Dear Founders: "Listening" to Your Users Isn't the Same as "Waiting to Talk" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@saagrawa/listening-to-users-is-not-the-same-thing-as-waiting-to-talk-fbd1ebd82ea9#.45yyh9dj8 <comment><USER2> Really insightful. I can definitely picture the person "listening" while they're really just waiting to sell the person on an idea once they've finished. Taking the mindset of true reflection, hearing something that you didn't want to hear and didn't expect, and then adjusting based on that is truly challenging.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Personally, I've experienced it quite a few times while working on our product.

It's important to listen carefully to your users _but_ you also have to know that they are not always clear on what they want.

I think that studying their behavior is much more revealing in most cases. After all, actions speak louder than words.</comment></comment>


Auschwitz Museum launches add-on to correct "Polish death camps" mistake - <AUTHOR> https://correctmistakes.auschwitz.org/ <comment><USER2> Context: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_contro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_controversy)</comment>


Ask HN: Would you enjoy using pen/paper over laptop for development? - <AUTHOR> I am more of a pen/paper person than computer. I had 2 ideas on how to create a bridge between laptop and pen/paper :
1. A software existed that could turn a picture of code into code
2. A software that could turn a UML diag to software classes/function/variables etc. The logic can be filled in by the dev actually implementing the feature. <comment><USER2> Number 2 has existed for decades and it failed, or at least everywhere I've worked that tried it has since abandoned the concept. Have a look at IBM's Rational Software Architect for an example.

<comment><USER3> In college I had a UML class and used Rational Rose. I did not like it for software development. I am very happy I have not had to use this for software development in the wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not for writing code, but I do enjoy pen and paper for sketching out high level designs and data flows. I've started writing on an A5 sized notebook too - I find the size constraints help with focused thinking.

</comment><comment><USER5> No, wouldn't use it, sounds at least 10x slower than typing.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like writing code structure down on a piece of paper before actually coding.</comment>


Learn You Some Erlang now out in print - <AUTHOR> http://learnyousomeerlang.com/splash-book

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author and submitted a bunch of chapters here before, which were well received.

You can buy it directly from No Starch Press with 40% off by going to <http://nostar.ch/erlang_promo>. Just as a reminder, it's 40% off for one week, print books come with free ebook versions (PDF, Mobi, ePub -- all DRM- free).

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Good timing!

Picked up the ebook. nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm definitely purchasing!

I've read the online version twice now and it's been an invaluable learning tool. I started with a very shaky understanding of functional programming and LYSE kept me engaged and learning the entire time. After reading and doing some experimenting, I have a solid enough foundation now to develop professional projects in Erlang. I think my only complaint would be the chapter on FSMs... a FSM is probably not the tool I would have used to solve the example problem ;)

Thanks again!

<comment><USER4> I love LYAH, I think for learning Haskell, LYAH is the best intro, better than Real World Haskell. And at first I thought LYSE would be a sort of 1:1 mapping of LYAH, but no, LYSE treats it subject matter to a much wider breadth. There are like 20 extra chapters! And the "Don't drink too much Kool Aid" sections are a nice feature, not a lot of books call out the hype about something and give you the real low-down. Quite refreshing to get a realistic, pragmatic view instead.

Thanks to the author for making it available for free online. Im going to go purchase my copy now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This book was my functional programming gateway drug. I couldn't (and still can't really) get into Lisps, so I wanted to learn an ML. Haskell was still too far away from my imperative background to fathom at the time, so LYAHFGG sat on my bookshelf for a while. However, somebody recommended this book for me. I cracked it open, and by that I mean clicked the read link, and was astounded at how simple it was presented.

It presents Erlang in such an easily consumable way. Learn You Some Erlang introduced me to an incredibly powerful language that was unknown to me before I started reading. The functional paradigm, concurrent processing model, and the OTP framework are presented and explained in ways that I would use to explain to someone next to the water-cooler at work. Out of every programming book I've read, Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good easily sits within my Top 5, no, Top 3 programming books of all time.

It's easy to read, informational, and funny. Consider me sold, mononcqc. You're a fantastic author, and I thank you for your work!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one hell of a flattering comment, thanks a lot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't wait to get my preordered print copy: "Learn You Some Erlang" rocks!

</comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations! I'll be waiting for the Japanese version :P

</comment><comment><USER8> Read a few chapters online. Great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER10> I assume the title is a play on the Erland grammar/syntax and not a lame attempt to be ghetto cool?

It's cool that the book is available online. I may need to spend some time learning Erlang.

<comment><USER11> Presumably a poor translation from a Scandanivian language to English. For example, in Swedish you use the reflexive verb "lära" which means both to learn and to teach. In Swedish you would say "lära dig" which does translate literally to English as "learn you" but which should get the more appropriate translation of "teach yourself".

<comment><USER12> A small correction. The proper form of "lära" in "Learn you some Erlang for great good!" (or "Teach yourself...") would be "lär", as in "Lär dig lite Erlang för (mycket/väldigt) bra!" if you translate directly. But the end of that sentence is grammatically incorrect in Swedish as well.

Either way, I doubt that it's translated from a Scandinavian language since the one who came up with the first book with that title style (Learn you a Haskell for great good!) is Slovenian.

A note to the author of the book: It looks very interesting and I just bought a copy. Hopefully I'll have time to read it soon, since I've been wanting to look into Erlang for quite some time now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for buying it! I hope you'll enjoy it and that it will be a good source of objective information.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How white engineers built racist code – and why it's dangerous for black people - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/04/racist-facial-recognition-white-coders-black-people-police <comment><USER2> >facial recognition software has problems recognizing black faces because its algorithms are usually written by white engineers

That quote doesn't seem right to me.

I think the basic premise - that facial recognition typically doesn't work as well with black people, apparently backed up with research from the FBI, is a critical thing to know and work on. I don't think the explanation is that software engineers responsible are disproportionately white or racist, but rather that the networks need to be trained with datasets including more people of different races. For example, neural networks can recognize species of birds, and that advance was not delayed by a dearth of avian engineers.</comment>


Ask HN: Floodgate Capital reputation and exits? - <AUTHOR>

I'm considering joining a relatively early stage start up in the bay area which has received an A round from Floodgate capital (previously Maples Investments).  I'm working on my due diligence for the company, and thought I'd ask if anyone on HN has experience with Floodgate.<p>I know that they were part of the series A round with Digg, but don't know much beyond that, other than what I can get from their website. <comment><USER2> Is this Mike Maples' fund? If so, yes, they are well known and Mike is a great guy.

Raj CEO, Viralheat Inc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, he's the original founder of Maples Investments, which became Floodgate. Appreciate the information!

<comment><USER2> Yes. He is a very savvy and very experienced investor. He is a great resource for any startup imho.</comment></comment></comment>


Selenium Mobile JSON Wire Protocol Specification - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/mobile-spec/blob/master/spec-draft.md <comment><USER2> Meh, headless Chrome killed any need for me to ever touch this Selenium thing again. It is awesome to not have to install Java to get work done...

<comment><USER3> You don't have to install Java to use Selenium. (Source: I started the Selenium project)

<comment><USER4> Isn't Selenium server (JAVA) required?

Or is there a way to run Se without the server?

<comment><USER3> The server is a proxy between a client library and a browser (or a browser driver like ChromeDriver). Like all good proxies, it can add some cool features to your workflow, but is not required for basic usage.

For example, you can download the Selenium client library for Python and drive Chome (via the ChromeDriver executable provided by Google). No Java required.

Removing the Java requirement for basic point-to-point (e.g. Python to Firefox, Ruby to Chrome, etc.) automation was a key feature of the Selenium 2 (aka WebDriver) architecture when Simon Stewart first released it back in 2011.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those as confused by the title as I was, apparently this is _a_ wire protocol for something called "Selenium" which happens to use JSON. "Selenium Mobile REST API" would be much more descriptive without context.

<comment><USER6> Also a repo that that changed in over a year. I am curious if there is anything new of note.</comment></comment>


Twitter vs. Disqus - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupcrusade.com/twitter-vs-disqus/ <comment><USER2> How do you moderate a Twitter feed?

How do you have a discussion thread when each post is limited to 140 characters?

<comment><USER3> Additional metadata - a tweet could attach to a specific URL, which the URL owner could reject if needed. So, I could build a post form on my site to submit a tweet that shows as a comment, or you could use the API to attach a comment to my page, and I could accept or reject them as desired. Perhaps even have different rules for tweets posted from my form than from the API, etc.

Tweets don't have to be limited to 140 characters. I believe Twitter has kicked around the idea of longer ones. I'd personally be in favor of upping to 200-256 and then even allowing a paid tier (either monthly or per tweet) to go to longer lengths, attach more media, etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you track bugs filed against an in-review feature? - <AUTHOR> I've built software project management software and still haven't seen a great solution for this.
Here's the scenario:
1. You wrote a new feature and opened a PR 2. Your UAT/QA people test it 3. They find bugs / issues to address
Where do they put those issues?  Some options:
1. They add them as comments on the original feature ticket.  This seems like a bad idea because comments don't have a state (needs doing, done, won't do) so it's hard to track how much work is left to do.
2. They add them as tasks on the original feature ticket.  Not terrible but hard to record repro steps (with images etc if necessary) as a task
3. They add them as NEW issues and link them to the original issue.  Still not a great option: if linking doesn't happen, the new issues are orphaned.  Plus it's a bunch of work to relate issues (in some issue trackers).
I default to #3 solution but wanted to see if there were other approaches I hadn't considered.
My goals are:
1. Capture bugs with repro steps and urls/pictures if necessary
2. Be able to triage them (will do / won't do), assign them, and have state (open, in progress, closed, etc) to see how many are left to ship the original feature
3. Do it with as little pain as possible.
How do you solve this problem? <comment><USER2> Just my two cents, but I think you're taking a good approach with #3.

