Can Google predict the future by measuring emoticons in data traffic? - <AUTHOR> http://bitgain.com/blog/permlink/26-can-google-predict-the-future-by-measuring-emoticons-in-data-traffic- <comment><USER2> In order for Google to predict the future millions of users would have to be accurately able to predict the future, and then use emoticons to reflect their feelings about the prediction.

Emoticons are often used to express feelings about past and present events. If they express feelings about future events, it is speculation. How would you filter out the noise of the past, present, and erroneous predictions of the future?

Cool concept but in practice you would need more information about who uses the emoticon (location, occupation, age, etc). And even then it still might not be feasible (a bunch of people in the financial sector, aged 25-40, NYC sent frowny faces...now what?)

Reminds me of information (prediction) markets where people purchase positions on future events. Turns out it is a more efficient way to tease information out of a group than polling. The ideas is that when there is money at stake people's predictions _magically_ become more accurate.

<comment><USER3> You bring up some valid points, but I would postulate that people talk about the recent past (i.e. events that affect the future), the present, and the predicted future, far more than they talk about far-past events... especially so if they're tying emotions into this discussion.

The geo-centricity of the data is definitely a problem. Forest fires in California would certainly incur a lot of grief emoticons from that area, and if the algorithm were not geosensitive it would presume there was a spike in global sadness, which would not be the case.

<comment><USER2> How would you use the data to predict the future though, assuming what you just said is accurate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come on! Surely startups in the present economy would be aware that predicting the future has been _exactly_ the problem that got us into this mess. If you didn't study it yet, get familiar with the history of the Black-Scholes model. The original quants behind Long Term Capital Management, and the quants today use the _same math_. Yes, it won the Nobel Prize in economics, but nobody said economists were brilliant mathemeticians (quite the contrary actually. In fact, the poor/dishonest reasoning of economists was the whole motivation behind the Post-Autistic Economics Review).

The Black-Scholes is based on a calculus used to by rockets to predict their navigational path through space while seeking their targets. Any rocket scientist can tell you, it doesn't work out all the time. Continuous calculuses don't respond well to unplanned discontinuities. So you might get away with it for a little while, but eventually you'll be wrong. And the consequences will almost certainly be catastrophic.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes>

Stop it!

</comment><comment><USER5> Using emoticons can give results with an error percentage of around... 99.99% :) and the result maybe just 0.01% right.

Coz, as kwamenum86 said, these icons are used to express personal feelings about an incident or news. My aunt might be in the ICU and when such a news is heard I give a sad emoticon. And that can't be counted when you want to decide if the world will be happy(not the whole world cares about my aunt). And at the same time I might be happy when a guy in my class scored less than me. He would be sad and I would be happy when we express this in emotes. (I'm not this bad).

So if these emotes are to be really considered to count for the world's future happiness measure, then the text along with the emote also has to be parsed using Natural Language Processing to determine if its just a feeling about an incident or news that matters personally or the other way.

I might be wrong too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Emoticons are just words; why confine the analysis to just emoticons?

<comment><USER2> Emoticons are less intrusive method of aggregating the public sentiment. Would you want the contents of you emails analyzed to help predict the future?

<comment><USER6> No, it's not less intrusive. Emoticons are essentially words like any others. Grabbing the emoticon words from writing (public or private) is no different than sampling other classes of words, such as all adjectives or verbs.

And no, I would not volunteer any part of my private communications for a third party to analyze for their own benefit.

<comment><USER2> It is a little different. The amount of information you garner from ":)" versus "Gee, I think I am going to liquidate now" are completely different. It is a matter of sentiment analysis versus content analysis. But I see why you say "it's not less intrusive". I think sentiment analysis is less intrusive, especially if you are just looking at emoticons, because they reveal less about you. The information encoded in the emoticon has less clarity. It's reasonable that you might find any amount of intrusion unacceptable though.

Doesn't Google look at the contents of your (subject being gmail users) email anyway to serve ads on Gmail right now though? The scary thing is I think people would just get used to it if it were useful.

Of course I think (hope) we are all engaging in this conversation assuming this will never happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, from my anecdotal evidence, most emoticon usage is to describe _personal_ events, not global ones. There's way too much noise in this dataset.

</comment><comment><USER2> One crude way for them to measure this right now is looking at the number of requests that are made for the emoticon image. There are some problems there (caching, does emoticon sent or emoticon received, how often do you count a request per ip)...far-fetched...but as long as we are dealing with a hypothetical situation...

</comment><comment><USER8> An internet confidence index :)

</comment><comment><USER9> 987654

</comment><comment><USER9> p l</comment>


Linting 400kLOC of Python Code with Black - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/botify-labs/paint-it-black-2b1b015f8f18 <comment><USER2> Using black has improved my level of concentration while writing Python.

No longer do I need to worry about a line getting a bit too long, or if I have the right number of blank lines between definitions, or did I format my dictionary initializations consistently. Instead, I let black take care of everything.

Black reduces the constant cognitive load of formatting while programming. Now I just program...</comment>


Penrose: From mathematical notation to beautiful diagrams - <AUTHOR> http://penrose.ink/siggraph20 <comment><USER2> In this line - I enjoyed playing Euclidea ([https://www.euclidea.xyz/](https://www.euclidea.xyz/)) a minimalistic game on Euclidean geometry. The specification of geometry looks similar to the one from the game.

...

Side note: when I hear "Penrose diagrams" I have in mind Penrose tensor notation, as in [https://www.math3ma.com/blog/matrices-as-tensor-network- diag...](https://www.math3ma.com/blog/matrices-as-tensor-network-diagrams).

</comment><comment><USER3> The _Byrne_ they mention is Oliver Byrne, who made a book of Elements of Euclid including colored graphics for the geometry.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Byrne_(mathematician)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Byrne_\(mathematician\))

Archive.org, print: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11628606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11628606)

In TeX: [https://github.com/jemmybutton/byrne- euclid](https://github.com/jemmybutton/byrne-euclid)

</comment><comment><USER4> As a recovering mathematician, this fills me with joy. It would be great if it were implemented as, say, a LaTeX package, so the code to your diagrams could sit right in your documents (like how TikZ works). Still, either way, amazing work!

<comment><USER5> It will be great to include Penrose diagrams in LaTeX documents. But Penrose is implemented in Haskell and I'm pretty sure no-one would want to see what it would look like were it implemented in TeX!

<comment><USER4> Oh sure, reimplementing in TeX would not be worth thinking about! I'm not familiar with exactly how TeX packages work, but I assumed they could call out to external tools that return the necessary (La)TeX commands (e.g., code syntax highlighters work like this, IIRC).

<comment><USER5> OK, I see. Sorry yes I agree what you're saying is sensible and what I said was silly.

Yes, minted works like that -- it starts a python child process to use pygments to do the syntax highlighting. But with minted and TikZ there's a single element of "source code" in the LaTeX file (a code listing or tikz code fragment respectively) that maps to a single element in the output (syntax- highlighted code, or a TiKZ image). Whereas with Penrose, there would be multiple source code files (the style and substance code). I'm not sure it quite fits the native LaTeX model does it? Maybe it's better just to use Make to generate the Penrose diagram for inclusion via \includegraphics?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks beautiful! And strange! And beautiful! Like the diagrams for an entire Calculus textbook could be created with it...(!)

 _Penrose, for mathematical drawings, might very well become what TeX, LaTeX, and Desktop Publishing programs are, to text!_

I think you are on the right track to something grand!

Wishing you a lot of luck in this endeavor!

</comment><comment><USER7> It is ready for public use yet - I wish they had put that information sooner in the article.

That said, looks cool and it is written in Haskell and React: [https://github.com/penrose/penrose](https://github.com/penrose/penrose)

<comment><USER8> I assume you mean "it is _not_ ready for public use yet"?

<comment><USER7> Yes, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Stuff like this could be amazing for pedagogy. It's automatically generating _different_ ways of looking at a topic. I'm sure authors would love to include these different viewpoints were it not for the effort involved, so making it easy could be great!

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh, I thought this was about the Penrose graphical notation for tensors: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation)

</comment><comment><USER11> So this is written in Haskell - very impressive demo of the languages capabilities.

<comment><USER12> You mean that it can create decent parsers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That is a beautiful document!</comment>


Can you figure out how this single part boost converter works? - <AUTHOR> https://wp.josh.com/2017/03/22/challenge-design-an-avr-controlled-boost-converter-using-only-one-part/ <comment><USER2> Hacks like this are a lot of fun to play with on the bench but don't design a circuit like this when you want something that "just works", has a reasonable life-time and certainly don't put a hack like this into production.

That being said, Sir Clive Sinclair made a pretty remarkable little computer (the ZX-81) but minimizing the parts count to the extreme. And there's a colloquial term for the process of minimizing your component count.

