Notes from Adobe installer management - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/12/notes_from_installer_mgmt.html <comment><USER2> I think this para sums up just how byzantine and divorced the corporate software process can get:

 _In CS4, the responsibility for CS installers came into my organization and we focused almost all of our development time on one thing: make the installer experience more robust so that the vast majority of customers could install the software successfully and start using CS4 apps without any issues._

Um, no shit? Isn't that the primary goal of any program? Complete the task without crashing? This is a valuable insight you can only get by setting up a focus group after the software (the 9th or 10th major version!) has shipped?</comment>


OnePlus 6: is it worth your money? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yashwate07/oneplus-6-is-here-should-you-upgrade-de9d808b4fdb <comment><USER2> Tiny feature upgrades in an old design.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't say that. Everyone is going for a bezel-less display with the notch on top. With OnePlus 6 it's the same thing but at an affordable price, which makes it a great value for money.</comment></comment>


Mathematica's Google Aptitude - <AUTHOR> http://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2004-10-13/google/

<comment><USER2> _21\. In 29 words or fewer, describe what you would strive to accomplish if you worked at Google Labs._

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky..."

</comment><comment><USER3> They gave up on this one?

 _19\. 'Tis known in refined company, that choosing K things out of N can be done in ways as many as choosing N minus K from N: I pick K, you the remaining. Find though a cooler bijection, where you show a knack uncanny, of making your choices contain all K of mine. Oh, for pedantry: let K be no more than half N._

</comment><comment><USER4> Number 10 is the one xkcd uses for nerd sniping.

<http://xkcd.com/356/></comment>


Ask HN: How common is this view within software startup community? - <AUTHOR> A year ago I had an opportunity to visit a software startup incubator. The views within most of the aspiring founders in that incubator was that they do not require software engineers/professionals as a founding team member. The software can be developed using "interns or cheap Indians" and that way the founding teams do not have to share equity.
I heard the same argument recently by some other aspiring founders.
So just out of curiosity, how common is this view within the software startup community? <comment><USER2> That was pretty much the impression I got when going through Startup School here last autumn.

The focus was on beating the bushes to see if you could generate interest (finding "Market Fit") and using an "MVP" (minimum viable product) that didn't even have to be a working product, to basically provide an image (illustrations, videos, etc) of what it will do.

If you can generate interest then you start building a product. Pretty much the opposite of "If you build it they will come".

So, in that scenario, getting a software engineer is often akin to going to the hardware store and buying a hammer.

<comment><USER3> in your experience at startup school, who created the illustrations and videos, the founders themselves or did they get a designer involved?

<comment><USER2> I created my own. I think a few others in our group may have hired that out. They didn't ask or look for slick production of those though. They were more focusd on the message.

For me, Startup School was pretty overwhelming. I had no idea of what to expect, was a team of one, and I'm a coder, not a marketer.

Startup School is really about marketing and "finding market fit", and to a lessor degree the process of getting funded, setting up the structure of corporation, and, lastly, building the product.

But the actual building of the product was not focused on at all. That comes after you prove a viable market exists and get funded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure where the incubator you visited was, but I'd say mainstream view in Silicon Valley is that most teams need a technical cofounder (unless the startup just isn't technical at all). If anything, it's sometimes the other extreme: people will claim that technical cofounders don't need business cofounders.

That said, since it is so difficult to find technical cofounders, some teams end up outsourcing technical work out of necessity (not because they don't want to share equity).

</comment><comment><USER5> So I'm an early employee in a small startup that decided outsourcing the software was the way to create the MVP. It bought the company valuable time to start because none of the founders was technical and they just want the MVP to launch on the app stores. We did launch early and the MVP is working to validate business processes and iron out things we did not think about before. One thing that's left is the technical debt for extensibility/maintenance.

One thing I want to bring up in this scenario is the need for the founders to still find a key technical person ASAP as they are trying to prove their idea works. If one of the company's edge is in their technical capability[0], you need someone in house to own the stack eventually. Preferably experienced, as they need to look over the handed over code and vet any possible future problems and/or fix any pressing bugs ASAP.

[0]: Technical edge does not have to be bleeding edge technology. Most of the time, the advantage of having the right CRUD app built that is an improvement over your competitor/existing business process/product is enough.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ideally you'd want at least one technical founder...helps with hiring, determining the correct stack long term, and general tech decision making

</comment><comment><USER7> Very common specially now, many companies have popped up which charge competitive rates for development.

Keep in mind, most startups are simply CRUD apps where you don't need much technology.

<comment><USER8> If the startups are just CRUD apps then are those defensible businesses? As per my understanding most successful software businesses have something in their tech stack that cannot be easily replicated.

<comment><USER7> It's not true.

Think of Dropbox or Instagram or even Amazon

What's there which technologically can't be replicated given enough money?

It's the userbase/network effect which can't be reflected if given

<comment><USER9> But they all had technical founders/co-founders? Thats what I think OP's question was related to?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Threat Intel List – Over 400 cyber threat intel feeds in one place - <AUTHOR> https://www.threatintellist.com/ <comment><USER2> what happened to this site?? Already gone</comment>


The .NET Micro Framework - Hardware for Software People - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheNETMicroFrameworkHardwareForSoftwarePeople.aspx

<comment><USER2> I have to say, this is pretty awesome. I've looked into doing some hardware projects on the side but haven't really had the urge to learn another language for it. Now I'm that much closer to losing some time & money on this.

<comment><USER3> There are Arduino firmwares and compilers that allow you to use Python. Or C. I bet you know at least a bit one of these languages! Don't let the language be the brake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always wanted to play with this. I think it was used for the dubiously useful "Windows Sideshow" gadgets that were briefly pushed when Vista came out.

From what I remember it was briefly licensed to third parties but was never commercially successful. I'm really glad it was open sourced instead of being killed entirely. If nothing else would be great to use in some educational settings.

One technical caveat: it's called the ".NET Micro Framework" which implies it's language-neutral (like the rest of .NET) but it's actually interpreted and understandably only supports C#.

<comment><USER5> Whilst it does only support C# presently, it does use a subset of the CLR, so it isn't tied to C# by definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know about the performance and/or power use of the Netduino boards as compared to standard Arduino boards?

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice, but totally Microsoft centric.

<comment><USER8> What does that generic MS critique even mean? That it's controlled by Microsoft? The entire thing is open source:

"The .NET Micro Framework 4.1 source is available, it's Open Source under the Apache 2.0 License. (Ya, the new Microsoft is freaking me out also. There's a lot of source that's quietly making its way out under increasingly liberal licenses.)"

I would say it's damn awesome, not just nice. You can get a controller for $34.95 and program it in a modern user friendly IDE. You can even step through code in the debugger. It makes hardware tinkering ridiculously _accessible_ to a lot of people.

If I had a kid I would love to be building little projects with this. Lego mindstorms is $300 I think.

<comment><USER9> > What does that generic MS critique even mean?

Probably that it requires Windows in order to use the toolset. That's a no-no for me. I can run Windows on VMs, but I just don't want to and Arduino provides me enough without having to run Windows in any case.

It may also refer to the possibility Microsoft decides to sue you for patent infringement (their promise only covers the parts that are ECMA standards) if you ever build a successful product with it.

<comment><USER10> AFAIK the Netduino guys are looking at (already are?) supporting MonoDevelop, so in that case you could do all your development on Linux or OS X.

Additionally, this is specifically around the .NET Micro framework, which has been release by MS under the Apache 2.0 license. IANAL, but that certainly makes me think they're not planning on suing anyone who uses it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Guietta, a new module to quickly assemble Python GUIs - <AUTHOR> https://guietta.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ <comment><AUTHOR> Don't know if it is bad form to comment on my own post, but anyway..

Guietta (pronounced gui-etta, rhymes with Henrietta) is a wrapper over QT that makes creating simple GUIs a breeze. I was inspired by PySimpleGUI, which had some great ideas but in my opinion did not go far enough. Guietta lets you literally draw the GUI in your python code, with a minimalist syntax. No QT knowledge needed. Have a look at the intro and tutorial on readthedocs (scroll to the bottom for the intro and tutorial links).

It was started as a weekend project, but turned out much better than I expected. I want to share it because, to my knowledge, there is nothing approaching it in sheer speed and simplicity to make Python GUIs.

If you find any bugs, I'll be happy to fix them, or create a pull request on github!

<comment><USER2> Huh, such syntax looks quite easy to pickup for those one-off specialized tools. Congrats for getting something functional and working.

And no, commenting on your show HN posts is normal and semi-common practice.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hacker / Entrepreneur related things to do when in San Fran - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I'm going to be down in San Fran for a week at a conference. Outside of the normal conference activities, I'd like to try to connect with the scene, people, and get to know a little about the life of an entrepreneur / hacker in San Fran.
Places to go, people to connect with, suggestions and thoughts are all appreciated.
Thanks <comment><USER2> I visited San Francisco for the first time over this most recent summer on vacation and got my best advice from a friend who works in the area- he suggested visiting co-working spaces or "entrepreneur" popular coffee shops as the best way to make connections or network outside of getting a introduction from a friend of a friend.

