Goodbye Aron Eisenberg:( — aka Nog (DS9) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/malissa_longo/status/1175620223023628288 <comment><USER2> He was definitely one of the actors that made Deep Space Nine's world so compelling, despite not being one of the main cast. All the more true since he had to add depth to a race, the Ferengi, who before the series were totally one-note.

The recently released DS9 documentary, What We Left Behind (which is great) has some interesting bits with Aron, notably on the reactions to the episode (It's Only a Paper Moon) where Nog had to deal with the psychological impact of being wounded in combat. He was wounded in a previous episode, so the follow up was very un-Star Trek in that it didn't portray everything as being perfect right after. Apparently it hit home for a lot of veterans. He did a great job in the role.

R.I.P.

<comment><USER3> It's Only A Paper Moon is one of my favorite episodes of DS9. I hadn't heard of What We Left Behind, and am looking forward to watching it.

The interplay between Nog and Vic makes Paper Moon compelling. Both Nog and Vic gain life within the holosuite. Vic's existence was normally was suspended when the crew finished hanging out with him. Despite all his wisdom, he is only skin deep. With Nog running the holosuite constantly, Vic experiences more of human life [0].

Meanwhile Nog stays in the holosuite because "If I stay here, at least I know what the future is going to be like." As Nog gains more confidence he starts treating the holoprogram as his reality, and he seeks to improve it with more risky ventures like opening another casino, etc. He stops knowing exactly what will happen in the holosuite.

Vic becomes real, while Nog invests reality into fantasty. Eventually Vic sacrifices his enhanced reality to return Nog to a normal life, where there is real risk but also real rewards.

[0] Since you've been here, I've slept in a bed every night, gone to work every day, had time to read the paper, play cards with the boys - I've had a life. And I have to tell you, it's a precious thing. I had no idea how much it means to just... live. And now I'm gonna return the favor, and give you your life back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently rewatched DS9.

Nog's character is one of the more notable ones because the Ferengi are often used as a form of comic relief in the series.

His development from an obnoxious teenager rebelling against his culture and befriending Jake and later embracing a military career and the family conflict that entailed was interesting but his later development was was most compelling.

His conflict when dealing with the illegal actions of Red Squad, his almost fanatical loyalty to Captain Sisko were all built upon this initial development. Then we get his Catch 22 moment where he embraces his culture and his new life in a wonderful bit of comic relief which leads us to be blindsided by his decent into despair following his injury.

One of the best character arcs in Trek.

<comment><USER5> DS9 has some of the best written character arcs of any show in memory. The long list of truly dimensional characters who wrestle with all sorts of things, and the story around their growth or descent is fantastic. Further added to the way that some of the main characters pull their respective peoples onto various sides and even their "nations" seem to breath more than in almost any other series.

While the Ferengi episodes were often semi-comedic, the show also fleshed them out and (dare I say) humanized many of the recurring characters as interesting, sympathetic, and complex -- challenging viewers to think deeper about superficial archetypes.

<comment><USER6> Vedek Winn Adami always drove me coo-coo with her demeaning power-hungry mother superior attitude, always dismissively calling people "child", while lying and manipulating people in her unquenchable quest for power, that led to her ultimate fate.

Then I finally realized why she is such a contemptible character who drove me so totally mad that I wanted to strangle her: she's played by Louise Fletcher, aka Nurse Mildred Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest! But I feel much better now that I have my lobotomy.

[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Winn_Adami](https://memory- alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Winn_Adami)

[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Louise_Fletcher](https://memory- alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Louise_Fletcher)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really miss the optimism of Star Trek. His character, Nog, almost lived in miniature the point of the whole story. That technology does have the ability to reinforce people's better angels. Stark contrast with scifi of today being largely dystopian. Blows my mind that Aron was 50. I'll always remember the optimistic young man in the series. Sounds like he was a genuinely good person.

Yep, I'm tearing up!

</comment><comment><USER8> Aron Eisenberg stands among Jeffrey Combs, Louise Fletcher, and Andrew Robinson by having taken a 'minor' role and imbuing it with richness past what the writers gave. He was an artist who went all-in on his craft and left a lasting legacy. Beyond that, he was always open-hearted while interacting with fandom.

Aron Eisenberg was a treasure. He will be missed. My only regret he didn't get more roles worthy of his talents.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would have liked to see a spin-off show about Nog's years at Starfleet Academy. There could have been so much comedic and dramatic potential as the first Ferengi in the Academy.

Aron and I had the same birthday so I would wish him happy birthday each year when he announced his birthday on Twitter. He would always reciprocate kindly. :) He mentioned that he had pushed for a continuation of Nog's storyline like my suggestion, but it never got traction..

DS9 is my favorite Star Trek because of the diverse cast of characters like Nog and the focus of the characters' stories in the larger story arcs.

<comment><USER5> Fans have been screaming for decades for a Starfleet Academy show. I think it could really breathe new life into the franchise and bring new blood in who could potentially carry parts of the franchise for a long time.

Instead we get a highly produced but virtually incomprehensible new series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had the feeling when watching DS9 that the role of Nog became greater and more complex than originally planned because of the high caliber of Eisenberg's acting. I don't have evidence to support this, but perhaps someone here knows more. Regardless, I thought his was among the best acting in the show.

<comment><USER2> I can't remember if Nog was addressed directly, but in the recent DS9 documentary Ronald D. Moore (one of the show's writers who later went on the make the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica) commented that there were several minor characters that the writers really liked and, therefore, kept thinking of new stories for them. That actors like Eisenberg portrayed the characters and imbued their roles, especially at first, with such personality definitely resulted in the writers bringing them back and giving them interesting arcs.

The most blatant example of this was Jeffery Combs and his portrayal of Weyoun, a character who died at the end of the episode where he was introduced. They then invented the backstory of his race being all clones just so they could bring him back.

<comment><USER10> Thanks, this is good to hear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To save you the google lookup, he played Nog the Ferengi in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

<comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nog_(Star_Trek)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nog_\(Star_Trek\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Aron was quite active on Twitter. I never realized he was born with one kidney and had two transplants.

I believe he was working on a film that hasn't been completed yet. And he and Cirroc Lofton (DS9 "Jake Sisko") had a podcast The 7th Rule (as in Ferengi rules of acquisition).

</comment><comment><USER14> That's very sad. As a huge Star Trek fan, I remember Nog very well.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thank you Aron for the many hours of enjoyment that I got out of your character in DS9. Here's to more of those hours! Just started rewatching DS9 for the fourth time.

</comment><comment><USER16> Rest in Peace, Nog.

I mentioned to my wife, wondered if Rahm and Quark would show up for the funeral in costume. She said it sounded insane, but I liked the idea.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A life ended too early. Thank you Aron for your inspiring work, love for the fans and being the great person you were.

</comment><comment><USER17> A really great show. Subtle hues of the best bits of BSG.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sad he will be missed. May he rest in peace.

</comment><comment><USER19> Malissa, my heart is with you and the rest of Aron's family. I am truly sorry to hear this sad news.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thank you Aron for everything

[https://imgur.com/a/3tFIdOY](https://imgur.com/a/3tFIdOY)

<comment><USER14> This is a photo of Nog:

[http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/21300000/Nog- ferengi-...](http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/21300000/Nog- ferengi-21318964-635-731.jpg)

<comment><USER21> And here's Nog at the end of the show: [https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/b/b2/...](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/b/b2/Nog%2C_2375.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151219154106&path- prefix=en)

Quite the character arc he had.</comment></comment></comment>


I'll pay $5.99 a month for Mailbox - <AUTHOR> Hey, I am ready to pay $5.99 a month to support the development of Mailbox. Any one else out there who is interested in the same or has suggestions on how to keep mailbox alive. <comment><USER2> I had the same naive thought today.

Perhaps Dropbox will open source the project and the community can keep developing features and maintaining it.

It doesn't matter how much you are going to pay, someone paid more (Dropbox) and now they want exclusivity on the garbage can they are going to put this in.

I would love to see more companies shutting down services open sourcing them, but it's a lot of work and once you decide to shut something down you want to also cut the losses.

<comment><USER3> "Will Mailbox be open-sourced?

Unfortunately not. We gave a lot of thought to open-sourcing the underlying system, but this is ultimately not something we will support."

[https://www.mailboxapp.com/faq/](https://www.mailboxapp.com/faq/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Mailbox but I already pay €9.99 for Dropbox so I already felt like I was paying for it.

When mailbox goes, I'll probably drop my dropbox subscription as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mailbox is not an open source project you can just throw money at to keep alive.

<comment> cat-dev-null But, it's potentially possible to crowdfund an "FNAC" acquired app to demonstrate profitability of continuing support rather than irrationally throwing money and goodwill away. Goodwill, once lost, is seldom recovered... damaging the parent company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> +1</comment>


Exploring Failed Startups – A look at four emblematic failures - <AUTHOR> https://www.softhatch.com/learn/technology/Exploring-Failed-Startups?utm=hackernews <comment><USER2> Thanks a lot.

