You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jamiemurai.com/2011/02/you-win-rim/ <comment><USER2> The complaints are:

$200 price to develop with 10 app limit.

Multiple registration forms.

Requiring multiple downloads.

Requiring to purchase vmware fusion.

Installer that just copies an iso.

Having to password protect the simulator.

Bad documentation on how to load an app on the simulator.

The comparative ease with which you can do these things with android and ios.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now I feel like an idiot for spending an hour and half writing it, lol.

<comment><USER3> You did well to pull out early if you found this part of the process painful, unfortunately end to end it feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. Theres nothing glaring wrong through out but lots of annoyances which really add up, when compared to iOS or Android development

We recently developed this so speaking from some experience <http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/28561>

The bb version took far far longer than the equivalent iOS, simply because of other nonsense such as the pain in the signing process (isthesigningserverdown.com the fact it exists tells you all you need to know). Random exceptions being thrown that have no useful meaning and of course the joy of RAPC throwing errors such as "CreateProcess error=87, Parameter is incorrect" which we eventually found was due to the classpath being too long for RAPC to handle

However once complete the application it is something we are very proud of!

<comment><USER4> Ha. Clicked the link and came to a full page error:

Our apologies:

It looks like you are using an unsupported Operating System. BlackBerry App World was designed to support the following:

Windows

Although you can browse BlackBerry App World with your current browser, some features may not be functional.

To their credit they did let me continue.

<comment><USER3> This ones even more amusing on the actual Blackberry App World

[http://failblog.org/2011/02/04/epic-fail-photos- blackberry-a...](http://failblog.org/2011/02/04/epic-fail-photos-blackberry- app-fail/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't forget Kik (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1935093>) and the arbitrary way RIM may decide to not only take your app down, but sue you (<http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/12/a-sad-day-in-waterloo/>), to boot.

<comment><USER6> Everything I've read and heard indicates it's really not that cut-and-dried, what with the founder of Kik having been an intern at RIM and then basically re-implementing BBM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Knowing what a pleasure it is to use Apple and Google's tools,"

I haven't used the iOS SDK, but the Android SDK is far from "a pleasure to use". The 3.0 emulator is so unusably slow that it makes it practically impossible for me to adapt my app to the new tablet UI without going insane in the process.

<comment><USER8> The Android emulator is a full ARM processor emulator. Very slow and probably always will be. My experience is that Android development is mostly impossible without the real hardware. This Android x86 port looks promising though: <http://www.android-x86.org/documents/virtualboxhowto>

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I'm really hoping that they switch over to x86 for the emulator soon, the way Apple does it. It's not awful for simple apps, but it is genuinely impossible to develop an OpenGL ES application on the Android emulator.

Use a real device, and the whole process is quite painless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this.

Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I absolutely agree with you. They're just silly... but they're also not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

It took me less than 2 hours from when I decided I wanted to make a Playbook app to when I had something running in the simulator. You're correct that the iOS SDK is easier to get started with, and it's only a single download... but it's also 3.5 gigs, _every single time_. I'll take three 100mb downloads over a 3.5 gig download any day.

Ok, as for the cost of things... You only need to pay for VMWare if you're on a Mac, on a PC it's free. I've talked to some guys at RIM about this, and they said they were trying to work out a deal with VMWare to make it free for Mac users as well.

There's no more $200 fee. I don't know why anyone still brings it up. The 10 app limit is a GOOD THING, and keep in mind that you're also getting a 100% _free_ Playbook if you make an app right now, surely that's gotta be worth something.

As for the notary thing, I'm guessing that's because of the free Playbook offer. They don't want to give away 10 Playbooks to the same guy. If you're a company, Apple's process is even more painful. You actually have to snail-mail all your forms in and wait until they get them before you can publish anything.

All the other complaints were just petty. Who cares about the IP address and the password? That stuff takes 2 minutes to figure out.

There are a lots of positives about developing for Playbook that you didn't mention. For example, an interesting (and not well-known fact) is that application updates _do not_ require approval on App World. That's a _huge_ plus over iOS in my book.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

TLDR: You definitely had some good points, but the rest of it got blown WAY out of proportion.

<comment><USER11> I contacted RIM regarding the whole notarised deal. Here's what they said:

Me: As an independent developer I can afford neither to become incorporated, nor to get a notary signature. Could you explain the reasoning behind this?

RIM: We require our vendors to be 18 years of age or older. This is why we require a notary form.

Me: Is there not a way of proving that I'm over 18 other than spending £200 on a lawyer? I could send you a copy of my drivers license?

