Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080201/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_yahoo <comment><USER2> This could be good news for startups. Suggested business plan:

1\. Find something Yahoo currently does well (e.g. flickr)

2\. Make a clone of it.

3\. Wait for Microsoft to ruin the original.

<comment><USER3> You jest, but seriously that makes sense.

Heck you could SAY that it "replaces" Microsoft Flickr, and that would be perfectly valid !

I think it is indeed a happy day for startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was just casually talking about this with an early ex-Yahoo yesterday. We were just pondering the possibilities for Yahoo in 2008. Holy shit -- what a coincidence.

He said this: A Microsoft deal is unlikely because (when he was there) all the Yahoos hated Microsoft. If an acquisition happens, it'd be hostile and the core guys will jump ship.

I nodded in agreement. But then this happens.

<comment><USER5> As a current Yahoo I'd have to disagree, from what I've seen in my department (and the departments in my building), I don't think the company is particularly hostile to Microsoft. Plus, the stock price is so low that I think a lot of Yahoos would welcome a big change, if for nothing else then to boost their portfolio.

At the very least I'd be interested to see how Microsoft could integrate such a huge company properly. I had discussed the idea 6 months ago when the rumor began to surface, the big question (if it happens) is how the two cultures and systems would merge...I think it would take years before they would actually operate as one company.

<comment><USER6> It's simple. Half of you will all be fired and Yahoo will merge with MSN to create a monstrosity web division. The overlap in web products will create 3 tiers of service, the windows-ized integrated Live products (Live Mail, Live Search), the consumer centric Yahoo products (Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Search), and the pro-sumer products (Inktomi Search, Flickr, Delicious). This will be so confusing and stupid that after 2 or 3 years of Google eating their lunch they're fire the rest of the Yahoo staff and shutter off the Yahoo branded products in favor of the Live products.

But also, let's not kid ourselves, Microsoft could give two shits about Flickr. What they really want is Yahoo/Overture/Panama or whatever. That's the expected growth and cash cow that makes this deal possible.

<comment><USER5> A little harsh, no?

You forget that Yahoo has over 120 properties, what about things like Yahoo Autos, Real Estate, Shopping, Finance, etc? There's significant overlap with what MS offers, yet Yahoo is clearly kicking their asses in many of these. I highly doubt MS would kill off the more-popular site/name for their own, especially if it could give competition a chance to jump in as the new #1.

Also, things like Flickr and Delicious could do very good things to MS's perceived image in future generations, so there's more here than just cash.

<comment><USER6> Why does Yahoo have over 120 properties and 14,000 people but only make 660m in net profits? Microsoft has already declared that this merger will create a 1 billion operating efficiency. Guess where that's going to come from?

And Yahoo might have more popular destination sites but Microsoft has the lock on operating system. MSN/Live is seen as a cloud computing services for the _future_, Microsoft would rather saving those than the multiple Yahoo turds. How's Brickhouse doing? They pumping out hits yet? How about 360? Mash? Pipes? What about those landing pages for products? That whole group is gone.

Most of the hardcore people from Flickr, ie. those whining separate login people, will be jumping ship the second this deal is inked. Instead you'll just end up with a shell of a service but again, Microsoft could care less. They'll just slap it on to Windows Pictures like they slapped Hotmail onto Windows Mail. And the masses will gobble it up because to them it doesn't matter.

If anything, this will be great for Windows 7 if it ever comes out. On your computer is Microsoft, on the web it will be Microsoft apps with Yahoo names and the products will actually not suck as bad. What Yahoo also needs to do is to properly tie in all its features and properties to formulate a social network. They have every single parts required but just lack the skeleton to bind it all together. Hmm... What company does Microsoft have an interest in that's like a social network... Hmm...

EDIT: As an addendum to this, I just read Gruber's opinion on the merger and he agrees with my premise. Microsoft culture will pounce Yahoo culture. Yahoo's products (web1.0/2.0 lamp stacks) will be naturally converted to Microsoft technology (yay windows 2000!) because at the end of the day the Borg can't stop. So if you have a job at Yahoo it's best to polish up your resume and if you're a Yahoo user be ready to get a Windows Live account. The name might be Yahoo but the backend's going to be .NET and if it's not Flickr or Delicious then most likely you won't be able to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing quite a few people are failing to notice when describing the "huge" premium of 62%: look at Yahoo's historical stock price charts for the last few months or so. Yahoo's taken a real big hit, likely for several reasons that are beyond its control, and it might very well be undervalued. This could be a great chance for MS to give an offer price that Yahoo was trading at a month ago but now seems generous.

<comment><USER8> A company that's been declining for 8 quarters in a row and trades at 40 times earnings (before the Microsoft offer) is not undervalued.

<comment><USER9> it's rare to see such simple, fundamental and spot on analysis in the tech world.

microsoft's bid on yahoo is a perfect illustration of why microsoft is doomed to failure.

how many startups could they fund with $45 billion? 100? 200? 1000? why exactly do they want to be at the helm of a slowly dying web portal left over from the first dot com boom?

i remember someone talking of microsoft and relating their situation to a victim in a horror film. we can all see the monster lurking behind them, slowly creeping in for the kill. when the sea change of personal computing really does come, whenever that may be, microsoft will not be there, they will be knee deep in shit, trying to claw themselves out of the hole that they've spent the last five years tirelessly digging.

<comment><USER4>
      >> how many startups could they fund with $45 billion?
      100? 200? 1000? why exactly do they want to be at the helm
      of a slowly dying web portal left over from the first dot com boom?

I understand the "startups are king" mentality around here, but _come on_. Regardless of their quarterly performance, Yahoo! is one of the biggest brand names on the web. Microsoft won't establish a bigger web presence by "funding startups."

<comment><USER10> Exactly. When companies get as big as MS, they need big wins. Big companies never seem to be interested in or capable of managing and dealing with lots of small deals - perhaps it would be too much of a hassle chasing a lot of small fry even though a few will eventually take off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Economist's take a it: [http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_i...](http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10632491)

"Microsoft is desperate to grab a bigger share of the online-advertising market because many of its software products are being challenged by free, advertising-supported services offered by Google. The company is also worried that Google's dominance in search and advertising allows it to dictate terms to advertisers, and gives it an unfair advantage over its smaller rivals."

</comment><comment><USER12> Microsoft is _still_ dead.

<comment><USER13> naw, they are the 1600lb gorrilla now. No matter how incompetent they are, they have enough momentum and cash to just smash thru obstacles (either buy or try to fail other startups).

<comment><USER14> Reminds me of myself and my brother playing monopoly as kids. He suggested he start with all the property, and I start with all the money.

I was young... 6 maybe, so I thought wow yeah heh I'll take all the money.

Sure, MS have cash from their dying desktop, but they still can't build web apps, or compete with google online. I'd say yahoo are almost as bad.

<comment><USER15> _He suggested he start with all the property, and I start with all the money._

I remember being pretty damn pleased with myself when you agreed to that ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting move especially in the context of a recent Garner report predicting bad times for Microsoft ([http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9862322-56.html?tag=nefd.to...](http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9862322-56.html?tag=nefd.top)). Obviously, this acquisition doesn't help Microsoft improve Vista or Office, Microsoft's cash machines. Also, does this offer imply Microsoft is less confident about their Live initiative? Will Ray Ozzie be replaced by Jerry Yang?

<comment><USER17> Pretty sure if it's Ozzie vs. Yang, Yang is out in a heartbeat.

And I think this buy is more about strengthening Microsoft's online presence, not their desktop apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some seemingly minor issues make me wonder how bad a situation Yahoo is in. Google has integrated their messenger into chat well enough that you can search through chats, grouped separately, as well as send messages of either kind to people you have contacted through chat or email. This makes a whole lot of sense, and I would think is relatively easy to accomplish. However, Yahoo's messenger is a bloated spam attracting monstrosity that seems like an estranged sibling to Yahoo's equally hideous email service; all the distressing genetic similarities but no conversation. Now how can a company that couldn't integrate two obvious candidates from their own bundle of services do in Microsoft, which isn't any better at integrating its own cluster? I don't see synergy.

<comment><USER19> You don't have to read much of the business literature to discover that mergers and acquisitions, especially at this scale, rarely produce the expected synergies. All in all, I think this is good news for Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Holly... For some reason I imagine MSFT as the big borg spaceship coming close and just swalloing this smaller ship called yahoo, and casting a large shadow into google and the whole valley area.

<comment><USER20> I think it's more like dreadnoughts vs. a F-16.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I for one think it is a good idea. Maybe with Microsoft's start page, Yahoo search could get more traffic and the recognition it deserves. Microsoft Online Services could be scraped completely, nobody would miss them.

Server tech would be a concern, but who knows - perhaps rather than switching everything to Windows servers, Microsoft might take the chance to become acquainted with Linux and BSD. It would make sense if MS would in the future simply release a theme for Gnome, rather than waste resources on another OS that nobody wants.

</comment><comment><USER22> Grr. I just interviewed for a position at Yahoo on Wednesday.

</comment><comment><USER23> How could an offer, that is 62% higher then the price at the stockmarket be refused?

<comment><USER24> Stock prices are weird. The current value is where half the people think the price is too low and half the people think the price is too high. Of course everyone who still has Yahoo stock think that the price is too low--because everyone who thinks the price is too high has already sold their shares.

So everyone who still holds any given stock thinks that the market price is too low.

