Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery - <AUTHOR> http://trontium.com/

<comment><USER2> The should include a camera in the device as well - just to record reactions when people take it out of their bag at airport security checks.

The only way I can see they could have made it look more threatening would be to write "Atomic Bomb" in large letters down the side and have a large LED display counting down to zero in 15 seconds or so.

Edit: The perfect add-on for your reactor: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Crazy-Countdown- Timer/](http://www.instructables.com/id/Crazy-Countdown-Timer/)

<comment><USER3> 290Wh is not allowed no board aircraft as per ICAO rules Annex 18, the maximum without a specific agreement from the airline is 100Wh. With the agreement it's 160Wh. "Lithium batteries exceeding 160Wh are prohibited in both carry-on and checked baggage."

see for example:

[http://www.airchina.com.cn/www/en/html/index/travel_informat...](http://www.airchina.com.cn/www/en/html/index/travel_information/service_bulletin/latest_travel_inform/2717/)

All the laptops are made with 97Wh for a reason...

<comment><USER2> According to their FAQ:

 _Can I bring a Reactor on a plane?

Yes. Per FAA rules every traveler can carry-on up to two Reactor sized batteries._

[NB I'm not saying I believe them - I wouldn't go anywhere near an airport with one of these things.]

<comment><USER3> It seems you're right. It is allowed by FAA but disallowed by ICAO. I'm not sure I would take any chances with a 300$ device though

 _Passengers can also bring two (2) larger lithium-ion batteries (more than 8 less than 25 grams of equivalent lithium content per battery or about 100-300 watt hours per battery) in their carry-on._

[http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ash...](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ash/ash_programs/hazmat/passenger_info/media/faa_airline_passengers_and_batteries.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a bad name for a product. It reminds one of strontium and nuclear reactor. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium)

It's an accu battery pack (lithium-ion), no nuclear reaction, the name is misleading.

<comment><USER5> thats probably intended. A mash of thorium and strontium maybe..

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium- based_nuclear_power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power)

<comment><USER4> I don't get the fanciness.

Thorium reactors are a dead-end, as European research found out. They had stopped all work years ago. There were major accidents with this type of reactors and one even happened at the same time as the Chernobyl disaster: [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300#St.C3.B6...](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300#St.C3.B6rfall_am_4._Mai_1986)

For some reasons some countries don't want to learn from history.

Edit: English language links:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble- bed_reactor#Thorium_high...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble- bed_reactor#Thorium_high-temperature_reactor)

<comment> luka-birsa I always find it amusing when links provided by "nay sayers" present contrary evidence or no evidence at all.

From the link: The nuclear power plant THTR-300 ( thorium high-temperature reactor) was a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor of the type pebble bed reactor in North Rhine-Westphalia Hamm with an electrical output of 300 megawatts . Despite its designation as a thorium reactor , it was essentially a normal on uranium fission ( 235 U) based reactor: While there was his nuclear fuel to 90 per cent of thorium, but this was holds less than 30 percent of its energy. Because of its high cost and because of his unsatisfactory, short operation he is widely regarded as the greatest technical debacle in post-war Germany.

The reactor was in fact a URANIUM REACTOR!

I still need to see relevant proof that Thorium technology failed for any other reason than good sales and marketing from the Uranium camp.

<comment><USER6> Dear diary: My most bizarre moment on HN so far. Someone referenced my tiny (ugly) birth town in a discussion about energy.

On topic: It didn't look impressive. :)

<comment><USER7> At least you didn't grow up in Ennigerloh and Beckum. T_T

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite item from the Q&A [1]:

 _What's to prevent a Reactor from rolling off a table?_

 _We will be offering an octagonal silicone sleeve that will prevent a Reactor from rolling off surfaces and also protect it from bumps._

So....your base product actually will roll off the table, but you can buy an optional extra to prevent it?

I know nothing about USB power delivery, but I presume that's the value proposition (since as others have noted, there are already a plethora of external USB batteries) although it seems nothing currently supports it.

[1] [https://trontium.com/answers/](https://trontium.com/answers/)

<comment><USER9> Thank god it's cylindrical, because I'm sure it's cheaper to make it cylindrical, there's a nice big cylindrical space in every backpack, it's easier to source cylindrical stuff to stick in it, and as a bonus it rolls off tables.

<comment><USER10> I know you're being sarcastic, but there's probably lots of round aluminum extrusions around to choose from. It would make the thing cheaper to build without having to go and make their own dies, just make two injected plastic ends and you're good to roll.

<comment><USER9> Interesting point (and I hadn't considered this) but a quick search reveals plenty of standard off-the-shelf aluminum extrusions that won't roll off a table and also could accommodate plastic end caps, such as rounded rectangles.

Now they may want a cylinder to maximize underwater performance, but that seems pretty far-fetched. It's just a stupid shape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For $299 I can sure buy a lot of lithium ion batteries. There are already many such products out there that are very cheap. 290w/h is 58000 mah at 5v. I can buy a 11,000 mah pack for 29.99 on Amazon and surprise it weighs 1/4 the weight. Even if I bought 5 of them to equal the energy capacity it would be 1/2 the cost. (But it is not a REACTOR) There really is nothing novel at all about this product, and it is overpriced. I guess I am doing something wrong when shoving 3 lbs of commodity Li ion batteries into a tube and making some fancy name can yield a 100% profit margin.

<comment><USER12> It has three high power voltage converter circuits which are needed for it to support USB Power Delivery. Those are more expensive than the batteries and no other device has three of them.

Lithium-ion packs are measured at 3.7 volts, not 5.

<comment><USER13> Buck or SEPIC based DC/DC conversion systems absolutely do not cost more than even a single LiIon cell. And to have multiple converters is far from a novel concept.

I think this is a neat implementation but there is no technical justification for this price tag, and the idea is far from unique. Looks cool though, and I guess for some that's all that will matter.

<comment><USER12> This isn't just a simple unidirectional converter. Power must flow in both directions.

We are also using ultra high efficiency parts and may also increase the power to over 100 watts if we can get it approved/ make it safe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The fact the website's team page is essentially devoid of information is worrying. I'm not a hardware guy so I have no idea about this sort of thing, but how hard is battery design? Is it wise to trust $thousands worth of Macbook/camera/etc to a battery designed by a group of anonymous people behind a Kickstarter campaign? If any of the people involved is an experienced and qualified electrical engineer, they really need to be shouting about it.

<comment><USER15> The team would apparently be "Alex" I guess? [https://trontalk.com/member/3-alex](https://trontalk.com/member/3-alex)

[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex- kiritz/83/528/b31](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-kiritz/83/528/b31) Alex Kiritz President at Trontium Inc Redondo Beach, CaliforniaElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing

[https://twitter.com/AlexKiritz](https://twitter.com/AlexKiritz)

[https://plus.google.com/107960025708414384190/posts](https://plus.google.com/107960025708414384190/posts)

But this is a Show HN, Maybe Alex can chime in to answer some of the questions we have...?

<comment><USER12> Another member of the team posted this late last night. What questions do you have? One of us will respond when we're not asleep.

<comment><AUTHOR> Confirmed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awww. I was really hoping it would be a nuclear reactor that I could buy and use to power my electrical devices forever. I've got to say I was quite disappointed to find it was just a large battery.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is cool, and I love the coming wave of sexy batteries :)

My main gripe is this: ONLY USB output? Why?

I currently have a "noname chinese crapgadget" battery that can power my usb devices, but also has 9V and 12V output. Much more versatile!

Also, and this is more of a stretch, I know - being able to power a macbook would make this a FAR more universal kind of battery.

EDIT: Oh! I'm sorry, it seems that you _can_ charge your macbook.... [https://trontium.com/specs/](https://trontium.com/specs/) But how does that work?

Good job with the site design and product design, and I wish you success with your crowdfunding! :-)

<comment><USER17> It's not exactly USB output, it's USB-PD (USB Power Delivery), which is a different beast altogether.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery)

<comment><USER15> Okaaaaaaay, and how to you connect a wire from that USB port to your magsafe port on your macbook?

<comment><USER18> with the appropriate adapter cable. [https://trontium.com/answers/](https://trontium.com/answers/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From FAQ:

>> _Can I bring a Reactor on a plane?_

> _Yes. Per FAA rules every traveler can carry-on up to two Reactor sized > batteries._

Well, if supposedly[0] a charged laptop battery can be shorted to unleash energy equivalent of a small hand grenade, how strong a bomb made of two Reactors would be?...

[0] - so I read at random places in the Internet.

<comment><USER20> Air travel is ruled by irrational fears more than by FAA rules. I can absolutely see how a metal case that looks like a pipe bomb on x-ray is going to cause some interesting conversations at the security gates.

<comment><USER21> Especially if you say, "No, it's fine, it's a Trontium Reactor".

