Stripe Corporate Card - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/corporate-card <comment><USER4> Well, 2% on some things + 1% on everything else is better than I am getting with Amex now. Plus, $50k in free processing is like $1,450 in free money.

Honestly, I wouldn't believe that deal, except that I have a multi-year history with stripe as our CC processor and it has been nothing but positive and as-promised.

So, I submitted an application. It sounds like a great deal to me.

<comment><USER5> If you fly, ever, business gold AmEx cannot be beaten. 4x points on the first $150k spent on two categories of your choice. Then, 25% off(!) flights booked with points at AmExTravel.com.

I will definitely be getting the Stripe card because the intro offers are so good. But, the airfare discounts alone at AmEx Travel are so good it will continue to be my go-to corporate card.

<comment><USER6> Does that apply on the corporate version, here? [https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit- cards/business/cor...](https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit- cards/business/corporate-credit-cards/american-express-corporate-gold-card- amex)

I'm not super clear on the difference between business cards and corporate cards.

<comment><USER7> Biz cards are personally guaranteed and corp cards are not.

<comment><USER6> So a corp can get either type depending how they want the guarantee can go? Like, a regular biz card can work for corp expenses?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's impressive to see the velocity of new products that Stripe is putting out. I'd be really interested to see a blog post or similar on how they decide which initiatives to invest in, how they structure those teams and set milestones, etc

<comment><USER9> [Stripe cofounder]

Thanks! We're always paranoid that we're too slow, for whatever it's worth.

We're still iterating on the supporting models and frameworks. We think a lot about pace layering -- how do we have teams that think on multi-year horizons (infrastructure, security, etc.) alongside teams that are rapidly iterating at much earlier stages of development. I think a lot goes wrong when organizations insist on too much consistency in their operating approach.

We've now identified a few semi-formal mechanisms that have helped substantially. (For example: larger companies tend to want to aggressively standardize roles. This makes sense when operating at scale but less so in the early days. So, we've made it easy to hire for ill-defined roles in nascent product areas -- we figure we can codify those roles later as needed and that doing so sooner is a premature optimization.) We'd certainly consider writing a blog post once we feel that they might be generalizable.

(If anyone reading this is interested in helping us figure things out, please do apply. We're particularly interested in hiring engineers who are interested in these questions.)

<comment><USER10> I really wish you'd focus time and energy on documentation and examples for the current products. I wrote this blog post after a very frustrating experience with Stripe Connect: [https://testdriven.io/blog/setting-up-stripe- connect-with-dj...](https://testdriven.io/blog/setting-up-stripe-connect-with- django/)

<comment><USER10> Moving from the legacy checkout to elements was complex since you do not mention in the docs that validation checks no longer get checked on the client and instead have to happen on the sever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Our company Moonlight was an early beta tester of the Stripe Corporate Card. Each person on our distributed team of five has a card, and it's made things like arranging travel or covering minor SaaS charges simple.

Happy to answer any questions about the end user experience!

<comment><USER12> Is this card tied to an individual or the company? We use Amex and it's tied to individuals so when that person leaves we have to do the dance of migrating the payment to another person. Can we avoid that w/ stripe?

<comment><USER13> You can have named users or you can have (conceptually) a role account, like firstname.lastname@example.com.

We recommend businesses set up the latter for recurring purchases on e.g. infrastructure that aren't tied to a particular person, for the same reasons that you don't want your logins for all of your SaaS or infrastructure to be under individuals' email addresses.

<comment><USER14> That feels like a headline feature - cards not being tied to specific humans at the org is great for the (SaaS/IaaS/Cloud) reasons above.

The 1:1 person:credit-card mapping for those without invoice billing will continue to cause chaos for smaller orgs when people leave or cards are lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a small business owner, what I like about the Chase business cards is rewards come back in the form of points that I can easily transfer to my personal cards. It sounds like Stripe applies them towards the statement, i.e., benefit goes to the business, not to me personally.

However, the 50k free processing is very enticing as thats way higher than any other signup bonus I've seen. But again, credit goes to business, not to me. With a typical chase card, I'll get ~$1,000 worth of points (tax free) added directly to my personal points balance for simply switching a few business expenses to that new card for a couple of months.

<comment><USER16> I never had a corporate CC, so I'm curious: do those rewards count as personal income for tax purposes?

<comment><USER17> Credit card rewards do not get a 1099 as they're a rebate/discount on spent monies.

Banking sign up bonuses usually do as they're classified as interest.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but the _company_ spent the monies, and the employee got the rebate. Seems like an employment benefit to me.

<comment><USER18> Travel status/miles are sort of similar. It's a basic racket: the airline rewards you for steering your company's money to them. It seems to be broadly acceptable but I agree looks pretty sketchy when you boil it down to the basics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing that sticks out to me as a core differentiator here is the "real- time expense reporting" feature. It looks like it allows employees to SMS a receipt the moment they make a transaction and it'll automatically match it. That's a marked improvement compared to how serious of a pain point expense reporting is for so many employees.

<comment><USER20> FWIW, Brex also offers this. I use my corporate card and immediately get a text reminding me to snap a picture of the transaction.

However, it almost never correctly identifies the transaction on the card and pings me immediately with another text "Could not match a transaction". I usually just ignore that though.

<comment><USER21> They have an app now, works much better than the text receipt feature in my experience so far: [https://brex.com/mobile/](https://brex.com/mobile/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1-2% cashback is highly appealing from here in the UK but shame to see is US only.

Anyone shed any light on why getting cashback cards in the UK is rare compared to elswehre? Personally I found Tandem which gives 0.5% cashback which is nice but not much.

Business wise we decided to use Amex as the rewards are OKish (comes out to like ~0.5% again I think?) and being able to pay for US services on our USD card is nice and does save money. Benefits overall not great though, probably save ~£1k per year compared to just using a bank issued debit/credit card.

<comment><USER23> [Stripe co-founder]

As multiple commenters note, UK and EU interchange is significantly lower than that in the US. So the rewards market tends to be different as a result.

That said, launching this in the UK would still be attractive to us. We don't think rewards are the _primary_ thing businesses are looking for.

As we talked to founders, it seems like they all want a corporate card early on for their business spending (to get it off personal cards). As the business adds employees, they need a sensible way to keep tabs on spending without the expensing process being really painful. I think that's just as relevant in the UK, with the added detail of multi-currency spending being more relevant.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for reply!