RIM: We do not except photocopies unless they are notarized. You can try a local bank or family doctor to see if they will notarize your documentation.

Me: OK, but what you ask for is a certified notary i.e. someone legally authorised as a notary (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notary>). Are you saying that this is not actually the case?

RIM: Correct, we would prefer a certified notary but sometimes it is difficult for people to find them so we make exceptions.

Hopefully helpful to someone. Having dismissed PlayBook development altogether, from what I've learnt since my blog post ([http://rizergames.com/blog/2011/02/11/developing-for- playboo...](http://rizergames.com/blog/2011/02/11/developing-for-playbook/)), I might be tempted to give it another go, although the number of things that don't actually work on the simulator is still a massive hurdle.

\- Luke

<comment><USER12> In California, at least, most cities have 1-2 that sell boxes, packing material, a drop off point for shipping UPS, and notary services. Perhaps that would be cheaper than hiring a lawyer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > You wanted me to print off a notarized statement of identification > form....it goes without saying at this point, but neither Apple nor Google > require you to do anything even close to that.

Actually, just a few months ago when renewing an Apple Developer Connection membership, they asked me to do the _exact_ same thing.

To their credit, I emailed, summarized my history with ADC, bitched a little bit, and someone took care of it the next day.

edit: typo

</comment><comment><USER14> The way I understand it, the $200 price is for 10 submissions, not 10 applications. So if your app has a bug, and you submit a version of the same app which fixed the bug, and/or added features, that counts against the limit.

Think of it as a $20 fee for app review, bought in blocks of 10.

<comment><USER15> So they're essentially discouraging improvements to the apps in their ecosystem because it costs the developer money to push out upgrades/patches/fixes?

Genius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing I am surprised to not see in this list is that, as an individual, you are required to have your form faxed back after been signed by a notary. AFAIK, this is not practice of Google or Apple either.

<comment><USER17> If you're a business, you do have to fax in your business documents before your app will go live in the App Store (and it takes a couple of weeks to process), but it's most likely going to take you at least a couple of weeks to develop your app and get it approved so it's not so bad. And you don't need to get it notarized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thank you for showing me that I wasn't the only one that had the same HORRIBLE experience! I gave a valiant effort for a good 3 solid days, at which point, I was much MUCH further along with the same tasks on iOS. For shame, RIM.

</comment><comment><USER19> Totally agree with the author. I too quit porting one of my apps to BB.

This is the reason why shortcuts (not making well integrated system) always fail.

<comment><USER20> We've been frustrated to the point of abandonment on trying to install a Blackberry simulator to test out jquery-mobile apps. Similar story to tell-- just kept hitting wall after wall of poorly thought-out and poorly documented steps.

It's a shame because most of our customers use Blackberries but it's just not practical for us to support Blackberry on our mobile apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The simulator in the BB SDK reloads the BB OS every time you run an app. This lead to a 60+ second delay every time I updated the app and wanted to run or debug it. I gave up and thankfully someone else wrote the app: [http://code.google.com/p/google- authenticator/source/browse/...](http://code.google.com/p/google- authenticator/source/browse/#hg%2Fmobile%2Fblackberry)

Disclaimer: I work for a possible competitor.

</comment><comment><USER22> Ah, you definately have never developed for any sort of linuxy or embedded hardware that requires a full moon and the right software version every step of the way. Oh, and the Android installer isn't flawless either: it does require some setting up of cumbersome paths, but the installer of individual SDKs (which to be fair are seperate files/downloads) works like a charm...

<comment><AUTHOR> Guilty as charged on the first point :) The separate files/downloads was a minor annoyance, but fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. On the whole, I just found it to be an very frustrating experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you think that's bad, try writing an app for a BlackBerry phone.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959433>

<comment><USER24> Indeed, writing Blackberry mobile software is an exercise in futility.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1463000>

<comment><USER23> I feel your pain... I wish I'd read that comment about six months ago when I started in a similar situation you were in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yeah, the $200 was a major blocker for me. As a student, I just want to make silly free game apps. $200 for $0 income? Well that's certainly not appealing. On the other side, don't they not take any cut of your income from their app store?

<comment><USER26> Can anyone verify that, that RIM doesn't take a cut of sales?

<comment><USER27> From the blackberry app world vendor agreement:

"5.1 Application Revenue Fee

Vendor shall pay to RIM thirty percent (30%) of Application Revenue..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was participating in a developers survey by Rim around a year ago (one of those where they grab 10 engineers and put them in a room for some cash) and the complaints were exactly the same!

