Unicorns – Live stream your iPhone screen - <AUTHOR> https://unicorns.io/?ref=hn

<comment><USER2> The demo portion is quite impressive. Not for the software of streaming your phone, but for the fact that they implemented a full-on recording and playback system for live streams with chat, which can even interact in limited ways with input of users viewing a recording.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have to plug it into your computer for it to work it's not a unicorn it's a 1 trick pony.</comment>


Why you should avoid TFS version control - <AUTHOR> https://devblog.dymel.pl/2016/07/21/why-you-should-not-use-tfs/ <comment><USER2> Are there any articles advocating the use of TFS?</comment>


Apple IPad Increases Tablet Share as Amazon Shipments Slump - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-03/apple-increases-tablet-market-share-as-android-shipments-slump

<comment><USER2> A strange thing just popped into my mind: about 8 months ago when MG Siegler first posted [1] about Amazon having a Kindle tablet in production, he said they were going for a cheap, low-spec'd, 7 inch tablet for Q4 2011 (just to get their hands _wet_ and evaluate the market) and the _real_ Kindle tablet (a 10" beast with cameras, retina display and powerful CPU/GPU) would arrive Q1 2012 to compete directly with iPad. It's May already and there's not even a single rumor of such a tablet (at least nothing that I've heard of), and it seems like everyone's forgotten about it.

Now, I have an iPad (2) and wouldn't use a 10" Kindle Fire even if you gave it to me free of charge, but I was really looking forward to a decent, reasonably priced alternative to the iPad. It's a shame that apparently there would be no such product...

[1]: <http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/amazon-kindle-tablet/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this mainly because the new iPad came out in the first quarter, whereas most other electronics are bought for the holidays?

<comment><AUTHOR> In Q4 2011, there were 28.2 million tablets sold vs 17.4 mil in Q1 2012. So a sequential decline of 38%.

While holiday sales are obviously significant, what this _might_ indicate is that more people will purchase for themselves but are more willing to purchase alternatives (like the cheaper Kindle Fire) as gifts for others.

<comment><USER4> Totally anecdotally, among all the tablet owners I know Fires have been gifts and other tablets have been self-purchases. I also know some folks for whom the gift of a Kindle Fire ended up being the icebreaker that convinced them to spring for an iPad.

Assuming those are indicative of real trends, that's got to be very disconcerting for Amazon. I doubt that dedicated e-readers are going to drive ebooks for a whole lot longer. If they can't bring out a strong contender in the tablet space, they stand to lose their command of the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In another possibly-maybe-not unrelated datapoint, Target is going to stop carrying the Kindle. Wonder why...

[http://gizmodo.com/5906934/why-is-target-kicking-amazon- kind...](http://gizmodo.com/5906934/why-is-target-kicking-amazon-kindles-out- of-its-stores)

<comment><USER3> I bet they will still carry the accessories though...</comment></comment>


Man Awarded $150,000 After Facebook Post Ruined His Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/150000-facebook-post-that-destroyed-a-former-deputy-principals-life-20160807-gqmxqf.html <comment><USER2> OK, so a guy slandered another on Facebook, claiming that the hotel owner housed pedophiles. This was found to be untrue, however the slanderer wouldn't retract his statements. Anyway, in the meantime, the hotel owner was threatened by local IRL internet white knights, to the point that he decided to move away. Now he's won damages for all this.

This seems like the proper course of the legal system... I don't see why it's relevant on more than a local level.

It's interesting, however, how little it takes to whip up small-minded people into a fervor. A simple (false) facebook post has enough people losing their capacity for rational thought that the target has to leave town.

Also, I love the implication that ex-cons shouldn't be able to ride on public transit. "Look everybody, this guy's trying to live in a lawful manner after leaving the (penal/rehabilitative) system! Even though the closest apartment he could both get and afford is across town from the only job he could get, he shouldn't be allowed on the bus like any other paying customer!"

<comment><USER3> While your post is sympathetic to Mister Rothe, let's not leave out the most heinous part of the story.

> Afterwards, Mr Rothe was the subject of a brutal bashing that left him > hospitalised for six months

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me, or is $150,000 compensation not nearly enough?

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what the correct damages are. But one thing to consider is that the people who assaulted and threatened him probably owe damages too (and would even if the accusations were true). So the $150,000 owed by the poster of the thread is not necessarily supposed to compensate him for all the damages he suffered.

<comment><USER6> This man was the primary cause of the damage and if there was some way that others owed part of the damages he, the defendant, could always sue the others.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: I mixed Yelp with Craigslist and got this. - <AUTHOR> http://iowacityaccess.com <comment><USER2> I _love_ _love_ _love_ your design (so much I've bookmarked it as a reference for my own projects).

It's the perfect mix between extreme minimalist and professional.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. Minimalism is my guiding principle in designing things. For this website, I took it even more to the extreme than usual, to focus on the ease of use and helping users find the content, but this is literally one of the best compliments you could give me. :)

<comment><USER3> I agree, its very neat, clean and easy to use. Its so straight forward its amazing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a pretty good start but I would suggest doing the same as for new events with the bars and restaurants. When I clicked on the "are we missing" link, I expected a form where I could add one (either automatically or moderator- approved) but instead got a popup window with a single text field.

If I could easily locations I would (well, actually I wouldn't because I know nothing about Iowa but if it were available in my location I would) but I'm not going to start writing prose to get a location added, especially not on a mobile device which is where sites like these are most useful.

EDIT: Another suggestion would be to rename the Events header to be more in line with the verb theme leading up to it. Drink - Eat - Play for example or something similar to that. Breaking the theme is jarring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your suggestions. I always like hearing about other user's experience with the website.

The reason I have the are we missing link? instead of a complete form is because of the large amount of information I collect on each bar/restaurant. I wouldn't expect a user to give me enough information, and I wanted to allow them the flexibility to say something like: "the summary seems like it was written by a two year old" rather than a form they need to say.

@EDIT: Funny you would say this! Originally, the design did say eat - drink - play (there's even a banner still saying that on my Facebook group). I felt that play didn't describe general events well enough but I may have to reconsider.

Thank you for taking the time to share your comments with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can generate some nice cashflow working on niche local sites like this.

General process:

1\. Scrape listings off yellowpages/yelp

2\. Start ranking for local keywords

3\. Call restaurants/bars/auto dealerships to confirm info and generate lead

4\. Offer ad sales on site, as well as design/SEO -- can outsource the latter

There's a great discussion on wickedfire with respect to this field, if you can tolerate the profanity: <http://bit.ly/4L1Rya>

</comment><comment><USER6> I like this. I live in Iowa City and have been thinking for a while now that Iowa City is sorely lacking a good place for entertainment info. Goiowacity is widely used even though it's terrible. If you're looking to collaborate on this or other projects my e-mail's in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email. Glad to know there's others in the area!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you need more local content, you can try pulling some data from Oodle (<http://developer.oodle.com/oodle-api>). I know for a fact that CL is very guarded about scraping their content.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think my title may have been a little misleading. I don't scrape the data from Yelp and Craigslist, I meerly used them as my inspiration. All of the content is added manually by myself (hence the empty parts of the site).

<comment><USER8> Would be great if people could go on and add their own businesses. There is only so much you can by yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest issue I've been dealing with, and one of the main causes for creating this site, is inaccuracy of information available. There's dozens of Iowa City bar or restaurant sites, but none of them have good data, and none display it well. I do have a portal (iowacityaccess.com/portal - you won't be able to use it, but can see it) that allows business owners to let me know about changes and additions while verifying with their personal 8 digit code that I've mailed to them. It's optional, but it may help me cut down on some of the work in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm doing something similar with <http://www.desertdrinks.com>, and I like your site. However, unless the dollars start flowing in rather quickly, you're going to find it difficult to keep the data current. Once you appear in Google for some local terms (perhaps some specific bar/restaurant names), business owners will seek you out. Are you prepared to monetize that?

Your "advertise" page suggests you're not serious about monetizing this site, which means it's likely to be dead before summer.

Regardless, I wish you the best and I'll bookmark it so I can watch it develop.

<comment><AUTHOR> First off, love your site. Great stuff.

I have a small monetization feature built in (homepage featured and search results featured). I really want to stay away from Adsense and other "annoying ad" type income generating. I am offering web design service to all the locations in my "welcome packet" in an attempt to generate some recurring income (offering sites for $99/month. Minimum 1 year contract).

May I ask what you do in terms of advertising / featured listings etc? If you don't want to share the details, I'd be happy to have you email me as well.

I acknowledge that monetization has been one of the overlooked parts of the website, as I wanted to create a resource first, make money second. Your post gives me second thoughts about that.

<comment><USER9> Desert Drinks is a side project for me -- an experiment in the potential of a focused local directory. Right now, I have a single sponsor (the tall banner on the right).