Reasoning:

In addition to the task-state problem you mention, it's nice to treat written feature requests as near-immutable. Updates to them after they're written -- especially when initiated outside the development team -- can lead to the classic complaint around "ever-shifting requirements". So that's another reason to avoid #1.

Subtasks (approach #2) is a bit better, but again it involves changing an object/document that may have previously been considered relatively stable.

Perhaps you had estimates and sprint scopes attached to the parent task -- if so, adding/modifying subtasks could invalidate (or at least confuse) those.

Under these considerations, #3 therefore wins as a kind of 'append-only log' of tasks.

If you can, and if your organizational culture supports it, you could ask QA to indicate whether they feel that the issues they raise reflect problems in the original requirements, or implementation problems.

That way you may be able to align product managers with precise requirements authorship, and developers with quality implementation by identifying and improving the areas where bugs are being raised.

Of course, QA intensity and output could vary as well, so it's not foolproof. And as with any theoretical work process, it often falls apart due to practical considerations like staffing changes, project/company direction shifts, and so forth. So you shouldn't cling to it at the detriment of the team's health and progress.

But the long and short of it is that #3 seems like a good approach to me :)</comment>


Responding to MacKenzie Bezos's One-Star Slapdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-to-mackenzie-bezoss-one-star-slapdown <comment><USER2> His offer to correct any inaccurate claims is noble. I also applaud him for actually responding to the claims and not just offering the boiler plate "I stick by my story" response.

Though, I'm sure the Bezos are all done with giving this book any more publicity at this point.</comment>


The Get-Rid-Of-Crap-Every-Month Club - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/2a7de6627c07

<comment><USER2> I do this all the time with Amazon's Trade-In Program. A couple of times a year, I look at my book shelf and video games. If I haven't read/played them within the last 6 months, and have no compelling reason to hold onto them for the foreseeable 6 months, into the box they go.

Amazon then gives me a pre-paid shipping label.

I find the whole process enjoyable. "How much will Amazon give me for this?" is an exciting game. Then things go in the box, and you can visibly see the consumer weight you're lifting off your shoulders. Then you get to see the fruits of your labors with a newly empty bookshelf.

The money they give me for it is only a small part of the benefits I feel from doing it. I _try_ to do the same with Goodwill donations of old clothes, but I have to admit some laziness in actually getting down to the Goodwill (which is essentially zero difference from driving the box to the UPS Store. Procrastination is a weird and wonderful thing.)

<comment><USER3> Nice approach. I personally can't force myself to get rid of books that I've read, which is not very rational, because I very rarely reread books. But other stuff I try to get rid of, or not buy at all.

<comment><USER4> Never get rid of books. I got rid of a lot of mine and thoroughly regret it. Why?

I now have children who want to read them.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't make sense to stockpile books on the chance that your children might one day want to read them when a used copy is generally a click away. (Not to mention that you may prefer to re-buy them in digital form.) Every square inch of space in your home has a carrying cost (I used to calculate $4 per net square foot per month in New York).

Having one less book shelf is effectively saving enough per year that you could probably pay for buying back all the books you'd ever re-read on that shelf. And if you ever move, the cost and annoyance of keeping books just skyrockets.

I have a lot of books I love, but 90% of books are essentially disposable vehicles for information of transient value.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't under-estimate the value of this as an experience for kids. I discovered a copy of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe in a pile of old books my parent had. It was like discovering a small nugget of gold.

<comment><USER5> My parents were a book household too. But back then, there was no Internet, no e-books. The only place to wander onto a book was your shelf or the local bookstore. Times change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This treats the symptoms, not the cause. The ultimate solution is buying less shit and buying what you _do_ need local and used (usually on Craigslist). If you do this, you get these great benefits:

1\. You prevent all the waste included in manufacturing new shit 2\. You can usually sell it later for about what you paid for it 3\. Since you usually have to shop quite a bit to find what you need, it eliminates the highly addictive, instant gratification feedback loop that comes from buying online or in a store and ultimately leads to less buying.

Mr. Money Mustache has a great post on getting started with the religion that is Craigslist: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/11/get-rich-with- crai...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/11/get-rich-with-craigslist/)

A couple of choice quotes:

"You can also use it as a free way to "store" your unused goods. I didn't hesitate to sell my papasan chairs today, because I know if I ever need them back, I can open up Craigslist and find plenty more just like them at any point in the future."

and

"So I view Craigslist not just as an Environment Saver – by preventing the unnecessary manufacturing of a bunch of new stuff – but also a Community Machine – connecting millions of people to do real activities together, as opposed to the soul sucking model of big corporations stamping out stores across the world, staffing them with minimum wage workers, connecting them to a stream of wasteful products flowing straight from China, and having us all drive into the big boxes every day to bring home SUV-loads of it which will soon end up buried in a landfill."

<comment><USER8> _The ultimate solution is buying less shit_

Unfortunately some of us have relatives who insist on gifting us shit, regardless of how tactfully we try to ask them not to. I'd love to join a club like this. (Right now Goodwill suffices, but there's definitely non-cheap stuff we give away just because we don't have time to deal with it.)

<comment><USER7> Craigslist the non-cheap stuff. It only takes a few minutes to post something there (less time than going to Goodwill, probably), and you'll get some cash.

But yeah, the gifting culture drives me kind of bonkers too. I intend to establish Gift Truces with as many people in my life as possible come January 1st of 2014 (since, mathematically, I should be even with most people at that point). Or, if a person won't go for that, I'll ask them to donate to charity in my name instead of give me a gift.

<comment> jack-r-abbit But Craigslist can be a huge pain some times. It doesn't matter how low you price something, 5 people will try to get it for half that. I've had people arrange a time to come by & buy... and then never show up or respond again. Some times people really suck. lol

<comment><USER9> This came by a few weeks ago and it sounded like a brilliant idea.

[http://www.nobenjam.in/](http://www.nobenjam.in/) [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5849748](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5849748)

I imagine it could self fund through ads - if someone is on a waiting list but misses out, let them know with adword ads based on the product they failed to get for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _The cost of postage and the check along with all the processing costs are > covered from the money generated from sales of valuable crap. Remember: one > man's crap is another man's treasure._

And yet, Goodwill doesn't hand out $10 checks for every donation.

I suspect that the money earned from selling "another man's treasure" will rapidly decline.

At first, you'll have the type of people we imagine other HN readers sending things in - nice books, perhaps art, a few desktop toys and things like that. But after a few months, you'll start receiving things that _I 'd_ send in - desk lamps that are 99% functional, but don't quite bend in the angle that you want. Paperbacks that have been dropped into a puddle one too many times. An old thermos.

<comment><USER11> I used to work at a thrift store. The amount of value we could extract from the average box of stuff dropped off to donate . . . was nowhere near $10. In fact, a lot of it couldn't be sold at all -- it just got thrown away.

Broken toys, clothes with holes, dirty shoes, smoke-damaged, water-damaged, and just plain damaged stuff. Ugly nick-nacks, beat up plastic cups, dated books no one wants to read. We got so many tins and baskets! Everyone gets them full of cookies or gifts, no one wants to throw them away, and no one actually has a _use_ for them.

My co-worker and I did the master sorting -- sending stuff to different departments or to the trash. I saw it all. Her summary? "People send us their garbage!"

And that's the stuff that people could be bothered to drive to the store, look a person in the eye, and drop off without too much embarrassment. _This was stuff they genuinely thought was valuable._

A box you can fill with crap from your garage?

Well.

Paying $1 for that sight unseen is probably too much. $10 plus postage is . . . endearingly naive.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really helpful perspective, thank you! (the author)

<comment><USER12> I still think your idea has merit. Thrift stores tend to attract a very specific market, and that doesn't need to be your market. Thrift stores operate by accepting "junk" from people and then trying to fob it off on to other people.

As a counter-anecdote, there is a place in my area that buys used tools & equipment from people and then sells them back. They're one of my favorite places -- I'd much rather buy a used Milwaukee than a brand new cheapie -- and they seem to do pretty good business. Lots of stuff coming and going all the time.

You might bake in some kind of tracking & rating system if you're concerned about resale value. If a particular user sends in too many boxes of stuff you can't get $15+ for, reduce their payment accordingly.

<comment><USER10> > _Thrift stores tend to attract a very specific market, and that doesn 't > need to be your market._

This is part of the reason I started off my comment by imagining what an idealized HN reader would donate. That's the kind of person you want to attract. But I genuinely wonder if there are enough of those people - the fact that you're paying them a pittance turns a gift of generosity (e.g., donating to a cancer charity) into a job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Finally, a way to get rid of my old, hazardous, household chemicals and get paid at the same time!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, no one said it would be risk-free :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 71 comments as I read this, and no mention of eBay. That says to me that eBay itself is broken, as time was that the only logical answer was to sell this sort of thing there. In New Zealand we have Trade Me, which is much larger than eBay in population adjusted terms. They didn't court the larger sellers, but instead maintained focus on helping people sell to people. They are also, in my mind, not making it easy enough to list and sell ones goods. The bar has raised.