<comment><USER22> All I can hear in my head was "Stand Back!! I am doing science" :P ref xkcd

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Two things from the website : >We created Trontium to drive humanity forward Ok I cant discuss the reasons why you created trontium and driving humanity forward is indeed a great goal but wow this is just a (rather cool) battery.

Plus I think the keyboard (a yamaha psr E403 I think) featured in the pictures is not usb powered.

Other than that I'm impressed by the 8 charges you can make with the dewalt drill. Great to build something far from power outlets.

<comment><USER12> You're right. That keyboard is not USB powered. That's why we're making adapter cables. I'll be posting a tutorial on the site later today with pictures, but the general idea is that you can buy an adapter cable for whatever device you have and then set its voltage requirements in an app.

[https://trontalk.com/filedata/fetch?photoid=147](https://trontalk.com/filedata/fetch?photoid=147)

<comment><USER24> _and then set its voltage requirements in an app_

This is going to create some unexpected excitement and lots of magic smoke for a lot of people...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Made in California

Perhaps it means something positive in California itself, but outside of it it more or less means "expensive, pompous, behind schedule" :)

<comment><USER9> That's a bit unfair. I think you mean "expensive, _cylindrical_ , and behind schedule"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My wife's cell phone and camera are constantly running out of juice. One of these would be great. But let's be real. This battery pack is larger than her whole purse.

The picture they have of a backpacker with a liter bottle on one side of his pack and a Trontium on the other looks nice and self-sufficient but he's got all that extra weight to lug. Is he going to be living in the wilderness for 10 days whilst writing a novel on a laptop or tablet? That's about the one use for this battery that I can foresee.

For the average Joe, this thing isn't going to be doing much traveling. And if it's not traveling, it's sitting on a counter not too far away from a wall socket.

As for taking it on a plane -- most plane trips aren't long enough to warrant a super-battery. Devices these days can last 6-8 hours between charges, and if they don't, there are all sorts of cheaper solutions. I have a $20 lipstick- size battery that's good enough to keep a phone or tablet in business for a few extra hours.

I'm afraid I just don't see the point of this product as it is. But I hope they keep doing research, and learn how to shrink it down until it's truly portable.

<comment><USER27> I can kind of see it, touring on my motorbike I'd use one of these for charging whilst camping. Unfortunately I just can't justify that price tag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The kerning in that video looks as if the creators dragged and dropped the letters on there one by one.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes.. but its just a lot of heavy lithium batteries stuffed in a metal casing.. with a power draining LED to boot? Also, like nakedrobot2 say elsewhere, why only USB?

</comment><comment><USER30> I like the LED status lights, but I don't like the skeumorphic cylindrical battery shape. Batteries get away with it because you put them into something. This thing will just continue to fall down or roll around.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not sure what I get what all the hype on the site is about. It's a big rechargeable battery you can use to power all your USB things... ok this one supports USB-PD (how many devices support that?) but is that really that big of a deal? Right now it looks like a solution looking for a problem.

The idea of negotiating _voltage_ (up to 20V) just doesn't seem all that great to me: consider a failure mode that lets the full 20V into USB devices designed for only 5, like the majority are.

<comment><USER12> USB Power Delivery starts out at 5V. Voltage is only increased when a signal is received from a device requesting more than 5V and after the devices confirm that the cable is capable of carrying the power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why have two websites? That would seem to be a bad idea from a branding perspective. Why not www.trontium.com and talk.trontium.com?

</comment><comment><USER32> The interesting part here is that it uses the new USB "Power Delivery" standard, that can switch to 20V instead of the normal 5V. This allows up to 100W of power from one USB port. It could power laptops and other somewhat power hungry devices, once they have USB power input.

<comment><USER18> Or you buy the appropriate adapter cable.

<comment><USER10> My MacBook would need 18A @ 5v + 10% loss in the DCDC, that's one hell of a thick power connector.

<comment><USER18> Which is one reason why the trontium can supply up to 20V.

<comment><USER10> I know. I was demonstrating why it wouldn't be a 5v supply rather a 20v one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The protruding sheet metal on the end caps says "prototype". It doesn't have the refined quality that the price tag suggests. The edge looks like it came straight off a sheet metal shear. At least put a nice machined edge on it.

<comment><USER12> That lip is so you can screw a clear plastic endcap on and use it underwater.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow. This seems like a direct competitor of Gbatteries (YC W14). Link to discussion on Gbatteries: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7459435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7459435)

<comment><USER35> Except this team does not seem have problems with math 101. It's 'just' promises a well-designed, cleverly thought out product.

I like it, to be honest.

<comment><USER36> I don't understand the first line of your comment.

Mind clarifying?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> My favorite part:

> We are working on an inexpensive add on that will allow control of the > lighting function underwater

</comment><comment><USER38> Fits in a backpack water-bottle sleeve -cool!

</comment><comment><USER39> The LEDs seem a bit excessive, and for $299... well. Good luck though, hope it goes well!

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how long until Apple makes an official USB Power Delivery adapter for MacBooks.

</comment><comment><USER41> How are you the first "USB Power Delivery battery"? What's a Mophie?

<comment><USER42> Note that Power Delivery here is not just using Marketing Caps, it's an actual thing. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery). It's very new, based on USB 3.0, so it is probably a valid claim.

I wonder if this will sprout a power supply accessory, i.e. a device that speaks to a USB PD source and lets you locally set the output voltage to whatever you need. That way you could use the PD source to charge "legacy" products that don't support PD.

<comment><USER43> It does : [https://trontium.com/answers/](https://trontium.com/answers/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> How is this even legal, if it contains actual trontium?

Who wants to walk around with a radioactive material in your pocket, irradiating your genitals?

Scary idea.

<comment><USER45> Er, what's trontium again? Must have missed that in Chemistry 101.

<comment><USER44> I think it's an extra heavy isotope of turbinium that is made in neutron stars.

"get your ass to Mars"</comment></comment></comment>


Iran has tried to suppress a video game about their Islamic revolution - <AUTHOR> https://warisboring.com/iran-has-tried-to-kill-this-video-game-ba1b22710236 <comment><USER2> > _Nobody was happy about it on both sides, so I was like, 'I must be doing > something right.'_

So the diaspora Iranians in LA won't fund it because it isn't biased enough toward the shah's old regime. The ruling Iranian regime wants to kill it because it isn't biased enough toward the rebels.

You won't know you _really_ have it right until the CIA and/or US State Dept. also complains that it isn't biased enough to the Americans.

<comment><USER3> > diaspora Iranians in LA

Mostly Jewish Iranians. Not an entirely representative demographic.

> the CIA and/or US State Dept. also complains

Only if your game documents the visit by American General Huyser [1] in the winter of '79 to Tehran and his direct communication to the Iranian generals of Washington's position regarding the future of Pahlavi regime.

You will understand nothing about world events since mid-70s until you wrap your head around US's decision to throw the Shah under the bus and prop up the Ayatollah regime. (Little hint for you here: have you noted IRI's enemies, Sadaam, Taliban, etc. falling off like flies at the hand of America while the robbed ones maintain their retarding [2] regime in Iran?)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Huyser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Huyser)

[2]: Simply can not even imagine where Iran would be today if it had not suffered from more than 3 decades of sanctions, an entire generation maimed and killed in Iran-Iraq war, the continuing brain drain, and crippling sanctions based on the sock puppet regimes duly voiced "death to America" idiotic chanting. But you can be certain that it would be a very serious player on the world stage.

See also:

[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19780808&id=...](https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19780808&id=eIIuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=faEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6274,2456107)

[http://masoudbehnoud.com/weblog/s2.pdf](http://masoudbehnoud.com/weblog/s2.pdf)

Regrettably this is in Farsi but here is the "playboy" "dictator" giving his ultimatum to Western Oil companies and nations regarding what to expect in 1979: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM8R8Noe1w8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM8R8Noe1w8)

<comment><USER4> >You will understand nothing about world events since mid-70s until you wrap your head around US's decision to throw the Shah under the bus and prop up the Ayatollah regime.

Yes, the United States replaced a friendly regime with a hostile one, that makes sense. The Shah was doing so well, much beloved by the Iranian people, so believed that his secret police force SAVAK in some ways compares unfavorably to the SS and the NKVD in terms of forms of elaborateness and systemization of torture.

The narrative you're suggesting doesn't have _internal_ coherence, unless you're saying that Jimmy Carter conspired with Ronald Reagan to lose the election and that when the western powers did arms deals with Iraq in the 1980s they didn't _really_ sell them any weapons, somehow...it just doesn't make any sense to anyone in possession of even a few facts that a neutral party would consider undisputed.

The Shah was a brutal, incompetent, and out-of-touch dictator who paid lip- service to western values while committing countless crimes, going agains the wishes of the overwhelming majority, and failing to invest in even the most basic infrastructure.

And this game looks great, precisely because it deals with the complexities involved in being an average person having to balance two very different forms of dictatorship, neither of which believes in free association, free speech, or free elections, and is willing to commit mass murder to get it's way.