I plan to more aggressively market and monetize the site this year (I just left my day job last month, and I have a to-do list a mile long). Even in the best-case scenario, I think it would be very tough to make a living on Desert Drinks alone. I can see it generating ~$1000/mo in this market of about 400,000 people.

I think the key is to figure out the formula and then build nationally market- by-market. In my opinion, that's how I think an individual could bootstrap this sort of business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am on the opposite end of your design, feeling like its hard to navigate or figure out, because all the filters are displayed in several different content boxes in the same column, and each column representing a different option.

The beautiful thing about craigslist is that there are few options and when they do give you options they bundle it in a nice little box at the top. Yelp is beautiful because of the filters and ability to drill down to areas quickly.

Overall not something I would use as I feel yelp does a good job of this already, but overall good job.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate your comment. However, I am having a little trouble understanding it. I personally find my design easier to navigate than Craigslist and less crowded. I understand this isn't the case for you, and I would really like to hear more detail about this.

As far as filtering, you're absolutely right. I wanted to include a sort of advanced search that constantly narrowed down the options using AJAX as you selected things, but it proved too difficult to implement and I settled for second-best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Without much content I'm not sure how it's going to work. And you plan on manually adding in all of the content? Is that really feasible? Are you updating the movies everyday by hand?

Voting should be ajaxified.

I know you are trying to be the informal, formative resource, but, for me at least, it is a major turn off when I detect someones bias in what is supposed to be just that, a resource. It's obvious we have different tastes, why would I return to your site?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a soft launch with only the downtown bars enabled as that's going to be huge to the students in the area. It was a minor goal that I was able to set that leaves the site up and "functional".

The movies are not updated by hand, but added via an API. Everything else, shouldn't change often, so once I get it in, it should be manageable. I guess I'll find that out with time. I'm more concerned with having accurate content rather than taking time to update the content.

I agree that voting should use AJAX and will implement that in the future.

When you discuss the bias, are you referring to the summaries of the currently added bars? I don't intended to be biased (but it's very hard to control I imagine), so I'd love if you could give me an example or more details. The summaries were unfortunately not written by me, but a couple writers I hired in the area. I'm one of the worst writers I know, and I couldn't handle that aspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fantastic stuff. A usability suggestion would be to change the color of links that lead to empty "no results" pages. You could of course "unhook" the links, but that would make it harder for people to navigate there to "add" an item, which is the way some people visualize the right way to do it. Good luck with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good idea. Right now some links to lead to no results pages, but only because I have such a wealth of information to add. In the future, any link available will have at least one result.

I launched it yesterday because I'm finally happy with the functionality, and I have most of the downtown bars listings complete. Iowa City is a college town, and I think a huge draw will be the Today's Specials listing of where U of I students can get drunk and lose the morals at the lowest possible price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> that is pretty neat. any plans to open source it, make it more generic or open up separate sites for other cities?

is it using APIs for CL/yelp or is it a custom job separate from the two and the description is just a comparison of functionality? i'd love to run it for mine and see how it looks.

<comment><AUTHOR> This started as a project for just my city, as there's a ton of work that goes into information collection. I also want to be more involved in the area, have giveaways events etc, so something bigger would be too much for me to manage and I think, dilute the overall project.

As for open source or API, I've had some thoughts of selling the source to some other areas, but I don't want it to be so diluted that a dozen different hobbyists can attempt to mash together something for their own city using the script. Is that just me being selfish? I'd love to hear more.

It isn't using an API, the data is collected by me, and added manually. I've developed a pretty good admin panel behind the scenes with some other great features.

I think its important to note, that I'm not the main developer on this project. It has been my project for a long time, I've done all of the design, concepts, etc. But I've worked with a very skilled coder to implement everything.

<comment><USER14> Trying to sublicense it non-competitively to only one hobbyist in each area is a _really awful idea_. FreeCycle turned into a massive clusterfuck because of this.

If you want your implementation to spread to other cities either make a franchise business out of it or make it open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid of open source just turning it into a project that consumes my time and money with no return. I'd definitely be interested in "franchising" it so to speak so that other areas could use my work in their specific non-competing area and hopefully get a little bit of my development costs back. Anyone who has experience with this, I'd be happy to hear from you (email is in my profile).

I'm a sharing guy, really! I just don't want to jeopardize the project I've been working so hard on.

Thanks for your comment.

<comment><USER13> then i would suggest this -- develop more automation into the process, and make it something that can simply be piloted by an admin, and then hire/solicit admin to come and pilot the their city's site. set it up so that they can somehow get a cut of the revenue. for example, allow them to add in their adsense code and the site will display their ads 80% of the time.

you keep control over source, you keep some revenue, and it gets franchised out with locals at the helm of the individual sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> More automation as in API from Yelp, etc?

I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but to me, the data gathering (while time consuming) is part of what makes my site better than others in my area. The information is confirmed, it's accurate.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

<comment><USER13> in my head i was thinking of a process that puts things in an authorization queue. pull in all data that is probably accurate, and have an admin either hand-verify it or hand-edit it so that its right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I developed something pretty similar to this. Check it out at <http://barsannapolis.com/>.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like your website. It gives me some solid ideas for some things to add in the future hopefully. I'm so full of ideas that I can only do so many of them :)

<comment><USER15> Are you developing the software yourself, or working with someone else? It's very clean.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm working with a Ruby on Rails coder, but I am the sole owner, brain, designer, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You should add a twitterbot too and get specials from local businesses that use Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER17> you should get the bars to pay you to increase their rating :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Ratings will be authentic unless some obvious tampering happens or something. I do have "sponsored" functionality built in for the future. I.e. for a fee, any bar can appear first in the search results that they appear in.

<comment><USER17> what if multiple bars pay the fee

<comment><AUTHOR> For the homepage, rotation through all the featured listings. On the search pages, rotation in position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> nice - open source it.

<comment><AUTHOR> In reply to your email as well, I'm unsure of my future plans for sharing the code. I do appreciate open source software, and it may be something I do, but I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money developing this. I'm 22. It's a big deal to me. I don't want to create another Yelp.com, I think that user- edited information can be too inaccurate.

I wouldn't want someone to be able to download my source, and start 3 more sites in my area as direct competitors. If I have a solid competitor, I'd like to know that they spent their time and money on it as well. As I stated above, I'm not 100% against open source, and would be happy to hear arguments for it.

<comment><USER18> My apologies. From the title and the minimalist design it appears I didn't consider the financial resources that went into the project. Quite honestly - I can only hope that tools such as this knock Yelp and other out of their place. I wish you good luck. Thanks for the down votes everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> An empty, undeveloped website? Why should we care?

<comment><USER20> Snark is a terrible way to comment. You could offer him constructive advice, not upvote him, or even flag the post if you choose. There are many less damaging and less mean ways to express your displeasure.

See the section on comments in PG's essay here: <http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html></comment></comment>


Gun Rights Hacktivists to Fab 3D-Printed Guns at State Capitol - <AUTHOR> https://hacked.com/gun-rights-hacktivists-fab-3d-printed-guns-state-capitol/

<comment><USER2> Just last night a friend told me that the Seattle police shot a native American woodcarver because he was whittling with his knife as he crossed the street in front of a patrol car.

"Put down the knife! Put down the knife!"

It turned out that he was deaf.

I myself once asked a stranger to dial 9-1-1 for me, as, being mentally ill, I realized I was becoming quite severely symptomatic.

Six - count 'em: SIX! - California Highway Patrol cars appeared damn near instantly.

"How can we help you?"

"Could you give me a non-emergency lift to a psychiatric hospital?"

"The dispatcher told us you had a knife?"

"I was using a razor blade to trim the spines from prickly pears." (The fruit of a cactus. Tasty, if you cut the spines off first.)

The head patrolman scolded me for not taking better care of myself, then one of the others gave me a lift at 140 miles per hour to a fast food joint.</comment>


OpenAutoComplete: Shell-agnostic, cross-platform autocomplete specification - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/openautocomplete/openautocomplete <comment><USER2> If we could get some standards defined and adopted, that would be amazing. There are so many CLI tools that could really benefit from auto-complete, but don't yet have it because it is a huge pain to write. Often times the auto- complete is significantly more work than the original tool was, in a couple cases I've written it was an order of magnitude more work to write the shell completion.

I have tried writing auto-complete scripts for various tools several times. I'm quite good with bash (if I may say so myself). I've written some fairly advanced scripts and have been doing it a long time. However, despite my existing experience, writing auto completion is still a major pain in the ass. This is an area that really needs improvement.

I don't know if this project is the correct answer. I think some good discussion should be had. But I do want to say that _the problem they are solving is real_.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'have just posted something like "request for comments" thing, so we could talk and make a proper solution. I've tried to use PowerShell in Windows, and it was pure pain: the tools, that are written in PS work fine, everything else (like git, InnoSetup, CMake, everything else...) just didn't have autocompletion at all. Maybe, some tools, like git do have shell plugins (like posh-git), but the problem in general still persists. Also, I am using Poetry and Werf utilities, that have built-in generator for autocomplete (bash, zsh and fish), but it doesn't work very well and the developers had to write it by themselves.