The list of locations he suggested to me are the following: Coworking: [http://wiki.coworking.com/w/page/16583935/SanFranciscoCowork...](http://wiki.coworking.com/w/page/16583935/SanFranciscoCoworking)

Coffee: Fourbarrel Coffee: <http://fourbarrelcoffee.com> Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto: <http://www.coupacafe.com/> Coupa Cafe on the Stanford Campus: <http://www.coupacafe.com/locations/stanford-green-library/> The Summit: <http://www.thesummit-sf.com/>

It is quite awkward to just "drop in" and cold visit these places, but I found that attending during an event made for a perfect occasion to network.

Also, have you tried just reaching out to any startups you are interested in? I was able to visit several just by contacting them ahead of time (important), explaining what I wanted clearly (introduction, advice, etc) and then setting up a lunch or tour.

</comment><comment><USER3> i like to pretend i'm a hacker by ordering expensive drinks at the y combinator cafe in the mission....i am hoping the skill around me will rub off by osmosis or something

</comment><comment> not-giving-up (1) don't call it "San Fran".

<comment><USER4> What, are we in 2nd grade? Call it whatever the fuck you want. /rant</comment></comment>


Was the Great Depression a monetary phenomenon? - <AUTHOR> http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/was-the-great-depression-a-monetary-phenomenon/

<comment><USER2> The graph Krugman shows is monetary _base_ \- ie actual green Federal Reserve notes. Unforunately, most of the U.S. money supply is not in the form of federal reserve notes, but in the form of credit ( savings accounts, money market funds, etc). Note that in the first graph the monetary base starts at $850 billion. At this time the U.S. national debt was around $8 trillion. Perhaps Krugman would like to explain how the U.S. government could owe 8 trillion dollar bills, when only 850 billion dollars exist in the world.

The basic cause of both the depression and our current crisis is maturity mismatching - ie treating a collection of long term loans as short term deposits. The trouble is that when people want to redeem their deposits, the money is not there, as it has been loaned out. This causes a bank run and a sharp contraction of credit, which bankrupts both households and businesses.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand that Paul Krugman (the author of the article) didn't try to claim more than that the thesis of the Monetary History has just taken a hit, and that the target audience of the news item might not have the attention span for a longer more details argument. However, this kind of blog post encapsulates some of what frustrates me about economics, and in particular, economists.

Just from my fairly uneducated (in economics) viewpoint, this is what Krugman's post basically looks like.

a) The Fed has been much more aggressive about expanding the monetary base the last few years than from the start of the Great Depression through 1933. b) This doesn't seem to be working.

Problem is - there's no explanation whatsoever for why such an action may or may not help. There's no explanation for why it's legitimate to compare mid 1929 through early 1933 to late 2003 through late 2008. After all, there were CLEARLY some problems with the economy by the end of 1929, whereas I don't really think you could say it was anything like that in late 2003 (sure didn't seem that way to me). There's no explanation for why we should assume that the multitude of other variables (such as the collective behavior of society in 1929 versus that of 2008) that affect a situation like this, don't affect it enough that we can imply that we can look at Federal expansion of the monetary base as draw conclusions like we normally do about an isolated variable in a scientific environment. I'm sure Krugman doesn't think it's an isolated variable, but the whole thing is written in a way that kind of implies that. Plus, this is all just speculation as of this moment - while we are in the midst of a mini-depression at the moment, we are a long ways away from it being comparable to the Great Depression. While we're getting closer to that point, it's probably still premature to say that Federal efforts thus far have been wholly unsuccessful. All we basically know is that aggressively expanding the monetary base is not a one shot magic bullet that can singlehandedly prevent an economic downturn.

Ugh, reminds me of my mini-minor (a Humanities thing at my school) in economics, which I regret choosing to this very day, especially in that the blog gives me a taste of what could be a compelling, well thought out argument, but never gets there.

</comment><comment><USER4> Krugman writes:

 _I think the thesis of the Monetary History has just taken a hit._

However, Anna Schwartz, one of the authors of the _Monetary History_ tome has already stated publicly that she thinks that Bernanke is fighting the "last war" (i.e. the Great Depression)

<http://www.dailypaul.com/node/69560>

<comment><USER5> One of my least favorite things about Krugman is how he mixes in unsupported political demagoguery with good economic arguments, and doesn't bother to distinguish between the two. He gives you a few solid facts and arguments and then skips to his preferred policies, while skipping many steps in between, as if to say "if you believe these good points, then you must agree with my conclusion", even though that is not the case.</comment></comment>


Ask HN : HN opensource implementation . - <AUTHOR>

I was looking for a simple social website open source implementation . Site like Hacker News .Is there any open source implementation available if I want my own HN like site . I love the simplicity of the site . <comment><USER2> The source code for HN is included in the Arc distribution.

<comment><USER3> If you're not a Lisp hacker you really don't want to run your own news.arc.

<http://www.slinkset.com> is the easiest option, they have a theme that looks like HN.

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, I was able to get arc and the HN source up and running in about 20 minutes using instructions I found by googling. I'm not a Lisp hacker, and my only real exposure to anything Lisp was reading The Little Schemer a few years ago...I didn't even do most of the exercises. I was also able to customize it in a few small ways with another hour or so of tinkering (mostly cleaning up style sheets and stripping out inline HTML).

Just saying...I do think Slinkset is probably the right choice for most such concepts.

Or, the reddit source, if you wanted to go big (it's a lot harder to deploy the reddit source, but it's a lot more powerful). It took me about an hour to get it up and running. And customizing it seemed much more intimidating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> there is also pligg and reddit</comment>


Learn a little jq, Awk and sed - <AUTHOR> https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/07/29/learn-a-little-jq-awk-and-sed/ <comment><USER2> When I first saw someone using zsh (omz), I was awe-struck.

Same thing happens to the person sitting next to me when I pipe an output to jq.

</comment><comment><USER3> however, I find jq not so friendly piping its output to other programs.

<comment><USER4> I recently wrote a fairly useful script and the key for me was to construct strings using jq, which were then parseable by stuff it was streamed to.

[https://stedolan.github.io/jq/manual/#example13](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/manual/#example13)

Basicalky, I converted each JSON object passed in into a bunch of delimiter separated lines.

<comment><AUTHOR> Link doesn't work for me, but that sounds like a great example!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> why would I use sed over vim for regex replacements? in nvim I can

      set inccommand

and see whether I've gotten my line noise right as I go.</comment>


Google officially announces OAuth support for IMAP/SMTP Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/03/oauth-access-to-imapsmtp-in-gmail.html

<comment><USER2> Sweet! I've just updated my PHP example to work with these specs:

[http://web.mailana.com/labs/handmadeimap/gmailoauthexample/i...](http://web.mailana.com/labs/handmadeimap/gmailoauthexample/index.php)

<http://github.com/petewarden/handmadeimap>

There's now also official code in several languages available at <http://code.google.com/apis/gmail/oauth/code.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats to Eric Sachs and the rest of the team for getting this out sooner than expected.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a throttling component to this? I seem to recall that some people used to encounter problems when trying to use a script to access GMail (for backups). I don't see any API limits offhand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gmail only allows 10 simultaneous IMAP connections to your Gmail account ([http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...](http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97150)), and that isn't changing with this new OAuth news.

And based on my experience working on Syphir (<https://www.syphir.com>), chances are you won't run into any IMAP throttling problems based the frequency of your access. Syphir makes a few IMAP calls per user per incoming email, and we generally haven't run into any problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great news. I blogged about this back in October - glad to see Google have taken this issue on.

[http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2009/10/my-gmail-password- scares...](http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2009/10/my-gmail-password-scares-me- with-its-power/)

It will be interesting to see how successful adoption of IMAP-via-OAuth will be.

</comment><comment><USER6> It won't be long before all protocols would be tunneled over the stateless and rock-solid HTTP protocol which works well across different networks, NATs, behind firewall and on different devices.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this what Gabor Cselle has been working on since moving to Google?

<comment><USER8> My guess is that this feature was well on the way to completion when Gabor Ceselle rejoined Google a month ago. One month is a short time to develop and launch a feature that spans two teams (user accounts, mail) at a big company like Google.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I would doubt that this was his idea, but I'm wondering whether this is what he's working on mainly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [redacted till I finish reading what I should have read in first place]</comment>


Use strict; in PHP - <AUTHOR> http://3v4l.org/WY1Vs

<comment><USER2> Ha! Thanks for actually creating another thread about this :D

I was quite surprised to know this because I constantly do the mistake of writing `var $x = // stuff` in PHP because of my JavaScript-fu :P</comment>


State Department Error Dashes Hopes of Thousands Seeking to Live in U.S. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/us/23visa.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think we need a lottery. Let them all in!

We need to go back to what America used to be: a country of immigrants, and laissez-faire capitalism (under this system, which I submit is the only truly moral social system, each additional immigrant adds value and earns his own keep).

