Lessons Learned from Shenzhen I/O - <AUTHOR> https://probablydance.com/2016/11/07/lessons-learned-from-shenzhen-io <comment><USER2> > Only once you know for a fact that a better solution is possible can you > actually think of that solution

This section reminded me of something a friend posited about space travel.

There are some inventions that just being exposed to the idea of them is enough to invent them. For instance, it seems that cultures that encounter others that have written language fairly quickly invent their own, even without knowledge of how the others work. The Cherokee syllabary was invented by an illiterate silversmith in the 1820s after he saw other people communicating via paper and knew that they represented a way to transmit information ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah#Sequoyah_and_Cherokee...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah#Sequoyah_and_Cherokee_literacy)). The writing system that he invented was a syllabary, not an alphabet like the people he'd been observing or a logographic system like some other Native American languages. Having a writing system is a contagious idea all its own and knowing that they exist is sufficient to invent one.

It may be that efficient space travel is one of these inventions: just seeing someone else do it may be enough to invent it ourselves. I don't mean in the sense that we may observe details that give us hints as to how it works (though that's probably also true), I mean in the way that the article says "If nobody had gotten to the score of 180 before me, I couldn't have thought of any faster way of solving this puzzle. Without that piece of information, the brain just comes up with reasons why the score is already optimal". Simply observing working space travel may be enough for us to invent it ourselves. We may even invent a system entirely unlike the one we observed.

<comment><USER3> >The writing system that he invented was a syllabary, not an alphabet like the people he'd been observing or a logographic system like some other Native American languages.

For some reason, the alphabet seems to be extremely difficult to invent. IIRC it only happened once, with the Jews laying down the foundations and then the Greeks actually taking it all the way with vowels (I shudder to think what the world would look like if the Bronze Age collapse hadn't wiped out literacy in Greece). OTOH syllabaries/logographic systems have been invented independently a _lot_ of times all over the world.

<comment><USER4> _For some reason, the alphabet seems to be extremely difficult to invent._

You might be right, although the one known invention of it spread around pretty well, seeing as the Phoenicians primarily got around by sea. And I'm not sure it's always needed: while I'm not familiar with Cherokee, to the extent I understand Japanese, at the lowest levels it's encoded as a syllabary because that's the way their language works, and the ideographs they borrowed from China known as kanji in part help to distinguish between the many homonyms that are inherent in such a language, with the relatively few exceptions to strict use of syllables either easily encoded or a matter of spoken dialect.

<comment><USER5> Japanese was first written in kanji (borrowed Chinese characters), with the syllabaries created hundreds of years later. Though you could say modern Japanese is encoded as a syllabary.

<comment><USER6> Do you happen to know how japanese input methods generally work?

I have seen chinese and japanese steno machines before, e.g. chorded strokes that cover one or more sillables. That takes specific hardware and a bunch of training, though, so I'd guess it isn't the primary one.

<comment><USER7> I'm a beginning Japanese learner. I really know nothing about the language. But here is how it might be typed (at least by a non-expert like me):

Suppose you're sitting at a keyboard with Roman letters. If you want to type a sentence, you might first type the "anofuyuhataihensamui" keys. The IME would convert that into a stream of Hiragana characters as you type to get あのふゆはたいへんさむい.

To do that with a cell phone, you would have to press keypad keys to get the character you want. This isn't too bad since there are only 46 basic Hiragana characters. iOS and android have nice "flick" interfaces for this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LY0-8-PXSc#t=125s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LY0-8-PXSc#t=125s) These interfaces are efficient because they're adapted to the small set of Hiragana characters you write. Some teenagers can (painstakingly) write entire novels on the cell phone like that.

Hiragana characters can express all the sounds of the Japanese language. Unfortunately, they're not very readable because there are no visible word breaks and because Japanese has lots of homonyms. To make the above readable, you need to make a second pass over the sentence you wrote, converting ふゆ into 冬 and たいへん into 大変 and さむい into 寒い with the arrow keys and space bar. I think it's common to do this after every word so you don't get too far behind. At the end, you get the sentence you want: あの冬は大変寒い, after a dozen or so keystrokes of overhead.

Some modern IMEs try their best to convert kana to kanji as you type. Apple's Japanese IME, for example, converts that sentence without any extra input. But frequently you have to do at least a little bit of post-processing.

I think it's common for actual Japanese people to type using an American keyboard by inputting the romanization of the words they use. There are keyboards that have one key per hiragana character, but I think they're not as common.

From what I understand, Chinese is frequently typed with Pinyin, another romanization scheme. There are more challenges though: first, the lack of a syllabry like Hiragana means there's no intermediate representation. Second, Mandarin uses tones on each syllable which aren't captured in Latin letters. This can also be different between different dialects and geographic locations. Taiwan, for example, has some interesting differences compared to mainland China: [https://www.quora.com/Do-Taiwanese-use- Pinyin](https://www.quora.com/Do-Taiwanese-use-Pinyin)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To the author of the article:

I'm jealous you found such a great friend to play the game with. ;-) I found the game interesting but without social interaction it wasn't able to keep me engaged... So I uninstalled it after a day or so.

Secondly... I reinstalled the game and opened up the second puzzle to see what my score was. Surely _my_ solution must have been better than the standard 240? Nope! Now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how you did it. You bastard! ;-)

<comment><USER9> > I'm jealous you found such a great friend to play the game with. ;-) I found > the game interesting but without social interaction it wasn't able to keep > me engaged... So I uninstalled it after a day or so.

I'm in a university, surrounded by people who do this sort of thing for fun, and no one I know will play the game. We've come to jokingly call it "work- simulator" and most people I've talked to who should enjoy this game just see "oh no it's work".

<comment><USER10> My reaction was pretty much the same. Not really "oh no, it's work", but "if I'm going to code, I want to code something other people (and I) can use. For example, a friend and I had a few spare hours, so we made this:

[https://www.timetaco.com/](https://www.timetaco.com/)

That sort of thing seems like a better use of my time than playing a game. Then again, there are times when I just want to play a game, and I don't want to code, so I don't begrudge anyone how they choose to spend their time.