So, I've tried to make the spec as generic as possible, so it could support current compicated cases, like git (with its infinite number of commands and options), scp (with its remote file listing), some old Windows commands (like "format" for windows95 and so on).

Also, this format could be used with a single-pass recursive generator, because each usage pattern is just a JSON array and all its properties can be defined in-place. So, it would be okay to use it with languages, like C, that have no JSON serializer built-in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I started down this path last year:

[https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/Shellac-Protocol- Propos...](https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/Shellac-Protocol-Proposal)

but cut it out of the Oil project (for the forseeable future). Right now Oil takes the approach of running existing bash completion scripts, which solves the problem well enough (but leaves a few things to be desired)

If someone comes up with a spec that works in at least one other shell, and some code, I'll be happy to merge it into Oil.

Though, reading over this, it looks pretty early, and I don't think the "spec first" approach really works. That is, the spec should be derived from working code, and I believe you have to implement it in more than one shell to tell if it's feasible.

Some other links I collected:

[https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/Shell- Autocompletion](https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/Shell-Autocompletion)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply! I've googled hard, but couldn't find anything like that. The problem I see is that Shellac is dynamic. So, it is pretty intrusive. This is how Click autocompletion works in Python. Also, I don't think, that Shellac is mutually exclusive with OpenAutoComplete. Being a Shell-to-autocompletion server protocol, it could use openautocomplete library as a data source.

<comment><USER4> > The problem I see is that Shellac is dynamic

So OpenAutoComplete is purely static then?

That makes it _much_ less useful.

Static completion is nice to have for tools you only use from time to time, or when fishing for that argument name, but if you don't know the name of an argument etc you will often have to use `man` anyway.

The real benefit of completions are the dynamic ones, at least for me.

If such a spec does not support dynamic completion, a lot of tools will need to do their own thing anyway.

I realize that this makes it much more complex though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, it is not purely static. It is static-first (declarative), bot running a command and parsing its output or delegating the completion to some shell code is a planned feature.

<comment> irq-1 You could make it dynamic with "bin -OpenAutoComplete" to have the binary output the Json. This would allow gradual introduction and backwards compatibility. It would also keep the completions up to date with binary versions, and still allow a shell to cache the Json.

More importantly, you should consider other metadata before you go to far; binaries could carry their own documentation, licensing, dependencies... What should be in and out of scope?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've written quite a number of shell completions for zsh and the amount of variation in command arguments would require something much more flexible than this basic json specification. This might work fine for listing options and arguments but without more information, completions end up being worse than nothing because with dodgy definitions, you end up breaking things like basic file completion in certain contexts which can be very annoying for users.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few days ago, I came across kingpin [1] (a library for writing CLI applications in Go) which seems to have some kind of --completion-script-bash option which generates a completion script for you. It might be interesting in this context.

[1] [https://github.com/alecthomas/kingpin#bashzsh-shell- completi...](https://github.com/alecthomas/kingpin#bashzsh-shell-completion)

</comment><comment><USER7> This sounds like a great idea, and I'm sure there's people that would be willing to help (me included). Is there somewhere organized already for people to discuss the development, or where to contribute (Gitter, Discord, IRC, etc.)? I couldn't find anything mentioned in the GitHub pages.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can't you just parse --help in the background so we as developers don't need to write anything at all?

<comment><USER9> That's not standardized at all, though.

<comment><USER8> I don't think that really matters though. I'd wager that you can write 5 or 6 simple parsers and get 99% coverage of commands used.

<comment><USER10> Fish does something like this (it scans manpages) but generated completion is mostly useless in more complex cli programs (for example: kubectl, docker). So fish is shipped with a bunch of manually written completions for many commands.

<comment><USER8> Docker looks like it would be totally doable to me. On every page, all the options are in a standardly structured "Options:" section, all commands are in a standardly structured "Commands" section, and --help and the Options: parser will also work on the subcommands.

It won't have typing, but it'd work. Do the most common argument parsing libraries from the standard libraries of the most popular languages and you're mostly there.

As a maintainer, I'm sick of having to include all sorts of different stupid autocompleters and think that it should be the job of an intelligent shell.

<comment><USER11> For things like docker simply parsing the help isn't enough. Docker's environment can get pretty complex, pretty quick. There are a thousand different arguments that require different kinds of inputs (think ports, mounts, images id, container I'd and much more). You cannot figure out what the argument type is from just the help or manpages. This is the case for many, many applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why not use language server specs for something like this?

</comment><comment><USER13> wish there was more autocomplete in powershell

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, before even writing anything, I've looked up into PS docs, and noticed Register-ArgumentCompleter cmdlet. It could definitely be used for autocompletion purposes, but we need something like a database of autocomplete definitions for common utilities to get started, and a tool to read such a database. So, I propose to create a format for autocomplete definitions and invite everyone to discuss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dreaming about Microsoft implementing proper autocomplete hooks in cmd.exe.</comment>


Factor – A practical stack language - <AUTHOR> http://factorcode.org/ <comment><USER2> I really love the power of Factor. It is probably the most powerful language I have ever come across.

That being said, I think there needs to be a more interactive method where you can see things on the stack in real time as you are programming.

I found myself not being able to focus on the problem I wanted to solve and instead was spending too much of my brainpower on remembering what was on the stack where.

If you study human computer interaction and cognetics the human brain can only remember so many short term memory "variables" at once. Programming in Factor uses up too many of those spaces.

I think the problem can be solved though if the development environment shows the stack at each point in time; that way the computer does the thinking instead of the programmer.

One way to do this is to supply some arguments to the word (function) and as you manipulate it in real time you can see how it is transformed. Your steps get recorded as the word.

This solves the problem of programming blind and having to play interpreter in your head as you are programming. Thus, freeing up cognitive space and making the programmer more efficient.

<comment><USER3> > I think the problem can be solved though if the development environment > shows the stack at each point in time; that way the computer does the > thinking instead of the programmer.

If you're up for it I have some code that I wrote with this very idea in mind, in Factor. I'll put it on github later today and put the link here anyway. I agree with you 100%. If Factor were transparent that way and interactive that way (to the point it's almost like a dialog, which it already almost is with its Listener but you and I want stack transparency) then it would probably be one of the most productive languages for fast prototyping (at least).

<comment><USER2> I'd be curious to take a look.

I have plans to do something similar but in the browser in Javascript. Basically, build up the AST based on the commands that are issued against the stack. Then use the Mozilla Parser API to generate Javascript code.

Additionally, with the example arguments supplied you have test driven develop built right in. Not only do you get tests, but it helps you visualize things as you program.

<comment><USER3> Sorry for the delay: [https://gist.github.com/anonymous/6ec7128c10e9ea1f63ad](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/6ec7128c10e9ea1f63ad)

I agree with you 110%, in fact I can't understand why this hasn't been done yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to use Factor as my main programming language for a few years and really enjoyed the language and environment. It feels like a mix of Forth, Lisp and Smalltalk. I wrote a number of blog posts about it which might help give a feel for what can be done in the language:

[http://bluishcoder.co.nz/tags/factor/](http://bluishcoder.co.nz/tags/factor/)

<comment><USER5> Chris, amazing body of work at your blog. What are your thoughts on the continued maintenance factor and long term viability? what caused you to drop out?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I want to like Factor. I've tried to use it a couple of times, and found at least under OSX that the samples I tried to compile (tetris and one other) didn't actually function.

More relevantly, I feel like Factor has lost the literal relationship between machine and software that is Forth's distinctive contribution. Our processors have drifted away from that mapping as well, though there are of course GreenArrays and a few other stack chips out there.

For a Forth that's pleasant to use and retains that feel, I suggest Retro. The Ngaro virtual machine is pure art, and the additions, particularly the [ and ] quotation words, are thoughtful contributions to the Forth lineage.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the pointer to retro[1] and related[2] projects!

I also sort of found Factor interesting -- but much of the point with Forth, is a high-ish level of abstraction on bare metal hardware. If you're going to be using a vm etc... why not program in something that is much more abstract, like Smalltalk, Lisp, Python -- whatever really? Retro I can get, apparently it is small and very portable -- that makes sense (perhaps not _more_ sense than Smalltalk, though).

[1] [http://www.forthworks.com/retro/](http://www.forthworks.com/retro/)

[2] [http://www.forthworks.com/parable/](http://www.forthworks.com/parable/)

[http://retroforth.org/docs/The_Ngaro_Virtual_Machine.html](http://retroforth.org/docs/The_Ngaro_Virtual_Machine.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> IIUC the creator, which had already written a popular text editor (jEdit), and now a successful programming language, considered his objectives complete with Factor and moved on.

AFAIK he still works at Google, and never posted in his blog again ([http://factor-language.blogspot.com/](http://factor- language.blogspot.com/)).