<comment><USER3> > Yes, the United States replaced a friendly regime with a hostile one, that > makes sense.

Read up:

[https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American- Geostrategi...](https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic- Imperatives/dp/0465027261)

> SS and NKVD [and "brutal"]

This sort of b.s. psychological manipulations could be passed around before the internet as agitprop but those days are over. SS ran concentration camps, among other things. Kindly point to documented events that would even _remotely_ approach the atrocities of SS or NKVD. (Google may also have some nice ultra violent pictures for your viewing pleasure courtesy of US armed forces and intelligence services in Iraq. From what WAPO published back in the day, when select members of US congress got to see the unpublished pics after Abu Gharaib hit the fan, they emerged "shaken", "pale", and "speechless".)

> the western powers did arms deals with Iraq in the 1980s

And Israel funneled American arms to "hostile" IRI during the same period. Regardless, the essential requirement was, and remains, for instability in the region.

Shah was a nationalist and that didn't fit in with the Globalist agenda.

> brutal & mass murder

Even the sum total of all state violence of Shah's 37 year reign pales to utter insignificance compared to the 4 year record of _any American president_ starting with the Atom Bomb dropping shoe salesman and culminating with the current Nobel Peace Prize winner.

> incompetent

Fairly, he suffered from grandiosity and talked too much. But you can google for declassified assessments of this man. Incompetence was never on the list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had never heard about this game, until I heard another story about its suppression in Iran. If they want to increase awareness of this game, this is exactly how to do it!

<comment><USER6> The well known Streisand effect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)</comment></comment>


Climate change – Energy abundance as a solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/after-climate-despair <comment><USER2> > Obviously, meeting the energy demand of a high-growth world would require > new sources of carbon-free power in amounts beyond the IPCC's most > optimistic scenarios. But we are already stuck hoping for a global political > breakthrough. Technological breakthroughs are less far-fetched a solution. > And a mass embrace of abundant energy is more realistic than sudden globally > coordinated altruistic self-abnegation. ...

> Rather, shifting our mindset from austerity to abundance will open up the > political space necessary for imagining these answers and pursuing them

So, Law of Attraction from New Thought philosophy meets techno-optimism?

I mean, it isn't like people aren't already trying to figure out new sources of carbon-free power, because abundance _makes profit_.

Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" gives several examples of successful 'altruistic self-abnegation'.

The CFC ban was globally coordinated. So were the limits on the use of Antarctica.

<comment><USER3> Abundance, same as overproduction, causes prices to fall and profit to shrink.

If energy is scarce, prices stay high. If energy is abundant, they invent cryptocurrency mining and carbon capture to keep demand high.

Curious that you brought up CFC ban. I believe it has since been shown that CFC production and then ban had no effect on ozone hole dynamics.

<comment><USER2> Overproduction is when production exceeds demand. Abundance doesn't have to exceed demand, so I don't understand your comment. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if prices stay high or not. You want profits, not simply high prices.

There's also induced demand - the more something is available, the more it is used.

But that's beside the point. There is a high demand, _right now_ , for new sources of carbon-free power, and plenty of profit for a viable, eg, Mr. Fusion.

The only sources I can find for your CFC comment are from right-wing radicals who are philosophically opposed to government restrictions.

A recent scientific report is at [https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2018/](https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2018/) , "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018".

> Actions taken under the Montreal Protocol have led to decreases in the > atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and > the start of the recovery of stratospheric ozone. The atmospheric abundances > of both total tropospheric chlorine and total tropospheric bromine from > long-lived ODSs controlled under the Montreal Protocol have continued to > decline since the 2014 Assessment. The weight of evidence suggests that the > decline in ODSs made a substantial contribution to the following observed > ozone trends:</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy's Last Safe Haven - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-28/bitcoin-may-be-the-global-economys-last-safe-haven

<comment><USER2> Unlikely.

<comment><USER3> tell that to the cypriots.

FDIC: $25 Billion In Insurance US Bank accounts: $9,283 Billion In Deposits $297,514 Billion In Derivatives

~Occ.gov

tell me if those three lines balance out? :P

cyprus was the canary in the mine… and one would be a fool to think this is not more systemic to the entire global banking system…

<comment><USER2> I am entirely willing to believe that there are huge problems with the entire global banking system, but I think it is extremely unlikely that bitcoin or any other techno solution is going to be the result of a collapse. IMHO we're a lot more likely to go back to Victorian-era commodity-based currencies. Just my opinion, though.</comment></comment></comment>


SaveIE6: Help us save the best browser around - <AUTHOR> http://www.saveie6.com/

<comment><USER2> Some people can do "anything" to get attention.</comment>


Practical Flask Book Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1223051718/practical-flask-book-project

<comment><USER2> I'm available for any questions!

<comment><USER3> No questions. Please 'make it so'.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Redesign after HN critique (instant "coming soon" pages app) - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone,
Last Thursday I asked HN for a review of my web app for creating instant "coming soon" pages. The response was great -- you guys really, really didn't like it (and deservedly so). :)
* Here's the original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123228
* This is how it looked before: http://soonhere.com/original.html
* Here's how it looks now: http://soonhere.com
It's obviously still a work in progress (there are still some issues, especially with IE, the interface needs polishing, there's no help etc.) but the main functionality is there.
Some stats:
* The original thread got 5 upvotes and 5 comments (not counting mine);
* The site got 150 visitors on Thursday and 30 on Friday (40% from the US, 20% from the UK -- half of that from London -- and 4% from Canada);
* Of those, 5 visitors created an account (1 or 2 with email addresses that looked real).
I'd like to thank nudge, komlenic, SHOwnsYou (I used your first instinct idea after all), pacifika and dlsay for their comments in the original thread.
Now -- before I spend more time on this instead of other projects I have lined up, I'd like to find out if the concept actually is viable. Since a considerable part of its target market hangs out on HN, I'd expect at least a few signups (the first attempt failed miserably here). If anyone signs up and activates any of the paid plans by the end of January, I'll upgrade them to a higher plan for free [1]. Plus, I pledge to describe in detail how it went if the thing actually goes off. :)
[1] (the upgrade from the 'pro' plan is a yet-to-be-named uberplan with image backgrounds, css override and other stuff -- if there's any interest in the site, it will be introduced in February; the pro plan itself is going to get updated as well)
So, what do you think about it after the makeover? <comment><USER2> Wow, this is one of the coolest projects I've seen recently on HN. I'm not sure why it didn't garner much attention, but I think the concept is clever and the implementation is great. Here are some random thoughts:

\- I knew the purpose immediately upon page load

\- extremely easy to use

\- controls are very intuitive and fun to play with

\- preset colors are appealing and easy to adjust

\- email field and message field are ridiculously simple to add/remove and look fantastic

\- only usability issue: text does not center properly and I'm not sure why the text fields for the welcome message are re-sizeable (running Chrome browser)

From a developer's perspective, it really seems like you put a lot of thought into the user interface. A user who is not tech savvy would probably have a painless time maneuvering about your site and understanding the product, which is definitely one of the most difficult things to accomplish when building a web app for non-technical demographic. That being said, I just re-read your description and it looks like you may be targeting the hacker crowd, which I think is a mistake. Any decent developer (or designer) can hack together a "coming soon" page without very much effort. Also, I don't think this warrants a $9/mo pricetag, regardless of the target demographic. Perhaps you should toy with the freemium model and see how that works out.

Keep up the good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I noticed the resizable textareas in Chrome as well; it's on my bug list. I'll look into the centering thing -- I wasn't able to replicate it so far (Chrome on a mac).

About me targeting hackers -- I simply assumed, that a lot of people in need of hosted coming soon pages peruse HN. I know I do. :)

Re. freemium -- there is a free version (no emails, one page) tucked below the paid plans, 37 Signals style. I'll think about exposing it more -- I wouldn't want to add email to the free plan, because it involves more user support and is used only by serious users, which should afford $9 anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You've got a much nicer design now, and the live editor is rather nifty. However, I really can't see many people using it, especially not at $9. It doesn't take much HTML skill at all to make a single page like that, and then there's tons of CMS based solutions like that such as WooThemes' new free Placeholder theme and the dozens of similar free "Coming Soon" themes and plugins for WordPress sites.

</comment><comment><USER4> $9/mo. for a handful of "coming soon" pages?

I'm sorry, but anyone who knows the actual value of such a service is going to roll their eyes ... and anyone who doesn't know that they're being ripped off will one day get tipped off, and they'll likely warn everyone they know not to patronize you. I can't see this being a sustainable business.

<comment><USER5> If you look at the plan details, $9 per month is for up to 10 pages. For people who have a lot of domains, $9 might be well worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent redesign! You really incorporated the feedback well and I definitely found this much more intuitive. Pretty great UI.

