Ask HN: How would you monetize this info?  - <AUTHOR>

Short Version: I have access to long list of food product information from major manufacturers. This includes pictures, nutritional info and ingredients of food products and also common household items. I failed to monetize the info.
Long Version:
There is a company which collects manufacturers product information of grocery products. So they have images, nutritional info, ingredients of around 85,000 products of food and housing supplies from major manufacturers. There are other companies which collect similar info but I am just not aware of them yet. I approached the company and they agreed to provide me a daily xml feed of their product list for a set up fee and monthly charge.
With the data in hand, I started skimming major websites/businesses which used this information. 2 types of business models stood out the most. One was sites using the nutritional info and ingredients list to categorize products by healthy choices, forming a community which discussed healthy eatings and recipes. Second was by grocery chains such as safeway, hyvee, amazon [fresh or the new spinoff] etc. They used this information in their ecommerce application [though there is a stark difference in how some of them fundamentally operate. Such as peapod is a site where one can get groceries delivered but peapod doesnt own any stores and they work with local stores, where as FreshDirect is a webvan style grocery delivery done right]. Either way, all big grocery chains had online delivery section where one can browse products and promos, interact such as create shopping lists, place orders etc.
I am from midwest. Unlike most east/west coast states, midwest states are spread out. In some cases people usually travel to nearby towns to do their shopping, such as Homedepot, Walmart, Target, Bestbuy. There is also a healthy ecosystem of independent grocery distributors and stores which thrive. Distributor usually also has their own private label produts which are knock offs of the original with higher margins and stores are independently owned and are sucessfull in serving a decent size community. They usually have 10-30 employees with no IT department per se. Picture an IT guy who usually maintains the hardware and back end software stuff including updating retails. So his job is already full. And so no way they can set up an eCommerce site and maintain it.
My idea was to build a service surrounding B2B Ecommerce application aimed at independently owned [mom-and-pop] grocery stores. Of the 85,000 products info I have, my estimate is that I will match atleast 50% of their products and the remaining will be either manufacturers my source doesnt carry or private labels. I will set them up and maintain their site with actual product listings on their behalf with latest retails, just like their big chain counterparts and they pay me a modest monthly fee for the service. And as we know about more sources of info we will add more products. There are hundreds of grocery stores which fit this profile.
At this point I commited the cardinal sin of investing time and energy and money into worrying about the right framework for the job and programmer, instead of right sales person to work with. I wanted to have concrete answers on how we will build it so I started researching into open source frameworks which I could use and I picked a Java based web erp application which fit the requirements neatly. It let me set up web based ecommerce applications with full customization capabilities for each site all from a central backend. I then approached a freelancer, hired him to set up the company site, a demo site, work in the backend to start customizing the business logic etc. Once the work started and it seemed like it was dooable,I hopped on hoovers.com and researched all stores with revenue greater than million dollars which are independently owned and obtained a list of 100 stores in my state. I then approached a customer who seemed interested, but was extremely skeptical. Since I had no prior experience with any other customer and this is my first attempt at a startup, I offered to do this for free and if he likes the product he could pay. I was so desperate that I agreed to do this with out even signing a contract which he verbally agreed.
I then signed the contract with our source and we started working on importing the data into our system. Fast forward to today, the customer I talked to is not that interested anymore. He is concerned that we will not be putting his private label products online which are his major profit makers. But since I dont have access to that info nor do I know of anyone, I asked him if he could recommend me to someone who can obtain this data. That is where I am. He is putting me off saying that he is working with his distributor to obtain the info I need while we are working aimlessly. I have already shared my product list with him but he hasnt given me his. I have offered to help him extract the info if needed to analyze his data but he is just too uncomfortable sharing his list I guess. I read some where that beaware of your first customer and he is the direct incarnation of the worst first customer ever.
Finally, there is still a 1-1.5 months work left and I would need to another 3-4K of programming and server expenses to set at least one customer/store up and _hopefully_ be ramen profitable. I dont feel like approaching other potential customers since I dont know if I can get it done. I am completely broke because of unforseen expenses in Jan.  I currently am unemployed and have been for more than 6 months. Because of personal reasons I was stuck in the same small town with no real job openings. Friends and family support long dried up. Personal credit has always been bad. I dont want to go the route of shopwell.com or zeer.com where a community is built around product information because of uncertainity reasons. Ecommerce service seemed a viable business model but I would need a finished product before I can sell to customers.
I have no partners and bootstrapped my way so far. I have a reasonable friend who listened to my story and asked me to drop the project and accept loses. He offered me a place in TN and promised me that he will try his best to find me a decent job to get back on life. That would mean that I would have to leave everything I worked and invested and start afresh since I will be back in corporate job.
So,I am looking for answers on, - What would you have done to monetize such data? - How would you have done different if you were me? - What would you do if were me? [based on the info and financial situation I am in]
Thanks a lot for reading guys. <comment><USER2> Are there any conditions on how you can use the data? In other words, can you re-sell it?

I am aware of two companies in that space (selling nutritional data). Both are expensive, and one doesn't return emails. There are definitely companies willing to pay for that data.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like you have a really good friend in Tennessee. I think if you pursue this further, you can still do it in Tennessee. I think that your current "customer" isn't really interested, and that it will not be hard to part amicably, or you can just try and give him what you promised from TN if he gives you what you're waiting on. The ball is in his court.

It is unclear why you have such expenses needed (3-4K in programming and server costs) but I'm guessing you aren't the programmer? I think you need to be the programmer for a situation like this, so you should probably spend some time working on that.

I'd mothball the idea, get a job, get your financial life together, and work on it in your spare time.

I'd absolutely, positively, take a good 2-4 week break from thinking or working on this project, once you have a steady paycheck coming in. Veg out playing video games or whatever you like to do in your spare time. You gotta recharge.

After doing that, if you're still passionate about this idea, then great, go for it re-charged and with a better perspective and firmer footing (and do it in your spare time). But if not then no harm no foul.

Definitely you need to tell your supplier that the original idea has not worked out, comply with whatever agreement you made with them an stop getting the feed for now and tell them that you're hoping to retool and have a more viable business model down the line.

I could have missed something or misunderstood something so don't take offensive if any of this seems inappropriate. But you gave it a good shot and if it is going to succeed you need more distance and perspective, and you should not try and kill yourself to make it work. The market is talking to you, and you need security and space and time to be able to understand what it is saying. (And I don't know what it is saying- it mihght be saying this is a bad idea, or that you might need to make a specific tweak, I don't know.)

Edit: I realize I didn't answer the original question. How would I monetize the info? Try and find a way to use it to help people lose weight. That's what I'd do. In fact, now that I think about it, I'd love to have access to the data to do exactly that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

Thanks for the response. You echoed exactly what my friend suggested, that I take a break and get my financial situation together. I agree with you. I ignored my personal life a little too long. I will take some time and rethink.

Yes, I am not a programmer. The reason I need 3-4K is for programmer and server costs. The process is semi done right now. The code is written with some bugs. But needs some more work and hardware.

Regarding the xml feed, I signed a year contract and they charged my card, so thats a loss I have to bear. I can just ask them to stop the feed so that the files dont get clogged up on their server.

But thanks again for taking time to read through rather long post and your detailed reply. I really appreciate it.

<comment><USER4> It might seem like really common advice, but just so that I know SOMEbody said it...

Make sure that card isn't slated to auto-renew next year. If it is, cancel it.</comment></comment></comment>


ShowHN:Reddit-Style Comment Collapse for HN - <AUTHOR> Hi there,
Every time I read the comments here at HN, I always find myself wishing I could collapse the comments the way you can on Reddit, so I wrote a little script to add that functionality to the site.
Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gcomokcpehnfjcegfilpfenjnjfkefpc
Greasemonkey Script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105251
I'm working on making a native Firefox extension, but it's a little more complicated than I expected.
The source is available here: https://github.com/andrewheins/HN-Comment-Hider <comment><USER2> Clickable:

Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gcomokcpehnfjcegfi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gcomokcpehnfjcegfilpfenjnjfkefpc)

Greasemonkey: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105251>

Github: <https://github.com/andrewheins/HN-Comment-Hider>

</comment><comment><USER3> On a related note, I'd pay money for an extension that compresses any forum thread to reddit/HN style comments and scraps avatars and signatures.

<comment><USER4> [dead], but worth seeing:

        andrewheins 7 hours ago | link [dead]

        Hmm... Good idea. I might work on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks! Installed and rated. I've been wanting this for a while now.</comment>


Mods – genuinely curious why the Eliezer Yudkowsky on Trump post was killed - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154746398729228?pnref=story<p>I caught it when it was on the front page and I thought it was one of the most interesting things I'd read about politics recently. I came back to find the link to send to someone and it was dead/flagged. <comment><USER2> If it said [flagged] it was killed by users flagging it.

Mods don't see every post, so if you have questions like this it's probably better to email them. They've always been very helpful when I've emailed.

If I was guessing why people flagged it: It's politics. There's currently a flood of polictical stuff. Current US politics is incredibly polarised and polarising, and a lot of the HN threads about trump or clinton have really deeply unpleasant posts (from both sides).