<comment><USER9> I think the current rumor is that he's now doing lots of drugs and working full time on bcache.

<comment><USER8> I did not know about the bcache thing - interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Slava created an interesting language but I never saw an explaination of why he moved away from Factor. He just stopped (writing and caring ?) about it.

<comment><USER11> It took me a while to find at least _some_ explanation of what happened:

[http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.factor.general/4940](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.factor.general/4940)

[http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.factor.general/4505](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.factor.general/4505)

Still, it's so strange to me: not only Slava disappeared, but most of the original authors stopped participating in the development and even stopped blogging about Factor. See [http://planet.factorcode.org](http://planet.factorcode.org) \- most blogs have been abandoned for years, some of them are dead links... Also, I have not found any public announcement about who will maintain Factor in the future.

I really like what I know about Factor, and I have tremendous respect for Slava and others who created this language. I looked into the code a little bit, and it looks a very well-thought and very serious work, and I have no idea how they could create it in such a short time.

Still, you can't manage a project like this. No matter how great the language is technically, I won't start using it for any serious work if I don't see any vision, any chance that the project will not get stuck in this stage. I really hope that Factor will overcome these challenges. It would be so sad to see such a brilliant piece of work to be abandoned.

</comment></comment><comment> pseudonom- I wonder what makes them say this in the FAQ: "a flexible enough type system for concatenative languages has not yet been designed. However, Factor 2.0 may include optional static typing, if a suitable type system can be found." [http://kittenlang.org/](http://kittenlang.org/) gives the impression of having a fairly sensible static type system.

<comment><USER12> Hey, I'm the author of Kitten. The site & repo are a bit out of date, but I'm currently working on a release. Would be happy to answer any questions. :)

I think the problem is that you want some words with dynamic/value-dependent stack effects. It's hard to intermingle static and dynamic typing well, and hard to bring the utility of dependent typing for enforcing program properties into the realm of properties that are actually useful to enforce while remaining usable.

</comment></comment><comment> undrcvr-lagggal I've always wanted to learn a Lisp, but I've found Scheme too academic, so I ended up learning other variants such as Common Lisp and Clojure. Could the same thing be said about Factor vs Forth?

<comment><USER13> Yes. Factor definitely has a much more modern feel but loses a lot of the purity. That said, Factor is still pretty "pure" by the standards of most languages.

Forthish languages are very interesting. I feel they might even represent a "third way" from the normal LISP / FORTRAN dichotomy.

<comment><USER14> There's a always been more than just those. E.g. declarative languages, such as prolog.

<comment><USER15> Yes, and even "FORTRAN" side represent several approaches - for example, straightforward imperative, like in assemblers or classic BASIC, or structural - which was a big step forward at the time - like Pascal.

Then you have object-oriented languages, which are still different from structural, string-oriented Tcl, array-oriented APL...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's entirely my own failing, but I just can't get the hang of postfix languages.

Feels too much like coding in Yodaspeak.

<comment><USER8> Some short functions look so beautiful... but I have a hard time as stuff gets more complex.

[https://github.com/slavapestov/factor/blob/master/extra/anag...](https://github.com/slavapestov/factor/blob/master/extra/anagrams/anagrams.factor)

IMO this:

        MEMO: dict-words ( -- seq )
        "/usr/share/dict/words" ascii file-lines [ >lower ] map ;

is beautiful.

<comment><USER17> I believe the same is true of other paradigms. Of course complexity is difficult. Do concatenative languages exaggerate the effect?

<comment><USER8> I think so sir - I had only a couple beers and can't parse the function below.

        : <color-picker> ( -- gadget )
            vertical <track>
                { 5 5 } >>gap
                <color-sliders>
                [ f track-add ]
                [
                    [ <color-model> <color-preview> 1 track-add ]
                    [
                        [
                            vtruncate v>integer
                            first3 3dup "%d %d %d #%02x%02x%02x" sprintf
                        ] <arrow> <label-control>
                        f track-add
                    ] bi
                ] bi* ;

<comment><USER4> It helps to be familiar with the words (Factor term for functions) in use. You can use [http://docs.factorcode.org](http://docs.factorcode.org) to look them up. All the help is also available from within Factor itself. You can click on word definitions and it comes up.

In this case there is a word called '<color-picker>' being defined. It takes no arguments off the stack and leaves one, gadget, on it.

Now working from left to right, 'vertical' is a constant. '<track>' creates a new GUI object called a track that requires the orientation to be on the stack. That what 'vertical' is. It's the orientation.

Now that there is a track object there we fill in the slots of that object. That's what '>>foo' does. It stores something in the 'foo' slot of the object on the stack. So "{ 5 5 } >>gap" stores the 2 element vector containing the integer 5 twice, into the 'gap' slot.

'<color-sliders>' creates a gadget and a model that is left on the stack. This is what 'bi-star' is now operating on.

'bi-star' is a combinator. It requires two objects and two quotations (quotations are factors term for anonymous functions or closures). It applies the first quotation to the first object, and the second to the second object. This system of combinators is described in the Joy language writings, although I think under different names.

"[ ... ]" is the syntax for the quotation. So "[ f track-add ]" is the first quotation. "bi-star" call this with the 'track' on the stack since that's the first object that "bi-star" gets access to.

The rest of the code can be worked through in a similar manner. In general you learn to recognise things like "<...>" for creating objects, ">>foo" for setting slots, "[ ... ]" for quotations and combinators to reduce stack management (like dup, rot, pick, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe of interest: Zed Shaw, creator of Mongrel, gave a talk a few years back where he mentioned that he was using Factor to create the slides in his presentation.

[http://vimeo.com/2723800](http://vimeo.com/2723800)

<comment><USER8> Sample "presentation" [https://github.com/littledan/Factor/blob/master/extra/galois...](https://github.com/littledan/Factor/blob/master/extra/galois- talk/galois-talk.factor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing I find interesting about stack languages is that if you imagine the stack tilted by 90 degrees, you realize that you are doing operations in some monoidal category.

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe of interest too : oforth language</comment>


Binance moves $1.26B worth of Bitcoin for $125 in network fees - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/29/bitcoin-binance-cryptocurrency-billion-network-fees-transfer-blockchain/ <comment><USER2> I'm probably more favorably inclined to cryptocurrency & bitcoin than 98% of commenters here but this is becoming a rather stale boast.

Quoting @jgreco on Twitter:

"Why are crypto people so impressed by this? 1) Do they think wires cost more as the dollar amount increases? 2) Do they not understand that wires are free for corporations and HNW individuals?"

<comment><USER3> You have lots of police and regulation in the bank transfer. Lawyers galore, and the promise of the state to back it.

They are very different finance operations.

<comment><USER2> I'm very happy with the liberty/access aspect of it, but it's much more relevant for small transfers. People moving this amount of money already have access, unless they're a drug lord or from a sanctioned country (and ofc they have their ways, too, shoutout to HSBC, Wachovia, DB, etc)

<comment><USER3> I think everyone wanted/expected bitcoin to serve for the distributed/small case, but reality has made it the other way around so far.

The capacity to avoid sanctions and the enforcement of law are greatly valuable assets: anything that limits the power of the state is a step towards liberty. (Not towards crimeless-ness)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't forget the total costs of running Bitcoin software:

Bitcoin's current estimated annual electricity consumption* (TWh) 63.23

Bitcoin's current minimum annual electricity consumption __(TWh) 38.25

Annualized global mining revenues $6,705,703,327

Annualized estimated global mining costs $3,161,647,973

Current cost percentage 47.15%

Country closest to Bitcoin in terms of electricity consumption Switzerland

Estimated electricity used over the previous day (KWh) 173,240,985

Implied Watts per GH/s 0.125

Total Network Hashrate in PH/s (1,000,000 GH/s) 57,577

Electricity consumed per transaction (KWh) 465

Number of U.S. households that could be powered by Bitcoin 5,854,904

Number of U.S. households powered for 1 day by the electricity consumed for a single transaction 15.7

Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.28%

Annual carbon footprint (kt of CO2) 30,036

Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2) 220.7

Source: [https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy- consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

<comment><USER5> I see these stats all the time. What's the carbon footprint for a similar sized bank or stock exchange? How many people are employed? How much carbon do they emit traveling to work? How much money does it cost to employ all those people?

It might be worth comparing a transaction cost of 220.7 kg of CO2 to the average American's carbon footprint per year -- which is 16400 kg CO2. That's basically what the average American emits in 5 days. That DOES seem like a lot. I really doubt transferring similar amounts of money is anywhere near that. But I don't know.

<comment><USER6> Even without the exact figures it should be obvious that the inefficiency in Bitcoin is astounding. Consider e.g. that the Bitcoin network performs about 400K transactions per day while the Visa network performs about 150MM transactions per day. That works out to 375x. Coincidentally Switzerland consumes about 1/375 of the world's electricity. If the Visa network used the same amount of electricity per transaction as Bitcoin it would require all of the electricity used by the entire world.