Personally, I'd consider moving the text about the free option (that comes up when you click see plans/pricing) to be a _little_ more prominent, but this kind of thing really comes down to how you want to approach monetizing. If it were me I'd be doing everything I could to encourage people to be aware of and use the free service - I think as it sits you're going to get a lot of "ok neat" reactions, but perhaps not a lot of people actually using the service (even the free version). I'd hate to see your work languish... why not do _everything_ you can to just get people using it?

I think the idea of paying for the email form etc is sound, but as other have noted, the price may or may not be right. That's something you'll have to determine.

</comment><comment><USER7> The redesign is much better than the original! The proposition is clear and I like being able to interact with it.

That said I don't think there is sufficient value yet to compel people to fork over cash, given that your target audience is likely able to throw up a static page with an email form rather quickly. Or perhaps the value prop. does exist and I just don't see it, in which case I'd suggest that you focus on making the value prop. more clear.

I would find the service more compelling if you provided some analytics re. visitor information (where/when they came from, bounce rate, etc.). And/or if you were able to aid in the promotion of the "coming soon" page (not sure how ... maybe advertise coming soon pages within the network of coming soon pages .... or profile the coming soon pages and then the launched service i.e. early seo help).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I thought of that. Nice thing is that "soon here" is a brand easily expandable into anything startup related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not having seen it before, I was confused when I landed on the page. I wasn't expecting an editor, just an intro page. I would put a traditional landing page up with a heavily emphasized "try it live" section.

edit: corrected ipad autocorrects. I don't thing a panting page is appropriate at all.

<comment><USER9> I think this works better, I don't think a traditional landing page would work here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now that you've built in the live editor, there are just a few more steps that I would do.

1: Create a free option. 1 page, include email optin, limited to 2-500 views/month 2: If you're not hosting these pages and allowing them to be called from your server via js, start doing that 3: Advertise the free option along with the other two. Tons of research has shown that given 3 options, users will tend toward the middle option, even if it paid and there is a free option available 4: Include more info. Build a new page for the "Plans and Pricing" include the "Go Back" link, but also include more info on how it's hosted, _how easy it is to use the service_ , and any other relevant details

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone! Looks like this time I did a bit better. :)

To address some issues raised:

1\. Hosting is included; the user has to set the domain's CNAME to sites.soonhere.com. The page is also accessible via <http://soonhere.com/site/whatever.com>, so it's easy to set up a framed redirect if needed. I'll create a downloadable index.html for this purpose if it's an option people would use.

2\. There are some additional data collected with visitors' emails (referrer, search engine keywords, country). You can export it to csv (everything) or plain txt (emails only).

I added this info to the plans page; will add more details and polish it later.

One question -- did those of you that said it's too expensive thought it was hosted or not hosted?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

<http://soonhere.com>

Original thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123228>

Previous look: <http://soonhere.com/original.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> Try using a

       text-shadow: 0 0 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.01);

for the text. It makes the text prettier in some browsers, like chrome, by faking anti-aliasing.

Example: <http://www.graphnode.com/stuff/text-shadow.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, looks neat! And with a little hacking it might work in other browsers as well. Isn't the shadow black though? It would mean that in my case it needs to be dynamically adjusted to the font color chosen by the user (probably by generating a fresh css snippet and applying it to the page). I'll definitely give it a try later -- these jagged edges in Windows made me cringe. :) Thanks a lot!

<comment><USER9> Changing the color should not be needed (since the alpha is 0.01). Feel free to use other colors though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great design, but too pricey for the target audience: I can buy a "coming soon" design from ThemeForest for $5. If you could compete at that price and include hosting, it'd be a no-brainer to go with you :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually _do_ include hosting; if possible, I'd rather not walmartize the thing and be a "cheap no-brainer" though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey, great site. I was planning on working on a similar product, and I was wondering if you would consider partnering up.

Please email me if you are interested. My email address is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER13> Our ideas seems to have some similarity.

<http://shapea.com>

Let me know if you would like to chat. Email on my profile.

</comment><comment><USER5> The homepage looks great, but you need to provide a lot more details on the pricing page. An FAQ list might be a good idea.</comment>


Ask HN: If you lived in China, how would you go around surveillance? - <AUTHOR> This would make for a really cool cyberpunk plot <comment><USER2> The authors of #1 see the solution as "obfuscation". I think they're on to something important, especially when the entity seeking the information isn't just a business wanting to grab what they can get away with, but rather a repressive state who will punish resistance.

So I guess I would put it this way: Seek to reduce the signal to noise in the information gathered about you.

#1 [https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-fantasy-of-opting- out...](https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-fantasy-of-opting-out/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Basically pretend to be a mindless cooperative citizen and say nothing in public and only be the true self in front of family and friends in private.

</comment><comment><USER4> VPN and TLS ought to be sufficient. Sunglasses maybe?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd leave.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wouldn't bother me. Privacy should be reserved to your home.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would blend in with the crowd while doing my best to make enough money to escape. There's no point taking any risks in a jurisdiction that doesn't even understand basic human rights, and you ain't fixing that either, at least not from the inside.</comment>


How concerned are you about the changing climate? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> As far as climate change is concerned, it is very low on my list of concerns. There are far more concerning matters that will have more immediate major impacts on us (including the planet) than any effects of climate change that may occur in the next 1 to 10 decades.

Most of these matters are not even being addressed, are not even on the minds of most people. It is almost like we are being distracted from the more problematic matters by all the "extravagant" views on both sides of the climate change debate. We have a polarisation that is building across pretty much all societies and the more radical views from each end of the spectrums available are driving the car.

<comment><USER3> what are the top 5 other concerns?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not at all.

On the grand scheme of things we just got started "playing" with the environment yesterday.

A 100 years ago we had no idea what we were doing and just now we started to learn something about it.

It will take some time but we will adapt and things will proceed as normal.

As the need arises we will figure out any real problem that comes from it (if anything really comes).

</comment><comment><USER5> I fear we're near an extinction event.

Not sure if It we'll be able to survive; but just in case I try not to generate too much waste or use more energy than I need to.

I am more concerned about people who think climate change is a lie, and politicians that try to convince people about that

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure but there's a string ensemble playing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' outside the window...

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not. Not at all.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to report services selling credit card numbers? - <AUTHOR> I accidentally ended up on a Jabber spam list which regularly advertises various illegal services: credit card fraud, passwords and "dumps". I'm annoyed by the spam and not fond of fraudsters, so I want to make them miserable.<p>At the same time, I don't want to spend half of my life contacting hosting, domain registries and law enforcement. Is there a one-stop-shop where I can report those without too much hassle? <comment><USER2> [https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx](https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good for the CC websites, I guess. Although I want my name in no way associated with this kind of activity, so I will probably never report anything there.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How important is to invest in DB design from scratch ? - <AUTHOR>

I have an app in mind that I want to implement and can possibly do with basic knowledge of a DB. Is it a good idea to go ahead and develop it and come back later to optimize the DB. PS: Also I was having a hard time to search for a Class being mapped to a  DB
Example: Class Person{ String Name; String Age; Person myFriends[]; }
user_table name | age | {myFriends[]} |
how do you map the myFriends[n] to a DB ? <comment><USER2> You are asking all of the wrong questions. Learning a proper web framework is the best way to catch up the the community. I recommend Django (visit djangobook.com and djangoproject.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. I stumbled upon coodeigniter ... seems pretty promising.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to discuss old submissions? - <AUTHOR>

I submitted something a few months ago which I think is rather interesting now, not only for the original content but also for the HN comments on the submission. If I submit the link to the HN story directly it is killed. Is there an accepted way to do this, or am I just to let bygones be bygones? <comment><USER2> I cant speak of rules but you might be able to bypass that filter by modifying the URL in some way, add some non-existent query variable or something...

Still, if months have passed, it's more relevant now and you think the discussion about it can be improved I don't see nothing wrong in posting it again.</comment>


Ask HN: How does your product/service improve quality of life? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious to see what people are working on. <comment><USER2> > Just curious to see what people are working on.

I am working on developing a toolchain for consumption of Akoma Ntoso legal documents, my first target being NLTK for some natural language processing. I have not released anything really usable as-of-yet.

(I had to choose a file format that could support everything, and it seems that every player is hellbent on creating their own custom XML format, so I chose something with international appeal and government backing. Mind you I only discovered Akoma Ntoso like 4 months ago, and I've been working on this since like 2009-2010 when California was forced in a lawsuit to allow people to download the law, which was as far as I can tell the first time any law was downloadable in bulk for free on the Internet. It also started out as a learning experience in programming more than anything else, trying different techniques and APIs etc.)

> How does your product/service improve quality of life?

My hope is that my work improves your quality of life by helping keep you sane, out of prison, and focused on things that matter.

* California Codes: ~ 150,000 sections

* United States Code: ~ 50,000 or something

* Code of Federal Regulations: ~ 20,000 or something

* California Code of Regulations: ~ 15,000 or something

Keep in mind that you won't _know_ a section will not send you to prison until _after_ you've read it. And let's not lie: you've never read it.

