USER53> Cool website, however, I really dislike the name. Doesn't make much sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER54> Data pretty badly wrong. Finnish currency was correct maybe 20 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER55> > _Andorra la vella is the mail city of Andorra._

Erm... :)

</comment><comment><USER56> [https://xkcd.com/937/](https://xkcd.com/937/)

</comment><comment><USER57> nice project. the font makes it a bit hard to read imo tho.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info, what font do you suggest I should use?</comment></comment>