<comment><USER7> Does the amount of electricity used by the Bitcoin network scale with the quantity of transactions?

<comment><USER6> Bitcoin can't easily increase the quantity of transactions, so it's hard to answer that directly. Bitcoin transaction rates are currently limited by the time to mine a block and the number of transactions per block. Technical and political barriers exist to changing either of those numbers. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem) for more details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that this is misleading, they didn't really "move" anything, they just used a current key that was locking 1.26B to lock the funds with a different key. So the network only processed this small amount of cryptographic computation. For the Bitcoin network, the size of the transfer (i.e., fee) can be the same for sending 1 BTC as 1000000 BTC

</comment><comment><USER9> App stores and various middlemen like Uber getting a cut funded a lot of tech innovations and SV fortunes, I wouldn't say low fees are absolutely best. In this case though, the fees are mostly spent on electricity and are rather large for a single transfer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this due to some special technology or implementation details they used, or just the current going rate of getting your bitcoin transactions confirmed?

</comment><comment><USER11> My hunch is the number of crypto-related articles on HN is correlated with upward price movement

</comment><comment><USER12> So $124.60 more than the cost of a wire. Wow, BTC is sooo efficient.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm, all for bitcoin, but articles like these are bullshit.

How many cryptography and bitcoin experts were consulted/hired to babysit this transaction, knowing that the smallest mistake could lead to total and irreversible loss of funds?

What was their compensation?

<comment><USER14> Probably none... That just isn't how it works. What do see the "bitcoin expert" doing in this case other than double checking the receiving address is correct?

<comment><USER15> I do lots of transfers between VMs (different personas) via mixing services. So I always verify receiving addresses using md5sum. I presume that prudent folk routinely do something like that. It's ~hard to see some single-character errors, but md5sum changes completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even $124.60 seems high for moving a number from one place to another!

I'm kidding of course, but we do live in a world where transaction costs bolster some of our biggest businesses. Not sure if that's a good thing.

<comment><USER17> The article mentions the person transferring $212 million for just $3.93.</comment></comment>


Elements Of Statistical Learning: now free pdf - <AUTHOR> http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn// <comment><USER2> May I also recommend a related book, also a free PDF: <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/> "Information theory, inference, and learning algorithms" by David Mackay. This book is not a pure machine learning book but it is a very fun read.

<comment><USER3> Anyone want to compare and contrast the two? Is one better overall? Do the books have different strengths and weaknesses?

<comment><USER4> A lot of the Mackay book is on information/coding theory and while it will deepen an existing understanding of ML, its probably a roundabout introduction. ESL is a much better intro, especially for someone looking to apply ML.

That said, it is meant for people who are comfortable with math/stats; its much more statistics oriented than, say, Mitchell's book. But they do a good job of explaining things in non-math language. This book does a good job of exposing high level ML concepts (e.g. bias-variance tradeoff) but still teaches a lot of the standard methods & tools.

These are actually two of my favorite books on the subject and I can't recommend them both enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I noticed the R packages for various functions in the text can be found here <http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn//Rfun.html> .

Their names are pretty catchy; I'll admit I _want_ to use 'gradient boosting' and 'Lasso and elastic-net regularized generalized linear models'.

<comment><USER3> We just covered Neural Nets in my machine learning class, and the professor made some comments about how far a good name can take you. Neural Nets are better than other learning algorithms in some ways and worse than others, but the name gives you the sense that you are learning the secrets of how the brain works. That may or may not be true, but it sure has served as good branding for the Neural Networks algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have read this book and it is awesome.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. It's great both as a reference and as a teaching/learning tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had read a couple of pages in the book on linear regression and was very impressed by the way concepts had been explained. Although approach is very mathematical, I will recommend this book to anybody serious about Machine Learning

<comment><USER6> The section on linear regression is extra awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> several years ago, i took a class from prof tibshirani using this book and was absolutely blown away. if you don't have a deep stats background (as i didn't), you might find it scarily dense, but wow there's some good stuff in there.

<comment><USER10> I am starting to learn statistics. But I have zero knowledge in the subject. I have picked up a copy of Headfirst Statistics. Is that a good one? Any recommendations?

<comment><USER11> "All of Statistics" by Larry Wasserman is very good. It is traditional, fairly mathematical statistics, but intended for a general audience. (It is particularly popular with computer science people.)

<comment><USER3> It is also extremely concise, perhaps too much so occasionally for pedagogical ease. It really does come pretty close to covering "all of statistics" in 442 pages, an impressive feat. But as you can imagine it certainly doesn't beat around the bush much. So if you're looking for something with multiple applications, covering the same material from different perspectives, etc., or just want more hand holding, this may not be for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love that the icon for technically difficult sections is Munch's _The Scream_.

The visualizations are very nice.

Looks like a very useful text.

</comment><comment><USER13> Since this book is so math heavy, can anyone recommend a free pdf book that can be used as a math intro for this? I like the book, but I get a little over my head with the math in some sections.

<comment><USER3> Don't know about math intro book, but I can't think of "free pdf" and machine learning without also thinking about

<http://www.autonlab.org/tutorials/>

Probability for Data Miners, for example, has much of the basic math you need for machine learning algorithms, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another useful resource might be the 20 part lecture series on Machine Learning by Professor Andrew Ng for CS 229 in the Stanford Computer Science department. Youtube playlist URL - <http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A89DCFA6ADACE599>

</comment><comment><USER15> Duplicate Post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=879423>

</comment><comment><USER16> Chapter 13 is the best!

</comment><comment><USER17> Download link seems to be down :(

<comment><USER18> <http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf></comment></comment>


Cell Phones Can Hear Depression in People's Voices - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/mood-ringcell-phones-can-hear-depression-in-peoples-voices <comment><USER2> I totally need this...having suffered from several manic episodes that usually ramp up over a period of a month or two before I become straight up psychotic, completely lost. It would change my life to be able to check in with my psychiatrist after several alerts, rather than when I get to the point that I need to be admitted. its also not the type of message that friends and family like to give.

<comment><USER3> oh man the feels, stay strong friend. mental illness history myself. gotta remember to stay safe and make sure others don't see you as a threat. try to do things that make your life calmer and more stress free. it's the only way to counter the mood swings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if we'll start to see the NSA doing targeting based on psychological state detected by their voice recordings. Maybe it's already happening.

</comment><comment><USER5> Someone please make an app that makes psychiatric analysis based on voice! I can think of a million uses, from tracking my own mood to secretly diagnosing my co-workers.

<comment><USER6> >Psychiatric analysis based on voice

The benefits of this when implemented correctly nonwithstanding, there's a major problem in that any implementation is highly likely to be quite flawed. See the proliferation of "health-tracking" apps that are basically quackery. With psychiatric analysis --- where the signals to track are much weakly defined than heart rate, blood pressure, etc. --- it is far too likely that apps will consistently make poor diagnoses, to the detriment of the user.

<comment><USER7> I did plenty of graduate work with speech recognition; and detecting cognitive states based on speech is not much better than a coin-flip. Depression, drunkenness, deceit, happiness, etc. are hard to detect for an arbitrary person with accuracy. Speech signals for latent states in human behavior are highly idiosyncratic. The answer I always give when asked if something can be detected by speech (most requested - lying): "Yes, but only if you have a lot of time and want it to be accurate for at most a couple people. And it's going to be expensive."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People, please don't show a continuous variable with a rainbow gradient. Two colors will do - red/green, green/black, red/blue. Too many colors and you lose reference. You see green and have to think about what part of the distribution it maps to; this defeats the whole purpose. Rainbows are pretty, but not the best choice.

</comment><comment><USER9> What if I'm in a good mood and the NSA believes I'm a maniac just because a telemarketer cold-called me?

<comment><USER10> It'd take a lot of speech data to make a diagnosis, and I'd imagine it'd be error-prone at first.

As for how to differentiate hypomania from excitement, I'm skeptical that it can be done. But if someone who usually talks 50% of the time in conversations is taking 95% of the time, and this persists over weeks, there's a signal there. Also, hypomania tends to produce a lot of run-on and deeply-nested (even Lispy (as in having multiple levels of implicit parentheses)) sentences.

Not enough personal experience with actual mania (as opposed to hypomania) to opine on it or guess what its signals might be. Only had it a couple times and none recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Next: Software that alters the mood of your voice as you speak.

<comment><USER12> AutoMood

<comment><USER13> InstaMood

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> google likely already know from your searches for Greek real estate and Ferrari cars. I'm sure search history analysis can reveal depression just as effectively.

<comment><USER15> Maybe more effectively. I really don't do phone calls that often, and my cellphone is not always close by.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Cell phones can do X" is so link-baity. This is really "microphones + signal analysis can hear depression in people's voices."