</comment><comment><USER3> thanks</comment>


A Very Sad Goodbye – AltspaceVR Is Shutting Down - <AUTHOR> https://altvr.com/good-bye/ <comment><USER2> wonder what the cost is to "keep the lights on"</comment>


The Case for More Incarceration (1992) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/139583NCJRS.pdf <comment><USER2> For those wondering what this is about, it was published in 1992 at the direction of the U.S. Attorney General at the time, William Barr, who is now the presumed nominee to return to that position.

</comment><comment><USER2> Via one ISP, "Firefox can't find the server at www.ncjrs.gov." Via another ISP, the link timed out, then worked 5 minutes later.</comment>


Dangerous Knowledge - Four brilliant mathematicians whose genius tragically drove them insane - <AUTHOR> http://bestdocumentaries.blogspot.com/2007/09/dangerous-knowledge-full-documentary.html

<comment><USER2> _four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius... tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide._

Correlation does not imply causality.

Not that I see any correlation here -- not by a long shot. I would embark on a census of all the geniuses who did _not_ go insane, but this post is too short to contain it. I will, however, not miss the opportunity to re-quote the first line of Goodstein's _States of Matter_ , IMHO the most hilarious line in physics-education history:

 _Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on his work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics._

Fortunately, most of us survived stat mech.

Finally, while one can obviously dispute the cause of Turing's death, and claim that it might have had something to do with his "genius", it might also have had _something_ to do with the public humiliation, the removal of his security clearance (and thereby, effectively, his career in cryptography), and the disfiguring hormonal treatments that were forced on him by a homophobic society. I mean, you can see how that might have been kind of depressing.

<comment><USER3> I wonder whether the stereotype of geniuses being manic depressives exists to keep people from being geniuses? Of course, there are manic depressive geniuses, but there are plenty of manic depressive non geniuses. Plus, the stereotype can easily form a self fulfilling prophecy, due to social stigma.

<comment><USER2> The truth is rather sadder: There are lots of manic depressives among us, but people prefer not to think about them, and their condition is so stigmatized that they do not advertise it.

The only manic depressives that cannot be ignored are the famous ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alternatively, three mentally I'll geniuses and a fourth who was tortured into suicide after great service to his country. (to be fair, I only know about Turing and Godel...)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm (slowly) reading Kurt Goedel's incompleteness theorem. In 1931, he developed his own notation and used it to concatenate strings of symbols, merely as a building block in a larger proof. This was at least 10 years before programmers would be able to instruct a running computer to concatenate strings. He'd be a frustrated genius if he had the idea today because most people still don't understand his insights.

</comment><comment><USER6> re re re remix!</comment>


Building our own video conferencing solution with daily.co - <AUTHOR> https://lee.af/meet-app/ <comment><USER2> Co-founder of Daily.co, here. Just a quick note: if you're building something related to COVID-19 and you're not charging users anything, unlimited use of everything you can do with our APIs is free. Ping us at firstname.lastname@example.com, tell us what you're doing, and we'll upgrade your account.</comment>


Show HN: Grab a color palette for your next project - <AUTHOR> https://www.colourhunt.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Good day everyone! The last few weeks I was working on a small color community.

As a designer you can share your favorite color palettes and as a developer you can grab some for your next project.

On most sites I was missing a feature to easy grab them. I always have to manually copy and paste hex values or even make a screenshot and grab the colors out of sketch.

Thats why I wanted something more smooth and build Colour Hunt. With CSS + Preprocessor export and soon with Sketch export.

<comment><USER2> As a non-designer, I like seeing sites like this for inspiration, but I lack the imagination of how it would actually look like in actual implementation.

Something I'd suggest would be if it's possible to create a simple wireframe based web interface (form, CTA, background) that uses the currently selected color pallet, as a way to have a live preview of the individual color palette.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh thats a really cool idea. I like it.

Could be however a bit tricky. Because the color palettes can have anything between 2 and 5 colors and not every palette can be translated 1:1 into a website.

But this is definitely something I will be looking into!</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 17 adds iframe sandbox mode for HTML5 developer support - <AUTHOR> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Firefox_17_for_developers

<comment><AUTHOR> And in case you missed it, some important changed in Firefox 16, like css prefix support dropped:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Firefox_16_for_deve...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Firefox_16_for_developers)</comment>


Ask HN: Any thoughts on this? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fitbrains.com

<comment><USER2> Looks similar to Lumosity.com

Read the science on this, it's not yet fully conclusive about what benefits come from these types of training.

[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/do-brain- games...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/do-brain-games-work)

</comment><comment><USER3> Give a demo. Asking the user to register straight away is bad design</comment>


This Dutch master builder creates the most wonderful devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1ODwgX_KkQ <comment><USER2> This is Tatjana J. van Vark: [http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/index.html](http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the reasons I think guaranteed minimum income is a fantastic idea. I really would love a world full of lots of people like this!</comment>


'iNetHack2' - <AUTHOR> http://toucharcade.com/2015/02/27/toucharcade-game-of-the-week-inethack2/ <comment><USER2> As cool as this is, I still can't see myself playing a game on such a tiny screen.

Like, I understand that mobile games is one of the largest industries in the tech world, and I just don't get it. Can someone explain to me how you're supposed to enjoy it?</comment>


Show HN: Let's Meditate: A new meditation everyday – Alexa Skill - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Meditate-guided-meditation-everyday/dp/B07BVMT5NG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone,

I am Karthik one of the founders of a Social Countdown app called TMinus.

I realised that running a bootstrapped startup is challenging both physically and emotionally. Every single day for me personally is an emotional roller coaster, which is also turns one of the biggest reasons for the accumulation of stress. But, one thing that has helped me keep my equanimity through this journey is my daily practice of Meditation.

After about a week's practice, I found that : 1\. My energy levels improved. 2\. My focus levels has increased, which means I'm more productive. 3\. I'm more in control of my emotions. 4\. My relationships overall with people has improved.

Since I experienced all of these benefits, I thought why not share the simple art of meditating with everyone. Hence I built Let's Meditate a simple Alexa skill that can help you get started with meditation.

You can simply enable the skill by saying: "Alexa, open let's meditate"

Skill Link : [https://amzn.to/2q4pyQi](https://amzn.to/2q4pyQi)

Hope you guys like it :)

If you have thoughts or feedback about the Skill or any questions on meditation, do write to me at firstname.lastname@example.com

Thanks, Karthik TMinus & Let's Meditate</comment>


Show HN: Fantasy Congress – a fantasy sports website for politics - <AUTHOR> https://fantasycongress.com/ <comment><USER2> Gosh. I'm having trouble expressing how I feel about this. I mean, good work I guess, but this seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the political process is supposed to accomplish. It's not about (or shouldn't be about) scoring points and winning. It should be about serving constituents and doing things to make the city/county/state/country better.

I realize there's a lot of "should"s up there. In my opinion the attitudes that exist in the current political machines are much to blame for the divisions in our societies. McConnell is at the top of your leaderboard because he's driven by a naked lust for power, not because he's ever done anything right by his constituents.

<comment><USER3> If you're interpreting the scores as "goodness" you're missing the point, yes. Your concern seems to be that efforts to dispel that perspective are sparse.

I think this would help people learn about the various politicians in the same way that fantasy football players learn the stats, strengths, and weaknesses of individual players. It turns Congress from a two-headed behemoth that regularly doles out pain and suffering except to a privileged few, to a cacophony of opposing voices that each are relatively consistent (with some exceptions) about the things they tend to advocate. It sets up context for people so that when they see "Congressperson X says Y" they have a sense for how that aligns with the currents within Congress, within parties, and within people.

<comment><USER4> > "If you're interpreting the scores as "goodness" you're missing the point, > yes."

no, words have connotations, and "points" has a positive-esteem connotation. change the word to something like "kills" and see how the connotation changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I've been hacking away at this for the past couple of years. Launched in February. Hope you get a kick out of it as much as I do.

Fantasy Congress is an online game where data about members of congress is converted into points. Players select members of congress for their team and acquire points based on legislative activity of the U.S. House and Senate. Like fantasy sports, teams compete in small groups called leagues. At the end of a predetermined number of weeks (called a "season"), the team with the most points in their league wins.

<comment> munk-a Just a pair of UX comments:

Being able to search via State as well would probably help a fair bit. The US has a reputation for being quite bad when it comes to awareness of representation - so forcing a name based search probably isn't great for supporting users - if the search was made into a live responsive search (where the table view was refreshed on each keypress) that'd probably be even better.

Your arrangement of Next/Prev page really messes with my brain - it'd be good if these buttons stayed in the same horizontal position when you move from the first page to any other - it's particularly confusing in this case since there isn't any standard pagination widget bar thingy - instead there are just two naked buttons which swap places when you move from the first page to the second.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh thank you. These are very valid points. Appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was a really neat idea, so I went to sign up and found it's $19/month.