<comment><USER11> For both of you I recommend Factorio. It's more game-like and you don't realise as easily that you're (essentially) programming, since it feels like you're just building conveyor belts to move materials around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few of the lessons he talked about I've seen repeated on Casey Muratori's "Handmade Hero" series. Specifically point #3, he talked early on about writing simple code that fulfills one metric: it works. Afterwards you can see the implicit parts that should be made into functions, remove code duplication, and clean things up. However having that "full view" of a chunk of code makes the process easier.

Also point #4, he writes an interactive write-compile-test system using an executable hooking into a shared library which contains all of your code. That way you can compile and see the results quickly on a still running executable of your game. Very fast feedback without having to "respawn" to a part of your game to test.

</comment><comment><USER13> The tests are an important part of the lesson for certain. Even better is the lesson that throwing a test spec over the wall to your development team may result in them writing code that passes the test but isn't necessarily ideal for production.

I've played many hours of this game and have committed many grievous programming sins to improve my scores.

<comment><USER14> > throwing a test spec over the wall to your development team may result in > them writing code that passes the test but isn't necessarily ideal for > production.

This is also known as Goodhart's law: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The predecessor TIS100 is in the current Humble Bundle. Most of the stuff from the post applies, save maybe the story aspect.

<comment><USER16> Plus Infinifactory in the _Beat The Average_ level of the bundle, which is another Zachtronics game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is why I love learning and writing in multiple programming languages. The abstractions and advantages in each language push me to search out the best in whatever language I'm working in at the time, rather than being limited by the common paradigms in that language.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't really see the point of these TIS-100 style games that use made-up instruction sets. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the game used a real instruction set (e.g. AVR, x86)? Then we could be learning something useful while playing, and make use of the results.

<comment><USER19> The instruction set is finely tuned to make interesting puzzles. Most of my time in each puzzle was spent trying to cram 1 more instruction into a chip here or there.

Since real instruction sets have to be practical for production use, I imagine it would be harder to get the same effect.

Plus you wouldn't get cool features like being able to conditionally execute every instruction.

<comment><USER20> ARM had that early on, all instructions were conditional, but with many more condition codes:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Conditional_execution)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember when a friend and I started optimizing a DES library in C at university in 1990. We had the same dynamics of the post, each other skimming off some cycles even when we thought that one of us got to an unbeatable implementation. We obviously had tests to prove correctness and measure speed. Bizarrely there weren't many tests around in the industry back then. I can't remember when I wrote my first unit test after then.

</comment><comment><USER22> For those wondering (spoilers), the puzzle he's talking about in section 2 ("the second puzzle in the game") is a simple puzzle where you just have to double the values provided as input to produce an output. The naive solution at 240 points he mentions is extremely straightforward:

      mov p0 acc  # place input value into internal register
      mul 2       # multiply register by 2
      mov acc p1  # place register value into output
      slp 1       # sleep 1 cycle, wait for next input

The only way (I can think of) to optimize this is by cheating, i.e. by writing an algorithm specifically fitted for the kind of input we have to deal with. Looking at the input, we see that for example there are only 3 input values (0, 25 and 50) and there seems to be more zeros than other values. Based on this info we can try to predict what value is likely to show up as input and follow a dedicated path to handle it, in order to be as efficient as possible.

I must admit I was happy with the 240 solution and never thought there was a better way until I read this article. Now I feel obliged to at least go down to 156 :D

<comment><USER23> >The only way (I can think of) to optimize this is by cheating, i.e. by writing an algorithm specifically fitted for the kind of input we have to deal with.

Programmers must stop equating cheating with engineering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Shenzhen I/O is indeed amazing. Most Zachtronics games are at least great.

</comment><comment><USER25> It really is an interesting game. I'd first started with this sort of genre playing Human Resource Machine, which simulates a single accumulator architecture, and very interesting set of puzzles. The puzzles really are just standard sorting, string reversal, prime factorization. The best part I find about it is the way Pointers and Memory allocation/access and stack access is done. I'd recommend this game very much as the puzzles aren't very hard and the progress is really satisfying.

Shenzhen I/O is a great game too! But I got stuck at one point and as another comment points out, I also gave up on it. Maybe it's time to log into Steam. :)

[*] [https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine](https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine)

</comment><comment><USER26> In all seriousness, I was expecting the article to be like "on nov 5th, I went to Shenzhen to attend the annual Shenzhen I/O hardware hacker conference.. and boy was I blown away.. lots of cool stuff people are working on..".. then I'm like, um, a game? what?

<comment><USER27> It's not just a game: it's a _Zachtronics_ game.

<comment><USER28> Excuse the intrusion, but there's no PM system on HN...

I've noticed your recent, prolific rise to prominence here on HN. You seem to have come out of nowhere and shot past most other users whose accounts are much older. I would be interested in reading an article from you on what you've learned and observed over the past year.

[Boy, harsh. It's not like there's an email address on the guy's profile. Guess I should have contacted him telepathically. Yet another reminder to keep showdead on.]

<comment><USER27> Gee. I had a prolific rise to prominence? I didn't notice. I'm certainly one of the less interesting and skilled people on this forum, so I'm frankly baffled.

Well, since you asked...

The most important thing that I've learned is that it's a good idea to put yourself out there: Say what you think, be honest, and be ready to defend your ideas (but also be ready to admit you were wrong if you find out that you are).

Also, don't worry about the possibility saying something stupid. Some of the best conversations I've had on HN happened because I said something stupid: If you say something stupid, that usually means that you aren't well educated in that area, and hold misconceptions. It's best to get those misconceptions out there, so that you'll know that they're wrong.

Remember to attack ideas, not people. Even when you really, really, want to attack people. It's not worth it.

Don't focus on your karma too much: just because you got downed doesn't mean it wasn't worth saying.

<comment><USER28> Thanks, appreciate your response.

Do you have any thoughts about the voting system on HN? Not that it's going to change, but I am becoming quite tired of seeing worthwhile, interesting comments downvoted into grayness. It feels like a kind of anonymous shaming, like a group of people put on masks, gather around someone, and wag their fingers at them until they are shamed into silence. It only takes a few people to downvote a comment into obscurity, and it may happen by chance that the first few people to see it are censorious, preventing others who would upvote it from even seeing it. I strongly think that there should only be two options: upvote, or flag for rule violations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> He makes one observation in which makes a small but important mistake: When he mentions tests he calls them first unit tests, then automated tests.