I am interested in what people think about how the election result will affect them as employees or affect their businesses.

EDIT: Clicky link to the story: [https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154746398729228?p...](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154746398729228?pnref=story)

EDIT: If people think it belongs on HN they can click the [vouch] link. I guess that's available here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=cogware](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=cogware)

Or they could make a case for unkilling it by emailling the mods maybe?

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

        Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something
        (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to
        ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say
        something to us, please send it to email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is it really on Facebook and not anywhere else? That's a particularly unpleasant site.</comment>


Write yourself a Scheme in 48 hours (in Haskell) - <AUTHOR> http://jonathan.tang.name/files/scheme_in_48/tutorial/overview.html <comment><USER2> It seems that this is newer...

[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H...](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_Hours)

Also, there you can download PDF.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the Wikibook version is more actively maintained. I haven't really touched the original in about 3 years. I keep meaning to revisit it and include some of the stuff I've learned in the intervening time (LLVM codegen and JIT, for example), but I've got way too many other projects that are occupying my time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great! I love the idea of doing something both challenging and interesting in order to learn a language. I belong in that first group (know Scheme but know very little Haskell) so this is perfect for me :)

Is there a tutorial on testing in Haskell that you would recommend to go along with this?

<comment><USER5> Real World Haskell has a chapter about testing [http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/testing-and-quality- as...](http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/testing-and-quality- assurance.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dunno...

When I was in high school I wrote a subroutine threaded FORTH for OS-9 on the TRS-80 color computer; it was 2000 lines of assembly code and it (almost) worked right the first time.

<comment><USER7> I dunno...

When I was in junior high school I wrote a fully functioning perl on the TI-80 graphing calculator. It was about 200 lines of code, and it (almost) worked right the first time.</comment></comment>


Real-Time Gradient Domain Painting (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGjrsPzFc4

<comment><AUTHOR> Project home page: <http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/gradient-paint/>

Bear with the video, the examples get more impressive.</comment>


Indian Startups travails with Ruthless Indian payment gateway providers - <AUTHOR> http://nainomics.blogspot.com/2011/11/indian-ecommerce-startups-their.html

<comment><USER2> so there is a chance here to setup a business in being a "Payment Gateway Provider"

<comment><USER3> Yup.

The main problem is, you have to deal with senseless RBI rules, stupid (corrupt?) officials and a LOT of paper work.

If someone comes up with a "Stripe" like service in India, trust me, he's going to be a millionaire.

There's one startup that's working it zaakpay.com</comment></comment>


Peter Thiel submits bid for Gawker - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gawker-thiel/peter-thiel-submits-bid-for-gawker-faces-challenges-idUSKBN1F02V2 <comment><USER2> Something really scary that's silently happening is activists taking over well-known/"famous" publications and changing the narrative without changing the name:

      - WaPo was bought by Bezos
      - Local news stations (Tribune) bought by Sinclair
      - WSJ was bought by Murdoch
      - Newsweek bought by IAC
      - GigaOM was sold off and has new writers
      - Gawker now potentially being owned by a guy with a grudge

We trust many of these news organizations because they've been around for years or decades or even centuries. And many times, we don't realize that their priorities have silently shifted.

<comment><USER3> Let's be clear, here: WaPo is not in the same category as most of your other examples.

It just has a different owner, and the prior owner (the Graham family), while not as rich as Bezos, was still plenty rich. Don Graham famously tried to invest in Facebook as early as 2005: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/02/02/facebo...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/02/02/facebook- and-don-graham-have-been-very-good-to-each-other/#3a2e789328ba)

Bezos, while involved, has not changed the basic tenor of its journalism beyond maybe souping up some of its technology. Also, WaPo publishes pieces critical of Amazon and its subsidiaries all the time:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/12/07...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/12/07/amazon-wants-a-key-to-your-house-i-did-it-i-regretted- it/?utm_term=.da8c5883ff1d)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting- to...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-too- big/2017/07/28/ff38b9ca-722e-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.062539b02c1a)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whole- foods-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whole-foods-places- new-limits-on-suppliers-upsetting-some-small- vendors/2018/01/05/7f58b466-f0a1-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html?utm_term=.e99a4ce3315d)

(Also, but on a different note, GigaOM was sold off because it had previously shut down and laid off all its writers.)

<comment><USER2> I agree with you. They're all done for different reasons.

I'm 100% pro-Bezos buying WaPo, especially since it seems he hasn't touched the editorial side of things. BUT it has been used to discredit legitimate WaPo journalism by Trump ("Amazon's Washington Post" / "Bezos Washington Post" / etc)

I included GigaOM because it's probably closest to Gawker (relatively small blog, shut down due to external forces, and brought back with a new name).

I didn't mean to imply all of these were nefarious changes. Rather, they're examples of people hijacking well-trusted (or well-known) brand names, which in the world of blogs/twitter/rumors are hard to come by.

<comment><USER4> Remember that story with the company management stepping in because a feud between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann was starting to get into unsavory business of the networks' parent companies? The idea that Jeff Bezos could influence the Post's coverage isn't outlandish, even if Trump rather cynically invoked the concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Peter Thiel did to Gawker is despicable and will no doubt become a pattern for aggrieved billionaires.

<comment><USER6> What Bezos did to WaPo is despicable and became a pattern for aggrieved billionaires.

<comment><USER2> Serious question: how so? I was really worried when I heard he had bought WaPo, however it seems like he hasn't touched the editorial side at all. I haven't seen a change. However, the business and tech sides have improved, which is good news.

<comment><USER7> He has touched the editorial side. Bezos personally ordered the Washington Post to cover as many stories as possible on Trump and the Post dedicated 20 full time editors to him at his direction. I don't think Bezos has told reporters to change the words write, but he's definitely directed what reporters should write about.

By dedicating so many resources to Trump and the gossip surrounding him, it leaves less resources to cover other, actually important issues. It's made a huge change in the direction of the paper. There's much more about Trump now and less on other important topics. I'm surprised you didn't notice it.

<comment><USER8> > I'm surprised you didn't notice it.

Sorry, they were probably too busy reading about The Pentagon Papers, The Watergate Burglary, Iran/Contra, Monica Lewinsky, WMDs, etc. to notice that The Post had taken a new interest in reporting on The Whitehouse.

<comment><USER7> The change in coverage occurred before Trump was president, when he was still a candidate competing for the 2016 Republican nomination.

This wasn't just 'a new interest in reporting on The Whitehouse'.

<comment><USER4> I don't know that that makes the Post any different from other news sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That Gawker is dead should be celebrated.

To call what they did journalism is an insult to journalism.

</comment><comment><USER10> A perfectly orchestrated hostile take over.

</comment><comment><USER11> I suspect these comments will descend into a pit of chaos within a few minutes as everyone talks past each other... but the principle of this disturbs me. Basically, a billionaire secretly funded a lawsuit against a media organisation he doesn't like, and now that's it has been successful, he wants to scoop up the remains of it and (presumably!) delete it. The free speech implications of that are a little unnerving.

Now, I know the immediate retort to that is "Gawker was garbage", and indeed there's a fair case to made that Gawker wouldn't have been sued if they hadn't opened themselves up to it by doing publishing Hulk Hogan's sex tape. But it isn't just Gawker - Mother Jones was sued by a billionaire for reporting true fact, simply because he didn't like the reporting. He didn't even need to win, he just needed to bankrupt them through legal costs, and he nearly succeeded:

[http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones- vander...](http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot- melaleuca-lawsuit/)

(Thiel followed this same idea by narrowing the suit in such a way that Gawker's insurance would not be able to pay out)

Personally, I'm concerned that the individual factors of this case (i.e. Gawker being Gawker) will overshadow the principle at stake, which feels a lot more important than a gossip site.

<comment><USER12> A different way to look at it might be that in most cases, an illegal deed might be overlooked simply because someone didn't have the funds to see it through the court system. It's one thing if someone is funding endless lawsuits just to drive someone out of business, it's another for someone like Hogan to have a legitimate case, and for Thiel to fund his lawsuit. Thiel's funding of the case did not influence the judgement against Gawker, it simply allowed it to proceed further than if Hogan ran out of money.

I agree with what I think you're saying, that we should be careful about allowing someone to sue someone out of business simply out of spite; however, I think there's something to be said for someone with deeper pockets funding a legitimate suit. It might be comparable to things that the EFF funds, or that the ACLU takes on -- they have deeper pockets, and can take the financial hit that someone with a legitimate claim may not be able to take.

Imagine if Gawker published the same thing of some average middle-class person. They can't afford a high-priced lawyer, so likely Gawker gets away with something that, if it went to court, they would lose. In this case, the bully ran into someone who actually could fight back. As far as I know, Thiel didn't fund endless lawsuits just hoping to run them out of money. He funded a legitimate lawsuit that ended up with Gawker being found in the wrong for.

<comment><USER13> There's a systemic problem here, independent of the Thiel/Bollinger/Gawker case.

"Equality before the law" is supposed to be a fundamental value in America and most Western common-law countries. It's the underpinning behind much of our economic system, which is based on the idea that everybody's welfare is improved if people can independently make contracts with each other. If it turns out that peoples' welfare is _not_ improved, they can sue for damages, and the court system will right the externality.