</comment><comment><USER29> I went through the same process, but didn't think it was that bad.

RIMs web signup download process needs to be cleaned up, and the Mac installer thing was a bit weird, but I thought the docs were straightforward, and only took me a couple mins to get the sample app deployed.

My gosh.. A command line program to remote install to the vm image! At least there is a full intel compiled image, and not some buggy emulator.

You can also build decent apps using HTML and JavaScript, much like webos.

Is it just me, or has the HN crowd deteriorated to "enterprise-ey bad, apple good"

There is a lot of opportunity in this platform, but not for consumer apps. They will be very prevalent in business environments, and the os is damn responsive.

<comment><USER30> It's a shame the term "enterprise" is used as an excuse for poor quality. This isn't an attack on you I see it where I work too. Companies like Apple, Blizzard, and surely others have shown being big doesn't have to impede quality and user experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was put off by having to get my forms notarized, not because it's particularly difficult, but it seems to be a completely unnecessary hurdle. After being dispirited by RIMs process, I immediately went and registered as an Android developer - simple and done within 20 minutes.

I can't comment on the BlackBerry tools (nor the iOS ones, as I don't own a Mac), but although Eclipse+ADT isn't the most elegant solution, it does seem to work fairly well, and didn't take too long to set up.

Obviously a free PlayBook would have been nice, and I would like to have gotten in at the ground-floor of a new platform, but RIM does have to take steps to ensure it's easier for developers to do what they do best - develop, not fight fires in the registration or set-up processes.

</comment><comment><USER32> As developers, we don't want all of these platforms. RIM is very developer- unfriendly, and frankly so is Adobe, so I propose that we all do the sane thing here; _ignore_ RIM to hasten its death. Or at least make them switch to Android.

</comment><comment><USER33> The fundamental problem is that their devices works the same way as their developer model. It's unintuitive, clunky and overpriced. The only thing RIM has left is BBM. It's not worth developing for.

I got the legal bullshit from Apple too. Seriously, it had to be notarized, I had to send Apple docs that had some kind of embossed type seal (I'm surprised they didn't require it in wax) like I was delivering a proclaimation from the King in the 12th century.

<comment><AUTHOR> Were you registering as a business? I saw other commenters mention that they had to jump through additional hoops when registering as a business, but I had no trouble at all as an individual. Just put in my name, address, etc., pop in my credit card number, and I was good to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Very whiny. What kind of software developer needs everything spoon-fed to them? "unix loving neck beards"? Oh, ok, I understand now.

</comment><comment><USER35> RIM is a very developer hostile company, and they definitely don't care.

Most of the listed issues still exist for "legacy" BlackBerry development, plus about 100 other things that we could go into (e.g., still no way to do HTTP without having to worry about 6000 different connectivity methods and managing them all is up to each and every app).

</comment><comment><USER36> I actually have an approved app for the PlayBook and actually found the entire process quite straight forward, especially considering that both the sdk and simulator are both in beta.

<comment><USER37> Same here. I didn't find it a problem at all. It required a bit of piecing together, but it was definitely not difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is quite similar to my experience. I installed Adobe Builder 4.5 beta trial too, which after a bit of fiddling around (and confusion on my part about the differences between 4.0 and 4.5 while following the tutorials) does eventually get you a Build and Run button.

Edit: This page looks new, at least it lists all the downloads in one place: <http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp>

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I should have mentioned I was trying to use the WebWorks SDK, not the AIR SDK. I'll update the post accordingly. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> All of this rings true, with the exception of having some forms notarized.

My name on my forms did not match the name on my credit card when I paid for my Apple Developer account. A short time later Apple deactivated my account and left it in that state until I could provide them with notarized proof of my identity. That is not terribly unusual, as far as I am concerned.

</comment><comment><USER40> The one thing wrong about this critique is that it is a GOOD thing there is a charge for more apps on the app store. It stops the spamming that is prevalent on apple's platform. It should be free for the first 5 and then a charge after that.

</comment><comment><USER41> Maybe it's moot - Android apps on Blackberrys soon, it seems.

Here's a commemorative new logo for RIM: <http://go.danielodio.com/blackberry>

DROdio

</comment><comment><USER42> I hope this letter causes RIM to WAKE UP! You are not the dominant force any more. Get with it.

</comment><comment><USER43> RIM: The next Nokia

<comment><USER28> Nokia actually are trying to sort their business

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Hmm, I expected something ... well ... something really bad. But it looks like the guy has just a very thin skin.

