The Decision Tree: How Smarter Choices Lead to Better Health - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_decisiontree/all/1

<comment><USER2> This is pretty stupid.

We have detected that you have genetic predisposition to develop this rare medical condition. <little print>Above general population, you have 0.5% chance of getting sick every year until you turn 40, 1% until you turn 55 and 3% afterwards</little print>

You should be concerned because there is no known cure for this disease. <little print>But the expected survival rate is 8 years with proper treatment</little print>

There are 2 preemptive surgeries.<little print>But of whose have a 10% chance that you will die within 30 days of complications, leaving 2 little orphans to fend themselves in the world</little print> One has 50% chance of preventing the condition to develop <little print>Still above general population expectations</little print> and the other has 90% <little print>But will cost a fortune, and stain your marriage and your self esteem</little print>

How brilliant!</comment>


Amazon: Reinventing the Book - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

<comment><USER2> It's a $400 device that they "let's" you buy books for $10!

Just go buy 40 books. By the time you read them all the e-reader will be free. This is not the reinvention of the book, it's just more useless stuff that all of us tech people are tricked into thinking we need.

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw this was 7 pages long and didn't seem to contain pictures. So, here's what I searched up:

<http://blog.scifi.com/tech/pics/amazon_kindle.jpeg>

[grumble] Bezos is a really good businessman, but he seems to have a few weaknesses. The _obvious_ problem with his previous flop (the segue EDIT: segway) was that it looked like a piece of medical equipment...something you ride on into the grave.

Well, what about the "kindle"? It looks similarily therapeutic...maybe a device to help stroke victims re-remember their ABCs.

<comment><USER4> That can't be the final product. I'd bet money on it.

<comment><USER5> how much money? :)

[http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/live-from-the-amazon- kind...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/live-from-the-amazon-kindle- launch-event/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author of this article mentions some nice philosophical elements of the question of electronic books, but he skirts outside the entire DRM issue, which is the thing that is keeping me back. What, the only difference between the Sony "Reader" and this "Kindle" is that the Kindle can connect to Wi-Fi access points? Give me a break.

A _decent_ e-book reader should be able to read any document format, be easily extensible, _maybe_ support one DRM schemes as an afterthought (to appease the publisher ass-hats) and of course have every other benefit a book has: durability, portability, a touchpad or keyboard for taking notes, waterproofness for the heck of it _and_ excellent connectivity.

Every e-book device I have seen have avoided all of these requirements. I won't buy anything that isn't easier to use and better than my laptop. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

How hard can it be to make a bloody gadget that works right? Every manufacturer should be working to dislodge their heads, but it seems like it is very comfortable in there. In the publishers' orifices, that is.

Bite me.

<comment><USER7> I admit. If I ever get a Sony Reader, the first thing I'd do is to hack it so I can access all the text files I already have. I want to be able to read, say, the electronic copies of David Weber's scifi books that I bought, the PDFs from my software reference library, the Art of War in the original Chinese, and whatever I want off of Gutenburg.

I've seen the Sony Reader first-hand. There was a demo unit in one of the Border's in Atlanta. It looks a lot cooler than the Amazon device. It is almost as slim as an Apple iPhone. It also has a lot of random ports surrounding the device ... pretty useless if I can't get it to access the things I want it to access. Compared with the OLPC XO, it looks like it'd break if I drop it.

On the other hand, the eInk display is everything the press says it is -- the fonts are crisp and the display is a pleasure to read in standard lighting. It has no backlights -- but neither does a hardback novel. The refresh rate is too slow for animations. It takes almost as long for the page to refresh as turning a page (that's probably perceptual ... I didn't time it with a stopwatch).

It might just be easier to buy the eInk developer kit -- <http://www.eink.com/kits/index.html> and roll your own. For about a $3k a pop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Bezos explains that it's only fair to charge less for e-books because you can't give them as gifts, and due to restrictive antipiracy software, you can't lend them out or resell them."

Wow, someone in the DRM business admitted that DRM subtracts value.

<comment><USER9> And yet, it won't let you read PDFs from the SD card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's up on Amazon: <http://tinyurl.com/2au6ab>

And it's ugly. I don't care about all of the assuredly wonderful technical features - I don't see myself reading comfortably with a device like this.

I can't believe that an organization known for its human interface design could take 3 years to introduce such a mechanical looking product.

Well, perhaps using it is better than looking at it....