<comment><USER15> Trade Me has been gamed though, by importers and people using it as a virtual store for selling or trading their niche. I'm not sure what the answer is, but a way to filter out the high-volume sellers would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can we have a get-rid-of-medium-link-bait club?

<comment><USER17> What's wrong with medium vs any other blogging platform?

<comment><USER18> I'm wondering the same thing. I mostly enjoy articles from Medium, except that they seem to frequently present foreign-language articles that I can't read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think to make this stick you need to stop net accumulating stuff, for example:

\- Have a one-in-one out policy on gadgets, clothes, toys, games etc.

\- Don't buy DVD/BluRays (only rent or stream), CDs (Spotify/iTunes) or Books (Kindle) etc. (or use one in one out)

\- Go paperless with your bills

<comment><AUTHOR> one-in-one-out is a good one; we already implemented this in our household. still a lot of unimportant stuff hanging around getting moved from one apartment to the next... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would it not save everybody time and money if you simply drive to the thrift store every month. A recurring calender reminder will do... They do have thrift stores in the US as far as i know right?

</comment><comment><USER21> Another getting-rid-of-shit option: [http://www.freecycle.org/](http://www.freecycle.org/) Of course, it's also a getting-new-shit-for-free source which may be irresistible for some people.

<comment><USER22> > Of course, it's also a getting-new-shit-for-free source which may be > irresistible for some people

I unsubscribed for this reason after I just couldn't pass up 60 free mason quart jars. Right before we moved. Want to know how many lacerations I got from cleaning them? But, I did sell them for $30 on craigslist when it was all said and done, so there's that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that this is a great idea and it kind of reminds me of [http://usesold.com/](http://usesold.com/) with an expanded scope. I'm constantly packing up things into bags for AMVETS, but having a box sent to me that automatically gets picked up would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use Goodwill for this. I take things there when I don't need them anymore, and I go there looking for things I do need. Sometimes it feels like I'm just renting from them, when I donate something there, buy it later, then donate it again when I no longer need it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I doubt the money generated from sales of _valuable crap_ will cover the cost of your expenses.

The problem is that there is no such thing as "valuable crap". But let's assume people won't send you crap but only boxes they consider themselves worth more than $10. You will have a hard time find a buyer that pays $10 . In reality it's more like "one man's treasure is every one else's crap"

The scientific explanation is _Endowment effect_.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect)

</comment><comment><USER26> <shameless_plug> I actually just built an iPhone app to help people get rid of stuff they don't need called Give or Take: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/give-or-take-bay- area/id6517...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/give-or-take-bay- area/id651730017?ls=1&mt=8). Everything on it is free, so you won't make any money off it. But sometimes giving stuff away can be faster and less stressful. </shameless_plug>

<comment><USER9> There's a similar app called "myfreestuff" that automates posting to freecycle mailing lists. Freecycle can be a pain due to latencies and no-shows. Liking forward to trying this one out.

[edit] oops, it requires a facebook login. As a Facebook Luddite, I'll have to ask my wife to check it out for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you want to get rid of stuff, for practically zero effort (ok, yes, without the $10) then stick it on [http://www.freelywheely.com](http://www.freelywheely.com), my site.

Everything that gets posted gets more than a handful of people requesting it. Someone will come to get it, when it suits you, and take it away.

You get the warm fuzzy feeling of making someone else happy, and you also get the things out from under your feet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have to check this out - thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think its a nice idea, the core problem is what others have identified: people will send crap.

What about charging people $120 / year to sign up? and then they get their $10 /month back. No one will make money, but if you're motivated by helping out, and by relieving yourself of crap, it still could be worthwhile. And there's still tax write-offs (if it's made as a charitable org).

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting twist to the idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My problem is trying to cull the wheat from the chaff. I have so much crap and so many things mixed in with it that I don't have time to make sure I'm not throwing out my children's baby pictures with my junk.

But this could definitely solve part of the problem, and provide some well needed motivation.

<comment><USER7> You will feel so much better if you get junk and useless shit out of your life. Its a huge life improvement that requires no expenditure of money and may actually net you some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I really like this idea. I agree there's a big activation energy to getting rid of stuff. Often I have things that are for specific tasks or activities, where it wouldn't make sense to donate them to Goodwill. Having something like this would help, because you would know it would get used, but you don't have to figure out where to send it. At the receiving point, you could even coordinate with different charities - like the ones that want eyeglasses or old cell phones. So, some could get sold and some could get donated.

I didn't know about the Amazon trade-in program. That sounds great for books and games.

</comment><comment><USER31> Or you could just walk over to your local thrift store every month and give them your shit. Or used book store. Or used clothing store. Or record store. Or...

It's really not that hard.

<comment><USER32> It's surprisingly hard considering the low benefit derived. First you have to find or buy a suitable box, which might need to be taped up. Then you have to decide what stuff is actually useless. And if you want to get the most out of your potential tax deduction, you also need to itemize everything you're giving away. Then you have to find the local thrift store. I have no idea where mine is. Then you have to find the time to either walk or drive there. For me, that'd be at least a half hour round trip. With a full time job, a baby, and a rapidly shrinking social life (did I mention I have a baby?), it hardly seems worth it to trade my time for such a small gain.

<comment><USER31> It's times like this that I forget how lucky I am to live downtown in a major city. Within 15 minutes walking distance from my house, I have at least 4 used book stores, 2 record stores 1 vintage/thrift store, and another 2 vintage clothing stores, all of which accept trade ins for cash or merchandise. If none of those places give me moneys for my useless crap, then I can just leave stuff on my sidewalk and it'll be gone in less than a day.

WHEREAS, if I lived in a suburban area, which I assume you probably do, finding anyplace this would be substantially harder to achieve, and ideas like the OPs/amazons, would actually be pretty awesome.

<comment><USER32> You're right that it's harder to get to places where I live but the OP's idea is still not great for me because I have so much extra space that it doesn't bother me having a bunch of extra crap. I can just toss it in the basement storage area and forget about it.

That being said, suburban problems are an often ignored market in the startup world, presumably because the major tech hubs are in large cities. How many startups focus on homeowners, for example? I would love a company that made taking care of my home effortless. It's so much more of an ongoing challenge than I had originally anticipated. Even if you decide to hire others to take care of the lawn, the repairs, and the general upkeep, it's a giant pain in the ass. You have to research, schedule, research again when the first handyman flakes on you, schedule, reschedule, reschedule again, negotiate, watch over them to make sure they do a good job, answer all their questions (especially true for landscaping), stand up for yourself when they try to rip you off, research some more and schedule someone else to finish what the first handyman started but failed to finish, negotiate again, watch over the new handyman, and hope you know enough to make sure they did what was promised.

I want a company that I pay a monthly fee to and everything is just taken care of. No scheduling. No negotiation. No questions interrupting my work day. They keep tally of what needs to be done and just do it. I'd pay 500/month for that - maybe more. That's assuming they take care of maintenance and repairs. If it's just maintenance, I'd pay 200/month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If only it was as simple to make a business out of a cockamamie idea as it is to come up with the cockamamie idea in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> A man can dream :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Didn't a group of MIT-ers just launch a product like this a few weeks ago? I can't remember the name - they had an iOS app, and you get one of three different sized boxes in the mail, then they sell your item for you, giving you some of the profit. It was on HN a few weeks ago.

<comment><USER35> Yep - Sold. [http://usesold.com/](http://usesold.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The average value of a box of stuff is below the cost of shipping it somewhere, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think this could work if you kept a focus on hobby-type items. I think most of us with too many hobbies would be glad to send stuff if we thought it was going to an appreciative audience, and you'd get stuff worth selling.

</comment><comment><USER28> Also, Am I the only one who now has Macklemore stuck in his head?

</comment><comment><USER38> Better idea -- stop acquiring crap in the first place. Where did all this crap come from, and was it crap when you acquired it, or did it morph into crap?

</comment><comment><USER39> I'd do it, not sure how many months I'd be able to do it, as I often get rid of crap regularly.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am totally in, if I get $10, _and_ UPS or USPS picks up the packed box!

</comment><comment><USER41> reading this is kind of funny as I have a bed, sheets, 4 outfits, a towel, toothpaste, toothbrush, detergent, and deodorant all in my apartment (just moved out of parents home).

<comment><USER42> I experienced something similar a while ago as I was moving from Sweden to Japan. I could only ship a few things. Once moved, while waiting for those few shipped things to arrive, and living on yet fewer things in the meantime, I realized how few things we really need and how many things just tie us down and consume space. It's liberating to have just a few things.</comment></comment>


The Algorithms Behind Probabilistic Programming - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fastforwardlabs.com/2017/01/30/the-algorithms-behind-probabilistic-programming.html <comment><USER2> Nit

> The distribution must be smooth (this method doesn't work for discrete > parameters), but it need not be analytically differentiable

'Smooth' and 'analytic' both have basic technical meanings in the context of differentiability [1], [2].