From our point of view, a card where we could use our USD and EUR balance to make USD/EUR payments would be one of the biggest pulls if possible. I think recurring USD charges for UK based businesses are probably quite prevalent.

I don't think many UK startups realise how much they lose out on being charged in GBP on these transactions (especially with debit cards). There's likely an opportunity here to educate UK businesses and use that to promote this sort of card.

> all want a corporate card early on for their business spending (to get it > off personal cards)

I'm surprised by this, been a while since we were an early business but didn't have any issue getting a corporate debit card which is more than adequate early on.

<comment><USER24> > From our point of view, a card where we could use our USD and EUR balance to > make USD/EUR payments would be one of the biggest pulls if possible. I think > recurring USD charges for UK based businesses are probably quite prevalent.

> I don't think many UK startups realise how much they lose out on being > charged in GBP on these transactions (especially with debit cards). There's > likely an opportunity here to educate UK businesses and use that to promote > this sort of card.

That's what we use Transferwise and their Borderless Account for.

The challenger banks have similar offerings, with multi-currency accounts behind them. We don't have enough in other currencies to need that (yet, it's on my TODO list) . Not being stung for foreign currency transaction fees is why we put all non-GBP expenditure through Transferwise

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice, I assume this give Stripe the ability to shortcircuit Visa/MC on a payment between a Stripe card and Stripe as the processor and capture more of the revenue without needing to share it.

<comment> grey-area Yep, Stripe are also investors in Monzo. This is the obvious long term play and there is no way the incumbents can keep up. It would also allow massive innovation in payments too.

Visa and mastercard should be very worried about being displaced.

<comment><USER26> Visa might be the best business model ever made, I don't think it's going anywhere soon.. Extremely high barrier to entry, extremely low marginal costs, infinite scalability.

<comment><USER27> Look at China, India and other Asian countries. Visa and MasterCard never had that much of a strong foothold there and now debit and credit cards are pretty much antiquated by wallets and QR codes.

<comment><USER28> This isn't true for India. Until last year, all the cards I'd seen in India were either Visa, Mastercard or AMEX. This year my bank tried to send me a "Rupay" card which is an Indian processor; on speaking to the bank staff, it appears that the central bank (RBI) are asking banks to promote Rupay by default to avoid transaction data from leaving the country. But it's still possible to change to a Mastercard or Visa card.

Many businesses and individuals would still prefer to have a Mastercard or Visa at this time as most international websites that sell services and goods don't accept Rupay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Direct attack on Brex, good to see competition.

<comment><USER30> Also on TeamPay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been dreaming of corporate card that would also collect the PDF receipts from vendors.

Here the credit card statement is not enough for accounting, you need to have detailed receipt for each charge. Hunting these every month for various SaaS services and other purchases takes time. And it's not easy to outsource since in many cases the billing stuff is only visible to service admin.

<comment><USER32> We're working on it! (;

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This looks great. The integrations to finance software already built in are killer. The spend controls and categorization are the most interesting part - will it be possible to reduce the amount of overall credit you need to get? With Amex you have to have a full sized limit available for each employee with a card. If this pulls from the same pool and respects spending limits, it could allow you to have a lot more flexibility with your credit as a business.

Consistently impressive stuff from Stripe.

</comment><comment><USER34> Just the real time expense reporting is a reason strong enough to get this card. Even with expensify and all expensing tools out there, the friction for reimbursements is still very high. This card removes that friction. Essentially, I just spend and upload my receipts. No need to reconciliate transactions, create an expense report, submit that etc. If only this integrated directly with LDAP or something like that to automate the approval workflow.

<comment><USER35> >> real time expense reporting

Agreed. This is huge if they get it right. Definitely going to sign up for the trial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wait, let me get this straight. You get $5000 of AWS Credits that don't expire and don't require any minimum level of spending by signing up for this card?

<comment><USER32> Hi there! There is no minimum spend requirement to take advantage of the AWS credits. They are promotional credits and will eventually expire; see Amazon's terms: [https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/](https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/).

<comment><USER37> After how long do the credits expire?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Stripe want to be a fullstack business bank.

Stripe Payments. Stripe Capital. Now a card.

I welcome it, business banking is huge and needs pushed forward!

</comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone know how similar this is to Brex? Related: what make Brex so special as a credit card for startups?

<comment><USER40> My guess is that Brex is more geared towards Silicon Valley VC funded startups - they look at how much money you have in your bank when setting your credit limit (it's essentially a charge card if I'm using the terminology right - your credit limit is basically what's in your bank account). The rewards are also more appealing than this iteration of the Stripe corporate card - <USER2> rideshare, 4x travel, 3x restaurants. Again, my guess is that Stripe is aimed to businesses that don't fall into the traditional VC startup model - <USER3> maybe the rewards will become enticing enough that they will be competitive with Brex in that area in the future as well.

You also can't discount Stripe's Connect API - could see this being used in tandem with that for some interesting ideas

Edit: taking a closer look - they also integrate into services like Expensify and if you use their card, first $50k of payment processing is free so that's also interesting. If you're paying sticker price, that comes out to something like $1500

<comment><USER21> Brex also has a Ecommerce card that's based on projected monthly sales: [https://brex.com/ecommerce/](https://brex.com/ecommerce/)

That might be more directly comparable to the Stripe card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How do the Partner Benefits work?

Are they only valid if we are not an existing customer of the partner, or is it for any spend with those vendors we put onto the card?

Do we work with the Partner to get that discount or is it automatically applied on the Stripe side while processing charges we make to the card?

<comment><USER32> (Amber from Stripe here. For folks following along, we're talking about the "Additional Benefits" section on the page.)

Anything that says "cash back" is automatically applied to your card spending and for both new and existing customers. For everything else, we'll give you a discount code to type into the partner's site directly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> And remember that Stripe just launched Stripe Capital ([https://stripe.com/capital](https://stripe.com/capital)) last week to offer lending services, I cannot wait to see these new services to launch outside US.

<comment><USER43> Was there a HN thread for Stripe Capital?

<comment><USER44> Yep, 4 days ago - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20888817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20888817)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do you need to be incorporated to use this, or can a non-incorporated business use it?

The fee rebate and partner credits are very compelling.

<comment><USER32> Your business doesn't need to be incorporated to apply. Sole props are welcome! It's worth noting that the personal liability changes, though: the individual behind the sole prop will be personally responsible for charges on their account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Stripe is doing some great stuff. But I'd be weary to put all eggs in one basket.