<comment><USER25> A simpler explanation is that everyone holding a stock wants it to go up so they can profit. When it goes up to a point where they don't think it's too low, they sell it, and hence no longer own it. So everyone that owns a stock thinks it's too low.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's easy to cheer on Google, as Google as they systematically takes on established vertical markets (to sell advertising) and do fairly well in some of them. Why not root for the underdog, Yahoo + MSFT?

<comment><USER25> Because it's fun to cheer on the underdog if the underdog is better and the established players are just bumbling idiots holding down the underdog via cheating and uncompetitive strategies.

Trying to claim that YHOO/MSFT is (technically) better than Google and that Google is just a bumbling idiot trying to hold down YHOO/MSFT via cheating and uncompetitive practices is a bit of a stretch, even for the seriously deluded among us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I doubt that Yahoo's board and shareholders will accept the deal. It would be a good way for Microsoft to spend some of it's extra cash, though without getting in to regulatory trouble.

<comment><USER17> It's in shareholders' interest to take that huge per-share premium and run with it. Better than holding Yahoo! until it's a penny stock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals."

Uh, really?

<comment><USER17> If the biggest advertising entity on the web (Google) can buy one of the other biggest advertising entities (Doubleclick), I'm pretty sure one of the also- rans can buy another also-ran.

<comment><USER29> The difference is there is practically no lock-in in advertising systems-- Microsoft has demonstrated repeatedly that it will use it's OS monopoly to unfairly leverage things online. If you think they have failed miserably, consider that it was only because of the anti-trust rulings that beige box makers got the right to change the start page.

Also, much of Google's "monopoly" comes from a source that is heavily protected by law: the pagerank patent. Patents are government granted monopolies with limited time; as such, there is little or no legal recourse as any mildly abusive behaviour is expected, tolerated, and what the system was designed to provide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-t It's just occurred to me that I'll have to switch my domain name registrar if this happens. Damn.

</comment><comment><USER30> its a good deal for stockholders I think. If you read the hype Yahoo is not doing to great(which I find hard to believe as they make a load of cash).

I think the combined search powers could be really good.

<comment><USER9> [http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:YHO...](http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:YHOO)

take a look at the annual data. they may be profitable, but a 62% fall in net income over 3 years, that's pretty bad.

<comment><USER30> yeah good point but they are not losing money and I think you will see google do the same thing in a few years once they hit the peak for their products.

Yahoo's problem seems to be the management and the fact they are still playing catch up with adsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> crap... given MS's history with standards, I should switch from yui's css framework to another one if the bid goes through

<comment><USER32> Think they will move everything to MS servers and re-write in .net?! heh

<comment><USER33> Not if they actually care about ROI. They got no benefit other than PR when they moved Hotmail to windows.

<comment><USER34> Actually they got a huge benefit. They had internal users doing a high-volume stress test on Windows and associated middleware, so a lot of bugs got found and fixed. The products now are noticeably more reliable.

<comment><USER33> I was only thinking about whether or not their actions improved Hotmail.

To learn how to make a Windows web service work, they buy a FreeBSD based one and then spend 5 years replacing FreeBSD with Windows.

What an expensive way to do QA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Micrahoo? Yahsoft? Yicrosooft? Macroyoft?

I'm confused...

<comment><USER36> I think the hope is: Microsoft!

<comment><USER37> My hope is !Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The market is reacting very positively: Yahoo is up almost 60% in pre-market trading, at a market cap of $40B (up from $26B at yesterday's close). Microsoft is down 4% however.

<comment><USER39> The stock market continues to baffle me.

Microsoft is offering $31 per share of Yahoo. YHOO is now trading at nearly $31, up from $19 at the close yesterday.

Why would anyone pay $31 for a share of Yahoo right now? There are two possible outcomes: 1) the deal goes through, and you get your $31 back either in Microsoft stock or cash. No net gain. 2) The deal doesn't go through and YHOO drops back to around $19, losing you about 30%.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER19> This always happens with buyout offers, the buyee's stock price shoots up close to the amount of the buyout offer, but never reaches it. It generally stops a couple dollars short of the buyout price. At this moment, Yahoo is trading at $28.25, still low enough to make a sure-thing couple of bucks per share. It's a gamble though. If the deal falls through, or gets blocked by the government, the buyee's stock price drops back down to where it was before the offer .

<comment><USER29> >This always happens with buyout offers

Everyone thinks they know so much more than the market. In this thread so far I have seen you claim the stock always goes (slightly) lower than the offer, and another guy express puzzlement as to why YHOO even managed to exceed the offer at times today. I hope neither of you were trading BEA Oracle offered ~6 billion, BEA rejected it, and 3 months later Oracle offered ~8billion and BEA accepted. One other thing to keep in mind (this is more picking on the other guy than on you) is that when these deals are announced they are often largely made up of stock (Microsoft is so buried in cash that might not be the case here). If Yahoo! accepted the offer right now, it still might end up with a different future value. Luckily it is not to hard to factor that out by purchasing various positions or leveraged vehicles in or relating to Microsoft/whoever-the-aquirer-may-be.

<comment><USER19> I was not trading BEA when Oracle made the bid to buy them out. Why? What happened to BEA's stock price during these two offers? Did it not move at all? Did it go beyond the offer price? Somewhere in between?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How we fed ourselves for a year & sold a startup...with only 300 lines of code - <AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News,
I've been reading HN for a long time now and love the way the community shares thoughts with each other.  I haven't done anything extraordinary or extremely successful, but I want to chip in to the community with this experience that I find pretty interesting.
A year ago, I moved to San Francisco from rural Missouri hoping to join the start-up world.  At the same time, I met a friend, Zac, who also just moved to the bay area around that time but had left his job to pursue something more interesting.  We decided to become partners and start hacking stuff together.
Since we were new to the city and we didn't know any one, we decided to build a mobile app that lets people use their phone to read the profiles of others nearby.  It was supposed to help people "break the ice" and meet new people.  This was our first startup.  We coded the product in a week and pushed the product live.
Once live, we got like 5 users, since no one really knew about it.  To promote this product, we decided to target events, since we thought that events is where people would like to meet each other.  We locked ourselves in a room and asked this question over and over: "What is something valuable we can provide to event organizers so that they can promote our product?"
Zac finally came up with an idea.  He proposed that we could build a kiosk where attendees can type in their name, and a name badge would instantly print.  Then the attendees would be integrated into our mobile app as well.  At first, it sounded insanely dumb (what would my mom think if I told her that I moved 2000 miles away from home to print paper name badges?), and I laughed really hard.  But after thinking about it, it seemed "cool", and we gave it a try.
In a day of work, we wrote the software in 300 lines of code and tested it.  We ordered a label printer from Dymo and hooked them up to a Dell Mini 10v netbook.  After that was done, we contacted an event organizer, convinced him that our system wasn't going to fail, and asked if we could print name badges for him.
The event organizer let us try out our system, and that night turned out to be amazing.  People thought it was the coolest thing ever to type their name in a laptop and instantly have a name badge print out.  At the end of the night, we handed out lots of cards and got lots of people to try our mobile app.   It was the first time in my life that there was "buzz" around something I created.
We continued to hit events and print name badges.  We bought more printers and lots and lots of labels.  We bought a huge travel suitcase to hold everything, and we carried it everywhere to print name badges for events.
The experience was amazing.  Not only did we get a lot of people to try our mobile app, but all the attendees thought it was the "coolest" gadget ever.  I guess we essentially "engineered" our way into these $600 technology events for free.  Many event organizers gave us the front-seats sponsor booth, without charging us a dollar.  Some gave us free advertising banners at their events.  Most importantly, everyone walked around with our logo on their shirt.  We shook all their hands as they walked into the door. Advertising can't get any better than that.  We quickly got our mobile app into the hands of our users, and talked to more than 500+ directly.
Unfortunately, after a month passed, we realized that our initial mobile app wasn't working.  People didn't want the product.  They didn't want to read profiles about people around them.  The mobile app wasn't useful.
Here's the weird thing about start-ups: things just happen.  Although our mobile app failed miserably, our little name badge printing system became insanely popular. Event organizers were begging us to print badges for them every time they had an event.  They were referring us to their friends, and we were hitting events literally every day with our name badge printer.  To cater for each event, we forked our original software (which was completely hard coded and not well thought through) way too many times.
Just to name a few, we hit: TechCrunch events, Smash Summit, SF Music Tech, Future/Money Tech, ISA, Twitter events, FailCon/FailChat, TEDxSoma.  You can see some pictures here: http://imhello.posterous.com/ .
Eventually, we got so many requests that we couldn't go to all the events anymore.  It was too much for us to handle.  That's when it finally hit us right on the forehead. This is what it's like to build a product someone wants.  Event organizers wanted to use our system.  They'll email you, call you, beg you, and tell their friends about you.
Since we were too overbooked, we decided to charge and up our product.  We added EventBrite integration, customization, and polished it up a little.  For every event, we would make around $50-$300 dollars (depending on the size and labor).
Soon, this little name badge printing software  was now able to support me and my partner's living expenses.  And in the end, we sold the product to a small company.  Although it was not an amazing multi-million dollar acquisition, it was an acquisition that gave us enough money to start another company.
The lesson we learned is that something so tiny as a "name badge printing machine" may seem silly and pointless at first, but it led to opportunities you can't first predict.  In our case, it fed us and turned into a small acquisition.  We made lots of friends and great people while we were attending these events.  Even our $10 Logitech keyboard was touched by many great CEOs and celebrities who came through us to get their name badges.  We got completely free promotion and direct advertising.
I think that every startup has opportunities where they can be creative.  Every startup can build something on the side  and attach it to their product somehow.  My advice is that if you find something "cool", even if it's small or trivial at first, take it for a spin before dropping it in the trash can.  It might just spin into something that can help in the future.
After selling the name badge printing software, we decided to go back and pivot on our initial mobile app.  Our new company is called View.  View is a mobile app that "tells you what you need to know, wherever you are."  We're really excited about this app because it's very useful to our daily life.
We're about to launch beta very soon. If you'd like to try it, go to http://view.io
Make sure you click the link above instead of typing it through the browser, so we can know you were referred from Hacker News and can give priority access.
Thanks for reading my story! Felix
P.S. View is not in the App Store yet, but if you'd like to try the iPhone app as a beta tester, shoot me an email and tell me your city/state in the subject line: email@example.com.  We only have a limited number of invitations left, so I can't guarantee that everyone can try it. <comment><USER2> I reached the end of this story and thought, "These guys have not fully learned the lesson of product failure. Nor have they learned to recognize product success."