One of my favorite authors in Electronic Design was Bob Pease (now deceased). In a 1992 article [0] he recounts the process used by Earl "Madman" Muntz who was an early television pioneer. I could ruin the story but I'm going to insist you read the original instead. Enjoy!

[0] [http://www.electronicdesign.com/boards/whats-all-muntzing- st...](http://www.electronicdesign.com/boards/whats-all-muntzing-stuff-anyhow)

EDIT: I also should have noted that this practice has led to me trying to create the simplest possible software algorithm that solves my problem. A good day is when the LOC count goes down (and not because I've packed more into a single line).

<comment><USER3> My favorite cute hack of a power supply is the ringing choke converter (self- oscillating flyback). It doesn't require any controller ICs, just a couple of transistors, resistors, caps, and a transformer. You get isolation, and the circuit is quite simple. With an optoisolator and zener diode you can even get regulated output!

The disadvantages are the poor efficiency, need for tuning, and need for a transformer if you don't need the isolation. Also no programming involved, so not really of as much interest to most of the HN community.

<comment><USER4> If you buy a $2 phone charger, this circuit (the ringing choke converter) is what you get. It's kind of amazing how cheaply these are made. It can look just like an Apple charger on the outside, but the power quality (and safety) is much, much worse.

<comment><USER3> Yep, they're used in lots of cheap power supplies, not just phone chargers.

The poor power quality and safety aren't inherent problems of the ringing choke design, those are just issues with cheap chargers. They tend to omit the output filtering and do horrible things to creepage and clearance distances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See the data sheet for the part.[1] Basically, you want to feed power into the inductor briefly, then turn off power and somehow connect the inductor to the LED. The trick is to find some way to get the microcontroller to connect two of its own pins together, so you can use it as a switch on the output. This is probably done by abusing one of the alternate uses of the six "B" pins. See table 10-3. I'm thinking that port B, bit 5, DW mode might be abusable in this way.

[1] [http://www.atmel.com/images/atmel-2586-avr-8-bit- microcontro...](http://www.atmel.com/images/atmel-2586-avr-8-bit- microcontroller-attiny25-attiny45-attiny85_datasheet.pdf)

<comment><USER6> This exact solution is described at the end of the post except that they call it RESET pin rather than DW pin. And of course they short it directly to GND by driving low, you can't just short two GPIOs together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sofware? What?

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

<comment><USER8> I'm a big fan of joule thiefs. Small solar panel, a supercap and a joule thief and you can trickle charge NiNM batteries for years+. That's how I keep my hand-radios fully charged when not in use.

<comment><USER9> Don't even need the supercap.

Resistor as the inductor, HW012 IC, hook up a solar cell, LED, and battery. Boosts 1.2V to 3.6V.

[http://i.imgur.com/3y1PMoP.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/3y1PMoP.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I came up with a solution, but then read further that he gave the answer away. Anyways, here it is: [http://imgur.com/a/dzRyZ](http://imgur.com/a/dzRyZ)

<comment><USER11> Hope you don't mind but I drew your circuit into a CircuitLab schematic and added a simulation:

[https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/yxs8aks2yz95/](https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/yxs8aks2yz95/)

Specified a few missing values, but there you go -- the LED lights (see the simulation current plot)! As long as the microcontroller doesn't reset from every VCC dip...

<comment><USER5> That's kind of drastic. If you turn off the pin before the inductor fully charges you might get away with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is none other than Josh Levine, the hacker programmer who invented all modern electronic trading infrastructure (ISLAND / ITCH) and a personal hero of mine.

He's now probably rich enough to just play with microcontrollers and have fun all the time. Living the dream.

<comment><USER13> Here is the code that made him famous: [http://www.josh.com/notes/island- ecn-10th-birthday/](http://www.josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/)

I enjoyed the part where it rounds an order quantity to a multiple of 100 by using string operations. A comment there explains it's to avoid floating point ops. Ah the good old days.

<comment><USER12> OMGOMGOMG, FoxPro! I have some history of abusing FoxPro myself, but using it as a real-time matching engine... beyond cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Single part? That circuit has THOUSANDS of components. And, on top of that it needs software?

Nah, this can be done with a one transistor, one resistor and little transformer one can easily DIY wind.

No software required.

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

<comment><USER15> Yeah, click bait title.

Last time I counted, an inductor and a uP comes out to _two_.

<comment><USER14> You missed my point. That microprocessor has thousands of transistors. And then you need software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have recommendation on a simple self contained primer to understand electronic circuits as shown in this article. Article is very interesting but am hampered by lack on ability to understand the circuit diagram.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if this is the answer you expect, but Radio Shack made a "200-in-1 electronic project lab" toy/kit that came with a book that has a really really good explanation on all of analog electronics. And you can try all the examples yourself. It is very fun.

An alternative is, read about the following:

1\. Ohm's law -- the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance. And power.

2\. Learn how to sum resistors in parallel vs resistors in series.

3\. Learn about capacitors, how do they charge? (the RC constant). What happens afterwards?

4\. Now learn about RC circuits (resistor+capacitor), which means you will learn about filters: low pass, high pass, at the very least. Know how to calculate the 'cutoff' frequency.

5\. Learn about how a transistor works. First, how it can be made to work as a switch. Then, how it can be made to work as an amplifier.

6\. Learn about the inductor (the "L" in L,R,C). Learn the relationship between inductors, capacitors and resistors.

7\. Since now you know about inductors, you can also see Oscillator circuits using transistors.

ALTERNATIVELY

on step 5, instead of learning about transistors, learn about opamps. It is easier to understand than transistors!

Then learn about how to implement oscillators with opamps, filters with opamps.

Afterwards you may perhaps want to learn about digital circuits. If you understand boolean algebra or bit logic functions (and, or, xor, not), then this will be a piece of cake.

<comment><USER16> Thank you for the detailed steps. Based on your list I purchased "Teach yourself electricity and electronics" which has content similar to the order you have listed. Hopefully ramping up on the basics will enable understanding of circuit diagrams

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this might be another solution, using the capacitance of the diode to make a resonator and then driving near resonance. Here V(n001) is some pin voltage and V(n002) is the voltage across the diode: [http://imgur.com/a/xwZF4](http://imgur.com/a/xwZF4)

</comment><comment><USER19> Ohh ok, the single part is an integrated circuit. Isn't that cheating?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the product that lets you u/l directly from camera to browser? - <AUTHOR>

Tried googling, can't find it, and figured I'd ask here.  No need to upvote the parent story, just adding an answer here would be a huge help. Thank you! <comment><USER2> What's u/l? What camera? i don't even understand that question. But did you think about asking on superuser.com?

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you mean the Eye-Fi?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> no no, it's a YC company. You can upload from your camera directly using the web browser to the site.

<comment><USER4> I can't really make soup of your description, the camera runs a browser ??

Or do you mean indirectly ?

<comment><AUTHOR> the camera/usb functionality is available directly from the browser application. does this help? Usually you always have to upload your files to your computer from the camera then from the computer to the website.

<comment><USER4> Hm, I think I see what you're getting at, so the cameras file system is mounted directly accessible to some browser based app that can then upload the files. So you do need an extra computer, not just a wifi enabled camera.

I thought you meant these guys:

<http://www.eye.fi/>

But apparently not. Will search some more.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Intellectual yet Idiot - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.5ghmthf3d <comment><USER2> I think that _somehow_ there should be some attention payed to duplicates, this (BTW, intreresting) piece by Nassim Taleb has been submitted like 20 times in the last 2 months or so: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Intellectual%20yet%20idiot&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Intellectual%20yet%20idiot&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment>


Airbnb was like a family, until the layoffs started - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Airbnb-Was-Like-a-Family-Until-the-Layoffs-15417660.php <comment><USER2> I don't think I'm alone in getting marshmallows to see Airbnb burn to the ground. When your business model is profiting off of rent externalities at the expense of the housing market and residents, nothing but schendenfreude.</comment>


Stack Overflow Salary Calculator – how much you make working at Stack Overflow - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/company/salary/calculator <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12172372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12172372).

</comment><comment><USER3> There's another, bigger, discussion going on here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12172372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12172372)</comment>


A collection of Python Must reads - <AUTHOR> http://around-technology.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-collection-of-python-must-reads.html <comment><USER2> I'm always a bit surprised when the python.org tutorial is left out of these lists. It's a fine place to start.

[https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html](https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/index.html)

[https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html](https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html)</comment>


Enough with the QR Codes - <AUTHOR> http://ramisayar.com/enough-with-the-qr-codes/

<comment><USER2> I see people scan QR codes often, and even occasionally do myself; but then, I live in Japan.

Here, QR codes became popularized well before the 'smartphone', because everybody's regular phone has been able to scan them for years. (I think from around the turn of the millennium, at least.) That makes sense, because as as bad as smartphone on-screen keyboards are, entering URLs on a numeric keypad was _even worse_.

Two days before the OP's blog entry, I just happened to write a note on my own blog in _defense_ of QR codes (not exactly Pulitzer-grade material; see my profile if you're really interested).