<comment><USER22> Tend to agree but I don't think a card is that big of a deal as in this case it's less Stripe owned as it's a Visa card so pretty sure you'd have some additional protection there.

<comment><USER45> Let's say you have an issue because stripe suddenly you're business is fraudulent (read: you got great coverage on HN and suddenly have 1000 extra customers) Stripe flags you and blocks your account. Done. Now your income and money to spend depends on their customer service.

Many people have had the same with PayPal, and some with regular banks.

So yes, take the card, but also take 5 other cards.

<comment><USER46> Stripe has been receiving a suspicious amount of praise from HN. Really beginning to wonder if this is all organic at this point. Obviously lots of employees in the comments which they are not hiding that fact. But still makes me want to dig deeper than the surface (as everyone should).

<comment><USER47> If you've ever had to setup an ecommerce site before Stripe was around you'd understand why they get so much praise. Your only options were either navigating the complex and expensive world of merchant accounts or dealing with PayPal's horrible API and customer service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder why companies prefer to use a corporate credit card over debit cards (which are very easy to get)? Do they just like having the line of credit? Is it really worth the extra complication/hassle/thing to worry about just to push off payments by ~15 days (Stripe seems to require that the balance be paid off each month)? I also wonder how that is enforced (by reducing credit limits as a company's bank balance starts to decrease, or by charging interest, or by just eating the defaults)?

Or is it about managing/reporting expenses better across groups an organization? Or do companies just like the rewards?

I understand that interchange fees are higher for credit cards - so are corporate credit cards basically a way to extract additional fees from merchants and distribute them in the form of rewards/cash back to the cardholders?

<comment><USER6> It can be up to 55 days free, as payment is due ~20 days after statement.

For debit, you would need a bank account for each employee/team and keep them funded. Credit cards let you make employee cards with set limits.

You also get stuff like chargeback protection and whatever else comes with the card. Amex tends to have various insurances for example.

Note that I don't work in a corp, am just thinking through what debit would require.

This is one of amex's corp cards: [https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit- cards/business/cor...](https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit- cards/business/corporate-credit-cards/american-express-platinum-corporate- card?intlink=US-Acq-GCP-CorporateCards-ViewAllCards-CardArt-PlatinumCard)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'd be curious to know if the AWS credits are available to people who have used AWS before, or had AWS credits before. In my experience, once you're a customer, they won't let you use any more credits (regardless of size, or how many/few credits you used the first time around).

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm worried about the proliferation revenue-based credit in Silicon Valley. Traditionally credit needs one of the following (ideally two): 1) established history of profit, not just revenue, and 2) collateral. How else are you supposed to convince creditors that you have the capability of paying it back? Stripe Capital, Brex just look at revenue streams.

Easy credit is an obvious predictor of trouble. 2008 to bring a memorable example. Anyone here has plans for shorting corporate credit? Best I could come up with is LEAPS puts on $BKLN. I'm holding some small amount, will double down if things start going south. Wish I could short the revenue-based Silicon Valley style credit. That one is quite ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER51> Brex user here. Anyone run a direct comparison of the benefits (cash back, partner deals)?

</comment><comment><USER52> The spending controls look attractive to me. I have an org that might be a good candidate, as we have several teams that need to manage expenses. Historically, we've used business pre-paid debit cards to control maximum spending, with individual authorizations managing how much folks can spend. It's okay, but it doesn't scale well.

Regarding the controls on the Stripe cards, do they have a concept for Roles? I'd like to be able to say "Managers have a monthly/yearly spending authority up to X, and Directors have a spending authority up to Y", and as we onboard new folks, to put them into a role to manage that quickly and easily.

<comment><USER32> We love the idea of having roles for spending controls. It's not currently part of the product, but we're planning to work on this very soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Oh nice a competitor to Brex!

Brex is also only charge cards so you have to pay them off every 30 days or in other boutique arrangements where the default is not carrying a balance.

</comment><comment><USER54> On top of the more normal percentage cash back, the partner benefits (like 5% off DigitalOcean) make this really appealing.

Potentially interesting wrinkle: you're not allowed to carry a balance (from [https://stripe.com/docs/corporate- card/faqs](https://stripe.com/docs/corporate-card/faqs)).

<comment><USER55> >you're not allowed to carry a balance

This type of card is called a "charge card" (not "credit card") and is extremely common in business card land.

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

AMEX's best known cards are charge cards as well - Green, Gold, Platinum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Now Brex has to up their UI/UX game

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but the response to the invite request currently has a typo. It says "We've received your invite request and we'll be touch soon." Instead of "we'll be in touch soon." Just an fyi.

<comment><USER32> Thank you! Fixed. (:

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Anyone know of a similar card on offer for Australian startup founders?

I see a plethora of these types of cards hitting the market lately, but nearly all for the US market only (understandably, given the strict banking rules in each country).

<comment><USER59> Hey, I work at DiviPay where we are trying to solve these kinds of problems for Australian businesses. Shout us a message at [https://divipay.com/](https://divipay.com/) and someone will be in touch to help you and your startup out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This doesn't seem that compelling compared to Amex Plum, to me. Signup bonuses are alright but nothing startups aren't showered in from all sources already.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is going to be an absolutely massive business. I wouldn't be surprised if in five years it's bigger than payment processing.

</comment><comment><USER62> How is this different from Divvy?

</comment><comment><USER63> Would the money be taken directly from the Stripe balance or the linked bank account?

<comment><USER32> Right now, you pay through a linked bank account. We are planning to let you pay from your balance in the future, though. (Most of our early users preferred the former.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> interesting move....they are like a whole new financial system where millions / billions of $$ are flowing from all the online/app transactions to the new financing thing they did and not the card...

</comment><comment><USER65> I hope this will be gradually available outside US too.

</comment><comment><USER66> Plus you can carry it in your wallet or your pocket.

</comment><comment><USER67> US-only for now...

<comment><USER32> (Amber from Stripe here.) We're definitely planning to expand to other countries—this is just the start.

<comment><USER68> Canada, s'il vous plait.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I wonder what would it take for the user (company) to choose the materials of the card (like wood etc)?

</comment><comment><USER70> This is the second time Stripe has been at the top of HN in the last week. Any theories on why? Is this really that novel of a business?

