My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet - <AUTHOR> http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/my-year-as-a-pro-russia-troll-magnet <comment><USER2> Back to the USSR. East-West relations are reverting to the Cold War days. From saber-rattling, proxy wars to propaganda campaigns, few will dispute that there has been a back-slide in recent years.

But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda campaign. It is a highly unstable equilibrium. At any time, information can get out of the hands of the propagandists and the system will find a more stable equilibrium -- ie. leaders will be replaced. It's just a matter of time.

Right now the Kremlin is likely undergoing an intense debate on how to spin the downing of the recent Russian flight as something other than a reaction to the Russian air war in Syria. This is a heavy lift. Maybe they will succeed in this and maybe not. If so, they will have found a temporary reprieve but will no doubt find themselves encountering a similar issue in the future. The legitimacy of the Russian leadership will continually find itself teetering so long as it relies on propagandists to hold back a flood of disapproval.

Compare this system to the inherent stability of responsive governments with rule of law: healthy democracies (ie. Western democracy), responsive authoritarian systems (Singapore, China). Both these systems have release valves. In the case of democracies, elections reassert legitimacy with election cycles. In the case of responsive authoritarian systems, the government relies on surveys and technocratic leadership.

Russia has neither method of achieving stable equilibrium and so the propaganda will serve as a shaky dike holding back an ever growing force.

<comment><USER3> >But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda campaign. It is a highly unstable equilibrium.

America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. You either need very sophisticated propaganda (America) or a very strict control over information (NK) or a mix (China).

The only reason it became 'unstable' in the Soviet Union was glasnost, which was deliberate government policy by Gorbachev. Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around.

<comment><USER2> > America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years.

Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. Take for example our most popular news network: Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government? Russia + NK however, rely repressing dissent internally to retain legitimacy.

<comment><USER4> Russia's media is also nominally pluralistic. They have been careful to permit the existence of dissenting media -- if for no other reason than to have something to discredit. The propaganda outlets are much better funded and organized though, so they can largely drown out the voices pushing an agenda that differs from the party line. The Russian masses (just like the masses everywhere else, including the US) are largely uneducated, xenophobic and easily influenced by nationalism. It's just far more effective to allow them to exist and attack them in the media (as happened to the reporter in the article) than it is to violently suppress them.

The difference in the US is that the propaganda comes not from the government, but from the corporate/media machine -- which largely controls the government. American corporations now have such an outsized influence on American elections that it's hard to know who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings. Sure, you can go on TV and say whatever you want to say, but our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism (just look at our justice system's reaction to Snowden / Manning). They distract the public over trivial social issues (abortion, gay marriage, legal weed) while doing whatever they want. Or in other words, Obama gets to score points with liberal voters by blocking the Keystone XL pipeline -- never mind that he approved 6 other, similar pipelines in his last two terms. The difference is that the media simply chose not to cover them, so the blowback was limited.

<comment><USER2> > ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative > journalism...

The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me.

I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly after mass media (the networks) monopolized a lot of what we call news but that period was more of an exception to the rule (and it certainly had its own problems).

<comment><USER5> > The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality > remains on your side of the court

The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom:

"Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices. Investigative journalism often suffers as a result.

This has been the case in the United States (46th), which fell 13 places, one of the most significant declines, amid increased efforts to track down whistleblowers and the sources of leaks. The trial and conviction of Private Bradley Manning and the pursuit of NSA analyst Edward Snowden were warnings to all those thinking of assisting in the disclosure of sensitive information that would clearly be in the public interest.

US journalists were stunned by the Department of Justice's seizure of Associated Press phone records without warning in order to identify the source of a CIA leak. It served as a reminder of the urgent need for a "shield law" to protect the confidentiality of journalists' sources at the federal level. The revival of the legislative process is little consolation for James Risen of The New York Times, who is subject to a court order to testify against a former CIA employee accused of leaking classified information. And less still for Barrett Brown, a young freelance journalist facing 105 years in prison in connection with the posting of information that hackers obtained from Statfor, a private intelligence company with close ties to the federal government."

[http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php](http://rsf.org/index2014/en- index2014.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not really proof that "there has been a degradation of information quality". In a way, rather to the contrary - US ranking in this particular ranking fell because new information emerged; the administration then reacted against information leakers.

But if we look at that ranking, USA is still clearly in the top third of countries of world.

Russia is clearly in the bottom third of countries of world.

It is sort of funny that when we speak about the problems of the bottom third, and Russia in particular, it is somehow compulsory to see the comments "Look at USA, it also has problems!"

<comment><USER5> But "there has been a degradation of information quality" was not the phrase used by the initial poster. Maybe I should have quoted both the parent and grandparent together to make it clear what I was responding to, but I figured people would ignore the parent's attempt to rephrase the argument.

I also disagree that the US ranking fell because of the emergence of new information: it fell because of how it responded to that information. If you read the RSF quote, none of the reasons given are because of the contents of Snowden's or Manning's leaks. Instead, they mention the legal response to those and other cases, and they mention the lack of effective legal protection for "disclosing information in the public interest".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The whole idea of the state-sponsored troll army is to destroy the Internet as a reliable means of discussion and to devalue it as a venue for journalism, especially independent journalism. Russia would much prefer that there were only liars and cheerleaders, that anyone disagreeing with the Kremlin sinks to their level or picks a 'side'.

I think that it shows that their bosses don't really understand real Internet discussion and don't know that people can identify trolls, regardless if they are state-sponsored or not.

<comment><USER7> You overestimate people's ability not to be offended, and underestimate the diversity in people's actual beliefs.

For example: When someone on HN said over the weekend "I don't see anything inherently wrong with colonialism. Remember that scene from Monty Python -- What have the Romans done for us? A lot of good has come out of colonialism", I was almost certain (almost) it was trolling. Once I saw others agreeing, I reconsidered. What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views.

I bring this often on HN, and I will do so again: such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet, and everything it has mostly stood up for. When every woman is threatened with rape and murder, and every person of minority is humiliated (often under the pretension of 1) irony, as in reddit, and 2) strictly unemotional data-based Vulcan objectivity (as is often the case here)) , the internet loses its most powerful component: the diverse group of people using it.

I absolutely believe <500 low-paid shills with medium-level English can bring down sites like the likes of reddit. Bringing down does not mean putting them out of business -- that's rather incidental -- it means creating fear and terror amongst a large part of the users to convince them that the majority of the internet is against them -- the internet is not the place for them. It is not just threatening women or minorities, obviously -- it could also be pretending to be an extremist feminist, and suggesting men should be hanged, burned etc, provoking the other group, and causing conflicts.

This is the issue why a lot of platforms have struggled with harassment and bullying issues, and it tickles me when the HN crowd --predominantly libertarian-- drones on about 'free speech at any cost' (suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship), not realizing that an absolute free-for-all arena is most likely to be used by the parties with the most available resource to shape the conversation easily. To put it differently, if Russian trolls can reshape (partly?) the conversation, so can the American government, and so can any agency, with enough resources. To reiterate, it is not necessary to completely change people's point of view -- just scare a targeted population away from a location, and identifying that is NOT as simple as 'calling out the trolls'.

I'll offload something tangential too here. When women say 'there are issues for women in technology', fellow HN users, the least correct response is to offer 'well maybe if they worked harder instead of wasting time complaining, they'd have less issues'. That actually happened in one of the last few discussions about women in tech.

<comment><USER8> >> What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views.

It seems to me this statement is quite unfair. Does it mean that if I think you're trolling it also means I can label you as an idiot? It's not just that you disagree with them, you get to label them with whatever derogatory term you want as well?

>> such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to the internet

No, they don't. What's threatening the internet as a bastion of free speech are people who don't understand the consequences of free speech and believe everything that they see on the internet. Then they feel the need to tell other people what they may or may not say based on their misguided notions of what free speech is.

>> suggesting that any removal of extremely offensive content is tantamount to utter censorship

It is censorship. It's almost literally the definition of censorship. I'm not saying censorship doesn't have it's place, but you are being misleading by suggesting that removing a person's comment is not censorship.

As for coordinated trolls attempting to remove a site from discussion; you are absolutely correct. It is a problem. But I don't understand how the solution to that problem is to discuss removing people's rights of free expression. If a site wants to remove people's comments, so be it, but your type of rhetoric eventually leads to people demanding laws. Those laws almost always turn out bad for everyone, people are just too short-sighted to see it.

Also, who are you to define the "least correct response" to anything when hardly anyone knows the other people here? I disagree with that statement, but I don't feel I have the right to tell them they can't make it.

<comment><USER9> _Does it mean that if I think you 're trolling it also means I can label you as an idiot?_

I think what was meant is that people saying idiotic things are not always trolls (who are just trying to stir up an argument), they may actually be idiots.

And yes, of course one may label others as idiots; it might be uncouth when said or written publicly, but that's each person's call.