This assumption does not hold when the vast majority of people harmed cannot afford to sue.

Your last paragraph is a good illustration of the problem, and I think that's the point the grandparent post was making. In this _case_ , it may've been a good thing for justice that Gawker pissed off the wrong billionaire. But it's a terrible _system_ where only the organizations that piss off billionaires get slapped, and the only way to achieve justice is to have a billionaire on your side.

Unfortunately I don't really know of a solution to this. We've already tried a bunch, with public defenders and Miranda rights and continent legal fees and class action lawsuits and pro bono work. But the cost of a court case keeps spiraling upwards, and it's soon reaching the level where only big corporations and wealthy individuals can afford them. And non-capitalist countries are even worse off: in many of them, you need a personal connection to a powerful person to get a fair judgment.

<comment><USER14> > Unfortunately I don't really know of a solution to this.

the solution is to take the economic incentives out of lawsuits (the legal industry is a pure economic cost, so an added perk is a more productive economy). some random ideas:

      * make public law schools free and disband the various bar associations (increase competition/lower barriers to entry)
      * make people file lawsuits within 3 months of injury (lower the statute of limitations)
      * limit the length of lawsuits to 3 months total (limits legal costs)
      * make judges prefer non-monetary compensation (like volunteer work).

<comment><USER15> > make people file lawsuits within 3 months of injury (lower the statute of > limitations)

My issue with this is, 3 months from actual harm, or realization of harm? There just seem to be a lot of cases where harm does not show themselves immediately, but may take a few years to appear.

<comment><USER14> yes, there's unlikely a perfect solution, especially not one that comes out of 5 minutes of musing on it.

injuries involving bodily harm (assault, murder, etc.) might require more time, and financial crimes might take years to uncover, as you point out. but the underlying idea would be to make people act on injury quickly so that justice is delivered while memories and evidence are fresh (lowering costs) and deterrence is more immmediate and visible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Don't forget this when you're contacted to work at a Thiel portfolio company. I always say "No" and provide an explanation for why I would never work at a company affiliated with him. Between Gawker and Palantir, he is disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER17> just because someone put in a bid, it doesn't mean that the owner of the assets have to sell to the highest bid. In this case, why does the owner have to sell to Thiel just because he has the highest bid?

<comment><USER18> gawker's remaining assets are being auctioned off by a bankruptcy administrator.

if you're selling your own property because you want to, you can set whatever terms you want, but when you go into bankruptcy because you can't pay your debts (the judgement against you, in this case), you're no longer in full control of what happens.

that said, it looks like the bankruptcy administrator is trying to block thiel's purchase, and maybe there's some grounds for that, unrelated to the interests of the previous owners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The ultimate fuck you, above all fuck yous.

I have zero sympathy for Gawker but I must admit this is troubling. Poetic, but troubling.

<comment><USER20> It's poetic if you think the language of hostile takeovers are poetry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> burning cash to destroy parts of the internet you don't like seems bad. what's next?

<comment><USER4> Isn't Peter Thiel in with the "neoreaction" guys who want to bring back feudalism, more or less?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bad ass Move. Thug life !

</comment><comment><USER23> Well, I was on his side until now.</comment>


IPad 2 Coming in 3 or 4 Weeks According to Kevin Rose - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/07/yet-another-kevin-rose-rumor-ipad-2-coming-in-3-4-weeks/

<comment><USER2> Linkbait.</comment>


Django Command Extensions - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions/current-command-extensions <comment><USER2> This is an indispensable tool for my Django development.

Highlights:

* shell_plus - will open a Python shell with your models from the project already imported.

* runserver_plus - [http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/wiki/RunS...](http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/wiki/RunServerPlus) is a great debugging tool. It will give you an Ajax Python shell where the error occurred.

* dumpscript - is the most pythonic way to make backups of your database. "Generates a Python script that will repopulate the database using objects"

If you are using Django, use this project.

</comment><comment><USER3> A screencast on the subject:

[http://ericholscher.com/blog/2008/sep/12/screencast- django-c...](http://ericholscher.com/blog/2008/sep/12/screencast-django- command-extensions/)

</comment><comment><USER4> You can add these kind of command extensions to your python projects by using <http://pythonpaste.org/>

Pylons, repoze.bfg etc already use paste for generating project templates, custom shell and runserver.

It is quite easy to add this to any python project.

<comment><USER4> An example: [http://www.themeswiki.org/Creating_template_for_Python_packa...](http://www.themeswiki.org/Creating_template_for_Python_package)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shell_plus is just what I was looking for. Shell driven coding really speeds up my development, and this helps a lot by relieving me of copying and pasting many imports every time I run a new shell.

</comment><comment><USER6> I discovered this via pinax and love it. It's trivial to setup for django users.</comment>


BetaFEC - <AUTHOR> https://beta.fec.gov/ <comment><USER2> Hello there! I'm the product manager on the 18F side of this project. Happy to answer any questions folks have about it.

<comment><USER3> Are you going to make this/all open source? The work you are doing is so cool,that it probably can be used in other countries like India (which is already signing up for FOSS ijne-governance in a big way)

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/18f?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=fec](https://github.com/18f?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=fec) :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're really excited to see that BetaFEC[0] is running on Wagtail[1], our open source Django CMS. Great job, 18F!

[0] [https://github.com/18F/fec-cms](https://github.com/18F/fec-cms)

[1] [https://github.com/torchbox/wagtail](https://github.com/torchbox/wagtail)

</comment><comment><USER6> Uhh... a new website, great. I know it takes the federal agencies a lot of time to do literally anything, so let's stop for a moment and bask in this site.

To more important matters: what about stopping the flow of corporate and foreign money into our elections? What about shutting down Super PACs or making their info transparent? What about enshrining publicly funded elections?

Given all those recent studies/reports that claim the USA is an oligarchy and average citizens have no real impact on the direction of policy, why should we care about a shiny new website? We vote, but the votes don't matter anyway.

<comment><USER7> Do not downvote the posts by cryoshon

cryoshon is addressing the elephant in the room. Anybody who downvotes his/her posts is unwilling to address the elephant in the room.

This is an important topic which warrants further discussion.

<comment><USER8> No, it's just whining that the FEC isn't doing what cryoshon wants. In reality the FEC can't do much because it's stuck in partisan deadlock and things like the Citizens Vs. United ruling allow them to do even less.

This website has nothing to do with the infighting between political parties, it's about giving citizens the actual data. Change will come not from the FEC magically agreeing on anything, but from people finding out where the money is going and voting for people who vow to change it. This is literally the best the FEC can do!

<comment><USER7> Agreed. However cryoshon's point is that just giving us all the data isn't going to change anything even if we have the information. i.e. our votes are irrelevant.

So even though we have a nice new site, it's a waste since the outcome is the same.

<comment><USER8> I completely disagree that it's a waste. The new site is great.

<comment><USER7> But the politics don't change as a result of it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SaaS Vanity Metrics - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/02/08/say-no-to-saas-vanity-metrics/

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, I see a lot of "negative" articles here. What you shouldn't be doing for metrics, how you suck because you don't collect metrics, etc. but I've seen very few great articles on constructive metrics and how best to collect them.

I'm sure this is something we all struggle with and, having done a couple startups, I feel like I have a pretty good idea what my investors and fellow stakeholders expect to see. Does anyone have any great articles bookmarked on what metrics SaaS startups should be collecting, formulas, etc.?

<comment><USER3> I consider David Skok's article on SaaS metrics[1] to be the best articulated and actionable source on this topic. It contains definitions of metrics, why they're important and even an Excel template that I've adapted to run my own SaaS business on. His article on the impact of churn on SaaS businesses[2] is also a must read even if you think you have a handle on it.

Another great source is Christoph Janz's blog, in particular his KPI dashboard for early-stage SaaS startups[3].

[1] [http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas- metrics-2/](http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/)

[2] [http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/why-churn-is-critical-in- saa...](http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/why-churn-is-critical-in-saas/)

[3] [http://christophjanz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-kpi- dashboard-...](http://christophjanz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-kpi-dashboard- for-early-stage-saas.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A question regarding the HEU and MAUs -- how do you know when to balance reducing churn of those MAUs (getting them to come back after 72 hours) and focusing on the HEU?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've found that people who come back after 3 days, are very likely to be there in 30 days, assuming the product solves their problem. In general, we treat them as steps in the funnel - complete signup to become MAU, come back in 3 days to be HEU. We look at where in the funnel we're currently failing and spend time on that piece.</comment></comment>


Ribbon BIN API – Find out how your customers are paying - <AUTHOR> http://bins.ribbon.co

<comment><USER2> Very cool! But unfortunately the reality is most startups never capture the first 6 numbers of credit cards if they are using a payment gateway (stripe, recurly, etc). Do you have ideas on how we can access the BIN without compromising security if we're using said services?

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm David, one of the engineers at Ribbon.

If you use any payment gateway, you need to send the full credit card number from the client so the gateway can return a token that identifies the card in their vault.