I'm an iPhone developer who signed up with the program as soon as it became available and I can tell you: Becoming an iPhone developer was a major PITA. It started with the registration (Apple let you wait for weeks after you purchased the membership), then with taxes formalities (as a non us-citizen I had to call the I.R.S. and get a w8-ben number ... mix a polish name with a german address and an overseas phone call and you get a really fun time). Oh, and I had to print out all my contracts, sign them and send them via snail mail to some Apple subsidiary in Texas.

And then the fun just started - I spent days getting all the provisioning profile stuff working (only to get my app to run on my device). Uploading the finished app to the store was another story (there was no build & archive & submit 3 click way - you had to build the distribution package yourself).

Considering RIM has just started their developer program for their playbook I'd say that the blog post is exaggerated. The only thing that I think he's right on is the 10 app/$200 limit ...

<comment><USER45> I've also been an iPhone Dev right from the start and I didn't find it that difficult. Sure, the provisioning stuff took some hours, and uploading an app to an actual device was as simply as clicking 'build & run'. Publishing an app was a tad more difficult, what with the distribution profile and whatnot, but the developer in question didn't even get that far with RIM.

<comment><USER46> Dude. The documentation for configuring your provisioning profiles and other faffing around was _60 pages long_. If you messed up any single step in the _60 page long process_ you had to go back to the start.

Also, yes, everything was love and kittens for North American devs, but the process was (and still is) a major PITA for devs outside of NA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> shut up about Bueller

</comment><comment><USER48> The post is factually inaccurate.

\- $200 per registration fee is waived for now. In fact its been waived for over a year now.

\- 10 app limit is not enforced either.

<comment><USER5> The post mentions that the fee is currently waived. And it's not like the author made up the 10-app limit, just because he wasn't aware it's currently not enforced.</comment></comment>


Librarians' delight: A device that helps readers borrow e-books - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137170/Librarians_delight_A_device_that_helps_readers_borrow_e_books?taxonomyId=1 <comment><USER2> Before you know it, entire libraries will be replaced and paper will be obsolete altogether. The Times They Are A-Changing.</comment>


Ask HN: Any applications from Turkey? - <AUTHOR>

I am not sure whether this question might be prohibited or not (checked rules). But I wonder If there were any applicants from Turkey that applied to YC? Or from non-EU countries?<p>Just wanted to read about their experiences. <comment><USER2> There is a startup in the current batch from Turkey in fact.

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I know there is not any. I have asked people also. (I read tech blogs from Turkey and they never mentioned one). Maybe that people are Turkish people who live in US already? (I consider you didn't want to mention their name.

<comment><USER3> Many YC participants do not announce their status as such right away. When people I know have gotten into YC, they've uniformly asked me not to say so until they announce.</comment></comment></comment>


Sublime Text Ctrl+P Like Fuzzy Matching In Few Lines of Python - <AUTHOR> http://crossplatform.net/sublime-text-ctrl-p-fuzzy-matching-in-python/

<comment><USER2> It was actually me that suggested to the TextMate guy to do the fuzzy lookup in this way: matching significant characters in side the search term.

AFAIK Sublime, Ctrl-P and friends all followed and improved from TextMate's version.

It was originally a feature in LaunchBar which was on NextStep and was ported to OS X [1] QuickSilver and Spotlight were also influenced by LaunchBar.

[1] [http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/legacy.html](http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/legacy.html)

<comment><USER3> If you're the same _felix_ as the comment author of the following comment, then it seems you _meant_ to suggest it, but never did:

 _LaunchBar style file opening ! You are a god ! I was going to suggest this as a feature. You have saved us thousands of boring hours clicking on triangles._

Source: [http://blog.macromates.com/2005/elevating-the- standard/#comm...](http://blog.macromates.com/2005/elevating-the- standard/#comment-27)

The feature in LaunchBar was btw an evolution of the LaunchBar author having a dozen shell scripts (or aliases) a la "ps=open -a PhotoShop" that he called from a terminal to quickly open his various applications and then later realized it could be automated.

<comment><USER2> He wrote command t and then when I tried it I suggested doing the multi word matching trick. To the best of my memory, could be misremembering. i had some back and forth with him about it and he revised it to its current state.

