"If you're Smart Enough to Use Facebook, you're Smart Enough to Create Facebook" - <AUTHOR> http://magixilluminate.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm intrigued by the idea, because I'm not extremely good at programming and this can probably be a fairly good mockup tool that can be shown to the real hackers instead of drawings on a napkin. Then again, there are apps for that already.

But at the same time, I'm horrified that this is "Frontpage for programming" and that we'll start seeing glittery, neon-colored apps on the web, smartphones and _shivers_ even Linux! Software design in the hands of commoners is pretty scary stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this real?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, yes.

<comment><USER4> it looks like an usability nightmare</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Watch: $17,000 smartwatch is obsolete after latest update - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-watch-update-latest-edition-watchos-5-expensive-out-of-date-obsolete-a8385291.html <comment><USER2> Of course it is. $16k of the cost of that watch goes towards showing others you have $17k to piss away on a watch.

The market segment that buys a $17k watch only wants a new and improved model if everyone with the previous model is transformed into looking like a penny- pinching try-hard that doesn't quite fit in.

</comment><comment><USER3> When Apple Watch was announced I remember reading somewhere that there would be an upgrade program for these "premium" models to either trade them in for store credit towards a new one or directly replace its hardware with updated stuff.

Anyone knows if this ever happened?

</comment><comment><USER4> Everyone knows you never buy an Apple V1. :)

<comment><USER5> My Series Zero is still going strong! Has been a delightful purchase, almost as good as my AirPods.

Don't understand the issue over the original Edition watch. Obviously, like any computer, it wasn't getting updated forever. The only reason to get one was perceived prestige, it was the closest thing to a Veblen good in consumer electronics.

And it should be cheap and easy to replace an Editions guts with series 3 parts, too.

<comment><USER3> Series 3 is actually thicker than Series 0 I believe.

You would have better luck putting Series 2 hardware in there.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft buys skype for $8.5bn. Who wins with this deal and how much? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/05/09/why-microsoft-is-buying-skype-for-8-billion/

<comment><USER2> They mentioned how they are going to integrate it into XBOX Live experience, and that will make it an even stronger platform. People are so fond of Apple but I marvel at the success of XBOX 360 everytime I turn it on.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't help but think that, when the dust settles, Apple is the winner here, and Google is the loser.

Skype is an app that cuts across all these platforms and provides a service user's want. It has the potential to detach user from a specific platform (at the OS, manufacturer or carrier level). Something like that has to have been an annoyance (bordering on threat) to a closed and leading platform like iOS.

It suddenly finds itself biased towards not only a specific platform, but the weakest of the bunch.

As for Google, the only good news is that Microsoft just spent some 20% of their cash reserve on a money-losing business. The best outcome for Google is that nothing changes. The worse is that Skype succeeds on WP7 and MS executes on whatever wild integration dreams it has.

I'd warn that i'm not an analyst, but I think that's pretty obvious from the above (not that I think analysts know what they are talking about either).

<comment><USER4> Google already has Google Talk / Google Voice, with which you can do text- messaging, SMS, one-to-one video, and cheap international calls, available on Android and iPhone. It also integrates nicely with the rest of the Google Apps for Business.

The only problems I'm seeing is that Google has problems in getting past the US borders with Google Voice, and Google Talk lacks multi-user video- conferencing (which Skype has, but it isn't free of charge). Available clients also suck badly.

If Microsoft fucks up (which I'm pretty sure they will), Google wins more than Apple.

Also, for Skype to "succeed" on WP7, assuming this means excluding everyone else (as that would actually mean something), doesn't WP7 have to succeed first?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just when I was planning to purchase shares from the IPO... Damn.</comment>


Weight of pencil - <AUTHOR> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+pencil <comment><AUTHOR> Is this an Easter Egg? Surely it's not one triggered exactly by the phrase "Weight of Pencil" - there must be some sort of analysis going on that gets the system to a state where it says: This is a query of class EE, so we'll give a semantically relevant "humorous" answer.

There's some interesting processing going on there, and I'd love an insight into what it is.

<comment><USER2> _Is this an Easter Egg?_

Wolfram Alpha is the mother of _all_ Easter eggs. Occasionally you find a query that isn't.</comment></comment>


Boulder-Longmont Maglev Monorail - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_23883824/boulder-longmont-commuters-could-see-fast-transport-demand

<comment><AUTHOR> I love everything about this proposal is relatively low-cost and will utilize technology in a way that will transform the relationship of the two communities and solve a real growth issue: nasty conjestion on an relatively new stretch of highway.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree. I'd love to see some major public transportation like this around Colorado. Just last weekend my girlfriend and I took a day-trip to Boulder from Fort Collins (through Longmont), and the congestion through Longmont main streets is outrageous on the weekends. It would be ideal to just drive to Longmont (about a 15-20 min drive from Fort Collins) and catch a tram such as this to the Boulder/Denver area. Once you are in the city of Boulder, most things are within decent walking distance. It would also be great for daily commuters as I know some who commute from Longmont to Boulder/Denver and visa versa.</comment></comment>


Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53831063 <comment><USER2> A drop of only 5-10% in GDP? They won.

They're tiny isolated islands with tourism as a major industry. How's New Zealand doing?

<comment><USER3> The funny thing about New Zealand is that the new outbreak has genetics unique to New Zealand. It's very likely that they never actually rid themselves of it and that it had time to mutate. It could be seen as a warning that suppression works only so long as you keep suppressing even under relatively ideal conditions.

<comment><USER4> I think it's unlikely that it's been spreading around undetected for 100 days, and suddenly we've noticed it. We've found nearly 100 new cases in the mass testing that has come out of this outbreak, but they all can be traced back to a single source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, they did the best they could with the hand they were dealt. As the article states, their economy would have been impacted one way or another but dealing with COVID and the lack of tourism would have been devastating.

It sounds to me like the answer to the question is Yes, they won as best as they could have. When most of your GDP depends on tourism and exports, you lose a significant chunk of revenue due to the external effects of COVID-19 on your customers.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand how people can see a global response and repercussions like this and then politicize their local government's attempt to keep the R0 below 2.5.

<comment><USER7> a day ago there were estimate that anout basically everyone in NYC has having been in contact with the virus at some point and the city doesn't look like a wasteland.

lethality was grossly overestimate and subsequent decision built off not only partial and incomplete data, but flat out wrong.

would full lock down have been the best course of action? probably still so. but the extent and duration and especially now follow up actions seem extremely exaggerated.

there's quite a difference in Italy for example from the "hundreds new cases a day" in march, with a unknown size pool of undetected cases, and "hundred new cases a day" but everyone else is fine and contact tracing will find the rest.

the issue is political because the GDP and welfare budget are intertwined. and then there's the big hairy issue with schooling.

the world isn't black and white and fighting the virus can't be the sole priority for six months, let alone one or more years.

but both now and yesterday people with a wide view of the issue were basically ostracized and chased away as if they were flat earther or antivaxxer.

it's about time people start questioning what is the long term plan and if the previous decisions were data driven or scare driven.

<comment><USER8> "but both now and yesterday people with a wide view of the issue were basically ostracized and chased away as if they were flat earther or antivaxxer"

Agreed. I've been quite taken aback, seeing HN's response to Covid threads. I've always assumed the community was willing to ask tough questions and entertain alternative points of view that are backed by data, but with Covid there's a complete unwillingness to think about anything other than "deaths bad, lockdown good". It's a shame that more nuanced comments get voted down so hard as they're important to discuss too.

My theory: There must be something about us tech industry types that makes a 'germaphobic' response more likely. For instance, the WHO have said there's no point wiping down food packaging because it just isn't a vector for the virus. Yet I've seen dozens of HN comments about doing this and/or leaving groceries in quarantine for days. It really isn't rational or logical and yet it's this response that gets the support of the community. Very strange.

<comment><USER9> Just as an alternative perspective, I fully support lockdowns. But I have noted the opposite response on here compared to your observation; lots of people are arguing against the lockdowns on HN. Maybe we see what we want to see rather than what is actually there? Seems like a typical human bias.

<comment><USER8> Yes, clearly "lots of people are arguing against the lockdowns on HN". My point is that if you do that, you will usually get downvoted to death.