(One of the worst things America did under FDR was to turn back boatloads of European Jews fleeing Hitler. Think of the value - _for other Americans_ \- that those people could have created if they were let in instead of being turned back to be exterminated. We need to overturn much of what FDR and his ilk did to this country. Not just freeing immigration and emigration, but unshackling us from their social programs, too.)</comment>


Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook-deletes-norway-pms-post-napalm-girl-post-row?CMP=edit_2221 <comment><USER2> Massive discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461691)

More discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004)

More discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12460663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12460663)

More discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12459727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12459727)

Related story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461182)

Related story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461157)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ouch, deleting a post by a foreign head of state? I predict some serious backpedaling coming up...</comment>


Building a Ray-Tracing 3D Renderer from Scratch - <AUTHOR> http://www.superjer.com/pixelmachine/ <comment><USER2> Ray tracing was my introduction to CS-like "real" programming, i.e. not just typing stuff in[1], but actually sitting down and thinking about the _math_ of the problem[2]. I remember being super-excited (at 14-or-so yrs old) at being able to have my Turbo Pascal program draw a 640x480 grayscale(!) plane+sphere image on my monochrome VGA screen... which was the style at the time; the VGA card having been bought by me via pocket money and the screen having been bought by my parents. (Which is just another way of saying they bought both.)

Ray Tracing offers a _remarkably_ big payoff for very little code. It _does_ require a little algebra for line+(plane/sphere) intersections and such, but that's stuff you can easily look up these days.

[1] Yeah, I'm old. We had "codes" (typically heavily compressed/obfuscated) in these things called computer "magazines" that you would type in and see what happened.

[2] There's _always_ math. Even if you're doing CRUD, there's probably math behind it: Form validation is a certain type of math, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing a toy ray tracer is something that I'd recommend to everyone who's interesting in becoming a better programmer. Once you get deep enough into it you'll encounter so many interesting problems (e.g. data structures, software architecture, some linear algebra, etc.) to hone your skills on. It's almost up there with "write your own compiler" as a learning experience in my opinion and you get the added benefit of creating some pretty pictures in the process.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ray tracing is great, metropolis flavour particularly. But you need an artistic sense to create complex and rewarding scene geometry, whether it's static or animated. I spent years obsessing over CS when the experience that actually drew me into the graphics field in the first place must have been the result of someone's artistic judgement, passed through a conceptually very simple bit of software (this is the 90s I'm talking about) which really just projected geometry into the screen.

(Oliver Deussen's work on rendering plants and other natural phenomena is an example of the kind of CS technique necessary to create geometry for any rendering process.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wrote a similar program in plain Java + Swing (and no other libraries) years ago, which I dumped on GitHub here (there are a few screenshots): [https://github.com/idolize/ray-tracer](https://github.com/idolize/ray-tracer)

</comment><comment><USER6> I love ray tracing. A small amount of code generates magical looking images. More advanced methods have a really pleasing mix of geometry, probability, data structures/algorithms, and low-level optimization.</comment>


Phpbrew - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/c9s/phpbrew

<comment><USER2> Somehow I thought this was the rubygems equivalent of PHP rather than the RVM equivalent of PHP. (Disclaimer: Have never used PHP)</comment>


Boxing with Java - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomhalligan.co.uk/category/technology/programming/

<comment><USER2> This is because Java cache the Integer objects from -128 to 127.

So while it is correct that you should probably be more careful when dealing with Autoboxing (or don't use it at all if you can...), there's one more layer deep that the article did not touch: the actual implementation of Java.

<http://www.docjar.com/html/api/java/lang/Integer.java.html>

Observe the IntegerCache inner class in particular:

"Cache to support the object identity semantics of autoboxing for values between -128 and 127 (inclusive) as required by JLS.

The cache is initialized on first usage. The size of the cache may be controlled by the -XX:AutoBoxCacheMax=<size> option."

<comment><USER3> IIRC, this cache only works if you use Integer.valueOf instead of the constructor. (I could be misremembering, but the reason for that seems obvious to me.)

<comment><USER4> > the reason for that seems obvious to me.

That Java's semantics force new object creation on constructor call, it's not possible to do otherwise (as opposed to, say, JavaScript, Python or Ruby in which object creation can be overridden and the "constructor" work like a factory methods, when it isn't one outright) (which it is in Python and Ruby)

<comment><USER3> Yes, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While one problem the blog post describes is valid, I think the authors comes to the wrong conclusion. The problem is that the method is implemented in such a way that it uses Integer objects which are different from the native integer types.

Objects have very clear semantics concerning the == operator. It checks whether the object identity is the same (alas it is the same object). There is nothing special about it, thats also the reason why you can't compare two strings with == and this is s.th. I think every Java developer learns within the first days/weeks (often by first doing it wrong, I don't claim that this is intuitive).

So in this light the correct solution, which the author even does not mention anymore in the end, would be for the method to use the a.equals(b). Everything would work. The point of the author that a team should agree on using either one or the other is nonesene, because in some situations there is no choice (e.g. HashMaps only work with objects). Also there is no real problem, because whoever implemented the method know what he gets and should have implemented it using the equals method. So in reality this should not be fixed with creating seperate Integer instances but with fixing the method itself.

As a last comment, there is one pitfall to watch out for with autoboxing. When you use the "int" type in your code and call a method which returns an "Integer" and you compare with == you can get wrong results. I think of this as a real problem, because often you know that a method will return a number but you don't expect it to be returned as Integer. Or even worse between versions of the api the method is changed from returning int to Integer and you don't even notice because it compiles. But I think this happens very rarely and personally I always return numbers as native types.

PS: But I can understand that it is sometimes confusing that the code is working in some cases and not working in others, when it should never work! If you want to get a really good understanding of the semantics of the Java language I would advise to read ( <http://java.sun.com/docs/books/effective/> )

<comment><AUTHOR> The author ( me :P ) mentions that using a.equals(b) is the correct solution right at the beginning of the post. Unfortunately this problem will continue to occur as long as autoboxing exists, so I think it's a valid idea to simply enforce a rule across your team that says 'Here's how we're going to avoid autoboxing problems'. I intended this post to be more of an illustration of what autoboxing does.

With regards to your comment that the solution is not to create separate integer instances - I was attempting to show that this is a possible solution to autoboxing headaches rather than 'the correct' solution for testing integer equality, because the objects are not cached. Sometimes you want to use == for valid reasons, the problem I had was because I wasn't vigilant enough in checking my own code and used == when I shouldn't have used it in the first place.

Perhaps this post could have been written more clearly - but as it happens, you're spot on. The examples at the end of the post were intended to be potential solutions to autoboxing headaches in general, rather than a solution for my specific problem :)

<comment><USER5> Ok, in that regard I think your post was very informative. Raising awareness of this language detail is very important, because it can lead to bugs which are very hard to detect.

The two most valuable advices from your post is directly the first line (but I have to admit that I overread it the first time I looked at the post). And second to use some tooling like the Eclipse code checker or findbugs (which was mentioned in another comment) to make implicit conversions visible to the programmer.

The only point I still disagree, though this is only a minor point, is that even with your explanation the possible solution of creating seperate instances is really no help. My point beeing that either you know that autoboxing occurs at a point and one can handle it correctly, or one doesn't know and in that case you also can't create seperate integer instances. This is from the point of view of someone who worked most of his career with Java and that line just makes my eyes bleed. But I can also understand if this looks like nitpicking to others ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Use .equals() like you're supposed to with objects. If you aren't going to use the primitive types that is really the only good option.

</comment><comment><USER7> Autoboxing was the worst thing ever added to Java.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think making auto-Boxing generate a warning is a bit over the top, but it's worth it to enable syntax highlighting for it. It just draws your eyes to it during debugging. I think mine is set to italicize all instances of auto- boxing. And of course, avoid it where it doesn't smell good.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is an example of a bug that FindBugs would catch ( <http://findbugs.sourceforge.net/> ). FindBugs is a static source analysis tool for Java. It's free and open source, no reason not to use it on your codebase :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree 100%, I'm just forgetful and lazy (a winning combination) :P I need to get it set up to run automatically!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is what operator overloading is for. If equals() should always be used to compare objects then == should call it.

<comment><USER11> Java doesn't support operator overloading.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't java support privileged operator overloading for `+`? (privileged in that it's only supported for types baked into the runtime itself, much like generics in Go)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yuck, what a nightmare. 1000 should equal 1000.

<comment><USER13> It does, but their memory locations need not be the same.

Making the == operator act differently just because the Objects in question are boxed version of primitives would probably be more of a nightmare than having the == operator act consistently.

Perhaps a better solution would be a compiler warning so these mistakes can be identified quicker.