8 years ago, yikes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Source for TextMate's ranker can be found here (GPLv3): [https://github.com/textmate/textmate/blob/master/Frameworks/...](https://github.com/textmate/textmate/blob/master/Frameworks/text/src/ranker.cc#L46-L192)

And some tests here: [https://github.com/textmate/textmate/blob/master/Frameworks/...](https://github.com/textmate/textmate/blob/master/Frameworks/text/tests/t_ranker.cc)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you want to give more weight to matches of consecutive characters, or do other fancy things, a sequence alignment algorithm could be useful:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith- Waterman_algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith-Waterman_algorithm)

<comment><USER5> I don't think a local alignment is helpful for Sublime's ctrl-p. I would go with Needleman-Wunsch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A slightly more sophisticated implementation: [https://code.google.com/p/google-diff-match- patch/](https://code.google.com/p/google-diff-match-patch/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I implemented something very similar in perl a few weeks back for my user interfaces project; I wrote a desktop search client that would take a query from the user and score results based on how many and how well it matches a series of different interpretations of the query (fuzzy was one of them).

I too am really amazed this isn't more prevalent as it is so easy to do, after discovering the vim ctrl-p [1] plugin I rarely go a day without using it.

[1] [https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim](https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim)

</comment><comment><USER8> For Brackets, I went with something that's not a regex because I wanted certain parts of the string to be "special":

[http://www.blueskyonmars.com/2013/03/26/brackets-quick- open-...](http://www.blueskyonmars.com/2013/03/26/brackets-quick-open-thats- no-regex/)

But, I'll definitely look up a couple of the links that people have posted here about some other algorithms (Smith-Waterman, for example).

</comment><comment><USER9> I had to do something similar for autojump (fuzzy matching search string vs directories list).

I started hand rolling my own based on Damerau-Levenshtein, but it turns that Python already has a similar implementation in the difflib:

[http://docs.python.org/2/library/difflib.html#difflib.get_cl...](http://docs.python.org/2/library/difflib.html#difflib.get_close_matches)

</comment><comment><USER10> I added similar functionality to my editor about 5 years ago after seeing a coworker use Sublime Text. I'm amazed that all editors don't have it already.

<comment><USER11> Which editor is that?

<comment><USER10> PyPE - [https://sf.net/projects/pype](https://sf.net/projects/pype)

It's sort-of abandoned in that I've had a user-submitted patch to fix a major bug since last October, but I haven't had the time to review and apply it yet. I wouldn't suggest anyone use it at this point (I only do because it is exactly what I want; no more, no less), and usually point people to use Eric4 or Eric5, depending on whether you are focused on Python 2.x or Python 3.x .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> call me old school, but Ctrl + P should do print

<comment><USER13> Old school is previous line.

How often do you print? It's not worth wasting a keystroke.</comment></comment>


RushCard Locking People Out of Accounts, Putting People on Hold - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/money/4078201/rush-card-account-lockout/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is horrible. I'm wondering if they actually were hacked?

<comment><USER2> It sounds like a botched system change. They say they had switched their upstream processor when this problem occurred.

There are also reports of people having their accounts drained. So they could have other problems as well.

According to a story in NPR, this is an area of the financial sector with very little oversight, and with little in the way of consumer protections.

       http://www.npr.org/2015/10/21/450611721/technical-glitch-leaves-rushcard-owners-unable-to-access-funds

Most of the people using this service are poor and use no other financial services such as traditional banks or credit cards.

Sad this is not a bigger on HN, if this had been a problem at Bank of America, we would be all over the story.</comment></comment>


Facebook 'Permission' for 'Research' 4 months After Emotion Manipulation Study - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/30/facebook-only-got-permission-to-do-research-on-users-after-emotion-manipulation-study/

<comment><USER2> Facebook conducted psychological _experiments_ on _people_ , to see what would happen when they made people feel bad. Or to see if they could make people feel bad. Or to see what might make people feel bad. Not sure, doesn't matter.

Facebook is OK with this because it's part of making them billions of dollars. It's not the fallback to their ToS that makes them OK with it, it's the dollars. The ends have always justified the means.

Facebook did not have people's informed consent, whether their ToS said "Research" before, during or after the experiment, or ever, or always. I have never seen an informed consent form, but I am certain that it is not hundreds of page scrolls long, with a single word "research" buried in it to imply that you've accepted any and all future experiments, as one of many, many subjects focused on in the ToS. Informed consent, I'm quite sure, is the only subject of a legitimate informed consent form. When you read one, I'm quite sure that you know you're reading about informed consent and only informed consent, and it might reasonably take between ten and thirty minutes to get a more or less complete understanding of the complete document.

 _No one_ understand a complete ToS a la Facebook and their ilk, except the lawyers who wrote it, and the lawyers who might sue in its context.