That was just because recently it seems to have gotten really trendy in the USA to hate on QR codes, but I think that's like hating on hammers. ( _"Enough with the hammers!"_ ) What people are really hating on (I think) is clumsy and stupid marketing involving QR codes.

Japan went through a similar thing: as QR codes became popular, marketers got all over-exuberant about them and started inappropriately plastering them all over the place, thinking they looked cool. That gradually fizzled out; Japan Inc. has a recent article about it:

<http://www.japaninc.com/node/4018>

But just because advertisers over-use and abuse QR codes, that doesn't mean QR codes aren't useful. A small barcode that can be scanned with the device that everybody already has in their pocket is a cool thing, and QR codes are _nearly_ that. Especially here.

We don't see them as much in ads in Japan anymore (a mock-Google search box showing what to google for has replaced the QR code in a lot of places). But we still use them in everyday life, and to good effect. Kids snap shots of QR codes to get discount coupons for fast food. Shops have a QR code that will direct you to a Google map of the surrounding area whosing their other locations in the vicinity. One of my favorites examples is when a friend was trying to fix his kitchen; one of the pipes underneath had a metal tag stamped with a part number and QR code, which led to the product spec page from the vendor that made it (loooong URL).

I have more, but you get the point, and it's miller time.

<comment><USER3> Plus the fact that not ALL QR Codes are URLs to marketing sites.

I have seen plenty of "stick in a microwave" type meals that have a QR code which, when scanned, display nutritional information which would never have fit on the tiny label.

Mind you this is also in Japan so....

<comment><USER4> For a moment I thought you were going to say that your microwave scanned the QR to automatically set itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Firstly, that's a huge security risk in my mind, it's like I am trying to > open an email attachment from an unknown sender because nobody knows who put > up these ads.

It's _not_ like opening an email attachment, it's more like opening a URL. The only documented QR code attack I know of consists of a QR code with a malicious URL (<http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12760>). The QR code only served as a 'mask' to the URL, where the users were too ignorant to look at the URL before visiting it.

I don't think embedding malicious code in a QR code is practical or possible, mostly because the amount of data it can hold is very small. The only binary format I know of that is commonly used on a QR code is vCard; the rest are plaintext based formats.

<comment><USER6> But opening unknown URL IS dangerous. It's like URL shorteners that plague internet since Twitter - you never know where link will take you and what scripts etc. will run in your browser.

<comment><USER7> On my device (android with bar code scanner device), the experience is that I scan a QR code with a URL, it tells me that the QR code has a URL & shows me what the URL is, then gives me the option to visit the link.

Depending on if the URL is a shortened URL, it is just as safe or moreso than regular browsing.

Is your experience different from this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I do believe I've found a decent use for them - I wrote an app that can push an iOS mobile provisioning wifi profile to an iPhone - this allows your guests to scan a QR code to have their iOS device connect to your wifi network (without directly sharing your WPA key with them). You can even geofence the QR code so that if it is scanned > 1/2 mile from your home, the profile will not be pushed.

You must use RedLaser to scan the QR code - it is the only that pushes URLs out to Safari (instead of to an internal web-view) which allows the profile to be pushed.

<http://www.getonmywifi.com>.

<comment><USER9> FYI: There is an app for Android doing the same (works great): [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.proj.wifij...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.proj.wifijoiner)

I printed Marvin the Paranoid Android pointing to a fat QR code with extra text saying sth like 'internets r here... and ur emailz, too.'

One of the best QR code use cases, I believe.

edit: User must have app installed on her phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good use case: on a For Sale sign in front of a house or apartment with a deep link to the listing. Much easier than going to the web site and searching.

<comment><USER11> Sure, QR codes are always a "good use case" when it comes to this. They ARE faster than typing in a link or searching. Doesn't do much good when no one uses the code, though.

<comment><USER12> Usually they just link to a companies website though and it would have been faster to type it in instead of scanning it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If QR codes were automatically detected with the iPhone camera app, they would boom.

95 percent of the problem is non-tech people don't know they need an app to scan or can't be bothered with getting one.

I've literally seen a friend of mine try to take a photo of a QR code and complain it doesn't work.

It's like having a PC without a web browser -- what the hell do you do with a URL then?

</comment><comment><USER14> Context is everything. For example, QR codes are huge in Japan. Witness this video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myzLAXtqoa8&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myzLAXtqoa8&feature=player_embedded#)!

People literally lining up to take snapshots of QR codes.

<comment><USER15> Playing the Japan card during discussion of a cultural phenomenon is the equivalent of playing the Hitler card in a political debate.

If there's one thing that's clear, it's that they will do absolutely anything in Japan.

EDIT: In Japan, this is the kind of thing they watch on TV: <http://youtu.be/xqoXcLqVemA>

<comment><USER16> Yeah. Those wacky Orientals, eh?

<comment><USER15> I was just trying to point out cultural differneces in a tongue-in-cheek manner. I think Japan is the least Europeanized wealthy country (the other Asian tigers count too but are less renowned for shocking westerners). As a result, it's often a lot less valid to generalize from Japanese culture to American culture than, say, Australian or German.

There's a world of difference between pointing out cultural diversity and racial stereotyping. I guess the fact that I'm actually kind of into Vermillion Pleasure Night blinded me to the fact that some people might have interpreted my comments as derogatory.

<comment><USER16> They're not necessarily derogatory, just ignorant. For instance, "least Europeanized" is indeed a generalization to Western culture, just a negative one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Essentially the biggest reason they are used so much is because of the argument "why not?"

I was in a meeting with the organisers of a pretty big consumer tech event, a couple of clever, successful people, and they mentioned that they were going to be putting QR codes on nearly all branding at the event we were discussing. I, slightly rudely, chuckled and asked why on earth they would do that; the answer: "We've found a site where you can make them really, really cheap - like, almost free - so we might as well!"

<comment><USER18> The real WTF is... Almost free? Like, they found a company that will, what, sell you an image of black and white boxes for mere pennies? God, imagine the money they could make swindling companies with a per-scan advertising fee! Pixels will be mined like gold!

Apparently nobody in Corporate has heard of a free online barcode generator. You can even print the barcode _as many times as you want!_ Maybe they just do not trust free services?

<comment><USER19> I imagine it's the tracking and statistics provided by paid services that is the really useful point from business point of view. Marketing people _love_ response tracking.

<comment><USER17> Nope, in this case it was the creating of QR codes for printing. Don't worry, I did laugh pretty hard right in front of them and told them that it's easy to make them absolutely free - ah well, they'd already paid at this point.

<comment><USER20> Well you can still track how many people scan it, right ? e.g. by providing a proxy link ?

<comment><USER17> Yeah sure - plenty of people do QR codes that go through bit.ly, just as possible to do it through any other tracking platform.

<comment><USER21> bitly provides qr codes for every link generated with their service. Just go to the info page. ex: <https://bitly.com/FPUVjU+>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Like every other piece of technology, QR codes can also be overused and abused. This isn't worth ranting over though.

There are perfectly good reasons to use QR codes. URLs may be long, confusing or just awkward enough to be a pain to type. Sometimes there may not be enough space on the product to put in a full URL. There's no reason to stop the 'madness' as this author puts it - like other pieces of technology, folks will experiment quite a bit in the early days and then settle on good usage practices as time goes on.

</comment><comment><USER23> We started using them on the print pages of homes for sale that we provide for our clients. The QR links to a google map of the property's address. Usually a buyer would print out the listing and take it with them to see the house. So far it seems to be a much easier way to get directions to the house without having to type in an entire address on your smartphone.

Sample: <http://virtualstagingsolutions.com/a/view/1159/print>

</comment><comment><USER24> If you have an Android phone, you can create a QR code for a WiFi hotspot with a WEP/WPA2 encryption key. <https://zxing.appspot.com/generator/>

</comment><comment><USER25> They are free to set up, advertisers and marketers understand them (or at least they think they do), they feel very "modern".

QR codes aren't going anywhere is because they are a perfectly attractive novelty for the non-tech world. There is a far better conversion, and ease from using short URLs or even a 4 digit number that will next you the URL, but the QR code will still prevail.

I wouldn't expect QR codes to go away until the offline advertising and marketing world becomes more data driven. Given recent trends, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER26> I feel like there's a routine anti-QR code thread on HN once a month and it's always the same argument. They'll die naturally when nobody wants them. For now it seems like certain people want them.

<comment><USER12> It seems more like people _want_ people to want them so they're sticking around. Sometimes they're useful, but that's pretty rare.

<comment><AUTHOR> > people want people to want them

LOL Nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> my biggest gripe with QR codes is that the built-in camera apps on smartphones dot not scan for them by default. Instead I have to hunt through my installed apps to find the "barcode scanner" or whatever.

Why can't the default camera recognize a QR code, either in preview or after taking the picture?