<comment><USER8> Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree that one can label another as an idiot. It's just that I require a greater deal of proof than "that person disagrees with me" to believe someone's label of another person they don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Russian trolls are fascinating. The trolls' messages are low class, hateful, incoherent and always grammatically incorrect, yet they seem to be able to infiltrate discussions on cnn, bloomberg, reddit, zerohedge (which is an anti- western site anyways), and sometimes hacker news, and seem to have some influences amongst uninformed and angry netizens. Case in point, a random stock broker at my brokerage mentions to me that he read on zerohedge that US is about to collapse, and is no match for Russia's might. Which is hilarious because Russia's economy is tiny compared to US (and Russia's GDP fell 1/3 this year), and US army is at least 2 generations ahead of Russia (and China).

The Russian government is fascinating. It's a totalitarian government, and yet, because of it's paid propagandas, it has instilled some ideas amongst the educated that Putin is a _great_ leader. A dictator that hoarded all the oil and gas riches for him and his cronies during Russia's more vibrant economy, invaded crimea and ukraine, and seeks to impose its military on the world, despite a tiny flailing economy and aged military. With only some power because it's backed by another totalitarian government, China, which itself is starting to be more aggressive in south east Asia.

In any case, it seems to be that the threat to democracy will come from these paid trolls that seek to influence the minds of the western citizens.

<comment><USER11> Corruption level is high in Russia, you're right here. But totalitarian government? I'm afraid, you drink too much someone else's Kool-aid. And as for the GDP fall. Could you please provide some references? Because mine show that it's not even close to what you've written [1] [2]. I'd like to read more about generations in the army and the aged military, too. Lack of any references but very big conclusions. That's exactly how pro-Russian trolls' messages look like.

[1]: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp- growth](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-growth) [2]: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp)

<comment><USER12> Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents, persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states etc, etc.

I don't know about you, but I think "totalitarian" draw a more correct picture, than "corruption level is high".

<comment><USER13> > Limiting free speech, banning political opposition, arresting dissidents, > persecuting people for their sexuality, invading neighbour sovereign states > etc, etc.

I'm no fan of Russia, but many of these things you mentioned could be applied to the US and UK too.

<comment><USER12> Sure, neither totalitarianism nor democracy are binary things, and there are no razor-sharp definitions. I'm sure you can find examples of those things in many countries that are generally considered "democratic". However, in Putin's Russia this is common practice and happens on a regular basis (with the exceptions of invading other sovereign states I guess, which has only happened a couple of times), which is why I don't think it's controversial to call Russia "totalitarian".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the- agency.html?_...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the- agency.html?_r=0)

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

</comment><comment><USER15> Same type of thing happens in my Eastern European country, member of the EU and NATO.

The pro-russian propaganda is rampant and honestly, is winning. The alternatives are only fascist organizations and people have nowhere to flock. US policy in recent years doesn't help at all. It is depressing.

<comment><USER16> Just received this email this morning: "Russian plane flown to Yemen to capture CIA agents who helped shot down Russian civilian plane in Egypt"

[http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym- letem-d...](http://www.czechfreepress.cz/rusko/rusko-se-odvaznym-letem-do- jemenu-zmocnilo-agentu-cia-kteri-sestrelili-ruske-letadlo-v-egypte.html)

The worst thing is that my own father is forwarding me these propaganda nonsense.

<comment> saiya-jin you are probably in unique position to at least try to educate your father that just because there is keyword "free" in name of the server, it's nothing more than usual pro-russian propaganda. Not an easy task, depends on your father's mentality (if he was happy during russian occupation of czechoslovakia and after revolution all went south for him, that would be a hard nut to crack).

I have generally only few rules for news from east - 1) never trust russians in politics, they have crude ways, and their goal is ultimately good old soviet days when their voice mattered more, with little care of anybody non- russian. 2) never trust russians in politics...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been reading a great history book lately about the end of the Cold War. The author had the chance to interview folks on both sides of the conflict.

The Russians were very, very good at establishing relationships with easily- influenced folks in the west, then using them to sway public opinion. Some were paid off, some were "useful idiots". I'm only guessing, but from what I've seen online in the last decade or so it looks like they've wholeheartedly taken those skills and applied them to internet trolling.

Of course, I'm sure they're not alone. The internet has become just another battleground for nation-states. It would be very interesting to learn how much money is being spent on this kinda stuff worldwide. I bet it easily runs in the eight figures.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm sure Russian trolls exist. I would guess pro-US trolls exist as well. That said, not everyone who disagrees with some aspects of US foreign policy is Russian troll. Some people in forums seem to get confused on this point.

I've been accused of being a Russian troll simply because I don't support US attempts to overturn the current Syrian government and didn't care for US involvement in overturning the Ukrainian government. And I don't support Putin or Russian expansion. I just don't believe US policy is wise nor humane on these matters.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. A few hours ago there was a thread on Guantanamo torture methods and people were unanimous that it's a shame and that it's no better than what the bad guys do.

But tell them about the Russian trolls and somehow they forget everything and start to speak about the free world, democracy against those evil dictators ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When Johan Bäckman came to the scene a few years ago, he immediately reminded me of climate deniers. I guess similar tactics have existed throughout history. He doesn't have any kind of coherent consistent position, and contradicts himself constantly. It's just making a lot of noise and inventing the argument of the day.

</comment><comment><USER21> "In September 2014 I started a crowdsourced series of stories about pro-Russia trolls"

I'm not inclined to google translate a lot of pages in Finnish, but can't it be that "crowdsourced" here means "a series of articles _written by_ the unverified authors?" Which would be quite funny given their topic.

I don't know and I'd like to hear from somebody who does, somebody who understands Finnish? The same person could try to estimate if Jessikka Aro's articles were strongly biased?

Note: I definitely don't doubt that a lot of nasty internet communication was directed to her. The state of the internet is, you can be the saintest of the saints, once you're public enough, there will be (at least some) hate. I'm just trying to figure out how disproportional the reactions were, it's hard for me to get the idea reading only on this blog post.

<comment><USER22> Here "crowdsourced" means that Jessikka Aro solicited for experiences from members of the public who have been targeted by trolls. As far as I can tell, any resulting articles have been written by journalists and have gone through the usual journalistic process.

I haven't actually read many of her articles, but my assessment is that she is not strongly biased. It is widely accepted as fact that pro-russian trolling is rampant also on the Finnish web.

<comment><USER21> > As far as I can tell, any resulting articles have been written by > journalists

So she didn't sign these articles? Why would then anybody direct some campaign at her?

Something is missing in this story.

<comment><USER23> She wrote them. Take a look at one of her articles: [http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian- propagan...](http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of-russian-propaganda)

<comment><USER21> Thanks. But what's "crowdsourced" with it? That article looks like a real investigation. Maybe the term was actually a loss in translation? That's why I hoped to get all the info from somebody who understands Finnish (and maybe even followed these news).

Edit: kaitai linked to an article that has a lot of opinions of other people. It is a better example of what she would maybe call the "crowdsourced" article (it has a bunch of quotes presented in a way to appear to support the message she wants to convey).

<comment><USER24> Basically the crowdsourcing here means that YLE published a article saying (shortened): "Tell us what kind of web trolling you have been targeted by and in what situations. We'll compile an article of peoples experiences"

The term "crowdsourcing" isn't really used in Finnish. Apparently there exists a translation for it ("joukouttaminen"), but I haven't ever heard anyone use it (not that I've looked too hard).

<comment><USER21> > The term "crowdsourcing" isn't really used in Finnish.

Thanks. Now it's clear. It was really "lost in translation" (in the "appearing" sense).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We have a saying here: "If something you did upsets Russia - you are moving to the right direction".

<comment><USER26> I'd like to know where "here" is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I... I just don't know what exactly I was expecting coming into this comments section. This is some absurdist parody. Seems HN has gotten big enough to be noticed now.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here is one her articles in English: [http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the- origins-of-russian-propagan...](http://kioski.yle.fi/omat/at-the-origins-of- russian-propaganda)

</comment><comment><USER28> If you know of someone in the US doing this, you should advise them to consider registering with the Justice Department.

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

The law was amended in the 1960's so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it.

<comment><USER29> >so that people would get a warning before being prosecuted under it

What about free speech? This law strikes me as fundamentally "unamerican."