Just like everything else these days, too many people are adopting a black or white stance on a topic when actually there's tons of murky grey in the middle. I see way too many rational and reasonable comments get totally destroyed because they dared to question the status quo. It's an unhealthy environment to exist in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seeing as all these terrible economic outcomes would happen whether or not the virus infected the population, I think this is a pretty solid win and a poor article title.

<comment><USER11> Most of the terrible economic outcomes have been due to the lockdowns not the actual deaths. Losing 1% of the population isn't a massive economic blow when that 1% is predominantly composed of no and low income groups, it is however a moral blow. The difference is important however because, while early on total lock-downs made sense, the reality is that if only 1% of the population is at risk of death then the other 99% should be working to minimize the cost of supporting the most vulnerable in countries where a full viral suppression is unlikely.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, but this is a pretty confused post, and your first sentence shows a lot of the problems with it.

> Most of the terrible economic outcomes have been due to the lockdowns not > the actual deaths.

First, it's not lockdowns vs deaths. The biggest factor by far in the US was the existence of the virus. [https://privwww.ssrn.com/abstract=3631180](https://privwww.ssrn.com/abstract=3631180)

"While overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 percentage points of this. Individual choices were far more important"

But you don't need a fancy study. States that didn't have lockdowns saw similar economic declines to other states, even though they should have experienced a boom on the border as people traveled in to do business if it was the lockdown.

Second, deaths are not the only cost. People get sick, too, and it's a pretty big deal for many of them even if you don't see it on TV. It's possible they'll have permanent organ damage and shorter lives. Those people call in sick, or worse, they go to work and get others sick.

Third, if you let it get out of control, you overwhelm the hospital system. It's hard to see how that helps.

<comment><USER13> > It's possible they'll have permanent organ damage and shorter lives.

It's clear to me that people use this argument as a virtual escape hatch from any critical argument about the response to coronavirus.

We don't really even have a specific number of how many people were infected - never mind the number of people with long-term effects. We don't even really know the long-term effects (and descriptions are relatively vague). It's probable that the prevalence and severity of those effects are overstated.

Given the evidence so far, it seems reasonable to assume the overwhelming majority of healthy people are not at risk from the virus. And appealing to things _we don 't know_ and assuming the worst-case isn't realistic - it's a convenient way to justify medieval mitigation methods that decimate the economy and violate civil liberties, while casting any objectors as misanthropes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The ten countries: Palau, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga

<comment><USER15> Some of these are top scuba diving destinations. They depend on regional air hubs, all presumably closed to non-essential connecting flights.

I wonder if these ten nations, all Melanesian/Polynesian with historical ties to the Anglo sphere, represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies.

<comment> blaser-waffle > represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies.

Probably anomalies. We're talking small, small population groups on isolated islands.

I mean it's possible there is a Polynesian DNA thing that helps make them resistant, sort of a smallpox-in-reverse advantage, but my money says it's just because 1) super isolated, and 2) because of point 1 they can very effectively filter traffic and quarantine those who are questionable.

<comment><USER15> I was thinking socio-economic and transportation connectedness rather than genetic resistance. Anglo-centric Cook Islands vs. French Polynesia, for instance, and the evolved political, economic, transportation, and health systems.

It could be something as simple as incoming flights mostly originating from one of Sydney, Singapore, or Hawaii and the travel restrictions implemented at each hub. We are also maybe placing to much emphasis on zero-per-hundred- thousand compared to one-per-hundred-thousand stats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 40% of GDP from tourism. So in a perfect world now it would be time for the government to take that saved tourism money and support their citizens so they survive/stay until the next tourist season. Or borrow money from other nations to do so.

And is it really sane to stay 100% covid free? I mean I would assume that when tourism starts up again it will start a wave of covid infections in these countries.

<comment><USER17> 40% seems very high. Is that a worldwide average?

I found that it is around 10%: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099933/travel-and- touri...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099933/travel-and-tourism- share-of-gdp/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awful lot of privileged software engineer types with relatively cushy lockdown-friendly jobs, good income, savings, covered healthcare and good homes that leap to criticize as selfish, greedy, irresponsible and dumb anyone who insists that economic consequences from lockdown are possibly, just maybe, for many, many hundreds of millions of people all around the world something a bit more than just going short of travel and discretionary income for a few months.

Do any of you even know that a much wider and largely poorer world exists outside your highly developed bubble? Do you not fathom that for billions of people all around the world, the money you don't earn by working today means no food tomorrow and possibly no electricity or capability of paying the doctors visit for your kid next week?

Do you not grasp that for most of these billions of people, the work necessary to get this basic income on a daily and weekly basis absolutely depends on the ability to leave home and engage in external economic activity?

The economic losses that have already been caused by attempts at lockdown are NOT just about some lost income. In so many cases, they literally affect the most fundamental aspects of being able to survive without suffering very badly.

The privileged righteousness that ignores this here is way too common, and awfully foolish. Especially when you consider that we're still in the middle of all this and not even the world's best experts can yet concretely say that lockdowns have done much or that they were the better choice vs trying to keep the economy of so many places from falling so far.

<comment><USER19> Do you not grasp that in most countries where lockdowns took place people had government support? Do you not fathom that most countries have publicly accessible healthcare? Do you not understand that not all countries ditch their vulnerable under the bus in such unprecedented times? Is it such an alien concept the fact that us, the high earning developers pay tax precisely to help those in need? What a strange view of the world some of you have in a country pretending to be rich, yet it collapses at first sign of real trouble.

<comment><USER8> Why the extreme response? Thousands and thousands of folks here in the UK are losing their jobs and therefore their homes. I assume the same thing is happening elsewhere. We have safety nets, but payouts are often nowhere near enough to match income that's been lost. It's a real disappointment to me that HN has decided there's only one right way to talk about the Covid response, and every other point of view is idiotic or evil. Whatever happened to nuance?

<comment><USER20> Maybe the uk is not socialist enough

<comment><USER8> The measures that the UK government put in place are impressive, but they've pushed the nation's debt to more than £2trillion. There's no escaping the fact that we'll be paying for these measures for generations.

This is the problem with a socialist solution. We can make things 'fair' now, but SOMEONE, at some point in the future, has to pay. Is it really fair that the bill for this falls on future generations? They're likely to still be paying off OUR debt in 50 years time. What happens if they have their own 'Covid' before the bill is paid? They'll already be on the back foot financially.

I don't resent us helping folks now. But I do resent what it means for my kids, and their kids, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article's casual collusion of winning in terms of not losing any lives to the virus and winning in terms of the tourist industry taking a hit is crass, at best.

<comment><USER22> You're looking at this from privileged perspective of Bay Area software engineer, who can work from home, or even take few months break from work altoghether.

"Economy taking a hit" is just an euphemism for real tragedies, like people losing their jobs, their homes, not being able to pay for healthcare, etc. I read that there was a spike in suicides since the beginning of the lockdowns for those very reasons.

So now you can weight number of lives saved from COVID vs number of lives destroyed by lockdows, and only then you'll know if they were worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Win? What do they plan on doing without a vaccine? Stay shutin forever?</comment>


Consumer Trends That Destroyed Media's Business Model - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/the-consumer-trends-that-destroyed-medias-business-model-945941075557?source=rss----c537d80ed0a---4&gi=f3fd52688073 <comment><USER2> > Like many, I was wrong about the subscription model for the news media. I > thought that a possible scheme for subscriptions could be: one for national > media, in the $12–20 a month range, another, less expensive ($5–$9/month) > for local news, and the last one for specialized content, whether it is a > business or a leisure publication.

I can't imagine how that could ever have worked. Back in the day, I mostly read stuff linked by news.google.com or in various mail lists. Now it's mainly from HN. But either way, I'd need perhaps 20-40 subscriptions. Which would be unworkable.

We really need a system that pays realistic prices (maybe $0.10 or so) per article read. Whatever you'd get by dividing cost per "issue" by number of articles available to read.

<comment><USER3> > Now it's mainly from HN. But either way, I'd need perhaps 20-40 > subscriptions.

No, you should be paying one subscription, to HN, which should be making arrangements with the news sources. Paying for subscriptions from the sources when HN is your gateway is like readers directly subscribing to wire services when they get their news by opening up a newspaper.

The old media "portals" have been displaced and become sources consumed through other portals, but business models haven't fully adapted.