And yes, unit tests usually are automated. They are however just one type of automated test, and at the smallest scale too. Integration and system tests are just as important and can give much more bang for much less buck.

<comment> brian-armstrong This is a good point. The tests in the game are integration tests, and only mediocre ones at that

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> You can't optimize for all three judged outputs (production cost, power usage, lines of code) at once. For this reason, you can replay every level three times with a different optimization goal.

Some of the optimization techniques I found before life took my interest away from the game (we[0] are building a real embedded system of significant complexity, and actually visited Shenzhen a few months ago) were judicious use of leading @SLP (usually as a final optimization), use of memory (acquired later in the game) instead of processing inputs, careful investigation of the limited use of conditionals to split codepaths, and basic addition using shared buses.

[0] [http://8-food.com/](http://8-food.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> What you think about Shenzhen I/O vs TIS-100 ?

<comment><USER32> Shenzhen I/O is an improved TIS-100. The story is much more worked on, and also has the solitaire aame extra (it's fantastic).

Also, to some extent, Shenzhen I/O = TIS-100 + SpaceChem

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Some of the related videos for their intro video on their site are great and make me want to try it. There was one of a guy who created a old school 3D maze with random generated levels and one wich played the whole "rick roll" song . It amazes me we can simulated computers and hardware in a computer with this depth ...inception level 1

</comment><comment><USER34> Great article, I too loved this game. In fact the article prompted me to fire it up again and figure out the tricks to match his 148 on the 2nd problem and it was really fun.

Now for that second campaign...</comment>


Show HN: Pennywall is a donation-wall / tip-jar / paywall for sharing your links - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/0xfe/pennywall <comment><USER2> Very nice service, looks well implemented. Do you have plans to monetize this? EDIT: Do you remember when a browser has already donated?</comment>


So You Just Bought Sex.com For $13 Million – Now What? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/so-you-just-bought-sex-com-for-13-million-now-what/ <comment><USER2> Single-word domains from the common vocabulary usually make for shitty brands.

Probably because business efforts behind these domains are rather transparently profit-seeking and wired for the short-term, make a quick buck, approach.

Also there's a good amount of technological quackery that goes on in the hyping of these domains to not-so-tech-savvy investors who don't realize that a typical 14yo kid understands intuitively that "sex.com" is probably a crap parked site or link directory, whereas pornhub.com, on the other hand, provides a service that 14yo will love.

 _"..and we've got a GREAT domain name, pets.com, I mean, if you want a pet, where you gonna go? We're right there."_

Labors of love are what win and enable you to eventually fleece your customers and have them thank you for doing it -- not having a 13 million dollar domain.

<comment><USER3> Are there _any_ single, common word domain brands that have been successful? I can't think of a single one.

<comment><USER4> From what I understand, Diapers.com is a highly successful business. Their parent company Quidsi, who also owns Soap.com, was recently acquired by Amazon for $540 million.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would go with a reoccurring membership porn site.

125k daily visitors x 1% conversion rate = 1250 new customers per day

1250 new customers per day x 365 days in 1 year = 456,250 new customers per year (reached at the end of the first year)

456k new customers per year x $120/year in revenue (assuming $10/month) = $54.7mil per year in revenue

(though the math isn't fully accurate since it doesn't take into account churn but it works to illustrate a point.)

With a tiny bit more brains, you could take that up to $100mil/year, prove the stability of the revenue and sell for 10x of revenue at a cool $1 Billion Dollars (Dr. Evil pinky finger lift)

Obviously it's much easier to be an armchair quarterback and pull numbers out of thin air than to execute and create real value.

<comment><USER6> What justifies assuming a 1% conversion rate?

How many people do you run into walking around town, what would justify a 1% conversion rate in selling products to them? Just because 1% seems small does not mean it's a guaranteed conversion rate.

<comment><USER7> 1% would be a very badly converting adult site so I would think that would be an ok assumption.

<comment><USER8> I don't know if you have stats or if you're just making numbers up, but in all seriousness if you have the conversion rates for some popular sites I'd love to see them. Just for curiosity's sake.

<comment><USER7> I do but I can't give you the exact figures, that's not my decision to make.

The big problem is probably defining what people call 'conversion rate', typically that's 'virgin traffic' divided by actual sales.

The problem with that particular definition is to track accurately how many people have never seen your site before.

For a site that is growing steadily the number of 'new' visitors that will eventually convert over the life cycle of their account is a number that always relates all of todays 'new' traffic to the total sales of today, but the sales of today were not typically caused just by people that visited today for the first time.

So accurately tracking conversion rate is not as simple as it may seem at first glance.

Also, and this is a completely different issue, conversion rate is _not_ the most important figure at all, and I find the thread we're discussing this in amusing because even though the first poster in the thread accurately identifies recurring billing as an excellent revenue driver it completely misses out on the life-cycle aspect of an account, and typically accounts do not last forever.

Industry standard is 3 months, so if your subscription site has a 1% conversion of free traffic to paying members then you will still only make 3 times your monthly charge on them.

To do better than that you'd have to work really hard on tweaking that 3 month figure, _retention_ is almost as important (if not more important) as initial sign-ups.

That's where the real money is.

<comment><USER9> Really interesting for me to read this analysis. For my online game, conversion of people who visit the landing page is about 0.5%, but once they're paying, churn is in the 3%-5% range per month, which is around 25 months retention on average. So for me, it seems that the real money is in trying to get the conversion rate up and I'm mostly ignoring the retention, because it seems like I'd have to do a lot of work to move the retention rate.

I guess people looking for sex are quicker to pull out their wallet but also quicker to be satisfied.

<comment><USER7> You've got a goldmine there!

With a retention like that you could drop your conversion rate even further (so market more aggressively) and still come out on top.

Don't bother optimizing the conversion, the retention or any simple formula but instead focus on optimizing the one number that matters: net profits.

<comment><USER9> If I have a goldmine, it's been eluding me. I'm not that great at marketing and seem to be able to only get so many people in with adwords. People pay $10/mo, so a new user is worth something like $200 and I'm currently bringing them in via adwords at about $50 each, but that's the average and if I up my bids, the cost to bring in more will be about $80 each, which seems high considering how long it will take to make the money back. I only get about $3k spend/mo with adwords at the current bids.