<comment><USER9> "assuredly wonderful technical features" yes, but locked down by DRM. I might buy one if/when some hackers manage to add native pdf support and free access to free blogs. Until then I'll just stick with my 12 inch laptop. (Or if I am desperate buy the Sony reader thats $100 cheaper and actually supports PDFs, even though it doesn't have wireless)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> See also <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> Why would somebody actually pay money out of their own pocket for a device that they don't actually own? Well, ok, telecom's a great example, but Amazon does not have the same kind of stranglehold on books... A Sony Reader with a bit of WiFi + Flash will make this lame offering look like the "Zune" of ebook readers.

</comment><comment><USER13> I could buy a linux board for $60, put a screen on it for another $60 and do everything that thing can do plus compile, send phone calls, hack, play games, and post here on news.yc. $400 for that thing is crazy.

<comment><USER14> Can you post an email address in your profile or email me? I'm curious if you're affiliated with KIPR, a Google search for awanson goes to the KIPR message boards after news.ycombinator.com.

<comment><USER13> Sent a mail to email@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> PDF or no sale.

<comment><USER14> "every Kindle comes with a customized e-mail address. You attach your personal docs, and they are delivered to the device, can do this with docs, Jpegs."</comment></comment>


Chrome 36 is now stable: Web Components, HTML Imports, Object.observe() and more - <AUTHOR> http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2014/07/stable-channel-update.html

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.chromestatus.com/features](http://www.chromestatus.com/features)</comment>


Milton's Morality: Fallen Man and the Fallen Stature of 'Paradise Lost' - <AUTHOR> http://www.weeklystandard.com/miltons-morality/article/2011211#! <comment><USER2> Milton's depiction of Satan is really against the established western tradition in many ways...

For instance, in Homer's _The Odyssey_ , someone as great as Achilles would say,

      By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man
      some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive
      than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

But in a similar situation in _Paradise Lost_ , Satan says,

      we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
      Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
      Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
      to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
      Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

If resolution, perseverance and a heart for liberty are some of the most herioc characters desired in our human world, then in that, Milton's Satan is even more heroic than Achilles...

[update: edited the line form for Milton's poem]

<comment><USER3> The problem with Milton's _Paradise Lost_ is that it's misinterpreted the way you're currently misinterpreting it. Milton didn't seek to characterize a Satan that is worthy of our admiration.

Indeed, there's an innate Libertarian core that resides within us all but Milton sought to, like GRRM in the Games of Throne books, expose how morally bankrupt some of us are for admiring an individual such as Satan merely because of his desire to be 'free'.

We thus conveniently forget all of the evil that Satan commits because we see something in him that resides within us: an innate desire to, as Rousseau refers to extensively, to be freed of the shackles of tyranny from above.

<comment><USER4> I'm not super familiar with Christian canon but what specific evil did Satan commit? (Both in Paradise Lost and in the original source material, I mean.) I remember reading a bunch stuff where he's _called_ bad things (deceiver, defiler, whatever) but I'd be curious to know what he actually did that was bad (aside from the initial "refusing to bow to God" incident.)

<comment><USER5> > I'm not super familiar with Christian canon but what specific evil did Satan > commit?

In the canon and even much conventional theology, it's not clear, and not even clear that Satan is a moral agent capable of doing good or evil. Plus, he doesn't show up much in the canon; there's the bet with God over Job, the test/temptation of Christ, some stuff in Revelation, and the fact that the snake in the Garden of Eden is popularly (though not _canonically_ ) identified with Satan.

Milton's work is an artistic take on a popular old non-canonical story that both is influential on shaping images of Satan in Christianity and hard to reconcile some mainstream theology (Christian theology and Christian popular mythology often have a problematic relationship.)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this.

> not even clear that Satan is a moral agent capable of doing good or evil

This was what got me - as I understand it, the special thing about humans was free will, which kind of emancipates any of the Heavenly Host from wrongdoing (at least in the sense of personal moral responsibility).

<comment><USER6> In the Tanakh, Satan is "The Adversary". And to me, it always seems that he almost necessarily existed by gods will and permission in order to provide god with an agent. The Adversary almost seemed a force of nature, not moral, but bound to provide humanity with something to choose _instead of_ god.

If on a spectrum of God <\--> !God, humans were supposed to turn their interest toward god. But, rather than having God and Void apposed, there is a personified force there that is "the adversary".