</comment><comment><USER28> QR codes will be great for users of augmented reality glasses, by having the QR codes represent embeddable 3D graphics.

Like an iframe for the physical world.

</comment><comment><USER29> My educational startup uses them in our printed assignments. Teachers fax completed tests to us and we can grade them by identifying the assignment through QR.

Example: <http://kiteedu.com/assets/print.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER30> I think in SOME situations it's a good thing to have. But there are some horrible uses, such as while I was driving down the interstate the other day, on the complete opposite side to which I was driving, there was a billboard for the National Guard that had a QR code.

There is no way in hell I am or evan can pull out my phone, open the qr reader app, point it at that billboard in a steady enough motion WHILE driving 70mph on the OTHER SIDE of the highway and go to their website. We aren't even supposed to be using devices while driving and the freaking National Guard does that. I hope our tax dollars (wishful thinking, I know) didn't go to this. But it's plain ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER31> Personally, I've found them to sometimes be useful.

I use an iPhone now, however they were fairly useful on Android -- a lot of Android forums would show a QR code when you hovered over links to .apk's, which made attachments easy to download.

</comment><comment><USER32> Reposting my comment from the blog, because it's still "awaiting moderation".

QR Codes do have uses, but everyone uses them wrong. The first and most obvious use is as a replacement barcode. Add to physical products to expand scanning use-cases. But not as a marketing stunt.

The next, which I quite like is for device -> device communication. For example displaying a QR code on your phone and having it automatically scanned at a ticket collection point for Airplanes/Trains/Events.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the "awaiting moderation", I was sleeping. It's up now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I like the QR codes at Best Buy; I use them all the time when I'm just starting to research electronics and I make a visit to one of their stores. It's convenient, I can store it on my iphone for later, and I can read user reviews, etc.

That being said, I'm not sure if they help or hurt sales because when I do scan a QR code, I typically end up doing comparison shopping and typically Best Buy's prices don't compete well with online retailers.

<comment><USER34> I'm on the wrong side of the planet to check, but I'm bet reasonable money that Best Buy are running privacy-dubious redirection/browser- fingerprinting/analytics on the urls those QR code send you too.

Or if they're not, does anyone have a contact in marketing at Best Buy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Would a better idea not to have a font that was made for the purpose of scanning?

That way, if people don't have smartphones then they know the url. Those who do have smartphones know what the url points to in case there is something dodgy about the url.

I hate to say it but something like Courier, on a white background and we improve the OCR techniques in the phones?

<comment><USER36> You mean like "OCR Font?" - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A_font>

<comment><USER35> Perfect, I wasn't even aware there was a font for this purpose!

I don't see the point in QR codes, I have never seen an every day use for them and it makes me slightly angry that they have been adopted so heavily.

I do take into account people have found a use for them in niche situations. It just seems these ugly black barcodes could have been avoided by legible OCR fonts with a decent OCR scanner built into the phone. Everyone's happy!

<comment><USER16> Hardware-wise, OCR is not as simple to process as QR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When commenting earlier I forgot to mention that I have a personal use-case for QR codes - an easy way to put a page I'm looking at on the PC onto my phone, easier than typing in the URL or mailing the link.

<http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/> (not made by me, just used by me)

</comment><comment><USER37> I used them for a QR code scavenger hunt once and, even in this tech backwards town, got a couple people involved. This was when they were still new. It familiarized people with our website and our store layout. It also got them asking at the counter for help to find things. All in all exactly what I was hoping for.

</comment><comment><USER38> This intense hatred of QR Codes continues to baffle and amaze me. Sure, if you use them inappropriately it's a disaster but if you can add something which potentially makes it easier for those with phones to access, then why not?

It's almost like complaining about the over-usage of barcodes on product packaging.

</comment><comment><USER39> There's a whole website dedicated to this <http://wtfqrcodes.com/>

<comment><USER40> Along with this blog: <http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> LIKE!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Please stop using "I don't know where the QR will take me" as an excuse. Any decent scanning app shows the QRs content before asking the user to act upon it. Who would want an app that instantly saves a vcard to their contact list, or opens a url as soon as they scan it?

</comment><comment><USER42> Nobody remembers the google sesame? That one exampled in itself should stop this thread.

<comment><USER43> CueCat?

<comment><USER42> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469692>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> QR Codes remind me of the CueCat. There are some interesting and perfectly valid use cases, but I doubt QR Codes will be something that most people ever start using on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER45> So far the best use I have found for QR codes is making up stickers than when scaned decode to "sorry i wasted your time this qr code does not contain anything interesting"

</comment><comment><USER46> It is funny how this topic comes up every month. I guess it's because we somehow want them to add value, but at this stage they don't.

</comment><comment><USER47> Why is QR codes prevalent?

Because it's cheap and can digitize analog goods easily.

</comment><comment><USER48> as per use cases: check-ins could be simplified with QR-codes. See <http://servletsuite.com/qrcode.htm>

</comment><comment><USER16> The novelty has worn off, so now they're worthless and companies should just stop using them. I'm not sure I agree.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've made a point to ask people who work in retail stores/shops that have QR codes if they've ever had people scan the QR codes. The most "positive" answer I heard was that they weren't sure. Some people stopped in front of the signs, but they weren't sure if they were scanning the code or following the link or sending an email/sms to subscribe.

Most of the time, it's a flat out no. I suspect it might be different in other places where there is greater awareness or density of QR codes though.

BTW, asking for a use case? Entering secure keys. Initializing OTP code generators. (aka Google Auth, which you SHOULDN'T have to ask about because it should ALREADY be active. Go do it, right now, mid-sentence, if you haven't) Potentially initializing 3 keys for use in a two-factor auth tool for phones and NFC tags. cough.

</comment><comment><USER50> Wasn't there some big conspiracy that bar-codes would be EVERYWHERE one day???

I saw them on some Churches main signs, I see them on pretty much everything... They are all techinically "linked" to the internet...

Maybe, that "day" the conspirators speak of is upon us?

:-\</comment>


The Purpose of the Development Team - <AUTHOR> https://riskfirst.org/Purpose-Development-Team <comment><AUTHOR> It can be a pain worrying about "what's the worst thing that can happen?" all the time. Maybe even psychologically counter-productive!

But surely, it's worth at least considering.

The argument here is that the development team is there to stop the business failing.

Is that all there is? Or is there something else?</comment>


Railsonfire joins Seedcamp and rebrands to Codeship - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/01/08/railsonfire-joins-the-seedcamp-flock-and-rebrands-to-codeship-because-it-helps-coders-ship/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=Railsonfire%20joins%20the%20Seedcamp%20flock%20and%20rebrands%20to%20Codeship%20%28because%20it%20helps%20coders%20ship%29&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia

<comment><USER2> How does this compare to Travis CI except for the pricing?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great to see more and more B2D products getting press in mainstream media :)

<comment><USER4> The Next Web is not mainstream media last time I checked...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> congrats to the new name!

</comment><comment><USER6> congrats!</comment>


Using Atom 330 with server applications - <AUTHOR> http://3.14.by/en/read/atom-330-dedicated-server-nvidia-ion

<comment><USER2> _why can't we have 8-16 slots in low-cost systems?_

.. or 24-64 slots on mid-range systems, for that matter?

Because, unless it's serialized (like FBDIMMs), there's a linear growth in number of traces (and something line n^2 growth in board surface area taken up by them) for memory, not to mention a more complex (or at least bigger) memory controller.

I'm sad that fully buffered memory didn't take off, as I'm sure the power consumption problem would, eventually, have been solved.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I am not talking 16 channel memory controller :-) 16 slots for 2 memory controller channels. 8 slots per channel. Line count should be reasonable.

<comment><USER3> That isn't possible with DDR1/2/3 RAM because the signal quality degrades with each slot; with more than 3 or 4 DIMM slots the signal would be garbage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, then we need DDR3 replicators :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty sure Atom doesn't support ECC memory. Running a server w/o ECC is a bad idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, most of low-end 1U servers goes on non-ECC ram, and main problem is still HDD reliability.

<comment><USER5> The main problem that you notice, that is.

I don't use ECC RAM in my desktop, and I notice that one a year or so my "every-30-days fsck" detects a filesystem error when I have not uncleanly unmounted the disk. That is either a filesystem bug, or memory corruption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What? No comments. This is cool -- but why would I do it instead of some kind of VPS?

<comment><USER7> I currently host on an VPS and have been considering a switch to an Atom based server. Some of the reasons for me:

* With VPS systems you generally have to run one of their kernels, or at least Linux. Very few BSD VPS sites and none allow me to run OpenBSD, which is what I would like.

* The low cost Atom systems give you _much_ more ram and hard disk than the VPS sites for comparable cost. In the $30 range a VPS will give about 512M of ram and 10-20G of hard disk space. Most of the Atom/low cost dedicated hosts are roughly the same cost and give 2-3G of ram and 60-100G of drive space. (I hadn't seen SSD's used before)

<comment><USER8> Maximum available RAM seems to be limited to 2G on 945 series chipsets that are used with many Atoms.