</comment><comment><USER3> My product helps people make more money which they can use to improve the quality of life ^_^. That's that simple!</comment>


Huawei Warns Trump: 'You Don't Want to Make Us Fight Google' - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/08/16/huawei-warns-trump-you-dont-want-to-make-us-fight-google/ <comment><USER2> > _According to Sky News, Ren also admitted that Huawei supplies > "authoritarian regimes," telling the broadcaster "I actually do not make any > prejudgement of a government first before we sell to our customers. Because > every country has its sovereign system. It's not in our position to > interfere with the sovereignty of other states. If we did then we would be > playing the game of politics right? And that's a matter for sovereign > states."_

You're playing the game of politics no matter what your choice is. Looking the other way and saying it's nothing to do with you is playing the game of politics.</comment>


Michael Phelps, the billion dollar man?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK5905620080814 <comment><USER2> _who is now the most successful Olympian with 11 gold medals_

This kills me. Swimming has an inordinate amount of medals considering the skill set require (viz, propelling oneself through water)

<http://www.nbcolympics.com/resultsandschedules/index.html>

34 medals for swimming--ie, 34 medals for one particular skill. The equally grueling weightlifting category has 15, and for individuals it is much smaller due to weight classes. The much... _much_...more varied gymnastics has only 14 medals.

ED: I might be reading that thing wrong. I'm assuming that the number in the gold medal picture is the number of medals awarded, but it says "Final(s) held". Same thing?

<comment><USER3> Well, all swimming is not the same. Different strokes use different muscle groups, which is why even Phelps has some weaknesses.

It is stacked in the swimmer's favor though. They and runners have the easiest time collecting medals, whereas a basketball player pretty much has one available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> He left a lot of money on the table by not waiting until now to pen his autobiography. He might have gotten and advance similar to Bill Clinton's if he auctioned it off right after Beijing.

<comment><USER4> That'll probably be the peak, too...six months after the olympics, and he'll be a tired brand. Olympians don't have a long shelf life.

<comment><USER5> If I said "Nadia" would you know who I was talking about?

<comment><USER6> I had to google that. Were you trying to argue for or against his point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to be a swimmer and can certainly say, as many others have, that he is the best swimmer of all time. As for how he ranks with athletes from other sports, that is another question. I would say he would rank quite favorably in any ranking of best athletes regardless of discipline.

As for making some coin, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm sure he has more than enough already. Athletes like him don't do it for the money. They don't even do it to beat the rest. They do it to beat themselves.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hacker news?</comment>


Atomist.com – Development Automation - <AUTHOR> https://www.atomist.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> > A new company emerged from stealth today, aimed at helping developers better > automate the work they're doing. Called Atomist, it's designed to help > developers automatically create source code repositories and then automate > the deployment of their code in a way that helps ensure quality while > maintaining the velocity of rapid changes.

[https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/15/atomist-launches-to- help-...](https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/15/atomist-launches-to-help-devs- automate-repository-creation-and-code-deployment/)</comment>


Does technical debt lead to the rejection of pull requests? - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01450 <comment><USER2> Although that is indeed the name of the paper, it is not one of the questions they answered in the paper. It seems more like "What kind of perceived flaws leads to the rejection of PRs".

<comment><USER3> I was pretty disappointed by the title too.

The question "Does technical debt that's been already accrued lead to the rejection of new pull requests?" is what I was expecting.

Instead, the question they're asking is "Do pull requests which add technical debt to a project get rejected?" which is.. pretty obvious. That's the whole point of code review.

They go on to analyze the breakdown of what type of defect causes more discussion by doing a simple average across all of the projects they looked at, but given the visualization in Figure 2 I don't know how you can come to any real conclusion other than "it depends on the project."

<comment><USER4> Identifying technical debt is certainly part of a good code review process, but it's hardly the "whole point".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a reminder that the phrase Technical Debt is used a bit broadly here. In general, TD is when the codebase drifts from continuing to align with the development team's understanding of the problem. So phrases like "design" or "security" don't seem to work. At least to me.

FWIW, I wrote a blog article a few days ago on TD, including times when it might be appropriate.

[http://tiny-giant-books.com/blog/technical-debt-edge-cases/](http://tiny- giant-books.com/blog/technical-debt-edge-cases/)

<comment><USER6> I like that definition - it fits with Martin Fowler's talk about architecture being "the important stuff" among the lead engineer's understanding of the codebase.

So architecture is the important stuff when you think about the project, and tech debt are the things that don't fit how you think about the project.

<comment><USER7> I don't really consider technical debt to be about things that make the code base harder to reason about (unreasonable?). That is an important architectural point but I think of it as orthogonal to technical debt.

To me, technical debt is about the trade-off of short term progress for long term flexibility of the code base. Essentially, the need of the business to ship -- side note: I wrote that as shit initially. Freud would be amused. -- the feature immediately outweighs the need of the business to write maintainable code. So, you expend fewer engineering resources than you should now and you spend more than you would have later. Basically, you borrow against the future productivity of your engineering team.

So, to me, it's about doing less work now and more work later. That can be a conscious decision or a consequence of ignorance. Things like choosing the wrong abstraction are about being ignorant of the problem space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to the PDF: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01450v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01450v1.pdf)

Link to data used to produce paper: [https://github.com/aserg- ufmg/sbsi2016-data/blob/master/Code...](https://github.com/aserg- ufmg/sbsi2016-data/blob/master/Code%20Review.zip)

<comment><USER9> Typo in he pdf link, should be: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01450v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01450v1.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Muphry strikes again :-)

<comment><USER10> Murphy, or Muphry? I am expecting Murphy to screw up my reply in some way ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It would be far more interesting to see whether code review is actually successfully rejecting code with technical debt. Is there code that passes code review and isn't identified as introducing technical debt, considered to have introduced technical debt at a later point?

</comment><comment><USER12> I first question the premise - why does there need to be pull requests? Maybe just let people commit what they want to commit.

<comment><USER11> That's not the premise. On most projects people probably also do exactly that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Without reading the paper (don't hate), but just approaching the question as an experienced software engineer, technical debt SHOULD lead to a higher rejection of pull requests in a lot of situations.

Assumptions: Let's assume we are talking about a system with technical debt that is well understood to the maintainers, but difficult to address in a piecemeal fashion (most of them). Additionally, let's assume most pull requests are from external contributors for toy features with no deep understanding of said tech debt the features may be aggravating or making more difficult to address (most of them).

In such a state of things, it is absolutely the job of the maintainer to be extra choosy and reject more frequently pull requests that only make the task of paying down the technical debt that much harder.

Of course, taken to the extreme, this can ruin the project. But in the interim while a rewrite or refactoring or cleanup is ongoing, it may be justifiable to reject changes that constantly cause the target to move back.

<comment><USER14> Yes hate! Read the paper!</comment></comment>


Why you shouldn't start a tech company in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2008/07/08/why-you-shouldn-t-start-a-tech-company-in-silicon-valley.aspx

<comment><USER3> I strongly disagree with this post. NOLOH is a New York based startup, and after visiting Silicon Valley this past year for startup school, I feel strongly that Silicon Valley would've been far better for us than New York.

First and foremost, VC's in and around New York are not geared towards technology startups at all. Most do not understand technology on the same level as their Silcon Valley counterparts, and if you're so lucky to get a meeting with them they want to see your current business plan along with your current users, and current revenue, and the projections for each. You're not likely to get any funding until after you really need it.

Second, the developer community is scattered and almost non-existent. Feel free to go to meetup.com and search for php/ajax/python/ruby, or anything for that matter and see what you find. What a surprise, the meetup scene is almost non-existent. While New York does have is a vibrant hipster/artist scene, it's important to not confuse this with a developer scene.

However, due to the complete lack of developer community and funding in New York, we were forced to actually develop our product to a point that we were able to license it to corporate users such as Random House, CIG, and others. This allowed us to generate revenue that funded the continuing development of NOLOH. This also provided us with real world use, and feedback outside of our company and projects. This also has its downsides, since rather than focusing solely on the product, we had to spend a significant amount of time working with clients.

It's been over four years now, and we now have a solid client base, and a solid product that we just recently released to the developer community as a beta, had we not been in New York chances are we would've been able to release within the first 2 years, rather than after 4, albeit with a less stable and field tested product, but would've allowed us to iterate more easily, and surely have a larger developer base by now.

Overall, I feel that Silicon Valley would've been the best fit. Access to developers, capital, along with people that actually understand technology is truly something that all technology startups should have the pleasure to experience, I strongly suggest staying away from New York unless you're a financial software startup.

</comment><comment><USER4> While I'm not sure 'not' starting a company in silicon valley is valid (i.e. if I lived there I probably wouldn't move away to start a company), I am all about starting companies in area's with a lower cost of living. "staying alive" is easier in 'southwest airlines' cities.