<comment><USER8> Arguably making the == operator mean two different things -- equal in value and equal in reference -- is the problem to start with. I'd prefer it if == was a value comparison in all cases, and reference comparison were mapped to === or something. I guess the extra verbosity doesn't get a lot of fans here...</comment></comment></comment>


McKinsey Statement on NYT and ProPublica Article Regarding ICE and CBP - <AUTHOR> https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/media/mckinsey-statement-on-new-york-times-and-propublica-article-regarding-ice-and-cbp <comment><USER2> Their main defense is that Obama gave them their mission, and they're just doing the same job under Trump.

> As we have stated previously, the scope and goals of our work did not change > in any material way from when the project was defined during the prior > administration.

Perhaps that is a good response directly to the original article (which I have not read). But this defense is silly.

They should not continue to support a cause just because it used to be good. If it is now bad, and they still support it, then they support a bad thing. No matter what they claim their values are.

The correct thing to do would have been to stop working for ICE. ...or do it now</comment>


Gut microbes are vulnerable to wide range of drugs - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02780-x <comment><USER2> It's unclear to me how to interpret the result. It makes sense to test the influence of drugs on gut microbes, but to put the effect into context I'd be interested in the effect of, for example, normal food. How many species of gut microbes are affected by apples or coffee or whole grain bread? I also imagine that eating fermented foods causes a slaughter in your gut as the different microbes battle for dominance.

<comment><USER3> Yes, a battle too horrible to contemplate! Imagine the slaughter consequent on ingesting coffee,chocolate,tea,sourdough bread,cheese,buttermilk,crème fraîche,yogurt,kefir,salami,wine,beer,sauerkraut,dill pickles,kimchi,kombucha,fish sauce,vinegar,miso or tempeh.

<comment><USER4> I think your space key is broken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I want to know is what to do about it by way of probiotic therapy or buffering agents and such. Efficacy of probiotics in practice seems mixed, so what exactly is the takeaway here for the practically minded person who sometimes takes anti-inflammatory medications?

<comment><USER6> I think that the best thing one can do for their microbiome is to stop trying to kill germs in everything around us. Also, when a dog wants to kiss you, accept it. They are good at maintaining theirs.

Look at the ingredients on all the products you use. Unless it's Dr. Bronner's soap or something similar, chances it's harmful to both humans and microbes. Just stop using and stop buying that shit!

Sterility is good for the operating table, but not for everyday life.

<comment><USER7> I agree to a point, but a lot of dogs don't get proper dental care, eat poop and lick buttholes-- sorry, but I don't want any of that on my face, I don't care how magical their saliva is supposed to be.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention I find dog slobber to be extremely off-putting for reasons other than germs. Just like I would find it extremely off-putting if someone went up to me with a clean wet washcloth and started rubbing it on me.

<comment><USER6> This is an indicator of your conditioning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The converse is also true -- a wide range of drugs are subject to metabolism by gut microbes. This can throw off plasma concentrations and reduce effectiveness, or cause unwanted side effects or unexpected toxicity in the worst cases.

</comment><comment><USER10> The published article itself (paywall): [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25979](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25979)

And EMBL announcement with short video: [https://news.embl.de/science/commonly-used-drugs-affect- gut-...](https://news.embl.de/science/commonly-used-drugs-affect-gut- bacteria/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Completely anecdotal, but after two and a half weeks of antibiotics (for an infection in my leg) I felt crap.

<comment><USER12> If you took any of the quinolones you may have gotten floxed. The drugs are very dangerous and should only used as last resorts, according to the FDA. Mechanisms of toxicity are multiple but the common theories are iron/magnesium chelation and mitochondrial toxicity. Both of which can lead to long term severe and potentially life threatening side effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have often wondered about the affects of pesticides on foods made with cord by-products, like syrup, etc.</comment>


Major Recurly Outage - <AUTHOR> https://status.recurly.com/incidents/fdvfnvz2tlz7 <comment><AUTHOR> Incident report mentions slow response times, but actually their API doesn't work at all for the last hour.</comment>


P-hacked hypotheses are deceivingly robust (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://datacolada.org/48 <comment><USER2> The words "deceivingly" and "deceptively" have the same problem: there's a roughly 50/50 split in polar-opposite interpretations. [https://grammarist.com/usage/deceptively/](https://grammarist.com/usage/deceptively/)

In this case, does "deceivingly robust" mean they look robust but are fragile? or does it instead mean they look fragile but are robust?

This isn't a criticism of you, soundsop. Rather, it's intended to keep pointing at how difficult it can be to concisely deliver a message.

\---

edit: sounds like the correct interpretation of the title is _" P-hacked hypotheses appear more robust than they are."_

<comment><USER3> Huh. I'm skeptical about that article's dichotomy of "deceptively" meaning either "in appearance but not in reality" or "in reality but not in appearance". I think the most common usage of "deceptively X" is, more broadly, "X in a way that deceives you". That includes "X in reality but not in appearance", but it also includes "X in reality _and_ in appearance, but deceiving you about something else".

For example, they used this quote as an example of "in appearance but not in reality":

> It's no mystery why images of shocking, unremitting violence spring to mind > when one hears the deceptively simple term, "D-Day." [Life]

But the term "D-Day" _is_ simple. It's deceptive because it might wrongly lead you to think the event it refers to is also simple.

Similarly, if something is "deceptively simple-looking", it really is simple- looking; it's just not _simple_.

<comment><USER2> Mate, I don't know; I'm just going with all the research and linguistic warnings I've read on the word.

[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3500](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3500)

[https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/25/deceptively/](https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/25/deceptively/)

[https://www.academia.edu/37488247/The_Deceptively_Simple_Pro...](https://www.academia.edu/37488247/The_Deceptively_Simple_Problem_of_Contronymy)

Shoot, even oxford gives exactly opposite definitions of the word.

[https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/deceptively)

\---

I mean, even when I saw the title of the thread, I had an _obligation_ to click (clickbait I guess?) because I could have interpreted the title as either a warning about p-hacking _or_ an attestation in favor of the practice. In fact, on first glance, I read the title as "P-hacked hypotheses appear less robust than they actually are."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Basically, if you take a p-hacked hypothesis and attempt to use it _predictively_ , it falls apart.

That's kinda ... useful, actually.

It feels like this is sort of the same issue with overfitting in ML. Attempts to use ML results predictively often fail in hilarious ways.

<comment><USER5> Yep, that s also how science works: it predicts the future based on a model. Quick trick to know if it s a science or not: if it has the word science in it it's not. (Eg social science)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> P-hacking is a fine way to winnow through ideas to see what might be interesting to follow up on. There will certainly be false positives, but the real positives will usually be in there, too, if there are any. Determining which is which takes more work, but you need guidance on where to apply that work.

To insist that p-hacking, by itself, implies pseudo-science is fetishism. There is no substitute for understanding what you are doing and why.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Direct replications, testing the same prediction in new studies, are often > not feasible with observational data. In experimental psychology it is > common to instead run conceptual replications, examining new hypotheses > based on the same underlying theory. We should do more of this in non- > experimental work. One big advantage is that with rich data sets we can > often run conceptual replications on the same data.

I think actually relying on "conceptual replications" in practice is impossible. If the theory is only coincidentally supported by the data, that makes the replication more likely to exceed p < .05 coincidentally in a very difficult to analyze way.

The author mentions that problem, but doesn't mention a bigger issue: If you think people are unlikely to publish replications using novel data sets, just imagine how impossibly unlikely it is for people to publish failed replications with the original data set! If you read a "replicated" finding of the same theory using the same data set, you can safely ignore it, because 19 other people probably tried other related "replications" and didn't get them to work.

</comment><comment><USER8> This problem is going to get more severe as available datasets get bigger and bigger. The more data you have to mine, the more likely you are to find something that looks like a signal but isn't.

<comment><USER9> At some point, social science must switch to tighter p-value cutoffs and corrections for multiple comparisons. These are the norm in particle physics, which dealt with and resolved exactly this problem back in the 1970s.</comment></comment>


Multiple assignees on Issues and Pull requests - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2178-multiple-assignees-on-issues-and-pull-requests <comment><USER2> Surprised to see so much negative feedback. I agree that clear responsibility is important, and that adding multiple assignees when those people share similar responsibilities could lead to the bystander effect.

I'm really excited about this feature. I feel like "If only GitHub Issues allowed multiple assignees" comes up in conversations with colleagues at least a couple times a month.

For context, the design (and development) team I work with uses GitHub Issues religiously. Right now all issues that need design work are explicitly assigned to a designer, and we use a label based workflow combined with Codetree to help organize weekly sprints. Having multiple assignees will allow us to explicitly assign a product manager to each of these issues w/o having to take it out of each designer's sprint, which will help make sure all design tasks receive feedback and move forward in a timely manner.

<comment><USER3> Or, you could create a separate issue for designing the project and for implementing it. Then cc the PM on both. Done!

At the end of the day, someone should be responsible for completing the issue. Is it a PM? Assign it to them. Is it a designer? Assign it to them.

We use Codetree as well, and it's wonderful. But the key is to use small, focused issues with a single individual accountable for each one.

