Portacle – A Portable Common Lisp Development Environment - <AUTHOR> https://portacle.github.io/ <comment><USER2> Portacle is a god send, it basically allows you to directly start development in Common Lisp without having to install separately (and configure):

\- SBCL (very fast lisp implementation)

\- Quicklisp (lisp package manager)

\- ASDF (builder)

\- Emacs

\- SLIME (Common Lisp mode for Emacs)

\- Paredit (allows easier editing of s-expressions)

\- and other tools that make CL development a pleasure.

The combination of the tools above are effectively a very powerful Common Lisp IDE.

<comment><USER3> Do you know if installing Portacle will mess with any existing configurations of those things on Linux? In particular Emacs. I have everything backed up but, since I only plan to play with CL, I don't want the headache if it does.

<comment><USER4> It should not touch anything outside of its own directory. If it does, then that's a bug and needs to be fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A very interesting trend of pre-packaged Emacs distros happening. Spacemacs and doom-emacs are most commonly known for providing general purpose configurations. Portacle looking as a more focused for a specific use case.

I would like to see this applied to other language environments to lower the barrier to entry. Maybe Erlang, Haskell, Racket, Ocaml.

<comment><USER6> > A very interesting trend of pre-packaged Emacs distros happening. Spacemacs > and doom-emacs are most commonly known for providing general purpose > configurations. Portacle looking as a mor

Bozhidar Batsov's Prelude[0] is another excellent one. It's got a lot of good pre-selected choices, and almost no bad ones. I can highly recommend it.

[0] [https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude](https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude)

<comment><USER7> Prelude is extremely good. It's the best way to get up and running with helm, and only the support for langs you care about (thanks to prelude-modules.el).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I didn't test the thing (I have my working setup, but wanted to see what this was about), but one suggestion anyways: the screenshot shows a welcome message where it says roughly "Hit C-h h for help". I'd suggest you mention "C-h t" there too, it should be the first communion of every new Emacs user.

<comment><USER9> I wonder how many people press C-h t, get to the following:

 _C-f Forward one character

C-n Next line

C-b Back one character

C-p Previous line _

...and close Emacs, never to open it again.

The tutorial goes on to say:

 _When you get used to these keys, they 're faster than their more familiar equivalents in other applications (Home, End, Ctrl+Left, etc.) because you don't have to move your hands from the touch typing position._

That's such ridiculous micro- and premature optimization - especially given that, since Emacs predates modern conventions, almost _nothing_ is natively familiar - that it boggles the mind.

<comment><USER8> Those are the keys a usual Emacs users uses maybe hundreds of times in a day. Every laptop I have owned has its arrow keys and Home-PgUp-PgDown-End block in a rather unique place, so even if it's a minor optimisation (it's not), accumulatively it's a very important one. It'd be like replacing a heap allocation with a stack one in a hot function, if that example works like I think it does.

<comment><USER10> > _so even if it 's a minor optimisation (it's not)_

Has it been measured?

I mean, if they have actually measured:

1) the speed difference of using those shortcuts vs arrow/page-up and co when merely typing

2) the same speed difference as a percentage of the overall programming process

3) the impact of such speed difference in programmer productivity (speed translated to results faster or better code with fewer bugs).

Or it's just cargo cult?

<comment><USER11> > Or it's just cargo cult?

Yes, it is. Like much of the rest of programming.

I think it's weird for an IDE to tell me which command keys to use. It should have a set of default keys, and ideally those could be remapped as well.

The biggest benefit of directional keys (up, down, home, end, etc...) is that they are universal across keyboards and languages. Control-F may be great if you're on a VT100 terminal, but maybe I'm on an AZERTY keyboard, or one of those funky square keyboards. Or a Chinese keyboard that's largely input by writing characters on a little pad. Or on a Mac using gestures or Ink. Or a dozen other possibilities.

If I was only programming in Pascal and only on one computer in one environment for the rest of my life, then it would make sense to learn those keystrokes. But like is more complicated than when those were first coded.

<comment><USER12> > It should have a set of default keys, and ideally those could be remapped as > well.

It sounds like you may not be aware that this describes emacs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is Common Lisp for SPA development? I tried to look for anything on either Racket or CL side and pretty much a dead wasteland on that front.

I've used re-frame ClojureScript for a few years now but would like to dip my toes in CL, just can't seem to get a head start. Maybe trying CL on the backend first, but even there Clojure dominates..

<comment><USER14> The Potato open source chat platform has a Common Lisp backend and a Clojurescript frontend. There is a fascinating talk by one of the authors on Youtube [0], and the code is on github [1].

A relatively new Web Application Environment called Radiance may also be worth looking at.[2]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl8jQ2wRh6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl8jQ2wRh6k) [1] [https://github.com/cicakhq/potato](https://github.com/cicakhq/potato) [2] [https://shirakumo.github.io/radiance/](https://shirakumo.github.io/radiance/)

<comment><USER15> Why not Clojure on the backend as well?

<comment><USER16> Because I believe that Common Lisp is a better language than Clojure. I'd be happy to discuss specifically what I believe the most important differences are in case you're curious.

Clojurescript was chosen on the client side because its integration with Om was very nice and matched the idea of immutability in Clojure.

Now that Om is no longer well supported we have a problem. The client side needs to be rewritten, but none of us have the time to do so. We'll see what happens with the project.

This highlights another benefit of Common Lisp. It's very mature and I don't have to worry about the fameworks that I use becoming obsolete after a short period of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's like Visual Studio install for Lisp. I like that the idea of single sane default configuration is promoted over infinite configurability.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great! I'm a Clojure guy who had given up on CL before. Will take it out for a spin for sure!

Check out Nightcoders[0] for a similar IDE for Clojure.

[0] [http://nightcoders.net](http://nightcoders.net)

</comment><comment><USER19> I remember a few similar things, forgot the names, lispbox or something like that. They were very nicely packaged but were not maintained so I'm happy to see new activity in this domain.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like the project could do with some help making self-contained Linux and OSX packages. Is there a good multi-distro way to do that yet? Ideally one that allows self-modification.

<comment><USER4> Given that packaging things in a self-contained manner is pretty much all this project does, I'm a bit confused about your comment. Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER20> Sure. If you look at the main page they go to trouble to explain that you can't separate the executable from its special folder on any of the three platforms. Especially on Mac that's unusual.

<comment><USER4> That's on purpose, and required, for a variety of reasons.

First would be that it cannot be put together into a single executable as it is composed of multiple, separate components, that each rely on a specific structure of the file system being present. This is not something I can control.

Second, Portacle is made in such a way that all three platforms can be combined together into a single directory so that it can be run on any system as one, which mandates a shared folder structure.

Third, in order to be self-contained, the Portacle installation directory must contain its own configuration and project directories. It makes no sense to allow you to move the executable outside of this, and it would make no sense to put those directories within the .app on, say, mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It needs EVIL for us vim users.

<comment><USER2> >It needs EVIL for us vim users.

I guess on the future we could have VPortacle, which would be VIM + SLIMV (Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Vim, the Vim counterpart to SLIME).

<comment><USER21> Nah, lisp development tools are much better on emacs and EVIL is a very good vim clone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there anything like this for clojure, with all its tooling rolled into a self contained package? What about for clojurescript?

<comment><USER23> Clojure For the Brave and True includes an excellent clojure setup for emacs[0]

[0] [https://www.braveclojure.com/basic- emacs/](https://www.braveclojure.com/basic-emacs/)

<comment><USER24> Every time I've tried to follow the setup tutorial in that book I've not been able to get something basic to work, like the REPL or the flycheck parser. It's prevented me from really diving in to be honest.

<comment><USER25> Probably give Emacs Live ([https://overtone.github.io/emacs- live/](https://overtone.github.io/emacs-live/)) or Spacemacs ([http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/)) with the Clojure layer installed a try. Learning Emacs and Clojure both at the same time can be kinda overwhelming though and if you are just interested in Clojure and not Emacs you should probably just start with Cursive ([https://cursive- ide.com/](https://cursive-ide.com/))

<comment><USER24> I'll try one of those -- might be good to have something separate. I use Emacs as my main editor and there's already a lot added onto it. Thanks for the links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is nice, thanks for providing it. Is there any intent to allow for Sly to be used instead of Slime (as an option, I mean)?

<comment><USER4> If you open up an issue we could look into what's required. From what I can tell it shouldn't need much work, just an additional file that configures defaults similar to [https://github.com/portacle/emacsd/blob/master/portacle- slim...](https://github.com/portacle/emacsd/blob/master/portacle-slime.el), and a way to defer the loading of either one until after the user file has had a chance to make its customisations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can't wait to get home and try this. Now if we can get this to run in Javascript using WebAssebly that would be a dream come true.

Making WebAssembly better for Rust(Common Lisp) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16585315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16585315)

</comment><comment><USER28> Nicely done just by looking at the site. I'll have to check it out later.