You can do the same and write some JS to get the first 6 numbers and send a GET request to our API without compromising security. The BIN (first 6 numbers of credit cards) is not considered the primary account number so it's safe to send (and even store).

<comment><USER4> Can I store a BIN and associate it to a customer without breaking PCI compliance?

<comment><USER5> You're allowed to store up to the first six and last four digits of a credit card number without encryption.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/pci_dss_v2.pd...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/pci_dss_v2.pdf), PCI DSS 3.3 would seem to be the most applicable section here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We built this internally for our needs, then decided to give it out to any service that needs similar functionality. The first six cards of any card tells us some interesting information on the identity of the card, such as type (debit/credit), brand (amex, visa), country (US, ES, GA), and issuer bank (chase, wells), etc.

This would be of good use if you want to do things like, block international cards, charge less for debit cards, or generate more analytics about how you get paid.

We're giving it away for free for most practical purposes, up to 1,000 requests a day. If you want more, just shoot us an email, firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER7> Where do you get the BIN data?

<comment><AUTHOR> A bunch of different sources, including some bank databases. We also have to update it regularly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is neat! How does the data differ from [http://www.binlist.net/](http://www.binlist.net/)? More current?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bigger database, more current, more updated, easier to deal with, among other things :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Way easier and more secure to simply use scripting to do this locally.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is very useful data if you are doing payment aggregation. Per association rules, you cannot discriminate against different card types.

<comment><AUTHOR> We charge less for debits vs credits, rather than giving a different fee for Visa vs MasterCard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> this is super sweet! will give this a shot in our app.</comment>


Getting Started with Rails - <AUTHOR> http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html <comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but better late than never. However, apparently most of the guides in RailsGuides emerged from "Guides Hackfest", they just made an attractive, organized, easy to use site to house them.

<comment><USER2> This has been some of the most readable, accessible online documentation I have seen for Rails since the site was launched (was it 6 months ago? I don't recall now). It's not an ideal reference, but I always refer new Rails users to this as a key resource.

I am still surprised by the apparent absence of definitive, useful online Rails documentation. (Especially when compared with Django's quality online docs.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems at first glance to be a really decent, beautiful (and up-to-date) tutorial for getting on Rails. A little sad it's taken this long for the basic beginner documentation to get caught up with the code, though.</comment>


App for homosexuals, called iHomo, launched in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsbytesapp.com/timeline/Science/4210/25209/app-for-homosexuals-called-ihomo-launched-in-china <comment><USER2> This sounds like a good idea to automate finding these sorts of arrangements, but a large part of me wonders how using this app will affect someone's sesame credit score.</comment>


Go Experience Report: Generics in Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@arschles/go-experience-report-generics-in-kubernetes-25da87430301 <comment><USER2> Not very accurate. Top post explains it well: [https://medium.com/@Merovius/aiui-runtime- object-7504a600dd0...](https://medium.com/@Merovius/aiui-runtime- object-7504a600dd09)

tl;dr: runtime.Object is a type used for serializing messages in RPC calls. Deserializing the type requires a type lookup through a registry. Generics would not solve this issue, so the OP's entire point really doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER3> > tl;dr: runtime.Object is a type used for serializing messages in RPC calls. > Deserializing the type requires a type lookup through a registry. Generics > would not solve this issue, so the OP's entire point really doesn't make > sense.

And generics would allow compile-time safe checks for serialization. Easy rebutal to merovius post. I don't see how more type safety is a bad thing.

<comment><USER2> It wouldn't though. If you've designed something like this before, you'd know a type assertion is required no matter what just because of how serialization works.

If you have some example code that can convince it would be useful though, I'll happily agree, but the only place I see where it can be useful (perhaps a callback?) can already be solved by "reflect".

So I don't see any benefit whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there other examples of this type registry solution outside Kubernetes?

I wonder how other Go projects are solving this situation and/or if it's too k8s-specific.

<comment><USER5> With either reflection or go:generate.

Just need to search for them on Github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So it's Russ Cox I believe who asked people to submit "experience reports" to understand the use case of generics, because apparently he doesn't.

The use case for generics is known already, there is more than 30 years of literature about the issue they solve. One can always tell developers :"well you don't need generics for that" and that would be true just like no problem cannot be solved without the use of functions. Yet functions are useful nobody can deny it. It's the same with generics they are useful when you need them.

So why ask people to submit "experience reports" when one can easily say "You don't need generics for that"? I doesn't sound that useful to ask people to waste their time writing "experience reports". Either a language designer understands the value of generics, or they don't.

I like the way ada deals with generics: they are just incomplete types one need to complete before use.

        with Ada.Containers.Vectors;

        procedure jdoodle is

           -- declare a typed package from a package with generic types
           package int_vectors is new Ada.Containers.Vectors
             (Index_Type   => Natural,
              Element_Type => Integer);
           package char_vectors is new Ada.Containers.Vectors
             (Index_Type   => Natural,
              Element_Type => Character);

           int_vector_1  : int_vectors.Vector;
           char_vector_1 : char_vectors.Vector;

        begin

           int_vector_1.Append (20);
           int_vector_1.Append (34);
           int_vector_1.Append (94);

           char_vector_1.Append ('a');
           char_vector_1.Append ('b');
           char_vector_1.Append ('c');

        end jdoodle;

[https://www.jdoodle.com/a/i6z](https://www.jdoodle.com/a/i6z)

No use of templates, no code generation with all its bureaucracy, no type erasure, it's completely type safe both at compile tima and runtime, no use of <<>> everywhere that hurts readability and it solves 99% of the use cases where generics would be a fit.

Now go might not be able to implement something like that while keeping backward compatibility , my point is, if the question is "how", then don't make people write experience reports when the use cases have been known for decades, the how exists in many languages that are neither C++ or Java.

In fact, a lot of issues with Go were solved decades ago in Ada, especially when it comes to concurrency. Ada had goroutines because goroutines were a thing including the "select" statement.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm told generics don't help anything and it's better to just write it all out...on paper first</comment>


Man Convicted of Hacking Despite Not Hacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/man-convicted-of-hacking-despite-no-hacking/?buffer_share=7c9de&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_campaign=Buffer%253A%252BYaniv%2520Capeluto%2520%2528Kapluto%2529%252Bon%252Blinkedin <comment><USER2> The problem is that "hacking" is crime with disproportionate penalties. The consequence is that prosecutors would rather charge and convict someone (who didn't touch a computer) for hacking than for fraud.

</comment><comment><USER3> This sort of Brings back to light Aaron. Can someone please update me on what if any progress has been made to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Has his cause and actions just sort of belly flopped and gone no where or have we seen something meaningful come from the tragic loss?

</comment><comment><USER4> Like the old saying goes, Don't do the crime if you can't do the time....

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't see what the big deal is. If you pay somebody to commit a crime (e.g., murder), you may be prosecuted for the crime itself.

<comment><USER6> Four of the six charges were related to accessing a computer. In this case, that amounted to logging in and downloading files.

<comment><USER7> And yet the trade secret charge had the harshest penalty, and the conspiracy charge was tied for second-harshest. Maybe the Federal Sentencing Guidelines count the number of charges convicted on but it's hard to claim that the CFAA is the only or predominant reason Nosal will be facing jail time in this particular case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ok, exactly what did he do that is illegal: He paid another company's employees to get information from said company's database, and that these employees accessed the data by using some other employee's login credentials without permission?

<comment><USER7> Well, "industrial espionage" actually _is_ a crime since 1996, no matter what tools you use to do it (and notably, has the harshest sentence of the 3 major types of crimes Nosal was charged with).

Unauthorized access to a computer network was made to help complete the crime, which is itself criminal, just like there is a charge "mail fraud" that makes use of the postal system to further _any_ criminal act illegal.

Conspiracy is always illegal itself as well.

<comment><USER8> thank you. i couldn't recall the exact words, but yeah this is classic industrial espionage

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A more fact-based article: [http://7thspace.com/headlines/436581/executive_recruiter_dav...](http://7thspace.com/headlines/436581/executive_recruiter_david_nosal_convicted_of_computer_intrusion_and_trade_secret_charges.html).

<comment><USER6> What's your point? Had he walked away with a paper copy of the data in question, more than half those charges would not exist. The issue here is that "involving a computer" has become an excuse for harsher sentencing and greater power for police and prosecutors. Driving that is a law that is so broad that nearly anyone with computer access could be accused of violating it (in other words, the majority of Americans).

<comment><USER9> The point is that Wired's egregiously shitty journalism isn't doing anybody any favors when it comes to mustering up legitimate opposition to the CFAA. If I opposed the CFAA in its present incarnation (which I do), I'd be embarassed to be associated with Wired's coverage. If I were a friend of Aaron Swartz, I'd be offended at Wired's repeated attempts to compare guys with malicious intent like this guy and the Watts guy in an article earlier this week to Aaron.

<comment><USER6> First of all, Watt did not have any malicious intent -- he wrote a packet sniffing program and gave it to a friend, and did not participate in nor benefit from his friend's crime.

Really, I am not seeing what your issue is with the comparison between the three cases. In all three cases, men faced charges of CFAA violations that were completely inappropriate. In all three cases, the CFAA charges were used for no reason other than to pressure the defendant.