I'm entirely cool with paying for neat games, but $19/month for a simple drafting game is a whole lot of cash. $5 - $10 a year? Sure, maybe after some kind of quick trial like a single league.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm still working on pricing. I've been thinking of adding the ability to pay for one league at a time, as opposed to monthly. For $19/mo, the thought is that you'll invite other people to play in your league (anyone you invite gets to play for free), and that it's easier to get one person to pull out a credit card as opposed to coordinating 8 or 12 people to do so. So if you split the cost with your league members and you're playing with 9 other people, it comes to $2/mo for each person (if you play for 8 or 12 weeks, that's $4 or $6 per person total). Also I figure some people would want to pay for some of their players, for instance educators playing with students.

Also I would consider this more than just a "simple drafting game". The application gathers and reconciles all the data to calculate daily points and manages various league, draft, and team states. It was labor intensive to make and there's a lot of features people still want implemented.

<comment><USER6> Maybe you should make a way to split subscription more prominently? Or at least say something like "Subscribe, and invite up to X friends to play for free with you".

P.S. I am not a marketing person, so have the idea massaged by one before actually adding that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Similar to what @zrail said, I felt a lot of things when I read this and feel even more as I explore it.

A few weeks ago, I pejoratively told my friend that politics is following the fantasy sports trend, emphasizing the individual's performance over the team performance, and how I wish we cared more about the team. That being said, I initially felt really annoyed about this.

The more I dig into it, the more I relax, not knowing in which direction it would go. More people may learn about the process as you've mentioned. We may also put even more focus on the individual performance and care less about the team. But maybe, just like fantasy football, people start having less loyalty to their team (in this case, basically Team Republican and Team Democrat), breaking the strong party affiliations that seem to exist today. I really don't know how it'll go.

I guess the thing I'm most curious about right now:

How did you decide to distribute the points in the way you did?

</comment><comment><USER8> Where is the fun in it when it lacks the theme of 'Genesis - Land of Confusion' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0) , or more general [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image) ?

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you considered a different model, where people play for free, but when they want to bet real money you take a small cut instead? I think it would be hugely more popular and profitable.

Not sure if that would be classified as gambling though, with all related regulations.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love this. But when I went to sign up, I discovered that it would cost $19 a month.

If I'd known up front that it would cost, it would have been less of a shock. As it stands, that killed my buy in, at least for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for the feedback. I'll make that more clear on the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a very cool idea, I'm curious what kind of data sources/APIs your using to calculate points?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks! All data comes from the US Government Publishing Office [https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api](https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api) and [https://api.data.gov/](https://api.data.gov/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting concept.

If I had some advice - I clicked into a congress member's profile, and had no idea what to do next. I think you'll get more engagement if you have something more actionable there, like a button saying "Draft this representative!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, that's a great idea. Thank you for the clear feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is "fantasy congress" different than what we have now? All I see are a bunch of elderly white people fighting about who is lying more. It's like watching octogenarian married couples.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of a small detail from John Brunner's sci-fi book "Shockwave Rider". If I remember it correctly, citizens who voted were then allowed to bet on who would win the election.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A deeply saddening statement on the current state of US politics.</comment>


iOS dynamic type on the web - <AUTHOR> http://mrmrs.io/ios-dynamic-type/ <comment><USER2> I recall reading someone complaining about Apple adding this feature. Unlike normal vendor prefixes, it's not really for an experimental feature that other vendors might implement, it's a final feature that is proprietary.

<comment><USER3> It'd be foolish to use it on the broader web (and I don't know any instances of anyone doing so), but it seems like it could be really useful for HTML intended to be rendered in an app on an Apple platform.

<comment><USER4> Why can't we have the same thing for "-android-system-headline" for example? And when everyone implements it, it would be just "system-headline".

<comment><USER3> A brief Googling didn't make it clear to me whether Android has the option to set global text size or, if it does, whether it matches Apple's scheme sufficiently well that it'd make sense to have a common specification for this.

<comment><USER4> That's a lot like saying that after searching the Usenet, you didn't find that IE supported the <blink> tag, while Netscape did :)

Android should let you set system font sizes. It's a usability thing. And if Apple, Google, and MS can agree on how this is done, that'd be a good thing for everyone involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I get that this is proprietary - but I do like the idea of font styles being driven by global user settings at the browser or system level. Would love to see more of this in the future.

I put this together mostly so that I could build some simple iOS prototypes with html and css - not something I'd use for the average web app project.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good luck convincing designers to use this.

My parents can't use a few applications because of designers refusal. My dad literally had to change banks because some of the banks used too small fonts. So far none of them use dynamic type, but at least some have larger fonts.

<comment><USER6> He changed __banks __. That 's so fucking weird. Changing a bank because of its app. Have not heard this before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If someone running iOS could provide screenshots then this article would get a whole lot more interesting

<comment><USER8> It's helvetica font of varying weights/sizes - not at all interesting to look at.

In short - you specify 'apple device headline font' in css and the phone uses whatever the default headline font is for that version of iOS.

Very useful for making web apps look native by matching the system fonts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any screenshots for non-iOS users?</comment>


Netscape Founder Backs New Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/technology/internet/14browser.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> So basically an app oriented browser like chrome but without a windows _or_ mac version yet?

I just can't picture people choosing this browser simply because it integrates with facebook.

<comment><USER3> They are very vague about what they say it is, there are basically no real details in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is healthy, better competition on the browser market should result in the platform becoming solid. I'm hoping we don't see the fragmentation that we saw in the OS market. This time round it looks more like a race: at least while the standards are ahead.

Isn't this a little like Active Desktop meets flock?

</comment><comment><USER5> _Facebook_ browser that is: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rockmelt_netscapes_andr...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rockmelt_netscapes_andreesen_backing_stealth_facebook_browser.php)

<comment><USER3> The Wall Street Journal articles quotes the founders to deny that it is a Facebook browser. The thing that makes the most sense is a browser that like Google chrome has a lot of HTMl5 hooks so it can do normal operating system activities like File Management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like Andreesen is at it again. He's got the experience, the name, and ofcourse the cash to make a BIG impact in the browser world. Has learned from the mistakes he made with hit browser, NETSCAPE, and from the "browser wars" with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. He's got some big competiton in the search engine world though, with ofcoruse Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. But, I think he can get it done. Check it out at <http://www.rockmelt.com>. Really cool logo. See any resemblence to the Netscape logo?

<comment><USER7> Does anyone else think the logo looks like Firefox exploding OmniWeb from the inside like the end of The Matrix?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm glad to see Parakey went somewhere after all.

<comment><USER3> For a while it seemed that Facebook had killed Parakey, except for the redesign that made Facebook look more operating system like. I think the browser war is still relatively wide open assuming the eventual crash of Microsoft. Whatever these guys make is going to be interesting.</comment></comment>


The effect of [coffee] bean origin and temperature on grinding roasted coffee - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/articles/srep24483 <comment><AUTHOR> From the abstract: "We anticipate these results will influence the production of coffee industrially, as well as contribute to how we store and use coffee daily."

The coffee samples were "placed into either liquid nitrogen, a tub of dry ice, the freezer and on the counter top."

Conclusion: "Grinding colder coffee beans produces a more uniform particle distribution, with a decreased particle size."</comment>


Introducing Clojure to an Organisation - <AUTHOR> http://oobaloo.co.uk/introducing-clojure-to-an-organisation

<comment><USER2> I'm at my 3rd organization with Clojure, started in late 2008 (I think). In the first I had used Jscheme as an extension and scripting language for one of our JVM based systems. I moved to Clojure for prototyping tasks, other developers working with me showed interest and we were able to use it for small development tools at first. Once those started to show productivity improvements we were able to leverage it for small and then larger projects. Part of getting it adopted was getting the other devs on the team interested and excited about it.

The second company was with a team that I joined who was specifically looking for Clojure developers. It ended up being 4 developers, only 2 of which really knew any Clojure previously. The other 2 were Ruby devs. We paired over the entire life of the project and it was a very effective way of transferring skill sets - for all involved. We all learned more and more quickly than I've experienced during any other equivalent time on a project.

At my current engagement, I'm the head of tech and was able to choose the technology. I have the permission of the rest of the executive team and given my activity with the local technology community I've had no difficulty finding good developers who are enthusiastic about using Clojure. This may change as we grow, but I know I've still got a pool to pull from.

Choosing a non-mainstream technology is often additional work for whomever is leading the decision in any organization. For me it's been worth it: we've gotten passionate people who are more engaged because we're using something they care about. The fallback is to just go with a more mainstream JVM language (Java) - hasn't been and doesn't seem like it'll be ann issue.

<comment><USER3> Do you specifically seek out these jobs so that you can use Clojure? I'm working with Clojure on a personal project for image-processing, and I'd like to find a job where I can do more with it than just late-night hackery.

<comment><USER2> In the 1st you could say I snuck JScheme in under the radar when I first introduced it.