<comment><USER4> If news subscriptions ever get around to working it has to happen the way things progressed with music: siloed content people mostly don't pay for (check), widespread piracy that allows people to enjoy unfettered access (let's say the Google trick/private browsing trick counts). Next comes the switcheroo phase, when a company comes along and makes heaps of illegal money off the piracy while negotiating with the content owners in a bid for legitimacy.

The economics are too hard otherwise. The New York Times won't cede pricing control willingly and consumers won't pay subscription prices to individual producers. And middleman companies will always have two impossible battles, pricing and content coverage.

Music might just be the sweet spot, though. Spotify works great while Netflix is getting torn apart by the sharks. Video might be too expensive/lucrative to aggregate and news articles might be too cheap/pervasive to bother.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eh, I think most of this is only true because the internet has basically destroyed the barrier to entry for posting/sharing news and content. Why should people pay for news/subscriptions to news if there are thousands of news sites/publications out there offering the same information for free?

Plus unlike the forms of entertainment sold on services like Spotify or Netflix, news is basically a commodity. For many people, the source of the news isn't some unique selling point that makes them want to pay for it.

So even if their 'favourite' news source does become paid, they'll just go somewhere else and get the same information. Especially given that anyone can basically just copy the giist of a news story and rewrite it in their own words, and most of the media does exactly that. Even if some news site publishes a 'unique' story, it'll be on their competitors sites in one form or another in five minutes flat.

Contrasts this to other forms of media/entertainment people suggest aggregators/services for. Your favourite music artist, video game, TV show, etc can't be 'replaced' by a generic alternative. If you like Star Wars or Marvel or what not, you're gonna have to go through Disney in some way.

There's no generic brand Star Wars or Avengers that's 'good enough' for many people.

Have trends changed? Sure, but they've changed because tech and competition have enabled them to.

</comment><comment><USER6> > Netflix eats online news

If Netflix is eating online news both in terms of attention and money then why wouldn't they partner with Netflix? I know a few seniors that are reluctant to switch because it doesn't have news or weather.

<comment><USER7> Honestly having a daily news show on netflix seems like such a no-brainer that I can't fathom why it isn't on there yet. You'll get a whole load of people opening netflix at least once a day for basically.

<comment><USER8> Each story could have its own video (like news stories on a text-based news site having their own page) and viewers could just watch the ones that interest them. Or they could stream them back-to-back like a season of TV. The weather forecast could be a separate video too. On-demand news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a very difficult market. I have the feeling that journalists need support and more money to provide quality content but the current price-point of subscription is too high for the majority of people. On the other hand, free content financed by ads generally does not deliver on quality. Business models for online media are still immature, I hope they will find the right formula.

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe if the different news medias organized to create a shared payment account, then individual articles could be easily deducted from that one bucket.

<comment><USER11> I thought I saw a company recently doing this... in the past, Discors tried this, but only offered a selection of articles across the various sources it covered: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/02/discors-adds- nyt/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/02/discors-adds-nyt/)

Edit: Sorry, my reading comprehension is bad. This is a pay once, read all you want across multiple source things, not a bucket to deduct payments from. So what I responded with is not what you were looking for... but maybe it's interesting anyway.</comment></comment>


Re-imagining life at night - <AUTHOR> http://blog.doingtonight.com/?p=1055

<comment><USER2> I don't understand.

Literally.

Is 'now' the niche filled by your app? Is 'then' the pre-smartphone era? What is this presentation trying to convey?

<comment><AUTHOR> The purpose is to have a dialogue about what we are building - admittedly it makes more sense with a voice over explanation.

Yes, "now" is a niche filled by doingtonight. It also highlights trends in the market that doingtonight builds on (blogs > twitter, kodak gallery > instagram, etc).

Similarly, "then" portrays the problems we are trying to solve (or markets we are trying to make more efficient) all within the context of "life at night".</comment></comment>


Ctfr – Abusing Certificate Transparency Logs for Getting HTTPS Subdomains - <AUTHOR> https://howucan.gr/scripts-tools/2927-ctfr-abusing-certificate-transparency-logs-for-getting-https-websites-subdomains <comment><USER2> Neat. I guess this will become much less useful once letsencrypt starts issuing wildcard certs for free?</comment>


Unicorn Tears, Eh? - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/04/05/unicorn-tears

<comment><USER2> This is getting silly, and even more annoying than it already was.

<comment><USER3> For a long, long, long, long time, I thought that Microsoft was going that angle as a marketing move. Then they started doing ads like this, that seem to actively make them look stupid, and I'm starting to think that it's actually what they believe, that their corporate culture really _doesn't_ realize what Apple does well that they don't, and it's a very saddening thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to see what'd happen if Apple opened OSX up to non-Apple hardware, or competed on a price level with mid-range PCs. Personally I think the biggest thing holding OSX back is the hardware price; even Microsoft know that I think…instead of staying on the software level with their new ads, they had to talk about the _price_ of the hardware (not even the hardware itself — the second ad even said how nice the Mac hardware is!)

Hopefully Apple fights back, it's about time they did! I love unicorn tears, I just wish they were cheaper... (it's strange they've kept Macs as nearly a 'designer' product, cause they know first hand what happens when you make something mainstream; i.e. iPod/iPhone)

<comment><USER5> But then Apple would have to spend a ton of resources on getting OSX compatible with a gazillion different hardware setups. It will either slow down iterations or hurt the user experience, the "it just works" magic.

<comment><USER4> They could just have a list of off-the-shelf components which are fully compatible, pretty much like the OSX86 project has; a good hackintosh with tested components can be as good as the real thing.

It wouldn't be perfect, personally I'd still prefer a real Mac (I like the hardware), but I don't think it'd be a 'wrong' move by Apple to try to open things up a bit.

<comment><USER6> But then you'd have all these tech articles and blog/forum posts bitching about how Mac OS X sucks because it doesn't support hardware X ... just like you have with Linux.

It's a known fact that people don't look at the hardware compatibility list before buying a X86 machine, not even the more technically inclined ones (I know I don't ... and I'm running Linux ... although I should know better ... somehow I hope that whatever problem I have, it would get solved shortly).

And there's always the issue of having partnerships with the hardware companies to write those drivers for them, because they cannot do it on their own (lack of specifications, resources available). Microsoft couldn't pull it for Vista ... the drivers demanded from hardware manufactures were lately delivered and improperly tested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _It seems clear that Microsoft's stance on the Mac's sales growth is that there's nothing wrong with Windows or right with the Mac, but rather that there's something wrong with Mac users._

So by declaring that they do not like mac users, where does Office for Mac come in? What about mac users who are contemplating switching to Windows? (they must exist, surely?) Aren't they going to be put off by this sort of negative advertising?

So the target demographic of these ads is existing Windows customers, to try to persuade them _not_ to jump ship. Desperate.

(note: I haven't actually seen these ads, I don't think MS advertise on Austrian television)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Aside from the allusion to 70s and 80s car manufacturers, is warning against open standards because "Microsoft could fail" still considered a far flung idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bah...that should read: "is warning against _closed_ standards"

<comment><USER8> Do you not have an "edit" button? I thought all logged in accounts were allowed to edit their own posts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Reminds me of the attitude of U.S. carmakers in the '70s and '80s, as more Americans switched to Japanese imports."

Except that Japanese imports had better quality AND cheaper prices than their American counterparts. With Apple products the former is arguable and the latter is not true. Analogy broken.

<comment><USER10> Non sequitur. Gruber was analogizing the management motivation for the marketing campaign, not the products being marketed _per se_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm waiting for the Romeo and Juliet ad campaign that focuses on two allegorical star-crossed lovers, with the last ad revealing that the drama has actually taken place at a college campus and not Italy. Also, anyone who buys a computer bathed in unicorn tears is cursed to a half-life.</comment>


Jack Ma, Spielberg Strike Deal to Bring Hollywood to China - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-09/jack-ma-spielberg-strike-deal-to-bring-hollywood-to-china <comment><AUTHOR> One reason this may be interesting to HN readers: There are many stories, and I'd even say it's well established, that Hollywood films are edited to please Chinese censors. Effectively, the Chinese government censors many U.S. movies.

For example, per a recent NY Times story, the head of Disney went to China and apologized to the government for "Kundun" (about the Dalai Lama) and promised they'd never make another film like it.[0] When was the list time you saw a Hollywood film critical in any way of China? I've read about many recent script adjustments: For example, the Mandarin in the recent Iran Man movie being changed to a non-Chinese character, or the gratuitous product placement of the Chinese space agency in The Martian.