You made a product no one wanted, and in order to market it, you stumbled onto a product that _lots_ of people wanted in a market where billions of dollars are spent each year (we spend about 10 grand a year on conferences, and we're a _tiny_ company with a tiny marketing budget). You've now ditched the product people wanted, presumably selling it for a pittance, and went right back to a similar mobile app to the one you couldn't convince anyone to use, despite excellent marketing savvy.

It sounds like you guys are a great team, and I bet you'll make many great products in the years to come. I hope you'll also figure out that when the market speaks that loudly, it's a good idea to listen. I had the same problem for many years; it took me three years, from the time we first wrote the code, to realize that Virtualmin could be a great business.

<comment><USER3> I think a distinction between your argument and the OP's motivation is that it isn't money he wants - its to work on something he loves doing.

It may have started with a mobile app, and he found some tangential success with printing name badges at conferences. But nowhere in your response addresses that maybe the OP didn't want to print name badges for a living. He sold his company which he wasn't truly passionate about which enabled him to do something he was passionate about. Sounds like a success story to me.

Not everyone's motivations are the same, and when that's the case we end up with criticisms that aren't focused on the essence of what is being told.

<comment><USER4> You're both right. But SwellJoe's argument was basically, "A hundred thousand dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Ten million dollars!" The OP was lucky enough to find a vein of gold underground, mined like 5% of it, then stopped so they could go open a restaurant. They could've mined out the rest of that vein and with the extra cash started ten restuarants and bought a yacht, etc.

That said it's always hard to criticize success. It's like these guys just did a gymnastics routine and got a 9.5 and then we harp that they should have gotten a 10, while we sit here gobbling popcorn from the couch. :)

<comment><USER5> I honestly don't think that was his argument. His argument was more like: "You started off with a cool idea that no one wanted, accidentally found something people were willing to beg for, then got rid of what people wanted to work more on the cool idea."

It would have been just as valid to stick with the idea people begged for/made money and add features that made you happy. Wouldn't it have been valuable to test/market View to thousands of customers with the need they were trying to solve?

<comment><USER2> I think his...oh, wait...I think _my_ argument isn't really any of that (though they're interesting thought exercises).

I haven't suggested they should have stuck with label printing _or_ that they should have sold it and started something new; my advice applies no matter what path they chose. I suggested that I don't think they learned the lessons that the market was willing to teach them.

In my wizened old age, I think back on similar situations in my own life, where I missed the signs and missed opportunities that would have had very low costs and very high pay outs. This is one of them for this team.

Since everyone wants me to have actually made recommendations for what they should have done (rather than what lessons they should have learned, which is all I covered to start with):

1\. When you have a business that takes off on a run like this, and you know you're going to cash out and run; raise your prices. Raise them a _lot_. Double them. If volume doesn't drop, double them again. Rinse and repeat until you have found the point at which customers stop coming to you. Conferences are huge cash cows. They have money; if you solve one of their problems in a cool, social, way, they will pay for it. So, OP should have started charging earlier and more (a lot more).

2\. Learn from failure. It sounds to me like they're back on the same sort of project as the one they couldn't convince people to like to start with. If they're passionate about social mobile apps, that's fine. But, you have to be willing to listen when the market says "We do not want this."

And, let's add a bonus third point:

3\. Leverage past successes to enable future successes. As you note, it sounds like View could have been launched as a cool feature of the label business, getting it into the hands of all of those CEOs and investors that passed through their system. It started as a marketing ploy, and it would have been an effective one for the new product...I don't know that it makes the new product any more awesome or wanted by people, but it is still a valid avenue for marketing the product to thought leaders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The exaggerations in titles are really starting to bother me.

Yes, you started with 300 lines of code... But then you modified it several times for different conferences, and enhanced it a lot when you really become popular. Only after that did you sell it.

<comment><USER7> The actual number lines actually hovered around that until we sold. It was fork soup because we hardcoded everything for each event (I love git so much for making that so easy). For every event, we always seen it as just one more event for promotion so we didn't want to make everything configurable. Simple and easy to test basically.

Towards the very end we rewrote everything, made it configurable, integrated all past features, and made a UI designer for designing labels (instead of hardcoding the layouts) and then we sold.

<comment><USER8> Never has the measure of 'lines of code' been less relevant to anything though.

<comment><USER9> Yup, every fork = +300 LOC! :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As one of the early event organizers to use imhello just want to say we love you guys, and still want to have you back -- until I read this I thought you'd fallen off the face of the Earth. You guys helped us with badges at out City Hall event (where Tim O'Reilly spoke) and also with an event at Twilio HQ. I'm really happy to hear you're back, and my one piece of advice is that once you have that initial traction and buzz don't let it die.

As an event organizer, I felt like you guys were doing for free what I normally had to pay someone to do - manning the front door. It was very valuable, having you there and putting your logo on our badges felt like 100% win-win. Good luck with view.io

<comment><USER11> So was their success mostly based on the non-scalable aspect? (namely that organizers were happy to get an excited person to work the door for free)

Or is there a hidden scalable app in there for sending out people to do conference name tags in exchange for advertising in front of certain audiences?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wait, those were simple black-and-white "HELLO MY NAME IS" badges printed on a mailing label?

Event organizers paid how much for this?

At first I though maybe this was the 1990's but then I read netbooks.

Very confused. How dumb/lazy/cheap are conference organizers?

<comment><USER13> Very. Well, actually I would say that they're extraordinarily busy and would rather just throw money at people to do things so they don't have to worry about it.

Having set up wifi networks for big conferences (under contract) and written conference software (under contract), I can say that literally everything is a pain point for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Make sure you click the link above instead of typing it through the browser, so we can know you were referred from Hacker News and can give priority access." (even if I think this point is bullshit): There is a clickable link to View : <http://view.io>

</comment><comment><USER15> Great work.

I keep remembering that in my little community a business that just sold for >$100 million started out making steak fingers and selling them to restaurants.

Steak fingers.

$100 million.

nothing is impossible.

<comment><USER16> Whats the name of this business?

<comment><USER15> [http://enidnews.com/localnews/x231066283/Advance-Pierre- Food...](http://enidnews.com/localnews/x231066283/Advance-Pierre-Foods- officially-close-on-merger-of-Enid-Ohio-companies)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You probably ought to plan on Apple stealing your thunder with iOS 5.0, which purportedly includes <http://siri.com/>, a voice-activated app that appears to cover what you're doing exactly.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is the best longform copywriting I have ever seen! I'm happy to be advertised to in this way. I especially like the "priority access" part.

The View app does look amazing - seems to basically be local advertising/information _signage_ on your phone, as Philip K Dick predicted/feared, but (hopefully) more useful than typical ads (can you find ways to keep it that way?)

Suggestions: the example messages are _great_ , but show them a little longer, maybe proportional to their length (I couldn't quite read some of them); and maybe somehow make your tag more concrete and specific (maybe 'what you need to know _about_ where you are' - danger signs, like your "tow zone" one sum it up). Maybe something about "signs"?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the suggestions :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> After signup, there is a syntax issue:

      To try our initial beta on Feb 31, invite 2 friends that live nearby:

Feb. 31 doesn't exist. :)

Also, the watermarks don't show up in Firefox; I almost assumed I needed to know the "secret codes" to get an invite.

<comment><USER20> "Feb. 31 doesn't exist."

Maybe they are using MySQL? <http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html#1_14>

<comment><USER21> One of my previous jobs was coding software for banks that handles financial transactions. And I am not entirely sure any more if it was Feb 30th or 31st but one day the product manager came to my office and asked me to change the validation routine in the library that handles the date-related calculations and consider Feb 31st as a valid date.

Can't exactly remember what it was about but I think some banks or other banking applications are acting like there is a 31st or 30th February for some kind of calculation. (Rather off-topic but if I ever 'share' this with the whole world, it seemed like now is the time!)

<comment><USER22> When I wrote billing systems for telecoms, Feb 31st was a valid date... after a fashion. Billing cycles were stored as a cycle period "monthly", "quarterly", etc, with a "bill day" offset which was a number 1-31. If your "bill day" was the 31st then in February you would be billed on the last day of the month along with the customers with bill days 28-30. It was rare to do actual time calculations treating the bill day as an actual date, but not considered particularly strange.