The guy in Facebook who did this should be fired. You know that he knew people didn't know they'd given permission. The barest, molecule thin fig-leaf of an excuse is "well, ToS, and our lawyers said." ToS for psychological manipulation is the last, indefensible refuge of an evil, evil scoundrel.

Of course he won't be fired, because he helped contribute to future billions of dollars for Facebook. The ends have always justified the means. _Fuck_ you.

The academics should be disciplined. They _certainly_ understand informed consent, and its lack, and the ethical hell that they wallowed in. _Fuck_ you.

This is part and parcel with Facebook's long, slimy lurch through episode after episode of privacy violation and subsequent sociopathic denial.

So now, the web's social networks are into psychological experiments on its users. Er, products. Er, subjects. What's next? The internet of things is coming, there are many rich troughs of slop to inhale involving physical manipulation. Let's see what happens when thermostats make things just slightly too hot, or too cold. Let's subtly vibrate their phones, to keep them on edge, and correlate that with angry posts, or interesting purchases.

Let's see if we can get people to fight. Why? Who cares, it'll be fun, and we declare afterwards what we were trying to do when we see what people do.

When it's all about the billions, anything is possible.</comment>


Entrepreneurs Fear More - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elamadej.com/fear-more

<comment><USER2> Neuro anatomy is responsible for fear. Understanding this has completely changed my life (not a word of hyperbole here).

...About 2 months ago, I invested about 60-80 tangible labor hours into understanding this. Why? Because of setting really 'big' goals that I knew required doing things differently.

I compiled a list of experts in excel, went to youtube for lectures, went to Amazon for books. I have a list if anyone's interested. A few: Check out these videos and Audios by Dr. Robert Maurer, Dike Drummond, Dr. Glenn Livingston and Dr. BJ Fogg and Neuro scientist turned startup founder Ryan Levesque:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQurEc7HRt0&list=UUU24alR...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQurEc7HRt0&list=UUU24alRcPQx8elRKltZWeVg)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWUDV6xJRPc>

<http://www.rocketmemory.com/articles/kaizen-mind-trick>

[http://www.payperclicksearchmarketing.com/obliterate- procras...](http://www.payperclicksearchmarketing.com/obliterate- procrastination-read-this-later/)

<http://www.tinyhabits.com>

Pass it along! The more fellow entrepreneurs understand that fear is not weakness but a natural neurological reaction to change, the better off we will all be.

In 1 month, I've been more productive than the past 10 months - and it's going to stick too. (Grew my audience by 30%, found a business partner even though I'd been through a few before, finished another project I had been "thinking" about for 1 year - the list of results from putting the research into action is too numerous to mention).

PS The Kaizen Way by Dr. Robert Maurer is one of the best, best, best books ever showing how to avoid the procrastination that is created by the brain in reaction to the amygdala's safeguards against change (i.e. fear).

<comment><USER3> Could you please link to the content in text form? I'd rather to skip to the meat than sit through an hour of video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are two kinds of fearlessness: one that comes from ignorance, one that comes from rational calculation of (feared) risk and (desired) reward.

Paraphrasing the author: understand your fears (the risks), but do not let them stop you.

<comment><USER4> On a second thought, however, this line of thinking overlooked a major problem in real life -- that most of the fear comes from unknown.

By acknowledging that you do not know enough about a problem, the natural next step is to do more research, which causes you to, well, research more and do less.

On the other hand, a lot of successful entrepreneurs just embrace their ignorance and go for it, they end up failing or succeeding much more quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> @elamadej - I see you're into Polish startups. Looks interesting! I've got to take a holiday to Gdansk, I hear it's splendid (must.work.harder. ;) )

<comment><AUTHOR> it is, Kraków is also awesome (railsberry.com and mmconf.com are in KRK if you need a work excuse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _I even have a tattoo on my wrist to look at when in doubt–a huge green "you go girl!" dot._

For real? That sounds pretty cool :)

<comment><USER6> Rob Walling has a tattoo on his wrist that says, 'create' to motivate him.

Epic presentation by Rob Walling: <http://vimeo.com/26282954>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Men who come out here should have no entrails."