<comment><USER7> I recall reading somewhere that the old testament "Adversary" view could be interpreted as Satan being less of an antagonist who is directly opposed to God, and more of a celestial prosecutor, whose role is to ensure that those who are deemed faithful (by God) truly are. Prosecutors aren't evil people who are opposed to the Judge, but rather are important instruments in ensuring, perhaps imperfectly, that justice is applied.

Almost like a divine unit testing framework: if there are critical weaknesses, please help me uncover them ASAP. Hence God's willingness to let Satan make Job's life miserable.

<comment><USER5> > Almost like a divine unit testing framework

Acceptance testing, surely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Paradise Lost has some incredible lines, even to the modern reader. Some of my favorites (I keep them in Anki to periodically remind myself of them):

\- _No light, but rather darkness visible._

\- _Rather than be less, cared not to be at all._

\- _To sit in darkness here, hatching vain empires._

\- _The rising world of waters dark and deep._ (not sure why this has never been referenced in a rising-sea-levels article - seems quite apt)

\- _Flowers worthy of paradise._

\- _And I feel that I am happier than I know._

</comment><comment><USER9> In the Poetry Milton is always there in juxtaposition to the Libertines such as John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. He has whole college English classes in the USA devoted to him. And anyone who seriously studies English Literature has to wrestle with Paradise Lost. So it is strange to see pop culture celebrations and new book publications (three new books on a well known 350 year old book is amazing) as equal to fallen stature.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would be really interested in a Jordan-Peterson-style analysis of Paradise Lost.

</comment><comment><USER11> You can, of course, find Paradise Lost online for free. But as a non-native speaker (reader? :), I find the original English really hard to understand =/

<comment><USER12> Don't worry, even native English speakers find it difficult to understand. And by that I mean that we can read it and tell you what each word means, but it's so steeped in symbolic imagery and allegory that if you asked the average person to read a stanza aloud and then ask them _what happened_ , they would struggle to do so.

What really helps are having glosses or footnotes, where the references can be explained. Unfortunately most commentaries are _not_ public domain, so you may have to shell out some money for a good one. But they were invaluable when reading Shakespeare and Dante, as it made the difference for me between _reading_ Dante and _understanding_ Dante.

<comment><USER13> Dante especially, as it's packed with references to people who were famous/infamous in 13th century Italy, many of whose reputations didn't last 700 years. Without footnotes, none of those references get to add the color that they deserve.</comment></comment></comment>


How Game Design Can Revolutionize Everyday Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/05/games_wired <comment><USER2> It makes sense. For some evolutionary reason our brains find many peculiar tasks to be very satisfying and in order to "find the fun" games are designed to tap into those. For example there are a huge amount of "organizing" games, such as Tetris, that play on the fact that for some reason people love to assemble things to be perfect and just in the right place. The games industry has been like a big research experiment to find these obscure things that for some reason people love to do. Now we can use this knowledge to improve existing products' usability.

The article already touched on the Nike iPod software, but another similar example of using a game for self improvement is the RPG bank toy that exists in Japan. <http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/06/bankquest-bring/> With this bank/toy the money you put in also exists in a virtual world and so you can buy new armour for your avatar.

The Sixty One <http://www.thesixtyone.com/> steals quite obviously from some of the recent developments in games as it will mimic Xbox Live and give you achievements for doing various music rating tasks on the site.

Myself I've considered a few ideas to use games in my work. When I was writing a tool to automatically compile help files for our code I considered trying to build in some sort of leaderboard that would show during a build who had commented the most in the hope that it would encourage people to comment every one of their functions. However there were too many technical issues to iron out at the time and so I didn't proceed with it. I think the overall concept though was a smart one (unless people started doing useless comments...)

<comment><USER3> "A Theory of Fun" convincingly argues that the fun in games is all about learning. Of course it is tilted towards learning stuff that was useful a few thousands years ago.

Link: <http://www.theoryoffun.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's curious that this sort of game design is exactly the sort that's getting railed against in the progressive game design community. Fellows like Jonathan Blow and Jason Rohrer argue quite convincingly that games' focusing on artificial rewards are merely masking the lack of meaning that modern games have to offer.

The face that this solution works as well as it does suggests that there's not much meaning to the email overload we see today. That means there might exist a better solution to this problem, something that encourages meaningful interaction in the place of overloading responses. But this is an interesting stopgap solution in a lot of ways.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a no-brainer that games can change behavior -- they are disguised variable reward skinner boxes! I suspect that a part of being a great teacher involves implementing, as much as possible, an optimized variable-schedule of reward for each student.