</comment><comment> shady-lady Just downloaded this a few days ago and it's really cool.

Would love to see this all in one for Clojure (incl. self contained standalone emacs)

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice. Is there something similar for python?

<comment><USER30> Not emacs but Anaconda is a python distribution with an editor (spyder), a package manager (conda), ... out of the box

[https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/](https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Really slick. Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER32> supercool stuff

</comment><comment> cup-of-tea At first I thought: "I bet this isn't as good as SLIME." Then I thought: "I should really be more open-minded." Then I looked and thought: "Oh."

<comment> phoe-krk Portacle is a standalone bundle of Emacs + SLIME + SBCL + Quicklisp + Git that is meant to be completely self-contained and therefore maximally portable.

<comment><USER33> Kinda like the old "lisp in a box" package I remember from a few years ago? It was also SBCL and Emacs and Slime all bundled together as a single "program."

<comment> phoe-krk Yes. Portacle is a direct replacement for Lisp-in-a-box and Lispstick. Both are heavily unmaintained and outdated by now where Portacle is under active maintenance.

<comment><USER34> Lispstick was semi-maintained by me until portacle came out. Any further efforts I make will be to improve portacle.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Shitty Listings algorithmically finds undervalued property - <AUTHOR> http://www.shittylistings.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the fun regex we use to find some initial candidates in our analysis:

        val = str.match(/probate|trust.sale|short.sale|auction|cash.offers|all.cash|(sold|sale|sell|offered|purchase|comes)[^.]+as.is|as.is[^.]+(condition|sale|contract|clause)|tear.down|damage|rehab|tlc|flip|fixer|needs[^.]+work|bring[^.]+(contractor|architect|builder|decorat|designer|developer|ideas|paint|brush|investor|hammer|handy|imagination|vision|tool|plans)/i)
        nval = str.match(/(beautiful|ly|ng|has been|was|just|being|100%|just been) (rehab|remodell?ed)|^Rehabbed|rehabbed [^.]* ?(home|cottage|house|property|unit|apartment|condo)|rehab center|rehab [^.]* ?complete|flip [^.]*switch|not an? ['"\w,]*\s*(flip|fix|probate|reo|repo|short sale|foreclosure)|flip on |flipped|not looking for a \w* flip|flip ?flops|tooth ?brush|Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings/i)

<comment><USER2> Is there a numerical analysis or just looking at the listing agent description? What I look for as a real estate investor is price disparity: a house with a much lower price than others around it. They say you make money when you buy a house, so buying a low-priced house and bringing up to the standards of the neighborhood has been my formula.

<comment><AUTHOR> The regex above is one signal we're using. We also look at relative price per sqft and a number of other factors. We could do a little blogpost that goes in-depth on our algorithm if there's interest. We've also tried some fun stuff like running TFIDF on the descriptions [1].

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf)

<comment><USER2> This could be a valuable tool. I like the clean website too. I don't see an About page. It would be interesting to see who is doing this and what you plan to do with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're Open Listings (YC W15): [https://www.openlistings.co/](https://www.openlistings.co/)

We're trying to help people find properties they'd like to buy. We'd be happy to help with the offer and transaction for any home in California, but we're also happy just to provide free tools for home buyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Crazy that "shitty" listings in California are $500k and up.

<comment><USER4> Listings in the Bay Area are absurd. I can buy 6 (larger, better maintained) houses almost anywhere else in the country for the price as one house that would be a "starter home" in those same places. The opportunities and culture in the Bay Area are better, but not 6x better than many of these other places.

<comment><USER5> Classic supply shock.

<comment><USER4> I guess. I just can't fathom how anybody could have any information at all about property values anywhere else and still look at the housing prices out here and think, "Gee, it's a great idea to buy!" For most (the overwhelming majority of) people it's much cheaper to rent than service a mortgage here, and while there are positives to ownership (e.g. control of the property), it strikes me as less than financially rational to believe they outweigh all the many negatives (opportunity cost, cost of ownership, etc.).

The only _good_ reason to buy in the Bay Area is to be able to control the property. Buying homes as an investment is risky anywhere, but it's especially _stupid_ around here for most people, simply because the expected ROI is so much worse for a given sum of money than can be had in almost any other investment. Only the super (top of the top 1%) have any business putting "home ownership" and "investment" in the same thought for this area.

<comment><USER6> It is not a bad idea to buy there just as it is not a bad idea to buy in London as opposed to cheaper areas. The prices are not only higher, but the rate at what they were getting higher was also faster than other areas.

In other words, your investment grows faster. If you can afford to buy and plan to sell in 2-3 years you can probably make much more money in the Bay Area than in somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great to see more action in the real estate space. One thing I found interesting was that you actually registered to become brokers to distribute the data and get the commission.

I'm not surprised to see so much push-back from agents [0]. It's a pretty competitive industry and most agents don't take it lightly when their leads are taken :). I do feel like more technology is being adopted but I am curious as to why real estate tech seems so behind?

I also work with real estate data on SimplyRETS ([https://simplyrets.com](https://simplyrets.com)). We aggregate data from MLS's across the US and the state of the art is quite a mess. We took a slightly different approach, though, in that we distribute the data to app developers and brokers through our API and let them manage their leads.

Very cool stuff. Keep up the good work!

[0] - See comments in [http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/openlistings/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/openlistings/) and [http://www.inman.com/2015/02/27/startup-lets-you-shop- withou...](http://www.inman.com/2015/02/27/startup-lets-you-shop-without-an- agent-but-uses-agents/).

<comment><AUTHOR> > I do feel like more technology is being adopted but I am curious as to why > real estate tech seems so behind?

I think it's 2 things:

1) A lot of technologists find real estate abhorrent. They know it should be fixed but they don't want to be the ones to do it. That's fair. My thought is that the fundamental problem of exchanging money for land is pretty cool, even though all of the connotations of "real estate" kind of suck. So I try to think about it from first principles... what's the ideal way to exchange money for land?

2) It's complicated to get the data due to MLS regulations. Companies like yours help with this, but I believe app developers still have to apply to each MLS to legally get data from a vendor like yourself. It's not like building an app on the Twitter or Tumblr API, you have to call the MLS office and talk to real people (who are usually experts in real estate, not tech) and often pay them real money. Also, I'm guessing your IDX feeds don't always include sold properties or historical data.

<comment><USER7> > Companies like yours help with this, but I believe app developers still have > to apply to each MLS to legally get data from a vendor like yourself.

Not necessarily, in some MLS areas we are able to distribute on behalf of the MLS vendor. It's on a case by case basis and still requires us to ensure we are working with a valid broker, though.

> It's not like building an app on the Twitter or Tumblr API, you have to call > the MLS office and talk to real people (who are usually experts in real > estate, not tech) and often pay them real money.

In general, this is true. However, we are simplifying the process :). Usually, we are able to handle all the dirty work with the MLS vendor on behalf of the broker. Especially in areas where we have a licensing agreement with that MLS already. Not all MLS's support this but we are growing our reach to handle this as smoothly as possible.

> Also, I'm guessing your IDX feeds don't always include sold properties or > historical data.

We can only support what the MLS vendor supports but gaining access to sold and historical has only a problem in smaller MLS areas. It usually costs more at the MLS level, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I played with the flipping logo for a whole good minute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Credit goes to Kevin Hale for the turd on the back side. Really pulls the whole site together ;)

<comment><USER9> Ha! I didn't even notice until this comment - that is hilarious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Credit goes to Judd Schoenholtz for insisting the turd be extremely subtle ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would be really interested in seeing this data for neighborhoods. Which neighborhoods are undervalued for the area, or which are trending upward in terms of income.

I tried to do this a bit when I was house shopping, find a bargain in a mediocre neighborhood that is improving in terms of crime and income. I didn't find any great data sources besides the Cenus, and that was only really useful going back two surveys.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is really neat. Now, is there a similar service for purchasing car? for example it would be great if there is a service that looks into craigslist or other sources and sees if there are cars available for sale that is less than a year old, and is a total bargain. not that people invest in cars like they do with real estate, but it would be useful for buyers that look for a deal with cars.

</comment><comment><USER12> This would be an interesting application for Las Vegas, and clearly the core of any 'flip this house' get rich scheme. But as a way of finding and developing underperforming real estate it looks like a good start.

Adding value here will be finding ever more unstructured/invisible feeds (like the records from the county clerk's office recording title changes).

</comment><comment><USER13> It'd be cool to be the owner/agent of a house being listed here, and seeing how many more calls/inquiries were received as a result.

</comment><comment><USER14> What's your plan to monetise this? Do you somehow get a cut for each one sold?

<comment><USER15> [https://www.openlistings.co/](https://www.openlistings.co/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really nice design throughout both this site and the open listings site!

</comment><comment><USER17> Ohhh. I want this for my area. Great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you email email@example.com with your city I'll let you know when we come to your area (that goes for everyone). We're going for full California coverage in the next month or so.