</comment><comment><USER8> They certainly don't fear less. Being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared; it means you ARE scared, but you do it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER9> I loved this post. The fear management 101 can really be applied to all fears and not just entrepreneurial related.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I also agree it's pretty universal (applies to skiing, dancing & relationships too)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help, suddenly forgot password encrypting 15 years of personal data - <AUTHOR>

Regular here using a throwaway, looking for help recovering information that must be in my brain somewhere.
My data's encrypted with FileVault 2 w/ a password of 10-12 random characters -- the same for about 4 years now, during which I effortlessly typed it many times per day. Had you asked me what it was though, I couldn't have said; I'd had to have been sitting in front of a keyboard to type it.
Three nights ago I logged in as usual, then nodded off. I woke up ~30 mins later and tried to type it again...but couldn't!  I was surprised, but figured it would come back to me in the morning. Several days now and nothing. This is incredibly frustrating for me as a geek who has lived most of his life electronically -- these 15 years represent a huge volume of my life product: passwords to online accounts, thoughts and computer programs I've written, illustrations, mathematical models, recorded conversations... So much of my world is locked away in there.
I know brute forcing holds no hope, nor is my recovery key stored with Apple. I have backups that are encrypted with the same password, because I was protecting from fire/theft/drive failure, not this.
So I'm not looking for computer advice, but rather help on recovering information from my brain that I know must still be in there, somewhere. FWIW, I've experienced no other neurological symptoms nor any forgetfulness besides this. That night, I even checked myself for the typical signs of a stroke and noticed none.
I remember pieces of it, and some of what it "felt" like to type. As I've tried different possibilities, some have felt more right than others. But it's impossible to tell whether I'm really getting closer or merely tricking myself with the newly established familiarity that my repeated attempts are creating.
Has anyone had a similar experience or advice on how to jog my memory? <comment><USER2> I'm sorry, I have no advice to give however I can relate.

I've forgotten passphrases to a lot of things. I once locked myself out of a set of backups I needed which meant a great deal to me. Photos that can never be restored, writings, etc.

After that event I kicked myself hard for a while for not testing my backups on a regular basis which would have reminded me that my backups were encrypted and I should've maybe written down the phrase somewhere safe.

Time passed and I got over it but the lesson learned changed. Testing backups is still important but I started questioning why I was encrypting my backups at all.

Was I really worried someone would find some old pictures and things I wrote a decade ago? Not really. It would be unlikely for someone to break into my home and then my safe and take my hard drive with backup data on it. Even if that happened, I don't think my first thought would have been "oh no, that thief can see my old photos now". Being honest with myself, I realized I was encrypting because it was cool and techie to do so.

I guess what I'm saying is that encryption is a damn powerful tool. So powerful that it could even reject the owner at some point.

I still use encryption but now I make choices about what I encrypt. Would I prefer greater accessibility or security? For most things, accessibility wins out so I'm very selective about what gets encrypted and I'd say everything I encrypt now can be easily replaced but compromising the data would be either dangerous or embarrassing.

Again, sorry I don't have a real answer. Generally when something is "on the tip of your tongue", relaxing and moving onto something else is the best way to dislodge it. Other than that, I really don't know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, some food for thought in there.

I have tried just relaxing and moving onto something else. I've spent most of the last couple days doing other things, particularly keeping up with work which I don't have much of a choice in. Sometimes I'm able to, other times it's hard to concentrate and focus when I'm worried about the loss of so much.

I fear that if I keep trying now I might burn in a false memory, but OTOH if I wait a while without trying it might be totally gone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's a shot in the dark: I have often found that, if there was some particular music that I was listening to at a time in my life, then, even years later, listening to that same music can flood my mind with all sorts of memories from what I first and/or often listened to the music.

Maybe there was some song you listened to a lot when (a) selecting the password, or (b) entering it frequently?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I will give that a try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can try this. I hope this help you.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-Something-That-You- Forgot](http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-Something-That-You-Forgot)

[http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-a-Forgotten- Password](http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-a-Forgotten-Password)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hypnosis?</comment>


Indiana's Oldest State Worker Is Retiring at 102 - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797305975/indianas-oldest-state-worker-is-retiring-at-102-i-ve-been-a-pretty-lucky-guy <comment><USER2> > "I try to be right with people," Vollmer explains, saying he has always kept > a lesson he received from his father: "If anybody does anything for you, > helps you in any way, be sure and say thank you."

> "And I remembered that when I grew up," he adds. "Maybe I might go overboard > sometime in saying thank you, but I assure you, that's very important. And > my dad's the one that put me straight on that."

That's similar advice to what my mother always told me. For me the unspoken part of this advice is that it leads to you not expecting much from people. Not in a bad way, in the way that everyone has their own life and problems. They wake up in the morning to tackle their own life and problems and when they do take the time to do something for you be grateful because the do it by choice. Thanking people was a big part of African life accompanied by gestures such as clapping hands in a particular way and using poetic language to thank person. Seems to be a dying practice. People seem to complain more about things people haven't done for them.