Now a leading Chinese businessperson, who regardless of his views (I don't know either way) is subject to pressure from the Chinese government, has a seat on the board of Spielberg's enterprise.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/business/international/chi...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/business/international/china- disney.html)</comment>


Hacktoberfest: A month-long celebration of open source software - <AUTHOR> https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com <comment><USER2> I really like Hacktoberfest, I think it's a great way to get people involved in open source.

The T-shirt design is always good.

I'm sending out an email to my coworkers who usually wouldn't participate in open source and offering them help on how they could make their 4 pull- requests for the month.

Bonus: even if you don't get the T-shirt, they often still send you stickers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Forcing this to be an GitHub-exclusive event is a massive shame. I wonder why they have such restriction instead of promoting to contribute to any FOSS, anywhere.

<comment><USER4> For one, GitHub and DigitalOcean both had Series A investments led by the same partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/digitalocean/investo...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/digitalocean/investors)

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github/investors](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/github/investors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hacktoberfest is great! It's a perfect excuse to dig through a lot of random repos and find something interesting and unrelated to anything I typically do to make a few PRs to.</comment>


The Workman keyboard layout (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/ <comment><USER2> I love to see attempts at new keyboard layouts because they are at the same time wonderfully optimistic and utterly hopeless. Good post for a Friday.

<comment><USER3> Have you ever tried an alternative layout, like Dvorak?

I wrote about Dvorak a while ago on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705543)

Calling it hopeless, well, our opinions differ, that's for sure!

<comment><USER4> I used the Colemak layout for a little over a year and eventually switched back to QWERTY. I had the same problem that many other people had with alternate keyboards - it's great if only you use only your own computer(s). Whenever you have someone else use your keyboard or you use theirs, you have to remember to switch physically (for them) or mentally (for you). You can argue for maintaining both layout proficiency, but what's the point of an alternate layout if you have to continue to practice the old one. I also never really had a health problem typing in QWERTY and Colemak didn't solve that (non-existing) problem.

Also, so many things are built with QWERTY in mind. Games default to WASD and some don't even have the option to switch. Shortcuts are created with QWERTY and are sometimes awkward to change (vim) to match the design goals of the shortcuts.

All in all, it was a fun experiment. But seeing as I don't have any RSI/other hand reasons to switch, it's not worth the extra effort to use.

<comment><USER5> > so many things are built with QWERTY in mind

I found this to be the biggest issue with using Colemak or any other alternative layout. I use my own computers exclusively so I had complete control over using my layout, but it just got so tedious having to rebind everything all the time and I would often run into games and programs where you _couldn 't_ rebind keys at all. Trying to rebind keys to work in a sane way in Emacs was an uphill battle that never ended.

<comment><USER6> Why not just buy a keyboard with a layout switch button. No program will force you to use qwerty if your keyboard manages layouts. But seems like no such a keyboard is out there. Couldnt find it on Google or Amazon.

<comment><USER7> The TypeMatrix has such a button (Dvorak Key). It remaps the keys at the hardware level. It's accessed with Fn+F1 and has a LED indicator on the left side.

[http://typematrix.com/2030/features.php](http://typematrix.com/2030/features.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish one of the tests was the doom codebase.

</comment><comment><USER9> Every time I see one of these alternative keyboard layouts it almost scares me into switching—look at the QWERTY stats for all books, they're horrendous. I always decide against it because it seems like one of those things that's hard to unlearn. This one does seem to be an improvement, but I don't think I could ever switch. The most I've really switched around my keyboard layout is movekey[0]; it's much more useful than switching layouts (in my opinion, anyway) because the arrow keys are what slow me down the most.

[0]: [https://github.com/0942v8653/movekey](https://github.com/0942v8653/movekey)

<comment><USER3> You don't forget the old layout when you learn a new one. This has been widely misunderstood.

In fact, it's more like learning yourself to write with your other hand. Say, you try this with your left hand -- you don't forget how to write with your right hand -- you can do both, but after a while you'll realise you got better with your left hand than your right!

<comment><USER10> I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak over ten years ago, and I am crippled going back to QWERTY. I apologise routinely to students and colleagues whilst using their keyboards, explaining that I'm no longer used to the QWERTY layout.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I didn't say you should stop typing in QWERTY! Wink. My point is that people who want to learn it won't replace their QWERTY skills -- They'll just learn another one. A brand new superpower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why make caps lock into backspace? Control has always felt a much more natural option to me.

Usually, when I am pressing backspace, I am taking a mental break anyways (even if only a tiny one), so I am ok with having a bit of travel to press it.

<comment><USER3> First thing I do on a linux machine:

setxkbmap -layout us -variant dvorak -option ctrl:swapcaps,compose:rctrl

(You can leave -variant dvorak out; the -option stuff will still work.)

The compose key, used to compose all kinds of characters from æ to ż, is one of those smart and fantastic options, and it works really intuitive. Just hit that key, then guess two characters (like a and e, or z and .) and voila.

It's also pretty neat that it supports stuff like ™ and ©.

Yeah, the other setting switches ctrl and capslock. My left pinky just really doesn't like the original place of ctrl, and caps is something I use only rarely.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. I set caps to ctrl. I don't even bother swapping them. I've simply eliminated caps all together. I so rarely type in all caps that I simply suck it up and hold shift when I need to.

The only time it really comes up is if I'm typing out constants in code. Yet, I have to type each only once and then autocomplete deals with it from there on out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a colemak user. Out of all the changes that colemak provides, the best is the optional replacement of capslock with backspace.

I do like that all of your fingers are used on the home row, but ultimately all the other changes are much less important than the backspace thing.

If you're on the fence about changing your keyboard layout, just make that one change.

Capslock takes up very valuable keyboard real estate but is essentially unused. I move my hands much less because of that change. It also seems more logical.

If you're a vim user that uses it as an escape key, well... at least you already kinda understand the uselessness of capslock.

<comment><USER13> I use capslock as my Compose key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is from 2010. Xah Lee has a comparison of different layouts:

[http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_and_all_keyboard_layouts.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_and_all_keyboard_layouts.html)

I keep a bunch of .org file notes for keyboards, etc. I don' t have much on alternate keyboards: [http://thespanishsite.com/org/ergo/keyboards.html](http://thespanishsite.com/org/ergo/keyboards.html)

So, I'd love to hear other people's experiences.

<comment><USER9> I just got a mechanical keyboard (Cherry MX Blues) and I have to say, the actuation force is much, much lighter, and it definitely is taking some getting used to. Right now I'm trying not to bottom out as I type and it's actually really hard. Just as a warning before anyone goes out and buys a mechanical keyboard. It can get expensive too—I bought mine from Max Keyboards on their Black Friday sale.

<comment><USER3> Ha - Coolermaster brought out a CM Storm with Cherry MX Green keys. They're like blue, but the springs are thicker, requiring more force. I found it on Amazon.

I'm crazy about that keyboard, love it very much. Usually I switch between that one, and my TypeMatrix 2030 USB. Cause they're both so nice. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use colemak and I love it but I do agree with him about the he bigram in colemak. At this point though, I don't think his improvements would make it worthwhile for me to learn Workman.

Switching to Colemak was very good for me but it also was a big time investment since the loss of productivity when learning a new keyboard layout is not negligible. I had wrist problems which stopped after switching to Colemak so I really had an extra incentive to slog through the tranaition.

</comment><comment><USER16> I did a lot of work once to learn Colemak and I got pretty good. It is not a bad way to type at all, but it fails pretty hard once you switch betweeen machines.

A better optimization is getting a great ergonomic keyboard, like the the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop keyboard. It's really fantastic and can be had for like $70 if you shop around.

<comment><USER17> I bought one of those. I quite like the feel (except for the F keys, and Esc, which are a bit nasty - still, unlike some keyboards, at least it has them) but for my money the layout wasn't quite right. As always with chiclet keyboards, there's a gap between keys. But the keys are about the same size as an ordinary keyboard - e.g., my MS Natural 4000 - and so the distance to the Return key is much greater than normal.

For US users, with the fat 1-row Return key, this probably isn't too much of a bother, but I found it rather uncomfortable with the European-style inverted-L Return key. The Left Shift key is also a bit on the small side. I'd definitely advise a test drive before purchase.