Edit: Costs are already so low that the only way to increase net profits would be to increase revenue per user, perhaps with added micropayments, but it seems to me that with so few paying users <1200, I should be trying to get a larger user base and then later increase revenue per user?

<comment><USER10> If you have a proven conversion funnel and high retention, you should be able to absolutely blow this thing up via Facebook Ads. AdWords is hardly the ideal channel to drive significant game traffic(unless you're awesome at Content Network).

Or set up an affiliate program paying about $1 per free signup.

<comment><USER9> Don't know if I'm awesome at content network, but about 95% of my adwords clicks are coming from the content network and not from actual search.

I get people via Adwords at less than 20 cents a click. According to Facebook, the minimum bid for people who like online games or mmorpgs, or other categories I've tried is currently well over a dollar. I did get some clicks from Facebook when their ads were fairly new and the minimum bids weren't so high, but conversion rates were much lower than those from Adwords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think I've gone to random domains since I was on a 14.4 modem. I find it pretty hilarious that that domain can break even just parked.

<comment><USER12> It's not breaking even, right? The domain was 13 million. It makes "almost 7 figures" a year. So in 13 years, assuming that people still keep visiting a bogus site, it will have paid for the domain registration.

If you just want to break even, you should probably just register a google.com typo domain for $20, and then you need a lot fewer visitors to break even.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sell it for $15 million to someone who is more of a sucker than you are.

Isn't that the same plan Goldman Sachs has for its 'investment' in Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER14> Sex.com doesn't seem to be that lucrative of a domain name(not 13mm lucrative)...if it was, more companies would try to rank for the term sex.

right now it's

      1. Wikipedia Article
      2. FBI Sex Offender Registry
      3. Psychology article
      4. Porn Tube Site
      5. HIV charity
      6. Virginia State Police Sex Offender Registry
      7. Music Review Blog
      8. Sex Pistols music site
      9. Georgia Sex Offender Registry
      10. Center for Sex Offender Registry

I'd bet there is a ton of traffic because people just want to see what kind of site is hosted on sex.com, so its a lookie loo situation, where you'll have a crappy conversion rate. So a traditional porn site won't work that well.

A better option would be to open a casual encounters type site(basically adult friend finder), and charge $5-10-20 bucks a month under the guise of making sure that there are no fake profiles.

<comment><USER15> Don't you think google threats porn/sex sites kinda different than others? I bet non-porn sites rank better for non-porn keywords than porn sites ('sex' is not necessarily porn keyword). And there is nothing porn SEO experts can do about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Make it an adult dating site...it has the makings of a strong brand.

The significant type-in traffic will help get over the network effect issues that plague most dating sites, and your traffic is very targeted- people looking for sex(or at least naughty pics). So you'll quickly have a core of active users you can leverage to build your audience.

Dating sites done right are FAR more profitable than porn sites.

<comment><USER16> _Dating sites done right are FAR more profitable than porn sites._

That seems odd to me because if the dating site works people will not be coming back.

<comment><USER17> Elsewhere they say the industry standard is 3 months average length of a membership. It properly takes that long (maybe not consecutive) if not more for somebody to get of the dating market permanently. A porn site has little chance of going viral (who wants their facebook status to be "John is browsing cocksuckersluts.com"?) and almost no chance of an upsell - but I know that people share recommendations of online dating sites and when there they are an excellent place to send people to other partners (looks like you are going on a date! Do you want to buy flowers and reserve a table for two at a romantic dinner?) something that is not likely to happen on a porn site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The most obvious ideas are porn site, adult dating site, etc. The biggest challenge is figuring out the highest and best use. I think the best use is turning sex.com into the authoritative site for sex questions / videos. With this approach, you can get a captivated audience and build a lasting brand.

Sex is something we all want to know about, but it is still taboo to publicly talk about in the US, UK, India, etc. I notice other posts mentioning developing a porn site, or adult dating site, but those seem like low hanging, 1-off sales. By building a brand, you can generate a higher customer LTV. If the owner of sex.com can afford to pay $13 million, he should be able to afford several million to develop expert content, products, and a long term business.

To give you insight in the value of creating a product company, look at Bill Phillips who acquired EAS in 1996, and solid it for $160 million in 1999. <http://www.ergogenics.org/231.html>

</comment><comment><USER19> I would re-open the craigslist.com "Adult" section.

<comment><USER20> Actually, that's a great idea - making a version of this at sex.com, with ads, could be amazingly lucrative.

<comment><USER21> But don't base it from the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _The reason he doesn't simply jump into the lucrative online porn industry? Because such an endeavor would close the door on other, more mainstream options, narrow down his exit possibilities – such as selling to a public company – and limit the ability to take the business public in the future, Jeff says._

I've noticed recently that most porn businesses are, in fact, private. The TechCrunch article alludes to this as obvious, but to me it is not. What would be the obstacles to taking a porn business public?

<comment><USER7> > What would be the obstacles to taking a porn business public?

Nothing, really:

<http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0614/6312214a.html>

<comment><USER23> I don't think you're likely to contest that 1999 was an easier time for IPOs.

Private Media and Playboy are both public. And unprofitable. And not especially worth all that much these days; you'd have a hard time getting a "real" IPO done even at Playboy's 180M market cap, let alone Private's 20M valuation.

<comment><USER7> The question was 'obstacles in the way of taking a porn company public', as far as I know there are none (legal or reporting wise).

I don't know why a porn company going public would be any less 'real' than any other company.

1999 was an easier time for IPOs but not an easier time to make money online. Don't mistake the money that was pumped in to the market for turnover, there are many more people making cold hard cash online now than there ever were in 1999.

The one problem with porn as a business is that the number of potential exits is very limited, another problem is that the market is very fragmented which will likely limit the size of the players.

<comment><USER23> Oh, as regards real, I mean dollar volume. You won't get Goldman to underwrite an IPO for such a small valuation. You could certainly do a shell merger or bulletin board/pink sheet listing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The owner's no dummie, but dang, maybe a little more planning?

How about they just buy my company (or hell, hire me), rebrand to sex.com, advertise mainstream utilizing a real ad agency, and easily turn in 20-30 million over the next 3 years.

<comment><USER3> Your domain name seems extremely sub-par for how high quality your site is.