<comment><USER28> It seems to me to be one of the many laws we have which favor safety & security over the principles on which the country was founded. It doesn't help that it also seems to be one of the many laws we have which are enforced "sometimes".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The adage that a lie told enough times becomes fact comes to mind. Goebbels was a master and his methods are still being used today.</comment>


Data Beats Math - <AUTHOR> http://lsvp.com/2012/10/05/data-beats-math-why-apples-maps-failure-is-a-big-data-problem/

<comment><USER2> Any thoughts on why Apple didn't instrument Maps before i0S6 to track where a user searched for and where they ended up? You figure that when someone searches for a location, an hour later they're most likely to be either 1) where they were before (still at home/work), or 2) at the location.</comment>


Ask HN: I was asked to leave my job and now I want to work in the US. Advice? - <AUTHOR>

For the past year I've been a frontend software engineer at an up-an-coming UK startup. In the interest of furthering myself as an engineer (with the intention to mould myself into a full-stack web application developer) I've been asking for more challenging work from the company for the past six months.
Unfortunately, the company can no longer support my role and we've come to a mutual agreed whereby I'd leave the company and receive severance pay.
Getting involved with the US startup scene is something that's been a dream of mine for a while now and I'm finally in the perfect situation to do something about it.
The only problem is that I have no idea where to begin!
I'd love to come over to the US and meet people who work for startups, hack something together and just get a general feel for how the US differs from the UK.
If anybody could give me some advice on how they'd proceed if they were in my position, possibly create some introductions for me or even allow me to work along side you for a week or so then I would be very grateful indeed.
A little more about me...
Things I'm awesome at: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, interface design and usability, client interaction.
Things I'm good at: PHP, MySQL, Amazon AWS server admin.
Things I'm learning: Python, Objective-C, Sphinx, MongoDB.
Things I do to kick back: Gym, run, read, consume specialty beers, play unhealthy amounts of video games.
tl;dr I had to leave my job and now I'd love to experience US startup culture. Please help! <comment><USER2> If you want to work at one of the best startups you have to do more than apply. You should try and pick a strategic place, such as the valley or NYC and attend lots of events there and visit startups. When asked what you're working on you could say just finished working at bla, hacking on this in my spare time but looking to work out here.

So that you're not asking for a job but are signalling that you'd be interested in one. I know people with limited experience being offered jobs at great companies just from these meetings and if they know who you are you've immediately got a far higher chance of getting it.

Luckily it's a good time to apply as there's more of a developer shortage than job shortage in tech. If you're savvy then it's not hard at all. Showing things you've hacked together or a portfolio is more important than ever.

All of this seems like a lot more effort than the normal sending out resumes but it's much better. Also I don't recommend cold calling. Start using Twitter more, follow the founders or people within these startups on Twitter and join in with their conversation, show that you're a meaningful, savvy person. Then you can say "I'm going to be in the Valley, think I could swing by and see what you're working on".

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you recommend attending any of these "hacker house" places I've seen on sites like Airbnb? Is that a good way to meet people who'd be offering jobs or would you end up around other people competing for them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should put up a portfolio of the stuff you've done and apply to a start-up that's already funded for the quickest route to what you want.

Any other path, including funding your own start-up is possible, but harder because you are now out of a job so your runway is very limited.

Every now and then YC funded companies will list jobs, right now on the <http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs> page there are 7 jobs listed, some of which might fit you well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do take notice that you can't just come to the US and work there. Your employer-to-be has to arrange a H-1B visa for you. This can be a drawback, albeit not a big one.

<comment><USER5> It _is_ often a big drawback. There's extra paperwork, and H1B visas are limited in amount every year, so you may not get one, and there's a specific date every year you can get them.

(As far as I remember, anyways. Just saying it's not trivial.)</comment></comment>


Why Google's new patent applications are alarming - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/3cbui2/why_googles_new_patent_applications_are_alarming/

<comment><USER2> I think we need to continue to be careful to not be so alarmed by published patent applications. Again, none of these are issued patents, but rather pending applications, which may never reach allowance from the PTO and, if they are allowed, will most likely be left with claims that have been narrowed significantly in scope in light of prior art and publicly known technologies.

There are certainly many issues with the U.S. patent system that need to be addressed, but I think it's counterproductive to not make the distinction between a mere application for a patent and an issued patent. If anything, in debating a broken patent system, our best examples to study should be broad, issued patents being used in litigation. In which case we can more productively debate either the patent's validity and/or what the scope of patentable subject matter under U.S. patent law should be.</comment>


Haruki Murakami: The Running Novelist (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/09/the-running-novelist <comment><USER2> I think there's something to be said for the "it suits me" perspective. I had a similar conversion to fitness at the same age (though not running). Everybody also told me I must have such will power, but it really just suits me.

But maybe the real lesson was that if I'd chosen running I could be a famous author.</comment>


Facebook's retreat from the news business - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/facebooks-retreat-from-the-news-has-painful-for-publishers-including-slate.html <comment><USER2> What if facebook isnt trying to get rid of the media? What if that is actually users being sick of it?

Mind you facebook has driven me to the point I stopped using it entirely.

<comment><USER3> You mean the media or Facebook?

If Facebook, then why do they keep growing their user base quarter over quarter?

Don't underestimate the bubble you are in and extrapolating that to global scale!

Facebook is here to stay for the time being, whether you personally choose to use it or not!

<comment><USER4> You're cherrypicking one metric with a nonchalance that Facebook's investors surely do not share. FB is experiencing its slowest global user growth ever, and US users are declining.

Popular/media criticism and boycotting actually appear to be making an impact in the west, along with an inevitable generation shift (young'uns just aren't thrilled about sharing a social platform with Mom and Gramps).

Having failed at doing news in a way that users liked, it makes sense for FB to pull out. Most of their new users are in countries with poor education systems or regimes that censor the news. News is an awkward business to be in under those conditions anyway.

None of this is surprising at all once you've seen multiple product cycles, markets do in fact matter, no company rules forever, if your product is total crap people will drift away from it, this time is almost never different. Friendster died, Myspace died, etc. FB can go the same way if they mis-execute badly enough (though it could certainly take decades especially in their strongest markets).

<comment><USER5> I've really slowed using Facebook because of the amount of misinformation or straight up lies by some acquaintance. Comments on any kind of news source are pretty bad as well. So many lies just made the platform unusable for me.

<comment><USER4> It's quite remarkable really how tone deaf the product planning at Facebook has been. For centuries thousands of families have deemed it a wise decision to forbid politics as a discussion topic at the dinner table. Zuck jumps right in the middle of the table and "connects the world" by shoving Trump articles with unmoderated comment threads in all their faces. Because an A/B test showed that it "promoted engagement." Such idiocy lol.

<comment><USER5> I'd love to see a Facebook where either I or the page itself could hide/forbid comments. I'm sure that no news company would ever turn off comments on their pages but they might. A lot of companies have disabled comments on their websites.

I really don't care that some bloke thinks everything is a Zionist conspiracy to eradicate the white race. The smaller lies and falsehoods are what gets me even more.

It's basically the Gell-Mann amnesia affect on steroids:

"You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray [Gell-Mann]'s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the 'wet streets cause rain' stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if this is necessarily the right thing to do, I understand that Facebook (and others) were really effectively weaponized by malicious foreign actors, but conceding by not participating in journalism feels wrong to me.

This is indicative of a larger question that I think we, as the tech industry, need to really ask ourselves: to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world?

If the answer is yes, we must come to the realization that these platforms cannot be impartial, if the answer is no, we must accept that we, as an industry, are going to complicit in the systematic harm of societies and must accept that as table stakes.

Now I don't think this is necessarily a zero-sum situation, Salesforce probably doesn't have the same kind of civic obligations that FB, Twitter, Google have; but the clear lines of engagement in the spectrum of SAAS companies needs to be discussed.

<comment><USER7> > Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism

It's largely a moot point.

Because no company is going to want to alienate themselves from three very large markets (EU, US, UK) all of whom have legal and political structures which govern journalistic behaviours.

<comment><USER8> What about the large market that is China?

<comment><USER9> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder, given the grilling that Zuckerberg got the last year, if Google would rather avoid replacing them in the near-monopoly position of news gatekeeper. On the other hand, Twitter seems to be fine with it, since the Facebook pivot away from news might be what it is using to reverse its decline.

<comment><USER11> Would someone with knowledge care to comment what % of traffic disappears at each update. The last update pushed me over the edge to bing news of all things. Worse aggregation with a UI only as bad as gnews minus two major updates.

<comment><USER2> Curious too.

Are there any stats on this?

Btw, quit fb and havent needed to look back. replaced it with... HN, reddit, crappy twitter, instagram, and snapchat.

<comment><USER5> Instead of crappy twitter you could use Mastodon. It feels like Twitter in the early days. Of course, if you used "crappy twitter" as a nickname for Mastodon I'm not going to disagree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't read that article because I have booked all cookies from slate.com, and it's using a cookie to store that I have consented to being tracked with cookies...

I do not consent to being tracked, but I do want to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good. Everything wrong with non-subscription clickbait-driven news is amplified on Facebook. Very little is gained for that cost.

</comment><comment><USER14> Google Cached version for all the EU members whom get the GDPR warning, with no option to opt out of anything.

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11OAA0QJ:https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/facebooks- retreat-from-the-news-has-painful-for-publishers-including-slate.html)

<comment><USER15> Thanks! All I was seeing is:

> Slate's Use of Your Data

> By clicking "Agree," you consent to Slate's Terms of Service and Privacy > Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners > to deliver relevant advertising on our site, in emails and across the > Internet, to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our > Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and > how to withdraw consent.

> Agree

Obviously I didn't agree even if I have all the extensions to block and delete ads, cookies and the like.

Kind of Slate's retreat from the news business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting. Maybe Facebook didn't like being dragged through the mud by news organizations. Maybe Facebook is hurting them back by asphyxiating them. I can't say I'd feel very bad about that if that were the case.