(Shame, because the chiclet keys are pretty nice, it feels nice and solid, and it's nice to have a removable number pad.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "[Dvorak] was created in the 1930's and promised to be vastly superior to QWERTY. I went ahead and tried it out and soon enough after doing "ls -latr" on the terminal, I had to shake my head and sadly walk away from it."

Because, obviously, Dvorak was optimized in 1930 for typing things like ls -ltar on a typewriter.

<comment><USER3> Heh, yeah, that's a silly argument. But in that case I'm very glad for him that linux doesn't have a command called "hypolimnion"! Just type it in to see what I mean.

(Heh. I just realised that I never even bothered to change the 'hjkl' keys, in vim, as navigation keys, on the dvorak layout. It took about no time at all to get it into my system. I just stopped thinking about it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Norman layout ([https://normanlayout.info](https://normanlayout.info) ) is similar to Workman.

In my experience Norman is a bit faster and easier because Norman preserves C/Copy and V/Paste shortcut keys in the same positions.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does something like this have even a slightest chance to kick in (mainstream)?

Computers are now used everywhere: defense, business, entertainment, you name it. I don't think anyone's gonna bother changing the layout everywhere.

<comment><USER21> If you need to do a lot of typing you can ask your employer for a better keyboard, or buy one yourself. High-end mechanical keyboards allow you to reprogram their firmware and rearrange their keys, so you'll get a new layout without any involvement of the OS and, if you buy the keyboard for yourself, you'll be able to carry it with you whenever you move.

<comment><USER22> This is the greatest disappointment of the new crop of Cherry-based keyboards: you can't physically rearrange the keycaps because they're shaped differently for the different rows.

The good, old IBM Model M keyboards made switching the keycaps to your preferred layout trivial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why would you just barely move the "D"?

If you want to encourage adoption, why would you move a commonly used letter less than an inch from it's original position?

</comment><comment><USER24> I like how the units are presented in meters and centimeters not percentage improvement. 65,000cm sounds like a HUGE deal, but it was only ~2.29% improvement.

</comment><comment><USER25> Any one has any experience using an alternative keyboard layout in a qwerty world? How does it fit?

<comment><USER26> I've typed in dvorak day to day since about 2004. I type in querty on my phone without any issues—the devices are different enough that my nervous system doesn't get confused.

On library computers and such I'm reduced to hunt and peck. It's really hard to switch between dvorak and querty and type both well. I like dvorak enough that it's worth not being able to type full speed on random computers.

<comment><USER27> This is true for me as well.

On my phone everything goes well, but on other computers or on my iPad's Zagg keyboard... It's a mess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I guess symbols should not need shift in any case for a programmer. Like {} [] <> #%^ etc

</comment><comment><USER29> Not a vim user I see.

<comment><USER30> I use vim with alternate layouts. The only keys that don't make sense are hjkl, but I never really learned those ones anyway -- to get around the file, I use search, 'w' and 'b', 'A' and 'I' mostly, and only occasionally do I use the arrow keys.

<comment><USER31> I actually like hjkl in Dvorak: my left pointer and middle finger handle up/down, and my right pointer and ring finger handle left/right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A possible solution to what is not even a first world problem.

<comment><USER33> The numerous people with all sorts of typing-related issues may disagree...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hiring interns. Tips, recos? - <AUTHOR>

For the first time ever, I'm looking to hire summer interns for my startup. What tips, practices, suggestions would you recommend from the perspective of interviewing interns? <comment><USER2> From the perspective of interviewing, it isn't very different than interviewing regular employees. Our hiring process is pretty similar for interns as it is for full-time hires. If you have any other specific questions I'd be happy to chat. You can email me at megan (at) e la carte (dot) com</comment>


Feature or Company? - <AUTHOR> http://yongfook.com/feature-or-company

<comment><USER2> There's two standard responses to this point.

One, that the risk of that happening should have been obvious at the start, so it's silly to feel burned.

Two, if you do build some add-on feature to someone else's platform then the challenge is to do it so well that the company behind that platform offers to buy you. Tweetie was so good it could not be ignored, Twitter loved it, they wanted an app, buying it would save them the effort of writing their own, plus talent is scarce. Thus, they get bought.

<comment><USER3> Also, the threat of being competed against may never materialize. Facebook can build so many apps, but they won't build them all.

This, I think, leads to the real litmus test for me: how sure are you that the company is 100% committed to being an open(ish) platform rather than building out its product? The parallels with Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook are quite interesting to explore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This happens with World of Warcraft, too. Someone makes an AddOn which enhances WoW with a great feature. Then after some time, Blizzard incorporates the feature in the base game, and the AddOn is obsoleted. I've seen this happen numerous times over the years.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly the same thing. I'm not aware of the details regarding AddOns in WoW but I don't think you can monetize from them.

<comment><USER6> There used to be sold addons at one point (it's possible but piracy is extremely easy), but Blizzard made paid addons a TOS violation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whilst you might not create a stable business out of a Twitter feature, if you can implement a feature that lots of people want for a time when no one else provides it you could make a lot of dosh in the short term.

<comment><USER8> as you said, that's pretty much a _recipe_ for an unstable business.

3rd party platform + a feature that everyone wants + makes money... it would make zero sense for the 3rd party to sit on their hands. you're either going to be acquired (lottery) or, more likely, they will implement the feature on their own and you'll be both out of a revenue stream and have a piece of obsolete software on your hands.

good for hackers with ADD and I see nothing wrong with building this kind of thing for teh lulz etc, or to promote your _real_ app.

very strange when you see VC-funded "features" though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even Foursquare/Gowalla look like features which can be out of business by either Facebook/Twitter

<comment><USER8> My mind boggles at Quora too. I just don't get how they can even think of launching while Facebook are about to roll out their own Q&A feature.

The StackOverflow folks have the right idea - I think the market can support a bunch of niche Q&A sites with tight communities.

For monolithic Q&A sites on every topic under the sun, you need massive traction otherwise you have the usual chicken/egg UGC problems that we've seen a million times before. Facebook already has massive traction, Quora doesn't. Game over.

<comment><USER9> Q&A sites don't need a lot of users to be effective. Any group of 500 people can probably answer a question that you have, unless it's very arcane. User engagement is much more important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This advice makes sense to me, and I would personally never want to open something that's a feature for someone else. However, there are startups in this space that get angel/vc funded all the time (Rapportive).

I guess I see the following scenarios could make this work:

1\. Build a 'feature' that is complex enough that the other company will see value in just acquiring you rather than eliminating you.

2\. Work for early mega-adoption so that you can pivot to larger scope/better product based on feedback

<comment><USER11> I absolutely agree with (1). In fact - now that I think of it - it's probably why products like SuperDuper still sell well after Apple introduced Time Machine.

And that perhaps suggests a corollary: 3. Build something that the other company will never build (even if they could).

E.g: Apple will never make blogging software/a powerful, dedicated feed reader. It's not in their DNA to do such things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how things would have gone if these companies had patented the features they built and then sued Twitter to prevent Twitter from implementing them. You could argue (or, I could at least) that this is what patents were made for.

<comment><USER13> Patents might have been built to protect unique and game-changing innovations simply being copied by a major plyer in the market, but they certainly weren't designed to stop people from building obvious enhancements to their product because someone else did it first.

The patent review process wouldn't work quickly enough to save them anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Welcome to platform business. Anytime you build on someone's platform, using someone's API, you're at risk.

Microsoft did that well against a little known company called Netscape.

<comment><USER2> Well, they bought Spyglass's browser, and pulled the rug out from under Netscape. The lesson is don't be the next Netscape. Be the next Spyglass.

<comment><USER15> Betting your business on hoping to be the next Tweetie or Spyglass is pure lottery though. Not worth it.

<comment><USER13> The trick is to build something which earns income in the short term (which might be the shelf life of the service)so any buyout comes as a nice little bonus rather than something you desperately need to compensate you for the time and money invested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the first step is not to name your 'company' Tweet something.

Secondly, Ask yourself who controls the future? All these Tweet Co's that are running for the skies could have created something that integrated with multiple platforms and could create value independently even if not on a large scale (ala Zynga).