I messed around for a few minutes and came up with:

      funtickle.com
      meowsex.com

Not sure if those are any better, but just wanted to see what was out there. ;)

<comment><USER24> It is one of my biggest weaknesses, but I figured once I'd proven it possible with whatever domain, I could search out another one. It's in my plan for this year, begin investigating new domains... neither of those seem very fitting, but thanks for considering it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd go with a daily blog style page, something like "Today's Big Thing," but sex-related. Fresh daily content guarantees you a recurring audience and makes it so you potentially only need one employee, the editor.

</comment><comment><USER25> 1\. Open up a website for students. Student EXchange = sex.com 2\. Stack EXchange can get a shorter name or use them as a short URL.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wait until the next stupid bubble and sell it for a profit. Easy money.

</comment><comment><USER24> If I had 125k more visitors a day, I'd make around $272,100 a day.

</comment><comment><USER27> How about anonymous postings of sex encounters/sex fantasies?

</comment><comment><USER28> How can you possibly go bankrupt with a domain name like that?

You would have to hire a very expensive team and completely mismanage your funds.

It's a goldmine. You're pretty much guaranteed to get traffic.

</comment><comment><USER29> The last time I paid for sex it only cost me dinner and my self-respect. I bet you get a really good time for $13 Million :p

</comment><comment><USER21> <http://anything.com/>

<http://can.com>

<http://happen.com/>

<http://on.com>

<http://the.com>

<http://internets.com>

<comment><USER30> <http://theinternets.com>

* gasp __* someone bought The Internets! _All of them_! What'll we do?!

<comment><USER31> does anyone have any idea what i could use shag.me brought it a few years ago when the .me come about but still dont have any idea what could be a good idea for a site all ideas welcome,

thank you

matt</comment></comment></comment>


Science's Freedom Fighters (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/sciences-freedom-fighters/ <comment><USER2> > they took umbrage with her tweet because of confusion over what "science" > is.

I don't think so. I think they were confused about the way in which social scientists use the word "politics". It doesn't seem to mean, to them, what it means to the average man on the street.</comment>


Emulators Written in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://hackerlists.com/javascript-emulators/ <comment><USER2> The title is a tiny bit misleading. Indeed all of those are JavaScript emulators, but not all of them were _written_ in JS. At least one on the list (mupen64plus) is transpiled from C++ using the (amazing) emscripten.

</comment><comment><USER3> This appears to be ripped from the original list here, which is also more uptodate:

[https://github.com/fcambus/jsemu](https://github.com/fcambus/jsemu)

</comment><comment><USER4> How many of them are proper, accurate emulators though (and not emscriptened ones like mupen64)? Parsing bytes and mapping them to instructions is easy, and I believe that's why most of them are for very simple machines. We're still very far away from having multiple PS1/N64 era that are running at a tolerable framerate.

Except 1964js, which works in a way that both amazes me and makes me feel dirty at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER5> small & easy linux-like in-browser emu: [http://bellard.org](http://bellard.org)

fullscreen, "Unix-like virtual shell", u.a. ssh(!?); ping(ok) "-": no c&p, [http://cb.vu/](http://cb.vu/)

think, there are some more Linux & unix Emulators in js? would be nice, find some in next comments. :-)

<comment> s-macke Try [https://github.com/copy/v86](https://github.com/copy/v86) and [https://github.com/s-macke/jor1k/](https://github.com/s-macke/jor1k/)

The latter one even has complete network support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Intresting that SNES is missing from the nintendo list. There's a good bit of literature on the underlying implementation for SNES roms: [https://github.com/bttf/snes_dev](https://github.com/bttf/snes_dev)

(Full disclosure: I spent a little time accumulating aforementioned literature)

<comment><USER7> XNES[1] is mentioned, which links to a page with several other us ports including SNEM and SNES9x.

[1] [http://tjwei.github.io/xnes/](http://tjwei.github.io/xnes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a Chip-8 emulator (VM?) in C# and then tweaked it so that Bridge.NET could compile it down to JavaScript:

[https://blog.dantup.com/2016/06/dachip8js-my-csharp- chip8-in...](https://blog.dantup.com/2016/06/dachip8js-my-csharp- chip8-interpreter-running-in-the-browser/)

<comment><USER9> I wrote one in JavaScript directly some time around 2012 or 2013. [http://chip8.progr.am/chip8.html](http://chip8.progr.am/chip8.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also missing a 6502 emulator I wrote in Go that is transpiled to JavaScript using Gopherjs: [https://play.dodolabs.io/?code=89e9a475](https://play.dodolabs.io/?code=89e9a475)

</comment><comment><USER11> Can't wait to see some of these ported to WebAssembly.

<comment><USER3> My 8-bit multisystem emulator has both an asm.js and WebAssembly version:

asm.js: [http://floooh.github.io/virtualkc/index.html](http://floooh.github.io/virtualkc/index.html)

WebAssembly: [http://floooh.github.io/virtualkc/index_wasm.html](http://floooh.github.io/virtualkc/index_wasm.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would actually be more interested in the ones that are actively maintained. Many tend to come and go, NESBox being one that comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER13> Missing a TI calculator emulator I wrote in C that can be compiled with emscripten and run in the browser (does that count?):

[https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e](https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e)

<comment><USER14> Oh neat! I've been dabbling with a similar project for the TI Voyage 200... the Emscripten version isn't in the repo, but it's relatively straightforward to make work.

[https://github.com/duskwuff/v200](https://github.com/duskwuff/v200)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some of these are not emulators, they are just code translated to Javascript, or e.g. compilers written in Javascript.</comment>


Kdb+ time-series database available on-demand; free 64-bit personal edition - <AUTHOR> https://kx.com/news/kx-extends-use-of-worlds-fastest-time-series-database-kdb-with-on-demand-offering-for-cloud-and-on-premises/ <comment><USER2> Nice, but I just realized this is for an online version that has to communicate back with their servers. I'll have to pass.</comment>


Cuil has a new layout - <AUTHOR> http://www.cuil.com/info/blog/2009/03/02/rolling-out-a-new-look

<comment><USER2> Scroll down to the RDT entry: <http://www.cuil.com/search?q=ruby>

You're getting there Cuil... but not quite there yet. Not... quite... there.

<comment><USER3> :O I don't get how such a thing could have happened -- maybe a key collision or something??