<comment><USER71> Because stripe is essentially in the business of fixing broken, old stuff in the payment business. It made a really good core product that developers love, then branched out to other payment-related products and applied that same excellence to those products, too. It is user-friendly, has helpful support, and can be easily integrated. In short, it solves real problems without making itself one more head-ache for people.

<comment><USER72> Stripe was first to market with a simple payments API. It established their brand. But I don't think anything else they've done is different than the status quo. Getting a credit card, loan, or incorporated is more or less the same at Stripe vs elsewhere.</comment></comment></comment>


We're Halfway to Encrypting the Entire Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/were-halfway-encrypting-entire-web <comment><USER2> While it's surely good that so many people started getting the importance of security, I find this news a bit depressing and miss so much the pre 2K web when we didn't protect anything probably because of ignorance. Or maybe the online world then was a bit nicer than it is now.</comment>


Underscore Perl - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vti/underscore-perl

<comment><USER2> This is... not useful. Perl doesn't have a (weak) functional-programming gap that needs fixing that badly in the first place. The big clue should have been when map had to be defined in terms of... map. Perl's map can be used directly to do the vast bulk of things in that file:

        # reducing; folding is obvious from here
        my $accum = 0;
        map { $accum += $_ } @nums;

        # filter
        map { $_ ? ($_) : () } @list;
        # also grep, of course, but if you want to filter and
        # do other things it's useful

        # flattening
        map { @$_ } @arrayrefs;

For the rest, just look at the source code and observe, for instance, the pointless wrapping of List::Utils::uniq for unique. Far more idiomatic or established ways of doing all (or almost all, with the remainder being easily fixed up from CPAN) these things exist in the core shipped modules. The actual use of this library is almost certain to be both klunkier _and_ less idiomatic and readable than what Perl ships with out of the box.

Underscore is not the _sine qua non_ of weak functional programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're being too harsh. I think Underscore.pm provides an unified interface to a lot of missing array functions. Big deal that it overlaps some existing CPAN/Core Perl functionality. I would easily replace the List::* modules with this.</comment></comment>


The future of JavaScript is in our hands - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/05/developers-the-future-of-javas.php

<comment><USER2> <http://altjs.org/></comment>


Ask HN: How to value small side projects? Can you sell them? - <AUTHOR> How can you value a side project or a small website you have built. I am working on a few things right now, and while I have the stupid and naive attitude of "fuck money", I can't really use my cellphone because creditors call it on a schedule I personally would consider "aggressive".
At some point I am going to have to sell something so that I can afford to keep working on what I want. I am not talking about a million dollar exit or some angel round. I am talking about getting a project or piece of software or website to the point where I can sell it, and how to attach or appraise a rational value to it.
I am looking to build something (or possibly if I can bear it sell something I have already built) for ~$1000 - ~$10k. Are these kinds of sales possible or likely?
* where could you list something like this?
* does it have to have users, or just be functional software?
* how could you sell something, if you had to do it, and where would you list it? <comment><USER2> Hello. I run SideProjectors

[http://sideprojectors.com](http://sideprojectors.com)

It's a place where people sell & buy side projects (exactly what you're talking about).

Have a look through the projects that have been listed and hopefully you'll arrive at answers to the questions that you asked above. Happy to answer any questions too! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> awesome thanks. Actually, super interesting because you really never hear about this space.

* What kinds of companies/software is selling the most?

* What is the average size deal?

* How long does it take a companu to sell (let's assume it is an average sized deal and in one of the competitve spaces)?

* Do you think it is possible to make a small project a month and sell it on your site?

<comment><USER2> All kinds! I'm not sure if I can answer that properly. But I found that sometimes it follows the trend. A few weeks ago, "Deep Learning" was a hot topic (well it probably still is) and immediately following that we had a side project on Deep Learning. :)

Average size deal I think is between $1000 to $5000. But again, it depends how the seller prices it. Many times the price is settled behind the scene. We just cater the meeting between the seller and buyer.

3rd question is also hard to figure out. Some side projects (obviously) never get sold. A few users were disappointed that their projects didn't get sold. But what can I do? (I suppose I can bring more people...) But there have been quite a few projects that got sold literally within days after posting.

By all means! You can sell any side projects. It depends on the people and what they want. And what do they want? We just don't know. :) Try it out by posting something and gauge their interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For sales in that price range, Flippa is the most active marketplace. The most straightforward path to a $10K sale is to show $500-1000 in monthly revenue. You want to show that there's a business there, that a buyer can potentially see a return on their purchase within 1-2 years. If your side project has no users, or isn't functional software, then it's probably not worth buying to anyone else.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> ok thanks for the link. By no users I mean something that is a product with no network benefits. Maybe tool to build PDF documents using phantom, an invoice generator and email tool, etc.

Something simple that is useful, but isn't exactly going to put you on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Will checkout Flippa, couldn't remember the site name.

cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey there,

I've been looking into buying these kinds of sites for awhile now and haven't really found anything interesting up to this point.

For me as a developer, I would love to find something that's bringing in a decent amount of revenue, but needed some process upgrades (either technical or business processes).

I got sent a site the other day that was doing about $1k/mo but all the sales were one time, there was little to no SEO work, and their email list was dormant.

This is the kind of thing that I could see being able to have a direct impact on.

Just for me personally, I would value a prototype with users more highly that simply built out software. If a piece of software has proven that it can acquire customers and that the idea has at least a bit of traction, I know I can take the prototype and improve on that if necessary.

TL;DR That's right in my price range, and I would definitely buy something for the right multiple with a non-trivial number of users and a reasonably proven strategy of customer acquisition. So, yes I would say those sales are possible. If you have something you're looking to sell, shoot me an email. (email is in my profile)

</comment><comment><USER5> _creditors call ... on a schedule I personally would consider "aggressive"._

Let me suggest you go to a library and pick up a copy of "How to get out of debt, stay out of debt, and live prosperously." Also "How to survive without a salary" is an excellent book.

You might also enjoy reading this:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/02/money-and- ma...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/02/money-and-maneuvering- room.html)

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I read your article, best of luck. Pretty interesting, I considered doing this and have the luxury of even getting to make that choice. Obviously, living with my parents at 26 is pretty shitty, but at least I can write code, keep warm and freelance a bit. Cheers.

<comment><USER5> My article contains substantial links towards the bottom. I suggest you read them all. You pretty obviously need a financial education.</comment></comment></comment>


Juicero says you can mail your $700 juicers back for a refund - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com.au/juicero-offers-refund-for-squeezing-juice-packets-2017-4?r=US&IR=T <comment><USER2> But if they only send juice packets to people who have purchased the hardware, will they still sell you packets after you return the hardware?