<comment><USER3> Where in Africa? And what was the custom? I'm always interested in customs from different places.

<comment><USER2> I am from Zimbabwe, the area around the Victoria Falls. I have lived in South Africa for the last 15 years though.

By way of example say my brother in law gives my mother a present or does something for her. Typically my mother will accept the gift and then after supper when the whole family is seated she will thank my brother in law in front of everyone in our family. It is not uncommon to have the present if is is a present shown to everyone. The point here is to ensure that the whole family is aware of this good deed my brother in law has done. She will thank him then ask the rest of us to help her thank him. The rest of us will also thank him. The point being here we all acknowledge and see what you have done for our mother. The thanking itself can get poetic.

Last year I delivered some money sent to some rural aunts of mine by cousin working in the US (about US$ 20 each) . I made a video of each one of them saying thank you. One of the videos ended up being close to five minutes and I had to ask my aunt to stop because the file was going to be too big to send. Hope that gives idea of the old culture of thanking.

<comment><USER4> This sounds really nice. Thank you for posting it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _...after nearly six decades at Indiana 's Department of Natural Resources._

I was trying to estimate how big his pension checks will be but the online Indiana Retirement Benefit calculator only let's you put in birth dates back 100 years. =)

[https://myinprsretirement.org/calculators/retirement- benefit...](https://myinprsretirement.org/calculators/retirement- benefit/perf/)

Scare Headline: Indiana Retirement System Broken by Oldest Retiree.

<comment><USER6> They are almost always capped to avoid that situation for normal employees.

<comment><USER7> Even if it's not capped, his total pensions will likely be much lower than those of someone who retires at 70 and lives to 90.

What we don't know is where on the range between being irreplaceably productive and being an overpaid team mascot who uses the office as an elder daycare his last year's fell, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a bit of both. (not pointing fingers, there are days when I feel like I'm guilty of that myself, and I'm more than sixty years younger)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Former land surveyor here. I "retired" young from surveying in 2008 when the recession happened in the commercial property market and became a web developer.

This guy is remarkable. I wonder what kind of land surveying he's been doing. I'm guessing geodetic or GPS/GIS, which is not as physically demanding. Property staking, engineering, forestry, and traffic surveying requires a lot of upper body strength, line cutting/bushwhacking, driving, and walking.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a 93 year old colleague. I think it says a lot about my employer. They value people and experience.

<comment><USER10> I once met a 93 (maybe 96) old woman working in a lab. I don't know under which status she is employed, but her dedication to the project is amazing and her contribution unmatched by any other members (nor the total sum of every other contributors).

<comment><USER11> You should have befriended her, I'm sure that lady would've shared some wisdom with you and you would have a great friend.

<comment><USER10> Don't worry, I wrote the story like I never saw her again, but I actually did once. Also have her email and I'm in semi-regular contact with the project leader she works daily with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _" I've got a lot of things planned,"_ with this attitude, I really hope you have a lot more years to see them come to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER4> "60 Minutes" once interviewed a 102 year old research chemist tottering about his lab. They asked him why he didn't retire. He replied why should I retire, I love doing research!

</comment><comment><USER13> My grandfather died last year at 102; but unlike Mr. Vollmer, he retired young.

I'm always impressed when I see people that age up-and-about. My grandfather drove until his late 90's, and was still relatively active until a few months before his 100th birthday.

He gave me the best advice about raising children: "Remember, they're people too!"

</comment><comment><USER14> I suggest watching an interview with Eva Zeisel and how sound her mind is: [https://www.ted.com/talks/eva_zeisel_the_playful_search_for_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/eva_zeisel_the_playful_search_for_beauty/up- next)</comment>


Show HN: Tinder, but for Movies - <AUTHOR> https://tinder-for-movies.now.sh <comment><USER2> I really like the concept here, but it shows a very limited amount of info about each movie. Maybe if I could click on the card to expand more details (maybe sourced from imdb or something) this would be a lot more helpful.

Also, does this take into account previous decisions to show movies that are more like the ones that I've already liked?

<comment><AUTHOR> Your first point is already on my todo list!

No it doesn't take them into account, at least not yet. Currently it shows you only the most popular movies, but thats something I'm gonna think about. Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nicely done! I made something similar a few years back for quickly rating movies you've seen and marking ones you haven't seen but want to. I never did much with it, but it's still fun to play with every once in awhile even being years out of date. Yours looks much nicer though :)</comment>


Imgur: a slick video to gif converter - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/vidgif <comment><USER2> This is not something new. They have this for a long time now.</comment>