<comment><USER4> Cuil-bomb, perhaps? People exploiting however Cuil does the rankings to make mismatches intentionally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cuil as a unit of measure: [http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7da5i/police_raid...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7da5i/police_raids_reveal_baby_farms/c06cqxb)

<comment><USER5> That is one of the funniest things I have read in a long long time. Although I do feel so sorry for them as an entrepreneur. It must be like some sort of terrible nightmare for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please fix irrelevant results. Search for 'rfid tutorial' gives a Java JDBC page at the top.

Also, layout is not a differentiation so please stick to google style and stop wasting time on it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why are they still in business ?

<comment><USER8> Inertia. It takes a lot to stop a business once it's achieved a certain size. They have enough money not to go bankrupt, and I guess their VCs haven't decided to pull the plug yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a ridiculous layout IMHO, Seems to be a fixed width thing, which results in vast expanses of white unused space to the right of the results.

<comment><USER8> I knew you were going to say that!...

<comment><USER9> You have to admit it makes slightly less sense than google results layout :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> why would someone use Cuil? I mean, besides hating google (and yahoo and microsoft and all the other search engines out there)...?

</comment><comment><USER11> interesting... but results aren't so great relevancy wise and pictures don't go with the results they are linking to. (search postgres and postgresql. separately)

</comment><comment><USER12> I really liked Cuil's old layout, and I like the new one even more. But the poor relevancy of search results prevents me from using them.</comment>


Neuralink and Elon Musk set to demonstrate progress - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/08/24/elon-musk-may-announce-human-trials-at-the-neuralink-demo-heres-why-thats-awesome/ <comment><USER2> Do we need to rewrite startrek so Elon Musk is the borg queen?

<comment><USER3> Poor Patrick Stewart...</comment></comment>


Cards Against Humanity's Black Friday AI Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://www.cardsagainsthumanityaichallenge.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm having a hard time deciding whether I think they'll actually fire all of the writers if AI wins. That doesn't seem like something Cards Against Humanity would do. But not following through doesn't seem like something they'd do either.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that at the time of this post the humans are slightly outperforming the AI in terms of packs sold. Maybe they're better, maybe most people don't want to see a whole bunch of their fellow humans be fired, or maybe this a just a big publicity stunt and the writers aren't really going to be fired. edit: This could also be an opportunity for management to indirectly fire writers that they don't like. Fire them all and then rehire the ones they want to keep.

<comment><USER4> I think the challenge is defeated by the fact that we can clearly see which one are AI cards vs human cards, and can also decide who to support. Therefore it's hard to tell if people are supporting one side or the other because they like the cards better or because they're making a point.

It would've been a lot more fun if the writer of each card was left secret, and people simply voted for the best cards, then at the end they would do a tally to see who had the most cards in the top 30 or so.

I guess pitting them directly against each other sells more cards though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Initial observation is the AI ones are much raunchier than the human ones

</comment><comment><USER6> "Sitting on my son's bed thinking, "I could kill him."

Jesus, the AI is dark!

</comment><comment><USER7> The AI seems to have more variance producing both extra good ans extra bad cards. It brings to mind a practice of "augmented writing" where humans filter and pick the best from the AI, tweak the parameters, and depending on the context edit it together so it is consistent and makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER8> How are the "cards they like" getting posted onto the list of votable cards? It'd be more fun if there were a few thousand outputs to vote on, complete with all the junk from the AI, on rather than a human editor filtering out most of them and only showing the best of the AI.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are you really going to fire the writers if they lose today?

No, we're not monsters! We'll wait until after the holidays.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm having a hard time believing that the AI isn't human assisted in some way. I'd expect some incoherent output but there really isn't much. Very fun to watch though.

<comment><USER11> There's a detailed explanation in the FAQ. It uses GPT-2 and they do some post-filtering by rejecting cards too dissimilar from existing ones. Then a human does a final pass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The design of the website impressed me the most. Also the funnies.

<comment><USER13> I agree! Great design. Looks like their using Vue.js</comment></comment>


Show HN: SuperMovies Rank – Rank and share your favorite superhero movies - <AUTHOR> https://movies.teslark.pw <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! Author here, I made the site using React (As a learning experience), React router, bulma.io and themoviedb.org API.

Here's the source code if anyone's curious! :)

[https://github.com/deathwebo/supermoviesrank](https://github.com/deathwebo/supermoviesrank)</comment>


Ask HN: Best method of reducing finger fatigue from typing? - <AUTHOR> I'm a 25 year old dude. I run and lift weights. My body is in good shape, but my fingers are getting worn down from 8+ hours of daily typing (coding, emails, chat, note taking, etc). Using a computer becomes more of a burden when I'm using the touchpad on a laptop.<p>I try stretch every finger individually but nothing seems to help. My fingers just feel exhausted and typing becomes unpleasant. Not sure if there's something I can do to remedy this or if I need to seek medical attention. <comment><USER2> I switched to one of these at home and work :-[https://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-gb/p/natural- ergonomic...](https://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-gb/p/natural-ergonomic- keyboard-4000)

I also custom built my desks to be higher than normal, at 6 foot everything is designed to be compatible with 5'6" and shorter people so I wanted something where the height was neutral position for me sitting or standing [http://imgur.com/a/H7fxb](http://imgur.com/a/H7fxb) .

Between the keyboard and the new desk all my issues clearer up in about 6 weeks and have stayed cleared up.

I hate typing on laptop keyboards tbh, the lack of travel, the fact they force you into a hunched position and typing posture are all wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had something like this last time, and my wrist starts to get more and more painful everyday.

Turns out that I was not typing on the keyboard, but was pounding on it. Later when I change the nature of my keystroke to be more mild, it starts getting better.

Not sure if this will be relevant to you, but its worth a try.</comment>


Show HN: Affiliate link management made easy - <AUTHOR> http://www.affiliator.io <comment><AUTHOR> Just released a companion Chrome extension to affiliator.io. 5 new spots are available for beta testers. Sign up here: [http://www.affiliator.io/signup.html](http://www.affiliator.io/signup.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Very cool. How will this compare to VigLink and SkimLinks?</comment>


Canonical To Unveil Ubuntu TV At CES 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://gadgetizor.com/ubuntu-tv-ces-2012/9099/

<comment><USER2> Can't wait, although i have been running XBMC Live(an Ubuntu variant) for years on my media center(s) anyway it's great to see it become official</comment>


New Microsoft Edge - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge <comment><USER2> Taking a look at the privacy whitepaper [0], there's a long list of data gathering initiatives that seemingly need to be turned off manually (a number of sections explicitly mention opt-out rather than opt-in). I can't check the defaults though, since it doesn't run on Linux. The main problem with opt-out is Microsoft's track record of re-enabling telemetry after it has been turned off by the user, and that's not something you'd want in a web browser.