<comment><USER17> If you read the article, this trend began before the recent "Facebook is the devil" trend in the news. Perhaps instead it's the other way around? Perhaps the news organizations are trying to hurt FB for a drop in their readership?

Either way, the news and social media spaces do not have a healthy relationship.</comment></comment>


The 5 W's in Web Application Design: 10 Useful Questions - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nerdburn.com/entries/user-interface-design/the-5-w-in-web-application-design-10-useful-questions-to-answer A brief look at how to use the 5 W's - Who, What, Where, When & Why - in Web Application design. <comment><USER2> I find that background for the text really annoying - the lines of the graphical background doesn't match up with the actual text.

Good article though.</comment>


« Stack Exchange Security Blog - <AUTHOR> http://security.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/how-can-you-protect-yourself-from-crime-beasts-successor/ <comment><USER2> This could really do with a more descriptive title (the HN submission, not the blog post).

</comment><comment><USER3> _> (...)compression at the SSL level. HTTP also includes optional compression, but this one applies only to the body of the requests and responses, not the header, and thus does not cover the Cookie: header line. HTTP-level compression is fine._

Guess SPDY is also subject to similar attack -- given that it compresses headers just as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> SPDY has header+body DEFLATE compression by design. And if all Google Chrome requests to google.com use SPDY... that's... a little scary.

Edit: i'm wrong, apparently body compression was removed, added back in, then removed again: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy- dev/HXkhL6TASN4...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/spdy- dev/HXkhL6TASN4/discussion)</comment>


A New Theory of the Universe (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/a-new-theory-of-the-universe/#.VhDALV5RKSr <comment><USER2> > At the moment, the only attempt at an explanation holds that God made the > universe.

No, that's certainly not the only attempt at an explanation.

<comment><USER3> lol... here is another good quote:

> quantum theory implies that consciousness must exist and that the content of > the mind is the ultimate reality.

Yeah? Really? Three strong words (implies, must, ultimate) yet the sentence remains weak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's always the CTMU.

</comment><comment><USER5> I observe therefore I am</comment>


How David Beats Goliath (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/11/how-david-beats-goliath <comment><USER2> Malcolm Gladwell is quoted, "I don't write things that are true, I write things that are interesting". He has a concealed reactionary slant. Generally, the facts he cites are true, but he omits the other facts that would tell the truth. He's more clever than David Brooks, who just makes things up, but more dangerous.

Seriously, Google him. There is a page devoted to fact-checking him.

<comment><USER3> If you seriously think that Malcolm Gladwell, who writes for the New Yorker, is right of center, much less the far right of center that "reactionary" means, then your idea of where the political center is, does not match with reality.

Whether you think he is correct on a given topic is debatable, of course, but where he is on the political spectrum relative to the rest of the nation, is objectively determinable, and it is left of center.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=592043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=592043)

and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=605720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=605720)

</comment><comment><USER5> When you are David for 82 games and you play full court press, you won't make it pass all star weekend before your players break down.</comment>


Git is Shit - <AUTHOR> https://pileofpoo.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/git-is-shit/ <comment><USER2> To fix git's learning curve:

1\. Normalize the documentation's terminology. There are several places with conflicting names for the same thing. (E.g. "index" vs "staging area") It needs to be consistent.

1a. Even better, come up with some more intuitive names for stuff. Seriously, the word "index" gives zero intuitive understanding of what it does.

2\. Make a dedicated glossary of all terms and link to it religiously. Many of the extremely important definitions are buried in random, seemingly unrelated pages.

2a. Even better, order the glossary so you can read top-to-bottom without skipping down and get a summary of the important terms and their relation to each other.

These documentation changes would help immensely.

</comment><comment><USER3> Git is Shit is a shit article under a shit premise on a site about things that are shit...

...where's the downvote button. :-/

</comment><comment><USER4> Git is actually pretty easy for most casual use, and you can scale up its silliness as you need it.

Git better, I guess?

<comment><USER5> Yeah I've been using git regularly for a year or so now and have never run into having to do wacky stuff like rebasing and whatnot. I just stick to the normal checkout new branch, hack on stuff, merge branch, move on. The more boring and simple my git use the better IMHO.

<comment><USER6> Never rebased? Wow. The basics aren't so terrible but once or twice a month I find myself going to Google for an answer, that having read a Git book front to back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And now we wait for the "Git is NOT Shit" response article.</comment>


Cloud hosting is wickedly profitable - <AUTHOR> http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2010/05/11/At-last-the-truth-about-cloud-hosting.aspx OpSource CEO lets the cat out of the bag: the cloud hosting business is waaaay more profitable than traditional hosting. <comment><USER2> "We've all heard the story of the nightmare application that calls the database 10 millions times an hour to add 2+2."

Actually, I've never heard this story.

This article takes many things for granted. Yes, a 1 terrabyte drive costs $100 and a cloud customer pays $1800/year for that storage - but its not like I can just buy the drive, sit it on my desk and get the same experience.

<comment><USER3> indeed, considering the physical security alone (or lack thereof in this case) would have had your $100 1 TB drive walk off your desk soon after you put it there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's pretty simple arithmetic.

Normal hosting means the customer has to get massively oversized hwardware to be able to handle traffic spikes, and then it sits around doing nothing 90% of the time. For the hoster the cost of supporting idle or fully loaded hardware is nearly the same, but the customer only gets 10% of the utility and isn't willing to pay the full price for that.

Let's say the hardware costs the hoster $50/month to buy, run and support, and yields $1000/month of utility to the customer when running at full speed. Running at 10% load, it yields only $100 of utility, so the hoster can ask for perhaps $60/month in fees.

With cloud computing, the picture looks quite different: The same $50/month hardware can now support 10 customers, and even if fees are cut by two thirds to $20 per customer, the hoster now earns $200 revenue on the same hardware, his profit margin shooting up from 20% to 300%

Of course, these numbers are completely made up and in reality cloud computing incurs some overhead and also requires some amount of idle reserves, but the basic idea holds: monetizing the potential of idle hardware yields huge efficiency gains, most of which the provider can keep for himself.

</comment><comment><USER5> According to James Hamilton, hardware cost is not the major factor. It's running the datacenters.

This talk by J.H. is well worth the 1 hour:

<http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX01#>

</comment><comment><USER6> "1TB of disk space at Fry's is $100. From NetApp, it's around $700. From cloud, it's about $1800 per year. Any ops manager can do the math for ROI on that equation."

Oh God, this is how accountants look at IT. As if Amazon buys 1TB drives from Fry...

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course they don't. There's still profit, even if you buy a big NetApp array, is the point.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Obviously there's more involved than just buying the disk. But if you already have a core competency in hosting, cloud is even more profitable than traditional models.

</comment><comment><USER7> An article with absurd back of the envelope calculations...</comment>


Ask HN: How much does a senior iOS engineer make? - <AUTHOR> Glassdoor is not really reliable, so I'm wondering how much does a senior iOS engineer makes in big companies like facebook, google, apple, etc?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> $150,000 is normal for around 10+ years experience, if your exceptionally well ( can do UI/UX, networking, automated testing, web, systems, bash and Script Editor scripts, along with Xcode plugins/extensions and tools to automate and optimize the production pipeline aka the full stack and lead/mentor other developers to bring them to a high professional level) then $200,000+ is normal, but very rare to find. Note, you can normally do all these things in swift and objective-c, know the internals, security and architecture differences between the last three phones released and how to optimize your code for them.

Also note this normally only applies near big metro areas (35 mile radius) like Washington DC, New York, LA/Bay Area, San Francisco, Cupertino, Houston/Dallas, maybe Miami and/or where ever the headquarters are for the large companies. Outside the U.S. the salaries are probably lower as the demand for top talent is lower.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for the details. I'm in San Francisco bay area and thought $150k would be the "bottom" for big companies.

<comment><USER2> Nope, it is very regular to get that as a salary, you normally make up for it in San Fransicso and other big areas via bonuses, stocks, 100% or close to 100% paid benefits, company paid transit/parking/meals/schooling and other adds-ons were their actual financial monetary value far exceed your cash salary.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple rejects gay humour app - <AUTHOR> http://www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Apple_rejects_gay_humour_app-13191.aspx

<comment><USER2> Gay guy weighing in here: Apple is not homophobic in keeping this nonsense app from their store. By throwing the accusation around, we risk devaluing it. Apple, Inc scored 100% on the Human Rights Council's Corporate Equality Index. Calling them homophobic is like calling Edward R. Murrow a communist -- it shows your desperation immediately.

<comment><USER3> The "Human Rights Council's Corporate Equality Index" is something that seems to mostly relate to employment practises.

I doubt it has provisions that cover app stores.

<comment><USER2> You are correct, it does not cover app stores. It does, however, display a certain corporate culture that is indicative of how such mechanisms within the company are likely to operate. My hypothesis regarding this rejection is that the reviewers found the app itself to be homophobic because it relies on tired stereotypes about gay men and is, in fact, not funny at all.

<comment><USER3> I have no idea why they rejected in this instance.

Not sure if such accreditation really prove anything other than that a company is willing to jump through some hoops to get a sticker though. It's like PCI accreditation and other stuff like that.

