The Decline of Marriage - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@keiyakukekkon/the-decline-of-marriage-62faeb8e64b1 <comment><USER2> The article is a PR piece for " __Keiyaku Kekkon __" , a japanese marriage partner startup.

I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data.

Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model:

"Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriage." Users create their ideal marriage agreement and match up with a suitable partner.

Unlike typical dating sites that match people based on personality, Keiyaku Kekkon matches people based on their marriage contracts. Users can spell out exactly what they want out of marriage and exactly what they have to offer."

[1] [http://keiyakukekkon.com](http://keiyakukekkon.com)

<comment><USER3> >The most important fact motivating this essay is simply that the vast majority of adults want to get married and have children. This suggests that the reduction in marriage rates reflects not a conscious choice but rather people running into various obstacles preventing them from finding a partner.

Thanks to the parent comment we know that this is self-serving to a certain extent since they they're selling a solution to the problem.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting point to make. It's one thing if people don't want marriage and reject it as such, something else if they do want to get married and don't/can't make it happen. Do they truly want marriage in the sense of what it's traditionally meant - exclusive and permanent, but externalities mentioned in the article hinder it from happening?

Or do people just want a big party when they're young and a friend when they're old, and attach "marriage" to the sentiment?

<comment><USER4> There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends in later age in article. There is mention of career for women (that is not a party) and expectation of completely different lifestyle for married man and married women in the article. Men is supposed to work (in japan context means maybe Sunday afternoon off), so I don't think couple gets to know each other to be friends.

The only real externalities mentioned are that

1.) You cant keep up with Jones if Jones have two incomes and you have one (It kinda assumed that if we both have to work it counts as external obstacle to marriage. E.g. the assumption seems to be that people want 1960 middle or higher class marriage and don't bother when they cant get exactly that).

2.) No one arrange "suitable" marriage for you and there is no societal pressure to marry for you.

I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry. I would also say, that both points are you making marriage decisions based on social status it brings to you, in which case I am quite happy you are not my partner.

<comment><USER3> > There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends

That was my point - sometimes people have stances on issues without really knowing why they believe what they do. I was just postulating another option that the article didn't explore. In other words, could the more conservative folks here wave this article around and say "see, people have an innate desire for lifelong monogamy!", or is it possible that some of the cultural aspects of marriage could manifest in other ways that would then cause a person to say "nah, I don't need marriage now"?

> I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want > to marry.

Nah. I benefit from pressure to do lots of things that are good for me. Working out, accomplishing things at work, contributing to a retirement fund, getting to the doctor, etc. Yeah, peer pressure can take you to dumb places, but it's not inherently evil.

<comment><USER4> I am not saying that marriage is bad for you. But, if the lack of peer pressure is the reason why you don't marry, then I dont want to be unlucky lady who might end up thinking you actually wants to be with her. Or unlucky dude if genders are reversed.

There is nothing about monogamy in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish).

On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things _may_ work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.

I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.

All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.

edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).

<comment><USER6> Your last sentence brings up something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely that secular philosophy seems completely blind to children or to the needs of family and child rearing.

It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids.

Some secular communities actively seem to discourage children and belittle people who care about them. It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.

I usually get attacked in forums for bringing this whole topic up.

Needless to say if not believing in God means you don't want to reproduce, then the advent of birth control will guarantee a 100% religious future. Not only are ideas passed from parent to child through cultural mechanisms but if there is any biological basis for religiosity it is now being strongly selected for.

In an ultimate cosmic irony those who deny evolution on religious grounds seem to have higher fitness.

I have my own hypothesis about this. I think there may be a philosophical "uncanny valley" (fitness valley) between pre-rational superstitious thinking and true rational thought. IMHO this valley has not been crossed. A true fully formed rational worldview would manage to carry everything forward including fertility and spirituality. So far every attempt at conceiving such a thing has landed in New Age lala land but maybe we should not give up.

<comment><USER7> How many agnostic / atheist people do you know that have four or more kids?

Atheists don't genuinely seem to believe in natural selection, it's ironic.

<comment><USER8> What are you implying that a belief in natural selection requires?

<comment><USER7> An understanding that natural selection is a competitive process and at least some inclination to participate in that competition.

<comment><USER8> There's nothing ironic about people not embracing your misapprehension of the idea.

<comment><USER7> What is my misapprehension exactly?

<comment><USER8> That genuine belief in the concept necessitates any action.