And there you have it, at least for one small corner of the software world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Did you not see enough money in the event market to continue trying to build products in that space? View.io seems to be a bit of a departure from that.

<comment><USER24> Plus I could easily imagine a View.io-like app directed to event planners and attendees that leverages the badge printing service: an event-specific "mobile app that 'tells you what you need to know, wherever you are' could be useful for people networking (like their original business plan), visitors new to the conference city, or promotions of related events/services.

When you have to turn away interested, paying customers, it's time to increase your rates and leverage that relationship to sell them more products and services.

<comment><USER25> There are quite a few of these already. The biggest difference(and most useful) is the level of integration between the event management and registration software and the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I thought most badges are simply printed from the event registration data and I would have certainly expected the events you listed to have had badges already upon arrival, so I'm curious as to why they didn't have the badges printed already. But it's certainly a great story of how something they developed in order to promote what they thought was their main product ended up becoming the main product.

<comment><USER27> At TC Disrupt 2010, a very organized and well resourced event, I personally printed dozens of badges that didn't get printed from event pre-registration.

<comment><USER28> I was there doing the same. Amazed me. Sean is my name if we've met.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For the people wanting to know what the badge-printing setup looked like, I think these pictures show it:

<http://imhello.posterous.com/>

<comment><USER30> Love the hacker at pic 6 of 13

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> FYI, the signup form on view.io doesn't show the placeholder text in Firefox, I had to view source to see what it was meant to display. Fine on Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER32> What boggles my mind is that tech events in San Francisco don't print name badge automatically on admission. 0_0

I live in South Africa and pretty much any trade show or event I have gone to in the last 4 years have had name badges printed at the door on admission. Or am I missing something here?

</comment><comment><USER33> Is yours the product used at SHDHs? I (and others) were very impressed with it :)

<comment><USER34> Nope: <https://github.com/novas0x2a/devhouse>

<comment><USER7> wow. neat! could of been useful. The version we used was C#.. First was a WPF app and the second as Silverlight app. The rewrite was a web version with a WPF frontend client.

<comment><USER35> We would have loved for you to use our code too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What a great story! "This is what it's like to build a product someone wants."

</comment><comment><USER37> From the landing page, view.io sounds like an useful product. As someone new to NYC, I'm always looking for relevant upcoming events. In a city like NYC, there _has_ to be events of interest, but they are hard to find. This sounds like what view.io addresses.

That said, this trend with spamming friends to receive an invite (thanks to UseHipster, LaunchRock, etc) is frustrating. Yes, it may increase your launch e-mail list, but it's an extra step that deters certain users (I gave up after being told to tell x friends to sign up).

<comment><USER38> It may deter you, but for every person it doesn't deter they get 5 more people to sign up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Rural Missouri, eh? That's where I've been my whole life, and I too have always wanted to move to San Francisco or a similar population center. Cool that you're pulling it off.

</comment><comment><USER40> The story was fascinating. What is most interesting to me is that several people here on HN are dumbfounded by how such a simple service was in such demand. That seems to be the trend these days: do something simple, that everyone needs, and you can be a success. Complicated ideas don't seem to fair well (there is a lot of resistance to it anyway). If people need to try and figure out what you're offering, you've already lost most people.

Looking forward to the release of View!

</comment><comment><USER41> Thanks4sharing. In NYC's Google office(s), when you walk-up to the front desk there's a system to enter your name (or anything for that matter) and it prints out a sticker-badge. And I've used a scale programmed to spit out sticker labels with prices depending on the weight of the product code entered. Perhaps an add-on to the event badges would be color coding them based on some other attribute voluntarily entered into the system (not weight :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm surprised some people are giving you a hard time in the comments section. I found great value in reading your story. Thank you for sharing. Peace.

</comment><comment><USER43> This makes me feel even more confident about my recent decision of ditching bloated and too ambitious "next big thing" ideas in favor of small, practical ideas that help people's lives somehow. And the latter ones are much easier to iterate through than the former, especially when you convince yourself that many of your "silly" small ideas may actually be pretty interesting if well executed.

Thanks for sharing your story!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, glad the story was helpful :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Over the last ten+ years we have built a registration system very similar to cevent. Cevent got 50 million in funding and well it's just hard to compete with that. We plan on open sourcing the majority of the system soon(we started testing the installer yesterday - failed badly on godaddy). What I picked up from this article was that you had 'buzz' any ideas on how I can create buzz for this project?

</comment><comment><USER44> Very interesting story! Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think this is an amazing story. You guys are flexible and ready to change. You saw a new opportunity and you grabbed it and it worked out great. I think in the whole process, you gained something that are more valuable than money ... the experience and the connection. Great job ... and thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER46> Agreed. Printing name badges for a meetup (like the co-founders meetup for instance - 150 people) is actually 50% of the whole effort of putting such an event together. What a pain! I can see why event organizers would call you so you solved their headache!

</comment><comment><USER47> You are on the right track. Badges was not your thing. Coding great apps is. So glad you are back on track, not giving up. Maybe this time around build a badge app - in other words, find a need and build great software to address it. And ask to be paid :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement, appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Interesting. I typed in my local equivalent of a zip code (four digits beginning with a zero) and it accepted it. So either you guys are planning on going global right away, or your validation's not all that flash?

</comment><comment><USER49> Why did you sell? Besides the offer, were you sick of the business?

</comment><comment><USER50> _Make sure you click the link above instead of typing it through the browser, so we can know you were referred from Hacker News and can give priority access._

URLs in submissions aren't linked.

</comment><comment><USER51> I just signed up for the beta and it told me that I can use it on February 31st if I sign up two friends. I think someone should take a look at how the dates are being calculated.

</comment><comment><USER52> Great story. re: view.io, I closed my registration window, so I lost the link to send to my friends. Is there no way to get it back?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, send me an email and I can get you the invite code back: email@example.com. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Fascinating, but I've added up points on the fact that, you threw away a proven product and fell on an already dead-end project?

</comment><comment><USER54> Wait... rural Missouri? I'm originally from Joplin (SW Mo). Glad to see you made the jump.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm from the rural areas of St. Louis. Yep, made the jump, hanging there, and loving it!

<comment><USER55> I'm from rural Missouri as well, about 3 hours away from St Louis though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'd really like to see a link to a privacy policy before entering my email and ZIP code.

</comment><comment><USER57> I love stories like these! Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER58> wow. very inspiring. This proves how life really make its turns huh? :) Great job guys, and the app looks cool.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wow, awesome story! Good luck with view!

</comment><comment><USER60> How much was the deal for? Great job

</comment><comment><USER47> oh, I thought by the title maybe Tim Ferris was suckering me in for more baloney.

</comment><comment><USER61> Inspiring resolve. great story

</comment><comment><USER62> nice work, gents.

</comment><comment><USER63> Question: how do we "click the above link?" It shows up as text for me, which I cut and pasted into the address bar (you won't know I came from HN) Am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> oh shoot--hmm , HN doesn't allow links from the page. So you're going to have to paste it in the bar or if the link works, click this: <http://view.io>

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Working link: <http://view.io>

</comment><comment><USER65> So what is the name of the company who bought the label business?

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The Suicide Prevention Hotline is pinned to the top of r/cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/ <comment><USER2> Never a bad time to tell someone they are loved or would be missed. Just putting this out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oy. Who wouldn't have understood the inherent risk? Bet big, sure...if you're up to it, but don't bet the mortgage.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not pinned. It is, however, the post currently at the top, below the pinned posts.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is the Bitcoin market tanking?

<comment><USER3> Double digit percentage drops over several days. As to whether that's tanking or normalizing...your call.</comment></comment>


Torvalds: SteamOS will "really help" Linux on desktop - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/384934/torvalds-steamos-will-really-help-linux-on-desktop <comment><USER3> The reason Linux hasn't seen widespread adoption isn't just that it doesn't have the marketing power of Microsoft behind it. It's flaky, it lacks support for a wide variety of hardware, it requires a level of understanding that the vast majority of the population just don't have time or willingness to gain, it lacks obvious usability features in the most recent versions of major distros.

The general population requires their computer to make their life easier, Linux just doesn't do that. I've been hacking around with Ubuntu now for the past month and I'm still not satisfied with it. I have a laundry list of things that are far from satisfactory that I don't yet have the capability of fixing myself... and I've been developing software for 20 years. If the learning curve is this steep for a long time developer, imagine how daunting it is to the general public. They don't get a computer because they want something to tinker with and figure out how it works for hundreds of hours a week, they want a computer to do something for them that will enrich or simplify their life in some fashion.

Perhaps if some of the more fundamental features were fixed instead of adding nice to have trinkets, you'd find more people will take it more seriously. I shouldn't have to go and hack around with complicated and potentially not-yet- existing files, referencing incomplete or inaccurate blog posts written by the last guy who tried what you're attempting and got so pissed off with it that he thought he'd save the next idiot the headache he'd just gone through - <USER2> to omit the most important piece of information that's not to be found anywhere else on the internet.

That is why Windows has a major market. Because unlike Linux, shit just works... for the most part.

They say that Linux is free as in "freedom", but honestly, how free are you when you have to spend all your time tied to the computer just to get shit working?