Take a look at the map of where Southwest Airlines flies to and you get a feel for 'alternative' cities that should have enough infrastructure for a startup.

In my neck of the woods, albany,ny we were the excitement of the entire area. We were on the front pages of the local paper all the time. Recruiting was easier because people knew who we were and understood we paid less, but had the excitement they were seeking.

We got free legal advice because lawyers wanted to be associated with us. We won local business plan competitions ($100k cash). We got investment from local VC's wanting to build up the area.

We paid $1500 a month in rent, including all utilities, for a mansion on the hudson river (and lived in the 5 bedrooms on the second floor). Our internet (cable modem) was $40 a month and screaming fast because our neighbors probably didn't even have it.

That helped us 'stay alive' long enough to figure out how to make money.

<comment><USER5> So are you making money now? I think you are missing the point, a lot of startups in SV are not necessary started to "make money" in the traditional sense. There is a huge amount of startups who just try to build something cool (technology wise), and either hope to find out how to monetize, or hope a larger company will buy them, and figure out how to monetize their technology.

SV is the best place to be, if what you are building doesn't have a clear market, or the market requires larger company's muscles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe that's part of the problem... the echo chamber of people building things that don't have a clear market, or it's "just technology" and not a business by itself.

<comment><USER5> that's right. Youtube is not making any money (so it has no proven businness model), but it's founders are rich. So, I would say it is a huge success for them, but if you look at it in a traditional point of view, it is a failure.

The bottom line, they have millions in the bank, and you don't (ok, maybe you do, I don't know you).

If you plan to build some cool technology, and want to flip it to somebody else, that has the means to monetise it, the SF Bay area is the place to be.

If you want to build something small, and more of a traditional company, then a low cost area might make sense.

But have no boubt about it, some of the best talent is the bay area. It is like the Hollywood for geeks. The place where you can make it big. The place where the gold rush mentality will always prevail, as the people are drawn in here to make it big.

It seems that Web. 2.0 is out, and Green Tech is in. That's the new current bubble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The echo chamber effect is overblown. If you spend too much time on Mashable and TechCrunch it will seem like everyone is building the same thing. It will seem even more like an echo chamber if you go to all the "events" because the only people going to those events are involved with desperate me-too startups. However it is the only area in the USA I know of where there are hundreds of thousands of people working successfully on all kinds of interesting tech things, all in one place. Web 1.0, Web 2.0, virtualization, iphones, robots, electric cars, green tech, biotech, animated movies and special effects, microfinance, and so forth. The great thing about it is if you get bored working on Web 2.0 you can go work on something radically different and find a couple dozen people already doing it or willing to help out. Personally, I've been able to work on bioinformatics, tech art installations, robots, desktop software, web software and mobile phones, none of which required a change in address.

</comment><comment><USER7> I strongly favor avoiding the Bay Area (my startup is in Chicago and New York). I'm ambivalent about this essay. But one specific point:

The author claims VC doesn't limit investments by geography. If you have a track record, that's true: the people who started Postini can found a tech startup in Yellowknife AB and get a round from somebody. But I've successfuly gotten an A round before, and been a part of multiple successful exits, and we did the circuit out west, and they absolutely do want you to be out there with them.

This isn't a reason to move out west, because you don't want that money anyways, but let's be real.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are plenty of venture-backed companies based in NYC, including many that weren't funded by the many NYC-based VC firms and many by first-time entrepreneurs. E.g., Meetup.com was backed by DFJ in Menlo.

<comment><USER7> Scott Heiferman founded a successful company prior to Meetup, and took funding after the Dean campaign put Meetup on CNN.

But look, I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying what you probably already know: Bay VC looks at you funny if you're not in the Bay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A strange rant. Most of it is based on why you _don't have to_ start in the Valley and almost nothing on "shouldn't". His core criticism of Valley companies is that it's too easy to caught up with traction instead of figuring out monetization.

Ironically, his _About Me_ description plays the same tune: "We are building a free, open reviews network that anyone can participate in and anyone can build on top of."

Good try. Valley rules y'all. Like, totally.

</comment><comment><USER9> _You should start a company in an environment where it is not an echo chamber for you. Start a company where the people in the community bring a different perspective, because this will ultimately help you get a better picture of the world._

This is exactly my hope for starting something that works in the Dallas area.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even though this topic has been pretty much beaten to death here, it's still interesting to hear other people's takes. OP brings up a couple of good points...

 _We are not second-class citizens_

This only makes sense. When all you need is a computer and a hookup, you are already connected to everyone else. Sure, there's no substitute for physical presence, but good people can be _anywhere_.

 _Avoiding the Echo Chamber_

Like the frog dropped into cool water in the pot, this is an easy trap to fall into. I went to 4 or 5 events in SV and after a while, the conversations starting running into each other. It seemed like everyone was talking about the same thing, so I had trouble remembering who said what.

Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I was always partial to being close to my _customers_ , not my _competitors_. (This is, of course, in those cases where it makes sense.)

I also loved to see the reference to Pittsburgh, my hometown. Nice people, great universities, 2 hours from 50% of the U.S., low cost of living - <USER2> the startup scene does well here.

<comment><USER7> You'd think Pitt+CMU, A2+UMich, Champaign+UIUC, and Atlanta+GATech would be hotter startup centers. Graham wrote a big long essay about what makes Palo Alto perfect for startups, but I think the answer mostly boils down to "network effect".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Envy.

<comment><USER12> It wouldn't be an internet discussion without at least one ad hominem argument.

<comment><USER11> And now you've included one. My dismissal of this guy's point as being meaningless and fueled merely by envy is not ad hominem -- it's not the same as saying "that guy's just a jerk".

However, that's pretty much what you've just said about me. Isn't it ironic? Don'tcha think?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Location, location, location

<comment><USER14> Exactly, it worked for real estate right?

oh wait</comment></comment>


Is Slovenia becoming the next technology hub of Eastern Europe? - <AUTHOR> http://stritar.net/Post/Cool-Slovenian-Brands-Part-1-Technology-Startups-Making-It-Big.aspx

<comment><USER2> next? is there one _right now_ in eastern europe?</comment>


How i became a developer from coal miner? - <AUTHOR> http://ennovates.com/engineering/yes-you-can-do-it/ <comment><USER2> The story is not as improbable as it sounds at first. To be clear, he was not a coal miner, but an electrician in a coal mine. He said he started work at 6am, but ended at 1pm. This is not too bad actually. In communist Romania, miners were actually one of the envied professions: high salaries and bonuses, feeling of camaraderie, celebrated as heroes of communism, early retirement (with a relatively large lump sum in the end). Mining was of course very dangerous and demanding work, but as an electrician in a mine, one would get most of the benefits without most of the dangers.

Electrician's workshops, as any workshop during communism, really, were hotbeds of what we would call today hacking. With low quality equipment but plenty of raw material, people would use their inventiveness to produce whatever the work required and whatever they or their extended families could use at home. Also they would fix tv's, radios, make antennas, etc. The mindset formed in this way is not too far from a programmer's mindset. (Remember, that at the time, there weren't too many programmers, even in the West.) Also, I've seen some very elaborate devices for grilling steaks and sausages (still in operation today) that people made in their free time at work some 30 years ago in some machine factory. As the communist economy was tanking, people could pretty much do whatever they wanted at work. Some people developed skills they could later use after the change of regime, others turned to alcohol out of boredom, some did both.

Just to add some background... Otherwise very nice story and kudos to Mircea.

ADD: With the risk of idealising communism, there is another benefit many people got from it, and that is a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism. Seeing all the mechanisms of state propaganda, many people came out of it with a well tuned bullshit-detector, easily seeing through the relatively milder propaganda of advertising, political campaigns, media, etc. The dark side is that a significant portion of that generation have become conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER3> _many people came out of it with a well tuned bullshit-detector, easily seeing through the relatively milder propaganda of advertising_

I've often wondered about that, traveling in Eastern Europe, are people there really less susceptible to brands? McDonalds, Starbucks, Nike, Coca-Cola, etc...

<comment><USER2> Not sure, but whenever it is in the news that something in fast food or in cola is found to be harmful or addictive or whatever, the reaction of most people is never outrage but more like "no kidding, what did you expect" :)

<comment><USER4> Isn't that the case everywhere?

<comment><USER2> Sure, but there are shades :)

ADD: also, some people would go like: "OK, this is probably nothing new. Why was it in someone's interest to report this news now and whose interest was it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Account suspended, here's the cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fennovates.com%2Fengineering%2Fyes- you-can-do-it%2F)

<comment><USER6> We have 35 upvotes for this story, 30kB for the content... say 100 visitors (a 3:1 visitor-upvoter ratio is more than generous). Is it normal for the resulting 3MB traffic spike to suspend a shared-hosting account? It just seems too bad to be true!