<comment><USER18> Any chance that you will come to Melbourne, Aus?

<comment><USER19> It's probably the same chance of finding a bargain property in Melbourne :(.

<comment><AUTHOR> Always a chance but probably not in the next year ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe Why are all these houses so ugly?

<comment><USER20> Because they're shitty?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This site is completely blank with noscript on.

<comment><USER22> I always wonder if the developer should care? The only front-ends I write these days are admin backends for my own company, so I very specifically don't care.

That said, is there any data on browser share with JS turned off? Because I'm sure I'm being obtuse, and I know I can be accused of being a dick, but I doubt I would care very much.

My company makes mobile games. We don't support below Android 4, we don't support below iOS 6. Not allowing JS completely is absurd, IMHO, and much like expecting developers to continue to support IE 6. It's 2015, JS is the programming language of the browser-based Internet, and expecting developers to cripple their own applications to support a vanishingly small amount of people that block JS may simply make no sense, economically speaking.

<comment><USER23> Accessibility. Screen readers allegedly support JS - I don't use one - but I think we can agree it's a harder problem to solve than HMTL.

Not to get too much on my high horse, since you're clearly in an area where there's no way you could ever support vision impairment, the problem with ignoring vanishingly small portions of an audience is that the same people tend to be in that portion all the time and never get anything. For apps that aren't expecting interactions more than every ten seconds, it's so easy to just give them flat HTML.

<comment><USER24> Nowadays screen readers are fine with the full-blown web, JS and all. The bigger practical issue is simpler things, like not putting alt tags on pictures, or abusing pictures (I saw a stupid website which put alt tags on spacer gifs).

<comment><USER25> Empty alt tags? Because that is what should be on spacer gifs. Of course, using spacer gifs is kinda 2004.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why did Google bet $1 million on Shweeb? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/12/shweeb.urban.transport/index.html

<comment><USER2> I'm all for thinking out of the box but this elevated pedal system would be brought to a grinding halt if someone decided to stop and hold up traffic, or if a pedal car broke down and got stuck...

</comment><comment><USER3> so cities will only have to find hundreds of millions of dollars to build this over existing routes, and then convince riders to squeeze their fat asses into a claustrophobic little box, permeated by the sweat-stench of so many previous riders. this idea sounds perfect.</comment>


Why Free Basics from Facebook is definitely not free Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.moneylife.in/article/why-free-basics-from-facebook-is-definitely-not-free-internet/44698.html <comment><USER2> I just deleted my Facebook account today. All local newspapers are covered with their full page ads and their attempts to get users to sign their petition is just disgusting!

</comment><comment><USER3> When people wave their hands and talk about the Internet they are conflating 3 concepts. The Internet infrastructure which is not free, the hosting of Internet content which is also not free, the content which can be free when the content owner waives their rights. To get free "Internet" infrastructure and content someone has to pay for it and waive that in exchange for something. It's not free you are not entitled to free end of story. Pay for it in cash or in exchange for something

<comment><USER4> "The Internet infrastructure which is not free, the hosting of Internet content which is also not free"

This is not new, it's the story of how Internet is built and run, but so far it still remained free because there is value to be had in sharing a common infrastructure as opposed to everyone building his own network over and over again to cover the same place. So now comes Facebook and leaches the common "free" network built and paid by others, and then extends the Internet network pretty much in the way it was done till now but it doesn't offer it back in the same way! In this light I think that it would only fair if people start asking their network infrastructure providers to cease their networking service to Facebook! Let them extend and upkeep their own separate infrastructure on the whole Internet scale if they choose to do so!</comment></comment>


DigitalOcean Teams Up with Bitnami, Install Over 100 Web Apps with a Few Clicks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/digitalocean-teams-up-with-bitnami-now-lets-you-install-over-100-web-apps-with-a-few-clicks/ <comment><USER2> Though ServerPilot focuses more on ongoing server management (e.g. updates, control panel, monitoring, support) for DigitalOcean servers rather than one- click installers, there is now a one-click WordPress installer.

[https://serverpilot.io/blog/2015/07/22/one-click- wordpress-a...](https://serverpilot.io/blog/2015/07/22/one-click-wordpress- and-automatic-serverpilot-installer.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like Bitnami and I am a big fan. However, when deploying Jboss, Glassfish and Tomcat application servers from Bitnami onto AWS, I have found that you need to configure the application server specs based on the specs of your host EC2 -- I ended up creating custom images for each type of EC2 in my inventory for these application servers.

<comment><USER4> Slightly OT but I'm curious: do you like jboss and glassfish? I've used both pretty extensively, and am not a big fan of either one. Could have been user error though, not application error.

<comment><USER3> Like may be too strong a word to use. But if you are doing EJB and MDBs, then they both are the only options , unless you go the weblogic/websphere route. I would not touch either with a 20 foot pole for a non-ejb application with no session replication requirements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.vultr.com/](https://www.vultr.com/) is like DO except it allows arbitrary ISO and iPXE. No need to wait on DigitalOcean for them to provide your OS. They also have IPv6, private IPs and more locations. And it's a bit cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Bitnami images for GitLab are impossible to upgrade automatically and are a worse experience than our Omnibus packages. I hope Bitnami addresses this soon.

</comment><comment><USER7> This has been available on AWS also: [https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=srh_na...](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/search/results/ref=srh_navgno_search_box?page=1&searchTerms=bitnami)

<comment><USER8> A few months ago I noticed there was not a novice user step-by-step guide for installing WordPress on AWS, so I threw together [https://howtoinstallonaws.com](https://howtoinstallonaws.com). Bitnami really makes it quite painless.

<comment><USER9> That's cool but your https comes back as untrusted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > DigitalOcean users get two free months of Bitnami access.

Uh, I don't really understand what "Bitnami access" constitutes. Once I've done the install, I don't really need Bitnami for anything more, right? _right?_ Does that mean everyone who wants to do a Bitnami-powered install should hurry up and do it now, before they have to pay to get access to the Bitnami installer?

<comment><USER11> The reporter got it wrong, it is the other way around. The Bitnami launchpad is completely free

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Flockport provides something similar but with containers [https://www.flockport.com/store](https://www.flockport.com/store) We have a fledgling app store with over 30 apps that can be deployed on any Linux server in minutes. It's completely free.

The advantage with using containers as opposed to VMs is containers are portable so you are not stuck to any server or cloud provider. Your apps are portable, and cloning, snapshots and backups become simpler.

The advantage of using LXC is the entire stack can be in one container and the environment is more like an OS that users are familiar with. Users can use the flockport utility to pull the app and then directly get to the App dashboard, without all the installation and configuration hassles of a typical stack. And Flockport apps should work with nspawn and other container managers.

</comment><comment><USER13> Please add Dada Mail [0] to your DO offerings. It's already available on the Mojo Marketplace, Softaculous, Installtron, etc,

It comes bundled with a CLI installer, which would be trivial to utilize when automating the install process.

[0] [http://dadamailproject.com](http://dadamailproject.com)

<comment><USER14> Bitnami runs a monthly contest[0] where you can vote for your favourite application to be packaged. I couldn't find an entry for Dada Mail, but you can go ahead and submit it for review[1] and we can add it to the contest.

[0] [https://bitnami.com/contest](https://bitnami.com/contest)

[1] [https://bitnami.com/contest/new_application](https://bitnami.com/contest/new_application)

<comment><USER13> I'm not really interested in a somewhat gamification for the inclusion of the app into the lineup.

The winners are first the users, who have an easier way to install the app (it's already given away for free) and you, which are given another solid app to offer.

I don't really get anything by entering the app in a contest. I'm not really interested in _contesting_ the app at all. But, to give your users more choice on what to use? Again a total win for you.

<comment><USER11> We have literally hundreds of open source projects that want to be part of Bitnami and limited resources. The contest is the best way we could come up with to help us prioritize

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How's Wordpress on Digital Ocean? Will the $10 plan work well as a starter site?

<comment><USER16> Out of the box? Performance isn't great. However, it's not hard to get some stupid fast cached performance. I wrote about it here: [http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2014/06/25/40-million-hits-a- da...](http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2014/06/25/40-million-hits-a-day-on- wordpress-using-a-10-vps/)

full configs are available on github (and more updated).

There are also a lot of other companies/packages to help you setup faster stacks that are more maintained than what I did. easyEngine or ServerPilot being two examples.

<comment><USER17> How many hits are you getting per day that isn't great performance? I'm running two WP blogs each on their own $5/mo plan and it's been working great with one notable exception: I would constantly run out of memory on my highest-trafficked site (20 uniques per day) with WP Super Cache turned on. When I uninstalled it, the speed went way up and the out of memory errors disappeared.