I'm trying to love Linux, I really am, I'm on my 4th distro in 2 months and so far I feel like the only thing I've achieved is getting Stockholm Syndrome.

If Steam can fix this, I say please, please bring it on. Torvalds, I think you've got the right idea, honest to God I do, and I'm trying to love your system but it seriously needs some love from developers and usability experts that understand people.

<comment><USER4> Is there anything concrete in terms of 'drivers' and 'flaky', 'more fundamental features' which you can point to as being a problem for you?

Personally I've been using a bleeding edge distro (Arch Linux) for the past 5-6 years or so and I've only been bitten once by a stability issue with networking which forced me to downgrade the kernel while it was being fixed upstream (this would not have bitten me had I not been using a bleeding edge distro btw).

And I certainly don't have to spend all my time 'tied to the computer to get shit working', since Arch is bare-bones it certainly took more time to set it up exactly to my liking, but that's not something I have to spend time on anymore.

Instead I spend far too much time here on HN :D

<comment><USER5> Actually, I've got a couple of things that flaked out on me in the last year or so. This was with Fedora 17, on a Lenovo Thinkpad x230 laptop, and Intel video. At first I put Ubuntu on it, but it wouldn't reliably survive suspend/resume, and sometimes X11 would lock up (this is because the chipset used in this laptop was band new at the time, and driver support was still a bit flaky). So I put Fedora 17 on it, and got a bit better luck.

However, after a few automatic updates, I started to get really weird sound issues. When playing videos with VLC, I would get a buzzing sound (like a broken speaker) for the first minute or so, then it would clear up -- this only happened sometimes, after a suspend / resume. Reverting to an earlier kernel fixed it, but also I couldn't duplicate the issue with any other audio program -- just VLC. Eventually (after a couple months), the various libraries, software components, and kernel versions stabilized on this hardware, and now suspend/resume, audio, etc are all flawless. But I know I'm probably in for some pain next time I upgrade hardware (unless I get last years model).

Second problem -- I picked up a generic 7.1 USB audio device. The center channel and subwoofer are reversed. I can't figure out how to re-assign the audio channels through the driver (I think there is some combination of Alsa and Pulse config file tweaks, but haven't got them to work yet). Ideally I'd like to pass some parameters to the kernel module for the sound device to swap channels. I looked at the source code, saw there was a spot where I can add the chipset in the "quirks" table, but couldn't find the data structures that assign audio output to specific channels. I'll probably end up jumping on one of the kernel dev mailing lists to figure that part out when I get time. Meanwhile, I just made an adapter to swap the channels (both the center speaker and sub-woofer come out of the same audio jack on the sound device).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad he approves of it. Generally if he doesn't approve of something like this then it triggers a string of "Torvalds says" articles that do nothing for _nix. Then someone brings up a RMS angle and then it all devolves into an artificially created shtstorm which keeps the entire FOSS scene in this constant paralyzed state.

Personally I think Valve - as great as they are - will step on a pile of RMS flavored toes. So be it. They bring raw power to the (desktop) _nix world like never before. _nix hasn 't really moved an inch on the desktop front anyway...whats the worse that could happen? The risk is acceptable given the massive potential progress.

I think it'll also provide much needed focus to the _nix world. Sure variety has its benefit...but at some point it becomes fragmentation not variety. A central vocal point like valve will go a long way to fixing that.

<comment><USER7> _nix hasn 't really moved an inch on the desktop front anyway_

What a ridiculous thing to say. Millions of people use *nix operating systems on their desktop computers every day. This number is significantly higher than a few years ago. When I hear someone complaining about state of GNU/Linux on desktops, they usually mean they can't play gamez. Sometimes they add something about lacking good video drivers (to play gamez).

And by your statement you reduce the whole range of possible computer uses to gaming. Maybe we shouldn't confuse "linux in entertainment" with "linux on desktops"? Former is only a subset of the latter.

Don't get me wrong, I like playing, and I adore Valve and their games. But for many GNU/Linux users giving up their freedoms may not be worth another brainless AAA title.

<comment><USER6> >What a ridiculous thing to say. [...] This number is significantly higher than a few years ago.

Significantly higher yes...off a low base. We're talking 1..2..3...maybe a (naive)5 percent of progress on total market share over literally decades in the desktop market. Compare that to the androids absolutely crushing the entire mobile market in a few short years. So yes in the bigger scheme of things "nix hasn't really moved an inch on the desktop front".

>And by your statement you reduce the whole range of possible computer uses to gaming.

You're kidding, right? I focused on gaming, because we are discussing a post about Valve. The effects will extend to every corner of GUI driven _nix given that nvidia has already made real world changes based purely on this announcement. The_ nix world can fight another 10 years of a losing war against an unmotivated nvidia & linux or they can grab something like this by the balls.

>gamez

Really?

<comment><USER7> _Compare that to the androids absolutely crushing the entire mobile market_

Why would I compare totally different things? When Android came by, there was no monopoly in the mobile OS market. Every vendor had its own. Also, there are much less legacy applications than on desktops. And mobile OS is substantially easier to catch up with. Prior to smartphone era users had no trouble switching between phone vendors (and subsequently the OSes). Switching to a new a desktop OS is way more difficult step.

Better compare it to OS X. Same decades in the market, and still only ~15% share. Yes, more than GNU, but they do their own hardware, and OS is by far not their main selling point.

 _I focused on gaming, because we are discussing a post about Valve_

Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped on you so quickly. Yes, GNU/Linux seriously lacks in a few more areas besides gaming (namely, professional media editing). But it is still a far stretch to say Linux isn't advancing on the desktops. Jeez, 10 years ago we didn't have a decent office suite.

Anyway, what makes you so concerned about Nvidia motivation? My integrated Intel video does an excellent job drawing whatever 2D I throw at it. And it even can do 3D well enough to play some 5yo games (if you consider TF2 one of those).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only reason I chose Windows over Mac OS X for my new home computer is I wanted to play games on it.

If SteamOS lets me play AAA games (and not just Portal, Half-Life, Left4Dead and Team Fortress) AND it lets me run XBMC or Plex or some other TV software, then I'd switch in a second.

<comment><USER9> I'm certainly not a "gamer" any longer, but I still have a pretty healthy Steam library.

I've been very happy with the increasing options on Mac OS X and I hope they keep improving.

I'm way more excited about slower, turn-based games, and Civ V, Europa Universalis, and FTL have been enough to keep me from searching for anything else.

Despite this, I know I've been missing out on games I would probably love. I think I see a SteamOS device in my future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The desktop" that is relevant for GNU/Linux distributions is a stagnant, shrinking market. You will see more Chromebooks than you will ever see Linux desktops. At first glance SteamOS does not even look like a GNU/Linux desktop. It's supposed to be a living room machine, complete with its own "SteamBox." Attributing anything important to SteamOS is akin to saying "Roku is Linux; this is really going to help us get some drivers."

<comment><USER11> I'm guessing you don't count chromebooks/ boxes as "Linux desktops"?

<comment><USER10> No, I'm not an RMS disciple but here I said GNU/Linux for a reason. Chromebooks aren't GNU/Linux. Torvalds doesn't seem to be saying that Steam will help with Chromebook-like devices--and why would it? The manufacturer will do what it takes to get the drivers working on those devices.

<comment><USER11> If you use just "Linux", then there's some ambiguity. If you use both "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" to refer to the same thing in consecutive sentences, then that's plain misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If they help sort out some decent graphics driver code I will love them forever and send them cake on their birthday.

<comment><USER8> No cake necessary, just buy their games. :-D

<comment><USER13> Yeah, the cake was a lie.

<comment><USER14> You monster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it will help not exclusively _Linux_ but it will help more to get real support behind graphics drivers. Sure, some of this is directly related to the kernel (like power management, switchable graphics etc.) but mostly it is stuff which isn't directly related to the kernel (e.g. mesa, xorg, wayland). What I see recently that AMD has really stepped up too (if you own Radeon HD, not the very old Xwhatever series), contributing to kernel code and mesa drivers. Nvidia has some pretty good proprietary drivers, but heh... they are proprietary. Thats the main problem I have: Both AMD/Nvidia closed drivers offer better 3D performance, better feature support for their chips etc. but when I have trouble with graphics on my system, it's because of the closed drivers. You never know if they still work after updating.

</comment><comment><USER16> I know this isn't the point of the article, but:

> developers focus on useless UX features

This is the number one reason I have personally delivered poor quality software.

</comment><comment><USER17> It makes me wonder how different is this one from the dozen of Linux distributions around. Will this one solve any of the followings problems? if so, it's a very good start.

Linux is hard to use on day-day. Even you chose the most friendly distribution (like Ubuntu) Almost nothing works in the first try to install. Look, I failed to get the newly gcc version (I really want it) because I need to compile from source code and a lot of libs is missing from my system and when I try to install others lot of libs is missing too. It's get in looping. I got the latest version of Microsoft Visual Studio in just one second. Where can I get something better? Also, nowdays everybody is switching to a XBOX/PS4 etc and no longer do much play on PC. I don't have numbers, but I can seen it's changing a lot. It shouldn't decrease, just unlike, it means in a future (very close) playing big games on PC is almost dead. Why should someone invest time and money in something going to no longer exists? PC is something that the peoples will continues to have to work and browser on internet, if not on your smartphone/tablet.

<comment><USER18> GCC 4.8 is in the repos. Interesting that you had trouble getting it.