<comment><USER17> Agreed, but it also narrows down on certain things. For e.g. it could mean that the computing power required is small, and that you don't need an expensive microphone that captures a wide frequency range.</comment></comment>


They're Talking Behind My Back: Remote Workers Feel Unsupported - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/theyre-talking-behind-my-back-remote-workers-feel-unsupported-1509541381 <comment><USER2> Remote work works best when _everyone_ does it in the organization. Most of these kinds of complaints come from the fact that a mixed org will tend to treat remote workers as second class citizens, even with the best intentions.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Within the same company, I felt much more connected to my co-workers when there was an no more than two in any given location. On a new team, I'm the only person remote from the others, and I feel sooo out of the loop.

It's also impacting my ability to network and display technical competence; It's been... frustrating... to watch someone become the product tech lead solely because folks could walk up to and interrupt them.

<comment><USER4> Being available for your coworkers is as important as pure technical competency even more so in a corporate environment.

<comment><USER5> The idea of a raw meritocracy dies quickly when faced with reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll take more time with my family and a little ostracism over a 80 minute commute on BART and an open office any day of the week.

<comment><USER7> Ditto. Im at the same point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We had this problem, so we decided to make everyone be remote part time now. It forced us to rethink communication on a daily basis, and everyone is much more cognizant of leaving people out of the loop.

[http://structuredsight.com/2017/07/02/practice/](http://structuredsight.com/2017/07/02/practice/)

<comment><USER9> That is really cool. Forced remote part time. I like it!

Is it still working well for you? How much remote work do employees usually do?

<comment><USER8> Quite a bit actually, and it works really well for us. It has honestly gotten to the point where I don't know when most of my staff is in the office. I just don't worry about it. The communication is so great between things like Slack, Skype, and even phone calls that being in the same office provides really no major benefit. (In truth we all like being in the office every once in a while, because it's nice to get the entire group together, but it's not necessary.) It really forced us to restructure how we worked for the better, and people love it too.

When we have code reviews and people aren't in the office, we just do it using screen sharing, and everyone being out part of the time ensures all of our requirements for projects are online and available to everyone. One of our biggest benefits is surrounding the daily stand ups. We have them everyday, because we like to get together briefly to socialize a little bit and to make sure that there isn't anything that we really need to discuss, but really we know everything that is going on before the scrum. With this, people who are remote don't call in, and this saves us a ton of time and effort. Between finding a room with a phone and calling into a conference number, we realize that it's completely not worth it and it's not necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Our team is split over two locations; one is the home office, the other is a smaller company we merged with. That part of the team doesn't have any on-site management, so they are in effect remote users. They seem to thrive well without the extra supervision, but they suffer from a lack of visibility from their immediate reporting chain.

One issue with remote work is that it can be pulled back. Our company used to have a very friendly policy towards it, and people got used to working remote for a few days a week. Then there was a change in mid-level mgmt, and boom, no more remote work. That can be hard to adjust to; no one likes to have a "benefit" taken away. Our company is now one that tends to focus on the "optics" of things instead of how they really are, so working outside the office is detrimental to both career and job-security.

<comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, what reason was given for this policy change? Did you have any full time remote workers who was forced to relocate or leave?

<comment><USER12> I have seen this at another company and I believe it was due to the fact that management wasn't very tech savvy. So when projects started to slip the only thing they could do was to call a lot of status meetings and make sure people are at the office working visibly. It's hard to judge if a remote worker works on a problem for two weeks or just does nothing.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. Our company has installed the equivalent of TPS reports so that middle mgmt can feel good about themselves. They stack rank the teams, and ticket count and closure is a "vital" metric. If you do something important that isn't easily measurable (in an automatic fashion), you better be putting in a lot of face time. Oh, and we have 4 trouble/bug/task tracking systems in place...

<comment><USER5> Its never been a better time to job hunt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a real concern for me. I got contacted for a position that sounds really good, but would require me to relocate to another country.

They give the option to work mostly remote with some travel, but I'm concerned that remote work may impact my career, future promotions, etc.

Anyone got any experience with this?

<comment><USER14> been remote for about 2 years.

career impacts have been:

      - no raises.  When I left SF, they didn't adjust my comp. Because I pay no state and very low federal taxes (FEIE) adding (~$30k after tax) into my pocket at no cost to my employer and because my cost of living is lower, no raises.

      - promotions within this company I think will be limited for me.

      - if your comp isn't adjusted to your city, then it can be more difficult to find another remote position where you live.  Companies tend to price you at the city you live in, not the value you provide.

benefits:

      - co-working spaces mean I can network with other people at other companies.

      - no commute means more time to work on side projects or personal goals.

      - less "water cooler" distractions.  I can turn off Slack and just focus on coding. makes it easier to get things done.

<comment><USER15> > Companies tend to price you at the city you live in, not the value you > provide.

People tend to price a glass of water at how expensive drinks around the place are, not the value this glass provides (crucial for life). Do you find this irrational or otherwise wrong?

<comment><USER14> Remote companies frame the comp problem as: we want to be fair to our employees such that our dev in SF doesn't feel "poor" compared to our devs in middle America.

My opinion is living in an expensive city is a life choice. Just like choosing to purchase a BMW or a new home. You should not be paid more because you own a BMW and your co-worker drives a 10 yr old Toyota.

I have been told no by several companies when they found out I live in abroad and make "SF money", because it wouldn't be fair to their existing remote staff despite having the budget if I lived in SF.

<comment><USER16> That kind of policy is stupid. Is it fair to pay people for more experience in coding if the younger person has more experience in that literal language? Life isn't about being fair it's about making sure everyone has the same opportunity to succeed. If they aren't willing or able to negotiate that is on them. I negotiated/job hopped my way from below 30k to six figures within 5 years. What your compensation is shouldn't matter to what someone else is being comped. What about all the snacks, parties, etc you're not invited to? Do they factor that in?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I work in a different office from the rest of my team, and you definitely have to be more proactive about communication. Otherwise you slowly get further out of the loop.

<comment><USER18> There's a danger some of this is intentional. Being remote can generate resentment in those without the perk, and efforts to level the score. You can only accept being told 'oh, we just happened to bump into each other and talk about it in person but you weren't here' so many times before you start to recognise a pattern.

<comment><USER17> I haven't gotten that, although it's perhaps because I'm just in another office. But I think it helps that the rest of the team is small (3 other people), and we do scrum and have scheduled meetings for design issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Remote for a few years. Some organizations cannot get anything done without people physically getting up from their seats and kicking the seat of the person that's blocking. People will simply do whatever the most annoying or dangerous person coaxes them into doing.

This doesn't work well as a remote peer as they know you'll never be within punching distance, can't fire them and E-mail messages and IM's can always be ignored. But this kind of organization actually also never worked really well for me being inside an office like that as well, to be honest.

If all or most of the technical staff works remote then people tend to work together the best. Still, sometimes I have no idea what's actually happening in the company while I'm churning out features. And perhaps for the better.

</comment><comment><USER20> At one time you could sit in the middle as a 1099 or W-2 subcontractor; sure you didn't necessarily get a raise unless negotiated and promotions were unlikely due to contractors typically not leading teams unless they too were contractors. But it also removed you from all the office politics, employee reviews and the general hassle of being full time, and you got 100% of your equity from any company up front: they paid by the hour for every hour worked, no more no less. Much better (IMHO) than throwing the dice and hoping for a buyout or IPO on options that 9 times out of 10 are worthless.

Unfortunately due to misuse of contract labor on both sides the IRS cracked down to the point where it's now rarely feasible.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been a remote worker for about 5 years now and I really enjoy the flexibility (and the savings in commute time and energy). There are times when I've felt alienated, but I don't think that would be any better in the office given the geographically dispersed nature of my organizations. I greatly dread the prospect of returning to a butts-in-seats position.

</comment><comment><USER22> At some companies you're likely to be passed over for promotions if you work remotely.

</comment><comment><USER23> I would happily work from home in exchange for feeling unsupported, Man some people just don't know how good they have it...

</comment><comment><USER24> lets face it, there are problems with all company cultures. Remote has its problems too. Interacting with a lot of people just inheritably presents problems.

</comment><comment><USER25> for some reason the usual bypass of wsj is not working, can someone assist?

I tried the ole paste link into google trick.

<comment><USER26> This is exactly why I've blocked all wsj links in my browser, unfortunately, the add on I use doesn't work on mobile Firefox yet. Can't HN just ban these? It's clear they don't want nonpaying users, we should respect that wish.

<comment><USER27> > Can't HN just ban these?

If we are going to decry the loss of quality journalism due to the loss of funds to pay for newsrooms, shouldn't we be supportive of those outlets who are unafraid to ask for quality?

To make an analogy, people here are free to do Show HN's with commercial products. Apps don't have to be free (and comments often complain about free apps that don't value users!)

In other words, if the WSJ is consistently providing high quality content, why not pay for it?