[0] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-edge/privacy- whit...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-edge/privacy-whitepaper)

<comment><USER3> Just about every update they push to my main workstation usually breaks something for quite a long time. the recent update which I thought I had deferred broke every single thumbnail and the system's ability to remake thumbnails on a machine that stores millions of video files. The heck with using their browser I don't want that to be broken after Avery pushed update too

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm disappointed they didn't put more effort into making the UI look like the old Edge. Things like the tab previews, or the sidebar-like way that bookmarks worked. Instead it's Chrome with a different home page. There's more changes behind the scenes of course, but from the user's perspective it's not obvious what the difference is between it and Chrome. And given the choice I think Chrome would win every time because for years there's been a sentiment that tech people don't use the Microsoft browser so it must be bad. The Edge rebrand was the attempt to reverse that perception, except now they've negated the benefit of the rebrand by taking away the things that distinguished Edge.

<comment><USER5> > it's not obvious what the difference is between it and Chrome.

That's the whole point. If there's no difference between Edge and Chrome, why should the average user go out of their way to get Chrome?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am using Firefox at this time(only complaints are, performance which is less than chromium based browsers, and bugs in fenix).

I am not interested in Edge because it is just closed sourced fork of chromium.

Better use firefox or ungoogled chromium or new upcoming

Bold browser(brave browser fork without crypto or token)

[https://github.com/BoldBrowser](https://github.com/BoldBrowser)

<comment><USER7> Speaking of Chromium-based browsers - Has anyone here tried Vivaldi? How is it?

<comment><USER6> Yes. It is good. It is one closed sourced chromium fork i can recommend. It's developers are linux advocates too.

It has some opera browser features. It has also released part of it's source code.

At the end of the day,i am not using vivaldi because it is not open source. Brave browser is also nice imo(except crypto and tokens)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is this here? That is, is there something new since Edge launched months ago?

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll stick to Firefox

</comment><comment><USER10> Been using the new Edge Browser since two weeks, mostly for testing our new web app. I must say i'm really impressed. The speed definitely is better than Firefox (which is my default). To give due credit, this is the best browser from Microsoft.

<comment><USER11> Which is ironic given that the core is now from Google.

<comment><USER12> Although that core was mostly from Apple, and that core was mostly from KDE.

Wonder how much of each is left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > More privacy & control

I suppose that excludes MS's aggressive use of telemetry in Edge itself

<comment><USER14> Does it have ublock and/or noscript addons?

<comment><USER15> All Chrome addons work

Still, we don't how much telemetry is baked in the core.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just want them to properly sync tabs and bookmarks between PC and Android, and that would make Edge perfect for me.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really like the reader mode and speech-to-text engine, it's very high quality. Just one question though, is the browser going to have linux support at some point?

<comment><USER6> It may have linux support at some time(like they have given hint before) but many linux users are not going to use this browser.

<comment><USER18> Lots of Linux users use Chrome so it's wouldn't be that surprising if it got a little traction from users that want a non-google chrome with out of the box widevine

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Still no version for Linux. A lot of Linux users are getting impatient waiting for Microsoft to release this app.

<comment><USER11> Citation needed? Linux users pining for Microsoft products is a rarity. Why would they go for a closed-source browser when they can go with the open- source, non-google Chromium (same engine) or Firefox?

<comment><USER20> One reason I might use it on Linux is to test our website/product UX on Edge and ensure wider coverage.

<comment><USER13> Would Edge for Linux be a valid test for Edge/Windows? Wouldn't there be things like text rendering which would be platform specific?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The main difference between Edge and Chrome is you have to reset your search engine to Google when you use Edge

</comment><comment><USER21> I switched from Chrome for Edge's native integration with Windows credentialing and Office 365. In a corporate environment that relies heavily on Windows and the Office suite, it really works very well. Its elegant account management between personal and work instances is also fantastic.

<comment><USER22> You can configure Firefox to do native Windows authentication in an O366 enterprise environment. I have done this on my corporate laptop, and it lets me use Firefox as my primary browser for any corporate / SSO site.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Integrated_...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Integrated_authentication)

<comment><USER23> This is cool, thanks for the link. As an end-user, how would you go about determining the urls to add to the list?

<comment><USER22> I just checked and my URL list looks something like:

"corpdomain.com,microsoft.com,microsoftonline.com,office.com,corpdomain.sharepoint.com,corpdomain.local,windows.net"

If I find an SSO-enabled site that doesn't work, I add it to the list. I hope that helps!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _Note: This web page is for the Microsoft Edge browser, but it seems to detect your OS and shows the Edge version and download information for that platform (others are hidden behind a menu). So if some comments here seem to be talking about specific platforms, this could be the reason why._

I've been using Edge on Windows for a few months now. It crashes so many times (all windows just disappear suddenly) and makes my system unresponsive. It's clear that Edge isn't able to handle a few windows with a few tabs each, with memory management being the core issue.

When starting out to try it, I knew Edge would be using a lot of RAM since it's based on Chromium, but I didn't expect it to crash so much.

So Firefox stays, and continues to be, the primary browser.

On iOS, Edge is just another "skin" over Safari/WebKit underneath. It seems ok — i didn't notice anything phenomenally better than some other browsers.

</comment><comment><USER25> I found when using Ublock origin, when edge imported my extensions, it used the edge version, which has slightly different behaviour than the chrome store version. Install from chrome web store if you see inconsistent results

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you have Edge by default then why would you want to install Chrome? Is M$ onto something here?

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting, while I can't find any way to enable extensions, looks like the Edge Browser for Android has built-in adblocker! [0]

(It's not uBlock.. But better than no protection).

[0]: [https://i.imgur.com/T53p79k.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/T53p79k.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER28> I must admit, the landing page looks slick and very un-Microsoft.

<comment><USER29> All of our corporate computers have this now instead of IE11....very refreshing as a web developer to have something modern to target for intranet apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can you use ublock origin on android with edge?