<comment><USER2> We do create separate issues for design and development :)

IMO having an explicit assignee is more clear than cc'ing someone, and it also makes it easier to see all issues that you're currently responsible for moving forward. At the end of the day whatever works best for the given team is what should be used. I don't think there is a definitively right or wrong approach. Our current approach works quite well, and this new feature is going to make things even easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best way to make sure something never gets done is to share ownership of it.

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility)

<comment><USER6> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wasn't expecting such a negative reaction to this. For Issues, the feature isn't particularly useful to me, but for Pull Requests, it's a great way of declaring who needs to sign off for the PR to be merged. When big features come into PR, people where I work were reluctant to use the 'Assignee' feature at all because it implied that the PR was already 'taken' for code review. Now, a front end engineer can assign themselves to do the FE review and a back end engineer can assign themselves to do the BE review, and the reviewers can be directly seen from the PR list. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know if it's possible to disable this? For teams like mine, where we want to have only one owner for each issue, it's meant many more clicks to perform a reassignment operation.

</comment><comment><USER9> There are many improvements needed on Issues; this one is certainly not the first that comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great! Now it would be cool if I could save a group so I could in one click assign my pr's to my team instead of having to individually add each member each time

</comment><comment><USER11> Assigning pull requests to multiple people is fantastic: sometimes you're modifying a library and want the owner of that library to review your code, but you're simultaneously modifying the clients of that library and want their owners to review the change as well.

Assigning issues to multiple owners is a recipe for complete and utter inaction from all parties involved.

<comment><USER12> They seem to have the idea of Assignee and interested party mixed up. Many times two people need notifications, but I have never seen the need for two concurrent assignees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is bad practice for getting things done.

<comment><USER14> No, its GREAT for getting things done! I'm only interested in it for pull requests, so that's the angle I'm coming from. I know what you mean for regular issues though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm glad this feature is in, but it's only useful for my PRs.

For example, there was a recent PR where the owner was modeling the UI for a feature with stubbed calls, while I was setting up the backend.

Once my work was done, he wrapped up the rest, and I was no longer needed.

We used notifications to informally say "you're still needed for this!" vs it being part of my daily hit list.</comment>


MonoTouch for iPhone - C# bindings for native APIs - <AUTHOR> http://monotouch.net/

<comment><USER2> It looks like you have to develop in MonoDevelop to use this, which is a bit of a shame. After all, the reason most teams use C# in the first place is that you get to use the best IDE around. Outside the context of VS.NET, C# doesn't have nearly as much going for it.

Still, if it lets me avoid Objective C, I think I'll give this a shot.

<comment><USER3> You can use C# with XCode: <http://code.google.com/p/cocoa-sharp- dev/wiki/CSharpPlugin>

MonoTouch's site has a tutorial on how to use XCode + Monotouch: <http://monotouch.net/Documentation/XCode>

<comment><USER4> Additionally, FWIW, the entire GUI is done with Interface builder rather than MonoDevelop.

MonoDevelop fires up interface builder, and then quietly rebuilds the backing code when you're done editing. So they haven't completely reinvented the wheel, it is using standard NIB files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This gets my vote simply because I won't be forced to use an otherwise unmarketable language like Objective C. Not that I hate the syntax...it's not that bad really...but I hate that I'm forced to learn it _just_ for iPhone or OS X development. I can't really use it elsewhere. With Mono/C# that's not the case, and it's immediately worth it. I hope they'll target other phones and make it at least possible to migrate your app from one to the other, but a quick glance at the tutorials makes me suspect this is very bound to the iPhone.

I'm also more than a little concerned that you have to pay for the dev environment itself (with an evaluation version on the way). I really hate this model. They should've gone the route of giving away to tools themselves for free, but charging upon the need to deploy. This allows developers like me to vet the platform before spending hard-earned dollars.

<comment><USER6> We are looking at fixing this.

There will be a free eval that will not require you to buy until you are ready to test/deploy on the device.

<comment><USER7> Not being able to measure on-device performance and stability during evaluation is a pretty big deal. The simulator is only useful as a smoke test, even when using the native tools.

<comment><USER5> Actually, that's a very good point. I guess my wish is that one could deploy to a device, but not actually upload to the appstore or sell without a license. Testing on a device is absolutely crucial...

<comment><USER8> Perhaps a mandatory nag screen at startup for binaries generated with the evaluation edition?

<comment><USER9> Or perhaps display a page from the Kama Sutra? That ought to keep it out of the App Store. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Eric Idle's Guitar Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iIZ9rnS6HU <comment><USER2> This is definitely one of their better one-day-build stories!

I love seeing the ones where they are doing something practical for some reason. I mean, the non-practical ones can be cool too, but the practical ones have a goal of doing something that will be useful over a long period of time and not just something cool to hang on the wall.</comment>


Presentation Mistakes Everyone Makes - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/avoid_these_five_mistakes_in_y.html

<comment><USER2> Isn't a lot of this based heavily on the audience?

If someone was giving me a presentation on a product using these five 'goals', I'd personally be very reluctant to consider that product.

Take the cloud issue she brings up, and she is giving a presentation on some new cloud data storage. She recommends focusing on "help remote colleagues coordinate disaster relief efforts and save lives". Feels a bit far-fetched that cloud data storage is going to help with that, and I'd dismiss that line of reasoning out of hand and be much less likely to purchase than if she just stuck to the facts.

Same for partnership - 'Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' ?? I'd spend the rest of the presentation trying to work out why someone would choose something so vague when they can use an obvious handshake image.

Same for jargon - if you're selling a cloud data system and you're speaking without any essential jargon such as 'uptime' or 'automatic failover', I'd probably dismiss your presentation outright.

I can give you one presentation mistake that she seems to get wrong: "Know your audience, and pitch your presentation to what they need to hear".

</comment><comment><USER3> How about including "drawing people's eyes to the presentation for random visual reasons, instead of getting them to focus on you" as a mistake, instead of saying "use better pictures" like #3 does.

It's one thing to include good visuals for graphs/things you want people to focus on while you explain the slide.

It's another to have visuals for things like "partnerships" or "security". That would be the part where you are supposed to be talking, and want people focusing on you.

It's funny that this comes right after the point about asking too much of your slides.

<comment><USER4> If you include visuals in your slides, you should do so sparingly. The whole purpose of a slide is to _support_ your presentation, not to be _the_ presentation. The focus should always be on you, only briefly on the slides and then almost immediately back to you again.

The only exception to this is if you're describing some deeply technical process, and even then you should be in front of your slide, explaining things, et cetera.

<comment><USER5> I disagree, in that I think that use of rich visuals can be really captivating; but your way can work too.

One thing that can be really effective is to use blank, black slides when you want the audience back. It's amazing how completely that switches everyone's attention back to the speaker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you really want to improve your presentations, just get "Presenting to win"[0]. It's a very good book, provides decent advice on how to craft your presentation, to captivate the audience and to think about what exactly it is that you want to convey and how best to do that.

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Updated- Expande...](http://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Updated-Expanded)

</comment><comment><USER6> Didn't quite find anything noteworthy in that article. I am in fact surprised that such an article can feature in HBR.

</comment><comment><USER7> Serious question:

Does anyone know of research on this?

Not opinions. Research. Decent research on retention, comprehension etc.

<comment><USER3> Don't be silly, there's no need for research, after all "Her team at Duarte, Inc., has created more than a quarter of a million presentations for its clients and teaches public and corporate workshops on presenting. "

Honestly though, there is surprisingly little real research i can find on presentations, but it could be all the general + journal search engines i'm using are having issues trying to understand the query.

<comment><USER7> I'd also be interested in research on graphs or charts, if you've seen any in your travels.

It just strikes me that so much of this stuff is straight-up opinion. And we know from other fields (eg: advertising) that what we _prefer_ may not be the same as what _works_.</comment></comment></comment>


Confessions of a bad teacher - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/08/29/confessions_of_a_bad_teacher

<comment><USER2> I can't help but feel we're just doing it wrong in cases like this. Surely there must be some way to refocus that same level of energy in a way that's much more effective.</comment>


Carpal Tunnel Syndrome exercises that really work - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/31/carpal-tunnel-syndro.html <comment><USER2> I had serious RSI from typing. My solution (read: my problems are almost completely gone) was a split keyboard:

<http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/freestyle_mac.htm>

Then I set it up in a vertical layout. Something like this:

[http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/solo- ascent-90_512x390.jp...](http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/solo- ascent-90_512x390.jpg)

but instead of spending $199 for a piece of plastic, I cut up a cardboard box and spend $1.99 on duct tape.</comment>


Ask HN: What's wrong with our sales team/strategy? - <AUTHOR> My business partner and I are getting a little frustrated with our sales team, so I thought I'd ping HN for some advice/thoughts.
Our primary service provides websites and hosting for a niche industry. They are CMS-driven and we charge a setup fee and monthly hosting. Sales are good (growing since we started 5 years ago) and most online signups are finding us via organic search (we have good placement), referrals (we have a great CS rep) and a few targeted forum ads.
But we also have some sales reps that make commission and that's where we're at a loss. For the most part, they don't do any proactive sales (finding leads, cold/warm calling, etc.). Often, they will take a call (we do have a phone number), answer a very simple question in 10 seconds, and then demand a commission if that person signs up online 2 days later.
We've also had 2 sales people request commission on the same customer–both claiming to have answered questions for them.
We're not trying to put any blame on the sales team–we just have no idea how to structure this part of our business. We never gave it much thought before–but we're starting to feel like we're paying out money that 1) isn't earned and 2) could be used for more online ad buys.
How can we better structure/organize our sales team? Should they be required to log their calls daily? Should we force them to make sales over the phone? Should they use some sort of code when signing up?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Commissions work only if they influence behavior in the way you want. In this case, you're paying the same percentage commission to your salespeople no matter if they answer an inbound lead or make an outbound call. It's thus rational for them to just focus on inbound leads, because the commission/ounce-of-effort ratio is so much better.