You are doing a disservice to those who are trying to fix the problems with the CFAA by suggesting that there is any legitimacy to the application of that law in this case.

<comment><USER9> > First of all, Watt did not have any malicious intent -- he wrote a packet > sniffing program and gave it to a friend, and did not participate in nor > benefit from his friend's crime.

The jury concluded based on the evidence that he knew that his friend intended to use it to commit a crime. Knowledge and concious disregard for the fact that your work is being used to commit a crime is indeed malicious intent.

> Really, I am not seeing what your issue is with the comparison between the > three cases. In all three cases, men faced charges of CFAA violations that > were completely inappropriate.

In two of the cases, the men were directly involved in the commission of a computer-related crime and acted maliciously. If you're trying to show the injustices of a law, it's generally a good idea to find sympathetic defendants rather than criminals or their accomplices.

<comment><USER6> "Knowledge and concious disregard for the fact that your work is being used to commit a crime is indeed malicious intent."

Cryptographers beware...

"computer-related crime"

Except that "computer-related crime" has come to mean "any crime in which a computer is used." As more and more things become computerized, more and more crimes will be "computer-related." Eventually everyone who is accused of a crime will also be accused of a CFAA violation, which will weaken everyone's defense.

"If you're trying to show the injustices of a law, it's generally a good idea to find sympathetic defendants rather than criminals or their accomplices"

Henry Louis Mencken addressed this more eloquently than I can:

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

<comment><USER7> Just as there is a difference between making guns in general, and making a specific gun for a friend who has indicated that he will use it for a specific crime, there is a difference between making programs which can be used in crimes in general and making specific programs to aid and abet specific future crimes.

Your point about computer crimes becoming more prevalent is certainly justification to alter legislation dealing with computer crimes so that minor infractions have minor penalties, but I never saw rayiner arguing to the contrary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He wasn't convicted of "hacking". He was convicted of fraud, under a law that makes it easier to prosecute fraud when it involves a computer. I haven't read any of the case filings, but Wired's own attempt at a charitable description of the events sure sounds like fraud to me.

From the source 'rayiner provided:

        Evidence at trial showed that Nosal, 55, of Danville, entered into an
        agreement with other Korn/Ferry employees in 2004 to take confidential
        and proprietary materials from Korn/Ferry's computer system to be used
        in a new business that Nosal intended to establish with those
        individuals after he left Korn/Ferry's employment in late 2004. The
        evidence showed that two of those employees downloaded large numbers
        of "source lists" (essentially, targeted lists of candidates developed
        by Korn/Ferry for the purpose of filling particular positions at
        particular client-companies) prior to their own departures from
        Korn/Ferry. Thereafter, those two employees used the Korn/Ferry login
        credentials of another conspirator who was still employed at
        Korn/Ferry to download additional source lists and other information
        from Korn/Ferry's computer system in April and July 2005 for use in
        Nosal's new business. The trial in this case occurred after remand
        from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had affirmed
        then-District Court Judge Marilyn H Patel's pre-trial dismissal of
        several computer intrusion counts.

The CFAA is a hugely problematic law. But I'm not a fan of manipulative news stories either.

<comment><USER11> There have been rules and lawsuits around former employees stealing their employer's list of clients for ages.

The fact that said lists are now stored in a computer rather than in a rolodex or filing system should not suddenly increase the potential penalties manyfold.

I also don't see why the federal government is prosecuting what I see as a civil dispute between two private parties.

<comment><USER12> If I fire someone, and they come back into the office afterwards at night to do whatever, is that still "a civil dispute between two private parties"?

<comment><USER11> You make a good point. There is clearly theft of proprietary information. (Though the guy who got convicted didn't do the stealing.)

But I reiterate. The fact that the information was stored on a computer shouldn't trigger massively bigger penalties. Everything is stored on computers these days!

<comment><USER13> OK, so would you be OK with it if unauthorized access to a computer system (eg an ex-employers or some other case where _the lack of authorization is clear and criminal intent is present_ ) resulted in a charge of burglary?

<comment><USER14> The problem is that there is already a well developed set of laws to govern human interactions with each other and with the environment. This is like the broken patent system: it's something that has been done for 40 years, except on a computer! We do not need a patent for that, and we do not need a new law for stealing information on a computer. We already have laws for theft.

<comment><USER10> The problem the authors of CFAA faced when the law was written is that this is actually not the case. Existing laws regarding e.g. burglary did not cleanly apply to computer crimes.

I think there are probably cases that do a better job showcasing the need for computer-specific crime laws, and crimes that do a worse job at that. Basic wire fraud cases don't really need CFAA from what I can tell, and CFAA serves primarily as a sentence accelerant in them. But in other cases, particularly where people cause damage but don't reap profits, the need for specific laws is clearer.

<comment><USER14> Was it really the case that someone could steal information from a computer and not be charged with a crime, or indicted by a grand jury and then successfully prosecuted under existing law, and that until recently, when information was stolen from a computer, that was not a crime?

<comment><USER13> It would be an awful lot easier to argue that. I'd need to go back and look up a bunch of cases which I don't feel like doing at present because it would be a large research project, but absent any specific computer-crime laws I'd argue that because a computer is a digital system and a digital system is just a complex agglomeration of switches, there's no qualitative difference between accessing a computer system and turning a light switch on and off. You'd never convict someone of a crime for turning a light switch on and off; if they entered your office at night to do so that would just be trespass rather than burglary. So how is operating a computer all that different? You're just opening and closing a few million different circuits. Sure, you could _say_ my client illegally obtained information by doing so, but where is this information? Can you produce it in evidence? If you can't do so without printing it out, and you can't show that my client printed it out, where is the crime? Etc. etc. Likewise I could argue that no fraud has taken place because fraud involves a deception, a deception involves a deceiver and a deceived, and computers are not sapient, therefore they're not capable of being deceived. Defeating a login system isn't a case of deception because administrator of said system was not consulted for permission; arguably he automated away his duty of granting or withholding access and the defendant should not be blamed for the inadequacy of that automated process.

Sure, these are bullshit arguments, but the point is that our legal system works on a rough mix of common sense and code. If I can find an exploitable ambiguity in statute or precedent and apply it to a defendant's case, then it's like an exploit in which throwing an exception is equivalent to a trial resulting in an acquittal. we have laws defining what a computer system is and what constitutes access to one etc. precisely because the virtualized nature of digital information makes it tricky to apply laws that were drafted to deal with theft of physical property.

<comment><USER14> Is the intent of existing law considered as part of the concept of common law? Would the average member of the jury really not understand this? Why couldn't a prosecutor receive an indictment and then argue this before a court and jury and thereby develop the methodology to approach this problem. This process may require several cases but wouldn't that be preferable to have jurists extend common law rather than have legislators parachute in new laws that obviously have problems?

<comment><USER13> Those are _very_ good questions: the fact is that there is a huge amount of tension between the judicial and legislative branches, and within the judicial branch itself, about there the boundary between jduges' interpretation and reaasonable interpolation of teh law, and the text of statute as written. Conservative jurists like Justice Antonin Scalia think you should always go by the text of the law, and that it's dead wrong to consider legislative intent, no matter how obvious or well-documented it is/was; this approach (known as textualism) holds that if a law is no good, the correct remedy is for Congress to rewrite it. Judges should only dismiss a law as unconstitutional or go around it in cases where there is a clear and unambigious conflict between the Constitution and the statute. Other jurists, such as Justice Stephen Breyer, look at the Constitution as more of a framework document and think that you absolutely need to examine laws within the context in which they were passed and in the light of which problem they're intended to solve.

This is a very gnarly question, with good arguments on both sides - but in addition, there's a lot of unstated political baggage tied to both sides of the argument, so that what is on the surface a question of legal philosophy is on closer examination rooted in quite different philosophies of governance.

Now myself, I like the common-law approach and I would prefer a general class of crimes and that the details of individual cases be taken up by wise jurists. On the other hand, it's not a foregone conclusion that all judges are wise or selfless, and of course there might be judges who are both but who would come to quite different conclusions from me because they operate on a different moral calculus. So for the sake of consistency and predictability, there's a strong argument to have laws debated and promulgated by legislators rather than judges, so that anyone can do and look them up for guidance about what is and is not legal. Of course that involves some idealistic assumptions about legislators...