For the 2nd I was actively recruited to the team. I personally believe that this was because I made a conscious effort in the fall of 2008 to start being much more active in the community at large. I started doing more visibile things on the internet: a blog, putting up a sandbox on github. I also started speaking at local user groups (god bless them for listening to my first talks and my horrible, horrendous presentation skills).

The 3rd (current) is a startup, where I was also actively recruited into, to join at the time the first technologist at the company. They subsequently left about 7wks later for another startup. Taking on the role as head of technology I became responsible. I mean that in all the gravity of what it implies: I chose Clojure and I am responsible for that - as part of such I must ensure that the organization can keep moving forward and has a plan if I am no longer part of it. To do that I've started a local Clojure group, we have meetings at our office and I ensure that the developers working on my team get every single ounce of technical experience I can transfer to them.

By 'recruited into' I mean that not in the sense that either side used a recruiter. I mean I was approached through my network because of the effort I put into building the netowrk and the effort I put into building a personal brand (as slimy as that sounds, it is working).

Actively working at networking has been wonderful. I can't recommend it enough. I was involved in starting a "tech breakfast" meeting that takes place 1x a month. The local groups (esp volunteering to speak), the breakfast sessions, and buying people lunch (an hour of interesting conversation is totally worth the $10, and every time it has come back to me) has gone a long way to building a local network.

Networking will help - you'll have access to more of the places that might be willing to use Clojure, and more places that would be willing to let you choose the stack.

Be happy to share more if you have more questions.

Regards,

Kyle</comment></comment></comment>


'A Threat to Internet Freedom' NYT Op Ed on Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/opinion/a-threat-to-internet-freedom.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The article is a good read, but I think the video of this piece is worth its weight in gold. Very succinct, and has a great analogy with the toaster for people who might not be more familiar with what is going on.

</comment><comment><USER2> The toaster analogy is a great down to earth way to convey the problem.

The video also pushes for some emotion, but they really did well at the animation and sounds.</comment>


Google's Schmidt: Surveillance fears are 'going to end up breaking the Internet' - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/08/googles-schmidt-surveillance-fears-are-going-to-end-up-breaking-the-internet/ <comment><USER3> Schmidt did NOT say that _surveillance_ _fears_ are going to "end up breaking the internet." That is the Washington Post's misleading headline. He spoke more about the erosion of international trust because of American surveillance activities.

To hear what Schmidt did say, watch the actual video.

He starts talking at around the 21-minute point.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-P4Q-M1tW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-P4Q-M1tW8)

The actual quote is at around 24:00: "I think the simplest outcome is that we're going to end up breaking the internet. Because what's going to happen is that governments will do bad, bad laws of one kind or another and they're eventually going to say 'we want our own internet in our country because we want it to work our way and we don't want these NSA and other people in it.'"

<comment><USER4> I guess I'm missing whatever distinction people are trying to make here.

He says he thinks that fears of surveillance will lead to the breakup of the internet. Which is what the headline says.

What am I missing here?

<comment><USER5> I think the distinction is between "Fear of being surveilled" and "Fear of the NSA surveillance program"

<comment><USER6> Exactly, the headline turns "the surveillance we are doing and have done" will break the internet, to "being afraid of surveillance" (implying "without reason") will break the internet.

<comment><USER7> It's very evident that he was directly referring to the NSA spying program. Unless they were living under a rock since Snowden, the direct reason is the NSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >"The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet," said Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going to say, we want our own Internet in our country because we want it to work our way, and we don't want the NSA and these other people in it."

This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other countries companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in which nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass and destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think this is an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly nations?

<comment><USER9> > This age of Nation-States, and their private agents, attacking other > countries companies through the internet reminds me of the age of piracy in > which nations employed privateers acting under a letter of marque to harass > and destroy enemy commercial shipping interests. How does any nation think > this is an acceptable non-warlike behavior to do allies and friendly > nations?

It's an irrelevant question. They don't have to consider it acceptable--they do it because they can. The only reason nation-states don't engage in piracy anymore is because the major powers' domination of sea power has made it untenable. And the major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from trade than from piracy.

<comment><USER10> _> The major powers don't do it, in turn, because they have more to gain from trade than from piracy._

Don't you think that applies to the Internet, too?

<comment><USER9> Maybe. Spying is less invasive than piracy and less likely to dampen commerce. Is anyone not going to shop at Amazon because the government might spy on the transaction?

<comment><USER8> That is the claim the story makes for instance:

>Wyden himself cited a study from Forrester Research that found that surveillance concerns could cost U.S. companies a quarter of their foreign revenue by 2016.

The bigger issue is not consumer behavior but how Nation-States react. If they balkanize and securitize the internet then consumers may not be able to access amazon/google/facebook even if they wanted to (see Great Firewall of China). This is exactly the point Google and members of the US Senate are making in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What Schmidt actually said, from the article:

> _" The simplest outcome is we're going to end up breaking the Internet," > said Google's Schmidt. Foreign governments, he said, are "eventually going > to say, we want our own Internet in our country because we want it to work > our way, and we don't want the NSA and these other people in it."_

</comment><comment><USER12> Google (and others) has a simple solution to this: encrypt everything end-to- end. If Google can't know what the user's data is, then neither can the US government (supposedly). That should increase the trust other countries put into Google and other tech companies.

<comment><USER10> Then how do I search my GMail?

<comment><USER13> EDIT: Fat clients

This is where Apple's and Google's respective computing strategies start showing their strengths and weaknesses. Apple has put a lot of effort into creating the best "fat" client platforms around. From iOS to Mac OS X, the majority of the functionality exists at the endpoint, augmented by optional cloud services with fairly narrowly-scoped purposes.

By contrast, Google delivers an end-user experience by pushing their platform closer to end users. Google operates on the basis that the network is cheap (RIP Sun, "The network is the computer"), and that it can economize by providing functionality at the data center.

I'd argue that Google reflects a more modern way of thinking, and that Apple's approach is somewhat anachronistic. However, as far as surveillance goes, Apple is perhaps at an advantage. All things equal, it's easier to attack a few datacenters than to individually attack millions of reasonably secure endpoints.

This is doubly true when we consider business models of the two companies. In order for Google to monetize your information, it needs to _see_ your information in some sense. That makes Apple's business model of mostly doing cost recovery through device sales even more beneficial in a surveillance- averse world.

EDIT 2: If Apple wanted to be proactive about divesting Google from some of its monetizable data collection, it would extend something like iMessage encryption to Apple users on Gmail. Send email from Apple's client to another iDevice user over gmail? Give them the option of encrypting it. Don't let Google peek in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's funny because even though the headline is hyperbolic, I feel that it's not far from the truth... except it's not going to end up breaking the internet. The internet has been broken from the outset. It wasn't originally designed for high security, it was designed for collaboration and it's only as we start retrofitting security on top of it are we realizing just how inadequate it is. It just goes to show that when you leave security as an afterthought, this is what happens... so all those companies that are still designing software with security as an afterthought, take note - <USER2> you're walking down the same path. Security should be at the forefront of your mind with every development task you complete.

<comment><USER15> There is a term for this - it is "peak internet". I suggest that peak internet occurred in 2010, give or take:

[http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak- internet.h...](http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak- internet.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does it follow that companies will turn to building a new network due to concerns about the NSA in the US? This takes for granted that the privacy concerns outweigh the economic ones. Foreign countries have just as much to lose as the US if internet-based commerce across borders is stopped.

I worry more about the internet breaking up due to foreign governments' desire to censor and isolate their internal networks, not because they are worried about the NSA.

</comment><comment><USER17> Eric Schmidt:

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

<comment><USER18> I can think of a ton of legal things that I don't want anyone to know about that I __should __be doing. Eric Schmidt will say anything to advance his own agenda, regardless of truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How would things change if Schmidt held political office? What if all big time VCs we're politicians too. Basically, what I am wondering is whether this is a policy problem or a technology problem.

<comment><USER20> "With only a bare majority of Americans opposed to U.S. government anti- terrorism surveillance," it's first and foremost a political one [1].

[1] [http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate- limi...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on- nsa-surveillance-program/)

<comment><USER21> More specifically, a _public opinion_ problem.

Techies tend to think that the US government has gone rogue and is defying the people, who universally want to tone this stuff down. But really, the government is just responding to the will of the people here. Many Americans are terrified of terrorism and approve of these sorts of government efforts to fight it.

<comment><USER19> I could see where you're coming from, but the two objective arguments I see that argue for the toning down of government surveillance, or at least major changes to our surveillance system would be:

1\. The current policies and attitude are [seemingly] going to have negative economic impacts of enormous proportions.

2\. Surveillance will always be a cat and mouse game as technology improves, and surveillance will become increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible.

<comment><USER21> I agree, and I think the surveillance should be drastically reformed. I just think that the only way to accomplish this is to convince a large chunk of the population to change their minds on the issue, _not_ to try to start at the top of government.