I also suspect that a hobbyist or student who "gets into it" is often one who has stumbled into the right variable-reward situation.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was one of the big motivations behind the design of StackOverflow. Joel and Jeff talked about it (a lot) in the podcast. Their badges were modeled very closely on the badge system of XBox Live.

</comment><comment><USER7> Our Nitro platform provides game mechanics as a service that can easily be integrated into sites/apps/etc. to incent and motivate user behavior. You can check out the marketing speak here: <http://www.bunchball.com> and the actual meat here: <http://wiki.bunchball.com></comment>


Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own? - <AUTHOR>

	I've been thinking about websites and start ups and the limits or bottlenecks that are associated with them. I'm wondering if there are many people who have worked alone and succesfully built up a website or a company.<p>Is there a limit to how far you can go alone? <comment><USER2> I built my company solo for about 1.25 years, got a cofounder for half a year (who then quit for a company who could pay more), so I'm back to being solo again on my company WeddingLovely. <http://WeddingLovely.com> was built entirely by myself and there are also five other vendor directories (<http://WeddingPhotoLove.com> and others). There's also a wedding blog at <http://WeddingLovely.com/blog/> that I maintain and post 2-3x daily.

Being that I continue to build, market, and grow my company while solo (revenues going up every month), I'd say I both came very far as one person and still have much more to go before I hit the end. Don't let imaginary limits discourage you. :)

<comment><USER3> It seems to me like you should not offer a free trial (a money back guarantee might be better)..Not too sure a monthly plan makes too much sense for planning a wedding either, since it is a one time event. I would also increase the price. I believe I paid $50 for some crappy seat arrangement software that I ended up never using a few years ago. Feel free to disregard my advice of course, since you definitely have more data than I do. All in all, I think you are onto something here

<comment><USER2> Thanks! All of your suggestions are things I'm testing. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if you've seen any of the stuff by patio11 but he's pretty much bootstrapping his companies (Bingo Card Creator & Appointment Reminder), consulting and info products and he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. He's pretty transparent about his numbers on BCC and has plenty tips for microISV's.

He blogs here: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/>

__*

I've just started to ramp up on doing a SaaS/blogging about the process. It can be pretty overwhelming if its your first go 'round.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.improvely.com>, <http://www.w3counter.com>, and two dozen other sites over the years. Revenue in the millions over the past 8 years I've been self-employed, and I'm not taking a pay cut versus what I'd earn in industry if I had gone that route instead.

I've run into many limitations that have prevented me from offering products, service plans and sales strategies that would've been profitable but required more employees. I could hire, but I enjoy what I do, and switching from what I do to hiring and managing sales/support/ops teams is a totally different job I wouldn't enjoy so much.

<comment><USER6> Not to be all creepy, but I first encountered you on sitepoint probably close to eight years ago and continue to be impressed with your products.

Keep up the good work!

<comment><USER5> That was the place to be back then :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> (Australian here) I built <http://www.trackmyride.com.au> from scratch by myself. The system took about 10 months to build working on it daily after I saved up the initial capital. It has been tough work but recently with a change of marketing we've been gaining some good traction in both the private and business industries now. All our customers love the software itself so that's a big positive but I think I need to redesign the landing page again. I'll do that after the project below is completed.

Since June 2012 I've been working on a new project, solo again putting in a few hours here and there as I can which should be ready to launch hopefully in another week. That project is still in stealth mode until it's unveiled though. I was hoping it could have been completed much quicker but you know how these things turn out. Though the TMR business' hardware and software can work anywhere in the world the marketing for it has been aimed at Australians so hence all our customers are aussies. The new project will be aimed primarily at Americans so that should be an interesting learning curve.

As for bottlenecks, by far the biggest hurdle with Track My Ride has been the marketing. As a programmer by trade when I first started out I had no idea how to market the system and mostly it's been a case of throw a lot of $ and see what sticks. Having a co-founder with marketing know how would have helped a lot. That being said though revenues and sales are still increasing each month so as a solo venture it's turned out pretty well so far.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've built several companies as a solo founder- MobiQpons Inc., ZipTrips.in and most recently Plumreef.com

I've usually brought in early employees for large equity, contractors to help me with specific things that I'm not good at.

All my companies have generated revenues and have become operationally cash flow positive. However, my companies haven't scaled for two reasons: a. When the going gets tough- I'm alone and its depressing b. There's not as much cross fertilization/validation/push back on ideas as there should be.