If you like high-density reading material, I strongly recommend _How Judges Think_ by Judge Richard Posner.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Need any Graphic work done? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a part-time freelancer, looking for some small work, I'm trying to extend my knowledge in design and illustrator.
If you're looking for small design work (logo, site graphics, banners, ads, etc) please feel free to reach me.
I charge a small hourly rate, smaller than most freelancers, I provide top-quality designs, and mockups. I also accept PayPal as a payment.
I am not looking for a position in a company, just a small job that I can help pay my bills, etc.
Please feel free to contact me at: shahedkhan30 [at] gmail.com <comment><USER2> Portfolio or examples of work anywhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not have the time to manage and create a personal portfolio, but here are some of my work I gathered together:

[http://imgur.com/a2Bafl&C59SI&fnv4s&Ktj8w&Jg...](http://imgur.com/a2Bafl&C59SI&fnv4s&Ktj8w&Jg9Gm&yBGUd&TwKnZ&qC15L)

Click next to see my other examples.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Finished a project, looking for more, feel free to email me or drop a message below.</comment>


Ask HN: How to link QR on the backend? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN,
I'm working on a concept related to QR scanning apps like ShopSavvy.  I'm completely lost on being able to integrate this technology into the mobile app. Does anyone have suggestions on where to look? I googled a bit but couldn't come up with anything.
Thanks in advance! <comment><AUTHOR> actually, i just came across this article. so i'm all set, but for anyone else who is interested in creating a QR scanning function into their app should check this out: <http://www.biggu.com/developers/></comment>


Show HN: Object-visualizer – Chrome-console-like JSON object visualizer in DOM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iendeavor/object-visualizer <comment><USER2> This is a great use-case for a vanilla web component, which would work in any framework, rather than needing react-inspector, svelte-inspect, object- visualizer (Vue), etc.

There's a 0 dependency web component implementation of this here: [https://github.com/vanillawc/wc-json](https://github.com/vanillawc/wc-json) Could probably use a bit of polish and some screenshots to show it off. though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! I made something very much like this last year using Svelte[1], which was a nice choice because of the automatic reactivity it provides.

1: [https://github.com/trbrc/svelte-inspect](https://github.com/trbrc/svelte- inspect)

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact: The Chromium dev tools are "just another web app": [https://github.com/ChromeDevTools/devtools- frontend](https://github.com/ChromeDevTools/devtools-frontend)

<comment><USER5> Does it completely open source? Can we use it as a platform? a solution that uses its backend and frontend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks a lot like Chrome's console viewer for json (and all other javascript objects).

Is the enhancement just making it easier to cut paste a json than having to craft a page and dump to console?

</comment><comment><USER7> "Meta + Click to Expand Recursively" \-- what is Meta?

<comment><USER8> It's a key on your keyboard. The Modifier + Click combo action to recursive expand is a feature from Mac OS that they've replicated here. Though I think Mac OS uses Option + Click not Meta.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEve...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEvent/metaKey)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=meta+key](https://www.google.com/search?q=meta+key)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great, I've wrapped react-inspector in the past into a webcomponent for this, but shipping React and ReactDOM just for this functionality always felt a bit wrong, although from what I understand this requires Vue instead?

I am still hoping for someone to wrap the chromium dev tools in an easy to use webcomponent

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks great. Something I can't tell from the demo: does it replicate Chrome devtools' solution for avoiding performance issues when rendering huge collections? Chrome divides very long objects/arrays into subgroups of 100(?) items that you can expand individually.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is nice! I was looking for something like this for a custom debug panel a few months ago, but the only one I found was a bit dated and had a jquery dependency.

I'll have to give this a look.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is also react-inspector npm package.</comment>


Show HN: Forms – Easy custom database applications - <AUTHOR> https://www.sonadier.com <comment><USER2> It looks nice at first glance. Eventually someone, somewhere, is going to get this right and it will be _extremely_ popular. Maybe it's you, who knows.

I bet there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on full on huge projects that are essentially a simple CRUD application.

Do you support writing event based code in some way?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're working on integration with Zapier at the moment, it should be ready for the next major release. Do you have any suggestions for other event-based systems? Zapier is the only one I'm familiar with.

<comment><USER2> I was just thinking of the ability to have javascript responding to and interacting with the form. Calling out to external services as well would be huge as well. But if you can do the first, basically a _properly functioning_ "MS Access for the web", you would make an absolute killing.

I think current developers (and managers) either are too young to know of Access/Delphi/PowerBuilder and how easy it was to build extremely useful applications in them, or perhaps more likely their livelihood depends on them not remembering it. Sure there are shortcomings, but for most in-house apps built today, nothing that would be a show stopper. If you could bring that rapid development to web apps....wow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We just finished releasing a new version, basically it's a frontend for creating relational database applications. If anyone's familiar with Microsoft Access, it's a lot like that, except it's web-based and comes with a user/permissions management system. I'm looking for feedback, and can answer any questions!

<comment><USER3> please consider open sourcing it in the future when the time is right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely! I definitely want to give back when it's a bit more complete, considering all of the open source libraries we took advantage of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do not intend to be negative but you could use your app to make a better contact page rather than opening email client. This could be a good example on how you can use your app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not negative at all! That's a good idea, I'll put that together. Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> FYI, the privacy link ([https://www.sonadier.com/privacy](https://www.sonadier.com/privacy)) is a 404.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know, I'll get that up asap!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a tech side this is great, but your pricing model is all screwed up. "Unlimited forms and fields" at the free tier? You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs. Limit by users but also the number of rows in the DB.

MailChimp is a good example of aligning pricing with costs

<comment><USER7> _" You need to align your pricing to scale with your costs"_

I strongly disagree with that. You should align your pricing with the value the user receives. To do this optimally, you need to have a good grasp of who your user is, how much value he receives from the software and how the typical purchasing process looks like. For an early stage company, all these questions may not be answered yet, so it is best to wait and learn what the users do with the product before prematurely optimizing pricing at an early stage.

<comment><USER6> You are correct and I posted that prematurely. Your pricing should always reflect the value you provide your customer. Helping a small company save 3% is worth less than helping Walmart save 3% and your company should price accordingly.

That said, if you have correctly priced your product, than the pricing should also align and scale with your costs, so you can use that as a quick short cut to evaluate a pricing model. When pricing doesn't scale with costs, it usually means your having properly valued your product.

I would argue that seems to be the case with the pricing for this Show HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like your access control is table level. Have you considered what it will take to provide row/column level controls?

Also, the report builder looks like it doesn't allow you to set up complex reports (range queries). Can you add an abstract WHERE clause constructor? That would let you do things like collect all orders in the last week that were over 20 dollars, late on their delivery, or fulfilled by the new guy. You might want to look at BI tools like Pentaho or Microstrategy to see if you can build something similar on the analysis end.

Finally, do you offer change tracking and backups? No one wants to lose a LOB database because someone ragequit.

<comment><USER9> > _Have you considered what it will take to provide row /column level > controls?_

FWIW I did this for a client application and it wasn't real fun. Took a few tries to come up with something that was reasonable at column-level resolution.

Figure you need at least read and write permissions, you need to have table- level granularity, you want to have column-level granularity, you want to make it easy to manage groups of permissions (roles), but you also want it to be easy to create users with exceptions to those roles. For example, how would you create permissions for a group that gives you access to all of a table except a specific column?

You need, basically, ACLs, and afaik there isn't a standard recommendation for that yet (that I could find).

I settled on a roles table and a permissions table, with descriptors with wildcards for different operations (like, "read-client-address", "write- client-notes", "∗-client-∗"), and allow/disallow/inherit options. For instance, a "demo" account has "disallow ∗, allow read-client-∗, disallow read-client-name", etc. On login the permissions are loaded for the user signing in and then each DB operation checks to see if the operation is allowed() in a function that resolves wildcards and priority and does a few other tricky things.

There are probably better ways to do it, but anyway, the moral is that there should be a good reason for needing more granularity in permissions before someone decides to implement it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like this!

I was playing around and noticed "Number" field will return an "Internal Error" upon saving if numbers are out of _undefined_ range.

(e.g. "0-99999999") and does not care whether the range is valid or not.

\- It is unclear what the meaning for "Regex" under 'Advanced' Number Form: Is this _just_ a label, or does it provide functionality of some kind?

\- Seems like "Save" in the upper right corner should assume "Done" is True in the lower left corner.

My questions are purely rhetorical btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ech, I will hotfix that number issue right now. Thank you!

The regex is probably more useful for the text fields, but it's a validation regex for the content of the field. We check it both client and server side, to make sure the user-entered content fits it.

The "Done" in the lower left is actually purely design at the moment, all it does is take you back to the add fields menu. Someone suggested that we add it in case users are confused about exiting the panel for an individual field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thank you for your brave quest against the stupid CRUD apps that exist everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is impressive and a good implementation. Having dealt with large databases for a while I'm curious about your technology stack and how have you built the database to handle the variety of applications?

</comment><comment><USER13> How does it work? Does it output your forms as SQL that can be run against say PostgreSQL? Does it generate an HTML web form that you can save offline that connects to a database?

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of what we're trying to do is abstract some of the backend systems to allow for quick building. When you make a form, we host it on our servers, provide an accounts system for inviting team members and a permissions system for controlling access. Right now we're working on securely implementing both custom SQL queries and javascript-based scripting for backend validation and frontend customization.

<comment><USER13> Ok, so for arguments sake it's a persistent form builder rather than anything really to do with building things for databases?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're still working on exposing lower-level operations to advanced users. I'd still say we're a database builder, since we provide a system for making relational connections, and allow all CRUD operations on records. A form builder would probably only provide Create.

The accepted keywords for this kind CRUD-application builder are pretty generic, to be honest. The biggest one that I see used is "Online Database", which is so broad it's nearly meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The thing that always stops me from making something similar to this (other than willpower and interest) is: how do you enforce constraints on the data? How do you keep it from accumulating junk data if you're cutting out the role of an application validating it?