<comment><USER17> Show me how to install it?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any good MOOCs on Assembler? - <AUTHOR> I am software developer and currently using high-level languages (such as Python and JS) at work, and somethink I'd call `middle-level` for my side projects (Go, C#, some experiments with Haskell).
I have general knowledge about compoter architecture, how compilers work and so on, understand assembler code listings (given some comments), but I'm eager to have more experience with it and to read/write it `fluently` on demand (however I understand, that it is mostly for my interest and joy, not that I'd use it somewhere in my work), so I'm asking: can anyone recommend some good MOOC, or maybe just good article series (book is OK too, but some interactivity wanted) on this topic?
PS: I'm talking about x86 first of all, but it isn't restriction, of course. <comment><USER2> [https://www.edx.org/course/computation- structures-2-computer...](https://www.edx.org/course/computation- structures-2-computer-mitx-6-004-2x#)!</comment>


Ask HN: Which RSS reader do you use a year after Google Reader's death? - <AUTHOR> Some well known RSS readers:<p>* Feedly * Digg * Flipboard * NewsBlur * The Old Reader * Newsvibe * Noowit * Tiny Tiny RSS <comment><USER2> I'm using Feedbin - [http://feedbin.com/](http://feedbin.com/) . It's got a nice minimal interface and it integrates with iOS apps well. And it's open source, though a) kinda tricky to get up and running and b) the developer isn't too quick with pull requests.

</comment><comment><USER3> Feedly. Love it!

I just wish more blogs had RSS feeds. There is a surprising number of content- rich and frequently updated blogs/sites which dont have an RSS feed yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use aol reader.

[http://reader.aol.com/](http://reader.aol.com/)

I found it is very close to google reader.

</comment><comment><USER5> Newsbeuter. Lightweight, command-line, efficient reading. Remotely via SSH or locally.

</comment><comment><USER6> Feedly - [http://feedly.com](http://feedly.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://bazqux.com](https://bazqux.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://goread.io](http://goread.io)

<comment><USER9> That looks quite nice, there is no iPhone or iPad client however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> tt-rss is what I use. It is very stable.

</comment><comment><USER11> Digg Reader

</comment><comment><USER12> Liferea

</comment><comment><USER13> Inoreader

</comment><comment><USER14> Rssident</comment>


The $5, 64-bit Processor and Disruption Ahead - <AUTHOR> http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/4874/the-5-64-bit-processor-and-disruption-ahead

<comment><AUTHOR> _> >It's not necessarily what ARM wants to hear either because even though multiple cores on an SoC give it a greater royalty it is as a percentage of the chip price. And a bigger percentage of $5 is not much at all._

Something tells me ARM is going to be restructuring their future licensing agreements a bit...

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure. Selling $100 of chips that cost $20 each is probably harder than selling $100 of chips that cost $5 each, and ARM gets the same money either way. Cheaper tech tends to increase overall usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So... Does this mean we might see a 4k Chromecast 2 for $10 retail? Would change the game significantly.</comment>


ReCaptcha: Stopping Spam While Transcribing Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/recaptcha_stopping_spam.php <comment><USER2> Good to see the article, but isn't this old news? I'm certain I've seen this on YC-funded sites before, and ReCaptcha is ancient at this point.</comment>


Ted Wang and Andreessen Horowitz Put Open-Source Investment Documents Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/streamlining-the-seed-round-ted-wang-and-andreessen-horowitz-put-open-source-investment-documents-online-85948157.html <comment><USER2> I see a ton of small startups having problems on the legal side of things and they can't pay a couple grand to handle simple things like incorporation, creating terms and conditions, etc.. I wish there were more respectable groups that did this to alleviate the burden on young companies.</comment>


How to defeat the purpose of IEEE floating point (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://yosefk.com/blog/consistency-how-to-defeat-the-purpose-of-ieee-floating-point.html

<comment><USER2> I have often found myself closer to the opposite end of the spectrum. Many machine learning algorithms and applications (certainly not all) can tolerate a fair degree of inaccuracy. This is often justified by the fact that the training data is typically noisy to begin with and is a random sample from the space it lives in. If your algorithm can be stable under those conditions it ought to be stable under floating point jitter.

This usually means you need regularization, or smoothing, or low pass filter, or averaging in some guise or the other (in some abstract way they are the same thing). There are some frequently used operations in ML that are very unstable under inaccuracies, numeric differentiation is one, just dont do it without smoothening. Inverting matrices is another, but you better have a real solid reason to ever invert a matrix, yes there are reasons when you do really want the inverse.

In any case the final point is that I have had to baby talk the compilers into, "yes, please please dont worry about it, just do these commutative (for real numbers) operations in any order that you want". This exposes more parallelism and other compiler optimizations. Often I would gladly take the hit over some precision in higher order decimal places to gain speed. But this should not be done blindly, and a smattering of numerical analysis helps gauging when it would be safe to do so. I doubt whether numerical analysis figures prominently in the trajectory of a graduating machine learner, although I think it ought to.

<comment><USER3> One of the advantages of languages with N-ary operators.

* (a,b,c) can take advantage of those tricks, whereas the programmer can still be explicit and go * (a, * (b, c)), for example.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. Do you have some specific examples in mind, I would love knowing more. The usual suspects, for example fold_left, fold_right would typically adhere to fixed order for floating point operations. A reason Java is a FLOPs killer is that its standard is too strictly specified, it does not leave much room for the runtime to take advantage of these features. Even order of argument evaluation for functions are specified to be left to right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're a game developer, you should look at this Floating Point Determinism article, which shows some additional techniques for implementing deterministic physics with floating point.

[http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game- programmers/flo...](http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game- programmers/floating-point-determinism/)

</comment><comment><USER5> The quest for consistency seems misguided.

If your code changes behavior based on the timing of the various sections, you have a bug, a race condition. The solution isn't to lock down your code and build with only one configuration. The solution is to fix the bug.

In the same way, if the behavior of your code is dependent on the order of operations in floating point, it is very likely that you are doing something wrong. The solution is not careful ordering of floating point operations, but using algorithms appropriate to floating-point (and avoiding floating point when it isn't applicable.)

Code that has been ported to many platforms tends to be more stable, because the heterogeneous environments have exposed bugs and flawed assumptions in the code's construction.

<comment><USER6> I read the article so you don't have to! The author dreams of consistent behavior so he can get:

\- Reproducible results across platforms

\- Reproducible results with different build settings (such as debug builds or optimization levels)

\- Useful test cases for regression testing

\- Test cases that help him find misbehavior in the optimizer

\- An improved chance of finding more subtle bugs, absent 'noise' from small changes in floating point operations

In particular, he gives examples of how changes to nearby code can change the output of floating point operations, due to hairiness in how registers are allocated. You can see how this would make testing quite painful.

These all seem like worthy goals that deserve a better response than "you're doing it wrong", along with some non-sequitur about race conditions.

<comment><USER5> Regarding race conditions, I was referring to this:

> It's not just floating point that's inconsistent across modes – it's code > snippets with behavior undefined by the language, buggy dependence on > timing, optimizer bugs, conditional compilation, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Getting consistently worse results? :) He didn't even mention when matlab 5 started using his 64b only recommendation, the results were getting in-precise and matlab was getting unusable. [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/MxMulEps.pdf](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/MxMulEps.pdf)

I cannot take a floating point rant seriously without knowing Kahan's arguments. And a crazy requirement to compare it to slow and false debugging code does not really help.

</comment><comment><USER8> This kind of thing makes me happy I work on the JVM. strictfp may be "cowardly" but it's relatively easy to use.

<comment><USER9> I understand that avoids some platform-capability differences, but does it also protect from issues with execution-order or ghostly-coupling between threads?

<comment><USER10> I have never heard of those problems, what are they? Hardware bugs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe I am wrong, but is the author just looking for a decimal type? Those exist in most major languages, right?

<comment><USER12> The performance of decimal arithmetic on hardware not recently made by IBM means it cannot be used in most places.

<comment><USER13> The original post said he'd be happy to trade performance for consistency.

He could also use fdlibm ( [http://netlib.org/fdlibm/index.html](http://netlib.org/fdlibm/index.html) ), at least for anything other than primitive operations. But, again, it trades performance for consistency.

<comment><USER13> This week I learned that C99 and C11 have an FP_CONTRACT pragma, that can be set "off" for this reason ( [http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf](http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf) , section 6.5, paragraph 8).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why does News.YC show xyz.domain.com as just domain.com? Eg: - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flickr.com/ Though I notice that it sometimes does (abstractfactory.blogspot.com shows the full domain) and sometimes doesn't (james.hotornot.com shows as "hotornot.com"). <comment><USER2> Interesting, because <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60848> shows the subdomain. Perhaps PG has flagged some domains to only show the host? In the link above, that would make since. Doing that with Flickr doesn't, at least not to me. So I'm not sure. :)

Here's the PHP I use to derive domain + subdomain: function getDomain($URL) { $Parsed = parse_url($URL); $Parsed = str_replace('www.','', strtolower($Parsed['host'])); return $Parsed; }

Not likely to be very helpful to PG, since HN is Lisp. Nonetheless, maybe someone else could use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably because domain.com indicates the source, and xyz just indicates its location.

blog.flickr.com is still Flickr. Obviously there can be problems with this, but it's generally true.</comment>


The Shen programming language - <AUTHOR> http://shenlanguage.org <comment><USER2> From the license page (<http://shenlanguage.org/license.htm>):

"Part of our motivation in maintaining a tight spec and a reliable platform is to hold the Shen community together so that we do not splinter our resources on multiple incompatible forks. We do not want multiple incompatible dialects of Shen, multiple compilers, multiple incompatible libraries. We want $free readable libraries that work for all of us and libraries we can pick up and use without worrying about compatibility. Hence the production of derivative non-conforming programs from our source, whether called Shen, Shin, Shine or Shoo, is barred by the license. To give up on this is to give up on the motivation for Shen."