<comment><USER7> Personally, I think genuine beliefs correlate pretty strongly with action. But I see your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society.

Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating.

As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the back of contraception packaging reproduce. It will be interesting to see how this works out long term.

<comment><USER10> There's a fundamental flaw hiding under arguments like yours: the "civilization" you're circumscribing is an imaginary and arbitrary boundary. An ahistorical retcon. It's as unsupported as discredited racial theories that all humans fit into three tidy buckets ("caucasoid", "mongoloid", "negroid").

For example, maybe you're talking about "Christendom". But then it's not actually in decline -- hispanics are part of Christendom, and Christianity is growing in Africa, so on net it's growing, not shrinking.

Maybe you mean the population within the actual geographic boundaries of Europe and the former British colonies (including America). But if that's your definition, then you would accept immigration as a solution, and you would admit that America is already doing fine.

Maybe you're talking about people who live in societies with constitutions that ultimately derive from the ideas of the enlightenment. But again, not shrinking.

Maybe you're talking about a specific local cultural tradition -- but then it's not really "the West" that's in decline. "Western civilization" necessarily spans a huge range of cultures, otherwise you can't successfully take credit for everything from Socrates to Charlemagne to Descarte to Luther to Newton to Einstein. Consider the magnitude of the cultural turnover across that span!

Is South America part of "Western civilization"? It's literally in the western hemisphere and colonized by Spain and Portugal. If you're really talking about having a connection to European cultural history, it clearly fits. But if we include it, then again the decline disappears. Guatemalan immigrations to the US can't be a non-western invasion.

What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".

Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine. That web is fundamentally global, as much as that annoys chauvinists. And globally, the world is getting richer and more equal at a rapid pace. Mortality is falling. The population is not in decline, although it has a good shot at plateauing in the coming decades, which will be a good thing.

<comment><USER11> >Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine.

Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades, and the serious prospects for massive social unrest going forward both in the States and in Europe, which often get discussed here, how in the world can you say that. "The World" (since you apparently are one of those who think the term "Western Civilization" is racist), in my judgement, is looking at the most global security risk since the lead up to WWI. There's well documented demographic shifts in Europe that could lead to a fundamental cultural re-imaging of the continent. We might be careening into another financial crisis.

No, it is not "clearly doing fine."

<comment><USER10> > Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades

In the last two decades, the share of humans living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 10%. And child deaths under age five were _cut in half_.

So where's your data?

I will add that I don't think "western civilization" is racist, even though the term gets coopted often by racists. I happen to be proud to be part of a scientific civilization and want to see it flourish. But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines.

<comment><USER7> >But I recognize that has nothing to do with which people are allowed to live and work on which side of imaginary lines.

I'm so tired of these sorts of facile statements. They're so smugly wrong- headed.

Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't. It has massive social and economic value.

Territory matters, access rights to said territory matters matters, to literally every living thing on Earth. Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources and territory on time-lapse.

What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?

The idea of boundaries isn't some new thing. It's essentially the reason we developed laws and civilization in the first place, to manage territory in a rational way. Territorial delineations aren't just "imaginary lines."

Are laws just imaginary words to you? Are title agencies imaginary businesses? Does money only have imaginary value? Why not give it all away then.

Your perspective seems absurdly detached to me.

<comment><USER10> I'm not objecting to the existence of geographic boundaries. I'm objecting to the idea that those geographic boundaries say anything meaningful about the _people_ born on either side of said boundaries.

> Is real estate comprised of nothing more than imaginary lines? No, it isn't.

I agree. But I think that a real estate sale is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults, and it's none of your business if I want to sell some of mine to someone who happened to be born slightly too may miles away to end up on the "right" side of some border.

Nativists like to pretend to be defenders of human liberty, when they're just nanny staters with different preferences.

> Even tree roots are constantly fighting and competing for finite resources > and territory on time-lapse.

Yes, but why does it matter if the other organism you're competing with was born in El Paso vs half a mile away in Juarez? The nativist position is that one is vigorous, dynamic market competition and the other is a foreign invasion. When really they are exactly the same.

Sure, all living things compete (in addition to cooperating -- all ecosystems and markets feature a network of both). But that does not explain the fetish for treating certain people as OK to compete and others as not.

> What do you think an invasive species is? Are those imaginary?

Obviously we are only discussing _human_ immigrants here, so unless you're making an underhanded comment about the inhumanity of foreigners, where are you going with this analogy?