Next t

</comment><comment><USER9> I built a company that develops iOS apps. My most successful app so far is <http://www.tinypiano.com/> with 6 million (free) downloads (launched Feb 2012). The app is monetizing via ads and in-app purchases.

I do this full time. My goal was to make an app that achieves 10 million downloads. It looks like it should hit that mark sometime this year. Another goal was to make enough money to buy a house. Assuming all goes well, that should be possible in a couple of years.

<comment><USER10> You mean buy a house in cash? Or afford a mortgage on your own?

<comment><USER9> Good question. I guess I meant that I'd be able to pay off enough of the mortgage such that my monthly payment would be close to my current rent. :) If it turns out that I do better than expected, then I'll pay for it in cash. If not, then I can work longer. In any case, the app is doing well enough that it's now my full time job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I built <http://pineapple.io> all on my own in a matter of months (I also learned rails just so I could build it).

I am definitely seeing the 'end' of the cap where I simply can't put more time into it. So far I have held up really well though, and I implement most of if not all the changes that people want to see (if I feel they are a good fit, that is).

But yes, my traffic is growing every day with more and more users, and adding new features is starting to get somewhat daunting as my code base grows.

As far as marketing, accounting, programming, etc I do it all, with the occasional help from a friend when it is too much.

Highly recommended though :) My site is my baby, and the goal when I made it wasnt to make lots of cash... it was to make a LARGE site that everyone uses. ever since I was a kid I wanted to create a massive site with thousands of users, and so far my dream has become a reality. it is a very good feeling.

<comment><USER12> Can I ask how are you processing website screenshots on that page?

<comment><USER11> <http://url2png.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://feetlot.com> \- because buying shoes online is hard. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I ordered 2 different pairs of shoes in size 12. One fit like 11.5, the other like 12.5. Ha. That's when I decided to create a place where people can help each other with shoes' sizes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Rob Walling is a solo entrepreneur that hires Virtual Assistants, coders, designers etc.. in order to create/manage his own products (i.e. <http://hittail.com> <http://www.dotnetinvoice.com/> and others). You can get more info about how he is doing by reading his blog <http://www.softwarebyrob.com> or better listening to the podcast <http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/> he co-host with Mike Tabber (another solo entrepeneur, his site <http://www.singlefounder.com/> )

</comment><comment><USER15> www.IslamicEventFinder.com - For the past few months I've spent my nights and a portion of my weekends to build what I think is a decent website that tries to unify all Islamic events into one central website and make it easy for the Muslims to make use of them. There is a small charge to publish events (there are few features that justifies the price) but it's completely free to use. It' s relatively new so there is nothing much I can tout about revenue. It's getting decent traction but what I've learnt is that the Islamic world is something really hard to reach out to for these online, tech stuff; many of the organizers don't get it. Would appreciate your feedback.

To your question, absolutely there are many bottlenecks and limitations. If you are married and have kids then intensify these 2 factors by a magnitude of 10 maybe, at least in my case, especially if you have a day job that consumes most of your time. Also, you might get stuck some simple stuff that would drain your energy and offset the timelines. Some of the mundane tasks would make you go crazy (imagine coming up with 26 different email templates for the emails that go out...that's mundane). A few ideas where I wasn't 100% sure and felt a cofounder would be someone who would have came in handy on those instances.

On top of all these hurdles, after you launch, you have to do product support along with marketing and getting the word out about your product. Mailchimp campaigns, analyzing Analytic points, testing to make sure things are not broken and a whole lot would keep you on your toes. I feel I can only for that far along but I'm determined to make it to the pole.

I believe the reward is after we sort through all of these hurdles...I can proudly say that "this is me, this is what I've built, all by myself" (Seth Godin's quote except the "all by myself" part).

</comment><comment><USER16> A website is not a start-up, and there's vastly more to a start-up than building the software.

I built the software for RunOrg (<http://runorg.com>) on my own --- private social networks for non-profits as a service --- but my co-founder's business development skills have been invaluable in getting our current 60k members.

As a side-effect, I also built and open-sourced a web framework for OCaml (<http://ohm-framework.com>).

I'm definitely feeling the stretch on my resources, though : there are so many feature requests and so little time to build everything I'd like to build.

</comment><comment><USER17> <http://easyendorse.com> \- solo developed, launched recently. Looking through my commit history, I definitely have a few "quiet" months that would have benefited from someone giving me a kick in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER18> CNCCookbook is my solo startup:

[http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo- bootstrapp...](http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo- bootstrapping-odyssey-2012-was-the-year-i-quit-my-day-job/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Being a "solo founder" is great for the bootstrapped approach. Of course there are limits as to what you can do, but if you work hard that limit is pretty high.