<comment><USER19> I guess eventually those people will be at the top of government, which is really cool to think about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google has contributed to that nicely. Google undermined privacy wherever possible. They make money from having access to as much other peoples data as possible.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's involved in say an alliance of nations (-USA) creating a 2nd Internet? Is it too hard. I know it won't stop surveillance but just wondering.

<comment><USER24> The problem is that the entire West is working together on intelligence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Eric "if-you-nothing-to-hide" Schmidt slams NSA?

<comment><USER5> Year later and people still misquote that, you should look up the reality of your quote.

<comment><USER17> The misquote is close enough.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Years later and people are still defending the indefensible by calling into question the messengers instead of responding to his actual message.

<comment><USER5> > The misquote is close enough.

No it isn't, you proceed to misquote him again by missing out half of his point.

> Years later and people are still defending the indefensible by calling into > question the messengers instead of responding to his actual message.

Then quote his goddamn message, instead of cutting it in half.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While we're playing word games...

"The fact that you got caught spying on everyone is making it harder for us to convince the world to hand over their personal data to _us_!"

</comment><comment><USER27> What a pathetic farce. A bunch of feet stamping masquerading as actually giving a crap. Only interesting part is the Forrester study about potential revenue loss, which I can't imagine will be as much of a driving force as people think it should. And people like Merkel aren't who offer these seemingly poignant anecdotes, I'm sure they'd rather aid the competition to American companies more than actually effecting real change.</comment>


I want to pay for Google - <AUTHOR> http://kneeland.me/2012/01/28/a-modest-proposal-google-take-my-money/

<comment><USER2> I get the no ads part - but this article is ignoring that tracking tools may be an essential component of search engine effectiveness.

</comment><comment><USER3> Something that most people miss is that at least part of what makes Google search so good (and Bing for that matter) _is_ the tracking.

Without the ability to track some user behaviors the quality of the search results would be impacted.

For example, if you click on a link and then immediately hit Back and perform a different query, you can infer that the link wasn't all that useful.

I don't like the idea of Google being "creepy" either, but I'm gladly willing to send them at least some of my data if it means I can get a better experience.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but that specific example (in-session behaviors) is fine. What I don't like is linking that with the contents of my Gmail etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate web page bloat as much as the next guy, but is it really true that "analytics gobbletygook" is "pushing the size of a typical web page up to 1 MB"? The Google Analytics code is less than 500 bytes and loads a JavaScript file that is 32 KB. Analytics is a fairly small part of the problem.</comment>


California passed a law boosting police transparency on cellphone surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-cell-phone-surveillance-transparency-law-20170827-htmlstory.html <comment><USER2> The title is misleading: The story is not that the law was passed (which happened in 2015) but that it's not working.

The actual title is too long for HN: "California passed a law boosting police transparency on cellphone surveillance. Here's why it's not working"

How about: "California's transparency law on police cellphone surveillance is not working" (I hope that's not too long; I didn't count.)</comment>


Groupon Horror: Bakery must make 102,000 cupcakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/groupon-bakery-102000-cupcakes

<comment><USER2> I fail to see what the issue is. Companies need to specify how many groupons they are allowing to be sold when in negotiations.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. These things are covered in depth when setting up a Groupon, and Groupon has a pile of resources to help a business prepare to deliver what they're offering.

These stories pop up all the time, though, and the press keeps gobbling them up. I'm no fan of the company, but it's easier to paint Groupon as the villain than the individual business owner who didn't do the math of running their own business properly.

<comment><USER4> At the risk of stating the obvious, someone with a business that has 4k monthly turnover in cupcakes probably enjoys making cupcakes but is not necessarily an expert in industrial scale capacity planning. Groupon inverts the laws of physics for her business. Customer acquisition is no longer hard, gross margins are no longer $2 a cupcake. A part of me sympathizes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like they did 75% off of $40 leaving them with just $5 after Groupon's cut. I don't know how that would ever work with all the labor needed to make a good cupcake. They should have stuck with 50% off and a cap on groupons. Poor planning by the business owner.

<comment><USER6> I have heard that Groupon's sales folk are incentivized to have merchants not cap their offers, despite how bad it is long-term for both Groupon and the merchant (if the merchant can't time-shift the purchase, say requiring scheduling)... it's a quick win.

This is a logical pressure coming from the rushed IPO and lack of strategic planning for competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remain skeptical of Groupon, but this story seems to be more about an idiot small biz owner than about Groupon being bad for business.

</comment><comment><USER8> It just goes to show, if you don't plan and look out for yourself, others will just take advantage of you. This is especially true in the business world.</comment>


Tapster – mobile device automation robot - <AUTHOR> http://www.tindie.com/products/hugs/tapster

<comment><USER2> Mobile developers: is there a need for this? Are automated testing tools for emulators not good enough?

Fascinated by this, but a bit confused about how practical its uses are. Very cool in any case.

<comment><AUTHOR> A robot (combined with a video camera) lets you test things on real devices that current software-only tools don't handle:

\- Testing interactions between apps and the actual sensors on real devices. (Accelerators, cameras, GPS, making phone calls, receiving and handling SMS messages etc.)

\- Testing perceived latency of video playback or UI transition animations.

\- Testing interactions with the real environment -- an app that controls a light, completes a point-of-sale payment, or opens your car door, for example.

\- Automating apps that you don't own or didn't write.

Automation APIs on iOS are pretty locked down so you can't automate apps that you don't own. Classic example is if you want to automate an interaction with the built-in phone, messaging, or email app. For this use-case, for automating on a real device, you'd need a robot. (This is less of a problem on Android, though.)

Also, phone manufacturers and network providers use robots to certify the devices themselves. Just last week, T-Mobile sued Huawei, alleging corporate spying of their phone-testing robot design. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/business/t-mobile- accuses-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/business/t-mobile-accuses- huawei-of-theft-from-laboratory.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I had the need for something like this as well at one time. Decided to ghetto- hack it since it only needed a touch at one point:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4b5ym1ZqSo&list=UUm5ytliPWa...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4b5ym1ZqSo&list=UUm5ytliPWaH2rDPZ5kW1ZJg)

The headphones around the pen are to ground it, so that the touch registers on the tablet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love tapster and best of all, it can dance!

<comment><AUTHOR> Learned from the best! Inside joke alert: Chris Williams (aka voodootikigod) wrote Tapster's dance code at the JSConf EU 2012 Saturday night party before my talk -- when I was rewriting all the Python code to JavaScript...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see only one use for it: hardware/display testing. For everything else a software/gui automation tool will do the job (I use Automagic for Android and it costs 4 bucks not 10k!!!!)

<comment><AUTHOR> The design is all open source software and open source (mostly 3D-printable) hardware. A detailed bill of materials with part costs and suppliers is posted in the repo. The 10K price-tag is for white-glove support and consulting. (My time is expensive!)

When you consider all the devices coming out now that are 1/2 software, 1/2 hardware (e.g.smart watches, smart glasses, etc.) that interact with the real world, I believe robotic testing will become more common in the future.

Besides, compared to the cost of a product recall due to inadequate quality control, 10K is nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tapster creator here. Happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Krypt.co website SSL certificate expired today and website is inaccessible - <AUTHOR> https://krypt.co <comment><USER2> It seems to be part of Akamai since last year. Surprised the website is not completely taken down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, are they closing down the platform for good? I haven't come across such announcement yet.</comment></comment>


Against Advice - <AUTHOR> https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/against-advice-agnes-callard/ <comment><USER2> Additionally, advice between peers, advice that doesn't come from the master to the student, and I think this is the most common sort of advice, life- advice, or "how to live" advice, is always patronizing. There's an implicit assumption (and lie) that the other person knows better, taken to its extreme, it means the other person can think, you can't think; the other person knows what's good, you don't know what's good; the other person has the motivation, you don't have the motivation. Sure, the advice giver "means well" so they can't be faulted, the receiver has to appreciate the advice no matter how useless and the advice giver never has any responsibility, certainly not the responsibility of any consequences of their advice, that's always the receiver's responsibility.

<comment><USER3> That's only true if you're willing to entirely discount the intent of the sender, and the perception of receiver.

There's a stark difference between giving clearly unsolicited advice, and giving advice because the other person asks for advice.

Then there's the grey area where you have to rely on non-verbal and implicit communication because it's unclear whether any advice given will be perceived as presumptuous or as pure gold. This is the murky area of human interaction where intuition matters more and formal rules don't always apply.

There have been times when I resisted advice given to me. Only to understand some time later that the advice given was really helpful and true, and ending up grateful for having that person not holding back on me.

<comment><USER4> You can phrase useful advice in a "non-advicy" way. E.g. "here is how I do it..." instead of "it's better to do it this way/you should do it like this". This form sends an implicit message "there may be other, maybe better, ways to do it/YMMV".

The phrasing indicates whether the sender thinks of themselves as someone who has all the answers vs someone who just found out that something works for them.