Glossing over the assumptions in this way is quite misleading

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothness](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothness) [2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_function](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_function)

<comment><USER3> _Analytically differentiable_ (being able to derive a formula for the derivative) is not the same thing at all as _analytic functions_ of complex analysis (which are infinitely differentiable, etc). If anything, the term "analytic function" seems more of a misnomer to me, but "analytically differentiable" is used in its proper sense in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice,

The algorithms the article define seem to justify seeing probabilistic programming as an advance beyond twenty line programs that call 20K sized libraries - basically, these algorithm inherently auto-tune a lot of higher level operations so these can be less-leaky abstractions.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's taking a long time to come out, but the probabilistic approach I think is the most interesting is BayesDB:

[http://probcomp.csail.mit.edu/bayesdb/](http://probcomp.csail.mit.edu/bayesdb/)

Almost always what I want is closer to SQL-like questions that I later want to manipulate with languages like Ruby or Python, rather than having to load all the data into a giant array and then have to use probabilistic programming on the whole damn thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> You should check out [http://webppl.org/](http://webppl.org/), you implement your own probabilistic programming language in javascript.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting marketing. It seems to be an API for statistical functions and data. Though the term Probabilistic Programming sugggests a new programming paradigm, which it is not. If I'm not missing something, the term makes a dry subject sound cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's much more to it than you suggest, but if marketing bothers you then check out the MIT Probabilistic Programming Project's talk at Strange Loop 2015: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8QMqSWU76Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8QMqSWU76Q).

Probabilistic programming is an area of huge academic activity, with deep connections to statistical inference, compiler design and, yes, UX.

<comment><USER8> Academia is not exempt from marketing. And not all marketing is bad. :)

Remember the origin of the term "dynamic programming"?

> "I spent the Fall quarter (of 1950) at RAND. My first task was to find a > name for multistage decision processes. An interesting question is, Where > did the name, dynamic programming, come from? The 1950s were not good years > for mathematical research. We had a very interesting gentleman in Washington > named Wilson. He was Secretary of Defense, and he actually had a > pathological fear and hatred of the word research. I'm not using the term > lightly; I'm using it precisely. His face would suffuse, he would turn red, > and he would get violent if people used the term research in his presence. > You can imagine how he felt, then, about the term mathematical. The RAND > Corporation was employed by the Air Force, and the Air Force had Wilson as > its boss, essentially. Hence, I felt I had to do something to shield Wilson > and the Air Force from the fact that I was really doing mathematics inside > the RAND Corporation. What title, what name, could I choose? In the first > place I was interested in planning, in decision making, in thinking. But > planning, is not a good word for various reasons. I decided therefore to use > the word "programming". I wanted to get across the idea that this was > dynamic, this was multistage, this was time-varying. I thought, let's kill > two birds with one stone. Let's take a word that has an absolutely precise > meaning, namely dynamic, in the classical physical sense. It also has a very > interesting property as an adjective, and that it's impossible to use the > word dynamic in a pejorative sense. Try thinking of some combination that > will possibly give it a pejorative meaning. It's impossible. Thus, I thought > dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman > could object to. So I used it as an umbrella for my activities."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#History)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is this flagged?! Cursory glance at the article looked like perfect HN material.

<comment><USER10> The article consists of a list of algorithms with almost no other information. Its posted because it has a link to the OP's own blog.

<comment><USER11> It was helpful to me, it put these algorithms in context and explained why there are useful over other methods. Were you expecting a graduate level course embedded in the post?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> nice article - please change your font - it makes reading those blog post very difficult

<comment><USER13> I also did not like the font, hard to say why. It definitely is not designed with being legible in mind. Feels very unbalanced. I think the biggest issue is with the distracting curves, and varying ways of drawing the various curves.

Kerning is also messed up, the distance between the letters is too large in comparison to the distance between the words.

<comment><USER14> It feel like a normal font that squished each character into a slightly-too- small box.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommendations for AI generated music software? - <AUTHOR> It's surprisingly hard to find a solution for these simple requirements:
I want to create AI generated to use as soundtracks on videos - so there must be no question about royalties or copyright
I want to be able to specify how long the music should go for.
I want to be able to save the music.
It would be great if I could have some control over the pace/style of the music but I'm not a musician so lots of options would be detrimental.  I don't want to compose music - I want it made for me.
I'm happy to pay, but the prices must be clear and up front and not require me to email the company to "make an enquiry".
I've done a fair bit of searching but not found anything to make AI music that meets these needs.  It's strange given there is so much interest in AI I would have thought there would be plenty of good products available to buy.
Ideally I'd like to make music such as ambient music, similar to Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre, Phillip Glass, but it would be great just be able to explore a range of types of music to find what I want.
Can anyone recommend any good AI music generators? <comment><USER2> What you want is a plain old music generator app. Search for "generative music". Drop the Ai, it's overkill. Also with the amazing tech these days anyone can be a musician. It's basically push-botton.

Bloom on the iOs app store. [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bloom/id292792586](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bloom/id292792586)

Someone's cloned Bloom: [https://github.com/generative- music/blossom](https://github.com/generative-music/blossom)

Wotja too maybe. Here's their FAQ about rights: [https://intermorphic.com/wotja/faq/#faq-recording- ownership](https://intermorphic.com/wotja/faq/#faq-recording-ownership)

Wired can point you in more directions: [https://www.wired.com/story/generative-music- apps/](https://www.wired.com/story/generative-music-apps/)

<comment><USER3> > Also with the amazing tech these days anyone can be a musician. It's > basically push-botton.

And this is why it's getting harder and harder to find decent electronic music that doesn't sound like a chimp threw its shit at a wall; because some wanna- be with no musical skill can download a few loops, layer them up in their cracked FL Studio (or whatever) and over-compress the shit out of it for their "mastering". imo electronic music was _much_ better when there was a barrier to entry in so much as you needed about $5k worth of equipment before you could produce something semi-decent.

<comment><USER4> I think there's just more noise tbh. The overall output of good music is without a doubt much higher without the 5k barrier to entry - you just have to search harder to find it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not "AI" generated, but generated nonetheless, this HN thread from a few months back should be pretty helpful :

"Generative.fm – Endlessly unique ambient music" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397817)

Be careful: this thread is great, I spent a full evening digging into the various links people posted. You've been warned.

</comment><comment><USER6> I run a company that tries to solve your problem!

We haven't done a big public launch yet - but we use AI techniques to compose work for existing clients (think businesses + Youtube video creators).

We try to take all friction out of the process.

Here's how it works: You send link to your video. Tell us what emotions you want / any requirements (we have a simple form). Our AI engine then structures and creates a song exclusively for you (no royalties / copyright). We then have our in-house composers make final adjustments and sync it perfectly w/ your video. We price a lot less than normal composition studios due to the AI piece.

Trying to talk to as many customers as possible. If I could ask you a few questions or if you want to be a beta customer please email me at: firstname.lastname@example.com I'd greatly appreciate it!

<comment><USER7> What if a client does not like the result?

<comment><USER6> We deliver a demo first. Clients can then request any changes before we lock it in as final. Clients can also send links to music they like and we try to achieve a similar sound.

It's a good point though - we work on a small scale now. We haven't thought through all the details once we start taking new clients. One free revision seems like our most likely approach.

<comment><USER7> If you have to employ composers, why do you need AI? I'm guessing you can hire 3 composers for the salary of a single ML engineer.

<comment><USER8> I'll hazard it's because they can produce more volume if they're just doing corrections and syncing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://aiva.ai](http://aiva.ai) is exactly what you're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not what you're asking for, but I think you should take a look at band-in-a- box ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-in-a- Box](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-in-a-Box)).

When I studied music this was very interesting to me. A lot of music composition is fill-in-the-blanks / formulaic, and this generates melodies and countermelodies / accompaniment following a common (user selected) chord progression, that sounds correct and would probably pass as an assignment from an undergraduate music composition student.

There's no AI as far as I know, but if there was a Turing test for music, this would pass.

Coupled with a bit of arrangement and an original melody it can be quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's musenet[0], but it seems like there's only an API to the web generator[1] that might work for what you need?

[0]: [https://openai.com/blog/musenet/](https://openai.com/blog/musenet/) [1]: [https://github.com/bmckalla/musenet-api](https://github.com/bmckalla/musenet- api)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you use Ableton Live you should check out Magenta Studio [https://magenta.tensorflow.org/studio/ableton- live/](https://magenta.tensorflow.org/studio/ableton-live/)

<comment><USER12> Holy crap I've been wanting to make something just like this. Awesome to see that it exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uf damn, just seen that one of the companies thatdid this [https://www.jukedeck.com/](https://www.jukedeck.com/) is not doing it any more.

They had everything for free, and the music seemed perfect for background music for videos, etc... You could configure parameters, including the time and get an interesting track out.

<comment><USER14> Yup, Jukedeck solved exactly this. Looks like they got bought by ByteDance very recently ([https://musically.com/2019/07/23/ai-music-startup- jukedecks-...](https://musically.com/2019/07/23/ai-music-startup-jukedecks- ceo-now-runs-the-ai-lab-of-tiktok-owner-bytedance/))!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not sure if this helps at all, but here's one that was featured here on HN not too long ago:

[https://generative.fm/](https://generative.fm/)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for sharing this, I'm the author of Generative.fm and the music systems on it.