Realize that's not just snark -- the whole argument rests on the idea that there's a bright line between two sets of people. That line is completely imaginary. I guarantee you couldn't find it in an experiment, if I got to pick 50 American citizens and 50 non-citizens and you had to tell who was who just by talking to them.

<comment><USER7> Do you genuinely believe that the mass importation of people with radically different beliefs and customs (such as an adherence to Sharia Law) would have no effect on the native population? That cultural change wouldn't affect scientific freedoms? That it wouldn't affect civil liberties? Technological advancement? Crime rates?

Does it seem impossible to you that cultural differences could spark a civil war? Do you disbelieve that native populations can be essentially wiped out by a competing or hostile culture within a few short generations, similar to the fate of the Native Americans?

Why should someone believe that all cultures are equal when some cultures and nation states are much, much more successful by almost any quantifiable metric?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Cool to see I got some comments! Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience.

It's like midnight here and I'm going to bed, but feel free to leave questions or contact me if you want to know more about anything. Peace!

<comment><USER12> Are you targeting the Japanese market, which I understand to have one of the lowest fertility rates? Or are you going after the EU and US markets also?

My sense is that the US market for this is not very mature at this point. There is only a little talk of fertility rates, and in fact there are news stories floating around [1] that tout the environmental benefits of having fewer/no children.

1: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want- to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight- climate-change-have-fewer-children)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it is mainly a Japanese product. I just do all of the copy in English first since that's my first language. Really the service can be used by anyone seeking a marriage partner. From my research I think Japan and east Asia in general is the bigger opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > If people are voluntarily opting out of marriage and family

I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.

<comment><USER14> I'd say the article is actually inferring that marriage is what makes a family happy and stable. That and their use of the term "illegitimate" left me unable to finish the article. I'm sure some of it is my strong anti-marriage bias but it reads like being bound by contract and law is what makes a relationship and a family stable.

<comment><USER15> > their use of the term "illegitimate" left me unable to finish the article

That's a well established definition of the word; if you Google 'define illegitimate' you'll get:

        1. not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules.

        2. (of a child) born of parents not lawfully married to each other.

I don't think it really does to be offended by such things, I didn't read it as coming with any judgement from the author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While I agree that we have a problem with population growth, the author has very traditional views on marriage and its requirements for a society/population to function - there's much more to it than that.

Also thanks for calling my existence "illegitimate" in 2017.

<comment><USER17> Based on the perceptual bias the author let slip, I'm surprised that graph wasn't labeled "Bastardy".

<comment><USER18> Since the blog is run by someone who uses Japanese in their name and profile, I'm considering whether I should be a little more charitable and maybe call it a result of poor translation.

Most of the stuff in the article that looks like bias to Western readers, in fact, could sound perfectly reasonable to Japanese readers for whom it might have originally been written. Japanese society is incredibly conservative when it comes to family norms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you're curious about actual data, and not just a bunch of unsupported claims, Pew has a nice little paper they published back in 2014 on this topic:

[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of- am...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans- have-never-married/)

To my eyes, this is purely a data driven analysis and doesn't spend a lot of time moralizing on the topic.

</comment><comment><USER20> "As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies."

This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward? My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence. Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.

But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.

As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.

<comment><USER21> Your method would destroy society. Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits, leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.

Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.

I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs. People are different colors, genders, etc but religion can be used to bind it together.

<comment><USER22> >Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits.

Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.

>...leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.

This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"

>Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.

Uhh I guess, sure I can concede that.

>I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs.

I am also agnostic and I agree that religion is important however not for the same reason you do. Yes religions bind societies but only to a certain extent and for only so long. See the conflicts between early Christians and Jews, or the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Or current extremist Muslims, hell extremists of every religion. As much as religion binds people together it even more so tears people apart.

<comment><USER21> >Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.

Marriage limits a man to one women, IVF would allow one man to impregnate essentially infinite women and other factors like personality wouldn't factor into the OPs nearly anonymous genetic propositioning.

>This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"

Yes, look into the studies on young men in the US and Japan who are coasting because they see no reason to work hard. They have video games and are happy. The alternative to apathy is violence. Neither is good for society, apathy leads to lack of progress and violence destroys society

[https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men- is-t...](https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is- threatening-global-stability/)

<comment><USER20> Im not sure there's any correlation between young men who are sitting idle and what I was referring to. There are men who do not have children, some gay men for example, who are highly productive members of society.