If you want to change their behavior, you need to do one of three things:

1\. Require that salespeople hit certain targets/quotas for desired activities or their commissions get a haircut (e.g. you get 15% commission if you hit your target, 10% if you don't). Some possible targets:

* Make at least X outbound calls a week

* Close at least Y sales generated from outbound leads

2\. Pay a lower commission for inbound leads and a higher rate for outbound leads. This will require policing so that salespeople don't mark inbound leads as outbound leads.

3\. Stop using commissions as a stick/carrot and hire good self-motivated people, like you do for other departments. Here's a great article on that: <http://www.inc.com/magazine/20030501/25416.html>

P.S. Yes, all calls need to be logged for a commission to be paid. If you can't afford Salesforce or Netsuite, try Highrise. You need to be using a CRM anyway.

<comment><USER3> As the analogy goes - coffee is for closers.

Seriously consider getting someone with experience in sales to come and manage the team, and bring processes in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A couple of thoughts: 1\. Assign clients to your reps, so that they both don't service the same client.

2\. Don't worry about paying commission on a sale that occurred 2 days after the phone call. It is likely the rep played a key role in them signing up, so they likely earned most if not all of the commission.

3\. Consider increasing your commission rate and/or lowering your salary (if you are providing one). It seems to me that your reps are not terribly motivated. This lack of motivation can occur for a variety for a variety of reasons: role confusion and rule confusion (see #1 above), lack of financial incentive for new sales/commissions, too high of a base salary. Basically, you need to find the right level of giving them a solid enough base, but low enough for them to be really motivated to make new sales.

4\. Add a bonus if certain sales goals are met.

5\. Be generous - I've found that a number of startup folks under value the role of sales/marketing in a startup. If you have measurable sales goals and they are meeting those goals, then be generous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Once a client signs-up with us, they generally start working with our CS people. We have a support ticket system and most customers use that ... the sales people are really not involved once we have the customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Take them off handling incoming calls for a week and put someone else on. See if your conversion rate from incoming calls changes and by how much. If it doesn't change, the person answering the phone does not need to be on commission.

<comment><USER6> You are thinking what I am thinking. The OP definitely gives off the vibe that he doesn't actually _need_ a sales team (it sounds like their business comes through other channels and the sales team is acting like a customer service desk).

So it would be good to review whether that team is necessary, before spending much brain time revising their incentive structures.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fairly accurate ... we have a separate CS team but they are very busy answer client tickets. They don't really have time to answer pre-sales questions.

Does this mean we need a new CS person and no sales people?

<comment><USER6> You could add however many CS people you need to handle the extra load and then rotate some of them (not all may be suitable for this - pick the extroverts) into answering pre-sales inquiries, say one week out of four.

If I phone you already thinking I am interested in your product and talked to someone who sounded deeply knowledgeable about the service, this would increase my confidence level more than if I talked to a smooth-talker (obviously not knowing your niche this may not apply).

Fundamentally I think you need to listen in on some of the phone calls your sales people are taking. What are your customers looking for at that stage? Do they want to talk about pricing a lot? Do they want to discuss functionality or ask about future features?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Clarify the rules. If you value them a lot, negotiate with them. If you are frustrated with their lack of effort, then narrow the field by picking your best one, and letting the others go (or at least creating conditions favorable for that).

</comment><comment><USER8> Half a year ago, Joel (now, don't downvote me for mentioning him ;)) had some sensible things to say on commissions : [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be- si...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-sins-of- commissions_Printer_Friendly.html)

I'm not sure if this article will help, but it may definitely make you aware of some possible problems with commissions.

</comment><comment><USER9> First, make sure that their job function is clearly defined and understood by you and them. What are you paying them for? Do they handle any support, or are they only supposed to find new business? Depending on how big your operation is it might be helpful to hire a consultant or a friend who has experience with a sales force.

It sounds like there might be an economical solution. do you know how much a dollar of ads earns vs. a dollar of base + commission? You could be up front about these numbers with your sales team and say "Look, I could pay you guys $100 and expect $200 in sales, or I could spend $100 in ads and see $500 in sales," and use those numbers to structure performance reviews and establish sales quotas.

</comment><comment><USER10> Much like the old motto that ideas are cheap, implementation is hard. The answer is simple, put the money(measure) on what you want done. The implementation is hard. Not being a guy with a sales team it is all arm chair from here.

You seem to want to push proactive sales so put the money there at the sign up add a how did you hear about us. If they indicate an advertisement then a sales men would have to show substantial effort on their part to claim commission. If they claim a salesmen then they automatically get commission. If they don't claim anything then salesmen can claim with some effort. If a salesmen pushes an ad then he gets reduced commission for everyone the ad brings in.

</comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, I like the code idea.

Perhaps have the sales people give the customers a discount coupon identifier (5-10% or something) when they call. When the customer purchases, if they use the discount code, the sales person gets some part of the commission.

Not only does it help you track who got the commission, but it might increase conversions of people who are interested enough in the product to call you.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it can be fixed with a tiered commission structure. Pay X for sales that are made through cold calls etc. Pay X/5 for sales that are made from answering phone calls etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hello from SalesBy5! "94% of all problems are due to systems not people" Demming. My suggestion is to have a code, process or log. Try anything and dot worry about failing just fail fast and fail cheap. I also suggest an open discussion with them, open blunt but respectful. chances are they are frustrated to and the answer is a meeting that has one objective: WIN WIN! If they are not trying to get new business they may not know how. Ask! Regards, ERIK

</comment><comment><USER14> In the age of web based interactive permission direct response marketing... ...you know what I mean...

...sales people are best used for 2 kinds of products or services.

1\. High priced stuff (were a comission makes more sense, also). For example: selling yachts. The website generates the leads and the sales clerk does what he should know best: closing the sale.

2\. Upsells. This is for example a seminar to write better content for your new website. You could work together with good writers. The thing is: you new clients, you know they need a good content writer _now_. And this kind of now is the phase were good sales people excel in.

<comment><USER15> Salesfolk tend to be the most rational economic actors you can find. If a salesperson can make a reasonable living by just picking up the phone and signing somebody up, they're never going to do anything else. Why should they?

If you don't have an extensive sales cycle, there is zero reason why you need to pay commission.

If you want rainmakers, you've got to set up a sales incentive program that demands it, and then brutally winnow out those who don't make the grade. Otherwise, pay them a base salary and then a fixed bonus based on the entire group making quota. Brutal winnowing is still encouraged in this situation, to cut out the losers who aren't closing.</comment></comment>


Is there a genuine placebo effect in acute depression treatments? - <AUTHOR> https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2019/04/11/bmjebm-2019-111161 <comment><AUTHOR> The full title is "Is there a genuine placebo effect in acute depression treatments? A reassessment of regression to the mean and spontaneous remission".</comment>


The $300 Million Button - <AUTHOR> http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/index.html <comment><USER2> Had to check - it's not Amazon, despite their rather obsessive focus with tweaking and testing things all over the site. First purchase at Amazon is still somewhat involved, possibly due to "we're Amazon, where else are you going to go" mentality.</comment>


Ask HN: If you were paid to learn, 8 hours a day, what would be your routine? - <AUTHOR> What you are learning would have to be software development related and the end goal would be to become an expert. At the end of the week you would have to have something to show how you spent your time. This question isn't about what tech you would learn, but more so how you would maximize your time spent to become and expert as soon as possible. <comment><USER6>
        6:00 am - <USER2>
        6:10 am - <USER3>
        6:30 am - nutritious breakfast including fruit, carbs, protein and water
        7:00 am - <USER4>
        7:30 am - coffee (limited) and classical music
        8:00 am - review learning list and choose focus
        8:30 am - focus and learn
        10:00 am - stretching, situps, pushups followed by water
        10:15 am - focus and learn
        11:45 am - evaluate learning, update learning list
        noon - nutritious lunch (limited) with water
        12:30 pm - bike ride
        1:00 pm - review learning list and choose focus
        1:30 pm - focus and learn
        3:00 pm - weightlifting followed by water
        3:30 pm - focus and learn
        5:00 pm - evaluate learning, update learning list
        5:30 pm - dinner (limited)
        6:00 pm - your time
        9:00 pm - <USER5>

When I was unemployed, this is the routine I followed. I was able to pick up quite a few technologies that helped me in my current job. Notice that quite a bit of the routine is focused on YOU. If you feel good, and confident about yourself, you can learn a lot.