Just wanted to pop in to tell OP that there's a recording feature built in to the site, and everyone is free to use the recordings for whatever they'd like - I just ask that you give attribution (it's licensed under CC-BY 4.0). Though, there's no configuration and I don't use AI, if that matters.

EDIT: I forgot to mention it's free, and all the music is ambient.

<comment><USER17> The web-site shows an empty page at this moment.

<comment><USER16> Would you mind telling me which browser you tried with?

<comment><USER17> It is due to certain settings in the browser profile that I use for everyday surfing. Without giving too much information, let's just say that although some things are blocked, popular music and video streaming web-sites still work, so I guess this one should also work. It works in a clean profile with default settings in the same browser.

There are some errors like this:

Loading failed for the


Your 'recycled' laptop may end up in an illegal Asian scrapyard - <AUTHOR> https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-05-21/your-recycled-laptop-may-be-incinerated-illegal-asian-scrapyard <comment><USER2> The more I learn about what happens to the electronic waste we produce, it impacts my buying habits. I've been considering replacing my 2012 Macbook Air with a new Macbook, but maybe I should just keep using it as long as is absolutely possible. I mean, it still works even if it is a bit sluggish.

What would really be better was if I could upgrade it. That would help minimize waste. The screen works perfectly fine, but I'd have to buy a whole new screen (and everything) just to upgrade it.

Maybe I won't buy Apple anymore. Maybe I'll find a laptop that lets me upgrade components and run Linux instead. (Any suggestions?)

I'm not going to personally have a material impact on the solution, but I can change my habits, and maybe convince others to change theirs. If more people knew what happens to their waste, maybe they'd change their habits too.

<comment><USER3> You can sell every single part of your MacBook Air.

LCD, keyboard, trackpad, SSD logic board, power board, wifi card, etc. Even the screws.

I sold every single component of mine (except the battery which was put into a bin at ikea).

Just follow the ifixit guides and buy one of the% $2 screwdrivers.

It behooves you to do so to keep other units out of the e-waste trade.

% _the_ screwdrivers, you don't have to buy it from ifixit.

<comment><USER4> Did you sell them on EBay?

<comment><USER3> Yes. With ample re-use of bubble wrap and cardboard from other Ebay and Amazon packaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure someone could find a use for an old working computer or a non profit. Unlike 10 years ago, a 10 year old computer is still useful and can run modern software and get on the internet.

I had a 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini 1.66Ghz with a 60GB hard drive, 1.25GB RAM and gigabit Ethernet. It's useless as a Mac and Apple abandoned it years ago. But, I put Windows 7 on it, installed a Chrome and my mom installed Office 2010 and she uses it as a secondary computer when she tutors.

I bought a refurbished all in one Sony Desktop back in 2007 - a Core Duo 1.66GHz, 2Gb RAM, 1600x1050 display 19 inch display, 250GB hard drive 10/100 Ethernet. I installed Windows 7 on it to and it's my moms primary computer. She uses it with Chrome and Office.

I was given my 2009-2010 era Dell when the company I was working for collapsed. 8GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz, gigabit Ethernet, one of the last great 1920x1200 displays. The only times it feels slow even today running Windows 10 is reading and writing from the spinning hard drive. That could be improved by replacing it with an SSD. It served as my Plex server until earlier this year. It struggled with 1080p video but it did alright at lower resolutions up to two streams.

Then there is my Pentium Dual Core for 2009 with 4GB RAM that I put Windows 7 on. It would still be good for someone. It has a 1600x900 display and 802.11n wireless.

But don't just give people the old computer as is. Clean it up and install the OS from scratch.

<comment><USER6> I volunteer a lot for a large charity thrift shop. I strongly caution against this idea.

Old electronics are absolutely the most difficult thing for us to sell, and they take up considerable space. A 10 year old computer is essentially worthless, because at the very least it's pretty easy to get a 5 year old computer for free or nearly free. The idea that "it is still usable" is not the right way to think about it. The right way to think about it is "are there any people who would want this computer, even for free", and I can tell you with a lot of evidence that the answer is basically "no".

The simple fact is we are just swimming in too much obsolete e-waste. IMO sales of electronic devices should be appropriately taxed with a "cleanup" tax to pay for their eventual responsible disposal/recycling.

<comment><USER5> I didn't say "donate it for sell". Every example I listed was someone had a need for a computer and give it to them. There are charities that need computers to use. Talk to them first and see if they actually have a use for them, clean them up, install the software they need and give them training and support.

Don't just give an old desktop with no cords, without a mouse, monitor etc.

<comment><USER6> My point still stands. The charity that owns the thrift store where I volunteer has about twenty paid staff that work in an office. Trust me, they don't want to be using your 10 year old computer either, that's much more likely to break, and be incompatible with other software, and this would only be compounded exponentially if the sole IT person needed to support 20 different obsolete machines. You say "install the software they need and give them training and support." So you're going to be available if they call you at 3pm on a Tuesday because your 10 year-old hard drive failed?

Look, I'm not saying there is absolutely no one that wants your machine, but one of my biggest pet peeves after volunteering in a thrift store for so long is people who donate items that no one really wants, primarily to assuage their guilt. Sometimes garbage is just garbage.

<comment><USER5> What will in my example a 10 year old Mac Mini with USB 2, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet running Windows 7 and the latest version of Chrome be incompatible with? A lot of software these days are run from a web browser.

My 8 year old Core 2 Duo running Windows 10 can run my entire development stack - VSCode with Python, Node, and C#. I tried it and until it starts swapping, you can't tell the difference in normal use.

As far as support. How is it easier or harder to support an older computer running Windows + Office + Chrome than a newer computer?

In fact my new computer I bought in 2016 has the same amount of RAM - 8GB, a slightly worse display (1920x1080 vs 1920x1200), and no gigabit Ethernet as my old Dell from 2009.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h So the illegal part here is the lack of protections for the environment and workers, which is valid, but there's no reason for "recycled" to be in scare quotes; the process described is literally recycling. Unregulated recycling that's bad for the environment, but it's still breaking down waste into useful raw materials, so it still counts.

EDIT: Another objection to the framing here:

> "American people should address this issue. You have to fix your own > problems. Don't dump waste into Thailand — or any developing country."

... _or_ , you could not accept it. Y'know, "fix your own problems" rather than pointing your finger at big bad America.

<comment><USER7> America exercises significant control over our poorer trade partners, and we have great power here. We could require oversight and review of our e-waste recycling partners, or we can just dump our waste out of sight and claim no responsibility in the matter. One approach would solve the problem, and one shifts blame to someone much less power to really solve the problem.

<comment><USER3> That's still hard to do. I think consumers would care more if we just held unreliable manufacturers to account.

Either make stuff that keeps working or the manufacturer has to pay to repair it. We do it with cars (lemon law), why not everything else that's repairable.

Spare parts must be available, or else.

Repair schematics must be made available. A competitor can reverse engineer anything anyway, so the benefit of being secretive is outweighed by consumer interests.

Finally, more effort toward "second-lifing" old stuff instead of shredding it. E.g. old phones as security cameras.

<comment><USER8> You don't need all those weird rules, all you need is a recycling tax on the product, and let market forces sort it out.

<comment><USER3> How do you determine the tax? Is the government to determine how long different car models and manufacturers will last?

Even if you charge a flat tax ($50 per laptop), there's still little incentive for the manufacturer to provide ongoing support.

Don't underestimate the power of marketing to convince people to ignore the future.

<comment><USER9> That $50 flat tax will also make it harder for anyone new to compete (the practicality of which seems to be getting higher instead of lower with all these SBC's and the like). Don't underestimate the power of law to shape the future of companies, and which ones survive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's why we need to create a culture of durable and expandable computer hardware, something completely opposite of current Apple consumer offering.

Shame on companies that glue batteries to the enclosure and do similar atrocities, explaining the purpose of it as the product being a bit thinner (as if anybody cared) with the hidden motive of planned obsolescence.

<comment><USER8> Gluing batteries and similar techniques make products more robust to damage. Apple hardware is absolutely famous for surviving far longer than competing products. A 10 yr old functioning Mac is not unusual.

<comment><USER11> > A 10 yr old functioning Mac is not unusual.

This means that Apple was good 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "I've been investigating these guys, and they look just like normal businessmen. So, what makes them stand out? No matter which [illegal factory] we raid, we always find the owner is from China."

Chinese opportunists can no longer get away with it in China, so they are exploiting nearby developing nations to do their dirty work.

<comment><USER8> China is catching up on USA's special talents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As long as I'm told it was recycled, I'm fine.

I know I'm being lied to constantly and there's nothing I can do about it.

</comment><comment><USER14> > _Basel Action Network or BAN, a Seattle-based nonprofit, for years, has > stuck GPS trackers in old electronic junk. They found that scrapyard in > Thailand by planting a tracker in a TV and dropping it off at an Australian > recycling center._

Not that they likely to get in trouble, but is it legal to put trackers even if it is donations? What if you stuck a camera and microphone in the TV and it ended up in someone's home after being repaired.

<comment><USER15> These aren't traditional cell phones, think more GPS units with a cellular chip so they can report back their location.

One issue with these is they have batteries, and are placed in devices like printers that no e-scrap processor ever checks for batteries. Many US domestic processors use large shredding systems to liberate the materials. Batteries and shredders don't mix!