My own solo project / side business is <http://www.edit-room.com/> I've done all the design and development, and the business setup to be able to accept credit cards as well. I've learned so much in the past 2 years, and I wouldn't change doing it for anything.

Even if you can just do a little bit every day, just start doing research or sketching out things on paper.

Only way to do it is to get started.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a great thread, but rather than it get buried after a while, I've just set up a quick tumblr where everyone is welcome to showcase their stuff: <http://solostartups.tumblr.com/submit>

(I won't be sticking ads on it or anything lame like that - just thought it'd be a nice thing to exist).

Note: as of 8pm GMT, it's empty because I didn't want to harvest links from this thread without goodwill - but submissions are open, so please do get stuck in.

</comment><comment><USER21> <http://Sweetsoundtrack.com> \- I often hear music I like in movies and want to add them to my personal collection. This website allows users to look up a movie, and quickly find information about the songs and artists featured in the soundtrack. I started to make a little revenue - enough to cover my hosting costs. I'd love to hear any feedback.

<comment><USER22> I often search for songs (in google) by some of their lyrics. Maybe you can add that ability.

Also searching for a movie based on actor would help.

When I searched for Scarface, I got 3 hits. Mousing-over I was able to see the year of movie, but maybe a picture next to the hits would help.

Looking at the list: <http://sweetsoundtrack.com/Movies/scarface-1983> Maybe you could add a link to lyrics?

And finally, it might be good to have a little song-preview next to each song, so that if user isn't sure by the name, they can listen to a part of it. (not sure if there are legal issues with this)

<comment><USER21> Thank you for the feedback anywherenotes. Adding the lyrics is a great idea if I can find a public API. I planned to do a song preview using Itunes/Amazon clips on the Movie page but I was having some performance issues. Currently, you can get to #rd party previews via individual "song pages" though I realize this is less convenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I started <http://www.wcfstorm.com> about 3 years ago. Been working on it on weekdays and weeknights and am now up to my 3rd product WcfStorm.Rest (a desktop-based REST test client)

It's been pretty good so far. WCFStorm (the WCF client) is fairly well known and WcfStorm.Rest is now starting to get some sales.

</comment><comment><USER24> <http://athletable.com> \- I built it myself as a side project and, while it's still early days, things are going pretty well so far. The only real bottleneck for me was redoing the entire UI about 30 times. In the end I just told myself that I could always just change it after launch if people didn't like it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've built InstaPDF (<http://instapdf.me>) on my own. It consists of a web backend, written from scratch in PHP and a mobile client for iOS (native). A mac app is coming soon. Did the design too. I never worked in a team with more than one coder though, it would be great do to experience that sometime too.

<comment><USER26> Site looks good. Small copy correction: "Amazon's Elastic Cloud 2" should be "Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Applied to YC solo with this:

<http://www.solitaireinfosys.com/demo/will_brown/index.php>

A social network combining YouTube and Google Earth. I plan to launch within 30 days. So you can get as far as launch.

</comment><comment><USER28> Breeze - <http://letsbreeze.com>, it's Basecamp and Trello mashup.

Originally it was developed for a final thesis about agile project management. Launched in September last year, totally bootstrapped and already have paying customers.

</comment><comment><USER29> <http://www.meetingshed.com> \- bootstrapped, some interest and a few users, not enough to start a business. I keep it running because I use the VPS I set up for it for other stuff.

<comment> e-dard I'm getting warnings on Chrome regarding your SSL cert expiring.

<comment><USER29> Unfortunately the SSL cert expired and I just couldn't justify renewing it. I know they're not expensive but I have other priorities. It is still secured over https and I mainly keep it running to demo to anyone interested now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Back in 2005 I built a web site for workers who wanted an urgent WIFI/WLAN hotspot in Paris's cafes. I made it alone for myself. Bang ! People loved it. www.cafes-wifi.com

</comment><comment><USER31> <http://teelaunch.com/></comment>


Jump Off the Coursera Bandwagon  - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Jump-Off-the-Coursera/136307 <comment><USER2> I agree.

Coursera and it's ilk are just making lecture halls bigger. That's fine for a Universities gradual evolution, but the fact is it's incredibly hard to make videos that allow a wide range of students to progress at their individual rates, and MOOCs don't solve this issue.