<comment><USER3> I don't see why they would. Presumably they're offering refunds to mitigate bad press, but continuing to sell juice packets to customers who refund the hardware is tantamount to a direct admission that the hardware is useless.

<comment><USER4> They could just stop making the hardware and sell juice...</comment></comment></comment>


Windows 95 Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks - <AUTHOR> http://windows95tips.com/

<comment><USER2> > It is never safe to turn your computer off

I'd forgotten that Windows 95 used to tell you that.</comment>


Could coronavirus be the beginning of the end for the oil industry? - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/coronavirus-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-renewable-energy-a9453756.html <comment><AUTHOR> _US and Canadian oil production looks set to be decimated by the catastrophic slump in oil demand and some experts think it will have a hard time bouncing back. Thousands of jobs will go and many oil wells will cease production. This in turn, the argument goes, will aid the shift towards a lower-carbon world.

There are other aspects to the crisis too that could be good for the climate; potential changes in our behaviour could stick with us, meaning people work from home more often, travel less and shop locally, for example. Companies that currently fly supplies from all around the world or rely on migrant labour may conclude that building things closer to home is less risky.

While these may sound like the rosy predictions of green campaigners seeking a silver lining, they are in fact those of Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs._</comment>


Which companies would you never work for, and why? - <AUTHOR> Credit to codesushi42: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21065327 <comment><USER2> Google.

Consider:

\- donations to climate deniers such as CEI

\- work on totalitarian tools such as project dragonfly or PRISM

\- sabotage of competitors, e.g. breaking search and YouTube on Firefox

\- feigning investment to steal ideas

Of course, in big companies, bad stuff is bound to happen every now and then. I just think that the above can't be explained away as isolated mishaps, because it happened (or is still happening) over long periods of time, involving many people (quite a few of which resigned as a consequence).

Similar criticism can obviously be leveled at the other big players, and I wouldn't work for, say, Facebook either.

On the other hand, I wouldn't expect, say, Microsoft, to develop a dystopian search engine for an authoritarian regime.

Surely, most people who are working at Google do so without contributing to any sinister purpose (unless you consider ads evil I guess). I just feel there are other companies with considerable impact where I wouldn't have to worry as much about potential abuse of what I'm building.

<comment><USER3> > On the other hand, I wouldn't expect, say, Microsoft, to develop a dystopian > search engine for an authoritarian regime.

Funny that you bring this up since Bing already does everything project dragonfly intended to do and is available in China.

<comment><USER2> Does it? I've read that one of the goals of dragonfly was to allow the government to look up the full search history of every user, which seems to go far beyond Bing's complicity in censorship.

On the other hand, Microsoft was the first external partner of the PRISM program, and gave away backdoors before it was mandatory, so definitely in the "big brother knows best" camp :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To get this started: Palantir. I know the world, and myself, may change; but I choose to believe that I would never work for "defense" or the military- industrial complex.

It could become inconsistent as a position in the long term, as we might be headed towards a future in which most leading IT companies collaborate with the military-industrial complex via contracts in some way or other. Hopefully not, though, and until then I'll refrain from working for companies that are explicitly in that space.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pornhub.

Why? And what do you think I would say to my family - that I code using PHP & jQuery? ;)

<comment><USER5> Doesn't pornhub stream a lot of video (high quality I would suppose) and is also much more effective at dealing with child porn and revenge porn than say YouTube ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any company which makes money out of others misfortune - this includes gambling, military/defense, finance, etc.

I want to look back on my career and say I made a POSITIVE impact on the world somehow.

<comment><USER7> I share your view about gambling and defense (and porn), but what's wrong with finance ? unless you are referring to things like binary options trading

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Figure Eight (formally Crowdflower). They hire people and then lay them off 6 months later, on a regular basis. They have tons of burried negative reviews on glass door, but since they pay Glass Door, it's hard to find them or even get them publishrd. They also have big military contracts doing some of the AI bigger shops won't do because of the bad press.

</comment><comment><USER9> I never sign if a company wants to own the IP of what I do in my free time, and require supervision of what I talk / write about.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've just got one; EqualExperts. They're a bit like thought works in the UK. I went to them when I needed work and was told I didn't have enough years experience in the industry.

The issue with this was that someone I used to work with, who was a little older, had significantly less. He'd moved from being a junior developer, and not a particularly good one, to being paid a decent amount more with a fast track interview experience.

I wasn't as strong of a developer as I am now and I'm happy to admit that, but I asked them if they were willing to give me the technical test anyway and use that to judge. Nope. I was too inexperienced because I didn't have 8 or more years as a developer.

EqualExperts, you can permanently fuck off from now on.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd never say never. If the choice is between working for a bad company or starving and becoming homeless I'd choose the former. Companies I avoid working for include casino and online gambling sites and companies in the fossil fuel industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I agree. I should have written "never" in quotes.

One way to think about this is: which companies would you never work for without feeling you have relinquished some part of your identity?

I'd risk saying that most people here are quite privileged, and losing a fair chunk of that privilege (and, for example, ending up homeless) would be a significant hit to most people's day-to-day identity.

Not that I think this state of affairs is good, or being homeless makes one less of a person (I don't). This is more of a statement of fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tobacco, etc. Because life is too short to think you're helping people become sick.

</comment><comment><USER13> It might be interesting to split this questions into two:

(1) Which companies would you never work for due to ethical reasons

(2) Which companies would you never work for due for non-ethical reasons (e.g. poor leadership, bad work/life balance, dying industry, etc).

It seems like most people are answering (1), which is cool, but I'm also curious about (2).

<comment><USER2> "never" implies a really strong sentiment that is rarely evoked by the issues in (2). I think most people would not let these issues deter them if there were sufficient benefits to set them off.

Some people have strong feelings about the choice of technology or way of working, though, so interesting questions might be: which mainstream programming language would you never work with, no matter how great the product? would you work with waterfall on a dynamic product if the salary was high enough? etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, no specifics, but any company responsible for creating malware, or selling software to totalitarian regimes for enforcing unjust laws against the public would be places I'd never work for.

Probably any operating in the tobacco industry too, though other 'vices' wouldn't be off the list there.

</comment><comment><USER15> No company at all, I'm determined to make it on my own like the contrarian I am!