<comment><USER28> Because I also read the Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times, Seattle Times, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and others - its unreasonably for me to have to get a subscription to each, while I'd quite happily pay maybe 10-20c per article to read.

<comment><USER29> Why is it unreasonable? You are, after all, using the product those outlets provide.

<comment><USER30> Imagine if you had to buy a whole album every time you wanted to hear a song.

<comment> vertex-four You used to. People did. Now most people stream on Spotify for free, and the hardcore listeners buy albums, and practically nobody buys singles.

<comment><USER28> That made sense with the distribution medium of the time - much as a newspaper subscription made sense for a dead-tree medium of distribution - we've not been there for a long time.

<comment> vertex-four Perhaps. Though you'd think there's been more than enough research to show that people don't buy individual articles. People don't even really buy individual movies any more, in my experience.

Anyway, Blendle exists now, so we'll see in a couple of years whether this actually does become the standard way of reading the news. I somehow doubt it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Identicon library + command line tool written in Golang - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GeorgeMac/idicon

<comment><AUTHOR> All criticism/contributions welcome! I was just toying around to see if I could do it. Then I refactored out a little library. I will continue to work on it!

Try out the command line tool:

go get github.com/GeorgeMac/idicon/cmd/idicon

idicon html -w 5 -h 5 -x 10 your-name > your-name.html</comment>


Google's Fuchsia OS Running on the Pixelbook - <AUTHOR> https://www.xda-developers.com/google-fuchsia-os-pixelbook-video/ <comment><AUTHOR> I just hope that they don't make Google login mandatory for this. For a desktop OS that's pretty invasive.</comment>


Obama to hit Y Combinator headquarters in Mountain View on May 8 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/04/18/new-obama-to-hit-y-combinator-headquarters-in-mt-view-on-may-8/ <comment><USER2> All: to judge by the first dozen comments or so, this thread seems headed to a dismayingly low-quality place. When you post, please ensure that whatever opinion your comment expresses, it points in a thoughtful, non-reflexive direction. This leaves lots of room for whatever position you want to articulate—it just requires conscious care.

(Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm saying this purely from the HN side. I learned about this event by seeing it at #1 on the front page five minutes ago and haven't discussed it with anyone at YC.)

Edit: For the curious, the post is being weighed down entirely by user flags.

<comment><USER3> It might be constructive to create a "top 3 questions from HN to ask the President". For me they would be around political funding & the power of lobby groups, immigration reform and privacy/surveillance.

<comment><USER4> No one is going to ask him anything the least bit upsetting at an event like this.

<comment><USER5> I am wondering where all the downvotes are coming from.

<comment><USER6> They are coming because the bubble that exists around our politicians and the fawning rich upper class and idiot lower class (democrat or republican) is to put it simply, bursting.

People are getting fed up with the ideologue denigrating wealth and success and hard work, then he goes to the rich elite of the elite in silicon valley with his hand out like a common beggar.

Hypocrites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's disappointing that demand for tickets to have dinner with him would be so great in Silicon Valley. He really screwed the Valley with this NSA stuff, among other things, and has forever damaged the trust that the world once had in US technology companies. He has directly taken money away from any Valley business whose customers are sensitive to such issues.

I realize that the Valley leans markedly to the left, but at some point you have to take a stand against people that are messing up, even if you agree with their political ideologies.

<comment><USER8> I always thought HN and YC were largely apolitical. I guess not.

<comment><USER7> It's especially disappointing that Anne Wojcicki (estranged wife of Sergey Brin) and Marissa Mayer would orchestrate this. They are lending serious tech community credibility and support to someone that deserves none of it. By hosting someone that has clearly damaged us, has not apologized for it, and seems to have every intention of continuing to do so, they are kind of betraying us.

<comment><USER9> Then again, maybe some people disagree with your premise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is disappointing. Marissa Mayer is probably already a lost cause, but for Sam Altman to co-host a Democratic fundraiser starring Obama shows that Y Combinator is firmly in the "establishment". How, in good conscience, can they support a president who has done nothing of substance about the NSA's abuses?

I can see this being cast as a pragmatic move--this is part of how you buy and sell influence, and YC is a big enough player now that if they can buy influence on behalf of their interests (i.e. the interests of the startups they fund) they derive a real benefit, but it's disappointing to see them participate in a corrupt system instead of trying to disrupt it.

<comment><USER11> planning to ask about surveillance issues.

<comment><USER10> I guess I just naively hoped that you'd make sure you were on the same page with someone about surveillance issues _before_ you helped him raise large amounts of money. But maybe that's not how politics work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> YC is playing in the big leagues now. This should be viewed as no different than Obama (or other campaigning politician) going to Google or Facebook. Such events don't fundamentally alter the organizations involved and could be a great opportunity to advance issues like the founder visa & patent reform.

Regardless what you think of Obama or his policies, it's better that the most powerful person on earth hears from startups _as well_ as the giant corporations that already have his ear. Startups are a huge part of the _real_ tech industry, but have been politically invisible to this point.

There is no organization today that can better represent the policy needs of small, scrappy startups than Y-Combinator.

This is great.

<comment><USER5> I think this is about image, not influence. Y combinator is much hipper than google, and makes for a much better media story.

<comment><USER13> 99% of the country has never heard of YC, it's probably closer to 100% in the midterm battleground states. This clearly isn't about being 'Hip'.

<comment><USER5> They are also used to not hearing about things that become huge overnight. It will play much better in the press for him to have gone to 'some place where they make start ups' than a more faceless corporate behemoth. It's simply a better media opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to see a total cost for these trips. Last time I saw the president drive by for a fund-raiser, they closed down the entire route on the roads he was to take. At every driveway, parking lot and intersection, there were police. The motorcade stretched a couple blocks. Preparation took place weeks in advance. Add in Air Force One costs and to me these fund-raisers seems like nothing more than money laundering.

</comment><comment><USER15> Given the hosts and the venue, the best topic to bring up could be software patent reform. This is something pg has written about in the past [0] -- I wouldn't be surprised to learn this issue is the driving reason for hosting the dinner.

[0] [http://paulgraham.com/patentpledge.html](http://paulgraham.com/patentpledge.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> If the last Obama fundraiser visits are any guide, that'll do wonders for traffic that day.

Making a note in the calendar to WFH on May 8...

<comment><USER17> Whenever he visits Chicago, my 45-60 minute commute goes to 2+ hours (escorted motorcade from ORD to downtown with traffic blocked from on-ramps on the Kennedy/I90). Work from home if you can.

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Who is he fundraising for? The Democratic Party in general?

<comment><USER2> This is a factual, neutral question. It doesn't deserve downvoting.

<comment><USER18> If there's anything we need more of on HN, it's partisan bickering.

This whole story is worse than useless

<comment><USER2> But daniel-cussen's question wasn't that at all.

You can flag a story as off-topic if you feel strongly that nothing like it should be on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Make sure to not schedule any meetings in mountain view on that day.

</comment><comment><USER20> What can be done that's uniquely YC to welcome him as he does fundraising? Maybe speak about the JOBS act?

</comment><comment><USER5> Will someone _please_ ask him about the Princeton "The US is an Oligarchy" study and get his response on tape? Preferably while surrounded by Marissa and any other techno oligarchs that are present.

I know I'm going to be disappointed with his response, but I still want to see it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Who is going to host him? pg or sama?

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope he does not hit the same way he hits Yemen... :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Look, a story which involves Obama. Time for me to shill for literally any political cause which occurs to me by pretending that I am concerned that we aren't all rejecting him more violently. Maybe we can slip in a plug for the Tea Party.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hopefully in the middle of the massive sucking up somebody will remind him that he is massive disappointment.

Would be nice to see somebody in silicon valley stand up for principles instead of just money and a popularity contest to meet "important people".

</comment><comment><USER24> Thoughts about the Keystone Pipeline? I know it's an election year, but really, can't we have a bit of rational decision-making for once? Punting till after the election just seems so very lame.

<comment><USER5> Seems par for his course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> With something other than a drone, one hopes.

<comment><USER5> With Marissa Mayer. Don't think this has anything to do with the little people of the valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is this news? Self promotion?

<comment><USER2> Aw, come on. I'm sure I'm not the only person who went "holy shit" when I saw this after 7 years on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ugh. A bunch of wealthy people talking about what they are "going to do", but never doing anything tangible outside their narrow self-interest? All you have to do is give politicians more money and go home to pat yourself on the back for not giving it to the Republicans. Stop the presses, you're a real progressive!

Marissa Mayer's "cozy" home could only accommodate 200 people for a presidential visit to her "upscale Palo Alto home"?

Sounds awful.

<comment><USER25> > Marissa Mayer's "cozy" home could only accommodate 200 people for a > presidential visit to her "upscale Palo Alto home"?

I imagine she has a backyard.

<comment><USER28> I don't think you pay several thousand dollars to stand in a backyard... Though I could be wrong.