It could be that this is really only for directly-mapped CRUD data, but I haven't seen a lot of applications out there that don't require at least a little bit of integrity checking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which kind of junk data do you mean? We have quite a few constraints based on fields, so a number field will only accept integers/decimals and it's validated backend. We also have a regex system that is validated backend, so you can force user input for a particular field to conform to it.

We're working on adding custom Javascript scripting partially for this purpose. The idea is to set scripts that will run at different parts of the submission process. For example, one script runs for the submission page and you can control the frontend. Another would run backend in sandboxed NodeJS with custom validation rules on each new submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The forms part is a great start. There's a pretty ripe market to grab current customers of Intuit's Quickbase product if you add the other online/rad database app features. Quickbase's pricing model is terrible.

DabbleDB, before they were bought out and shut down, was on their way to doing just that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've also got a demo of the form creator up at [https://forms.sonadier.com/forms/demo](https://forms.sonadier.com/forms/demo)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is great. I've been trying to create something similar with everything stored key-val in postgres and a metadata table for relationships etc. It gets out of hand quickly.

</comment><comment><USER17> Submitted, updated etc would probably benefit from time as well as date.

API endpoints for custom clients would be nice

</comment><comment><USER18> Great idea. Do you support custom styling?

</comment><comment><USER19> could you please initialise the date field with current date (at least when the field is mandatory) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been considering adding a "Now" link/icon above the field, which sets it to the current datetime when clicked. What do you think?

<comment><USER19> Perfect for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> what is your tech stack like?

<comment><USER21> Any kind of API / easy programattic access the results?

Ideal Scenario:

Can iFrame the form on own webapp (pass an ID iFrame in url), use it to collect data through custom form. Then can access result of this data via an API.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do have embedding support at the moment, still working on programmatic access. It should be available soon, via a REST API.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask Anyvite: Did you rename your site to get more press? - <AUTHOR>

TechCrunch's supposed policy of not covering a site unless they cover the launch comes to mind. I'm not saying I disapprove, I'm just wondering. <comment><USER2> They didn't just rename it. They changed a lot.

It's not true in any case that TC will only cover a site if they cover the launch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still, you can change a site a lot without renaming it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Who cares, anyvite rocks. I've been a hardcore evite user for a long time, organizing 100+ people events with it.

Not anymore!

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what their site used to be, but Anyvite is a pretty cool name. It's descriptive, short, and easy to spell.

</comment><comment><USER5> fubar did exactly this to great effect. [http://www.webguild.org/2008/03/social-networking-report- hij...](http://www.webguild.org/2008/03/social-networking-report-hijacked- by.php)</comment>


Jellyfish Are the Dark Energy of the Oceans - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/jellyfish/

<comment><USER2> It'd sure be weird if it turned out overfishing was a significant contribution to El Nino-ish weather disruptions.

</comment><comment><USER3> This might explain why some of the climate models have been so off. Since climate is generally accepted to be somewhat chaotic (sensitive to initial conditions, at least for a while), an unheard of source of energy might be enough to change things around.

</comment><comment><USER4> Someone write a science fiction story and explain dark energy as mixing caused by living ramscoops.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you start development of your latest great idea? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in hearing about how you aproach the initial development efforts.
Choosing technology. Do you go with what you know, or sometimes see it as an opportunity to try something new?
Getting started on a prototype. Do you start on paper, i.e. some sort of design, or do you jump heads first into coding?
If it's a something with a front end, do you start with that, or do you prefer to start with the back end?
Any other insights, on how you attack your new ideas, are greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Usually I'm building something to scratch my own itch, so I typically jump right into coding. In fact, I usually don't start by thinking, "I should do this as a project." I start just by doing it to solve my own problem, then realize it's pretty cool and I should expand/release it.

That being said, I usually start building out the front-end first. Understanding actual user interaction and use cases is pre-requisite for designing appropriate data models and storage solutions. I basically try to get something up and running as fast as possible, while minimizing the cost to change directions.

</comment><comment><USER3> For a simpler project, I usually start by building a basic library of classes/functions I know I'll need (for example, a database factory class and MySQL or PostgreSQL interface, helper functions for cleaning querystrings and form fields, etc.). Then I'll do a basic mockup of the front page and at least one or two internal pages (if they differ from the default page).

Finally I start building code out, starting with a very basic theme for the front end and concentrating on any security that needs to be in place.

Yes, I generally start from a blank slate each time, just using pieces of code I already have. I don't use frameworks or CSS grids.

</comment><comment><USER4> I start with brain storming how it will be used. What are the use cases? This is easy if you are scratching your own itch. More difficult if you not.

Then pair down the ideas/use cases/requirments to what you need for an MVP.

Then I like to work on the data models and back end. But that is where my strengths are. If it is a complex problem, I like doing some design work to make sure a) its doable b) that I don't code myself into a corner.

That said, I'd like to all the above very quickly and get to the coding. I have found at times that I get stuck spinning my wheels. It helps to get input on any of the above from another person.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love writing snippets of code. Usually they form the basis of a much larger, well architected idea.

But at the beginning everything starts out with just one or two files. Figure out what you want to get done and just do it. Don't worry about if it is ugly or not. You are just proving an idea.

If you are attacking a much larger concept you still want to start small. If it is a web application make sure you use a framework.

Once you know you can do it then you start architecting. Make a list of tech choices you know or want to learn and might be a good fit.

</comment><comment><USER6> Brainstorm with a group of people I respect. Put the idea to the test to foresee inconvenients and opportunities I may not have considered after a long time thinking about it myself.

Then I just go and code the core of it ugly and fast into simple tests to make sure it'll fly.

Then I go out and start building a first release with minimum functionality, release it to a closed alpha test group, iterate, iterate, iterate, go beta and cross my fingers.</comment>


Love Bug worm's creator tracked down to repair shop in Manila - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52458765 <comment><USER2> I would like to say thank you to him, since it opened a huge budget and mandate for my security team at the time.

No more draining discussion if AV needed to be installed on particular systems, the right to wipe any employees desk or laptop in case of "issues", create outbound firewall rules (yes those where new, and yes it saved a lot of damage 3 years later when Slammer hit, but that's another story) and budget to install "monitoring services" on whatever we'd like.

The total data loss was limited, the costs of employees not being able to work was a lot worst.

<comment><USER3> I guess that at the height of Windows market saturation.

I thought it was rude to pay for an OS and then have to pay separately for software to protect that OS. It seemed off to me that the guy who wrote Melissa got jail time, but nothing happened to those who sold the software needed to run viruses.

I stopped having Windows installed after Slammer hit. After almost two decades away, I got a job at a big American company that issues Windows laptops and lo-and-behold there's some seperately purchsed AV software installed.

It makes the laptop a space heater. If I don't explicitly shut it down, the AV software never drops below 30% CPU and the thing's fans never stop running. They accidentally dropped AV for a couple weeks when they upgraded my machine from Windows 7 to 10 and it shaved five minutes off a ~17 minute Maven build. I'm one employ of tens or hundreds of thousands producing all this extraneous waste heat.

My friends needle me about BitCoin's environmental impact. I ask them what the overhead of AV has been.

<comment><USER4> The comparison of bitcoin Vs AV energy usage is a bit ridiculous. No one of buying hundreds of GPUs to mine AV.

That said, both are wasteful and ultimately neither should exist.

<comment><USER5> >No one of buying hundreds of GPUs to mine AV

No, rather companies are buying _thousands_ of computers to install AV on.

Bitcoin miners are a actually a very small minority of computer users, whereas AV results in an extra 10-30% power overhead (possibly more, if we factor in that modern cpus throttle way down if not under load) for the majority of all the corporate PCs in operation, to say nothing of home users.

Back of the napkin math suggests that the comparison is indeed ridiculous, but only because AV usage absolutely _dwarfs_ bitcoin usage.

<comment><USER6> My pet peeve is VP9 on YouTube vs Chrome on MacOS. My original estimate lack of codec on MacOS / YouTube's choice to drop x264 for high resolution videos waste as much power as entire country Puerto Rico.

It's even impossible to play 8K YouTube videos on highest end MacBook and Chrome. It's ironic that MKBHD uploading them without being able to play them himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cyberpunk, being broke and writing a virus to steal access passwords -- and then he ends up running a phone repair stall, even more cyberpunk.

Reminds me of rtm's chapter in the book CYBERPUNK by Katie Hafner, pg's in there too. Except neither of them are now broke and running a phone stall in Manila.

<comment><USER8> How the heck can someone talented enough to write a virus end up in a phone repair shop?

<comment><USER6> Phone repair shop in Manilla is gonna be very different from repair shop in western mall. In manilla they gonna resolder any component from a salvaged phone, where in west you gonna buy a new case for it (probably exaggeration from both ends).

My point is - it was quite exciting and interesting job for early 2000s, probably paid ok too. There was some software to crack and occasionally write something. Nowadays the hardware is much cheaper when adjusted for inflation, but people still need the service. Jailbreak scene continues to exist too.