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/kevinohashi/WordPressVPS](https://github.com/kevinohashi/WordPressVPS) you can take a look at the loadtest_results folder to see. I tested a lot of different configurations and plugins. The default LAMP stack which DO provides starts to struggle at 10 users. While some configs were doing fine over 1000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/) remains the best option for packaging webapps IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER19> I will stick to building the machines myself. These just seem dangerous. If I am going to use these I should just host on HostGator.

<comment><USER20> I agree, I think if you're going to deploy an application that's facing the internet, it makes sense to take the time to roll the deployment scripts (Salt, Ansible, etc.) and understand at some level what is getting installed, as well as how it's configured and how what needs to be setup for security, rather than just trusting the image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't see the Bitnami apps when I try to create a droplet. Where do I find them?

Edit: It seems I need to register on Bitnami's website.

<comment><USER14> You can head to [https://digitalocean.bitnami.com/](https://digitalocean.bitnami.com/) to launch a Bitnami app in your DigitalOcean account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wordpress is awful on DO and many things can and do break. Trust me, I've been developing with Wordpress for over a decade, and WP on a VPS is a whole different kettle of fish. Whether it's hardening the VPS to avoid a DDOS, or auto-patching Ubuntu when OpenSSL gets another vulnerability. It's quite mightmarish. DO is good for things like Gitlab and VPNs and things like that, but good luck trying to get something bulletproof and high availability. It's a devops nightmare. It can be achieved, but it takes some time...

<comment><USER23> Wordpress is awful on a self-managed VPS, this has nothing to do with DO.

<comment><USER24> You mean wordpress is totally fine on a self-managed VPS assuming you know how to manage it.

Same as literally every other application?

<comment><USER25> I think the actual meaning being lost in translation here is "self-managing things is awful"—which it is, if you are a dev and don't want to be burdened with ops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> hey, looks a bit like quickinstall at hostgator

</comment><comment><USER27> Aren't those the guys who took over XAMPP? (portable dev LAMP for various OS incl Windows)

<comment><USER11> Correct, we are the current maintainers for XAMPP. We also have our own LAMP/WAMP/MAMP stacks</comment></comment>


Neutrinos to Give High-Frequency Traders the Millisecond Edge - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/04/30/neutrinos-to-give-high-frequency-traders-the-millisecond-edge/

<comment><USER2> Really interesting idea. I wonder how many HFTs are trying to research the possibility of building their own

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how many big-name consulting firms are milking big-name banks for the research.</comment></comment>


US undermining 'last chance' climate talks, experts charge - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/world/climate-change-us-coal-cop24/index.html <comment><USER2> I'm having trouble understanding why people are so opposed to using fossil fuel "as cleanly and efficiently as possible." It'll take many decades until renewable and other carbon-neutral energy sources can fully phase out coal and natural gas so doesn't it make sense to invest in both technologies until then? If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions as much and as fast as possible it seems that we could make greater contributions by tackling both

<comment><USER3> Because clean and efficient fossil fuel is code for removing investment in renewable technologies, and billions of dollars invested show significantly less return than the gains in renewable energy sources.

<comment><USER2> I don't buy that this is an either/or situation. One example that comes to mind is the improvements in the efficiency of gasoline powered vehicles while electric vehicle production is ramping up. I think we're better off that there was a huge push for making ICEs more efficient when electric vehicles were still in its infancy (I can't prove this but I don't think throwing more money at Tesla or other companies could have significantly sped up their timeline)

<comment><USER4> But that's not what the US delegation is doing: they're promoting coal power solutions

<comment><USER5> Coal is probably the worst. They should promote the AP1000 rather than coal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Climate change is a global problem but will never be solved by politicians as politics is never the solution to wicked problems. Solutions can only be established sustainably through decentralized technological progress. Solutions that are based on the political climate are never the way to go. As priorities can change rapidly. There are no experts in what last chance means. This is a political claim not a scientific on.

<comment><USER4> CFCs destroying the ozone layer was a global problem solved by politicians

<comment><USER7> "solved" is an overstatement, especially given recent discoveries of increasing CFC manufacture in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remember, Trump believes that anthropogenic global climate change is a hoax.</comment>


Initiative called an 'anti-science witch hunt' by scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/stories/scientists-call-for-citizen-review-of-funding-is-misleading

<comment><USER2> Our country is broke, we can't afford the research. There are plenty of research projects out there that could be done on a zero budget basis, why not concentrate efforts towards these and use the profits as private donations to fund your pet projects -- instead of taxing individuals who produce a profit and forcing them at gun point to pay for your project? The reason is, because if you had to fund it yourself with your own money, you wouldn't be doing it because its not worth your own investment. Why should we have to pay for it then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Remove tax exemptions for churches and then we can have money for basic scientific research and tax cuts for billionaires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Contrast that to this article posted previously on Hacker News, "Most Scientists are Democrats and that's a problem" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1989073></comment>


Bill Gates: What Are the Biggest Problems Facing Us in the 21st Century? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/books/review/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-yuval-noah-harari.html <comment><USER2> One big problem is that many aspects of social restructuring, long term projects, welfare, etc. that societies should do on their own, are being left to billionaires' charity discretion.</comment>


Residential Segregation – A Simulation - <AUTHOR> https://ecnmst.gitlab.io/blog/2020-06-09/residential-segregation-a-simulation.html <comment><USER2> This is quite interesting. I would love to learn more about economic simulations. Does anyone have a good intro for people coming from a CS background?</comment>


No, You Can't Ignore Email. It's Rude - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/opinion/sunday/email-etiquette.html <comment><USER2> I copied my bank and set up a vacation response that says this. "Message received. I'll respond when I can."

At the end, the author mentioned someone declining an invitation with, "Sorry can't attend for secret reasons." Sounds like a good template for short responses like:

Noted. Thanks. Will get back to you. I'm on it. A lil busy right now...

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. What a condescending, ableist article.

The author clearly doesn't understand how hard it can be for some people to sort out email bankruptcy.

Instead, the author chooses to shame us. Thank you so much. That's exactly what we needed: more shaming.

</comment><comment><USER4> Has 'rude' even any meaning today?</comment>


Collective Code Construction Contract (ZeroMQ) - <AUTHOR> https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/ <comment><USER2> More software projects should adopt C4, we would end up with less frustration around pull requests and contributions.</comment>


Chord Assist: Building an accessible smart guitar for the blind, deaf and mute - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/google-developer-experts/chord-assist-building-an-accessible-smart-guitar-for-the-mute-deaf-and-blind-4f81669ab663 <comment><USER2> thanks for sharing this, I appreciate it :) and for anyone who ends up here - I'm the maker and happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/sports/olympics/09nbc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

<comment><USER2> FTA _As dancers and acrobats whisked across the National Stadium in Beijing, anonymous users uploaded more than 100 video clips of the ceremony to YouTube, but the site, owned by Google, swiftly removed as many as it could. Similarly, some live video streams on Justin.tv, a popular source for international video, were also removed. According to International Olympic Committee guidelines, the television networks with the local rights to the Games are the only legal sources of video in each country._

I think its time we grew out of the idea that companies can buy the Olympics. Its supposed to be for everyone. All that BS about unity rings pretty hollow when its for sale for $900 mil.

<comment><USER3> Someone has to pay for it. The Olympics must be an expensive operation. What do you recommend?

<comment><USER2> We could start with the tiniest bit of grace about the thing. JustinTV is not a threat to televised olympic coverage. Whats going on here is just plain bullying.

The games are for everyone, form every nation. That means some people might want to watch it on ARD, auf Deutsch, but live in California. Some people will catch some interesting stuff on their cellphones and want to share. Its about the _world_ now, and its not 1960. I'm not saying we shouldn't have advertising sponsors, I'm just saying we should grow up a little about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "But NBC, which paid $894 million for the exclusive rights to the Olympic broadcast in the United States, intends to show some premier events like swimming live on television only to reach a wider audience and charge higher rates for advertising. "

Hum... _Don't ask what advertising can do for you, ask what YOU can do for advertising!_

Seriously, I don't get it sometimes. So much effort expanded on advertising... for what? For bugging people, mostly. Why are we even bothering with all this shit? When everyone (ok, mostly big corps) has "high visibility" because of advertising, then nobody has high visibility.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is true that watching something on computer doesn't give you the same experience as watching it on TV, but it wrong to assume that everything on the Internet will be watched only on computers. I don't watch movies/shows from the Internet (example from Hulu) on a computer, rather I watch them by connecting my computer to a TV.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised the IOC didn't put a requirement for a live broadcast into the contracts with the broadcasters.

Putting it out live on a separate channel would probably make sense in terms of segmenting their audience for advertising purposes. I guess since they depend on raw volumes of viewers, instead of necessarily on quality of viewers, they have to push people to all watch the same thing at the same time.

<comment><USER7> Why would the IOC ever do anything good for the "end user"? They solely exist to make lots and lots of money. NBC offered them lots of money, so why would the IOC turn that down?