<comment><USER2> Apple pays the tax on health benefits for same-sex couples, a tax that opposite-sex, married couples don't have to pay because the government recognizes their union. Meijer, the grocery store chain, has a history of firing employees for being gay. For this reason, I see the HRC Equality Index as more than 'some hoops to get a sticker': companies go out of their way to improve the lives of gay people who work for them are awarded such distinction.

<comment><USER3> or companies who want a sticker that says they "go out of their way to improve the lives of gay people who work for them".

That's really the point of these things, to provide capitalist incentives for such behaviours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do people act surprised again and again? It's Apple's playground, you play by their rules. Rules can change over time. It's been this way since app store launched. Just live with it. Or develop for android or something.

</comment><comment><USER5> >Anything and everything can be offensive — it's purely subjective.

Right, and Apple is exercising their right to find the app offensive. Why is this a story?

<comment><USER3> That's really the problem with walled garden systems. One group of people decides for everyone what is/isn't offensive.

<comment><USER6> In reality, they're deciding for themselves - which is fair. It just _happens_ to affect you because you use the outcome of that decision.

<comment><USER3> Technically true, but under such a model it always has the potential to affect you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a major no-win for Apple.

Take out app made by a gay guy? Homophobic.

Not take out the "flaming" app, thus offending lots of homosexual men (that are men first, homosexual second)? Homophobic.

I hate those sort of situations, specially when it result in some people always losing.

Here in Brazil we have a conservative politician (he would fit right into Tea Party if he was at US), that once went to protest against a "gay kit" that the ministry of education wanted to give to schools... Several gay people were against the kit, because if was badly made, it was of bad taste, and attracted flak from society, beside being a waste of taxpayer money.

Returning to our politician, he stood behind a TV interview of another politician, holding his anti-gaykit (not anti-gay mind you) pamphlets. A pro- gay poltician started to shout that he was homophobic, attacked him physically, and then the assaulted guy got sued later... (at least the lawsuit was thrown out). Later some gays supported the guy, not that they agree with him, but they think that the female pro-gay politician that attacked him was against free speech. Of course, those got called "homophobic" too (even being gays).

I can conclude that some words, are more about insulting your opposition that disagree with you, than real labels.

This apply to homophobic, MRA, racist (not that real racists don't exist... mind you), misogynistic, and so on...

<comment><USER8> To be fair though, there _is_ a lot of homophobic laws in the world.

<comment><USER9> are</comment></comment></comment>


I will build you a react app for free - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I'm trying to get into freelancing and have no experience. I currently work as a full stack developer at a company, but they don't pay me very much. I've built 4 web apps using react, one of which uses redux.
Currently I'm working a second job at a restaurant to pay the bills, so I only have 2 free nights a week to work on things.
Endorsements and a recommendation on my LinkedIn after the project is done would be very much appreciated.
Please leave your email in the comments and I will get back to you. Thanks! <comment><USER2> hey.. don't do work for free. It wouldn't work for you and the client. You could lower your rate or ask money to be donated.

Problem with free engagement is motivation. Its not necessary for just you to have motivation, the other side needs it too. You are likely to do a real thing and get better exposure when you do something that is important for client.

If you have already finished 4 web apps, you should be in good position to charge. Look at upwork or react specific work sites.

All the best!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. I've been using upwork and its been a challenge to compete with people who will work for $5 an hour. I guess I could lower my rate to under $5 an hour, but that feels like I'm working for free already..

<comment><USER3> Do one project, then next project double your rate, then next project double your rate again and keep doing it until you think you're making what you're worth. You could start at near $0 or start at $5 USD...</comment></comment></comment>


XMonad as IDE - <AUTHOR> http://syhw.posterous.com/xmonad-as-ide

<comment><USER2> I was thinking I was going to read about some crazy hack utilizing one of the layouts or something (it's early), but it turns out the author has just discovered the awesome (no pun intended) that is tiling WMs.

If you'd like to journey down this road and do not want the large ghci dependency look into dwm (<http://dwm.suckless.org/>) (~28KB binary), wmii or awesome.

<comment><USER3> I've been using AwesomeWM in Ubuntu 10.04 since pretty much the day Ubuntu 10.04 came out. My hesitancy with Ubuntu always lay in a good browser (I'm a web developer), but with Chrome/Firefox as good as they are, I didn't really have an excuse anymore.

I used to be a Mac/TextMate zealot (Rubyist, go figure), and have wholly switched over to AwesomeWM, Vim, and a host of other open source tools and will never look back. I just feel like an incapable two year old with a messy desk trying to work in a floating WM like OS X/Windows now.

If you want to try AwesomeWM, but don't want to risk going crazy from setting up xinit scripts or scrapping all that vanilla Gnome install gives you, follow this wiki article and it'll side side-by-side in Gnome: [http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Quickly_Setting_up_Awesome_...](http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Quickly_Setting_up_Awesome_with_Gnome)

I get NetworkManager support, audio support, bluetooth, and battery life all out of the box. As long as you're not a purist about what's running in your WM and what's not, this setup works great with little risk/time investment.

<comment><USER4> > I just feel like an incapable two year old with a messy desk trying to work > in a floating WM like OS X/Windows now.

<http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>

It's not a tiling WM, but augments the standard OS X window management keyboard shortcuts with grid stuff, and doesn't have any odd side effects with GUI apps.

Personally I think OS X and its app population comfortably swing the overall usability balance vs desktop Linux so I won't follow your footsteps :-)

<comment><USER3> I've seen and tried sizeup before I made the switch, and though I feel that it's a great application and a great step towards a middle ground for tiling, it is most definitely _not_ the same thing.

Being able to have windows _automatically_ be positioned is key to the tiling wm, I feel. It allows you to have a layout work as you'd expect without fumbling or thinking about it.

I do agree about the inaccessibility of desktop Linux (though it seems to be getting so much better these days!). A previous co-worker of mine uses AwesomeWM every day inside of a VMWare instance with Mac hotkeys disabled and loves doing that. Might want to give that a shot if you like what SizeUp gives you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One note - many gnome based linux distros now use NetworkManager for providing wireless access which does not work once you move to a different window manager like XMonad. So read up on wpa_supplicant and XMonad bindings before you nuke gnome and install xmonad.

<comment><USER6> I haven't tried it myself, but it's possible to use XMonad as your Gnome WM: [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gn...](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gnome)

<comment><USER7> Seconded. I do this myself. (And I set the gnome panel to autohide as well.)</comment></comment></comment>


Next-generation Wi-Fi 802.11ah announced with almost double the range, lower pow - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/220355-next-generation-wi-fi-802-11ah-announced-with-almost-double-the-range-lower-power <comment><USER2> Awesome, now home networks can be hacked from a kilometer away!</comment>


How do online IDEs like Repl.it work? - <AUTHOR> I was curious about underlying technologies used in online IDEs. My random guess is they start a new docker container for each user session. Do you guys have any idea? <comment><USER2> No need to guess. In most of these online IDEs you can probably explore and easily see for yourself. e.g. repl.it -> Emacs lisp -> M-x shell -> ps ax shows docker-init

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah just confirmed. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Is Low Code The Future? How I built and shipped my revenue-ready MVP in 4 hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.bethanvincent.com/blog/2019/10/28/how-i-built-and-shipped-my-revenue-ready-mvp-in-4-hours <comment><USER2> The criticism -- almost all the other comments at this point -- focuses on one aspect of the low-code app:

It has to be re-written once it grows. *

While this is true, I don't think Bethan or any other low code advocate would dispute that. The question is: can you get test an idea with low code.

The answer to that might be a trivial yes, but if you had asked me what that means, I would guess a team of 3 people could prototype an idea in about a week.

I did not expect a single person to be able to test an idea in 4 hours. That is the real insight here.

* Not all the criticism. One person points out that calling it a business is overblown till someone pays for it.

<comment><USER3> Low code already happens. Now I think it's just getting popular .

"Groupon was originally run on WordPress because they only needed to test one thing: will local small businesses provide discounts in exchange for being introduced to potential new customers."

And yes it is an example of that it has to be rewritten.

From [https://bigthinking.io/the-mindset-for-innovation- everything...](https://bigthinking.io/the-mindset-for-innovation-everything- is-an-experiment/)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's not really new. A few years back, I interviewed at a startup that was close to two years in, and they described their app as "the most overloaded Drupal installation in existence," and were in the middle of migrating it to Rails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, this is where the founder of a "low-code" startup pops up to confirm it: "Low code" is mostly a false promise.

We have been programming computers for most of a century: 71 years this year. And in all that time, _nobody_ has come up with a better way of telling a computer what to do than writing text in a programming language. People keep trying, of course, with endless permutations of flow-charts and rules. But sooner or later, you'll find yourself either:

(a) unable to express what you need to express, or

(b) tangled up in Cthulu's own flow-chart, barely accomplishing something that you _know_ is a three-line `for` loop in Python.