Just clarifying.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. But on nVidia ION platform limit is 4Gb.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What are your Unix pipeline commands that saved you from lot of coding/time? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/djviolin/what-are-your-unix-pipeline-commands-that-saved-you-from-lot-of-codingtime-7ok <comment><USER2> Well, there's always the classic for backing up an entire directory structure:

find . [optional criteria] -depth -print | cpio -ovBm -O <device/path>

</comment><comment><USER3> IMHO, unless you want to use this as part of some larger script, ncdu is far superior for this particular problem.</comment>


Lazarus 1.8 released: cross-platform GUI builder and IDE for Pascal - open-source-ux http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,39210.0.html?PHPSESSID=sc8hh02s2povlfof91j3chhpo1 <comment><AUTHOR> FreePascal is awesome, Lazarus is too.

If you like FreePascal and are not yet familiar with [http://nim- lang.org](http://nim-lang.org) , check it out - it is inspired by Pascal and Python, compiles quickly to standalone binaries (like free pascal) or JavaScript, or C, or C++ or Objective C.

But it doesn't have anything resembling Lazarus .... I wish it did.

<comment><USER2> It's not the same, and it's not there yet, but perhaps eventually something could be built from nimx or similar.

[https://github.com/yglukhov/nimx](https://github.com/yglukhov/nimx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why would one choose Pascal as a basis for a new development ? I ask the question in a fair way and as someone who has written a lot of code in TurboPascal ages ago (and enjoyed it enormously). I wonder what it feels to develop production code with Pascal compared to say Java or Python. From those days, I remember the speed of the compiler (but my projects were not big) and the clean language.

<comment> open-source-ux Lazarus + FreePascal is an excellent choice if you want to create desktop GUI apps that are:

\- fast to run (and compile)

\- native and cross-platform from a single code base

\- memory-efficient to run (depends on your code of course)

\- easy to distribute via a single self-contained exe file with no dependencies

You might think lots of popular languages today can do all the above, but surprisingly there are fewer than you think.

For example, using a dynamic language to create desktop apps will often require gluing together lots of separate libraries and packaging them into a single bundle using another third-party tool. And that's even before you get to speed of execution and responsiveness (yes, performance does matter).

Like other posters have said, Pascal doesn't give you features you won't find in other languages, although if you're coming from a dynamic language, Pascal might make you think a little differently about how you solve problems due to its strong and strict typing features.

<comment><USER4> How is FreePascal's interop story? It would be super interesting if you could use Lazarus to build the GUI around a library written in a language with a larger ecosystem and/or with more powerful safety features.

<comment><USER5> You can link to anything with a C ABI just by declaring the functions external[0], there's also tools for automating conversion from C header file declarations[1].

[0]: [https://www.freepascal.org/docs- html/prog/progsu147.html](https://www.freepascal.org/docs- html/prog/progsu147.html) [1]: [http://wiki.freepascal.org/Creating_bindings_for_C_libraries](http://wiki.freepascal.org/Creating_bindings_for_C_libraries)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is still an amazing tool if you want to build classic desktop applications or games. Blazingly fast, easy to use. Not fancy in the Visual Studio/Jetbrains way, but it always feels rock solid to work with.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is becoming my new tool of choice, just keeps getting better and better, keep up the good work chaps..

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, Lazarus is good. Here is a screenshot of a digital clock app that I created using Lazarus and FreePascal, on Windows. I use it on a daily basis on my PC. Just need to Alt-Tab to it or click on its icon in my taskbar,, to check the current time, on my laptop. Bigger font than the time in the system tray, so easier to read at a glance.

[https://imagebin.ca/v/3kMOLN2Ru4gc](https://imagebin.ca/v/3kMOLN2Ru4gc)

</comment><comment><USER9> What it would take to add C++ support?

<comment><USER10> I highly doubt anybody seeking out to create and use an Object Pascal development environment wants anything to do with C++.

Perhaps you meant to say "Eiffel"? :-)

YMMV.

<comment><USER11> It would be useful to create tools for existing codebases. For example ~10 years ago when i worked at a game company, we were considering C++ Builder to create the tools for the engine because we could use the engine libraries directly (the engine was really a collection of many small libraries). However that idea was abandoned because C++ Builder at the time had very bad support for C++ (a few years ago they switched to Clang and modified it to use their C++ extensions, but that was too little too late - and AFAIK it wasn't 100% compatible with the previous compiler).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> No export to HTML5 support?

<comment><USER11> No, but if you separate the logic from the presentation you can use the LazWeb (or FclWeb, i don't remember) components to create a web-based frontend for the application. There is also a separate framework called Brooks that is supposedly more comprehensive, but i haven't tried that (and TBH i have only touched LazWeb/FclWeb only a little).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the documentation, looks like TP 5 from my high school days :-)

<comment><USER14> Modern Object Pascal is a linear descendant of Turbo Pascal, so the resemblance isn't coincidental.

OTOH, it's not the _same_ , much as modern C isn't the same as K&R C.</comment></comment>


Rails Translation made _("simple") - <AUTHOR> https://translation.io

<comment><USER2> Can I use the app with another stack? I know i'll give up some niceties but the app seems good enough to use even without Rails...

<comment><USER3> The GetText part is almost stack-agnostic and we already created some code snippets to synchronize PHP and angular-gettext projects with success.

However, Ruby on Rails is our first target and we want to make it right before going in every directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. The pricing model (per key, per month) looks innovative in that space.

</comment><comment><USER5> So cute !</comment>


Ask HN: How to get ideas? - <AUTHOR> Just wondering how you go about cultivating ideas.
Do you, for instance, have a routine where you sit down and think about new ideas every so often? Or do you just wait for one to hit you?
How do you get your ideas? (Also, please note if you think you're effective in how you do so. Have you had - and implemented - great ideas?) <comment><USER2> There are two kind of ideas for startups:

1) There is a problem, and current solutions are ugly. Think how to fix it and sell your fixture, and you have an idea. Many programmers when faced with some problem will quickly solve it with some script/whatever magic and not even consider that they could turn that solution into a service/product. How to get such ideas: use more stuff, always look out for problems / poor experience.

2) Those ideas that start with "It'd be cool to do X". Think twitter. I've no idea how to filter out good ideas of this form from bad ones, but with enough iteration I think a lot of even dumb ideas can fly.

I've started game dev recently. <http://chopperdefense.com> is my first game. I did not know what kind of gameplay or graphics I wanted when I started it. There even were no helicopters in the game initially. But with enough iterations I think I made a pretty decent game. While I was doing it I got a lot more game ideas which I duly noted and also iterated on. "To a game developer, everything looks like a game". Top idea in your mind, as PG says.

<comment><USER3> Offtopic, but I can't find chopper defense in the app store, how come? (or is it only for the iPad?)

<comment><USER2> Only iPad for now. Maybe I'll make it universal by the end of December, not sure yet...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The number one key to cultivating ideas is minimizing distractions.

Did you ever notice that some of your best ideas show up when you're in the shower? It's because your mind has nothing to distract it.

When you're going from one place to another, turn off your MP3 player or car stereo (if you're walking / driving). Put your phone on airplane mode so you're not interrupted by texts and calls.

When you're at home, do one thing at a time. If you're doing the dishes, just do the dishes. If you're talking with other people, just talk, don't put on the TV in the background, turn off the radio.

Cultivate as much stimulus as possible overall - but do it one at a time. You should watch the movies you like, read that books you find exciting, explore just to explore. But you also have to take time to focus and just be.

The other important thing is to always have something to write on. Get yourself a tiny notebook that can fit in a jeans pocket, and even a golf pencil if it means you'll always carry it around. No idea is too small to jot down - they all add up.

<comment><USER5> I would have said exactly the opposite. The way to get random new ideas is to pay attention to the world around you. Get our of your comfort zone.

However, if you're looking for useful idea, the solution is to have a problem. And then fix it in a way that other people can benefit from. And then charge them for it. They'll thank you.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I think you're saying the same thing. Most people's "comfort zone" is staring at a smartphone, listening to music, watching TV, and playing video games.

It's difficult to turn everything off and just go out in the world without anything to entertain or distract you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Start working on something tiny. Often while working on it you'll discover that you're really already thinking forward, having ideas and fantasizing about your next project.

</comment><comment><USER7> This classic book: "A Technique for Producing Ideas"

[http://www.amazon.com/Technique-Producing-Advertising- Classi...](http://www.amazon.com/Technique-Producing-Advertising-Classics- Library/dp/0071410945)

is short and sweet.