<comment><USER6> I was surprised because I believe that a large portion of the excitement of sport is its event nature and viewing a live-event live enhances that experience, improving the Olympic brand. I guess the IOC was willing to compromise the brand for the bundle of cash from NBC.</comment></comment></comment>


How Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. Stayed a Step Ahead - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/business/how-samuel-palmisano-of-ibm-stayed-a-step-ahead-unboxed.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> People probably don't know this yet: IBM probably has stopped R&D for their software (DB2, WebSphere family, IBM JRE, LotusNotes, etc). They're just milking the license and support money. At IBM, the motto is: "It's not a bug, it's a feature" when you call their tech support. Sometime you get bitten by a bugfix that supposed to cure the problem for General Motors so the only excuse they can give for you is that "it's a feature (for GM)".

The latest WebSphere Community Edition is apparently just Tomcat + additional throw-in features. IBM HTTP Server is just Apache + IBM plugins (plugins for integration with WebSphere, WebSphere Portal, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if IBM rolls out new DB2 Community Edition based on PostgreSQL or something (they're not currently, but who knows...). They even have their own Hadoop thing going on too: <http://www-01.ibm.com/software/ebusiness/jstart/hadoop/>

With Open Source, they know that software has become a commodity. So why not invest with moderate expense in Open Source as opposed to keeping expensive Software R&D? They did what they had done to their PC division. By the way, they still have their R&D but probably operates at a different level of requirements.

"Combining research, specialized skills and sophisticated technology is the recipe behind I.B.M.'s Smarter Planet initiative, begun in 2008. It now has more than 2,000 projects worldwide, applying computer intelligence to create more efficient systems for utility grids, traffic management, food distribution, water conservation and health care."

This is probably one of the most crucial strategy at IBM. Once you're tightly integrated in the core function of a city, a town, a state, a country, it's almost impossible to replace you.

Microsoft is making in-road to the government too lately but judging from the progress, they're frying small fishes: Sharepoint for Intranet, a bunch of business processes, windows for desktops, MS Office for documents. Even with their cloud initiatives, Azure and Sharepoint for the Cloud, they're still stuck in that market: intranet.

IBM, on the other hand, is printing Driver's License and ID cards on behalf of the government (<http://www.pss.gov.bc.ca/bcmp/id-card-production.html>). They're charging per-printed-card by the way. So if you ever lost your card, government will charge you X and IBM will get a piece of that.

Check out IBM recent purchases: cloud, cloud, storage cloud, cloud, software for government (Curam: claim management system, social service, pension plan, etc).

<comment><USER3> I was reading a great investing book this weekend which mentioned that companies seldom stay leaders if they only dominate in one discipline.

The author cited technology companies and how sometimes a great engineering culture simply isn't enough to maintain leadership, you often need to combine it a strong position in another discipline such as sales/marketing.

I think this rings true for IBM. I would guess that around 20 years or so ago, they stopped being primarily a technology company and shifted to offering services that were sold be a great sales force to keep customers hooked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In 2004, I.B.M. sold its PC business to Lenovo of China. Mr. Palmisano says > he deflected overtures from Dell and private equity firms, preferring the > sale to a company in China for strategic reasons: the Chinese government > wants its corporations to expand globally, and by aiding that national goal, > I.B.M. enhanced its stature in the lucrative Chinese market, where the > government still steers business.

This doesn't surprise me, but I'm still blown away by this concept. It's highly unlikely that Lenovo happened to offer the _same_ amount as whoever else was the true highest bidder, so this was essentially a huge extortion payment from IBM to China. The deal involved roughly $1 billion of assests, so it's not unreasonable to think that IBM paid of order $100 million to get into the Chinese government's good graces.

<comment><USER5> Or you can think of it as a small investment to reap the huge reward later.

Extortion is someone putting a gun on your head to demand for the money. Investment is you CHOOSE to put money in for later reward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> IBM leverages the hell out of open sources. They had that 1 billion dollars investment into Linux back then but they reaped massively from servers/mainframe, services, and projects riding on the free OS, while they saved on R&D/maintenance on AIX and others.

</comment><comment><USER6> On close examination, you may find that their Research Division is mostly just a patent shop.

Likely their 'services' work is mostly just 'help desk'.

Likely much of what they are doing is what they did decades ago called 'facilities management' or 'service bureau'.

Likely for new products, they find a small company with a good customer list, buy the company, and have the IBM sales force include that company's products in the list of products available. That is, they don't really try to 'develop' such products on their own.

So, in many companies, the CIO can 'bring in IBM' and go play golf.

Likely a good CIO could give faster results, more innovative and valuable results, at lower cost. But not all CIOs are good.

<comment><USER7> Don't you think it's a bit silly that you didn't even bother to include _anecdotal_ data, let alone something more? As it is, it's just worthless unsubstantiated allegations. You could be right, you could be wrong, but your post adds not a single thing to the discussion.

<comment><USER6> Yup. But in this case I know all too well just what the heck I'm talking about, unfortunately. Hint: I live in Dutchess County, NY and for years worked in Westchester Country, NY.

Besides, the NYT wrote just a puff piece. Now just why would the highly self- esteemed, formerly highly revered, long pseudo-objective NYT do that?

Besides, what details did the NYT piece provide?

Wise up and appreciate a gift when you get it!</comment></comment></comment>


Is Groupon Worth $25 Billion? Revenue Now "Multiple Billions Of Dollars" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/groupon-25-billion/

<comment><USER2> This just smells like a bubble: "But this isn't only about valuation, it's about ego. At $25 billion, a Groupon IPO would nudge Google to become the largest venture-backed IPO ever. Yup, the same Google which offered to buy Groupon for only $6 billion last December as well. And that sounded crazy. An IPO at $25 billion would be as much about taking Google's mantle as anything else."</comment>


Show HN: We built a free Corona news dashboard based on RSS feeds - <AUTHOR> https://feeder.co/reader/corona <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! We felt we wanted to help in the way we could during these difficult times. We combined three features, our Dashboard, Rules and Shared folders features to build this dashboard. We also implemented so shared folders, that are usually only for teams, something that can be shared publicly.

We're not trying to play judge of which piece of news is true or false, but we did hand pick some sources that most of the time post high quality news. Hopefully this can be a good place to monitor the situation without being bombarded from regular browsing.

We're now looking for feedback to make it even more useful. Any thoughts on the format? Missing any sources?</comment>


Israeli lunar spacecraft loses main engine, crashes on surface of the moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-lunar-spacecraft-will-attempt-historic-touchdown-tonight-1.7109263 <comment> a0-prw The moon must be anti-semitic, then ;)</comment>


Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc <comment><USER3> Some alternatives that I am aware of:

[https://wikimili.com/en/Natural_Area_Code](https://wikimili.com/en/Natural_Area_Code) , [https://what3words.com/](https://what3words.com/) , [https://geokey.io/](https://geokey.io/) , [http://geohash.org/](http://geohash.org/) , [https://www.mapcode.com/](https://www.mapcode.com/) .

Some of which are proprietary.

Edit: plus.codes was this same proposal. Removed from the list.

<comment><USER4> This is why these technologies never get mass adoption; so many solutions duplicating themselves trying to solve the same thing. Fact is, most users would care less about numerous implementation, they need to be educated just one solution which works fine. Personally I find plus.codes from Google user- friendly. They are already integrated in Google Maps which has over 1 billion downloads. They are free and opensource which means they can be used in third- party apps. Why is someone is reinventing the wheel is beyond me.

<comment><USER5> Where do I find them in Google maps? what is the plus.code for the Eiffel tower? [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower,+Paris,+Franc...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower,+Paris,+firstname.lastname@example.com,2.29133,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47e6701f7e8337b5:0xa2cb58dd28914524!8m2!3d48.8560934!4d2.2930458)

<comment><USER6> I don't know about that specific listing from your link, but I dropped a pin right on l'avenue Gustave-Eiffel behind the tower and got the code V75W+43 Paris, France. Plus codes appear right under the address line.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. It seems you have to specify a pin, and not an area to get a plus code.

<comment><USER7> Hi - plus codes founder here.

We display the plus codes in Google Maps on all business listings.

We don't display it on political features or boundaries (typically because having a lat/lng for "France" isn't super useful).

That particular Eiffel Tower result is for the area, not the tower itself, so it doesn't get a plus code.

The entry specifically for the tower, [https://g.page/toureiffelofficielle?share](https://g.page/toureiffelofficielle?share), should display the plus code on it.

If you're on mobile, you can get the plus code for any location by just holding your finger on the map, and then expanding the card that appears. It should include the lat/lng and plus code.

Hope that helps!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish Google to put a tiny bit of their money [0] into promoting this more. To counter the closed-source, for-profit what3words offering.