<comment><USER3> While there are advantages to both the Coursera format is asynchronous. This makes it fundamentally better able to accommodate different progress rates. Student can individually adjust course parameters to suit how they best learn.

(1) Adjustable lecture playback speed accomodates both slow and faster learners. (2) Stop and rewind buttons allow adhoc research of unclear points in the middle of lectures as well as easy review. (3) Short (usually 15min) lecture segments match actual attention spans. (4) Active message boards allow quick and easy help from both staff and other students. (5) Timing lectures and coursework is flexible. Learn better late at night - no problem.

None of these were apparent to me until I took a few Coursera classes. I suggest anyone interested in this issue take a class on Coursera (or EdX, Udacity or another platform) and see for themselves. You may learn something!

<comment><USER2> (1) Slow and fast learners don't necessarily refer to the speed of learning, but rather how much information must be digested and how it must be digested to achieve a level of competence. (2) True (3) Until you have to go through 5 of them to finish the content for a block and that content is stretched across arbitrary breaks. Not to mention "next week's" chapter which you have to now wait for and continue with the same content. (4) Class-specific message boards are a positive, but don't change much about the nature of the internet, which is already availible on sites like StackOverflow, Reddit and IRC. (5) The same kind of timing can be seen in on-campus courses. Coursework needs to not be on a time limit. At all.

(6) Please do take some courses. They are a net gain and should be given a fair shot. Personally I find them frustrating and lacking.

A course should be complete-able in a week or two for a reasonably prepared person.</comment></comment></comment>


The real sustainability movement - <AUTHOR> http://andymckenzie.blogspot.com/2008/11/real-sustainability-movement.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a year old, but the deficit has taken off like a rocket in the past year. I was wondering how many Americans here have been thinking they might expat, and where to.</comment>


Lord of the Manor: a medieval city builder game - <AUTHOR> http://www.lordofthemanor.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, just wanted to add. I didn't make this game so I can't really take the suggestions into account. :( I just found it on Reddit awhile back and enjoyed it. Thought you guys might enjoy it as well. It seems to have been pretty stagnant since the original Reddit thread I found it from though (about a year ago): [https://www.reddit.com/r/WebGames/comments/e9mpd1/lord_of_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WebGames/comments/e9mpd1/lord_of_the_manor_a_medieval_city_builder_im/)

<comment><USER2> I just check the dev's Twitter([https://twitter.com/sebovzeoueb](https://twitter.com/sebovzeoueb)) The most recent post(half a month ago) seems like he's experimenting with next prototype of this game! Maybe he's more active on his Discord.

I just start playing Anno series just while ago, so I really love this mini and charming version of it. Thanks for posting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really fun! It reminds me of playing Pharoh [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_\(video_game\))

A few ideas: (1) once you build everything there isn't really an end game. One easy way of adding more of an end game now is to do something like factorio and make upgrading the keep really expensive - you could have a couple of more advanced upgrades that require a lot of gold and glass for example. This would make the player need to harvest the full map. (2) deleting roads got really slow on a full map. (3) I clicked on the menu screen by accident frequently, but clicking on the menu again doesn't close it (you have to go to "return to game"). If you could make clicking on it again close that would be great. (4) the one thing that was a bit challenging is not knowing what my resource limits are. Adding resource limits as small text under the amount I have now would be really helpful.

As a future game design, it could be fun to add a public health element - homes can get the plague, and you have to build wells for clean water, morgues, parks, etc. If you build too dense, the plague spreads faster, but you also have a productive city. It would add a dynamic of having to carefully plan where you build roads and, as a result how dense you want your housing to be. A worksite could be plagued just like a house, and then wouldn't produce resources. This might work well with the current gameplay.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't just remind of Pharoh/Caesar. It's basically the same game! Needs some differentiating mechanic.

<comment><USER3> Well it's free and in the browser? For an entire generation that never played Pharoh, this would be a lot of fun. It would be cool if the author open sourced this and people could submit their own mechanics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am building a 2D-scroller-voxel game that has Settlers like economy model:

[https://locadeserta.com/sloboda/](https://locadeserta.com/sloboda/)

(better viewed from mobile devices) It has PWA and Android support: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gladimdim....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gladimdim.sloboda)

And all version are built on Flutter! It is truly amazing UI framework.

<comment><USER6> Any chance of an iOS bersion?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few minutes in, my browser asks:

> "Do you want to allow lordofthemanor.io to use up to 2 GB of storage?"