Bascially,

1\. ideas are novel combinations

2\. immerse yourself in information from many disciplines

3\. think of combinations

4\. Go away from it -- do something else

5\. An idea comes to you

6\. refine it

</comment><comment><USER8> Meditate. Be passionate. Think for yourself. Read fundamental books. By fundamental I mean "important", not "full of religious bigotry". I got a lot of ideas from Frank Herbert's "Dune", for example. Do things. I mean dont just use your lizard brain to constantly look for new input, dont follow what other people are doing. Start your own pet project. No matter how small. Find the smallest problem you can solve. Ideally a global one. But a local one works too. Anything to get you working. Then the creative juices will flow.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why is there so much emphasis on finding something new when there are a lot of successful businesses out there that you could copy and compete with?

<comment><USER10> It may have something to do with over valuing ideas, but I don't think HN has that problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Exercise. I'm not sure what it is about exercise (increased bloodflow to the brain?) but whenever I catch myself not exercising enough my creativity also tends to be at a low. I can really think a problem through when e.g. I'm skiing or swimming.

Changing environments/motion. I find that I'm really creative when I'm travelling (mostly by train, driving a car is too distracting and flying is too shitty).

</comment><comment><USER12> Learn about how other people spend their work or leisure time. Spend a day in their shoes. You'll see plenty of problems software could solve.

</comment><comment><USER13> Be sensitive to what you really want/need. If you pay enough attention, most of the time, there won't be a products/services that 100% satisfy your own want/need.

Write your idea down, start your sentence with "What if..."

Then try to forget about it. Great ideas tends to come back and haunt you every day and night.

When they do, you know what to do (or find out how!).

</comment><comment><USER14> _Do you, for instance, have a routine where you sit down and think about new ideas every so often? Or do you just wait for one to hit you?_

Sorta both. I don't exactly have a routine that's dedicated to "new idea generation" but I have routines around reading and studying... and I find that a lot of my ideas occur when I'm reading (whether reading a book, or a website, or a magazine, whatever). So, I tend to read in bed before going to sleep, and - a lot of times - after I put my book down and turn the light out, some idea will come to mind. So I keep a notebook by my bed just for jotting this stuff down.

The other scenario is when I go up to Barnes & Noble, order myself a nice caffeinated beverage and sit back and read / listen to music / think of ideas. I also keep a notebook with me on those occasions.

</comment><comment><USER15> In my personal experience, I haven't deliberately forced ideas, however that could potentially work.

One thing may be to become aware of when you have ideas - I've found I have my best ideas when I'm not sat at my laptop.

The ideas for my two startups came when I built something for myself and found that others wanted it too. These were little problems (at first).

I think a final important thing that comes to mind is that if you have even a twinkle of an idea, then grab onto it with both hands, and work with it. My latest app was a tiny idea and I developed it in just over a month and a half into something of value and I've now just had my first customer. Work with the ideas and eventually you'll find yourself swamped with things to build upon that single idea.

Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER16> I once attended a "creativity" workshop, and one of the tasks was coming up with a solution for an everyday annoyance.

IIRC the process was _something_ along the lines of...

1) Decide on a task or something that you do regularly (e.g grocery shopping) 2) Detail all the steps involved in completing the task (e.g walking round the store, finding items, comparing prices, putting items in cart, queueing up at checkout etc etc) 3) Rate each one in terms of annoyance/difficulty level 4) Start to brainstorm how the high annoyance steps could be easier.

I can't remember the exact steps - there was a bit more to it than that, but as a team of 4 we had some pretty cool ideas after an hour.

</comment><comment><USER17> I agree with _Rahul that ideas are born from cross-polination. I read a lot of business books and blogs, but also read other stuff - novels, science, faith- based, humor, etc. Most of my ideas come from combining something that I've read from a business book/blog with something completely unrelated. Also, something else that helps cross-polinations is traveling to developing countries. Oftentimes, there are so many new experiences, points of view, and ways of doing things there that it opens your mind.

To document my ideas, I just type them in Notes on my iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER18> The only thing standing between you and ideas is your own conscious mind. So you need to find a way to make it go away. Try doodling. A lot. Let your mind go and ideas will flow. Running, bicycling or skipping ropes - it could be any activity. You'll know which one works with you only when you try.

Ideas are often born via cross-pollination. Do stuff and read books, beyond your narrow field of expertise.

Internet/libraries are full of books about idea, creativity & thinking. You'll have to do several iterations to find a routine that works for you.

</comment><comment><USER19> Personally, I carry a small notebook with me and whenever I find myself having difficulties with anything (whether it be finding a place to eat, the nearest gas station, or remembering what I had to do at work) I try to consciously think of how I could prevent running into the problem in the future. If an idea comes to mind then simply write it down. The result is that you will find your notebook will fill up very quickly and will become a resource for you when you are attempting to start a new project.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think some of my better ideas have come from just wanting to solve problems --either mine or those of friends, family, or co-workers. Those ideas always seem so much better than anything I just sit down and come up with based off what I think would make a lot of money yet is a stupid idea fundamentally. Plus, ideas that solve some problem seem as if they're easier to stick with (for me, at least).

</comment><comment><USER21> It is all about solving problems that people have. One great resource for this in my opinion is to go to ehow.com and check out the thousands of articles there in just about any topic. Each of them is an answer to someones question or problem and could get your thoughts flowing.

It's also a really good place to start for people that are interested in creating information products.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just make sure a little piece of your brain always think about it: that little piece will then convert real life problems into problems to be solved or solutions.

Walking 2h daily used to be my main creative time. Now that I live in a big city is a bit more complicated to do.

Get a good note-taking app on your phone. Whenever you get an idea, write it down there. I use catch.com.

</comment><comment><USER23> A lot of my project ideas come on plane rides to or back from a nice long vacation. Since there's no internet, I'd just sketch stuff out on a piece of paper. If there's a cute hostess I'd use her to bounce ideas off of.

</comment><comment><USER24> I get ideas by naturally wanting things easy and believing others want things easy too. So once i hit a difficulty, i start looking for ways to make things easier for myself and others.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ideally I look for problems instead of solutions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Look around for _who is selling what._</comment>


How three-day weekends can help save the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-three-day-weekends-can-help-save-world-and-us-too <comment><USER2> > Utah abandoned the experiment in 2011 after residents complained they were > unable to access services on Fridays.

This is part of the problem I think. I've worked 4-day weeks in the past and one of the best things about it is you have a free day during the week to do all the things you normally can't get to. Go to the doctor, visit other business or government offices that are normally only open while you're at work.

Of course if _everyone_ does a 4-day week, then you lose that benefit. Then you have to cram all those errands into the 4 days, during which you now also have more work to do.

Instead of "everybody take Friday off". It might make more sense to stagger days off so everyone has a chance to have a day off while things they need are open.

<comment><USER3> Well service roles get screwed no matter what. Irrelevant of standard work weeks. Restaurants/hospitals/retail are already open all week regardless. What people are arguing is all the white collar jobs that feed back into the service jobs.

<comment><USER4> I personally think the issue is that we have defined Saturday and Sunday as the weekend. I worked retail, and I loved having Saturday as my "Friday", and Sunday and Monday as my weekend, because services had normal hours on Monday, and I could relax on Sunday. The downside at the time was that my schedule often didn't overlap with that of my friends, such as those who worked as servers in restaurants.

I find three day weekends to be much more relaxing than the standard weekend. It means I can spend time with my friends on one day, do chores on another day, and spend the remaining day relaxing. As long as I still have a day I can spend with my friends, I'd be okay with a different schedule than M-F or M-R.

There is a barrier to a shorter workweek I don't see touched on often, and maybe it's just me. I'm hesitant to work less because I'm afraid that people would find out that I'm just not that necessary around the office, and that the work I do isn't important as I think it is. Realistically, I think such a realization would be more damaging to my personal pride than anything else. I think I base too much of my self-worth on how replaceable I am to my organization. It's a bit ridiculous to seek validation from an organization, but it is one reason why I'd be hesitant to have a day off while other people are working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While increasing productivity will definitely allow people to find work that allows them either less time or more flexibility, there is always that issue of want.

Ten years from now, let say you can find a job where you can work 32 hours a week (or 40, but 8 from home -- slacking a little on that), but let's say you don't earn enough to afford that new iPhone. You can only afford the previous years model. You can't quite have the new curved behemoth TVs that everybody has, nor can you take a vacation any time soon, but you can to take a mini one every weekend.

Is this going to be okay for you? I would argue, many people might be able to do this now. I think that desire to consume is pretty strong. I definitely have it.

These decisions all come with tradeoffs. If your neighbor decides to work 48 hours, taking the 8 your decided to forego, and he can afford these nice little things, are you then going to be calling it unfair that he he's paid more than you? Are you going to be calling for an weekly hour cap to prevent it?

<comment><USER6> Following this line of thought, why aren't people currently working 7 days a week? People who work 56hrs will earn more than those working 48, and even more than those that just work 40hrs.

One answer might just be norms. If only 10% of people work 56hrs, then you don't earn so little that you can't afford " _that expensive thing_ that everybody has". What everybody has is based on norms and averages.