<comment><USER5> Be careful with this, too. When somebody brings up problems they're having, they often just want the catharsis of complaining and empathy about their situation. Proffering a solution, even couched as you have described, can change the conversation dynamic from empathy to a semi-combative back-and- forth which serves no-one's purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suggest a good way to "give advice" is Socratic. Listen. Have them describe their views. Ask clarifying questions.

Even if you have the best advice in the world, it'll be useless if it's not what the listener needs to hear at that moment.

Might be better to just help them better understand their current perspectives and options. Then they'll be more open to finding solutions themselves.

<comment><USER7> I've noticed good therapists do this.

When I was in therapy, my therapist would just continually ask questions. And eventually, Id start answering them, and find the answer that I was looking for. It was really amazing.

Now all of my advice is in this way. People already have an idea of what the problem is. Sometimes they don't want to admit it, or face it. But when they talk through it, it's enlightening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Giving advice is like trying to inject lines of code in a neural network instead of giving training examples to it. Nothing good is going happen. I prefer to share experiences and let people to do whatever they want with that information

</comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of a story I heard from Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway about asking Mozart for advice.

One man came to Mozart and asked him how to write a symphony. Mozart replied, "You are too young to write a symphony." The man said, "You were writing symphonies when you were 10 years of age, and I am 21." Mozart said, "Yes, but I didn't run around asking people how to do it."

</comment><comment><USER10> I've completely given up on giving advice and persuading people because it doesn't work and often people do the opposite. People are going to do what they want anyway. Doesn't stop me having my opinions though.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't remember where I read it, but someone once said that the two things that hurt the most are criticism and unsolicited advice.

<comment><USER12> Exactly. It can be an ego-damaging exercise to another person to give unsolicited advice, so usually before I give it (online) I add a mini disclaimer like 'IMHO', or 'You might want to hear my thoughts on the matter'.</comment></comment>


Amazon to Roll Out Grocery Delivery Service - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/01/24/amazon-to-roll-out-grocery-delivery-service/ <comment><USER2> _Clearly, customers' being able to order everyday home items online and have them delivered to their doors would put Amazon in further competition with big-box retailers. As an online bookstore, Amazon has given companies like Barnes & Noble and Borders a run for their money._

Am I the only one who checked the date on the article after seeing that?

</comment><comment><USER3> Webvan! You came back! I thought you were dead! _(Sobs.)_

When Webvan died I literally had to _buy a car_ for the first time. It was like I'd been part of an advanced civilization that collapsed. Seriously, they should've tried charging higher prices before they gave up.

<comment><USER4> You should move to the UK. Ocado (amongst others) offers grocery deliveries _that you can order from your iPhone or iPad_

<comment><USER5> Don't all the major UK supermarket chains provide online ordering and delivery?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but I am an Ocado shill. (just kidding, didn't realise everyone offered it. Not in the target market.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazon launched grocery deliveries in the UK a few months back - and to pretty mixed reviews. Amazon are using third parties to supply the goods, so one grocery order might be 4 or 5 separate deliveries. As a result the general view was a) it's expensive as you're having to pay shipping costs for each supplier (some comparisons of a typical basket were double the cost of getting it from Tesco or Sainsbury) 2) it generates a large amount of waste as each order is in separate packaging and c) it's really inconvenient having to be in for all these deliveries.

So basically a big thumbs down.

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome. I see yummy.com vans all around Santa Monica, but would love for a big player like Amazon to come in and validate this space. The article lists $2.50 for a single grapefruit as an indicator that the pricing will be high. I'd love to see a comparison. $2.50 for a grapefruit in mid January in Seattle might be a normal price for all I know. Show me pricing on staples like bread, flour, cereal, pasta.

<comment><USER8> I'd also like to see a comparison but I tend to think Amazon is charging a high price.

The thing I keep thinking is both WebVan and HomeGrocer blew threw billions and eventually imploded (WebVan bought HomeGrocer and then Amazon bought WebVan and re-purposed it as a regular online store). The argument always given was that grocery margins are already razor thin so a company that delivers groceries can't make enough to stay alive.

So maybe that's how Amazon is surviving in Seattle right now. Offering a great convenience at a premium price.

<comment><USER9> If you haven't read the entire story of WebVan, it is worth it. Their problems stemmed from far more than just razor thin grocery margins and had much more to do with late-90's, bubble-fed hubris than anything else.

Unfortunately, WebVan scared anybody off from making a serious investment in it, even though they never actually invalidated the market. If anybody can make it work, it will be Amazon; and if they start succeeding, I can't imagine it will take long for Walmart to follow.

<comment><USER8> Is there a full story of WebVan posted somewhere? I've read bits and pieces along with actually being in the Valley at the time but I'd be interested in knowing more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know this might come off soapbox-ish, but I think preconception people have about your product/service can be helpful in identifying your message.

I like eating well+healthy and spending 20 minutes every couple days to buy fresh products seems like a small investment in both my body and wallet. There are things that having money is supposed to help us sweep under the rug - I'll never move anything bigger/heavier than a box from one house to another again. Nutrition shouldn't be one of those things. Nutrition and health should be one of those things that having all the spare money/time lets us get more, not less, involved in. The investment is moreso important if you have a family.

The fundamentals of nutrition, say how to pick a melon or how to understand nutritional labels, is as lacking as the fundamentals of personal finance. These delivery services can do well by specific groups (say the elderly), but in general, I worry that they'll make us further ignorant about nutrition.

<comment><USER9> I find myself on my iPhone, hoping my 3G will work through the store walls, doing research as I shop. I would love to be able to do that research from home. I would be able to plan better, because I would know specifically what was on the shelves instead of making a list of generics and filling it in at the store.

To me, this sounds like a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER11> If it was made by man then it's probably not good for you (exceptions: butter, coconut/olive oil). If you can't pronounce the name of an ingredient it's probably bad for you as well.

<comment><USER12> _If it was made by man then it's probably not good for you_

I recently decided that it's the best and surest way to explain my eating habits to other people. Using words like 'lipid hypothesis', 'good and bad cholesterol', 'insulin response' or even something as simple as 'paleo diet' just makes peoples' eyes glaze over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using Amazon Tote for a few months now. I didn't realise it was 'supposed' to be for groceries. There's a big selection of items that are available via Tote - I suspect it's everything Amazon has in it's local warehouse. The benefit for me is that shipping becomes free on all items, as long as I'm prepared to wait for the twice-weekly Tote drop day.

Also, they have never taken back the bags I left out for them. They are great for toting around board games though.

</comment><comment><USER14> New Yorkers pay taxes on Amazon purchases. There are two or three other state where Amazon purchases are taxed as well. New York would be an ideal market for Amazon Fresh. Fresh Direct has whetted consumers' appetite for grocery delivery service while committing enough errors that Amazon could easily use their brand to gain significant market share.

</comment><comment><USER15> The reason why Amazon has thus far restricted Amazon Fresh to Seattle is because having vans in other cities would constitute a "business presence" which would then subject all of Amazon to sales tax in that state.

<comment><USER16> Are you sure? As I understand it, Amazon Fresh LLC is a separate legal entity, just like Lab 126 and A9, both of which are based in California.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure about that. A9 and Lab126 don't share office space with the rest of Amazon, but Fresh is right in my building.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Upstream: [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb320f30-2715-11e0-80d7-00144feab4...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb320f30-2715-11e0-80d7-00144feab49a.html)

(If you get the regwall, try entering the URL into Google and clicking the first result)

Hot _damn_ have I got my pom poms on for this.

I'm getting mighty sick of the small selection of mostly junk at my one neighborhood supermarket, not to mention trudging out there in the bitter cold, finding they're out of my favorite snack, rummaging to find the latest expiry date, waiting in the checkout line, scrambling to cram everything in my bag, aaaand awkward interactions with pimply teenagers.

If this existed, I would eat much healthier, tastier, and cheaper.

And presumably, once Amazon has their own daily delivery network, they'll use it to ship all their other stuff overnight for free.

C'mon, if we can deliver hot pizza in 30 minutes then we can do fresh groceries in 24 hours.

<comment><USER19> Every supermarket in the UK has a home delivery service, and has done for at least 5-10 years. I'm really surprised this isn't the case in the US [assuming you are in the US].

<comment><USER20> It is very rare in NYC outside of Manhattan, at least and when I've seen it the selection has been fairly horribly neutered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those who haven't heard of Webvan:

Webvan was an online "credit and delivery" grocery business that went bankrupt in 2001. [...] Webvan as one of the greatest dotcom disasters in history. [...] now owned and operated by Amazon.com.[1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan>

</comment><comment><USER22> If you're in Chicago or other covered areas out east, Peapod has been delivering groceries for a while. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peapod#Current_Locations>

<comment><USER23> Yeah, the Stop & Shop tie-in here in CT works just fine. They even use the same weekly discounts as the real supermarket. I couldn't drive for a bit after an accident and it was invaluable to me. Amazon shouldn't even bother trying to compete here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There have been a few attempts in this space, but I would love Amazon to succeed here. I wonder if this is timed because of their purchase of Diaper.com/Soap.com. That business had a true understanding of how to sort and deliver merchandize. Seems like this would be a great way to leverage that knowledge combined with Amazon's inventory.