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/1/20749831/alphabet- google-a...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/1/20749831/alphabet-google-apple- cash-reserves-richest-company)

<comment><USER9> what3words has appeared twice recently as a news story on bbc.co.uk I'd not heard of plus.codes even though now I realise I'd seen them on google maps listings

<comment><USER10> The most recent article [1] read like an advertisement. They even quoted someone as saying "I just cannot see a downside". It's a shame they didn't find time to mention any of the many criticisms of it, most of which are listed on Wikipedia!

[1]: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- england-49319760](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49319760)

<comment><USER11> BBC regional news will often promote British businesses. It's part of their remit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like reinventing a solid wheel with a disposable one... I'm more for Latitude and Longitude:

\- Latitude/Longitude have been around for a long time, established, proven reasonably reliable.

\- Ultimate more calculable, no need for lookup/conversion

\- No language issues (three words seem to be primarily English) also unless it becomes an international standard whats to stop someone making a similar service with different words...

\- Latitude/Longitude could be added to map legends (even with decimals, it still is quite understandable)

\- Letter codes can be more confusing then a general numeric coordinate, get one letter wrong and you are off the map and not sure which letter is the one.

I use Lat/Lon in my apps and can't see how these would make things more efficient or as independent on external resources. They all seem much more arbitrary. (edited for formatting)

<comment><USER13> I agree, however this and latitude longitude don't fully solve the problem the post discusses. Just because you know where the entrance is, it doesn't describe how to get there. Maybe the area isn't available on mapping services (not that uncommon for small communities, even in Western countries) or maybe you need to take a specific route to get there.

<comment><USER12> I was thinking that it would be cool to have some AR thing going (ala Pokemon Go - virtual arrow pointing toward the destination) But of course that fails if there is no direct route from where the traveler is.

To get directions working right. I think there needs to be a good open standard for road/pedestrian maps, but that will only be as good/reliable as the data source... Haven't looked into open street maps but I think that would be one to check out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is [https://xaddress.org](https://xaddress.org)

1) Opensource and free

2) Can be used offline

3) Designed to be used in low tech environments and decoded by hand

4) Multilanguage

5) Error correction incorporated with visual avatar.

6) Short code for storing or linking.

7) Works with any map.

8) Yow know is an address when you see it.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

Here is a comparision side by side of each option

For GPS : -6.7184 , 129.5080

XADDRESS: 7150 Magical Pearl - Maluku, Indonesia

WHAT3WORDS: percolator.surmount.retooled

GEOHASH: qyu1g0by7

MAPCODE: VQ6.1MFD

OPENLOCATIONCODE: 6Q5F 7GJ5+J6

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

Article about it: [https://medium.com/hackernoon/an-algorithm-that-can-give- an-...](https://medium.com/hackernoon/an-algorithm-that-can-give-an-instant- solution-to-7-billion-people-60bf628205a2)

Github: [https://github.com/roberdam/Xaddress](https://github.com/roberdam/Xaddress)

(Disclosure: im the creator of Xaddress.)

<comment><USER15> My office has the suffix "AFRAID SPEAK" \- I'm not sure my bosses would like that!

It's one of the problems with word lists. At any sufficient length, you'll get an offensive combination.

<comment><USER14> hoover your mouse on any of the words and it tell you how many aditional words are available, click on any of the words to change it for other more suitable if you don't like the default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Skimming through the docs, even though warts of postal addressing are mentioned, this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes rather than unified hierarchical postal addressing (which is still an accomplishment, and something I can see a need for). Though this seems to work for latin scripts only I guess.

For actually representing global postal addressing schemes with all warts and historic practices, I know no better standard than UPU S-1. I had a project for (partially) implementing it for a large logistics provider ten years ago. It was one of the few cases where using XML for business data genuinely made sense, as addresses could be represented in a line-oriented format (as you'd write on a postal piece) and at the same time structured info in the address (postcodes, streets, house numbering tokens) could be tagged for extraction, validation, etc. Though to make end-of-line chars significant in XML (which we had to somehow because postcodes are often placed at the begin or end of a line in formal addresses) we had to represent addresses basically as address_line_1, adress_line_2, etc. SGML could've handled this much more elegantly, as not only can it assign meaning to line breaks via short references, it also (theoretically) allows representation of overlapping (concurrent) tagging structures for two or more vocabularies.

<comment><USER17> > this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes

It's a Base-20 encoding of lat/long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think a more accurate description is "Open Source Lat/Long Alternative". Addresses, at least in my part of the world, work relatively well for telling a person where you are, given some knowledge of the town.

I can tell someone "College between Drake and Prospect" and they can picture it in their head. Sure, it requires some level of knowledge of the town, but no level of knowledge of the town is going to make "HW8C+FH" something that someone can picture. They're going to have to plug it into their phone.

I work in real estate, and this doesn't really solve anything for our system either. These codes don't solve our address problems (of which there are many). It doesn't solve parcel identification. Not really sure what it does solve other than shorter lat/long.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately we're conflated addresses with coordinates, but fundamentally addresses are not geo-coordinates. Addresses are really just an ancient (500+ years!) short-hand for giving a person a set of rough directions to a "place", with the person supplying that last mile of figuring from context exactly where they are going. It is impressive how far we've taken this technology, but it is really starting to falter as the information age has matured.

From my perspective any solution, like this one, that tries to solve the problem of addresses through the lens of coordinates is doomed to failure. The reason is that there are just too many use cases that raw coordinates cannot supply context for.

For example when I ask for directions to a restaurant, the context of who I am and what my relation to the restaurant is matters quite a lot. A set of coordinates handed out uniformly to all who ask does nothing for my particular use case. Plumbers, health inspectors, and delivery drivers don't use the same entrance, or parking, as ride share or pedestrians.

I think it would be more productive to move to a system that is capable of capturing and relaying these kinds of relations, or at least taking as them as input. Better geo-coordinates miss the forest for the trees.

<comment><USER20> Just wanted to express thanks for this very insightful comment. The range of solutions visible in other posts must be ridiculously amusing (being absolute, global, western-centric, experience and culture-denying, and having properties irrelevant to local inhabitants) to anthropologists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Btw, I just extended 3geonames.org - another open location code system - <USER2> support elevation, something no other system does. (eg. [https://3geonames.org/RIGA-FRIDAY-OKEG](https://3geonames.org/RIGA-FRIDAY- OKEG) )

(3geonames codes are made up of 3 place names and show a semantic likeliness when spatially close - an "anti-feature" of what3words, for example)

The slides for a recent talk at Perlcon 2019 announcing the system are here: [https://3geonames.org/riga.html](https://3geonames.org/riga.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> So this is based on GPS, right? How does this system deal with tectonic plate shift? A house may move by a couple meters over years, which will exceed the accuracy of the 12 digit code. At the very least the code should include a timestamp (year is probably precise enough).

<comment><USER23> Why should it handle that?

If you move a house (say, a trailer home) from Nebraska to Oregon, you wouldn't expect the location to stay the same.

OLC encodes position on the globe (basically angles), not points on the crust or other territorial features.

<comment> yoz-y In a previous discussion about the topic it was mentioned that an earthquake can move a road a few meters to a side. Tectonic shift might be less important but physical relocation could be. A road could be moved du to a large urban work in the area for example.

<comment><USER23> I know that. But why do you insist that a location code stays the same? The location has really changed.

Plus codes are not street addresses.

<comment><USER17> > Plus codes are not street addresses.

One of the main use cases for plus codes is to be a street address in places for which street addresses are challenging.

To put it another way - we almost always use co-ordinates to help us find a particular physical object (peak of mountain, end of runway, house on street). Co-ordinates that shift with tectonic movement are most useful for that.

<comment><USER23> When an earthquake has shifted a house a meter to the right, the plus code is (a) still good enough and (b) doesn't matter because there is not much of a house left to "locate".

I'd even argue that especially in those catastrophic scenarios, location (as in GPS coordinates) is still more important than addresses that depend on physical features (like a street) that may simply be gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yet another alternative is GeohashPhrase ([https://www.qalocate.com/resources/](https://www.qalocate.com/resources/)) which is a simple and direct mapping of word tuples to geohashes.

The word tuples are intentionally structured so they can form a phrase. The exact phrase is left up to the person, with the only constraint being that that phrase use all the base words.

And because of how word choice is made (words that map different parts of the geohash come from disjoint dictionaries) the phrase mapping is invariant under changes in recalled word ordering, word use (noun to verb, or adjective to noun), and more.

Some advantages of the GeohashPhrase:

1) Will be open source and free (Once we finalize the dictionaries and write some real docs.).

2) Designed for offline usage.

3) Designed to be friendly to humans. Phrases and words are MUCH more friendly than alphanumeric digits.

4) Multi-language. The encoding scheme works for most languages.

5) Resilient to errors in human memory, which tends to re-order words, change pluralization, etc.

6) Easy to read, write, share, etc.

7) Directly decodes to a geohash.