<comment><USER29> > I don't think you pay several thousand dollars to stand in a backyard... > Though I could be wrong.

I've been to a number of high-class fundraisers/events held in back yards. It's pretty standard (obviously everything is spruced up nicely) to hold nice events in the yards of mansions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The comments in here are snarky hilarious. Love HN!

<comment><USER31> Why be interesting when you can be acerbic

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Every time he comes to the area they put a huge [30-mile-radius, 18,000 foot tall] no-fly zone for all but commercial air traffic around him. Why inconvenience so many pilots? Is he that afraid of his people?

<comment><USER33> The presidency is by FAR the most dangerous job in America. Out of 44 presidents, eight (18%) have died in office, four by assassination. The next- most dangerous job in America is logging, with a death rate of 128 per 100,000 workers per year, while the presidential assassination rate is 1,777 per 100,000 workers per year.

Given the frequency of presidential assassinations, and the extreme disruption to all Americans' lives when they do occur, it's worth spending lots of effort, money, and inconvenience to do our best to prevent them from happening.

<comment><USER34> > and the extreme disruption to all Americans' lives when they do occur,

I'm intrigued by this comment. Isn't it a case of swearing-in the VP and carrying on?

Does it trigger a new election?

Isn't the regular disruption to daily life when POTUS is in town ( even me as a UKian, when the office holder* comes here ) far, far greater than that?

* the power is in the office, not the person

<comment><USER35> I think the disruption the parent is talking about is the emotional anguish and existential soul-searching that occurs in empathetic individuals when their leader is taken from them. No, I don't think the disruption caused by traffic at all compares [1].

1: Los Angeles resident for ten years

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't be the only one that finds it pathetic that the president needs to prostitute himself in such a way to make a few thousand dollars for a political party.

You'd think they have more important things to do - given they're running a nation and all..

Anecdote: Joe Biden visited our town recently. I'd bet the amount of money spent on flying him out here far exceeds the amount he raised at the dinner. There is a huge security apparatus that travels with them. Not just the presidential/VP jets, but a few days before he arrived a plane carrying the armored car(s), a whole ton of people in charge of security and god knows what else.</comment>


FnordMetric: Create charts and dashboards from SQL  - <AUTHOR> http://fnordmetric.io/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know how the postgres plugin is going? I did some googling, found not much. I know devs talked about it ~6 months ago, but I havent been following the project too closely, it looks cool but mysql/csv is not that interesting to me yet.

Thanks in advance!

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks more and more useful, but I wonder why fnord was ported from ruby to c++?

<comment><USER4> My guess is performance, since server side is more of a proxy between mysql and javascript, it can be both simple and highly optimized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good to see this cool project get some attention. I work in a similar area [http://www.sqldashboards.com/](http://www.sqldashboards.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice. Could be a good alternative to ChartIO.

[https://chartio.com](https://chartio.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> I started with FnordMetric for a project years ago but ended up using Highcharts/nodejs.

<comment><USER3> Care to share your thoughts on why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What client-side JS charting library is being used?

<comment><USER6> It looks like it's C3js.

[http://c3js.org](http://c3js.org)

<comment><USER8> thanks, that's good stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to start learning security for consumer Internet products? - <AUTHOR>

I'm considering designing a consumer internet product, but don't know the first thing about security.  I'd like to avoid compromising my users' data, so if you can point me in the right direction I'd greatly appreciate it.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> This is a very, very deep topic.

Everything I know about web vulnerabilities in a sentence: User input cannot be trusted. Do I have room for two sentences? Assume every string in the application is user input unless you've got provable chain of custody back to God Almighty, who is the only entity I would trust to handle whitelisting correctly.

There is a regularly published list of the most common web vulnerabilities. Most have had well-understood fixes for years or decades, and will have much better developers than you or I shoot themselves in the foot today.

<http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2007>

Happily, you can pick some of this up as you go along, because insecure web applications (three words which could be two words without compromising informational content) can still produce meaningful business results. Don't let this be the reason you don't write something, unless something is nuclear power plant control software or the like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response! My question actually stems from your blog post on zero-day Diaspora exploits and I appreciate the input. Guess I'll start with the obvious stuff and learn from mistakes as I go along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a- devel...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-developer- know-before-building-a-public-web-site)

</comment><comment><USER4> here is a short list of topics that are helpful to understand:

threat modeling/analysis, cross site scripting, sql injection, session hijacking, database security/permissions, firewalls, intrusion detection, keeping system software up to date.

</comment><comment><USER4> it is a big topic. it might help if you specified what platform/languages you are using.</comment>


Shown HN: Open Source Ticket Desk app - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AlexBlom/TicketDesk

<comment><USER2> Have you considered fleshing this out? I have a few ideas about customers I'd like to try out... I'm interested in forking, but would like to know where you want to take this.

 _Edit:_ Sorry, I've just realized that I haven't really contributed a lot to this on HN. Specifically - how does the ticketing system work? What is the difference between a ticket and an issue? It seems that you can have a ticket that has many issues, but issues can have many tickets...

Does an issue encapsulate a lot of tickets? If so, is the primary work done on the ticket or the issue? The reason I ask is how do you allocate the unit of work to specific people.... or is this not the point of the app?

Sorry in advance for the huge number of questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. I may flesh it out, but I've also opened up the software. If you have extension ideas, please feel free to fork / contribute. You can flip me an e-mail (my first name @ my HN username . com) if you want to go further, or flip a note on Twitter.

An issue has a one to many relationship with tickets. I built it, as I found I'd get many tickets about the same thing from different users. I wanted to be able to focus on solving the macro issue and not manage many issues. Terry Smith is one of the thinkers behind it.

<comment><USER2> I might be missing something here, but in ticket.rb, it has the line:

      has_many :issue

and in issue.rb, it has the line:

      has_many :ticket

Why a M:N mapping of issues to tickets? Were you planning of future expansion?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I mis-spoke above. An issue can be associated with multiple tickets, just as a ticket can be associated with multiple issues. The latter is not beefed as much in the code, as I found the use case to be less once live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm using Redmine in a similar setup. Have you seen any performance impact of rake tasks to pull imap mails ? I'm a little wary of the rake task loading the entire ruby (in my case Rails) environment, everytime it starts up.

any thoughts ?

<comment><USER4> It depends upon the hardware you have. But if you have a decent machine say EC2 small instances or something like <http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_vserver/vq19> it should not be an issue. We use similar setup for promptcloud and that machine has numerous other things running too, there is no noticeable load.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The app looks great. I wanted to point out the following (I might be missing something here) -- When I'm on the Customers tab, I see 0 open tickets for Alex B but when I click on Alex B and see his detailed page, I see 4 open tickets.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the ease of responding to (posting to work log + emailing submitter) of a ticket, and except for excessive whitespace the look is pretty attractive, too.

That said, it is lacking so many critical features any business of significant size would need to take it seriously, and to be honest, the market is glutted with good options of all costs and capabilities so I'm curious to know what your intention was in creating this?

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the simplicity. I personally really like to have either tags or at least status field for issues. I know some people just like open/closed but for our team we have thousands of tickets that pile up so we need to keep them organized in some way. nice work on the app though!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's easy to keep things simple when you are building for my use case, which was rather basic.

That being said, I see the value of tagging. Perhaps a future addition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks nice, I like the simplicity. One nit pick: I'm not too fond of the flash notices. Fading out and then suddenly being removed from the document, causing all content below it to jump up, is slightly jarring IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback. Will see how often this is reported. The fading is also handled in the main JS file, so you can disable it there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for open sourcing it, great work. Sorry for the stupid question I have not much experience with this type of app. How do customers create tickets? I'm not exactly clear of the workflow, could you elaborate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. You create a support e-mail. Customers send to this e-mail, and tickets are auto-created.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's might also be worth checking out allocPSA.com, also open source, and has a similar ticketing email gateway thingo... and a little tiny bit more functionality. (I'm very biased though :-)

</comment><comment><USER11> I got "Sorry, this tree is taking too long to generate."

<http://d.pr/i/uqlG>

Haven't seen this before…

</comment><comment><USER12> Since the mail-integration isn't enabled on the demo, I couldn't test it, but I wonder how well it deals with stuff like signatures, attachments etc.?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll admit there is not much logic here. Was not needed for my use case. Feel free to contribute it, though!

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I might. I think <https://github.com/github/email_reply_parser> might come handy here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call. Would love to see it integrated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks great. I really want to get this working and then after a week, "hey boss, support seems better now huh?"... :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to see the first text box on a form be automatically selected when the page loads.

</comment><comment><USER15> Would be great to see a working demo of some kind, or screenshots!

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair. I've got an EC2 instance booting up right now.

<comment><USER16> Yes please, it is hard to judge whether this is a good option without screenshots or demo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't register :( I get a rails error page.

<comment><USER17> Login with email@example.com / 123456</comment></comment>