Also transitioning from writing a simple virus into production software is a long long way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Never seen a starker illustration of the idea that poverty anywhere eventually makes itself everyone's problem. Dude just wanted affordable internet access, and that was enough of an incentive for him to do something that accidentally caused billions of dollars in losses around the world.

Here's a fun thought: was that _cheaper_ to the global community than whatever infrastructural improvements that would have allowed de Guzman stable-enough internet access to not seek out his infamous solution? What other situations like this are there waiting in the wings, and would fixing _them_ cost more or less than the alternative of letting those situations play out as they may? Think how 9/11, terrorist attacks in general, are spurred on by groups aggrieved by socioeconomic or cultural conditions; what would it cost to placate them? Do we not because it would ultimately be more onerous?

<comment><USER10> > what would it cost to placate them?

You've only to pay 'em the Danegeld and then you'll get rid of the Dane!

<comment><USER11> As a Dane I support this sentiment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _> He also created a title for the email attachment that would have global appeal, tempting people across the world to open it. "I figured out that many people want a boyfriend, they want each other, they want love, so I called it that," he said._

Great product management

</comment><comment><USER13> Its pretty fascinating how a lot of these technically adept hackers all tend to come from relatively poor environments. Even now a lot of the security bug bounty programs have a large proportion of Indians in relatively poverished villages somewhere. Russia after the collapse of the soviet union produced a ton of hackers. In China some of the most technically competent people I've interacted with doing shady stuff with bots and REing games and what not come from some random village. I'd say this is meritocracy working at its best and something you'd only see in the online world

<comment><USER14> I think the fact that you find more people in the world with technical talent who are also poor has a lot to do with the fact that there are a lot more poor people in the world than rich. If a talent is equally spread throughout humanity, then one would expect most recipients of that talent to be poor.

<comment><USER15> But poor people also have unequal access to educational resources for learning technical skills.

<comment><USER16> And this is the perfect economic justification for free high-quality education, with some form of acceleration for the best students. This is especially in a country that has a high valued currency - as low and no- skilled jobs that can be outsourced, will be outsourced - but really true for any country as it only increases their talent pool. So if a country, like the US, wants to improve productivity, they should have an education system much like many places in Asia.

<comment><USER15> Yes. But I don't see what this has to do with the topic at hand?

<comment><USER16> Not all replies have to be counter to the parent post. I was just riffing off your parent post, much like you were. The topic of the thread being that the poor have unequal access to education, but that exceptional talent may exist within that cohort. I just wanted to emphasise the economic incentives of universal access to educational opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article starts with:

> _" Filipino Onel de Guzman, now 44, says he unleashed the Love Bug computer > worm to steal passwords so he could access the internet without paying."_

But that's not true, according to the same article. That was just the first one he created, then he created something different to spread around the world. It doesn't say his intentions, but for sure it was not to steal local passwords for internet access.

By the end of the article:

> _" He claims he initially sent the virus only to Philippine victims, with > whom he communicated in chat rooms, because he only wanted to steal internet > access passwords that worked in his local area._

 _However, in spring 2000 he tweaked the code, adding an auto-spreading feature that would send copies of the virus to victims ' Outlook contacts, using a flaw in Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system. He also created a title for the email attachment that would have global appeal, tempting people across the world to open it."_

</comment><comment><USER18> > _The man behind the world 's first major computer virus outbreak_

> _The Love Bug pandemic began on 4 May, 2000._

The Melissa virus happened the year prior.[1] The Morris worm[2] happened in 1988. Also, interestingly, PG shows up in the article for that one,

> _It is usually reported that around 6,000 major UNIX machines were infected > by the Morris worm; however, Morris ' colleague Paul Graham claimed, "I was > there when this statistic was cooked up, and this was the recipe: someone > guessed that there were about 60,000 computers attached to the Internet, and > that the worm might have infected ten percent of them."_

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_(computer_virus)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_\(computer_virus\))

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

<comment><USER19> That jumped out at me too. There were a lot of others; Michelangelo got a lot of press. I remember being in the doctor's office on March 6th 1992, and all the computers' power switches were conspicuously taped shut and the receptionist told me to not turn on the computer (that was like 6 feet behind the counter) because the hard disk would get wiped.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_%28computer_virus...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_%28computer_virus%29)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > _he tweaked the code, adding an auto-spreading feature that would send > copies of the virus to victims ' Outlook contacts, using a flaw in > Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system._

What's the flaw?

<comment><USER21> Beyond the fact that W95 was a terrible POS security-wise, I can't find any more detailed information with a brief Google search. I wish there was a site that did in-depth analysis of how a virus worked and presented that technical information for public readers.

edit: Although, this is decent [https://malware.wikia.org/wiki/ILoveYou](https://malware.wikia.org/wiki/ILoveYou)

<comment><USER22> > W95 was a terrible POS

In their defense, it wasn't really designed for cash registers anyway.

<comment><USER23> Yes, but when you market yourself as a general purpose OS, someone is bound to use it somewhere they deem to be a general purpose. Not to mention it's easier for lay people to program things for Win95 than other OS due to availability and also due to VB.

When I was a kid and saw an out of order POS was showing Win95 desktop (could be NT. When did NT start having start menu?), I thought it was cool. I wanted to play Solitaire on it while waiting for my mom to finish paying at some other counter.

<comment><USER24> Whoosh! I believe the comment you replied to was a dad-joke level double entendre.

> When did NT start having start menu?

Windows NT 4 in 1996 had a similar shell to Windows 95.

<comment><USER21> > Whoosh! I believe the comment you replied to was a dad-joke level double > entendre.

That was a master level dad joke. I didn't realize either until reading your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was always impressed when they tracked down the Lahore based brothers behind the world's first computer virus outbreak, Brain.

It was made easier by the fact they included their address and phone in the code, back in the days when viruses were legal and everyone read the code.

Time did a Cyberpunk-esque classic write up at the time, but it is paywalled

[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,968490,...](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,968490,00.html)

Another blog- [https://nustscienceblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/the- compute...](https://nustscienceblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/the-computer- virus-from-lahore/)

</comment><comment><USER26> He did it because he could not afford internet access.

Security is an economic problem.

The economy is a technical problem. Just like computer viruses.

That's what money is. A technology. We need to make it into a high technology.

<comment><USER27> I can not afford a helecopter...

The optics are a bit different there...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can we change the thread title to reference ILOVEYOU instead? I thought the article was about "Herbie", the TV show about a Volkswagen.

<comment><USER29> I assumed we were going to hear about the mechanic who maintained Herbie and is now making a living in a small car repair shop somewhere. Definitely a strange title.

<comment><USER30> I have to admit I was slightly disappointed it wasn't that. But this is an interesting story too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's weird that the BBC doesn't refer to the worm by it's more well-known name: ILOVEYOU

<comment><USER32> ILOVEYOU malware is a less ambiguous headline and would result in fewer clicks.

<comment><USER33> Let alone might get actually blocked by content-inspecting AV because signatures are only added, not removed.

<comment><USER34> Only in Scunthorpe</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Creating Bots with Notifo (YC W10) User Messaging - <AUTHOR> https://api.notifo.com/docs/bots

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's our accompanying blog post: [http://blog.notifo.com/how-to-create-bots- with-notifo-user-m...](http://blog.notifo.com/how-to-create-bots-with-notifo- user-messaging)

In short - we think there are tons of interesting bots that can be built Notifo user messaging. We've been using a few internally for checking up on the server and misc stats.

Please let us know if you have any questions! We recently created a developer Google Group if you'd like to tinker with more of our upcoming features before they're launched: <http://groups.google.com/group/notifo-developers?hl=en>

</comment><comment><USER2> A while ago I had created an IM bot to which you could tell, for example:

"Meeting with John next Friday at 11 pm"

with natural language, just as above, and it would send you a message to remind you of it at that point. I wonder if I should recreate it using notifo. It'd be more convenient than IM, certainly...

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks interesting...Can you give insight in how you plan to make money on this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Creating bots like this requires a service account, which we will begin charging for in the near future. <http://notifo.com/pricing> for more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an aside, I was looking at the pricing page you linked to, and noticed that highlighting text (in Chrome, at least) on notifo.com results in blurry text. Just FYI.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what it looks like for me in Chrome. What does it look like for you?

OS X + Chrome: [http://paulstamatiou.com/i/Pricing_- _Notifo-20100930-203150....](http://paulstamatiou.com/i/Pricing_- _Notifo-20100930-203150.jpg)

Win 7 + Chrome: <http://paulstamatiou.com/i/Windows_7_x64-20100930-204347.jpg>

Ubuntu 10.10 + Chrome: <http://paulstamatiou.com/i/Ubuntu_64-bit-20100930-204707.jpg>

<comment><USER5> Ubuntu 10.04 + Chrome "7.0.503.1 dev": <http://i.imgur.com/nKmC0.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah gotcha - I was thinking the text that was "highlighted" ie (span class="highlight").. not actual selected text. Yeah that is just the 1px text- shadow. I can make that disappear on selection. Thanks for the info.

<comment><USER4> Yep, for me it looked like what thamer posted. Good deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice work!</comment>