<comment><USER18> That would a actually be a hell of a competitive advantage. There are a few forks of chromium that have extension support but MS throwing down might push Google to allow them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't understand why Microsoft are still in the browser game. It would be like continuing to make mobile phones or mp3 players which they also lost a long time ago.

<comment><USER32> What would you suggest they do instead?

Because if they don't roll their own around Blink the answer isn't going to be "Ship Firefox" because if you actually ask all your users and developers "Just ship Chrome" will come out way on top.

Not saying I agree with it but thats reality. I'm more disgusted by the browser mono culture than most and how so many engineers recoil when I bring up their work isn't functioning at all even in browsers like Safari let alone Firefox and they consistently make snarky comments like "We should just tell them to use Chrome".

> It would be like continuing to make mobile phones

I mean, they are [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface- duo](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-duo)

<comment><USER31> i'd suggest they stay out of business they can't be successfully at. if your strategy is to ride the entrenched windows desktop vs. make an awesome product that people love then you will lose in the long run.

<comment><USER32> Yeah. ok but what browser should they ship instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interestingly, one of the most important battles in the browser (and apps in general) market now is the privacy aspect. There are two vendor groups here: one explicitly mentions it (Apple, Mozilla), and the other remains silent, speaking only about non-provacy features (Google, Microsoft).

<comment><USER34> There is an explicit section for privacy on the page as I can see, there is even a dedicated page to it: [https://microsoftedgewelcome.microsoft.com/en- us/privacy](https://microsoftedgewelcome.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy)

Also they wrote a privacy whitepaper for Edge as well: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/privacy- whit...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/privacy-whitepaper)

<comment><USER33> This is absolutely not the same. Mozilla is actively fighting with user tracking agains their will. Apple is also making some steps in the same direction and speaking about it loudly. In the meantime, Google and MS are doing whatever they can get away with.</comment></comment></comment>


"There's something crazy going on in China" - Chinese workers go on strike - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/6/10/874636/-Theres-something-crazy-going-on-in-China

<comment><USER2> Register is reporting that Foxconn is moving to close _ALL_ of their Chinese factories in a "restructuring" move and relocate them elsewhere in Asia.

Displacing 800,000 workers and moving entire assembly lines? Sounds a little more drastic than restructuring. Wonder if it's related...

</comment><comment><USER3> "UPDATE: I'm in the middle of studying for the Bar Exam "

Main stream media didn't cover the Iraq war protests? Wouldn't cover labor victories? Guess I'm glad that it's the bar he's studying for, not medical boards.</comment>


Ask YC: Best start up incubators - <AUTHOR>

Of course there is Y Combinator. What are the other top incubators? What makes them stand out? <comment><USER2> I have not really researched these into depth just yet, but you should check out the following links:

<http://www.techstars.org/>

<http://www.iwalphalab.org/default.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.strombergschickens.com/products/basic_incubators....](http://www.strombergschickens.com/products/basic_incubators.php)

</comment><comment><USER4> here is one from vancouver, if you are canadian

<http://blog.bootuplabs.com/>

i don't know much about them personally (ie: i have not actually signed up for funding from them).</comment>


PyPy Speed Center - <AUTHOR> http://speed.pypy.org/

<comment><USER2> This is great, but it needs a corresponding memory usage graph.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the best way to make use of PyPy to speed up applications? Every time I hear about PyPy, it's always in the context of performance, but these stats indicate that it's actually slower than CPython at pretty much everything -- not just the interpreter, but also when using the JIT.

So my question is: how are you supposed to make use of PyPy when you have a Python script that demands performance?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure why you think pypy is slower than cpython "at pretty much everything" after looking at this site. Out of the 21 benchmarks given, 10 are 2x or more faster than cpython, 10 are between 2x faster and 2x slower and only 1 is more than 2x slower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The go programming language also has such a dashboard. <http://godashboard.appspot.com/benchmarks> Takes a while to load, fyi. I think dashboards like these are a great idea and all implementations should have something like it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think Miquel Torres did an excellent job putting this site together. For anyone that is interested the code for the site can be found at <http://github.com/tobami/codespeed>

</comment><comment><USER6> Did anyone find the the sources for the benchmarks?

<comment><USER7> Benchmark sources are here: <http://codespeak.net/svn/pypy/benchmarks/></comment></comment>


AppDrone - Automate the Mundane - <AUTHOR> http://sqrhedz.com/blog/2012/05/03/app-drone-automate-the-mundane#.T60XdJ9YvZc <comment><USER2> This is really cool. Suggestions:

\- index all public Ruby gems when searching for gems to add

\- include files for easy Heroku deployment (Procfile, for example)

\- include travis.yml files

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty cool. I probably wouldn't use this unless I was given enough information to feel that I had a good idea what each option was going to do -- either some code or a short description.

e.g.

"Cleanup - Removes some default Rails files that aren't very useful" doesn't really get across what is being cleaned.

"DANGER! Super-simple static webpages" - I assume this includes static 4xx pages?

</comment><comment><USER4> I just have a git repo with latest rails and more options then drone...plus it is easier to add newer things to it.

<https://github.com/desireco/Starter-Rails-App>

It has all I need to quickly start, rspec, cucumber, simpleform, spinejs etc...</comment>


Super Bowl Team Stats Visualized - <AUTHOR> http://statmilk.com/NFL/MatchUp/5363/15638/

<comment><USER2> I am going to say defense is an important factor in the game. So I am going with SF.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now if you were to filter the stats to only reflect playoff games this year things change a bit.

<http://statmilk.com/NFL/MatchUp/SF/BAL/?ps=1></comment></comment>


Interview with Fusion Garage's Chandra Rathakrishnan... post-fallout - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/22/the-engadget-interview-fusion-garages-chandra-rathakrishnan/

<comment><USER2> Man, you have to respect that guy.

He has done very interesting things, (almost) released 2 tablets in a world where his competitors are mostly huge companies with vast resources and is fighting for the survival of his company.

I hope he pulls it all together.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is one uncannily candid interview. In fact, Chandra's answers remind me of Arrington, only less full of himself.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's sad to see someones career fall apart. The web is written in ink and it doesn't remove so easily. I cannot imagine this guy being able to get another round of funding to save his company with all that surrounds him.</comment></comment>