What amazes me is that most of these feature businesses do not have even the email addresses \ of 'their users'. In my book, no email, no acquisition.</comment>


PragDave: Followup on the EMail Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2011/11/followup-on-the-email-experiment.html

<comment><USER2> That's a great idea. Back in the 90's, hoping to cut down on my contact with work during vacation, I told people I would be "rafting in Utah." I had no idea that Utah was such a popular rafting destination--living as I did in Atlanta, it sounded just remote enough to make people think I was out of reach, even though I was in fact at home the whole time. It worked to eliminate attempts to contact me, but for the 20 years since then I have had to maintain the fiction that a) I am a white-water rafting enthusiast (I am not); and b) that I went to Utah in 1991 (I DID go there in 2003 on business, but no rafts were involved). In retrospect, just letting the phone ring or routing my email to the bit-bucket would have been a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I'm a bit freaked out about the negative reaction some people have to this. Everyone should be allowed some time off and that includes email. If you aren't ignoring work, then it isn't a real vacation.

That said, I would encourage a slightly different tone with an autoresponse email. Saying you will not even attempt to read the email is over the line in my book. Yes, skimming 5,000 emails will take time, but it isn't _that_ difficult. Say something like:

* I'm going on vacation and will not see this email until I return on <date>

* I will make an effort to respond, but due to the volume of email I receive, it may take some time.

* Please resend your email with '[urgent]' after <date> if you would like me to respond faster.

What's so bad about that?

<comment><USER4> What you're describing is fine. It doesn't require me to write emails twice (one that goes to /dev/null and gets instructions, then the re-email with the special don't-delete-me-bro code that makes it go through).

Just keep my first email and have your auto responder let me know that you're not reading email until <date>.

<comment><USER5> Would you actually write the email twice? Your sent folder should let you trivially re-send it with the "urgent" flag if you care.

"Keep the email" is fine if almost all of them will need attention in two weeks. What percentage of email he receives will be important enough in two weeks to demand part of his attention during those overloaded first day(s) back?

I think the affirmative filter is a great idea - "I won't be able to help with this for two weeks, and then I'm going to be really busy for a few days. Please confirm that this is something that will need my time in two weeks."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate to be cynical but it seems like doing this is just saying, "I am more important than the people who send me email, so I will place the burden of tracking my schedule on them." The other interpretation of this is that his email inbox is generally full of useless dreck that does not matter all that much to either him or the sender. Perhaps the success of this experiment says more about the kind of email he receives than it does about the general applicability of the experiment itself.

<comment><USER7> In my experience, having an e-mail hit your inbox doesn't necessarily mean that you're the most important recipient.

At work I may be on the CC list for a number of ongoing e-mail threads - usually they don't require any input from me, but I might have to read through them to determine whether this is the case.

These types of e-mails will fill up your inbox, but don't quite sink to the level of "useless dreck," but sometimes you can legitimately say that your time is currently too important to spend sifting through lots of e-mail.

<comment><USER6> I think you kind of missed my point, for example if you are on the cc list for a series of emails that you are not directly involved in this strategy assumes that instead of you taking responsibility for catching up on this interaction when you return one or more people that are a part of this interaction need to take on that responsibility for you. This is effectively making them serve you in order to have your attention _after_ you return from vacation.

That strikes me as casting yourself as more important than everyone else (not with respect to the interaction but as a person and/or employee).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of those things that's a novel idea when one person does it (particularly when that person still has a support staff available to field emails), but would be incredibly obnoxious if it were a common practice.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. It would be much nicer if everyone understood that, while on vacation, you should only send the most important messages so the messages don't pile up and actually have a chance to get the attention they deserve.

Saying "I'm on vacation, try to deal with things on your own as much as possible and only send me the most important stuff." isn't obnoxious at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for the follow up.

Still, I wouldn't place such a rude "I don't care, it's deleted, mail me again when I'm back" autoresponder.

</comment><comment><USER10> If I took this approach with my clients, they'd award me with a zero inbox count for perpeturity.

<comment><USER11> Whether that's by design or something you wrongly believe to be true, congratulations, you have allowed your e-mail to enslave you.

<comment><USER10> I think you're missing a key distinction. My clients, wouldn't begrudge me a vacation. They would however, be quite offended if my autos-responder told them their message has been deleted. Quite frankly, it comes off as rude. You wouldn't forgive 'BigCorp' for replying to you this way, why should a small business be any different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > And those rapid responses would in turn trigger another round of email, and > another.

This reminds me of an effect of specials at a supermarket: it's not just that people will buy more, to stock up; nor that it becomes affordable to more people (price elasticity); nor that new people will try it - but that if you _have_ more, you will _use_ more. Like more roads create more traffic.

This is partly personal price elasticity, in that when something is cheaper, you can start using it in more ways - as a substitute for more expensive (or, if you have previously found substitutes _for it_ , because it was too expensive; now you can stop substituting). But this is a change in behaviour which persists into the future (familiarity/habit), bumping up your consumption a notch.

A quick email response is like a special at a supermarket. It's so cheap, you use more. Not responding is like a price increase - sales drop off.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting to see such a radical approach; it is surprising how much you can improve the S/N by simply taking a more aggressive stand on triage and accessibility.

By focusing my online presence on one IM and one email address (dropping in the process legacy emails and inadequate IMs; MSN, Yahoo, Skype...) and enforcing some sane triage on my clients/partners to ensure that they properly address requests (personal v. professional, urgent v. low priority), my daily volume of discussions has dropped significantly.

</comment><comment><USER14> So I'm going to try this next summer. I've always wanted to, but never heard of anyone who actually went through with it.

I've also heard of someone setting up a script that automatically sent out a "I have not read you email since it arrived 2 weeks ago...if you need an answer reply to this email and I'll get back to you".

And it's not like people who actually have something important to tell me can't give me a phone call.

<comment><USER15> > And it's not like people who actually have something important to tell me > can't give me a phone call.

That's what I'd be worried about in doing something like that, actually. I don't really like phone calls, and I'd prefer even people who have my phone number to email me if the matter doesn't absolutely require a phone call. So I wouldn't want my email habits to push more people to call me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One problem may be that if someone sends you an e-mail and gets the responder, they may decide "Oh well I don't want them to worry about it then", except the e-mail was already sent.

Maybe auto responders should ask the senders to re-send the e-mail if they still need to send it?

</comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't it be more sensible to make a white list of people whose email you will read - relatives, important work people, etc.? That would minimize how much you piss off people you care about and probably still reduce your email volume by 90%.

<comment><USER11> That group of people is also likely to be the most sympathetic to you actually relaxing properly on your vacation.

<comment><USER17> But they're not likely to stay that way if you take advantage of their goodwill by permanently ignoring their correspondence instead of deferring it until you return.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The beautiful thing about email is that the 'features' have stayed the same - today's email can do essentially the same stuff that email ten years ago could - and yet it has evolved as a method of communication beyond its original uses.

The unfortunate thing about email is exactly that - it has evolved beyond its original uses. Not too long ago, paper communication was a must for any important document. Now, most banks encourage customers to use online banking for their statements - which, like many important online activity, is authenticated by email.

I don't think there's a person around who doesn't receive more emails today than they did a decade ago - many even by an order of magnitude. As OP shows, there are ways to adapt email organically, without changing the underlying protocol or standard. These sorts of adaptations are only going to be come more necessary as time passes and the volume (and type!) of email that people receive grows.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like another person in need of smarter inbox management. Coming back to 5,000 emails? Maybe he needs to unsubscribe from some mailing lists, and set up filters for project-related group discussions.</comment>


Pls Review my web app - <AUTHOR>

I'd appreciate it if you guys can take a look at my website www.turenchi.com and tell me what you think. The website is a local (Nigerian) news aggregator, and most of the work is done in the background. I'd like to hear opinions on the layout, design, idea or anything at all.
I'm not sensitive , so fell free to be brutal with your criticism <comment><USER2> Put the info in that side box into the top segment on the right (it looks a bit odd pushed where it is) and I think your made.

I usually dislike "bare metal" designs but that looks neat, efficient and does the job.