And the thing is, anyone calling their system "low code" (rather than "no code") _knows this_. They know that the shiny demo can't actually do all you need. The moment you want to build something they haven't already imagined, you fall off the edge of the world. That's why they hedge, and say "sure, you might write a little code". Then the trap-door opens underneath you, and you go straight from a click'n'drag flowchart to writing a React component (or worse). Not fun.

I cofounded Anvil ([https://anvil.works](https://anvil.works)), and if you squint hard you could call it a low-code platform for web apps. But many valuable apps are a fifteen-line Python script surrounded by fifteen tons of JS framework. The problem here isn't the application logic - it's everything else! So build a drag'n'drop designer, and a VB/Delphi-like component UI, then get out of the way and let the author write their app logic in peace. When your users try to do something you haven't thought of (and they will!), they'll have an industrial-strength toolbox to deal with it.

But to tell someone that they can build substantial apps without writing code is to invite them to drive at speed up a blind alley.

<comment><USER6> "No code" is always only "less code": look at the complexity of Excel spreadsheets by non-coders. But it is a "singularity event of sensible defaults" that allows useful things to be built before the first whiff of code.

What is exciting is that simple web/apps are getting to that same place that spreadsheets were at and where blogging was at.

People already have a clear idea of what they need most of the time: "fill out this form, send it in a email, put in a spreadsheet, load it on this page with an image", etc. Provide sensible defaults and let the CRUD apps flow.

<comment><USER5> Excel is _sui generis_ \- it is the end-user-programming platform that lived. But even Excel formulas are a textual programming language, and the really hairy Excel spreadsheets spill over into VBA (a "real language" for these purposes, and one whose ergonomics still blow the web out of the water).

It is tempting (albeit a bit snobbish) to think that "CRUD apps", as a category, have so little logic that you can describe a useful working version without code. I just don't think it's true - they are always shot through with squirrelly business logic.

You can carve off products like form builders (eg Google forms/Airtable/etc), but anything you'd describe as a "CRUD app" contains an amount of logic that's just painful to describe without code. (And the form builders know it, which is why they don't support those use cases!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For prototyping relatively simple, UI-focused apps, yes, I think low-code and no-code solutions do have a place.

The key is having the awareness and discipline, when the prototype is validated and starts to gain traction, to throw it away and build the real production app using what you learned, instead of just accumulating months to years of technical debt and cruft on top of a prototype. If you launch with a "permatype" you will eventually find yourself facing a very expensive and painful "2.0" project.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel like this is the self-help hype all over again. People with a network of followers can sell almost any weird stuff. And then afterwards they praise themselves for doing so.

</comment><comment><USER8> For 4 hour experiments, it sounds like a reasonable strategy; but what happens are your requirements become increasingly complex? Is "Low Code" going to work, for example, if you want to implement A/B tests? Possibly one day.

<comment><USER9> For what should be a prototyping solution: Definately, a resounding Yes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't think so.

I'd say easy code (think python and garbage collectors) plus easy scale (think cloud and apps and serverless) is where the easy wins are.

People have been trying to do point and click IDEs for ever. It's always a shit show and I see no reason to believe it'll change shortly

</comment><comment><USER11> If it's possible to prototype or test a potential new product or feature with little to no engineering effort... that is the only responsible thing to do.

I've seen many cases where their were easy non custom solutions to test a first version of a product/feature I have refused to custom build until tested...where then shown ineffective.

Buy over build until it cannot scale (often the scale is cost not growth).

</comment><comment><USER12> Being the critical HN person, I would say that "revenue ready" is a fancy term for "I built this website/app and now need to get clients". So revenue ready = just a website/app.

<comment><USER13> Yes, and it's most definitely a long way away from being something that could be properly called a "business".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great, you made a location-specific clone of an app that has been made hundreds or thousands of times before.

Is this the future? Yes, for people who are pushing out clones of simple, well-understood apps. You can put up a web store in a couple days, or make a first-person shooter, or a dating app.

</comment><comment><USER15> Low code is definitely the future. Look at all the things you can do by calling the right APIs and/or all the scaffolding available. The clear trend changed after RoR and managed cloud services like Heroku popped up. Now the big players offer cloud services that would take months to code but if you pay up you have access (everything as a service). The lesson for developers is work on tools consumed by other developers and if this is not the case probably someone else is working on automating bits of pieces of your work.

<comment><USER16> This has literally always been the case for the history of software. Unless you're willing to tell me an operating system is a low-code solution, building software has always been about obfuscating the frustrating parts to focus on the stuff that actually matters. Infrastructure as a service is just the current iteration.

<comment><USER17> > This has literally always been the case for the history of software.

And the code complexity doesn't actually go down; as it takes less code to meet a given set of expectations, expectations expand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The problem is this MVP doesn't even fit the objective that the author lists in the beginning. They stated:

> It's also extremely important to me that an employer has a positive attitude > towards diversity and actively encourages candidates from under-represented > groups. This is a hard thing to tell from Indeed or a job aggregate site.

But their MVP does nothing at all relating to inclusiveness. It's just a job board CRUD app just like all the other job boards.

</comment><comment><USER19> As with all titles that starts with a question, the answer is probably no.

Sure it may work for some easy cases but most products aren't that simple and as soon as you want to add some extra functionality you basically have to rewrite the application from scratch.

I'm happy that it worked for this guy but if I was a betting man I wouldn't bet on "low code".

<comment><USER20> she is right, but this a terrible example because her idea is weak but her marketing is strong..

the future will likely see apps being built in collaboration with AI.

<comment><USER21> > apps being built in collaboration with AI

Oh please no, that's just so unnecessary.

<comment><USER22> Real life is imitating art at this point, truly. Saw that whole plot point in the final season of Silicon Valley that was released last month and thought it was one of the most farfetched unrealistic scenarios in the whole show. Looks like I was really wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm always curious what's the point of such articles? It is as useless as a programming language benchmark on "Hello, World!" and "Number of empty HTTP request/sec".

I am able to install a vanilla Drupal-based forum with all these integrations in the fraction of that 4 hours (working with Drupal for 15 years certainly an edge here), which I think can scale much better for less than your solution up to a certain point, but certainly fits to a York-scale. But would this prove it is a great business? Not really. Would this change if it was NodeBB, Wordpress or any other technology? Not at all. Would I hate working on something that is super boring to me just to earn money? Absolutely.

</comment><comment><USER24> So, basically nothing particularly noteworthy about the actual product as it was built by 1 person in 4 hours. For this type of business the hard part is the network effect, so in effect the journey is barely begun.

</comment><comment><USER25> I vehemently disagree. To me, this is a classic case of people who believe in YAGNI versus people who plan (sometimes too much) for the future. I've been burned too many times to be able to adhere to the YAGNI protocol. Sure, these low/no-code solutions may work fine for a while but eventually, they'll hit an impassable roadblock and then they're stuck until they either decide that roadblock isn't worth overcoming or put in the time and effort that could have been accounted for at the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't see any added value here. Only a weak attempt at self-promotion in a kind of bait-click way.

</comment><comment><USER27> As a programmer, I kinda don't want it to be, but I acknowledge that as short- sighted.

In general, "low code" _should_ be the future: because efficiency, and maturity of available libs/components. What i'm saying is that this should be seen as a win.

</comment><comment><USER20> yeah, she missed the part where she used her network to market.

</comment><comment><USER28> No.

But these are not the products of the future. Another way to look at it, is that anything like this might be a more well understood component of another application or product, and the more they're used the easier they'll be to integrate. The products of 2020's will end up being highly specific to some niche / vertical and require lots of industry knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yep, we're doomed (sooner or later this will take over)

</comment><comment><USER30> "I literally built a business in an afternoon and so can you."

Are you charging money and have customers actually paying you? If not, it's not a business yet. It's a website.

This barely functions as a website and looks like a few components thrown together using a bootstrap template.

<comment><USER31> If they were charging for it, they would have called it "revenue-earning" instead of "revenue-ready".

What does "revenue-ready" even mean? They're willing to accept money for it? Really high bar to clear /s

<comment><USER32> I'm revenue-ready because I'm capable of holding my pockets open.

<comment><USER33> I honestly feel like these comments are quite elitist.

I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to quickly test ideas. Thats kind of the spirit of (many not all) startups right now.

Isn't the magic in figuring out what people are willing to pay for? That's definitely PGs message, along with speak to customers and do things that don't scale. And now someones getting flamed for attempting to do all three (whether it's worth blogging about is another thing).

I believe i'm ok to comment here as I have worked at both ends of the scale (B2C super fast and dirty vs super deep scientific medical software with long time line to market).

<comment><USER34> > _I can programme if i need to but will often use convenience tools to > quickly test ideas._

I don't think people are making fun of the "low-code" aspect as much as the "I literally built a business in an afternoon" part.

It's a job board, implemented 2 months ago, that has a handful of postings. How is that a business?

<comment><USER33> Well to be fair the title is "How I built and shipped my revenue-ready MVP in 4 hours" not "how i built my business in 4 hours". The claim is an MVP. I've seen people raise money with less than this so at least something was built. I've also seen people raise money to hire people to build an MVP which ended up being something built using "low programming tools". At least the poster is making an effort to take some action. I cant speak for how they will iterate etc but many people with an idea never actually even get started.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the world needs another jobs board but at one point airbnb sold cereal boxes so who am i to judge on what a persons ambitions will look like in 12 months time if they continue to learn and get some feedback. I mean, if they are reading the thread there is a bunch of feedback here they can assess.