<comment><USER7> Wow, that's really cool. How consistent were you with this? Was it harder on some days, either because of lack of motivation or other things came in your way? How did you fit your job search into this? I'm unemployed at the moment so trying to figure out a routine.

<comment><USER6> Yeah it was harder at first, but once I got my rhythm it worked. Also I was unmarried, so that made it muuuuch easier. I would do job searches in the mornings, programming in the afternoon. Also note that after 6 on Friday I was "off" until Monday, so I used that time for dating/socializing etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like most situations, you will get the wrong answer until you find the right way to ask the question. If the goal is to maximize time spent, then what you have to do is learn how your body works. And your body works in a certain way, you just have to comply. If you fight it, you will get worse results. I'm saying all this because from the question one might believe that you can -choose- your routine. What I've found is that you have to discover it, you have to discover how your body works.

Wake up with the Sun.

Eat.

Internet 1 hour, or other activity that will warm up your brain. (~8:30 am in the summer)

Learn, 2-3 hours for real, maximum 4 hours for the whole activity.

Gym 1 hour.

Shower.

Eat.

Go outside.

Eat, before 18:00 ideally, before 19:00 in practice. Food will keep you awake during the night and you won't be able to wake up with the Sun!

Sleep (~23:00, ~8 hours). You have to choose your bed time depending on when the Sun rises.

Source: 5 years of searching for this + 2 years of doing this, without being paid :|

<comment><USER9> Totally agree. I spent most of my twenties thinking I worked best at night and couldn't handle waking up early. Fast forward and now I'm up at 6:30 and in bed by 10:00, substantially more productive than before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would divide my moments into

1\. meta learning

2\. learning from multi perspectives

3\. retention

Meta Learning

Ask yourself, "why are you learning this?", "what pre-knowledge I need to learn this material?", "Is there anyway to learn this faster?", "Why am I getting stuck on this?", "Do i need to update a previous assumption?". Metacognition, or the awareness of own thinking, is a very powerful method to improve thinking skill on any domain.

Learning

Use The Feynman Technique. The idea is any jargon used in particular domain can expressed with more common day to day words. This not the same as using analogy, avoid analogies. In feynman technique you are thinking below the word, using more simpler word to describe things. Once you have understood an idea, then subscribe to the jargon for that idea. Another way is to build a semantic tree of the things you learn, essentially build a huge graph where ideas are connected. Dont make disconnected clusters of ideas.

Retention

You can learn as much as you want but there is no point if you remember nothing. Use a mind map, reorganize according to your work. Just because a book has its own index, doesnt mean you can't reorganize the information according to your thoughts. Bookmark high quality links and resource, ditch meager resouces/links. Write code, practice what you have learned! Teach others! Teaching is the most effective retention method, because it challenges your own understanding.

Edit: Your prove of learning can be shown using everything you use to retain the knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER11> Here is my suggestion: Learn how to learn

Find what techniques work for you - keep on trying different methods. GTD by Pomodoro or Task Tracking Learn by reading, videos, doing, instructing others Vary intensity: some days are 10 hours of studying, while some are dreaming days

I would LOVE to be able to spend more time learning - I have a website about NoSQL that I want to train on BigData, but I am always too busy working

</comment><comment><USER12> \- take on aggressive project. a distributed operating system, a novel static optimization technique, some kind of concurrency model, a lower bound for an unsolved problem

\- find good resources to work with, or at least to give regular input so I don't end up wandering off into the weeds

\- try to take it as far as I can, until its obviously going to fail

\- start with another

</comment><comment><USER13> Cool question and some great answers.

I would try the following:

\- 8-9 hours of sleep per day;

\- 1 hour of some physical activity everyday;

\- 7/8 meals through out the day (3-to-3 hours interval);

\- 8 pomodoro sprints per day.Each pomodoro sprint as a 45 minutes focus session. While studying focus on the process not the result. This reduces anxiety;

\- at the end of every day: make a brief self-assessment session, writing a paragraph about what you have accomplished. Now the focus is on the result.

\- use Rescue Time to track what you do, be aware of the distractions and try to limit them;

\- do not work on Sundays. Work on Saturdays as a regular day.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would first tackle the mindset needed for peak learning.

Josh Waitzkin has some good coverage in his book The Art of Learning.

How to Solve it by Polya has some good strategies on how to solve math problems that are applicable to broader problems and learning.

Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt covers a broad approach to learning anything.

I would probably read these books and try to find a few others to really get my mind in a state where it needs to be to learn.

</comment><comment><USER15> First order of business would be to crack open the champagne

<comment><AUTHOR> why?

<comment><USER15> The bit about being "paid to learn" and also having the freedom to decide how to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd follow the advice from this guy who finished four years of MIT CS classes in one year: [http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear- algeb...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algebra- in-10-days-astounding-experiments-in-ultra-learning/)

<comment><USER17> Don't do that. Retention rate is significantly lower during "fast learning", i.e. after some time you forget most of the things you've learned.

<comment><USER16> Where's the research on that? I would be tremendously surprised if that result held for learning a variety of interwoven topics that depend on (or are at least related to) each other, e.g. a bunch of CS classes. I'd be similarly surprised if that result held for learning something that you also use regularly as part of your hobby or job (e.g. programming).

<comment><USER17> Well, what you mention is basically a continuation of learning... That's not what I was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks It sounds like the users are being paid to produce proof of learning weekly, not learn.

So probably: Plagiarize a bunch of stuff, sign up with a bunch of names/get unemployed crusty friends to make class presentations, and milk it for money as long as possible.

</comment><comment><USER18> > how you would maximize your time spent...

I would try to have 1:1 (paid) consulting sessions with established experts in the field. Huge insights and breakthroughs come from individual conversations.

</comment><comment><USER19> In learning mode as an adult you should really spend 12-14 hours a day thinking and tinkering, 2-3 months max. It has to be both a challenge and a boost.</comment>


Tinke: Heart rate, blood oxygen level and more at your fingertip - <AUTHOR> http://www.zensorium.com/tinke/ <comment><USER2> I love the idea for the device itself. But I absolutely do not want this data to be social, or transmitted anywhere besides a secure, encrypted repository under my own control that I can optionally grant selective access to. Here's why.

My mother has something called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. My aunt also had it. Their mother _also_ had it. It kills as many people as breast cancer every year, by progressively scarring the lungs until it's impossible to breathe. There's no cure except for new lungs. (My mother is waiting for a double lung transplant right now.) As you might expect, measuring blood oxygen efficiency is a good way to track the progress of the condition.

As a result, carrying a smart blood oxygen meter that also measures number of breaths and general health / stress levels really appeals to me. But the health situation here in the States, and in many countries, is fucked (albeit a little better than it was, thanks to our friends at the Obama Administration). Let's say I contracted the condition (although there's no proof that there's a genetic link), or it looked like I might be beginning to succumb, going by my vital signs. The consequences of this information falling into the wrong hands could range from an impact on my career to my insurance standing. It could potentially ruin my life.

Photos of my last Blue Bottle coffee, checkins at Bourbon & Branch, or Lift goal ticks are one thing. This kind of data should not be on a centralized service, in a database I can't directly access. Not ever. And the rise of this kind of product makes me think that there needs to be a sort of WordPress for encrypted personal data, sooner rather than later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that this information should be private (that's why Google Health didn't work as GOOG planned, right?).

But they offer a way for you to make your information private.

I think the encryption makes even more sense in services like <https://www.23andme.com> where you're getting genetic analysis information.

<comment><USER3> Google Health failed because there was very feel health SaaS companies and EHR systems in place when it launched. Second, it didn't really provide much value to them if they did use the APIs. And third the UI and marketing page were very mediocre.

I run a health app and very few people (far less than I expected) over the last 3 years showed concern about privacy.

We've actually had more emails about people wanting us to add social features so they could connect with others like themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really want this. But I'm not going to buy it, because of the form factor, iOS-only connector, closed-source hardware, firmware and application.

You might be familiar with sleep apnea, which is a condition in which (one way or another) you stop breathing while asleep, for ten seconds to a few minutes. The cause could be something in your nervous system (we still don't really understand what), or an obstruction in your airways. The result is that you wake up, sometimes with a fight-or-flight (i.e. adrenaline) response. Sleep apnea sufferers wake up several times per night, sometimes not remembering every episode. The net result is that even though, on waking up 'finally', you think you've had a solid 8 hours, you actually had a large number of disrupted sleeps. It's annoying and harmful, and the worst thing is that you might not even know you're a sleep apnea sufferer—when you wake up due to an apnea event, you're typically unaware that it was because you stopped breathing.