No option to add comments yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. Users can add comments in facebook app. I'll get around to dealing with user reg later on, but for now I wanted to deal with the core functionality of the app</comment></comment>


SAAS or Self Hosted? - <AUTHOR>

We are building life cycle email & customer success software for SaaS & e-commerce startup, we are confused about pricing  model either sell as one time fees self hosted solutions or sell  as monthly recurring billing as SaaS, would love to get your thoughts on this. <comment><USER2> a) I wouldn't confuse your pricing model with the delivery model here. You can certainly charge monthly for downloadable self-hosted software or charge once for SaaS hosted in the cloud.

b) If you're in email, and you're not working with clients at the very, very top of the sophistication chain, you should not expect them to host their own email servers because their deliverability will be terrible. I suppose you could theoretically let them use your product with a bring-your-own-MSA, but that should probably be in-scope for your product. (You'd also be crazy to do this yourself, but you can use an MSA on the backend, like substantially every company providing UI and logic on top of email does.)

c) The operational difficulties of doing release cycles and maintenance for client-hosted software, particularly hosted software which has to play well with client-provided infrastructure, strongly, strongly, strongly suggest you host things yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your details response,

1\. Yes for email delivery they can always bring their own smtp like sendgrid or mandril, in that case may be they may not have to think about delivery? 2\. Don't you think customers can save money on self hosted if we sell for onetime payment (let say price at 6 or 8 months subscription cost) like whmcs. 3\. What do you think about customer acquisition cost for both options will it be equal or any one will have any advantage over other?

<comment><USER3> Just a note on 2.: If your onetime price is equal to just 6 month subscription time, you're going to lose money. Either you're lowballing your onetime payment, or making a subscription too costly. Consider a case where you offer both at the same time: Unless the costs associated with self-hosting are incredibly high, very few people would choose the SaaS option if they can save 6 months of budget on the first year. In this case, I would increase your price to at least a year of SaaS subscription.

As to your original question: Unless your software is special in some way that you don't want anyone to find out about, you can offer both SaaS and self- hosting at the same time. My advice would be to do that, but use a yearly- license model for the self-hosting. Calculate the costs a self-hosted version would cost in total to a client (license, hardware, maintenance etc.), and make the SaaS version slightly cheaper than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Quite simply, The saas model is a much easier support model and for that reason and that reason alone I'd vote for it. All code lives on machines and infrastructure you control and there's tremendous power that comes from that particularly in the early days.

The recurring subscription model fits nicely with saas software also and your growth over time starts to compound.

</comment><comment><USER5> Having worked on a self-hosted product recently:

DON'T.

SAAS is a great deal easier - it's easier on you support-wise and it's also much easier to sell to most clients. I'd expect your cost of customer acquisition to be lower by far with the SAAS version.

Patio11's point about deliverability is also very important given your sector.

</comment><comment><USER6> With SaaS you will be able to reproduce your customer issues much more easily. Also, by reducing purchasing options you avoid the effect of paralysis by options.</comment>


Ask HN: $50 challenge - <AUTHOR> I set myself a challenge this year. It's to make $50 out of nothing, that is not working for it in a traditional way. I am an experienced developer (15+ years, backend, C/C++, Java, Python) so sure I could just work/contract and make that amount easily but I would somehow like to create value on my own.
Do you guys have any suggestions on where to start? Project ideas, resources, advise? <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip)

you could do something like that. although you might need to beg for the paper clip.

</comment><comment><USER3> if you trade time for money, then is not out of nothing, or is it?

<comment><USER4> If you look at it like that I'd say there was basically no way to complete the challenge. Even finding $50 walking down the street wouldn't count because of the time you took to walk.</comment></comment>


Can I buy a GPU yet? - <AUTHOR> http://canibuyagpuyet.xyz/ <comment><USER2> If you can't beat them, join them. The current rates are like $4-5 per day for a gtx 1080/1080ti on nicehash. Super simple installation and you can set it to run whenever idle. [https://www.nicehash.com/profitability- calculator](https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator)

Just think of it like a really slow but never ending rebate. And if enough people do it, we'll even have a chance of lowering the overall profitability.

<comment><USER3> I live in an apartment where electricity is free (bill is included), so I'm curious if mining with a single GPU is worth it. I have Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and nicehash is saying I can make £52 a month with it. If that means running the GPU at full power 247 it would probably give up the ghost sooner than it pays for itself, not to mention it would be loud as fuck with fans at 100%.

<comment><USER4> Install an overclocking app like MSI Afterburner. Set a power limit of around 80%.

The 1060 6GB won't be worth $500 forever - in about a year, I'm guessing Nvidia and AMD will have stepped up their production and the price will have halved or less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just bought a GPU at a ridiculous markup. Sold my old one on eBay to make some of it back, but still had to spend way more money than I should have. Fuck cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER6> Cryptocurrencies: designed to be deflationary, but in reality lead to stagflation in GPU capabilities, crowding out useful applications of GPUs for high performance computing, deep learning, virtual reality, etc. Yay.

Long-term might not be so bad, though, as it padded Nvidia and AMD's bottom line and thus might indirectly help them make better GPUs in the future.

<comment><USER7> There are some pretty horrible abuses of economic terms in crypto, but to talk about "stagflation" in a single tiny product class might be the worst I've seen this year.

<comment><USER6> Abuse of term as it's only applying to a small product class? Certainly. :) But I wasn't unclear, was I? Shorthand for prices going up without significant growth/improvement.

We're used to the opposite in computer technology. It really is odd that price/performance has stagnated or even worsened for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was so frustrated when I came out of PC literacy retirement to upgrade and found that $300 doesn't get me much further than my old HD 7870 After this many years I was expecting 2-3x performance boost.

<comment><USER9> Yes that should get you a gtx 1060 6gb, or 3gb if you really want the highest ROI.

<comment><USER10> I don't think you understand that guy's issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Clever, however their link to this chart I think ends as a net positive outcome for me:

[https://au.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video- card/](https://au.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Way to get your Bitcoin donation address on HN!

<comment><USER13> Eh, with transaction fees as high as they are I doubt they'll get a single donation.

<comment><USER14> TX fees are insanely low right now, the average transaction should cost about $0.80 USD worth of bitcoin (and closer to $0.40 USD worth if you use a segwit address).

<comment><USER12> It's all relative. "Insanely low" compared to a month ago, sure. They're still _insanely high_ when compared to any other crytpcurrency, or Bitcoin itself before it was allowed to hit the block size cap.

<comment><USER14> Even litecoin (average of $0.30) and ethereum (average of around $0.10) have TX fees that aren't "insanely low" compared to bitcoin right now. And "bitcoin before it was "allowed" to hit the cap", of course tx fees would be low... Bitcoin was never designed to scale like that, fees are a core part, and "bidding" to get in a block was always a core part of bitcoin, it wasn't until the last year or so that it started showing due to usage.

The fact is that there aren't any cryptocurrencies that are well tested and widely distributed that can handle any significant usage cheaply and quickly. There are some very promising options, but none that are fully ready for primetime in my opinion.

Still, I wasn't trying to start up the argument about transaction fees again, just pointing out that they are at a 12 month low right now in bitcoin. And the comment that was implying transaction fees are really high right now is outright false.

<comment><USER12> > "[fees] are at a 12 month low right now in bitcoin"

Sorry, that is bullshit. See [https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- transactionfees...](https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin- transactionfees.html#1y)

<comment><USER14> That graph is average paid in USD per transaction. A transaction from an exchange with 300 inputs and 500 outputs is going to be paying a magnitude or 2 more than a simple 1 input 2 output transaction. But in your graph they are all lumped and averaged together.

It's like me saying "The cost of electricity is lower than ever" then you show a graph showing the average electricity bill is $800, but don't include the information that it includes the aluminum forge down the street...

The correct graph to look for is "satoshi per byte that will get you into the next transaction". And while i'm sure you can find dates and times in the past year where it's been technically cheaper, the reality is that right now it's about as cheap as you can get to transact in bitcoin (5 sat/byte fees are going in the next block currently, it generally doesn't go much lower because many miners won't include fees below that). That hasn't reliably happened since early 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am not sure but it looks to me, like someone wants us to donate bitcoin to his address so he can buy a GPU. But so far nobody seems to have donated:

[https://blockexplorer.com/address/1HKsanBZFom6WL4cGDtKPF9NTo...](https://blockexplorer.com/address/1HKsanBZFom6WL4cGDtKPF9NToVy8LtoSE)

</comment><comment><USER16> The price of a new GTX 1080 Ti on Newegg is $700 above Nvidia's list price. I didn't realize things were so bad.

<comment><USER17> Miners are buying directly from the factory floor (for both GPUs and PSUs) or from a retailer the minute a shipment comes in. Fry's told me they have a list of people they call the minute a shipment comes in due to the demand.