Whilst avoiding forking prevents splintering it can also be dangerous. OCaml suffers from a similar restriction which has seriously impeded the development and use of new compiler features like staged compilation (<http://www.metaocaml.org/>), type-safe marshalling (<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/hashcaml/>) and delimited continuations ([http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/d4ca429e7935033c)). INRIA rarely accept new features into official distribution and the license prevents anyone else from doing so. Extensions have to be distributed as patches and inevitably bitrot.

Tying the long-term viability of a language (or spec) to a single owner rings alarm bells for me. Clearly they want to avoid another Scheme but I've had bad experiences in both directions.

<comment><USER3> Tarver would be better off letting go of his urge to tinker with licenses and just run with one of the existing options. The risk posed by suboptimal licensing is negligible compared to the risk of his radical new language not getting used at all, and every time people get distracted by nitpicking license terms -- as they invariably do -- a significant portion of the tiny and precious attention budget for Qi/Shen gets blown through. This is a shame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a nice introduction here, which is aimed at experienced functional programmers:

[http://shenlanguage.org/documentation/Tutorials/Shen- in-15mi...](http://shenlanguage.org/documentation/Tutorials/Shen-in-15min.htm)

Shen appears to be a strongly-typed functional language with a Lisp-like syntax. It supports pattern matching:

        (define sum-list
          [] -> 0
          [H|T] -> (+ H (sum-list T)))

...partial application:

        (* 3) ; returns (/. X (* 3 X))

...as well as macros that can alias function names:

        (defmacro logmacro
          [log N] -> [log N 10])

There's also an embedded "Prolog" implemenation, though I don't know how complete it might be:

<http://shenlanguage.org/documentation/prolog.htm>

However, there doesn't appear to be an object system or a monad library, and the "lazy evaluation" system uses a typical promise/force approach, which every Scheme has had for decades. So Shen may not be well-suited to the kind of fun tricks available in Haskell and (to a certain extent) Scala. Still, it's definitely an interesting language.

<comment><USER5> Partial application with a lisp syntax threw me for a loop, it looks weird.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first thing I'd like to see on a programming language's website is a handful of short examples, like on <http://ruby-lang.org>. In this case examples are hidden a bit deeper: [http://shenlanguage.org/Documentation/Tutorials/Shen- in-15mi...](http://shenlanguage.org/Documentation/Tutorials/Shen-in-15min.htm)

<comment><USER7> I agree with your point, but ruby-lang.org has precisely one:

        puts "Hello World!"

Which I'd say is more someone trying to be cute (or pro-forma) than trying to show off the language to the curious.

But, I guess that's subjective.

<comment><USER8> Wait, but that's not true. It has a full-fledged class definition, instantiation, and method call.

<comment><USER6> Yes. I believe they're shown randomly and they're cached so we might see different examples.

<comment><USER7> D'oh; all I get is the puts statement with 15 lines of comments.

Apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When someone writes "Shen has the most powerful type system of any existing functional language, including ML and Haskell", I get suspicious.

Have they really studied each and every type system out there? What kind of dependent types do they have? How do they compare to Agda, Coq, Epigram?

<comment><USER10> The idea is that Shen has a turing-complete type system, so it shouldn't even be possible to create a more powerful type system (given a specific definition of "powerful").

<comment><USER11> To expand on that idea a little bit: that's a valid definition of 'powerful', but there's another definition of 'powerful' which some people mean when they talk about type systems, and that's "To what degree does this type system prevent errors?" It seems from cursory research that Shen is powerful with respect to the definition, "To what degree can we encode computations in the type system at compile-time?" and Agda and Coq's type systems are powerful with respect to the definition, "How can we limit the class of programs by encoding constraints in the type system such that the resulting programs are provably correct?" Consequently, neither Agda nor Coq are Turing-complete even at the _language_ level, much less the _type_ level, but that accordingly gives them greater power to know information about their programs at compile time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any new language needs the ability to dynamically load and bind with C libraries (so/dll) and once that works seamlessly, then everything is done.

Otherwise it will enter the chicken and egg problem regarding availability of libraries.

<comment><USER13> in this case maybe not so much. If I recall correctly shen has a pretty tiny core that is designed so it can be ported to existing runtimes, so for example a shen/js could just delegate calling libraries to V8 or *monkey, while shen/scheme can use racket's FFI etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Instead of lambda expressions, it has _slashdot_ expressions.

<comment><USER15> I found this really odd. Any idea what the reasoning behind the "slashdot" is?

On a side: I like Haskell's take on lambda syntax (prefix with "\", e.g. \x y -> x + y).

<comment><USER16> If you squint (a lot), /. looks like a lambda.

<comment><USER17> Why don't we stop fucking around and just use _λx y→x+y_?

<comment><USER18> Because typing a lambda is not obvious on US keyboards.

<comment><USER19> A shame, too. At least decent editors make this a tad easier. DrRacket, for example, binds lambda to Ctrl+\\. Racket accepts both "lambda" and "λ" as the same thing, so it's up to personal preference.

<comment><USER18> I'm well aware of how DrRacket works; nonetheless, telling a newbie to type "lambda" will lead to typing, and telling them to type a lambda will lead to griping.

Also, the difficulty of typing lambdas also means that writing blogs about code, or documents, or emails, will require even more pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apparently, this is based on Qi, which tried to update Lisp with, among other things, types (type checking/inference/pattern matching/etc.)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm disappointed that it doesn't seem to stick with Lisp syntax, instead adding a large number of infix operators. I'm reminded of the loop macro, but this is more pervasive since you don't have to use loop.

The syntax is important for being able to write sophisticated macros that take advantage of all the language's features and for making things like genetic programming easier.

<comment><USER22> The infix operations are mostly syntactic sugar - [3 4 5] is the same as (list 3 4 5), [A|B] is (cons A B), and so on. I don't know about '->' for pattern matching and '<-' for backtracking (maybe others), but you can of course replace '->' by conditionals as is usually seen in Lisp programs not employing pattern matching.

It's the non-open license (forks seem not to be allowed) which is a bit more disappointing. I guess it's a reaction to historic Lisp fragmentation but I doubt this will help adoption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm trying to go through the longer book (on Qi, which has been updated for the most part for Shen) but I'm having a difficult time reading it because every page is saved as a JPG! Magnifying the text just makes it more unreadable... is this 1990?

Edit: The book is quite excellent, including a neat history on why imperative languages are the norm. It's just that my eyes are in pain. :(

</comment><comment><USER24> I feel obligated to learn this language, just because of its name.

<comment><USER25> Same here!</comment></comment>


Brand new open source web API mocking lib for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/donfuxx/Mockinizer <comment><AUTHOR> I have developed a small lib that is based on MockWebServer and makes it very simple to swap in some mocked api responses into your Android project. No ceremony involved. I hope this is useful for someone. Feedback for Mockinizer of any kind is welcome!</comment>


8 questions you need to ask about your business model - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/2011/09/8-essential-questions-you-need-to-ask-about-your-business-model-guest-blog-by-alex-osterwalder/

<comment><USER2> Their first example falls flat, since software (like iTunes) can search for music and also simply read the database of other systems. Getting others to do your work for you is unethical; either they do the work because that's actually a feature for the consumer or you're stealing from people. Anything else is customers doing their work for themselves and you acting smug.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that means it falls flat. It was one of the key things that moved people across. I remember copying CDs into iTunes, downloading stuff from iTunes and putting all my music together. It was only when I got a non Apple MP3 player that I realised that all the Apple content wouldn't play on other systems.

Kept me locked in for years.

<comment><USER2> That's weird, since I had an iPod from the beginning and I don't remember this issue. So far as I recall, iTunes spat out MP3s and getting access to all of it was a simple matter of using the search function of Windows, something yu had to do anyway even in the days of burning unless you had super awesome memory.

<comment><USER4> GP was alluding to the .aap or whatever the extension was for DRM-laden tracks sold by ITMS.

<comment><USER5> Yes, they had DRM for the first 6 years: <http://www.macworld.com/article/138000/2009/01/drm_faq.html>

It seems true that the labels required this; and it was just serendipitous for Apple that it locked-in users. Although... Amazon dropped the DRM a year earlier (it seems). So it _sounds_ like Apple exploited this good fortune to the hilt, and then some...

It reminds me of how Apple forbids Flash - it's _true_ that flash runs very slowly on mobile hardware; and also that most flash applications are designed for the mouse and don't work ideally with multi-touch; and that this runs counter to Apple's focus on the consumer experience. It's just serendipitous that this leads developers to create exclusive content for iOS, and gain expertise in iOS and Apple's toolchain, which also have sticky qualities (they take effort to learn, and it's not transferable to other platforms).

New products often have natural competitive advantage in many different aspects. It's up to you to find them. It's not something you can just make up for the purposes of _having_ a competitive advantage because if you can't "blame" some real factor for it, customers will hate you for it. So, just _recognize_ those competitive advantages, and don't stuff them up.