Previous HN discussions: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1427668> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877916>

</comment><comment><USER25> I've used Vons grocery delivery plenty of times in the past ($10-15 delivery charge, drivers not allowed to take tips), with pretty decent results.

If Amazon can improve on Vons' clunky ordering process and other problems (limited selection, substituted items can be way off and can change the total price quite a bit sometimes, fruit/veggies are sometimes bruised or not fresh) and keep their costs down, I think they will probably have a good shot at making it work.

</comment><comment><USER26> If this pans out, then what I've been telling people for the last few years is true - we've hit the point in time when all the failed computing and internet ideas of the mid-late 90s can work out. Voice apps, PDAs, and now internet groceries?

</comment><comment><USER27> Surprised no one here has chimed in with their experience with FreshDirect.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd be much more excited if Trader Joes did it. A lot of their stuff is already packaged/frozen, so it's just a small matter of taking the orders and shipping logistics.

<comment><USER29> Amazon in its entirety could be considered just a "small matter" of taking orders and shipping logistics.

Note: in practice neither of these things is a small matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sears does this already with their mygofer.com service.

</comment><comment><USER31> Kozmo.. er WebVan... Grocery Delivery is making a comeback

</comment><comment><USER32> what i didn't get from reading the article: is amazon procuring its own groceries or is it just providing delivery for stop and shop?

</comment><comment><USER29> Don't get too worked up about this, it's just an unsubstanitated rumor based on some very flimsy speculation.

<comment><USER33> You're right. The fact that Amazon is running two trial services (fresh and tote) in the Seattle area does not substantiate the headline claim that amazon is going to roll out a grocery service nationwide.

Skepticism is merited here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm having flashbacks to the dot com bubble.

<comment><USER35> Yep. You're thinking of kozmo. There was even a documentary made about the rise and spectacular fall of kozmo back in 2000. It was sort of a web-driven urban delivery service.

Amazon might be able to pull this off in some markets. It probably makes sense for folks with mobility issues.

I see it almost as an extension to mechanical turk.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Failed Google interview, Enthusiasm for the Valley,  0 responses - <AUTHOR> Got an update fr Google 2 days ago, I did not make the cut for the final round of F2F interviews (Product Manager role). This is the second time, the first (BSA - 8 months ago) got through to the final round in Mountain View only to receive a no-go result.
I am trying very hard to put my foot into the Valley community, ultimately with a startup or joining decent company to further elevate my skills and learn. Have been trying very hard for the past 2 years despite the countless rejection emails. Figuring out what is wrong or why I dont get any approaches with my CV and on LinkedIn. I have approx 8 years of solid tech delivery and solutioning experience with Big-4s and I have a relentless work ethic. But I don't see myself doing it for the rest of my working life and need a stepping stone into the startup/valley community.
Am beginning to highly doubt my self-worth, the news about Anthony Bourdain broke me down terribly,  not only looked up to him I also took it very personally and related myself to it because if someone with such high caliber and knowledge would give up like that, what would a mere character like me be valued at in this whole game. It's a tough feeling, as though I have reached the dead end despite my journey and principles.
At this point, I am determined to get some guidance and support or maybe someone to just give me a chance as I've no mentors or anyone I know in the valley.
Willing to work for FREE and make sacrifices for this. Any advice would be much appreciated. Ready to compensate/pay for your time and feedback. Please Help, and apologies for using the word "I" aplenty. <comment><USER2> Please please please, don't let this affect your self-worth!

Being hired by Google is _no_ indication of personal value.

Being not hired by Google is _no_ indication of worthlessness.

You're letting what's probably tech's most famously random hiring process make a difference in your life, when really it should be laughed off as the travesty of a sham that it is.

What was the Google req, PM for ad sales or clickstream storage infrastructure? There are so many better things and places out there for you to give the positive energies you have.

The tech world in general is a place where terrible people are worshiped like gods and their ephemeral acts seen as permanent. I realize that the Google name on one's resume is worth something, but please ask yourself if it's really necessary. Those who'd judge you by that aren't worth seeking approval from. You can and will make your own way - most of us do.

There's a lot more out there, in the Bay Area and certainly in the wider world. You'll look back on this in years to come and laugh. Please appreciate that this will come and you'll feel better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will definitely keep trying. Just knackered that I dont have anyone that I could reach out to for proper feedback why I am not getting any responses.

PM "generalists" team matching stage was not done, would have been done at a later stage - after the onsite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bourdain didn't "give up". He suffered from mental illness exacerbated by a grueling schedule and poor work-life balance. If you want to learn something from him, you should learn that happiness is often found outside work and that career achievement doesn't mean you'll be happy or healthy.

I strongly recommend that you see a mental health professional to help you through this.

I'd also ask why you want to be in SV so badly. There are many other places to work with better pay compared to cost of living. There are great companies all over the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply. SV attracts me in terms of growth and the chaos, and the ability to learn. I eventually would like to build my own startup. Having spent almost a decade in the consulting industry I feel there is confinement in what I am able to be involved with.

Quite frankly as I stated, it is not at all about the pay/living costs, rather the congregation and assimilation of talented , out of the box, progressive mindsets and charismatic individuals it has produced that inspires me to the valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> SpaceX has Project Manager positions open and that would be a hell of a lot more fun than Google.</comment>


Second Measure (YC S15) analyzes credit card transaction data for investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/second-measure-is-secret-weapon-for-investors-to-outsmart-each-other-2016-4 <comment><USER2> This treasure-trove of data has been producing quite a lot of drool at the C* level in major banks for quite some time.

Some are going with "its for the greater good and the children!": [http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/jp-morgan-chase-big- data/](http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/jp-morgan-chase-big-data/)

Some are being choosey with who they share with: [http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/02/06/banks-using-big-data- to-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/02/06/banks-using-big-data-to-discover- new-silk-roads/)

While others just blatantly hide behind a ToS: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance- too...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance-tools-tracks- bank-cards-sells-data-to-investors-1438914620)

Next time you're on any PFM-related site thinking "your transactions are secured with bank level encryption" means anything, think twice and take another look at who you're giving your transactional data to.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm only surprised they managed to get a good data source. MasterCard has been trying to sell prediction services while keeping their data internal. AmEx is likely to follow soon if they haven't already. This'll get really good once it is merged with cell carrier data -- what you buy, when, and where. Last I checked, the carriers were also trying to monetize while keeping the data "anonymized". Where you live, work, and hang out. Which allows inference of hobbies, who your friends are... Utopia!

It took some searching, but I found AT&T's location information services. Not sure exactly what this provides, but it seems to be selling your location, so we can provide timely offers when you're walking past your favorite store.

[https://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/solutions/mobile...](https://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/solutions/mobile- marketing/products/location-information-services.jsp)

</comment><comment><USER4> The underlying data source for Second Measure is Yodlee. You can see a history of their data sales here:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance- too...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance-tools-tracks- bank-cards-sells-data-to-investors-1438914620)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it was an A16Z podcast that touched on this recently.

Basically the issue is banks have a ton of data and would love to reap the rewards of the data of all the other banks for risk modeling, selling it, and other fun things, but nobody wants to give up their data asset.

Enter a middleman and suddenly all of these companies can provide anonymized data and wipe their hands of it while reaping the rewards of the output.

Something similar happened in the ad space with regards to cookie onboarding services like Liveramp.

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this illegal? Capital One analysts did the same thing and got fined by the SEC for it:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/capital- on...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/capital-one-workers- accused-of-trading-on-what-s-in-your-wallet)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone- insidertrad...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone- insidertrading-idUSKCN0UR2KR20160114)

<comment><USER7> Many businesses are illegal. This appears to be insider trading and worse on a large scale. Its survival is probably dependent on how quickly it can buy-in regulators.

<comment><USER8> It's not insider trading as long as everybody can buy the dataset on comparable terms.

There are a lot of industry specific data providers that build / license datasets for resale. They then to be used the the industry and investors. Comscore and its competitors provide it online, Nilsen in TV. Mint in the personal finance space. These services exist in the airline space, oil / gas ... Everything.

I'm sure Chipotle would be just as interested at understanding the behaviors of their customers.

<comment><USER7> >I'm sure Chipotle would be just as interested at understanding the behaviors of their customers.

Chipotle would already have access to this information, that is what would make this scheme insider trading (assuming Chipotle doesn't publicly post transactions as they happen).

<comment><USER8> Chipotle knows where their customers went instead after the recent hickups? Or they know what are other places their customers shop at? Doubtful

<comment><USER7> Why would Chipotle know those things? Chipotle should know its real-time receipts (as should every business) and if others get those before Chipotle makes them public and trade based on those receipts, it would be insider trading.