I'm guessing the price on Newegg is past what a miner would pay for a card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does it decide on a Yes or No?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hardcoded - I decided I couldn't see prices coming down any time soon.

If you've got a price API I can hit from JS, then I'll add something that checks if a 1080ti is above $1000.

I really didn't expect this to get votes - I threw it together in 5 minutes!

<comment><USER19> I liked it, jokes are thin around here and this one hit the current trend! You should add in some value by pulling prices from somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can point me to an API with CORS enabled I can probably do it in the morning.

<comment><USER20> For $5 a month I'll manually check Newegg every day (or so) and update an API for you.

<comment><USER21> There's an opportunity in there for an AI approach to outsource requests like these to Fiverr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know a website showing good graphs about hardware price development? For example, I'd like to see how the price of a GTX 970 developed over the past year or so.

<comment><USER23> Camel Camel Camel[0] has good price history, but it's for Amazon products only. It's on a per product basis, so all of the individual variants will have their own graph.

[0]: [https://camelcamelcamel.com/search?sq=gtx+970](https://camelcamelcamel.com/search?sq=gtx+970)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand why the site isn't using React?

</comment><comment><USER25> Need something similar for DRAM prices!

</comment><comment><USER26> Thank god I bought a 1080ti when I did.</comment>


How to pip install NumPy in two seconds flat - <AUTHOR> http://timstaley.co.uk/posts/how-to-pip-install-numpy-in-two-seconds-flat/ <comment><USER2> The "challenge" with installing scientific python library, especially numpy, is to make sure that it is built against the fast BLAS libraries (OpenBLAS, MKL or at least ATLAS). The default netlib BLAS library is too slow for any serious work.

But I have to admit I don't know the situation with the binary wheel packages.</comment>


Eight Principles of Uncivilisation (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/ <comment><USER2> seems pretty vague

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps. I posted it because I came across their blog today after reading a George Monbiot editorial, and then started reading their Manifesto. This seemed more accessible as a chunk than either of those two.

Perhaps I should have submitted their most recent blog post instead: [http://www.dark-mountain.net/wordpress/2010/05/19/the- need-f...](http://www.dark-mountain.net/wordpress/2010/05/19/the-need-for- growth/)

Certainly less vague. I don't necessarily agree with their conclusions (and neither does Monbiot), but it seemed like a well reasoned discussion.

<comment><USER2> I have to disagree with a lot of statements in this second article. For instance:

"Amongst other things, growth is needed in a capitalist economy to offset labour productivity – in other words, to provide new jobs for people made jobless by the economy's relentless drive towards increasing labour efficiency, which itself is stimulated by the need to grow in order to outcompete others."

Productivity doesn't create joblessness. When people are able to spend less on one thing, they can spend more on other things, things that people must work to provide.

Efficiency doesn't create joblessness. It creates wealth. And the more efficient things are, the less carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

And less time it takes to produce the things we need to live, the more time we spend considering the effects of our activities.</comment></comment></comment>


If We Believe in Dark Matter, Why Not Extraterrestrial Life? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/79/catalysts/if-we-believe-in-dark-matter-why-not-extraterrestrial-life <comment><USER2> Perhaps dark matter _is_ extraterrestrial life.</comment>


Shell foresaw climate dangers in 1988 - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/05/documents-show-shell-foresaw-climate-change-three-decades-ago-and-knew-how-big-its-own-contribution-was/ <comment><USER2> I remember when I was an under-grad back in 1978 and a friend of mine who was sort of a tree-hugging, Birkenstock wearing hippie sort of guy (but always had nice weed) told me about this idea of global warming and I thought at the time he was, well, high, but so was I, to be honest. But it was a long time ago. I wish I could find him and say, dude... you were waaaaaay ahead of your time.</comment>


Apple to offer unlimited free iTunes music to iPod/iPhone owners - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=20765

<comment><USER2> Am I the only person who _likes_ ownership? I buy all my CDs and rip them to my computer. I installed Gentoo on my computers and I use programs that I have installed. I'm using GMail right now, but that's only because I haven't taken the time yet to research and set up my own (similar) local solution. Basically, I don't like to trust my goods and information to other people, and I find it strange that so many people willingly forfeit true ownership.

<comment><USER3> I'm with you, but I think the trend is in the other direction. As a lifelong book collector, my eyes were opened when I heard Cory Doctorow (an even more obsessive bibliophile) state that he was thinking of selling off most of his books -- the logic being that, in a world with digitized libraries, eBay, Amazon and ABE books, it's easier and cheaper for him to just obtain a used copy of anything he wants to reread and sell it on the used market after he's done.

I don't actually believe this enough, yet, to put it into practice, but it shocked me into thinking about it.

It is _grossly_ inefficient for me to have to keep a physical copy of _Star Wars_ around in my house just to prove that I bought the darned thing. It is grossly inefficient to have my own, personally recorded collection of every single Alton Brown _Good Eats_ episode. These things are not rare: They are treasured by zillions of fans. They are unlikely to become rare in my lifetime. I have, or will soon get, all the bandwidth I need to download them on demand. The only reason I have to cart them from one apartment to the next is that our stupid copyright laws make it easy for their creators to jerk me around -- raising prices, charging me over and over again, editing the films to make them different from what I remember, taking the films off the market for ten years, inserting artificial roadblocks that make no sense in the high- bandwidth era (like physical DVDs from Netflix instead of digital downloads from Youtube HD) -- unless I buy a physical copy and make it my own.

I don't think that's going to last. Time is not on the side of that model. It's not as efficient and the people who still believe in it get older by the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "to offer" != "is reportedly considering offering"

</comment><comment><USER5> Too good to be true?

Anyway, if this comes to pass I can imagine playlists being a hot commodity. Kind of little out-of-band time-shifted radio stations. Downloading will stop being "try before you buy" and will become, well, "just try this".

A plan like that would make me consider buying an iPod and putting up with the iTunes DRM.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't have any exact quotes but (correct me if I'm wrong) Steve Jobs has historically been against a service like this, and said his customers are quite happy buying music per-track.

Yet just as with the iPhone SDK, where he initially did not want third party developers writing applications on it, he listened to the demands of the market. Yeah, he's still being a little up tight about iPhone App registration...but I guess my point is the man makes an initial guess of what's best for the company, but then listens to the market in the end, as he should.

Exciting stuff though. I'm psyched.

<comment><USER7> "Steve Jobs [...] said his customers are quite happy buying music per-track. Yet just as with the iPhone SDK, where he initially did not want third party developers writing applications on it, he listened to the demands of the market."

Maybe he's just being deliberately misleading.

<comment><USER6> I guess then he'd need a motive to be misleading. Off the top of my head I could see him doing it to enforce his love for surprise in his demos...any other ideas?

I don't know how I'd feel if he was being deliberately misleading. He is still a CEO of a large publicly traded company...and should be somewhat upfront about what they're up to. I mean to hide is one thing, but to deliberately mislead?

<comment><USER8> His motivation is just being himself... you could correctly predict every single project Apple is secretly working on and he would adamantly deny every one, then confirm them all 2 days later at MacWorld. That's just how he is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is "free" as in "pay a fixed fee up front for a license that lasts until the hardware breaks".

Interesting dilemma. The labels will want to make it for some tracks only and make others be pay per track. Apple will probably want "all of the artist's tracks in iTunes". That could make an incentive for the labels to keep material out of iTunes.

<comment><USER6> Which is frankly fine with me. I mean, I use Rhapsody via a web browser on my mac to listen to music because I can just pay a fixed fee per month and listen to a lot of good music. Some tracks are not streamable, yes. In addition, Rhapsody for a while has promoted a service called "Rhapsody To Go" which lets you download music to a compatible MP3 player (no iPods) and listen to it on that as long as you maintain a subscription.

My point being this model is well hashed out. It is really only a matter of time until Apple jumps on this. In terms of the hardware pricing, they'll probably set up some kind of a subscription service pricing model (as that is the existing model) and then derive pricing on hardware based on that, if they go that route. But subscription based is the simplest to market and understand.</comment></comment>


JQuery Growth Related To WordPress - <AUTHOR> http://blog.builtwith.com/2011/10/31/jquery-version-and-usage-report/

<comment><AUTHOR> When I see this report about the popularity of jQuery, I have to think a bunch of it is related to growth of WordPress as well. Without WordPress jQuery wouldn't be used on nearly that many sites.</comment>