8) Works with any map.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

Here is a comparison side by side of each option:

Lat/Lon : -6.7184 , 129.5080

GeohashPhrase (Raw): salute tell small student muddy

GeohashPhrase ("Encoded"): The small muddy student told me of a salute.

XADDRESS: 7150 Magical Pearl - Maluku, Indonesia

WHAT3WORDS: percolator.surmount.retooled

GEOHASH: qyu1g0by7

MAPCODE: VQ6.1MFD

OPENLOCATIONCODE: 6Q5F 7GJ5+J6

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

(Disclosure: I work for QALocate.)

<comment><USER24> Will two close-by locations eg. just a meter apart have any part of the phrase in common?

<comment><USER19> A five word phrase is roughly a 5m x 5m region, so 1m wouldn't be enough to move into the next block.

But in general yes, locations that are "close by" will share the same set of words.

The mapping itself is extremely simple. A geohash is encoded as string of alphanumeric characters where each character is in base-32. This means each character encodes 5-bits of coordinate information. To get to a 5m x 5m region you need 45-bits worth or 9 geohash characters.

To map this 9 character geohash to a phrase is simple - we simply use the binary representation of the characters as a numeric index into a fixed dictionary of words. The first character is mapped to a word in a dictionary containing 32 entries. After that we map characters in pairs to dictionaries of 1024 words; 2 geohash characters being 5-bits we get a 10-bit index.

So two geohashes that share the same prefix will also share the same words, modulo our grouping scheme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When does a location become an address? Because as far as I can tell, this is a geolocation scheme, not an address system.

(As far as I know, an address is for "addressing" a person, except by mail rather than by spoken means, which is why it's based on identifying a building and even room in that building)

</comment><comment><USER26> From my point of view, this approach is harder to remember than remembering 3 words (what3words).

Try to remember:

6GCRMQPX9G

3FHMRV5JMX

8FJM2QRW78

Or try to remember:

tell.fantasy.animal

zone.house.horses

home.penguin.room

Also what3words have got bad thinks as that similar words are far away from each other and the words location are not properly translated

<comment><USER27> Also I will never forget glorified.bodily.passage and pigs.pigs.pigs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896883)

But don't confuse glorified.bodily.passage [https://map.what3words.com/glorified.bodily.passage](https://map.what3words.com/glorified.bodily.passage) with glorifies.bodily.passage [https://map.what3words.com/glorifies.bodily.passage](https://map.what3words.com/glorifies.bodily.passage), which is in a totally different part of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Project website: [https://plus.codes](https://plus.codes)

</comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of the Japanese Chome system: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system).

</comment><comment><USER30> There is one significant problem with how Open Location Codes are being used and promoted by Google.

Try to find the following place on Bing or OpenStreetMap without using Google's services: 9MHR+PW Retkowy, Poland

The 9MHR+PW part is readily decodable, and could denote any of thousands of places around the globe. But the most significant part of the code is routinely omitted by Google, and replaced by a place name that one needs Google Maps to look up.

The question is, do we really need another way to link to Google Maps?

</comment><comment><USER31> Neat, but what I really want is a dynamic abstraction layer above this, similar to DNS. I'd like a unique code that translates to a physical address (or a system like this, or both), but is adjustable by me.

Verified by sending a physical card to the location, adjustable by the owner, query-able via an API. Post-offices can perform a lookup and calculate postage fees in this way.

Voluntary nomads (techies) could subsidize the service for involuntary ones (refugees).

</comment><comment><USER32> A good explanation of this against competing standards seems to be available here [1]. It seems weird that they complain about discontinuities in such a system, where there _has_ to be some discontinuities in a tiled system.

Now, could this be used as an alternative to DNS? have a registrar per tile, and delegate if necessary.

I wish this could be used as a geo: URL, or as a location field in my ical invites. I guess I need better support in various apps for it.

Maybe it lack elevation information to specify meeting rooms, though? Perhaps it could be extended to support both ground and absolute elevation.

Excluding words somewhat makes sense, but also removes some opportunities for artificial attractions, it isn't like some areas don't already have interesting ones [2]). So I am a bit split on this one, as it does generate longer names. Maybe emojis would be a better fit?

Now, a note about standard presentation: I would have preferred a technical overview to an introduction that merely sums up some obvious (to me) facts, without really getting into explaining the standard. Perhaps someone has already come up with a way to publish standards together with a few sliders to control the amount of content displayed? That would be great.

[1]: [https://github.com/google/open-location- code/wiki/Evaluation...](https://github.com/google/open-location- code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems)

[2]: [https://www.estately.com/blog/2016/09/the-complete-list- of-l...](https://www.estately.com/blog/2016/09/the-complete-list-of-lewd- sounding-town-names-in-america/) as an example, it gets worse if you include foreign cities, regardless of the language.

<comment><USER19> Alternative to DNS you say? Like a Location Name System!?!

Well, we're building it! I cannot supply much info right now other than the whitepaper at [https://www.qalocate.com/resources/](https://www.qalocate.com/resources/) but I'm really hopeful that we'll have a beta out in the next few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> In some Latin countries, road names are given after "important" people (for a vague definition of important). On the cultural side, having a standard for naming like this removes that and I think it could be a roadblock for adoption. Politicians' names are specially used for naming roads/squares and they are always after promoting their names in every new opportunity.

On the other side, I really like that the code can be shortened with the addition of a location. One concern I have is that most people are very local, they exchange addresses for local places all the time... so easily speaking those addresses is nice thing. A short code helps with that.

And finally, I may have missed it but I didn't see landmark references mentioned. Could it be that people would have to say "I live at XZY123 in New York. Near that ABC456 building, you know?" That would be awkward.

<comment><USER16> It's not just latin countries. In Germany, and most east-European countries and Russia as well I believe, newly build roads get generic names (named after flowers, for example), then later get renamed after persons, though not living ones, which helps with politicians promoting their names I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'll forever be mad that my country (Ireland) hired some firm to create eircode, which is a proprietary geo system.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#eircode)

You can't discern the eircode for a given address, as far as I am aware, without looking it up, and lookups are limited to 10 by paywall.

We paid 27m euro for what has already been solved by open source, and for some reason we have to continue to pay for it.

<comment><USER35> If you enter the address in to google maps it will give you the eircode. The issue in Ireland is the non unique addresses in rural areas. The fact that the last 4 characters are randomly distributed means that a sequence for addresses on the same street is not something you can derive. You need to look up each in turn.

<comment><USER34> Ireland's non unique addresses aren't a problem for any of the open standards around this I've seen. Eircode is unnecessary. Using one of these geo location centric systems also means no central system is required to add new ones etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ah [https://plus.codes/](https://plus.codes/) .. I've noticed them on Google maps: [https://s.natalian.org/2019-08-20/yard.jpeg](https://s.natalian.org/2019-08-20/yard.jpeg)

However: [https://plus.codes/8VG3+J4](https://plus.codes/8VG3+J4) Says it couldn't find it.

Did I make a typo? There is no mention of a checksum in the doc.

<comment><USER37> In that case you need to include Singapore. The inclusion of Singapore allows the plus code itself to be shorter.

Alternatively, you could use the full plus code: 6PH58VG3+J4

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> there's something I don't understand, not coming from a mapping background: sixth decimal place of latitude/longitude is already down to about 10cm precision, so using two 8:24 fixed point would give you comparable precision with half the encoding length than this format (using two fixed points dword encoded straight in base 32). why these encoding prefer to use space partitioning more than encoded coordinates?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought this was comprehensively covered in the linked document. Specifically, it says:

 _... latitude and longitude provide an exact location, are used internally by GPS and satellite navigation devices, and are sometimes printed on paper maps. However they are rarely seen on city or street maps and are difficult for people to use. They consist of long and complicated numbers, have different ranges (-90 to 90 vs. -180 to 180) and need to be used in a specific order. (To express a reasonably precise position requires between 14 and 18 characters.)_

 _A system of encoding location information into a short and an easy to use code would solve these problems._

It goes on to say:

 _Easy to use: The codes must be short enough to be remembered and used. This means that they need to be shorter than latitude and longitude and about the same length as a postal code or telephone number. The symbols used to make up the code should not include characters that can be easily confused (e.g., 1 and I, 8 and B, 2 and Z, 5 and S etc.)_

Does this not answer your question?

<comment><USER38> this doesn't really answer the question, because encoding the latitude/longitude number in base32 fixed point makes them short, readable and memorizable as much as it would encode them in this scheme, and as I said above, would even result in a shorter string at comparable precision.

once they're letter, people wouldn't care if internally are mapped to raw numbers or hierarchical quads, a program would do the conversion back and forth anyway for both systems.

so for example the vatican's cupolone center under a b32 fixed point lat- encoded notation would be KUDRL6677SLE at full precision while it's opencode equivalent would be 15 letters (except for the shortening, which could be done here as well)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just glanced again at the linked document and your comments seem to me to be adequately addressed there, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting/asking.