Now I know where the peasants are storing all that lumber.

<comment><USER8> a zip bomb?! that's sabotage

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a lot of fun! The zoom and controls are great. A few things to wish for: 1) show the road path before I build it otherwise a stray cursor movement can create unwanted road, 2) allow me to fast-forward time, and 3) allow me to control where workers spend time on not just ban them from consuming a particular item.

Very nice work!

<comment><USER10> The zoom seems incredibly sensitive on Mac

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dude congrats! This is an amazing game, I just spent an hour and a half upgrading to Keep.

I love how even a simple game like this can show the messiness of urban planning. I'm trying to keep people happy and fed and educated, so sometimes that means demolishing a house or two to build a school.

Really fun.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very pleasant how intuitive you start building the city. I kind of missed seeing villagers running around and it is kind of hard to see if a building is active. The game feels really nice but I missed a bit of that visual feedback, but that might be just my taste. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would be interesting to know the software stack used to build this game. I suspect it's a lot of JS, and perhaps some simple back-end. But I'm not an expert in game building, so I can be completely wrong about it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Fun, but I think I hit the end of the stuff to build. Couple things would be nice: 1\. Visual indications on all production structures of active work 2\. Some way to incorporate travel time / people walking on roads 3\. Sounds

</comment><comment><USER15> This is very reminiscent of the original Settlers video games.

<comment><USER5> I am still in love of Settlers III and IV. I used to play with my sister via some direct LAN feature. Still remember how she gathered shitload of level 3 generals and I discovered that by using spies. I placed spies in the forest directly behind the tree. He was not visible until the soldier comes nearby. In this way I found her huge army. I gathered 40 elite vikings and did a special operation: 4 ferries dropped them just into the heart of her kingdom: mountains. I was able to completely destroy her economy before she could return her army. Then my looters took everything and she lost :D

Settlers V was naahhh and their latest browser based game was a disappointment as well.

Instead of waiting on normal settlers I decided to build my own game: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gladimdim....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gladimdim.sloboda) [https://locadeserta.com/sloboda/#/](https://locadeserta.com/sloboda/#/)

Currently it is 2D voxel art but in couple month I plan to upgrade it to real 3D view. Just waiting when Flutter gets support for voxel files :)

<comment><USER15> I played the more ancient Settlers that came out on the Amiga. It didn't have sea exploration that came later, but that does sound fun!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am a bit concerned by the rate my citizens are consuming gold jewellery. It seems similar to the food consumption rate - what the heck are they doing?

</comment><comment><USER17> It's such a good distillation of what made Stronghold and the Impressions's city building series so great. Please keep it going!

</comment><comment><USER18> This is really fun, and inspiring! Have you by any chance played Stronghold Crusader before?

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks cool, but for us filthy casuals could you add a tutorial? Thanks.</comment>


Show HN: A simple rangeset data structure in python - <AUTHOR> http://axiak.github.com/py-rangeset/

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to indicate this in the docs, but the most prevalent use for this module would probably be rangesets on the space of dates. For this, python's datetime objects Just Work. And all operations returning the size/measure will just return a timedelta object.</comment>


FCC moves to ensure 'net neutrality' to thwart Internet Censorship bill kill - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4ab0de46-f437-11df-89a6-00144feab49a.html#axzz15omlm5mE Sorry guys, it looks like this article is behind a paywall. I didn't realize it at first, but there is a workaround.
if you Google
FCC moves to ensure 'net neutrality'
It will bring up the correct page from ft.com. Just click the link from Google and it will let you behind the paywall for free.
All the software is doing is checking that the clicked link comes from Google. If so you are behind the paywall and can read it. If not, it throws you onto a generic page.
Here is a cut and past that will bring the article up (at 5am Austin time)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=FCC+moves+to+ensure+%E2%80%98net+neutrality%E2%80%99&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry guys, it looks like this article is behind a paywall. I didn't realize it at first, but there is a workaround.

if you Google

FCC moves to ensure 'net neutrality'

It will bring up the correct page from ft.com (Financial Times). Just click the link from Google and it will let you behind the paywall for free.

All the software is doing is checking that the clicked link comes from Google. If so you are behind the paywall and can read it. If not, it throws you onto a generic page.

Here is a cut and past that will bring the article up (at 5am Austin time)

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=FCC+m...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=FCC+moves+to+ensure+%E2%80%98net+neutrality%E2%80%99&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)</comment>