Everyone here who is commenting on scaleable systems had to start somewhere, i would bet for many that start was not with something that was at least halfway functional and could accomodate users.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can confirm that I am reading all the feedback with avid interest.

There are lots of fair and constructive comments here which I'm going to be taking on-board both for York Tech Jobs and for future projects.

As many people have pointed out, the claim of being a business may be a bit farfetched at this stage. The spirit of the article was to show that building and validating a basic MVP is possible in a few hours, I added the last sentence about it being a business as a bit of a perhaps misplaced barb at people who are all talk, no action.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. It's really appreciated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


EBay to Intermediate Payments on Its Marketplace Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-payments-on-its-marketplace-platform/ <comment><USER2> Noticed the part that states "more predictable access to their funds"\- it sounds like a subtle jab at PayPal, which is not surprising given the number of complaints that seem to arise surrounding PayPal freezing funds and so forth</comment>


TQP claims using SSL violates their crypto patent and sues hundreds of companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.cipherlawgroup.com/blog/tqp-sues-another-round-of-companies-on-cryptography-patent/

<comment><AUTHOR> I had never heard of TQP, but apparently they've sued hundreds of companies for violating an obscure crypto patent. They allege infringement just on the basis of using SSL / TLS. The defendants include Google, Adobe, the NFL, TD Ameritrade, etc.

Here is the patent in question:

<http://www.google.com/patents?id=fUwgAAAAEBAJ></comment>


Show HN: A minimalist weight lifting log app - <AUTHOR> https://plansible.com <comment><AUTHOR> This project began just over a year ago on the side as a mobile workout log tailored to my exact needs (which are very minimalist). Since then, maintaining the app has allowed me to learn a bit about marketing, support, user feedback, and the mobile app market. My long term goal is to make enough money off this to work on it full time, which requires monetizing it, but that's likely a long way off.

I'm posting this here because I've read Hacker News for quite a few years now, and I know there are many people here who (1) exercise, (2) have more experience in every aspect of what I'm trying to do, and (3) will tear this to shreds. Please don't hold back.

Let me know what you think, feel free to ask any questions, and thanks in advance for any feedback!

Note: This is currently only available in the United States and in Canada. Let me know if you'd like me to make it available in any other countries; it may be a bit slow to login, though, since the servers are located in central United States.

<comment><USER2> From the screenshots it really looks simple. Any chance to make this available in Germany?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely. It should be available in Germany (iOS and Android) in a couple hours, after the store listing updates.

<comment><USER2> It's available, thank you! I'll give it a try this evening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a plan to add any pre-defined workouts for easy tracking? I:E stronglifts 5x5, madcow, 5/3/1 etc. I currently use the SL5x5 app since I am doing that program, but don't want to lose any progress tracking on the main lifts if I ever switch to another program.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's close to the top of my task list. I use it for 5x5 currently, so the existing routines feature caters to that type of plan. It's just missing the week-by-week scheduling for high level progress stats. I currently have two routines that I alternate between: StrongLifts A, and StrongLifts B. This has worked well in the interim while I work on higher level planning.

The app currently makes it easy to deviate from a routine by allowing you to start out-of-routine exercises at any time. The same flexibility will apply to routines and longer term plans; doing ad-hoc routines won't lose your 5x5 progress.

Easily transitioning onto and off of the app is also important to me, so I'm adding exercise import/export. You'll be able to use spreadsheets to transition history into and out of the app.

<comment><USER3> Great! Thanks for the follow up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there any specific reason why it requires me to register account with my Name and Email?

Seems pretty overkill for a fancy number-saver. Is "offline" mode planned?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's there for:

\- Associating online backups with your account, and securing them.

\- Transferring history between devices (phone and watch, phone and browser, etc...).

\- Generating graphs/analysis (more to come soon).

\- Generating shareable images of workouts.

The whole app works offline currently, so it's a somewhat trivial feature to add. Is that a deal breaker for you? It was on my list, but I didn't have it as a high priority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> huge gains bro! and nice app bro!</comment>


How Google is slowing innovation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/how-google-is-slowing-innovation-d53161108ea2 <comment><USER2> I will save you the click. The article spends 1100 out of its 2300 words sitting by the campfire, retelling the epic saga of "Microsoft the arch-enemy numero-uno", followed by another 1100 words about how GMail was Google's attempt at almost extinguishing other email providers, how it was bad to kill Reader (RIP) and how AMP is Google's most brazen evil.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I think one of the important points that hasn't been talked about somewhere else is how Google is using Chrome to do things very similar to what Microsoft has done.

For example, Google has taken over the PDF format (Most PDFs today open in Google Chrome) and not supporting all of the features PDF. They have stopped the further development of PDF format and also blocked the previously made features such as fillable PDF forms by not supporting them.

<comment><USER3> Isn't supporting a subset of PDF features pretty standard for most browser plugins? These are meant mostly for reading PDFs online and not necessarily making modifications to them and saving them (in the browser cache?).

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't call something a plugin when it comes bundled with the browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's weird how you blame them for slowing innovation, but you admit Email hadn't been fixed or improved for years, and Gmail was a step-change improvement in access to email, cost, storage, spam filtering, and filter management.

And despite your claims that they about gmail, Gmail is still using SMTP and MIME, it's still using the same transports, headers, and RFCs that most email clients are designed for. Yes, they've added additional content types you can display and you can write "add-ons", but that's not any different than what native desktop clients did before in terms of what built-in media types they handled vs external plugins.

The real impediment to slowing innovation in mail, is the same impediment we see in TCP/IP, or BGP -- a huge legacy deployment makes upgrading any of the formats or protocols quite difficult. Around the time Blackberry was killing it at mobile email ("Crackberry"), about 3 years before the iPhone, I worked on the IETF IMAP Lemonade group which was trying to add push-email notification capability to IMAP so that it could operate efficiently on mobile, work like the Blackberry, scale well, etc. Suffice it to say, trying to get a dozen MUA and MTA vendors onboard for any improvements was difficult.

The real innovation slowdown came from the protocol being widely deployed.

How do you measure innovation anyway? Did Inbox (I know, I know) count as innovation, automatically picking out trips, assembling itineraries, delivery notices, bills, tasks, forums, newsletters, et al, into bundles, and making them easy to peruse as entities?

Do you count incremental improvements as innovation, or only radical 'step- changes' like the iPhone? because those kind of shocking new products happen only once or twice in a lifetime, and I don't think they are affected by the presence of dominant players. We've seen dominant players get disrupted time and time again by step-changes.

Or are you claiming incremental innovation has slowed? But if so, how do you categorize it? I mean, I pointed out in Techcrunch years ago (see [https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/25/sugar- water/](https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/25/sugar-water/)) , that the vast majority of 'innovative' SV startups ship toys and amusements, not things that radically improvement productivity or health.

I think the real innovation to come isn't in improving more toy apps for photos or selfies, or messaging, but in human health, education, and well being.

</comment><comment><USER5> Later in the article: Google vs. Apple: there is no mention of Apple's business model's compatibility with customer privacy! I believe that this will continue to be a killer feature for Apple.</comment>


Can I buy a GPU yet? - <AUTHOR> http://canibuyagpuyet.xyz/ <comment><USER2> If you can't beat them, join them. The current rates are like $4-5 per day for a gtx 1080/1080ti on nicehash. Super simple installation and you can set it to run whenever idle. [https://www.nicehash.com/profitability- calculator](https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator)

Just think of it like a really slow but never ending rebate. And if enough people do it, we'll even have a chance of lowering the overall profitability.

<comment><USER3> I live in an apartment where electricity is free (bill is included), so I'm curious if mining with a single GPU is worth it. I have Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and nicehash is saying I can make £52 a month with it. If that means running the GPU at full power 247 it would probably give up the ghost sooner than it pays for itself, not to mention it would be loud as fuck with fans at 100%.

<comment><USER4> Install an overclocking app like MSI Afterburner. Set a power limit of around 80%.

The 1060 6GB won't be worth $500 forever - in about a year, I'm guessing Nvidia and AMD will have stepped up their production and the price will have halved or less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just bought a GPU at a ridiculous markup. Sold my old one on eBay to make some of it back, but still had to spend way more money than I should have. Fuck cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER6> Cryptocurrencies: designed to be deflationary, but in reality lead to stagflation in GPU capabilities, crowding out useful applications of GPUs for high performance computing, deep learning, virtual reality, etc. Yay.

Long-term might not be so bad, though, as it padded Nvidia and AMD's bottom line and thus might indirectly help them make better GPUs in the future.

<comment><USER7> There are some pretty horrible abuses of economic terms in crypto, but to talk about "stagflation" in a single tiny product class might be the worst I've seen this year.

<comment><USER6> Abuse of term as it's only applying to a small product class? Certainly. :) But I wasn't unclear, was I? Shorthand for prices going up without significant growth/improvement.