A question is then how we went from working 7 days a week, to 6 days a week and Sundays in church, to 5 days a week. How did people start to work less and live with the reality of earning less in comparison to those staying with the old working hours.

<comment><USER7> > _A question is then how we went from working 7 days a week, to 6 days a week > and Sundays in church, to 5 days a week. How did people start to work less > and live with the reality of earning less in comparison to those staying > with the old working hours._

With blood. The socialist revolutions were in big part based on fighting for the workers abused in the freshly industrialized world.

It's ironic if you see how fast people today want to get rid of all the safeguards that got us the quality of life we enjoy today, all in the name of cheaper products and "I will be an entrepreneur too!" mindset.

<comment><USER8> Source?

First, i think you mean unions, not socialism. Non-socialist countries also have had 5 day weeks. Also even though unions have increased worker rights in history, pure capitalism has also been doing that as well. Look at silicon valley, where empoyee perks, extra PTO and such have not been fought for but are provided.

<comment><USER9> They were provided because labour demand outpaced supply. It's not the case for tech jobs in many North American markets, and certainly not the case for many other white collar jobs; even good paying ones.

When supply begins to overshadow demand, whether due to immigration, more people getting CS degrees or whatever, you'll see a lot of those perks stripped away, and wages will stagnate or fall (relatively speaking).

<comment><USER10> jnordwick's excellent point is that demand can grow without any obvious bound. That has an impact on both ends of the labor market. Sure, people will be willing to work more to acquire the things they want, but that demand itself generates a need for jobs and leverage for labor. Somebody needs to design and manufacture the next iPhone or fancy TV. Somebody else needs to refurbish and maintain that lovely seaside Airbnb for jnordwick's next vacation.

This can be a self-reinforcing cycle, and it's how the economic pie can grow even as everyone on the whole takes more.

<comment><USER9> Demand can't outpace supply forever. It can grow forever, but anything that's lucrative will eventually be sought out, and the price will come down. Labour included. Also, someone will always be willing to undercut others, which is why the arbitrage condition is basically a law of economics, and always leads to a price equilibrium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think a three day weekend should be a societal goal we strive for, as productivity per worker goes up. Let's use our extra wealth to give people some more leisure time. Besides there's a good chance people will probably get the same amount of work done with four days as five.

<comment><USER12> The problem is, most Americans don't know what to do with leisure time. It actually causes them distress. We need to figure out how to get people engaged in other pursuits before we disengage them from work.

<comment><USER13> There is definitely a grain of truth to that statement. After 40+ hours of work every week, when a day or two hits with nothing to do, it can be difficult to know what to do with yourself. The mindset of needing to be constantly working starts to become embedded.

<comment><USER14> IMO it's tough to do _anything_ with yourself on the weekends with only two days off. There's not _enough_ time to start to do things of consequence, as the two days are mostly spent recovering from the previous 5.

5 days of work. Get up, get self ready, get kids ready, get kids to school, work, get home, feed kids, get kids to bed. Too mentally tired to do anything now, and if it's not summer then the Sun's either down or going down. Hope you didn't need to mow the damn lawn again, or your evening's _really_ shot.

Day 6, spend actually quality time with kids (finally!), begin to recover from the work week.

Day 7, starting to feel like a real human again, maybe do _just a little_ stuff for one's self, get the house in order after 6 days of chaos, do other necessary stuff that was deferred during the work week.

Day 8: five days of work starts over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's arguable that people are actually choosing fewer hours by working part time.

Part time work has shot up as a percentage of all work. In Australia it has gone from 1/10 to 1/4 of work from 1966 to 2007. Most other countries are similar. AU numbers in the link.

[http://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/part-time- employmen...](http://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/part-time-employment)

Before people point out that people would actually like to work more it's worth quoting the link that this goes both ways:

"Since the early 1990s, 20-25 per cent of female part time workers and 30-35 per cent of male part time workers have indicated a preference to work more hours. At the same time, there is evidence to suggest that two full time workers want to move to part time work for every part time worker who wants to move to full time work."

<comment><USER16> From the paper:

'..over the last thirty years there has been an increase in involuntary part time employment.'

'There has been no sustained or substantial decrease in the level of involuntary part time employment among women since it increased during the recession of the early 1990s.'

'involuntary part time employment increased strongly during the economic recessions in the early 1980s and 1990s, as well as the economic slowdown in 2001.'

Your paper was published in June 2008, before the '08 Crisis.

Choosing to work Part-Time is a privilege. Companies use Part Time work to avoid paying benefits, leave, etc. Keeping employees in a sort of limbo to save costs.

<comment><USER15> For those who are not Australians it is important to note that in Australia there is universal health care independent of your employer.

Also while benefits are not usually the same as for full time they are sometimes and even if not the same are not as different as they are in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Utah abandoned the experiment in 2011 after residents complained they were > unable to access services on Fridays.

The idea of a three-day weekend looks nice, but it should be applied to people, not services! Services should be still open Monday to Friday, just with 80% of the people working in.

<comment><USER18> Yes I was wondering why they didn't either cycle the extra day, or have 100% Tue-Wed-Thurs then 50% Mon&Fri - using hot desking so that much of the office space can be shut down.

Other advantages are that 2 working parents who each had an opposing day 'off' would only need child care for 3 days instead of 5, resulting in lower costs and more family team. I know that would be great for me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So now the question becomes -- which day should become the third day?

I vote for Friday. It's the Muslim worship day - and snuggles nicely against the Jewish and Christian worship days. It would give "Thank God It's Friday" an extra dimension of meaning. Most people are halfway home mentally anyway.

Monday also has some claims, but think of all of the songs that would have to be re-written to make Tuesday the new "most hated." I Don't Like Tuesdays (tell me why.) Rainy Days and Tuesdays Always Get Me Down. Blue Tuesday.

That's all I got to say about that.

<comment><USER20> It absolutely needs to be a day that people can choose themselves, so that not too many services will be unavailable on this new off day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Increase in productivity and all the remote work tools now available are supposed to gives us option to work less, but it is not that easy when we bring our work everywhere thanks to smartphones. Even when working part-time you end up checking your e-mail or Slack. It would be great to push changes like the ones proposed in article, but there is nobody out there who will want to advocate for them - corporations? government? unions? ourselves? (when the consumerism argument seems to please everyone):/

<comment><USER5> Don't do it. There are plenty of people who become unavailable after work hours (when they are not supposed to be on call). Every YC article that comes up about the topic there are plenty that will tell you how.

In the end it comes down to people making a decision. They are willing to take their work home with them essentially, either literally or via phone, because they value that job enough to compete with the others who are willing to do the same.

There are plenty of slightly less demanding jobs or even fields that will give you that ability, but that drive for the little more financially comfortable life is quite powerful. Too many people act like they are powerless when in reality they have the power to start looking into jobs or careers.

<comment><USER21> It is good point. In general the only people who can change the workplace are the employees who put the pressure on the employer or like you say make career choices that better reflect work/life balance we seek.

This is best visible in tech where we are used to perks that we already consider basic, another discussion is whether those perks are actually a way to make us work more.

On a personal note I remember working in advertising and being on my Blackberry 24/7\. Was it necessary? I don't think so, but neither my ad agency nor myself had an effective productivity system in place. Workplaces has changed so much in the last 5 years, that we may want to consider teaching people how to work less, remotely and avoid re-work at any cost. My proposal would be putting that as obligatory course in every college. Sort of like d.school Design Your Life, and instead Design Your Work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I recently read an interesting take on the same topic by Carlos Slim Helu. He actually advocates a 3 day work week for certain industries. Telmex is already offering this option to some of it's employees.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/mexico- s-r...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/mexico-s-richest- man-wants-a-three-day-workweek)

</comment><comment><USER5> > As anthropologist David Graeber recently has contended, many of us work jobs > that, at least partially, seem pointless. Indeed, economists long have been > aware of the redundant hours contained in many working days

Wait! Are these the same Keynesian economists that say doing pointless work, literally digging holes and filling the up again, can improve the economy?

</comment><comment><USER17> > In its first 10 months, the move saved the state at least $1.8 million in > energy costs.

What is such a statement supposed to mean? What was the total energy cost in those months? Did they shave a 1% or a 20%?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why not a 5 day week?

5/7 == 71.4% of days are work days

3/5 == 60% of days are work days

So we would lose 11% of working days, but you would get a weekend after every 3 work days.

I think the main objection would come from various religions which have hard- coded a 7 day week, but if they picked one holy day out of 5, that is even more visits to the designated building of that religion every year, so it seems like they could get on board with that.

</comment><comment><USER24> We have a 9/80 work week at my employer, and even then, they want people coming in on their days off. Never gonna happen in corporate America.

<comment><USER25> What does 9/80 mean? 9h/day minimum, and 80h/week?