If banks sell exclusive transaction dumps of non-public receipts and someone trades based on that information, it would be insider trading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Due to strict confidentiality agreements, Second Measure can't say exactly where it receives its data from, but says it works with a massive quantity of anonymized consumer spending data, and that this data makes up a representative selection of 2-3% of all credit card transactions.

Well... any likely guesses? Are MC, Visa, Banks annonymizing their data and selling it off?

</comment><comment><USER10> Are these the same two people who got fired from Capital One's Fraud Department because while working there they were using the Capital One database to make investment decisions?

Edit: nevermind, looks like it was these two: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/capital- on...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/capital-one-workers- accused-of-trading-on-what-s-in-your-wallet)

Seems like these two should have been offered a promotion in Captial One's portfolio management division instead!

<comment><USER11> Do you mean this? [http://www.reuters.com/article/capital-one-fin- insidertradin...](http://www.reuters.com/article/capital-one-fin- insidertrading-idUSL1N0V02ZY20150122)

In which case, no.</comment></comment>


Protecting infrastructure secrets with Keywhiz from Square - <AUTHOR> https://corner.squareup.com/2015/04/keywhiz.html

<comment><USER2> Hi, First of all looks like an amazing project so thanks! You mention key rotation but I think I might have misunderstood what you're talking about. Let's say I have a symmetric key and I want to change it, in a CD environment there is a short period where you need to support two keys. How does KeyWhiz fit in there? If it doesn't I'd really like to understand what you meant

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to hear from some of the team who built this about differences between Keywhiz and Keyczar, which to my mind was the best-practice open- source cross-platform solution to date (i.e. if you're not relying on things like AWS Cloudformation config or Heroku config vars to "manage" secrets).

Obvious pieces to me appear to be (1) roles and auditability (2) end-user front-end (3) filesystem interface & associated ease of access for various services. But I'm not an expert!

<comment><USER4> Keyczar is meant to solve a different problem. It's meant to be a simple programmatic API for crypto operations, while being high-level and excluding unsafe options. NaCl ([http://nacl.cr.yp.to/](http://nacl.cr.yp.to/)) has similar goals to Keyczar.

Keywhiz isn't an interface for software to do crypto. Rather, it's a system to manage the secrets/keys used for crypto and making them available to the services that need them. It doesn't explicitly look at the content of secrets, unless a plugin is used.

<comment><USER3> Understood! I'd looked at Keyczar in the past as a component of a system to manage secrets/keys, but I see it's actually providing about 0% of what Keywhiz does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good talk on (what I believe to be) this software: [https://www.slideshare.net/diogomonica/bletchley](https://www.slideshare.net/diogomonica/bletchley)

<comment><USER6> Bletchley is actually a different piece of our infrastructure: it protects keys by storing them in hardware, whereas Keywhiz is aimed at distributing the secrets that apps really need (API tokens for 3rd party services, eg).

We presented Keywhiz at Baythreat in 2012: [http://www.baythreat.org/2012/speakers.html](http://www.baythreat.org/2012/speakers.html) I'm not sure if that was recorded, though.

<comment><USER5> Cool, thanks. Are there any slides? I saw @diogomonica mention there have been several presentations, but I couldn't find any.

<comment><USER4> Back then we tried to upload the keynote to slideshare without success. I think the blog post pretty much covers the same material regarding Keywhiz but with more detail.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does anyone know of a web app for personal relationship management? - <AUTHOR>

I'm reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferazzi (not a great book, but highlights the importance of sustaining relationships) and I'm trying to find something online to help me with what will be an incredibly tedious task if I don't.
I know about Plaxo and LinkedIn, but neither does quite what I want. I need something that lets me keep track of when I last spoke to someone and lets me tag people as being in different categories (i.e. business contact, old friend, acquaintance, etc.).
Anyone know of something out there that can do this? <comment><USER2> I'm actually working on one: <http://muchcloser.com>.

It's definitely not ready for prime time yet and I'm looking for a co- founder(s). (Who knows maybe we can submit to the YCombinator winter application...)

I'm still debating whether I should keep user registration open since it's not polished enough to mass market...

Let me know what you guys think.

<comment><USER3> > to dos help you keep track of your everyday tasks

>

> \- X remember to buy bread

> \- X never forget to pick up your dry cleaning again

> \- X share your tasks

This is definitely not the first example you want to show in your homepage, if the purpose of your site is to help with personal relations.

The intent of the site is good. I think there will be a big market for this kind of thing if you find a way to help.

An address book is good; just lose the my.peeps name and call it an address book. People are not eager to learn new fancy names for things.

Reminders about relevant events (birthdays, anniversaries) is good.

Of course there is plenty of software around that provides address book and calendar functionality, so these can't be your selling features. Semirandom reminders to do something special? OK, a bit mechanical, but I guess they help.

I'm not sure about the functionality you offer, but anyway I don't think functionality is what matters the most here. I think you want to look for community features. Somehow encourage your customers to ask for and share tips. The value of your site will not come from functionality, but from becoming a hub for people interested in these matters. IMO, if you achieve that, you're golden.

A minor one: lose the "best viewed with" tag. That's so 90's :). People aren't going to get a different browser to go to your site; if your site doesn't work on _their_ browser, they're just going away. Alien logos are noise and cheapen the feel of your site. Don't let any in, unless there is some serious business motivation for it.

[Edit: fixing formatting hiccups.]

<comment><USER2> thanks for the constructive criticism, I'll start making changes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ever heard of ACT! (exclamation point is part of it): <http://www.act.com/>?

Not sure they have a web app, but they are one of many popular software apps that accomplish what you are talking about. I remember having ACT! 2.0 in the mid-90s.

I'm looking at their site and I don't see a web app, though I'm not sure and I think it would absolutely crazy if they didn't.

<comment><USER5> ACT! is a POS!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been puttering around on a Facebook app to do this kind of thing. I've been wanting to make private notes and the like about people on there. I have a horrible memory sometimes and it'd be really nice to have a place to jot things down. I don't think it's overly marketable since most of my Facebook 'friends' are real friends and not many are business colleagues. If you're interested let me know and I'll push it live in the next few days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have the same problem...I need this more for people that aren't on Facebook. A FB platform act like this would probably incredibly useful in like 10 years once most of a person's contacts are using online social networks, but the business world is still run by non-Facebookers, fortunately or unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use CiviCRM. It may not be perfect for you, as you seem to have decided on Highrise, but CiviCRM is perfect for me. Integrating it into my existing sites is a breeze.

<http://civicrm.org/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Salesforce.com or any other CRM product should do something similar to this. Back in the day we used ACT! or GoldMine to do it.

I wonder if you could use a gmail API (is there one?) to divine this info automatically?

</comment><comment><USER9> Try highrise by 37signals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is almost exactly what I was looking for. I should have known to check 37signals ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here it is: <http://www.act.com/products/web/>, but it still doesn't look like simply the personal version just on the Web.

</comment><comment><USER10> we're building it now

<comment><USER11> peepflow?

<comment><USER2> Peepflow looks like it's what Linkedin should have been - something that connects professionals in meaningful ways, instead of just being an online resume gallery...</comment></comment></comment>


Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of North Face, dies after Chile kayak accident - oldo-nicho http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/09/douglas-tompkins-billionaire-behind-north-face-dies-after-kayak-accident <comment><AUTHOR> Such a shame. I first learned about him and his work in 180 South [1], which really made me appreciate what he was doing to create and protect the park. Definitely worth a watch. It was actually one of my life goals to learn Spanish so that I would be eligible to go down and volunteer with him. Here's hoping the conservation effort stays strong.

[1] [http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1407927/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1407927/)

</comment><comment><USER2> In Chile most of the people with power and money are exploiting the land, mining and building hydro power plants, destroying the planet for their own benefit. Douglas is a visionary, we are very thankful for his gifts to the future of the world. More people around here need to be like him. Hopefully his wife will continue his mission and legacy.

<comment><USER3> Amen to that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Like Yves Chouinard, Tompkins made his fortune from his outdoor apparel business and plowed a lot of the profits into conservation around the world. He died doing something he loved in an area he has helped which is about as good a way to go as anybody could hope for.

</comment><comment><USER5> "In response to people who say you can't go back. Well, what happens when you get to the cliff? Do you take one step forward or do you make a 180 degree turn and take . . . one step forward? Which way are you going? Which is progress?" \-- Douglas Tompkins

</comment><comment><USER6> Cruel death is always near, so frail a thing is man. RIP Douglas Tompkins.

</comment><comment><USER7> Weird that a guy with the know-hows to prepare for such a situation didn't survive.

<comment><USER8> That's unduly harsh. His kayak went over in high winds, according to the article; he wasn't planning an extended swim.

Given that he died six hours _after_ reaching the hospital, I wonder if their expertise with modern hypothermia treatment was adequate.</comment></comment>


KirKos: App Development Under 24h - <AUTHOR> http://codeplease.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/kirkos-app-development-under-24h/

<comment><USER2> Looks cool, are you planning on sharing the source code?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am still thinking about it. I will let you guys know, on the blog.</comment></comment>