We're used to the opposite in computer technology. It really is odd that price/performance has stagnated or even worsened for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was so frustrated when I came out of PC literacy retirement to upgrade and found that $300 doesn't get me much further than my old HD 7870 After this many years I was expecting 2-3x performance boost.

<comment><USER9> Yes that should get you a gtx 1060 6gb, or 3gb if you really want the highest ROI.

<comment><USER10> I don't think you understand that guy's issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Clever, however their link to this chart I think ends as a net positive outcome for me:

[https://au.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video- card/](https://au.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Way to get your Bitcoin donation address on HN!

<comment><USER13> Eh, with transaction fees as high as they are I doubt they'll get a single donation.

<comment><USER14> TX fees are insanely low right now, the average transaction should cost about $0.80 USD worth of bitcoin (and closer to $0.40 USD worth if you use a segwit address).

<comment><USER12> It's all relative. "Insanely low" compared to a month ago, sure. They're still _insanely high_ when compared to any other crytpcurrency, or Bitcoin itself before it was allowed to hit the block size cap.

<comment><USER14> Even litecoin (average of $0.30) and ethereum (average of around $0.10) have TX fees that aren't "insanely low" compared to bitcoin right now. And "bitcoin before it was "allowed" to hit the cap", of course tx fees would be low... Bitcoin was never designed to scale like that, fees are a core part, and "bidding" to get in a block was always a core part of bitcoin, it wasn't until the last year or so that it started showing due to usage.

The fact is that there aren't any cryptocurrencies that are well tested and widely distributed that can handle any significant usage cheaply and quickly. There are some very promising options, but none that are fully ready for primetime in my opinion.

Still, I wasn't trying to start up the argument about transaction fees again, just pointing out that they are at a 12 month low right now in bitcoin. And the comment that was implying transaction fees are really high right now is outright false.

<comment><USER12> > "[fees] are at a 12 month low right now in bitcoin"

Sorry, that is bullshit. See [https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- transactionfees...](https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- transactionfees.html#1y)

<comment><USER14> That graph is average paid in USD per transaction. A transaction from an exchange with 300 inputs and 500 outputs is going to be paying a magnitude or 2 more than a simple 1 input 2 output transaction. But in your graph they are all lumped and averaged together.

It's like me saying "The cost of electricity is lower than ever" then you show a graph showing the average electricity bill is $800, but don't include the information that it includes the aluminum forge down the street...

The correct graph to look for is "satoshi per byte that will get you into the next transaction". And while i'm sure you can find dates and times in the past year where it's been technically cheaper, the reality is that right now it's about as cheap as you can get to transact in bitcoin (5 sat/byte fees are going in the next block currently, it generally doesn't go much lower because many miners won't include fees below that). That hasn't reliably happened since early 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am not sure but it looks to me, like someone wants us to donate bitcoin to his address so he can buy a GPU. But so far nobody seems to have donated:

[https://blockexplorer.com/address/1HKsanBZFom6WL4cGDtKPF9NTo...](https://blockexplorer.com/address/1HKsanBZFom6WL4cGDtKPF9NToVy8LtoSE)

</comment><comment><USER16> The price of a new GTX 1080 Ti on Newegg is $700 above Nvidia's list price. I didn't realize things were so bad.

<comment><USER17> Miners are buying directly from the factory floor (for both GPUs and PSUs) or from a retailer the minute a shipment comes in. Fry's told me they have a list of people they call the minute a shipment comes in due to the demand.

I'm guessing the price on Newegg is past what a miner would pay for a card.

<comment><USER10> Very true, most people who are serious about mining will have "contacts" within the factories, even their main subsidiaries in the countries they are based in (I know I get my stuff directly on order from AMD France for instance). But the bad thing is that most "mining" illiterate people who see the "potential" are just buying and buying with a ridiculous markup because they think it's a guaranteed lifetime revenue or something (poor souls).

MSRP for RX 580 is ~250$, I payed 340E a piece directly from AMD about 2-3 weeks ago and online (Amazon, electronics stores etc) they go for minimum 400E now, if not more. So on a card that has a profit of ~2.5$ a day (at the moment) you get an ROI of a little more than 3 months. (with MSRP)

With the price I paid 2-3 weeks ago you I will need about 5 and a half months.

And the guys that buy at 100%+ markup will get their ROI in about 7-8 months.

The thing is, by the end of the year (2018), ethereum (and the majority of people mine eth, with consumer graded GPUs at least) will switch from proof of work to a mix of that and proof of stake, apparently rendering eth mining non profitable/impossible with all that shiny hardware they bought, and they have no idea what they are getting themselves into... Basically in 8 months, with a lot of luck (without electricity costs so actually a little more, and praying the market doesn't crash) they will break even on their investment, they will be able to get pure profits for about 2-3 months before the next generation of GPUs come out and the switch of ethereum to PoS.

I actually wonder how many people with little to no knowledge jump on the trend... Manufacturers have no real interest in selling exclusively to miners, so even if they do so, they know that giving 100% of their stock to one target demographic that doesn't actually do much for them is not a good thing. NVIDIA even issued a PSA not long ago to retailers of their product stating they should always prioritize "gamers" and not miners. So my guess is that 99% of this inflation of prices is due to a public that has done close to no research beforehand and are just in a "gold rush" mentality, but these guys are not miners, they wish real hard they were when they read posts about students on reddit making 5K a month and make stupid rushed decisions.

If that's the case, eventually when they realise how bad for everyone it is to buy at that kind of markup, the hype will slowly die. Pretty sure it's going to be exactly like what happened with the cryptocurrency markets recently : very good performance in december, media coverage, hype train, everyone and their grandmother joins in and then the demand skyrockets, prices go up accordingly, then the correction arrives (obviously) and people cry they lost their 3rd mortgage on their house to cryptos...

Not a single miner, especially not "big players" would buy at those markups when even at MSRP it can be hard to break even....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does it decide on a Yes or No?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hardcoded - I decided I couldn't see prices coming down any time soon.

If you've got a price API I can hit from JS, then I'll add something that checks if a 1080ti is above $1000.

I really didn't expect this to get votes - I threw it together in 5 minutes!

<comment><USER19> I liked it, jokes are thin around here and this one hit the current trend! You should add in some value by pulling prices from somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can point me to an API with CORS enabled I can probably do it in the morning.

<comment><USER20> For $5 a month I'll manually check Newegg every day (or so) and update an API for you.

<comment><USER21> There's an opportunity in there for an AI approach to outsource requests like these to Fiverr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know a website showing good graphs about hardware price development? For example, I'd like to see how the price of a GTX 970 developed over the past year or so.

<comment><USER23> Camel Camel Camel[0] has good price history, but it's for Amazon products only. It's on a per product basis, so all of the individual variants will have their own graph.

[0]: [https://camelcamelcamel.com/search?sq=gtx+970](https://camelcamelcamel.com/search?sq=gtx+970)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand why the site isn't using React?

</comment><comment><USER25> Need something similar for DRAM prices!

</comment><comment><USER26> Thank god I bought a 1080ti when I did.</comment>


Slack terminated an account because they thought it originated in Iran - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/aaomidi/status/1075621119028314112 <comment><USER2> Mattermost (dot com) is a great open source alternative to Slack.

<comment><USER3> ++Mattermost

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slack closed my accounts and deleted my data I am Iranian but I am currently lawfully residing in us on student visa so I don't believe there's any excuse for this Behavior

<comment><USER5> The best way is just keep asking for answers. There are so many Iranians working in software companies. They can't just simply wipe out accounts just because

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This racism behaviour should not be left unanswered in the future.

<comment><USER7> It may be asinine, but in no way, shape, or form is this racism. Just stop.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Appalled that someone down-voted the comment. You can't just shout "racism" and make it so. As outlined in the screenshots - the countries that Slack claims are sanctioned vary greatly, as do the races which occupy them.</comment></comment></comment>


Boston Arcology Is a Climate Change-Ready Floating Mega-Structure  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/boston-arcology-climate-change-ready-floating-mega-structure

<comment><USER2> Because if there's one thing Boston does well, it's massive construction projects.</comment>


Experimental TLD .42 - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.42registry.org/page/Main_Page#WHAT_we_do.2C_in_short Primarily, the 42 Registry offers a new, experimental, all-numeric Top-Level Domain (TLD): 42. <comment><USER2> Marvelous, I'll register 0.42 and host my blog at 192.168.0.42. What could go wrong?

<comment><USER3> Not much, I'd imagine. First, since this isn't an ICANN thing, the new TLD will only affect a tiny minority of people who choose to change their DNS servers. Second, I'd imagine most software would try 192.168.0.42 the IP address before 192.168.0.42 the domain, if only because the latter requires a DNS query. So at worst, nobody will read your blog.

<comment><USER2> AIUI, all software should interpret it as an ipv4 address, because the first character in the tld is a digit. www.example.42 should result in failure without a dns lookup for the same reason.

(I know, sarcasm doesn't travel well online.)</comment></comment></comment>