</comment><comment><USER16> I avoid any company that has forced arbitration as a condition of employment

</comment><comment><USER17> Y Combinator, because they fund(ed) drug dealers.

<comment><USER2> Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER17> Google "YC marijuana" or "YC cannabis".

<comment><USER10> Would you work for an alcohol, tobacco, or firearms company?

<comment><USER17> I'd avoid YC because it's against the law and I think being openly involved in organized crime like that is utter madness. But also, funding crime and spitting on rule of law is immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anything with post-its on the wall.</comment>


Ask HN: Help me understand a Nassim Taleb writing - <AUTHOR> Risk as Virtue
Finally, when young people who "want to help mankind" come to me, asking: "What should I do? I want to reduce poverty, save the world" and similar noble aspirations at the macro-level. My suggestion is:
1) never engage in virtue signaling;
2) never engage in rent seeking;
3) you must start a business. Take risks, start a business.
Yes, take risk, and if you get rich (what is optional) spend your money generously on others. We need people to take (bounded) risks. The entire idea is to move these kids away from the macro, away from abstract universal aims, that social engineering that bring tail risks to society. Doing business will always help; institutions may help but they are equally likely to harm (I am being optimistic; I am certain that except for a few most do end up harming).
From: https://medium.com/incerto/the-merchandising-of-virtue-b548762658f0
<comment>
Do you believe he includes non-profits within institutions? If so, what makes him so pessimistic on them?
What makes him so opposed to abstract universal aims? Would the desire to eradicate polio be one of these universal aim? </comment><comment><USER2> If everybody listened to this advice there would still be slavery. Being good at statistics doesn't make you an expert in everything.</comment>


My story of learning to code to build a side project. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.capography.com/my-story-of-starting-a-career-in-finance-fall

<comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing! I always like to read this kind of stories. For me, I started coding in a silly way. First wave of motivation was when I tried to impress my current girlfriend, her sister needed a website and I said I can code it for her. Right after saying that I jumped into YouTube and searched for "How to create a website". Then somehow I forget about coding when I got my internship at one company, which required me to visit hospitals and some other boring stuff. I didnt want to do it, but it was a requirement internship at university. My roommate was a great programmer so I requested a transfer to software department counting on my friend and knowing only a little bit of HTML/CSS. Suddenly, even a single week didn't pass and my friend had to leave, so I was kinda forced to learn ASP.NET and other stuff. After that terrible time of continues googling, stackoverflow, youtubing I became a programmer for a living :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great story. Can you add some detail on how much time you've dedicated to learning on a daily/weekly basis and how it fits into your family and work life?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Sure: My typical schedule on weekdays is getting home at 7, then spending time with the family until the kids go to bed b/t 8:30-9. Then from 9-12 or 1 I tried to spend as much time as possible on building the app. In my approach the "learning" and "building" were intertwined. I didn't make up much ground on the weekends, as I kept that to family time.

How consistent I was from that 9-12 slot went in waves. For a couple weeks in a row I'd be at it every night, and then I'd have a couple weeks where I wasn't as productive. The summer I went through a productivity lull for some reason.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I have a somewhat similar story to yours, and I ended up building my first app during the first 6 months after my daughter was born. I'm trying again now (slightly different approach), but I actually am finding it more difficult now that she is older.

I hope you keep it going and good luck with it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great story. Great blog post too. And it looks like a great tool. You just earned another potential user :)

Good luck and keep up the great work!

</comment><comment><USER5> Inspiring! I am also trying to learn Ruby on Rails. Like you, I also have an itch for startup. Learning Ruby on Rails is on my top list for 2012!

</comment><comment><USER6> Great insight. I love the "outsiders" view on programming you take. Finding out that the learning curve isn't that great is encouraging.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very compelling story, I appreciate the amount of detail you went into to explain your adventure.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for sharing

How much time have you spent doing tutorials / projects vs. pair programming? 50/50?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't really code through any tutorials. I used them to learn and followed them but adapted the steps to my own project to the extent possible.

No pair programming, but that sounds like that would be a huge help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Did you know HTML/CSS/Javascript before, or was all that new too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I did know HTML/CSS. Not so much JavaScript, but I still don't do any of that by hand (not condoning, that's just my current experience level).

The pre-existing skills did help a bit, but HTML/CSS are not that hard to pick up. Add maybe a month to get up to speed with there. Twitter bootstrap is a good help in that area.</comment></comment>


The Power (and Danger) of Quotations - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2010/the-power-and-danger-of-quotations/

<comment><USER2> I think he should have included "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." Ralph Waldo Emerson</comment>


Facebook facing class-action lawsuit over unauthorized message scanning - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/25/facebook-class-action-privacy-lawsuit/

<comment><AUTHOR> > " $10,000 in damages for each user. ..."

That is a lot of money for a single user.</comment>


French government orders Uber taxi ban after protests - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33281896 <comment><USER2> This situation is ridiculous, both for taxis and the government... and will only serve Uber in the long term. Let's share my view as a Frenchy frog :)

1\. Taxi drivers began selling each other taxi driver licenses (although they are obtained for free from the state, on a waiting list). They are angry that Uber registers in a new category, so they "skip" the entry price. But, it's only the taxis fault if they bought licenses and thought they had "value".

2\. Violent taxi demonstrations should lead these drivers directly in jail. But it's France, so you don't go to jail... and if you're a lobby (and they clearly are), you even don't get arrested.

3\. The government is 100% wrong to side with taxis from day one and punish Uber for the taxi drivers riots, rewarding people who harassed drivers and their customers, destroyed cars and burned streets. It's a huge blow for their popularity which is already very very low. It shows a poor image of the state to both citizens and visitors.

4\. People will just stop using taxis more and more. Who wants to be driven by violent guys, and who already are usually bad drivers that even harass people who are not their clients (saw one cab driver last week yell at a woman who was wearing a summer dress)?

5\. We're now sure that everybody in France knows about Uber!

(and it's not only about Uber, as there is also a French competitor named [https://www.chauffeur-prive.com/](https://www.chauffeur-prive.com/) )

<comment><USER3> > 5\. We're now sure that everybody in France knows about Uber!

I'd be curious how this is being spun by the various local news services in France. It wouldn't be that hard to spin this to make Uber look bad. Consider a headline like "Uber spawned another violent outburst today", and similar spin on the details; it'd be easy to obscure who is actually responsible for the violence.