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that's a good point. There are batteries that _don 't_ explode when poked, right?</comment></comment></comment>


Build a Wi-Fi Antenna Using Household Materials - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/features/Build-a-Wi-Fi-radio-relay-using-household-materials--/110278/0

<comment><USER2> I once used an antenna made of CD cake box covered in aluminium foil. It was even better than antenna made of sausage can! At point Czech Republic had 66% of wifi subscribers in Europe. Go czfree!</comment>


Truffle.io - let's make meeting someone very simple - <AUTHOR> http://www.truffle.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> Want to know opinions of you guys on my approach :)

Its dead simple, get verified through your email, upload your pictures and simply ask someone out for a date.

It take forever on current dating sites to meet someone primarily due to the fact that there is no trust and also there is too much back and forth messaging even before you have met the user in person

<comment><USER3> It says "Beta launching with the following companies in Seattle" so I'm assuming you are only accepting applications from those companies at the moment?

How will you verify the person works at these companies, or that they are indeed working professionals in the future (once the scope presumably expands)?

One thing bugging me is that if all people have to go off is a photo, this could effectively just become a "pretty girl gets 1,000 date requests, not so pretty girl gets none, or some but only off sleazes" kind of service - <USER2> nice, but unfortunately it is the nature of us to mostly be attracted to people who are physically attractive when we have no more to go off.

Also, how do you know these people are matched at all? They could be completely unmatched - it only takes a few bad dates at the start to kill off this idea through people saying how terrible the service is.

Apart from these issues, I like the simplicity of the idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> For beta yes, I am only getting people from the companies that currently in Seattle but I am going to expand it further shortly.

Verification is done via the work email but once verified you ll able to change the email to your personal one as I assume that people dont like to use their work email.

So as you said, really online dating works only on pictures right now but the pictures is not about how you look, you can also put a pic of your bike and you going around that actually shows that you are a outdoor person. Everyone knows that the text/essays written on the dating site are not actually true.

Also, I have hooks in place to make sure that all the pretty girls don't get bombarded at the same time. As a user, you ll be presented with folks whose names start with 'A', 'M' on Mondays, 'B' & 'G' on Tuesdays and so on. This way a hot girl will only get messages two or three times a week depending upon the algorithm and she ll have a chance to take a look at the people who messaged her patiently as compared to scenario where she just dont even read the 1000 messages that she got.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, the current dating scene seems complicated than it needs to be. I'd love to see a minimalistic approach, and also know how you handle the matching task.</comment>


Show HN: Gmail message ID finder, Chrome extension to grab RFC 822 ID of message - <AUTHOR> https://gmail-message-id-finder.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! Gmail message ID finder is a small Chrome extension that adds a 'Copy message ID' button to the Gmail message menu. When you click it, the RFC 822 message ID of that message is copied to your clipboard. With this ID, you can find the exact message again later very easily.

I personally use it for keeping track of important emails in our CRM.

Because this ID is a property of the email itself, and not something that this extension provides, it works everywhere. If your colleague got CC'd on an old email you'd like to point them to, you can pass them the message id and it will work for them as well.

It also works great in Inbox and the Inbox & Gmail Android apps.</comment>


Emperor Akihito: Japanese monarch declares historic abdication - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48020703 <comment><USER2> Truly the end of an era. Akihito became emperor in 1989. At that time it seemed humanity was finally ready to put great power conflicts in the past. Akihito represented a generation that had experienced the horrors of WWII as children and saw the need to make sure that never happened again.

Now as Akihito abdicates, the whispers of great power conflicts are starting again. Old alliances and coalitions that have kept the peace for 70 years are being questioned. Nationalism is rising throughout the world. I hope the new Emperor's reign will be just as peaceful as his father's, but I am pessimistic.

<comment><USER3> I think Fukuyama's "End of History..." died a while ago. Actually, it probably never existed and was simply idealized wishful thinking. As they say, there can be no peace without war.

What's strange is that we know peace eventually ends. But I also can't see how we can have a war amongst nuclear powers. Could we have a peaceful war? Is it possible? Is that what the cold war was?

With the creation of the EU, rising china, resurgence russia, india, ASEAN, africa ( eventually ), the geopolitical landscape is going to change. From a historical, economical and demographic perspective, the geopolitical center should move somewhere in europe or asia from the US eventually. There are 1 billion more chinese. One billion more indians. 500 million more europeans. It is a strange quirk of history that the US is the leader of the world.

<comment><USER4> > I also can't see how we can have a war amongst nuclear powers. Could we have > a peaceful war? Is it possible? Is that what the cold war was?

I'd say the answer is "Look at Syria", proxy wars etc are the current best method for engaging without actually having to fight directly (which just ends super badly as it almost inevitably escalates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you haven't been already, the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo are very much worth a visit. I don't think I've ever been in an area that just felt so sacred. If mahogany green was ever a thing, that's what the colors of those trees were. And bonsais that were several hundred years old. Personally, I don't even think Kyoto gives the same vibe. It's amazing.

<comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, what other places have you visited that you're comparing it to?

<comment><USER5> Taiwan: watching the sun set over Kaohsiung Harbor from this old fort on a mountain. Pretty magical.

South Korea: Climbing Hallasan volcano on Jeju Island. Really neat.

China: Exploring Suzhou/Hangzhou old towns. Suzhou is like the Venice of China.

All these places warrant a trip in and of themselves; but they didn't feel holy to me if that makes any sense. Imperial Gardens felt different, like one thread of contiguous history, unrent by tragedy and upheaval, touching you on the face.

<comment><USER6> Thank you. I've not yet been to that part of the world. I've been to the Western Wall, but for me, sadly, it was just a wall.

<comment><USER3> Well at least you can't accuse them of false advertising. Israel seems like one of those places where it's either a magical place or a complete disappointment. I've heard some say it's the best place they've ever visited and others say it is a complete letdown. I suppose it depends on how religious you are.

<comment><USER6> I identify strongly as a Jew, but I'm not very religious. I've visited Israel three times and enjoyed every visit. Jerusalem is an amazing city. I just had trouble finding holiness at the Western Wall. I think, for myself, I either need more quiet and solitude, or conversely, to be involved in group prayer. But I don't pray much and I'm not very practiced at it. I'm also an atheist, so prayer for me is a bit hard to explain.

Anyway, for me, the wall itself didn't evoke anything. I think there was just too much commotion with everyone doing mostly their own thing. I did enjoy watching everyone else experiencing the place, though.

If nothing else, there's a few thousand years of history there to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll admit a lot of ignorance on this; what does the Emperor of Japan actually do now? Japan has a prime minister position, doesn't it? Is the Emperor a figurehead or do they have power?

<comment><USER8> In the first section of the article:

> While the emperor holds no political power, he serves as a national > figurehead.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like a pretty good gig. How do I apply?

<comment><USER10> I mean he basically begged to be fired, so it's probably not all that much fun. They sacrifice any semblance of normalcy and have an endless calendar of ceremonies and events. Emperor Akihito acquitted himself pretty well in the job, and most people in Japan seem to be either indifferent to the royals or appreciate their focus on peace and calm and continuity. They're a pretty boring royal family, which means they're doing a good job I think.

<comment><USER11> One of the particular difficulties of the Japanese royal family is you have the ultra-nationalists who never really got over Japan's loss in WW2 and the resulting changes to the Japanese royal nature, but the royalty has. You end up with a situation where the emperor indicates that he wants the nature of the royal family to change slightly, but the biggest supporters of royalty don't want to listen to him.

This is rather different compared to the constitutional monarchies that are common in Europe: it's hard to imagine any major political party (even the hard-right parties) arguing against the monarch if the monarch is suggesting a more liberal position.

<comment><USER10> Well, Abe and LDP are generally all the way in on Nippon Kaigi and they supported his abdication. The first news I heard of it was Abe's appeal to the nation to allow the Emperor to step down.

<comment><USER12> They had no choice but to support it. The emperor is _incredibly_ popular in Japan. In fact, the abdication threw a spanner in the works for Abe and the LDP wrt the constitutional changes hey wanted for allowing Japan to get involved in external conflicts if its allies are involved.

For some history, this is the second time Abe has been prime minister. The first time he had to resign. This was directly after proposing the constitutional change. Now, Wikipedia (and the western media it seems) reported that Abe resigned due to the poor performance of his economic policies. However, at the time my impression was that he resigned over the backlash to the constitutional proposals. At the time my Japanese wasn't very good, so I could definitely have gotten it wrong, but that was certainly what I understood.

Fast forward to a few years ago. Abe got back into power, instituted his Abenomics and then re-proposed the constitutional changes. It seemed like it was inevitable because they had enough time to push through the changes and write the constitutional law before the next general election. And then out of the blue the emperor announced, "I want to retire. Please implement the constitutional changes that would allow me to do so". These changes, perhaps not incidentally, meant that Abe could not draft his changes until after the next general election.

It has been suggested (by the NHK no less -- unfortunately you'll have to take my word for it, but that's where I heard of the notion) that this was an intentional move by the emperor. Who knows... However it is true that he has been suffering from poor health and has not been able to perform all of his duties.

Anyway, the general election was held and Abe and the LDP survived, so presumably they will go ahead with their plans. However, the latest I've seen is that there is still considerable opposition in the populace (with over 50% of the population opposing any changes to the constitution). The last I heard Abe has said that he might not go forward with it.