The selection bias that you indirectly refer to is already happening. And with the availability of ivf, what I am referring to is already happening as well amongst lesbian and gay couples and single educated women who haven't met the right person yet. And what's to stop it? If people who are smart, successful, but haven't found the right mate or don't want to get married, go gamete shopping and find the ideal set of genes, and produce the ideal child - how do other children without these advantages compete against them? My guess is that other potential parents then start going the same route, especially if marriage is on the decline anyhow.

I don't think it leads to violence and truthfully it's not something I even condone without further thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Monogamy isn't dead as the author seems to imply by the falling marriage rates. Many people I know are not married but are in 10+ year long-term monogamous relationships (myself included). We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do and how our assets must be split in the case we decide to break up (though we never plan to). We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.

I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.

I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.

<comment><USER24> > _We don 't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government > telling me what to do_

What about the government telling other people what to do about your relationship? If one of you were seriously hurt, would the hospital accept the other's instructions as a medical or legal proxy, etc?

<comment><USER25> I have power of attorney over my dad, in the event a decisions needs to be made.

<comment><USER26> Did you mean to say "over to"?

If so then what happens when your father is gone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nobody ever mentions birth control.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow, this article isn't scientific at all, in the least.

>As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies.

>The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communities. Strong communities create prosperous cities. Prosperous cities create successful nations. Successful nations advance humanity.

Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries. "We've always done it this way" isn't proof, and the way our society was before ~50 years ago was actively bad and oppressive for many members of society, particularly women who really were second-class citizens, unable to vote or hold most jobs.

Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.

<comment><USER9> I'm almost certain widespread polyamory will degenerate into polygamy approximately instantaneously.

<comment><USER29> A Brave New World!

<comment><USER30> BNW had a stable polyamory, that was the appeal. And a wonder drug to alleviate the few residual atavisms to boot.

But close enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


First 1,000 users. - <AUTHOR> http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/1000-users/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am looking at strategies for gaining the first users to a startup and have made bullet points on several now well-known companies from the last couple of years. Would love your help at finding more examples of what companies have the best inspirational strategy..

<http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/1000-users/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Easier to read on blog, but copy/paste as of 04/02/13

The myth of "we had 25,000 users sign up on our first day" or the line "we told our friends and they told their friends," are both likely to have been backed up by a smart strategy. I am still figuring out the plan with www.fabsie.com and researching other playbooks for inspiration. All of the startups below have a great product which is central to their success, but beyond that are some very important findings that led to their growth.

Instagram

The founders weren't scared of letting people try it before launch. They just kept showing it to people and taking feedback. They got everyone they talked to be a brand ambassador. Early adopters used the product extensively. Users posted their photos to twitter attracting new users, (many early adopters had '000′s of followers.) Early users became huge advocates and pushed it on blogs and in reviews on app store. Showed it to influencers. (Robert Scoble, Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte and MG Siegler)

LinkedIn

Reid Hoffman seeded the product with successful friends and connections. (The company would have been doomed if there had been massive adoption of have- nots, instead of people who were hiring, recruiting etc.) He refused to meet with potential investors until they adopted LinkedIn. Entrepreneurs and aspiring executives would follow their lead. Deployed an Outlook contact uploader (very painful to build/support) to allow viral spread among professionals. Deferred any features related to revenue or engagement until after the growth path was established, which took nearly 1.5 years. Invitation reminders that expired after two weeks were another key feature.

Etsy

The original founders built forums and started reading through the conversations people were having. The overwhelming topic was, "I wish there was a place I could sell my crafts! Ebay sucks – it's hard to use, doesn't care about us, and charges high fees." Craftspeople buy crafts in other sectors than their own trade. Sellers were also buyers and brand advocates. They told their friends at even larger crafting community forums about Etsy, which brought even more sellers. Sellers previously had no e-commerce presence, so for them to accept any online transactions at all, they had to send customers to Etsy.

Airbnb

Spammed Craigslist. (See Blogpost by Dave Gooden) Found spikes in demand and tried to cover those events (from SXSW to London Olympics.) Pinterest

Email Marketing: "I think I personally wrote to the first 5,000 users." Silbermann Psychology of the invite-only beta. Engaging and frequent notifications. Design demographic = design blogs coverage. Facebook

Emailed friends and sent emails to several mailing lists. College Newspaper Cross-school friends connections and artificial scarcity. At a time when camera phones were just taking off. Hub strategy, take on strongest competitors first (startup at Columbia), then expand to where no competition exists. Aggressive use of email notifications to acquire, engage, and retain users. Defaulting users to receive comment updates was especially clever.