<comment><USER4> Uber seems to be the type of organization that benefits even from bad news. I'm cynical enough to believe their heavy-handed method of operating is part of their marketing strategy.

<comment><USER5> Heavy-handed? Do they block roads and burn things if you don't ride with them?

<comment><USER4> Heavy-handed with governments, not with individual users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nothing wrong with their orders. Uber is still operating illegally. This is causing public disorder and protests, which is putting lives at risk. I saw a video yesterday where someone dropped a cinder block from a bridge to what they suspect is an Uber car. It seems easier and cheaper to get Uber to comply for now than to stop the protests. The government has to take an action, then have this resolved in the court of law.

<comment><USER7> So the car that got the brick dropped on it is at fault, rather than the guy dropping the brick?

<comment><USER8> Europeans tend to look at the root cause to fix the issue, not declare war on the symptoms like Americans.

<comment><USER9> Taking action on both would be the logical route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In France, rioting is the fourth branch of government.

<comment><USER11> I'm American, and all but aren't riots/strikes etc examples of how France's political life enjoys a much higher per-capita rate of material participation than USAns are accustomed to seeing?

<comment><USER12> Absolutely serious question - are riots considered part of political life in the same way protests are? If they are politically motivated, what sets at least these riots apart from terrorism, defined in Oxford Dictionaries as "use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims"?

<comment><USER13> <sarcasm> Terrorism is reserved for perpetrators with Islamic beliefs. </sarcasm>

<comment><USER14> Not true. Terrorism is only done by those who are opposed to US foreign policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for sharing! Interesting thing is that until now, Uber has been paying the drivers' fines for operating illegally while waiting for the court case to be resolved.

<comment><USER16> way to go France. Instead of punishing the guys who riot and light up cars in the streets, you punish an innovative disruptor.

<comment><USER17> Violating labor and transportation laws to drive demand isn't being a disruptor.

Are we so tone deaf in the HackerNews bubble that we don't realize that labor rights aren't a four letter word? I'm not for regulator capture with regards to taxi medallions, but I am supportive of regulations that permit people to have an acceptable quality of life.

Or do we need to wait for the next bubble to burst and devs on the street with signs saying "will develop in React for food" to see that? Shall we look down on them as people look down on these protests? (Note: I DO NOT condone property damage or violence)

<comment> UK-AL But you have to remember. This is one group of people(taxi drivers), not allowing another group of people(Uber drivers) not to earn a living driving cars.

There is no free lunch. If you introduce regulation to protect a group of people, another group of people loses out.

<comment><USER18> > There is no free lunch. If you introduce regulation to protect a group of > people, another group of people loses out.

And the correct way to change that in a modern democracy is to lobby for better laws in parliament and/or found your own party and then win the population's votes to fix your issue.

Wilfully ignoring existing laws implies a fundamental lack of respect for society and democracy.

<comment><USER19> Why should people respect a system that doesn't respect them? Disrespect for immoral laws is valuable for the continued evolution of liberal societies.

<comment><USER17> Labor laws aren't (EDIT: intended to be) immoral.

<comment><USER19> A sweeping statement such as this is almost certainly false. Of course, _some_ labor laws are perfectly moral, but some are immoral as well.

In general terms, labor laws such as wage prohibitions and occupational licensing tend to give relatively economically advantaged workers artificial advantages over lower skilled workers. In this respect, they serve as upwards redistribution of wealth and opportunity. At the same time, they restrict consumer sovereignty and the ability for people to freely engage in commerce. Of course, there are counter arguments to these as well. My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

<comment><USER17> > My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to > point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning > that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

I don't believe we disagree on this. Labor laws are a balance between the right of a citizen to earn a living wage and the right of a consumer to engage in commerce permitted by the State.

With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should _never_ take precedence over labor rights.

<comment><USER19> >With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should never take precedence over labor rights.

Because the buggymaker's job is more important than the consumer's right to buy an automobile?

<comment><USER17> You don't have a right to someone's labor below a minimum rate set by the government. We call that slavery.

<comment><USER20> Slavery is non-consensual labor. Uber drivers aren't slaves, have you talked to any? I engage in conversation with Uber drivers almost every time, many of them are ex-Taxi drivers, and many of them like Uber far more. Here are some of the usual comments I am told:

1\. Can work on my own schedule. "When I was a Taxi driver, I had to show up at the dispatcher to pick up a car on their schedule." 2\. Driving someone else's car. "Sometimes I sit 2 hours waiting for a car to be returned to begin my shift, often it is dirty and I am required to clean it before taking it out." 3\. Freedom to engage in a side business. "My wife makes jewelry, I display it on the back seat and sell it to tourists who are interested." 4\. Higher pay. Yes, there are studies that try to debunk this by citing higher costs or higher variability, but the arguments are unpersuasive. They count the cost of a driver maintaining his Uber car, while treating the medallion company's maintenance as a benefit, but an UberX driver and a Taxi Cab driver who owns a personal vehicle both pay car maintenance costs, albeit there's more wear and tear on the UberX car. Likewise, while variability is higher in salary, so is freedom in work hours and Uber drivers consistently rate this as the most loved feature of being an Uber driver.

This isn't really about labor laws, this is about regulatory capture. The French government has created an artificial shortage of supply, assigned special rights to a Guild, which simultaneously jacks up prices and provides more inconvenience to the customer, while establishing a monopoly in which bad drivers with bad attitudes can't be contested.

It then lets this group which has performed regulatory capture, essentially engage in mass property damage, terror (smashing cars with people in them), actions which are inherently dangerous and could lead to people getting killed on the roads, all without arresting them, or making them criminally or civilly liable.

What will France do if the entire world moves to self-driving vehicles? Will they ban them to protect French Taxi cab drivers? Will you claim the Robots are Slaves? What would they do if public transport threatened Taxi Cab driver salaries if some new public transport system made cabs less needed?

The French government has allowed itself to be captured by a minority industry. This isn't about broad labor rights, it's about a small guild trying to protect its monopoly by holding the government / citizenry hostage with violent protests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I read the news right yesterday, the ban only apply to Uber Pop and not Uber as a whole.

Anyway, there is no place for such regulation and it's on its way to be terminated soon by some european order, if I recall correctly.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's weird watching how the media chooses words. Consider the situation of a bunch of people engaging in violence against third parties in order to advance their political agenda.

If the people are Arabs doing it for Islam, it's called "terrorism". If the people are white and doing it for greed masquerading as left wing causes, it's called "protests".

Weird how that works.