They are under increasing pressure from the US, though. Also, Japan has wanted the US out of Okinawa for a _long_ time, with the US always promising that they will leave as soon as their base in Guam is complete (which never seems to happen). I don't think the US will ever leave Okinawa without Japan being able to take military action the in the sea of Japan because otherwise China will pretty much have free reign there. At the moment, all Japan can do is show up with the coast guard and say "Please leave. Pretty please".

<comment><USER10> My maybe-controversial view is that peace and the removal of the US protection racket are consistent aims, and the constitutional changes are not necessarily a precursor to Japanese aggression. Still, regular people in Japan seem to be mostly completely checked out of their own politics, so this is a game played among professional politicians and some business leaders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jon-wood I seem to remember there was something a while back about what the next Japanese era would be named. Is it normal for them to prepare for that so that they're not scrabbling to find a new one when the emperor dies, or was there a general awareness that Akihito would be abdicating in the near future?

<comment><USER13> Akihito had announced in 2016 that he wanted to abdicate[1] so I think that's how they put together that process to name the new era.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-36784045](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36784045)</comment></comment>


Lego a 'better investment than shares and gold' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11817380/Lego-a-better-investment-than-shares-and-gold.html <comment><AUTHOR> Beanie babies 2.0!</comment>


Cracking Any GSM Mobile Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12094227

<comment><USER2> > _Key to grabbing the data from the air were cheap Motorola phones which can > have their onboard software swapped for an open source alternative._

Wasn't there a news bit not long ago about law enforcement agencies being puzzled by criminals buying/stealing loads of cheap Motorola phones?

<comment><USER3> I seem to remember something about Nokia 1100 phones being used for bank fraud (only specific ones that were manufactured in the Bochum plant).

[http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163515/nokia_w...](http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163515/nokia_we_dont_know_why_criminals_want_our_old_phones.html)

Edit : Spelling.

<comment><USER2> Right, that's the one I was thinking of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous report on this talk by arstechnica.com:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2049026>

</comment><comment><USER5> But, remember, this is a crack for GSM (2g), it is not a crack for UTMS (3G).

<comment><USER6> But the Bad Guys[tm] can jam the 3G communications and force the phone to 2G. The forcing is noticeable, but will be hard to distinguish a malicious fall- back to 2G vs. a carrier coverage fall-back to 2G.

Ref: [http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=artic...](http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/P3223/36p23/36p23.asp&guid=)

 _The exploit only works on 2G GSM networks; however it is possible to jam 3G signals and force virtually any GSM phone to negotiate a 2G connection._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one advantage CDMA has over GSM, it's much harder to intercept CDMA <http://www.denbeste.nu/cdmafaq/eavesdrp.shtml>

<comment><USER8> I know nothing of CDMA and outside of some basic knowledge (I worked on the iPhone dev team during the original push for an unlock, and picked up some info on how GSM and cell phones in general work) I know very little here, but from a general security standpoint, the "only X and Y know the key for Z, thus Z is more secure than W" approach doesn't hold up. If there's a flaw in the implementation of crypto, it may be possible to reconstruct the key, or circumvent it entirely. That it hasn't been done yet means little in terms of theoretical security.</comment></comment>


Show HN: made a html5 game, polished it many many times - <AUTHOR> http://www.hotbazooka.com/privatejoe hi all,
I've always wanted to make my own game, but couldn't afford a thousand-dollar adobe (flash+photoshop) license.
I'm not a talented programmer, have no degree in CS. But I understand some elements of design.
So I got me a copy of ImpactJS, and after about 5 months of steep learning curve (at least for me), I managed to come up with a game.
I also integrated it with a highscore and badge system, similar to what you get at Kongregate. You need to login with Google/OpenID to earn badges/scores.
link is: http://www.hotbazooka.com/privatejoe
hope to hear some feedback/questions from you guys! <comment><USER2> Just a general advice for writing HTML games: remember to preventDefault() on all keyboard-related events (keydown, keypress) for all keys you use when your game has focus (add tabindex to your canvas so you'll get focus/blur events).

Otherwise browser's shortcuts could interfere with your game. I have Opera customized with 1-key shortcuts (with no modifier key) and that's a minefield in games that assume keyboard is all for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm preventDefault() was not built into the older Operas.

apparently the guys fixed preventDefault() on Opera 11.10, as explained here: [http://impactjs.com/forums/help/binding-keys-in-opera-not- wo...](http://impactjs.com/forums/help/binding-keys-in-opera-not-working)

<comment><USER2> preventDefault() worked in Opera since ancient times. However, Opera took default action on different event than other browsers (keydown instead of keypress if I remember correctly).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Decent game overall, but I hope you plan on switching out the Advance Wars sprites with something you own in the future. (or use resources from sites like <http://opengameart.org/>)

<comment><AUTHOR> advice taken!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your App Engine app is over quota, game.min.js can't be loaded: <http://game1-main.appspot.com/baked/game.min.js>

<comment><AUTHOR> ok i allocated additional bandwidth, the game should be up and running with full music! Enjoy!

<comment><USER5> It still isn't working. Any mirrors? Reading the reviews below, I can't wait to try this!

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm i think you need to clear your browser cache before trying again. (this will retrieve the latest version)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really really great game! You should make the rewards for freeing a prisoner appear instantly, waiting for those items to appear kills the pacing of the game somewhat.

</comment><comment><USER7> You may want to use the up arrow to jump. Using X for jumping and C for shooting is a bit confusing.

<comment><USER8> X and C are also not in convenient places for Dvorak users, and I imagine for some other international keyboard layouts.

<comment><AUTHOR> what keys do you suggest for Dvorak? let me know..

<comment><USER8> Arrow keys, space, control, shift etc. are all normal, but I guess how capturable those are from JS varies. Making them configurable?

Qwerty X maps to Dvorak Q; Qwerty C maps to Dvorak J. That is, listening to Q and J when the user is using Dvorak, as X and C on a Qwerty keyboard.

<comment><AUTHOR> its pretty capturable. Ok the idea to configure keys make a lot of sense!

<comment><USER9> I would have made space shoot, too, incidentally (arrows + space should be the same for just about every keyboard out there), but configuration itself is a great idea.

I also wish that the length of time you held down the jump key controlled the height of your jump rather (up to a maximum, obviously), rather than one-size- fits-all jumps, but that's minor.

Play an old NES game that used that system like Super Mario Bros. (any of them) then play your game to see how much more in control you feel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> pretty awesome job. fullscreen or a larger playable area would be nice.

<comment><USER11> Very nice, I second that fullscreen or a larger playable area would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> the thing is, if I make the screen larger, the game will lag (lower FPS). Below 45 fps, the game isn't that fun to play.

I do realize that old NES games can be fullscreened any time of the day. Wish I could do that in my case.

<comment><USER12> Speaking of FPS, I honestly don't understand this: why is it that 25 frames per second is okay for movies but not for games?

<comment><USER13> There is generally about a one frame deep pipeline between the user interface and the rendering so you end up with more like a 100ms delay which is two human reaction times and enough to feel unresponsive.

Story of old: in the 90's, when the radiology transcriptionists were moved too far away for RS232 to reach their computer, and they were put on LAT devices (8 serial ports to Ethernet with crazy complicated optimization to multiplex traffic from all 8 into the same packets) their duplicate key errors and general frustration went up. Working from audio, they watched the screen and if the delay was ever perceptible they would restrict a key. Allen ended up writing them an editor that worked in half duplex mode (local echo).

<comment><USER14> Also an image on film is the integration over the time the shutter was open, causing a very smooth motion blur. Games don't naturally have this motion blur, so low frame-rate movement appears choppy.

Sometimes film makers reduce the length of integration (time the shutter is open) to produce a choppier scene. This was prominently featured in action scenes of the movie Gladiator. Many people did not like the effect because, like a low frame-rate video game, it was harsh and disorienting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not working on firefox or safari on mac. This might be a problem?

<http://game1-main.appspot.com/baked/game.min.js>

<http://game1-part2.appspot.com/media/music/level1.mp3>

<comment><AUTHOR> yup there was a bandwidth quota from AppEngine. I activated billing and it should work now

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The best part about it was that I forgot it wasn't Flash.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! it took a lot of integrating+checking+debugging, making sure the loading doesn't break halfway. Look and feel are my top priority

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was really fun! Addictive enough to have me spend 20 minutes completing all 5 levels.

Suggested areas to work on: 1 - The FPS reduces significantly when battling the tanks and shooting the officers - almost to the point of wondering if the game will crash. 2 - There was 1 prisoner on level 4 who I'm sure was unreachable. 3 - Improved sound effects i.e. different level music, mood music when facing the tanks etc

Looking forward to the next installment.

<comment><USER18> Additional _unexpected_ behavior: 4 - NPCs were able to shoot through boxes/floors which stopped my bullets. 5 - When dropping off a ledge, it is possible to walk into midair before falling.

Also, like many 2D games, the best way to kill something like the level 1 boss is to scroll it off the screen and spam bullets.

I did not have any performance issues - it was steady at 60fps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd recommend against using OpenID; see [http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2011/01/well-be- re...](http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2011/01/well-be-retiring-our- support-of-openid-on-may-1.html) for a well-written explanation of why. However, in the meantime, if you continue to use OpenID, please allow user- specified OpenID URLs, not just a fixed list of providers.