That 'd be straight out illegal in Germany, for example (8h/d maximum on long- term average, 48h/week max on long-term average). If any accidents happen with this excessive overtimes, the employer is fully liable for any damages claims.

What the US desperately lacks is a federal workers' protection laws.

<comment><USER26> "The 9/80 work week… occurs over a 2-week period as follows: employees work seven 9-hour days in a 2-week period, one 8-hour day and then receive one "free" day off every other week."

[https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/glossary/n/nineeighty- work-...](https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/glossary/n/nineeighty-work-week- definitions)

Google is your friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Keynes famously predicted we'd be working much less by now due to increased productivity, but that hasn't happened yet and probably never will for the same reason we still have to work five days a week.

<comment><USER28> If it weren't for unions we'd all still be working Saturdays. But we all know unions are only for the good for nothing & the lazy.

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/sep/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/sep/09/viral-image/does-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-come- henry-ford-or-lab/)

<comment><USER29> If it weren't for unions, we'd still have a competitive manufacturing industry that would be allowed to reward competence rather than seniority.

Unions stagnated decades ago and have achieved little more than strangling many of the industries they are involved in.

<comment><USER30> > _a competitive manufacturing industry that would be allowed to reward > competence rather than seniority._

Because that's how it was for labourers before unions?

Yes, life with unions sucks. But life without unions sucks even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This sounds like something you can potentially achieve today just by negotiating with your employer. 20% less work for 20% less pay. It affects only you and the world keeps on turning.

</comment><comment><USER32> I went back and read this again and the effect of these sort of changes compounded over time could actually save the world. It wasn't _just_ a click bait headline. :-)

</comment><comment><USER33> Yes, it's virtuous to sacrifice each other's economic freedom (though not political freedom) to increase average happiness.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wouldn't an extra day working from home each week give pretty much the same benefits, while keeping productivity the same?

Nice middle ground, I think. I think for businesses that require customers to be around... restaurants, taxis, coffee shops... losing a day would be pretty brutal.

Likely see less coffee shops, for example, as they would struggle to make rent. Probably more chain coffee shops, as a result. I see a lot of consequences like this to adding another weekend day.

<comment><USER35> > Likely see less coffee shops, for example, as they would struggle to make > rent.

The coffee shops everywhere I've lived are _more_ crowded on the weekends than during the week.

<comment><USER18> Yes - many 'services' might still be 7 day, just cycling additional time off amongst the workers. That relies on owners happily sharing their profits, which is unlikely to happen outside of co-ops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Every time someone makes the comment "oh if America was just like Europe and had X number of days off and relaxed attitudes towards work and a strong work life balance etc", I feel obliged to point out that there's a large majority of people in this country who A) Do not like being told we should be more like Europe and B) Don't mind the 5 day work week and have just as much joy and happiness as anyone. Not to mention the abysmal state many European countries and economies have found themselves in. While they were taking their siesta, the USA was busy being the largest economy in the world.

<comment><USER37> I think you're mostly right, trying to apply European solutions to American problems is not necessarily a good idea, just like trying to apply American solutions to European problems is not necessarily a very good idea.

The nationalist slur at the end of your comment was totally unnecessary though.

<comment><USER29> >The nationalist slur at the end of your comment was totally unnecessary though.

Is highlighting the fact that the US is the largest economy considered a slur?

<comment><USER38> The comment about taking siestas was saying the US is the largest economy because people in other countries were lazy. Did you really think that it was the other half of that sentence being objected to?

<comment><USER39> To add some perspective though, because the US is the largest economy, the notion of working harder to achieve similar results to the US is quite the aspiration for the developing countries. Not to mention geeks like me (and probably others here) who are endlessly fascinated by how much easier it is to go from idea to prototype to production to profit in the US compared to just about every other country on the planet.

The commenter could have just said that the 25% extra hours worked each week compounded into a much larger economy and omitted 'siesta'.

<comment><USER40> > how much easier it is to go from idea to prototype to production to profit > in the US compared to just about every other country on the planet

Is that true? I honestly don't know, but my intuition is that it's true for a certain subset of projects and not others. Even if it is true, is the origin of that truth "working harder"? I sincerely doubt that. If I had to guess, the availability of capital is the leading cause. And that capital came from somewhere, but it wasn't all hard work.

<comment><USER41> This study (looking at the "Entrepreneurship & Opportunity" column) for 2015 shows Sweden at #1 and the US at #11: [http://www.prosperity.com/#!/ranking](http://www.prosperity.com/#!/ranking)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> You can save the world by gradually shifting taxes to fossil fuels, let the market sort everything else out.</comment>


Chariot for Women is a new ride sharing service for women only - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/08/chariot-for-women-is-a-new-ride-sharing-service-for-women-only/ <comment><USER2> A premium ride sharing service that puts safety at the forefront and targets women sounds like a viable business. This doesn't. Not only are they refusing service to men but likely the bigger problem is they are refusing to employee (or contract) them. I'm sure the lawyers are already circling for the inevitable discrimination lawsuits.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I can't see this succeeding anymore than a hypothetical "Uber for white people who are afraid of black drivers".

<comment><USER4> I am sure an Uber for white people would be quite a success despite being morally offensive. Thankfully people fought (and still fight) to stop this sort of crude discrimination and any such business will soon be sued out of existence.

I am interested to know what sort of thinking went through the investors heads when they were pitched Chariot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Comment from a Uber driver:

> _you know this is bullshit, this is so sexist and honestly very offensive. I > am an UBER driver and im an excellent driver and treat all my riders with > respect and equality. This app is basically saying that all UBER drivers are > sexual predators which is not true, yes I agree that UBER should increase > the throughness of their background checks because every rider should have > that peace of mind of being safe when riding with UBER, but this is not the > solution because this is catagorizing me as a sexual predator which is > bullshit. I hope this guy who made this reads my post because this is > bullshit._

<comment><USER6> From a business perspective, he needn't worry. There likely aren't many Uber customers who use the service but dislike it enough to switch. So, Chariot's growth will come from people who don't use ride share, which means if it succeeds, it'll expand the market. People become less afraid as they become more familiar, so a percentage of Chariot customers will start riding Uber as well since they see Uber drivers are very similar to Chariot drivers. In the long run, Uber could have more customers because of Chariot and possibly purchase the company outright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't wait for the next version - Chariot for White People.

Couldn't this whole issue of women feeing unsafe be solved by a real time camera in every car and something like a Amazon Echo with a safe word that triggers human intervention. Actually use technology to solve a problem rather than millennial old discrimination.

<comment><USER7> Chariot for Men:

The premise is the same as all the other ridesharing services, There's a driver app and a client app, except that what makes us unique is our safe driving feature that other apps forgot to do. We ensure every driver in our entourage is a male.

<comment><USER4> I am all in as long as every car comes with fluffy dice and a huge sub-woofer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems to me, that if the same service was offered for all men it would be considered sexist.

</comment><comment><USER9> I find it amazing that anyone thinks this could even be legal, much less ethical. Both to refuse service based on gender, as well as refuse to hire anyone who is male? This can't possibly be a legal company to operate in the United States.

It's sexism, plain and simple.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_quali...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualifications)

There's an exception to US anti discrimination laws for jobs that require a certain age/sex/gender/race etc. Catholic schools for example can exclude non- Catholics from being theology teachers, for instance. Actors can be excluded on the basis of race, if the character requires a certain race.

I'm not sure though if this qualifies though. Seems like there would be caselaw somewhere on it though.

<comment><USER9> "Bona fide occupational qualifications generally only apply to instances in which the BFOQ is considered reasonably necessary to the normal operation of a particular business. For example, a Catholic college may lawfully require such positions as president, chaplain, and teaching faculty to be Catholics, but membership in the Catholic Church would generally not be considered a BFOQ for occupations such as secretarial and janitorial positions.

Mere customer satisfaction, or lack thereof, is not enough to justify a BFOQ defense, as noted in the cases Diaz v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc.[6] and Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co..[7] Therefore, customer preference for females does not make femininity a BFOQ for the occupation of flight attendant.[8] However, there may be cases in which customer preference is a BFOQ—for example, femininity is reasonably necessary for Playboy Bunnies.[9] Customer preference can "'be taken into account only when it is based on the company's inability to perform the primary function or service it offers,' that is, where sex or sex appeal is itself the dominant service provided."[10]"

My guess would be that excludes gender discriminating people driving cars outright. While obviously, as discussed in the article, women may prefer women drivers, the driver being a woman is not functionally necessary to drive a car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So predators can sign up fake accounts and lure women right to them then?

Seems like not knowing the specifics of who will turn up when you press the button is just a good idea. Even if it may be someone from a group more routinely targeted by predators, they don't have a guarantee.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of the Nathan for You episode with the dating site that sends a bodyguard with every woman that goes on a date.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't be so absolutely convinced the legal case against this. For instance, designating something a private club. Private clubs include whomever they choose.</comment>