This is relevant because, during an apnea episode (and before waking) blood oxygen saturation will drop noticeably. So an easy and accurate way of self- diagnosing is to monitor blood oxygen saturation over the course of the night. Cross-reference those data with a Zeo, say, and you have a cheap, accurate method of self-diagnosis.

I've suspected that I have sleep apnea for a while now. But I don't have an iPhone any more (I sold it and got a Nexus 4), the Tinké doesn't support taking a continuous passive log (since you need to actively press your thumb to it), and I want to do more interesting things with the data than this company's app developers and designers will ever think of, or allow me to. So I guess I'll have to wait until someone else builds something that addresses this need, or build one myself.

<comment><USER5> Don't wait; go to a doctor about this. Unless you don't have insurance.. then you might as well wait til 2014 when you won't have an excuse not to have insurance.

<comment><USER4> I live in the UK; I have insurance simply by being a citizen (though it can take months to get an appointment with a doctor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "It also brings personal wellness to a social platform."

Fuck everything being social. I am super interested in my health and fitness but for my own edification, not to broadcast it to the world.

(I'm sure it's an optional feature, but, seriously, being social has to make everyone's MVP now.)

<comment><USER7> I absolutely agree. The two most important features to me would be the accurate and measurability of the inputs (heart rate, o2 saturation, etc) and the ability to get that data (API). I don't want my friends to know I just reached 120BPM in my exercise routine, but I may want to set up an app myself to do something based on my heart rate going to a certain level, or better yet, if my parents heart rate meets some threshold it shouldn't be at

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excellent presentation, but leaves me with two questions.

1\. Why the iPhone-only connector?

2\. My stepfather, back in ye olden days, tried to create a similar product (albeit, this was before ubiquitous mobile computing devices) and ran into all sorts of regulatory FDA issues because they classified it as a medical device, and required the construction of a hoop factory before you were allowed to even start jumping through them.

<comment><USER9> Re: #2, from <http://www.zensorium.com/tinke/specs.html>:

       WARNING

       Tinké is NOT a medical device. Tinké and its associated
       applications should not be used to diagnose, treat, or
       prevent any disease or medical condition. Always seek
       the advice of a qualified medical professional.

It seems like the same type of logic applied to over-the-counter drugs that call themselves supplements -- it's not a "drug" if the marketers don't make certain claims. In the case of Tinké, they are providing a means for collecting data and do not make any claims that the product will directly affect your health.

<comment><USER10> The FDA's definition of what is or is not a medical device has nothing at all to do with nutritional supplements; those are covered by entirely separate rules. In reality this product probably _is_ a Class 1 medical device, which is subject to only very light regulation. The FDA might decide to ignore it for a while until it becomes a larger issue. If you talk to actual FDA staffers they're trying to encourage innovation in this space by not being too heavy handed, while still protecting patients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why does this cost $80 more than other similar devices[1]? The website is doesn't show any useful added features other than iPhone support and all the screenshots are at an angle so it's difficult to see what the readout and graphs look like compared to the normal devices that are out there on the market. I guess having it automatically record each session is easier than having to manually open up a spreadsheet on your phone/PC and record the data, but that doesn't seem like $80 worth of features and some of the other higher end devices have various levels of history and exporting of data.

And the website causes my slick-marketing-plus-low-useful-information-implies- crappy-product sense to tingle due to the lack of upfront pricing, the avoidance of useful screenshots of the app, and phrases like "Zen index" and "social platform"

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/s/?keywords=pulse-oximeter>

</comment><comment><USER12> Proprietary ports suck. This could be the most awesome device in the world but being strictly limited to iOS devices means i will never buy one.

That and i hate having to plug things in to sync, wireless sync is the future imo. With BT4.0 there is no reason not to.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seriously the old iPhone connector?

<http://www.zensorium.com/assets/gallery/2/7.jpg>

This was a really bad business decision.

<comment><USER14> Something like this takes a long time to develop - you may find that development started well before Apple announced the new port style

<comment><USER8> Which is why it seems to make more sense to use a standard USB connector. (I forget the legalities of shipping things with an iPhone connector included, but I remember there being a hubbub about it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Beyond heart rate, I guess the bigger question is how valuable is all of this data for the average, relatively healthy, individual? There is probably some fluctuation in our daily heart rate and O2 sats, etc. that we are not even aware of, and are in all likelihood irrelevant, but this could potentially make one a little paranoid. I could see this as coming in handy in a healthcare setting, such as a nursing facility where patients are recovering while receiving physical therapy, and need to be more carefully monitored. But functionality is going to be more important in that setting than design is, and you're probably paying a bit of a premium here for design.

<comment><USER16> I pre-ordered one. Not impressed and agree with dr_7. Instead of a abstract health metrics, if you really have a health need - any standard personal electronics blood pressure monitor is much better choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If it weren't bound to iOS, I would have bought one on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not very thrilled: "Currently your data can only be viewed on your smartphone. Future capabilities for PC compatibility will be announced when available."

<comment><USER19> I don't like the closed sound of that. All those armbands - and to some degree my Withings weight makes it so hard to share and utilize my data in more interesting ways, especially for those of us who want to plot our data with d3.js.

I want to use this data to show to my _doctor_ , not myself. And free, exportable access to all my data would allow me to create a simple static webpage displaying all my biometrics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As others have mentioned, simple pulse oximeters are much cheaper ($20-50).

But pulse oximeters w/ connectivity are generally more expensive. The Nonin 9560 Onyx 2 is probably the best known (BT 2.0) - the best price I could find online for that was $340. The MedChoice MD300C318T (BT) I found online for €199 (~$267). These are the two models that are compatible w/ apps like SimpleEyes) Android app.

However, there is a cheaper alternative - the Contec CMS-50E (USB) and apparently a new CMS50EW that also has Bluetooth, can be bought for around $85. I haven't tried the wireless version, but the USB version works well, w/ good community support (reverse](http://ian.ahands.org/progs/pulseox/>reverse) engineered protocol) and can be run continuously.

For those interested in actually having/using this type of data, I'd really recommend this over the Tinke, since it doesn't give you access to your data at all (and of course, is limited to connecting to older iOS devices) and generally looks to be just gimmicky.

Lastly, I recommend taking a look at the Wikipedia article to learn more about pulse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry>pulse) oximetry. While Tinke is using it as some sort of overall health diagnosis, it's really most useful for diagnosis of things like sleep disorders (like OSA) or other types of hypoxia (or monitoring for that). I'm pretty doubtful about it's usefulness for monitoring overall health, although it's fun to play with (watch your SpO2 drop as you hold you're breath, wee!)

</comment><comment><USER21> Bluetooth would have been a much better solution.

<comment><USER22> Well, BTLE, ya.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> No, this is useless. A heart rate/blood oxygen level sensor should attach to your finger or wrist so you can keep it on while you're doing things. Most sensors do that, but this one doesn't, and the form factor means it can't. Making it plug into an iPhone docking port adds some novelty features, but they compromised core functionality to enable it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Really good website! Not sure it adds much value. Can someone ELI5 (explain like I am 5) why blood oxygen level is important?

<comment><USER25> I am not a doctor. The body is quite good at keeping high ox levels. If your ox level is too low cell damage can occur, organ damage, etc. If your ox level gets way to low your die.

Lower than normal ox levels can help diagnose that something is "wrong" with your body (or your environment) - lung damage, heart issues, etc. It can't tell you what is wrong, just something is up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This seems relatively easier to do with BTLE (aka "Bluetooth Smart") heart rate monitor and pluse oximeter. Former is for sale already, and I saw a bunch of the later at CES.

</comment><comment><USER26> Everybody has some valid feedback, but does anybody else read this as "Tinkle"? The 8 year old inside me is giggling.

</comment><comment><USER27> Will this device do any better than the apps that already measure these things using the camera on the iPhone?

<comment><USER28> The ones that use the iPhone's camera can get heart rate, but I have not seen one that can get blood oxygen level.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think blood oxygen level can be measured using the phone's camera. Also, I read an article lately regarding the low level of accuracy regarding heart rate measured using an iPhone camera. I'll try to find it and post it.

<comment><USER29> Depending on the spectrum of the phone camera's flash LED, you might be able to get away with just putting a diffraction grating in front of the camera. I recall, from reading a TI app note about pulse oximeters a while back, that these work by comparing the relative intensity of IR and a visible-red light transmitted through the finger (and that there was also some way to do it with reflected light). I wonder if there is a clever way to calibrate the grating without any extra hardware?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why do I need an 80$ device to check my heart rate? What ever happened to a watch and checking your pulse with a finger? Breath rate? A watch and monitor your breathing. Blood oxygen level? A $20 device on Amazon.com. This is overpriced and not that useful. Am I the only one that does not want to update my friends facebook feed with my personal health metrics?

</comment><comment><USER31> Besides being iOS specific, does this even support the lightning connector?

</comment><comment><USER32> No blood sugar readings :(</comment>