</comment><comment><USER20> The key binding is the same as in biolab disaster. And it sort of looks the same. But awesome-awesome. Multiplayer coming soon?

<comment><AUTHOR> i think multiplayer requires some node.js magic. Don't have a clue how that works!

the forums at ImpactJS had some discussions on node.js, will have a look

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The fact that you can run out of ammo may made it a little too punishing for a game like this.

It's addicting anyway, but it could be even more.

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice job.Can you please tell me what you used to code it:RoR,Python or just HTML5 only.i have an idea to develop something like that.

<comment><USER23> Not OP, but he used the Impact engine (Javascript) to do this.

<comment><USER22> what is Impact Engine?a js library for games?

<comment><USER24> Yes: <http://impactjs.com/>

<comment><USER25> any good open source alternative ?

<comment><USER26> I have been looking for a good alternative to impactjs too. The one that I have been playing with is called Easel.js - <http://easeljs.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> i used to play around a lot with Akihabara (free & opensourced). The lack of a good map editor made me switch to ImpactJS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The music goes a way when I switch tabs! It is a shame more games do not do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> yup, it's a design decision. I hate it when games keep playing/running when i'm on another tab. Makes the laptop warm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is so awesome! Good work bazookaBen! I can't believe that you can make games with... html5. I thought this is only like: "with html5 you can make games! yea yea, i will just stick to flash..."

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm still amazed myself! if the user doesn't even notice the difference between flash and html5, then there's hope!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> i like it!

Needs a shorthop bro. Jump continues only if jump button is being held. check any NES / SNES Mario for an example

</comment><comment><USER30> Great game. A little QA: your enemies are speaking a mix of German and English, and the signage is English. When you follow woogley's advice and change the sprites out, make sure exit becomes Ausgang. Some enemies say "fire!" instead of "feur!", and some say "stop!" instead of "halt!" Also, I couldn't restart the game at the game over screen (using c or x). Chrome 10 on OSX.

<comment><AUTHOR> solved the restart problem. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't seem to be working on my XP SP3 + Chrome 10. I'll give it a try later on my Ubuntu and Win7, if they work any better.

</comment><comment><USER32> Fun game! I'm happy I got to play. Smooth and natural feeling controls at 50+ fps on Opera 11.01, Windows Vista, 2.4GHz Core 2. Smoother than some native code games games I have played. Good art, good sfx.

I did want bigger pixels. Zooming in the page in the browser worked fine. And I would have liked either a higher difficulty setting or adaptive difficulty that gets harder if I haven't died for a while, like Xevious had. And I agree with nicetryguy that a short jump would be nice. And the monster didn't really make any sense in the game story.

<comment><AUTHOR> i put the monster in as a teaser actually. Perhaps I need to include some sort of cutscene / chatter between characters. Have to find balance between game flow and fun

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Nice game - how much work is something like this?

I like how the controls/movement are precise yet just forgiving enough.

Only thing, I'm not hearing any music (Chrome 11 beta, OS X).

<comment><AUTHOR> the music server overserved its quota. for a 300kb song file, it reached 1 GB pretty fast!

<comment><AUTHOR> I;ve just increased the quota, it's running great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I just put on my headphones, I didn't know you had this awesome C64 style music in it.. Great platformer game..!

<comment><AUTHOR> yup, without the music, it's not a game!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Pretty awesome! My two complaints: Not everything has to talk. The weird monster going "roar" was a bit tacky. It's an ingrained convention that if something is flashing, it's about to disappear, so don't have your health crates flash by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> i accept your reason. Maybe i'll replace it with some roaring soundfx in the new version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> this is awesome. Nice work. What tools did you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> tools:

ImpactJS Google Appengine + Python for hosting and achievement system GIMP for graphics TextMate Switch for Mac (to reduce the bitrate for the audio files)

<comment><USER37> Out of curiosity, how many of you worked on it and how long did it take? I can imagine just the sprite artwork alone was a good chunk of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Great game. Just played it again so I can beat it. One thing I found annoying was how the enemy bullets can go through cover. Also I would have liked it more if you added more boss fights like the one in the first level instead of just tanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> new levels by the end of next week!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like the meaty sound it makes when a shot hits. More meaty sounds might be good.

</comment><comment><USER40> Is there anything that can be done about the audio lag? In other words, is it something that could be solved in JavaScript, something that needs to be improved in browsers, or an inherent flaw in the HTML5 audio spec?

</comment><comment><USER41> Really like the game, have you considered doing a write up on how you developed it? I think there is a lot of people out there that would be interested in developing a game, especially with this level of polish.

<comment><AUTHOR> will keep that in mind. am pretty overwhelmed myself right now, due to the comments coming in. Basically trying to keep the game alive and fixing bugs

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is there a way to get in touch with you? Email me? email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> sent an email

<comment><USER43> Could you drop me an email too?

email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> ok sent

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is probably the smoothest html5 platformer I've played. Kudos.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> the game was tested on

Chrome 10 Safari 5 Firefox 4 Opera 11

some users with IE9 reported some errors, I couldn't debug because i'm on OSX. Please let me know if there're any cheap methods to get an IE9.

<comment><USER45> <http://crossbrowsertesting.com> is great, and not too expensive

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think I found a bug: after losing the game and you want to start again, pressing x or c doesn't do anything. (Chrome 10 on Win 7)

<comment><AUTHOR> i fixed that, thx for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Nice job! It's fun. The jump is a little too slow for me though. And it's very frictionless. Awesome that this was done in html5.

</comment><comment><USER47> Nice oldschool music. Where did you get it?

</comment><comment><USER48> Very cool dude! Congrats on finishing it. This is motivating me to start on a game also this weekend :)

<comment><AUTHOR> try ImpactJS! best thing that ever happened to me.

<comment><USER49> $99 seems pretty steep (for a beginner). Any alternatives?

<comment><AUTHOR> it's the best you've got out there. The framework is organized, there's an awesome map editor, and the community is growing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Fantastic job! The only downside is the limited game area size, but it's really pretty and funny.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> anyone completed the entire game so far? I made 5 levels, planning to have more by next weekend

<comment><USER51> yes sir! giovanni 45211 pts!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Pretty cool! Is there any way you can make it larger? I find the characters to be very small.

</comment><comment><USER52> Awesome! Creative and fun gameplay. Action-packed. Good level of difficulty.

</comment><comment><USER53> Shouldnt this load on the iPad ? It stops at 25% of the loading

<comment><AUTHOR> nope it won't load on an iPad.

Sound is not well built on the iOS/Android browser, so I figured, if the game is going to suck anyway, might as well don't build it for mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Nice game, well done! Reminded me a bit of Metal slug.

</comment><comment><USER55> Super awesome! Reminds me of my old NES games :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> have a quick question: how do I sort the comments coming in by time? Getting pretty overwhelmed here.

<comment><USER40> Use Notifo. I don't recall whether it notifies you about all comments on links you submit, but at least you can get notified when you get a direct reply to one of your comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> are you @BazookaBen from Minnesota?

<comment><AUTHOR> nope, my handle is @bazooka_ben, with 2 followers right now

just created it yesterday, don't have much idea on how to manage the account. Basically looking at what other game designers use their twitter and try to emulate them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Not bad, not bad at all.

</comment><comment><USER57> Nice work!

I'm in the process of building a game portal, would you like a subdomain like <http://privatejoe.gumyum.com> ?

I could create an A record right away.

Also you should check out my game sometime at <http://four2go.gumyum.com></comment>


A Female Artist Who Shaped Manga History - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/kuniko-tsurita-literary-manga-history-gender/614971/ <comment><USER2> CLAMP has probably been more influential. They're four women from Osaka who have been turning out manga for over 30 years.[1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamp_(manga_artists)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamp_\(manga_artists\))

<comment><USER3> Another candidate (and the first person I thought of when I read the HN link title):

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

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoko_Takeuchi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoko_Takeuchi) ?

Female artists aren't exactly unknown.

<comment><USER5> Just to add to the list. My favorite manga was written by a woman (Full Metal Alchemist).

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

<comment><USER6> Add

dorohedoro: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorohedoro](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorohedoro)

Some mind blowingly creative stuff!

March comes in like a lion: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Comes_In_like_a_Lion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Comes_In_like_a_Lion)

Wholesome.

<comment><USER7> March comes in like a lion blew me away!

<comment><USER6> If you liked that, you shoud also check out monogatari series, tatami galaxy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We need some articles along the lines "A male artist...". You know, because equality cuts both ways. If you elevate one sex over the other, you're being sexist.

English is my second language and it has genderless nouns by default. That's enough if equality is really what you want.

<comment><USER8> Imagine a headline "A Male Artist Who Shaped Manga History". That would sound ridiculous. A headline with "female" is the same kind thing if you like equality.</comment></comment>


Angular 1.3 beta released, drop support for IE8 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#130-beta1-retractable-eyebrow-2014-03-07

<comment><USER2> I spent most of yesterday fixing bugs on my new release (not Angular based) that were caused by IE8's finicky nature. (I had forgotten you can't innerHTML on SELECT and TBODY elements, sigh.)

So good on you, Angular. Out with the old...</comment>