<comment><USER23> I think the primary difference is the level of escalation. Protests typically involve destruction of property with violent interpersonal encounters as collateral, while terrorism usually involves torture or mass killings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A good but unfortunately temporary decision for the working people of France. Good on them.

</comment><comment><USER25> Learn how to use a smartphone and download the app. Problems solved. I am sure they pay a certain % to w/e Frenchy cab companies anyway akin to infamous Yello-cab in NYC.</comment>


Learn Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.learnstreet.com/lessons/study/python <comment><USER2> > Right now we only support social logins.

That's too bad; I was interested in moving beyond the first page. This is about as far from a social site as you can get. You don't have any need for my social graph. Please stop doing this.

If you're too lazy to write your own auth system, at least support OpenID or Persona or some other open standard rather than forcing people to use one of your blessed providers.

<comment><USER3> Learnstreet have hit HN front page a few times already in the last few months!?

I did login using one of the options, they provided to check out the content some time ago, but I definitely would have preferred a more neutral auth system like OpenID, etc., as you've rightly pointed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These learning websites never work for me. I know starting with basics (operations, variables, string manipulation) is the sensible thing to do, but they bore me. I always find easier (well, harder but more engaging) to read real code running a real simple application and trying to figure it out by breaking it. (it's not a critic of learning sites or this one in particular. It's just they don't speak to me.)

<comment><USER5> Could you recommend some simple applications like you describe?

I'm learning python but find most tutorials boring. Your method sounds interesting.

<comment><USER6> Seconded! Especially for web apps. I'm trying to learn how to implement something with a GUI, and struggling to move beyond the basics.

<comment><USER7> A desktop GUI in Python? Or a GUI in a web app? If you mean the former, have you tried wxPython? It comes with a huge interactive library of samples, where you can see the code and the resulting interface just by switching tabs.

<comment><USER8> There are so many languages that it can be real hard for beginners to decide what to do. I use Ubuntu and ChromeOS. Ubuntu recommends Python and GTK whereas, if I am not wrong, ChromeOS extension and webapps are primarily written in Javascript. I am learning programming currently using Codecademy HTML and CSS tutorials and have to decide what to do next. In order to keep myself focused I want to write a clipboard app. I am not sure what to choose Python or JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like this setup is quiet good.I only have one question:

Why, exactly, do I need to sign up? What purpose does this serve?

       "If you have registered as a member and given LearnStreet consent,
        we may share your personally identifiable information with advertisers,
        business partners, and other entities that are not affiliated with
        LearnStreet who would like to send you information about their products
        and services. We do not share personally identifiable information with
        other third-party organizations for their marketing or promotional use
        without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature
        for which you will have the ability to opt-in."

Never mind, I can hazard a guess.

</comment><comment><USER10> This might be a useful resource (Learn Python the Hard Way): <http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/>

</comment><comment><USER11> I liked the tutorial, so I send it over to my girlfriend, since I've been nagging her for quite some time now to learn python. She's doing lots of statistics, and uses R for that, and I think that Python is a great addition to R. It never really worked so far, until today. She really liked this tutorial and has been going through it for quite some time now. It is really, really well made.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really like that they capture and address the problem of pushing people out into IDE's where they can do real work. Most of these sites are flawed in that they want to create a permanent lock-in to their tools, but the best learning happens once you can use an IDE.

<comment><USER13> I've done a bunch of these and whenever they say "oh, we use something thats a lot like javascript but we've slightly modified it" I just groan.

I'd much rather work harder to learn something real than learn a simplified style that is utterly useless outside your website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are still a few issues with the UI here -- I can't scroll the glossary or the table of contents, and it's way too long for my browser window.

</comment><comment><USER15> How MUCH of Python can you learn at this site for free? If I was told to get my wallet out after a few little courses I'd almost feel like I wasted time.

<comment><USER16> Tutorial was fun as a complete coding novice. Would like to know the answer to the question above. Would love to see a good summary example video of what Python can do start to finish and how it fits into the process of say.. creating a cool web app. i.e. Take this chunk of code, do this, this and this and now you literally have your own web app. At that point I would like to learn / get excited to learn Python by messing around with it. Does anyone know of anything like this?</comment></comment>


Blackberry's business: Sustainable Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2008/id2008044_416784.htm

<comment><USER2> Blackberry's business: about to be crushed by mobile Internet devices.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps true - my problem with UMPCs right now is that wifi isn't very widely available yet, and although they can attach to cellular networks I believe the data rates are very high for tethering. I think WIMAX is being deployed soon in a few states though.</comment></comment>


From Windows to MacOS – few helpful apps that have eased the transition - <AUTHOR> https://no-kill-switch.ghost.io/from-windows-to-macos-few-helpful-apps/ <comment><USER2> Just to add: Alfred's Powerpack includes clipboard management facilities, though they're disabled by default.</comment>


University tracks freshmen usage of ID cards to intervene with likely dropouts - mark-ruwt https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17109224/university-of-arizona-tracking-smartchips-student-ids-privacy-drop-out <comment><AUTHOR> How is this legally allowed? Do the students know about this? I'd flip out if I learned that some uni staff members watch, criticize and analyze all my daily activities and then use them to pursue the universitie's goals. What makes them think that a lower dropout rate is better for the students? What if it's for the students best interest to drop out?</comment>


Ask HN: Can I use a TLD for a site that's not in the domain's intended category? - <AUTHOR> For example, can I use a .house domain for a website that has nothing to do with real estate, homes, or construction?<p>What kind of authority does domain registry companies like Donuts Inc. have? Are they able to seize domains as they wish? <comment><USER2> For sponsored TLDs, it's up to the sponsoring entity on how to establish and enforce rules [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_top- level_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_top-level_domain)

They probably have a TOS you can read on their main page. You mentioned the .house TLD, and according to name.com (which is one of the places you can register that TLD) "There are no restrictions on .HOUSE domain names. Anyone can register for any purpose"

[https://www.name.com/domains/house](https://www.name.com/domains/house)

</comment><comment><USER3> Unless your name is Dr Gregory House, why would you want a domain in a TLD that is unrelated to what you doing or selling? I would guess that search engines as well as potential customers are going to be confused by such a decision.

<comment><USER4> They never mentioned customers or selling anything so my thought would be a fun domain hack.

In addition to the two cimmanom shared: my.house , club.house , safe.house , public.house , waffle.house , shared.house , play.house</comment></comment>