Perhaps one approach is to look for possible competitive advantages, and ask if any of them will also happen to give some great benefit to users, that they value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting questions, indeed. But i feel they miss a point by not mentioning a single remedy to a low score. The conclusion doesn't make sense to me:

"(...) by asking yourself these questions and by scoring well on at least some of them you are very likely to substantially increase the long-term competitive advantage of your business."

Wouldn't you need to actually increase the score to increase competitiveness?

</comment><comment><USER4> Title starts with an irrelevant number.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the hierarchy of programming? - <AUTHOR>

Meaning...what do you learn 1st, 2nd, 3rd... There are bound to be differences of opinion further out the curve, but are there universal truths about the early stages? How long does it take to become proficient in each? <comment><USER2> Concepts, typically most important are:

      . variables
      . code
      . conditional code (if statements)
      . repeating code (loops/while/until/for)
      . code grouping (procedures/methods/functions)
      . variable grouping (records/structs)

More advanced concepts then become

      . boolean logic (extension to conditionals)
      . Object oriented coding (think: code+struct grouping)
      . namespaces (think: grouping of objects)
      . generics / reflections
      . pointers
        (certain languages expose this completely
        (some implicitly: through pass by val or pass by ref
        (some implicitly: by primitives vs objects
      . preprocessor (only certain languages)
      . recursion (repeating code but through function)
      . functional features

\----

How do you pick these concepts up? Few ways, but I think the following three are most common:

1) Old School Method :: Understand what is happening on the bare metal, and then work building syntactic sugar between what is happening really, and what you want to happen.

      Assembly
      -> C
        -> OPP (C++/Java/C#)
          -> scripting (Perl/Python/Ruby)
            -> Functional (Lisp)

2) New Schooling :: Doing simple things in simple way (KISS principle), and then moving towards complicated systems ( a decent litmus test for language complexity is 'hello world' program. The more lines / syntax it requires, the more complicated language is. For example: for Java one needs to use objects / namespaces / static methods / functions / etc ) -> used by new academia

      Scripting (Python/Ruby)
      -> C#/Java/C++

3) Learning on the job :: fixing existing code, read code, tweak it, rinse, repeat. Learn from examples. Used by some vocational schools.

\----

Libraries are in itself own big concept. Languages without libraries are bare, and, outside of curiosity, not practical. Very often knowing a language implies not only understanding of language grammar, but also it's libraries

You can think that libraries define half of what is considered programming language. For C++ you got STL/Boost. For Perl you got CPAN.

Kind regards

Adam Żochowski

</comment><comment><USER3> That's got to be the most difficult to answer question ever here.

It's like asking how to climb Mount Everest. The flippant answer of course is 'by taking the first step'.

What you learn first is different for everybody, just like that first step on to the path that leads to the summit of Mount Everest is different for everybody. It depends, in the first place, on where _you_ currently are.

So without knowing where you currently are it is next to impossible to answer the question in a way that would make sense to you.

Could you maybe describe a bit of what you already know, your skills and your experience to date? That would help enormously.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you want something 'universal', Knuth's books might be a decent place to start, although you won't be doing anything practical for a while.

I think the field is too new, changing too rapidly, and has too many people with widely varying goals (computer science vs make a small web site in PHP) to really have much that's 'universal' besides "get out there and practice!".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know nothing about programming (maybe that is obvious from the odd question). If someone had an interest in learning, where would he start? Are the paths so varied that even the basics are not universal?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow - great input. Thanks very much.

</comment><comment><USER5> Unless you have a strong, raw intellectual motivation in the endeavor, start by learning whatever allows you to accomplish tasks of interest to you. This is a strong motivating factor. If you like it, you'll keep learning more in order to accomplish more.

Tasks that save you time and effort are a good place to start. Tasks that entertain you are another.

In this regard, a scripting language with a good interface to your system (file access, graphics/presentation support, network support) is often cited as a good place to start. Many people suggest Python.

As you move to tackling larger problems, and/or growing your previous work, you'll find it beneficial to learn more about designs and techniques that aid in staying organized, keeping your work maintainable and efficient, etc. At that point, you'll want to look beyond the references for the language you started in and learn more general principles. (But even when you start, look for the BEST references in the language of your choice. The best references incorporate some of this context and explain it well, giving you a head start and helping you to avoid "bad" practices you may latter have to "unlearn".)

P.S. Perhaps implied in the above, the environment you want to work in / control will influence your choice. For "general" programming -- freestanding programs running on your machine -- you might find e.g Python the best starting point. If you mostly want to control things in your browser, then Javascript (along with HTML, CSS, and the DOM model -- which is already incorporating a quantity of semi-arbitrary detail that frustrates some people). If you were trying to ease administering a UNIX-flavor environment, you might consider Perl. If you spend most of your time in Microsoft Office documents, then Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) or whatever it is these days.

How long it takes depends largely on you. Some people, particularly with a strong motivation to accomplish specific things, learn quite a lot in a couple of months. On the other hand, I've worked with people having technology degrees who nonetheless seem fairly clueless.</comment>


Bring back TheOatmeal.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.revk.uk/2014/07/bring-back-theoatmalcom.html <comment><USER2> Wow is that really icann messing with dns routing?

theoatmeal.com uses DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM which is enom I think.

Maybe enom reported something incorrectly to icann, in fact I have to believe enom is at fault here somewhere because I cannot imagine icann pulling a whois on millions of domains.

querying DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM for theoatmeal leads right back to enom

Unfortunately he has multiple sites on one ip so they cannot be reached directly [http://oatvip.gpdatacenter.com/](http://oatvip.gpdatacenter.com/)

If you know what you are doing, you can send a HTTP_HOST of theoatmeal.com directly to that ip

I don't think he is home right now, he is at w00tstock [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6K_IQjkUbo&t=1m30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6K_IQjkUbo&t=1m30s)

</comment><comment><USER3> Either Inman has changed his registration details or someone else has. This is designed to protect against the latter. It's only been like this since this afternoon BST. I'm sure it'll be back very shortly.

</comment><comment><USER4> I did not realize it has been shut down. What happened?

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like ICANN are shutting down websites that don't have enough identifying information in their registration details!

<comment><USER5> Maybe they don't like his fax number.

Registrant Fax: +1.5555555555

Because faxes are so important these days.</comment></comment></comment>


The new EC2 instance monitoring graphs in Amazone's console are awesome - <AUTHOR> http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/2009/09/04/4622/monitoring-in-aws-console

<comment><USER2> Other than being kind of small, tracking only 3 things, and costing $10 month what do these have over munin, cacti, or other RDD graphers?

<comment><USER3> > Other than being kind of small

You can click on the graphs to expand them.

> tracking only 3 things,

Depending on how you count, 3 or 5:

* CPU Utilization * Disk Reads * Disk Writes * Network Traffic In * Network Traffic Out

The graphs are integrated with the AWS Management Console, it is easy to start (or stop) collecting data, you don't need to do any setup, and you don't need to find a place to store the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By the way, they use <canvas> on Firefox 3.5.</comment>


US policeman performs roadside C-section on wounded deer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-44202791 <comment><USER2> Why? NJ already has an abundance of deer and a shortage of things that kill deer to the point where deer are a problem.

I don't expect the BBC to know that but I do expect an animal control officer in NJ to know that.

<comment><USER3> A different ethical complex I suppose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was really interesting.

Thanks for sharing</comment>


LaTeX3 versus LuaTeX: which is the future? Statements by LaTeX3 team members. - <AUTHOR> http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/45183/213

<comment><USER2> I'm sort of skeptical that any of these will be usable as a complete replacement for a very long time. Heck, I can't even use pdflatex today because the toolchains for several conferences and journals (I'm looking at you, Journal of Functional Programming!) require both the output to have been emitted by the latex (chokes on the PDF otherwise) and for the document sources that you provide them to also be compileable with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I started using ConTeXt (<http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Main_Page>) after many years of LaTeX. The command interfaces are more homogeneous than with LaTeX and it is quite easy to do complex layout with it.

<comment><USER4> ConTeXt is an awesome package. Its "only" drawback is that it's unsupported by publishers. I thought about writing my thesis in ConTeXt, but then I couldn't have easily reused the text from published papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tangentially related: How does one write 'modern' LaTeX today? What packages/tools do people use to ensure their documents work properly?

<comment><USER6> Looking at the compile script for my CV, I'm currently using latex, bibtex, and xelatex, along with sed to work around some nasty bibliography implementation issues.

LaTeX really needs to be just revamped whole. I haven't been following the development of LuaTeX or LaTeX3, but I hope that's what they both do. The syntax needs to be simplified, concerns that no longer exist thanks to improved hardware (such as super-optimized algorithms for hyphenation) need to be discarded, and all of the popular 3rd party packages need to be integrated into a single, cohesive piece of software.

<comment><USER7> What are the problems with Liang's algorithm?

On a modern computer you could easily store the entire dictionary, but it's not clear that that's actually an improvement since it wouldn't be as good at dealing with unknown words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess both new LaTeX3 syntax and the Lua part will be hidden if I'm a casual user. So I will indirectly benefit from both, while the package and class authors will hopefully use the new capabilities.

And why not working with a LuaLaTeX3 - the best of both worlds can be used.</comment>