<comment><USER7> I don't think you're even close on the 3:1 visitor ratio. I'd like to see some numbers on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the owner of this website and talking about the numbers. It was about 2000 visits until my account was suspended. And after redirection to <http://ennovates.wordpress.com/> visits were 1900 there till writing of this comment. so 44 upvotes and around 4000 visits.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the actual figures, and sorry for my poor estimate. So the load was 60MB instead of 3MB. Just out of curiosity, was your account rightly suspended? What quota applied?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a good story. From a naive distance (the only perspective I have to offer), coal mining is equal parts romantic and disgusting. We can worry all we want about sitting at a desk all day long, but our life expectancy has to be considerably better than a coal miners.

I do wonder if such stories become less likely (more difficult) over time. Ever watch the movie The Aviator? Average movie, but what struck me in that movie was that you had someone who knew nothing/little about planes, learn to fly, build planes and build an empire on them. Try to do that today. The cost of entry, the licensing, the vastness of knowledge..forget about it. You could probably spend your entire life learning about a single little widget.

Software is crossing that same chasm. Simple "i could have done that" ideas aren't as frequent as they used to be (although mobile computing has rejuvenated this many times over). Building software is becoming increasingly complicated. You can't beat facebook without being better than facebook, you can't build source hosting without beating github. You can't build a mobile phone without copy and paste (well...at least, you can't really sell one...).

<comment><USER9> If everyone believed what you are saying then nothing would get built. It's easy to think creating/inventing things was so much easier _back then_. Think of how famous I could be if I lived hundreds of years ago. I could easily invent the light bulb, radio, motors, computers. Hell kids today are building these things right! The concepts are so simple, everything was up for grabs back then!

Only they weren't. As vain as we want to be the truth is we haven't reached any kind of technological limit. Creating stuff is as hard as it always was. _Hard_.

The facebook thing is a bad one. It's been mentioned time and time again that Zuck could have said the same about myspace...

Github also a bad one. They are a TINY. Github is awesome, I love them, but they are TINY. I think ruby and javascript are the most popular languages on github. Yet php is the most popular language _on the internet_. Point being, github is tiny, HN is tiny, Rails is tiny.

Feel good about all the opportunities that exist out there!

edited to add: For some motivation, here's what a solo modern inventor can do: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen>

<comment><USER8> Do you really believe that for all fields? Or just for software development?

I have to absolutely totally disagree with you if you are talking about all fields. Licensing, regulatory and insurance costs alone prove a significant barrier to entry. I also think that as a field matures, so too does the body of knowledge and the amount of time required to become an expert in said field increases. Look at how much more a doctor, lawyer, or account needs to know today than they did 100 years ago.

I also think this is unavoidable in software..though I might agree with you that we aren't there yet? However, whenever I hear someone say "Well, X didn't have those features either when they shipped", I always cringe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is an interesting followup to that story on quora. [http://www.quora.com/Mircea-Goia/In-your-journey-from- coal-m...](http://www.quora.com/Mircea-Goia/In-your-journey-from-coal-mining- in-Romania-to-web-consulting-in-the-US-what-were-some-instances-where-you- felt-like-giving-up-but-persevered)

<comment><USER11> ... and the first part is lifted from [http://www.quora.com/Im-about-to-quit- my-job-to-learn-to-pro...](http://www.quora.com/Im-about-to-quit-my-job-to- learn-to-program-What-should-I-do?q=im+about+to+qui)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Awww.. I didn't even realize that i made it to the top page of HN. And off- course this happiness came with a sad news that my shared hosting account have been suspended. But I've redirected this link to my Wordpress.com blog. You can read on there...

</comment><comment><USER12> Off topic but in Australia coal miner is not a too bad job, miners earn much more than software dev, and of course, it's a much tougher job.

</comment><comment><USER13> I worked for a chap in Yorkshire who had been a miner and had lost his job in the Thatchers war against the miners. He'd taken his redundancy money and taught himself to program.

</comment><comment><USER14> The link is borked. Anyone have a cache?

<comment><AUTHOR> now its redirected and working...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An inspiring post. Thanks.</comment>


Ask HN: Why hasn't craigslist taken issue with chrome extensions? - <AUTHOR> They seem to violate the criteria of the TOU just as Padmapper and other recipients of C&D letters did? <comment><USER2> It's harder because the violation is coming from the user. Padmapper was hitting their site with their equipment.

Also, it's less of an issue because CL still gets the visits -- the problem with people taking your data is they siphon off your users. CL needs to cut off anyone who is rehosting data in any way before it becomes a problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> They can, doesn't mean they want to or will.</comment>


Hackintoshed: Life With My "MacBook Nano"  - <AUTHOR> http://theappleblog.com/2009/10/08/hackintoshed-life-with-my-macbook-nano/ <comment><USER2> I enjoy my Mini 9 Hackintosh. It works really well, though I haven't been brave enough to upgrade it to Snow Leopard, yet.

I do also have to admit that I finally begin to understand why people put up with all the negatives of buying a Macintosh (cost, weight, Apple, single mouse button, limited options). It's just a much nicer OS than Windows, and in some ways nicer than Linux (though not in a few that are particularly important to me).

<comment><USER3> Personally I bought a MacBook because when I tested other competitive laptops they felt like pieces of junk. One $700 Sony laptop that I tested had a screen that flexed diagonally if I closed it with one hand.

Another medium grade laptop (I think it was a Dell) had a body that flexed inward if I laid my hands on it between typing.

In contrast my MacBook feels sturdy and dependable. I can throw it in my backpack without needing to cushion it in a bulky laptop bag because I know it can take it.

And I am confident that over time my MacBook will pay for itself in lack of need for repairs. As far as the single mouse button goes I just plug in an external mouse and work away. But over time you do get used to the two finger on the touchpad right click.

<comment><USER4> I used to have a macbook, and a thinkpad, and found them of equal quality. I would watch out for the front bezel cracking problem (I got it). Fortunately apple will replace it out of warranty if you goad them enough, since it is an engineering flaw (so said a local mac repair guy)

<comment><USER5> If you are getting a thinkpad then you are getting into pricey computer territory. Most of the complaints I hear about Mac is the price first. I made the mistake of going from a company owned thinkpad to an equally spec'd Acer. It was half the price and a year of usage showed where they cut corners. Initially, the speakers blew, the battery wore down faster than expected (6 monthss). And random screws and chunks of plastic fell out the vents. Since acer is now the #1 laptop maker they got their by building them cheap, replace often.

<comment><USER6> Acer may also be the #1 maker because they make lots of laptops that are sold under other brandnames.

For example, they make the Macbooks for Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Once I was sure I had all the components working, I did a Software Update to 10.5.8. Doing so killed the Wi-Fi, keyboard and trackpad, but a repeat of replacing kext files restored them to a working state._

the hackintosh always seemed cheesy in that regard, much like a jailbroken iphone. a new official release comes out with bug fixes and new features and you're left waiting around until someone can crack it open again before you can update.

anyone know how psystar gets around this issue of running mac os on custom hardware that needs 3rd party kernel extensions?

<comment><USER8> I believe Psystar runs their own updater and supplies the pre-hacked updates to users.

Is this incorrect?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The screen real estate always bites you (as stated in the article). 9/10 inches is just not good enough for all the Mac UI.

<comment><USER3> Yeah the Mac UI is designed for the widescreen format. And I don't believe there has been a widescreen netbook yet, am I right? I think a few months ago someone posted here on HN about a "Hello Kitty" looking netbook that had very impressive screen resolution but even it didn't have widescreen format if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER10> I couldn't find one that _isn't_ widescreen on Dell's, HP's or Asus' website. Even the old Asus EEE PC 701 (the model that arguably started it all) is widescreen.

<comment><USER11> The whole netbook format owes its existence solely to the market being utterly flooded with portable DVD player LCDs -- those awful 7" 800x480 screens cost ASUS less than $5 each!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I 'created' one of these for my partner. I find the keyboard too cramped, but she loves it. She's not technical, so some of the rough edges (audio output for one) annoy her a bit. It's fast enough for all her uses. I did drop in a replacement HD with a higher spec, though.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why bother? I'd go with Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/other Linux best supporting particular netbook. Seems much more suitable choice for that hardware.

What I'd love to have is proper graphics on netbooks (like 9400m.)

(I've been Mac OS X user for the past 4 years, Linux before that)

<comment><USER4> Because you need a mac (like iphone development, or other pieces of software). Atom netbooks run w/ geekbench scores of around 1000, G4 iBooks around 800, air's around 2000, macbooks 3500,etc.

<comment><USER14> I'm sorry but if you need a mac you should buy a mac. Else you really don't need a mac, especially for something like iphone development which requires an initial investment.

(Note: I don't own a mac.)