 _The characters that are used in Open Location Codes were chosen ... to avoid, as far as possible, Open Location Codes being generated that included recognisable words._

...

 _Open Location Codes are encodings of WGS84 latitude and longitude coordinates in degrees._

...

 _The first approach ... provides codes that can be visually compared, or alphabetically ordered to determine if they are close to each other. The second approach allows the code area to be refined using only a single digit. If the entire code was generated using the second approach, it would result in codes that could not be reliably compared visually._

I thought the benefits were explained quite clearly, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what you're suggesting.

<comment><USER38> all encodings are arbitrary, to some degree. this scheme of using hierarchical partitioning gives two shortcoming: degenerate area at poles and variable area at fixed precision. using raw degrees doesn't.

why is the former preferred than the latter by mappers?

it can't be just 'because it's letter and not numbers' because, as demonstrated above, that's just encoding data in memoizable forms, which doesn't depend on the choice of the mapping scheme.

being able to visually compare codes also isn't enough of a differentiator, since nearby places would have nearby encoding even in a raw "latitiude/longitude to base-32" scheme, and if it's important that variation is on the least important digit one could just encode lat:long bits interleaved, so that the least significant bits of each are rightmost.

the question I have is not about the encoding, as shown it's easy to create an encoding with the desired characteristics that uses the degrees by themselves without the partitioning and its issues, the question is why use these area based system with all the deformation they have instead of properly encoded degrees, what's the benefit to cartographers etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are so many established and commonly used grids, such as MGRS (military) or Maidenhead (amateur radio), this just makes things more complicated.

</comment><comment><USER40> Reinventing UTM/MGRS again, I see.

The major problem with these as addressing standards, and with open location code, is that most people do not live or receive mail at a fixed location in the middle of the ocean. Most location codes encode an empty quadrilateral of ocean.

Addressing with efficient encoding needs to be dense in cities, and sparse in uninhabited wilderness.

<comment><USER19> Doing this saves you about two bits worth of information while usually greatly increasing complexity.

To see why consider how geohashes work. As you add letters you telescope in to a more precise region. The land/water distinction is less information than even what is encoded by the very first character of your 9 or 10 character geohash.

<comment><USER40> If one could maintain an index of a single reference point for human settlements, as geodetic latitude and longitude, addresses could relatively reference from a specific center, and include relative waypoints.

us;il;chi = {41.88206,-87.62781} The Chicago base reference point, positive x-axis points to 0 degrees N, positive y-axis points to 90 degrees east.

us;il;chi;0,0 = Madison and State, street level

us;il;chi;-278,+305 = 111 S. Michigan, street level. This is between the lions of the Art Institute. Horizontal offsets are in meters.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165 = east 165m into the museum, over the bridge, into Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165>180:32,+1 = south 32m into the Modern American Art wing, up the stairs one level, in the top level of the 2-level sculpture court. Vertical offset is in building stories.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165>180:32,+1>270:13 = west 13m into gallery 262, home of _Nighthawks_.

A geohash can tell you where _Nighthawks_ is, in terms of a geodetic location to a certain precision, but it doesn't tell you that it's on the second floor of a building whose second floors don't all connect, or how to get there to see it. If doesn't matter how many extra characters of precision you add when the place you want to be is separated from the locations of the public access points. Addressing sometimes has to include routing information. Complexity is sometimes needed.

The base reference point for Manhattan (us;ny;nyc) could have its reference grid rotated to 29 degrees NNE, but cities without a grid system needn't bother.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Honestly, I want an address that follows me as I move, so I don't need to keep updating every service that sends me mail.

</comment><comment><USER42> Was actually looking into something like this to help with matching companies addresses to building addresses to track the number of tenants in each building.

Check out UBID ([https://ubid.pnnl.gov/](https://ubid.pnnl.gov/)) which uses plus.codes

</comment><comment><USER43> These codes could benefit from some sort of distinct prefix so that users, browsers and apps could identify it as an open location code and treat it as such apart from a random string. Other examples being things like @username or #hashtag.

<comment><USER44> Unclear if you already know this, but the usage of the plus sign and the name "plus codes" for this scheme serve exactly that purpose. If you see a code with a plus in it, with usually 2 characters after the plus, it is most likely a plus code. Speaking from experience it is relateively easy to quickly identify by glancing at a webpage or a body of text.

Additionally the plus serves a similar purpose to a dot in the decimal number notation: the plus is always put after the 8th character in the globally- adressed code. So if you see a code with plus after the 4th character, it is immediately clear that the code is a local-notation, and you need to know approximately what country or city this code is referencing to, in order to properly identify a point on the globe. Usually the locale is pretty clear and 4-6 digit codes are just fine, and the plus character provides a possibility to distinguish them from each other.

<comment><USER43> Missed that, thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> On my Android I copy&paste this short locations code from Google Maps to OSMAnd+ to get the same location. Works faster and better than confusing long and lat (which I don't know how to copy out of Google Maps btw).

</comment><comment><USER46> No one has mentioned H3: Uber's Hexagonal Hierarchical Spatial Index.

[https://eng.uber.com/h3/](https://eng.uber.com/h3/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Bummer, I was hoping we were going to all memorize quaternion coordinates and visualize travelling around the globe as moving along a 4 dimensional hypersphere.

</comment><comment><USER48> Oh, these Google Map codes -- the geographic equivalent of Internet Time. Pass.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think triangles would have made more sense.

<comment><USER50> The docs also seem to indicate that 3mx3m is the smallest grid they can address, but at the same they use addressing in slums as a use case...who has that much real estate in the slums?

<comment><USER7> Hi - plus codes founder here. You can just keep adding digits and the area gets smaller. The way I think of it is:

+XX "house" (13x13 meters) +XXX "bathroom" (3.5x2.8 meters) +XXXX "chair" (87x56cm) +XXXXX "envelope" (22x11cm)

In Kolkata the NGO (Addressing the Unaddressed) are using +XXXX codes.

<comment><USER51> Wait a minute. How are Kolkatans with (probably) cheap phones getting their hands on coordinates that accurate when phone GPS is usually only good to within ~5m?[1] I assume the postal workers are getting high end equipment?

[1] "GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky" \-- [https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/](https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/)

<comment><USER52> First guess: Signs, maybe? You only need a few accurate surveyors and they could write coordinates in places. Use the cheap accuracy to get close then follow the signs.

Looking up the charity mentioned, they even have a nice photo of such a sign, so my guess appears validated: [https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/services](https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/services)

Neat.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Should I be afraid of being sued? - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN, please help:
We sell a software product. Today we received an e-mail from a software retailer, selling our product, that they were contacted by a law firm, since the law firm's client owns the trademark for a name under which we sold the software. We didn't know such trademark existed. The profits we made on this were around $2,000.
Should we be afraid of being sued?
To clarify:
1) our company isn't in the U.S. 2) we renamed the software 3) profits were around $2K
Thank you all for your help! <comment><USER2> Where is the trademark registered ? (ok, that seems to be answered, in the US, and you are not in the US)

Does the company that contacted your retailer have representation in the same jurisdiction as the retailer ?

Are they actively selling a product under that tradename ?

Is there possible confusion between your product and their product (trademarks are only for a very specific market segment) ?

If you go and use google to search for that tradename do they come up ?

(if you're in the same jurisdiction and the answer is 'yes' to most of the above then you may have an issue, if the reseller bought the product from you and resold it in a different jurisdiction than yours then the buck probably stops with the reseller).

Also, most of these are 'cease and desist', in other words, if you do not stop we'll sue you.

At $2k the damage is very much more limited than what it will cost the 'offended' party to sue.

If the answer to all of the above is 'no', then I'd say give them your lawyers address and see what happens next.

I'm not a laywer but I do hold several trademarks and have been involved in a trademark dispute in the past.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, getting letters from lawyers is part and parcel when you run a business. It's unfortunate but it is true.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your first letter in a trademark case will always be a cease & desist, if I understand my IP lawyer friends correctly, so as long as you cease & desist you should be fine. You'll get sued if you _don't_ cease & desist.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your replies - I really apreciate this - what a great community this is!

<comment><USER2> You're welcome :)

I hope this will make you sleep a bit better...

<comment><AUTHOR> A little bit :-) But thank you again!</comment></comment></comment>


The Web is One Big App Store.... - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2011/05/11/the-web-as-one-big-app-store/

<comment><USER2> No it's not. The web is a whole bunch of appstores/download stores. The web as a whole is not curated. The appstores/download stores are.</comment>


Collect Historical US News College Rankings Datasets (1983-2015) - <AUTHOR> http://memect.co/FT9GHPl

<comment><AUTHOR> Following the recent release of the 2015 US News college rankings data, we tried to find the past ranking datasets on the Web. So far we've got US News colledge rankings datasets from different sources covering 1983-2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011-2015. Looks pretty complete, but not yet in CSV format. Comments and additions are welcome.</comment>