<comment><USER4> No you don't, especially with a high risk of unprofitability (I am an iphone developer). I own a macbook nano & a desktop hackintosh for development. It's far better than my previous compromise of just one 15" macbook pro. I tend to find it more awkward if i have the "laptop + external monitor" setup, and prefer a desktop for serious work (not to mention the additional performance). I prefer the macbook nano to my macbook pro portability wise due to its smaller weight and form factor, not to mention less worry of loss & damage being a major expense. If i wanted to get something similar, I would have to spend more than what I spent for my macbook pro just to get a macbook air & thousands for a mac pro. The main mac advantage comes from OSX, otherwise apple would just be another sony vaio, and I think steve jobs is quite aware of that.

Actually my perfect "mac laptop" would be a 12" thinkpad x200 with a WXGA+ screen (1440x900), 10 hour battery life, and better performance, size and durability compared to a macbook air (not to mention identical weight), but since the x200's hardware isn't too compatible with osx yet, i'm using a netbook.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mental Model for Minimal Viable Products - <AUTHOR> http://mccannatron.com/2011/10/03/minimal-viable-products/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this post on a sleepless plane ride so it might be a little abstract and out there, but wanted to get my thoughts just out there on MVP's

<comment><USER2> "An MVP is NOT a startup; it is Step 0 on your path to creating a startup." - I think you nailed it perfectly in this line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> one question on mvp's though: is an mvp the smallest item that allows you to judge traction, or the smallest product that solves the hair-on-fire problem?

Asked in a different way: is an mvp a bucket of water or a survey that asks 'sign up to our mailing list if you'd like us to build a bucket of water?' I'm not being facetious I'm actually confused on this point…

</comment><comment><USER4> I found your definition of Traction to be a really useful one... at the very least, it is easy to tell whether the results make you excited or not. We all have internal barometers and expectations, and if the results of an MVP are surprisingly good, then that indicates you're on to something. One thing that I think we can say about all successful startups is that they had a serious growth phase...

I'm working on an MVP right now, but I'm probably not doing it right- it is taking too long (about 2 months to complete) and it isn't actually viable (we're doing stuff by hand that in the real product will be done by software.) But, it is a much better approach than before I started trying the Lean Startup methodology.

Thanks for the article!</comment>


Briar and Bramble: A Vision for Decentralized Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://dymaxion.org/essays/briarvision.html <comment><USER2> This essay is and outstanding statement about decentralization and why it's important. It connects so deep into me that I feel it in my bones. This is the technological infrastructure we need, going to give there codebase a thorough inspection and see what I can build with it. Also, I love the finnish people, shoutout to my previous employer Reaktor Oy who did the honors of introducing me to the brilliance of the finnish people and culture.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I love decentralization progress, the great majority of end-users look for UX don't matter what is behind. They don't care if it is decentralized, federated, or centralized. Git is decentralized but most people use GitHub and the UI cannot be decentralized. Also there is a lot of irony here where most decentralized projects use Slack or Telegram for messaging.

<comment> a-saleh I looked into Secure Scuttlebutt community, and while I didn't muster up the courage to really participate, I kinda like that they take dogfooding seriously.

Their protocol started as a secure peer-to-peer log-store, with first application as a white-list based social-network [1]

The more interesting part is a git plugin that allows to store repositories in the distributed log as well. This is complete with a nice web-UI and some rudimentary issue management [2]

If you had right group of people, you could use this on a local-network, with no internet access, and you'd have reasonably nice environment for chatting and collaborating :-) In practice you'd want to be on the internet and connected to at least one scuttlebut pub to actually see other people, unless you really organized some sort of offline-cabin-retreat-hackathon :-)

[1] [https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/) [2] [https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25RPKzL382v2fAia5HuDNHD5kkFdlP7bG...](https://git.scuttlebot.io/%25RPKzL382v2fAia5HuDNHD5kkFdlP7bGvXQApSXqOBwc%3D.sha256)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its been a long time since Ive seen such a spread in technological capability and economic practicality.

Decentralization has all these fascinating bits and pieces but not a single consumer will care unless the consumer is another dev. Id argue blockchain falls into the same category. What we need are folks who can build products whose economics _need_ these tools without having to promote the implementation as the differentiating factor.

IOW all this stuff will succeed when we no longer have to mention the word "distributed".

</comment><comment><USER5> This protocol seems pretty cool, and the application, Briar[0], is pretty neat.

I just installed it, and it wants to do a physical key exchange with a contact.

Time for a keysigning party!

[0] [https://briarproject.org/](https://briarproject.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I wanted to try Briar but discovered that you have to be within bluetooth range of anyone you want to add as a contact.

I was planning to use it with my friend in another country but there's no way that can happen.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please mark in the headline that this article is from 2016.

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't control over the application the new centralization?</comment>


Ask HN: Learning an apps file format? - <AUTHOR> I have a lot of Apple Notes. I want these notes on platforms that are non-Apple. I thought this would be a good learning experience to learn something new while scratching a personal itch.
However, what ways are possible to find out a file format, like Apple notes?
Use a packet sniffer and start looking at each packet when I am working with notes?
I honestly am drawing a blank on how to even get started. <comment><USER2> Apple file formats are surprisingly easy to work with; many of the native apps use sqlite for storing data. I just looked into this for you, and it looks like notes are indeed stored in a sqlite db.

On your Mac, you can find the notes in `~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes`. On mine there is a file called `NotesV6.storedata` that I can open in an sqlite browser. It should have everything you need.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, only packet-sniff and reverse-engineer as last result (your time is valuable). There are lots of documented information, e.g.:

[https://www.abebooks.com/9781850321170/File-Formats- Handbook...](https://www.abebooks.com/9781850321170/File-Formats-Handbook- Gunter-Born-1850321175/plp)

There other books available as well. And of course, these days, lots of info online.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I will review the link you provided. I have tried searching a lot but my results haven't been positive.</comment></comment>


Gmail's Spam Filter not catching words with underscores - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=0cfa4af1d70345c4&hl=en

<comment><AUTHOR> In the past two weeks I've gone from never getting spam in my inbox to 3 a day. Is this happening to other people?

Seems like a simple fix for Gmail. They just need to run their spam detection algorithm on the email text while treating underscores and periods as spaces.</comment>


Elixir Deployment Tools Update – February 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://dockyard.com/blog/2018/02/28/elixir-deployment-tools-update-february-2018 <comment><AUTHOR> Conform and distillery have been the saving grace of deploying reproducible builds.

The disjointedness of how configuration worked between dev and prod though bugged me to the point that I try to only use libraries that don't solely rely on config.exs for config and take configuration as an argument. I generally write functions around their functions to pull from ENV variables.

It's a bit of ceremony but it feels better.

There are still a lot of libraries that pull configuration "magically" from Application in the middle of a function and don't expose a way other than config.exs to change them though. This makes me sad.

Edit: I forgot to say thanks for all the awesome work bitwalker!</comment>


Ditch the library and work at Starbucks - <AUTHOR> http://www.derekflanzraich.com/2011/02/ditch-library-work-starbucks/

<comment><USER2> Just go work at a strip club already, perv.

<comment><USER3> good one?</comment></comment>


Rolling out Windows Phone Marketplace for Launch - <AUTHOR> http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/10/04/rolling-out-windows-phone-marketplace-for-launch.aspx

<comment><USER2> Summary:

 _. . . We've given Marketplace an overhaul . . ._

 _. . . biggest changes to Marketplace for Windows Phone 7 are features and streamlined processes to help developers get their apps to market faster . . ._

 _. . . we're going to be very deliberate in our timeline for rolling out Marketplace . . ._

 _. . . gradually ramp-up to full self-service capacity . . ._

 _. . . Marketplace fully available to all developers in November . . ._

 _. . . working toward a beta distribution solution to allow developers to privately distribute their apps for testing through Marketplace. . . ._

 _. . . first payout of sales to date to take place in February . . ._

</comment><comment> tomh- So...who from HN is developing for this market place or plans to do that? I really wonder what kind of audience of developers this device attracts.

<comment><USER3> I'm working on a couple of apps. And I know of at least one person who's creating a HN app using my <http://api.ihackernews.com>

<comment><USER4> I'm working on an HN app too ...

<comment><USER3> Are you doing all the parsing yourself or will you use ihackernews?

<comment><USER4> I'm using ihackernews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First thing, the name is too long.

"Check out this thing on App Store" vs. "Check out this thing on Windows Phone Marketplace". I feel bad even typing it out.

</comment><comment><USER6> People in whose focus is Marketing should never be allowed to blog. I feel like I need to go bleach my eyes.</comment>


The "Turkish effect" -- why you've never heard of the world's #1 intellectual - <AUTHOR> http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10262

<comment><USER2> Alternate title: "Internet poll won by people who care about internet polls"

I thought we figured this out when Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf won the People Magazine Most Beautiful Person award.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was quite surprised that it was driven by dead-tree attention, too. It's not as if the NYT said, on their front page, that people should take the poll and vote Chomsky.</comment></comment>