Dropbox

Posting demo video to Digg.com that moved from 5,000 to 75,000 signups. Many failed experiments. Word of mouth / Social worked for Dropbox much more so than search.

Warby Parker

Hired a Fashion PR agency (Bradbury Lewis) that landed them in GQ, hit their annual sales target in three weeks. Made the office into a store. Co-branded with other stores – the readery. Took the store on the road – the schoolbus. Held a bazaar.

Youtube

Monthly video contests with decent prizes More contests. Even more contests. Loose adherence to DMCA. Ad-free through Sequoia funding in early days. Comments, subscriptions, user profiles and embeddable flash made it easier to embed than windows media player, popular at the time.

Netflix

One month free trial.

Yammer

Winning TechCrunch50 Try before you buy. Anyone inside of an organisation can set it up.

Skillshare

With many ideas, not writing a line of code unless 1,000 signups to alpha page. First Skillshare class around poker. Controversial article 'Why College is overatered.' Kickstarter Student loan crisis

Sketchfab

Blogpost on blendernation.com that embedded the product on their page. (3D file embedded like a youtube window.) Attracted great 3D artists via twitter

Fab.com

Previous users from faboulous.com (although only XX% came.) Viral invites invite three friends to gain referral credits. 200,000 users at launch. 38% of visitors came from email campaign, 30% from typing in <http://www.fab.com>, 10% from twitter links (Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore), 9% Facebook. Giveaway of 10 Vitra Eames Elephant Understanding that people cared more about status when referring than discount. I.e. first on the site outranked 10% off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Great article!

Firms such as Dot PR use two general methods: 1) Target "highly-active" users to promote their brands 2) Actually buy likes/ retweets until product goes viral

I think there is much to be said about creating a user driven experience in advertising, as demonstrated with PD3's O2 Academy campaign. Brands are easily forgotten so make them memorable!

<comment><AUTHOR> DO you have a link to 'PD3's O2 Academy campaign'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Excellent summary - can pick and choose to fit specific case.

Also, design is nice for the eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> referring to the design of which one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great post James - I read it twice and took detailed notes the second time. This is a must read for any tech start-up or marketer!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will add another set of companies later today.</comment></comment>


Inside Venice's Secession Movement - <AUTHOR> http://www.mises.org/daily/6759/Inside-Venices-Secession-Movement#.U4O8T0YIkXo.twitter

<comment><USER2> Rich landowners of centuries old tourist landmark that is essentially a natural resource want to condense the tourism revenues onto their bank accounts by diluting out mainlanders. Big surprise: secessionist movements often arise in oil and mineral rich regions of larger states; in this case it just isn't a natural resource, but it may as well be.

</comment><comment><USER3> They are a bunch of racist scumbags.

<comment><USER4> What are you talking about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would their leader be a Doge?</comment>


When Innovation Hits "Snooze" - <AUTHOR> https://rootsofprogress.org/when-innovation-hits-snooze <comment><AUTHOR> > This is the most astonishing part of the story to me. If you had a crystal > ball in 1928 and you could peer into the future of any scientific discovery, > you would have been screaming to the world, "Guys, GUYS! OVER HERE! _This_ > one!" [pointing furiously at Fleming/Penicillium]

> A thing that keeps me up at night is that there is almost certainly, today, > something which might not be shaped like penicillin but has a similar level > of impact, and which is really sweating the next thousand dollars.

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1192006436852645888](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1192006436852645888)</comment>


Hijacking user sessions with the Heartbleed vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://www.mattslifebytes.com/?p=533 <comment><USER2> This is one of these things of which you think "Ah, what are the odds of me being affected?" but quickly changing to "This is pretty bad..." and finally to "FUCK FUCK FUCK, WHY?".

Two years is a long time, people. If ordinary people can write proof of concepts in less than 24 hours after it is publicly disclosed, what to think of those getting paid to find and abuse such bugs? I mean, what are the odds this bug was not abused in production environments the past two years?

<comment><USER3> It might be a coincidence, but last month I received an alert that someone tried to sign in to my hosting control panel using a correct password (which was long and random), but was blocked by a geo-filter (which blocks requests outside of my country) fortunately. I do not know up to this day how my password did leak, and that's one possible candidate cause.

<comment><USER4> Someone broke into my yahoo account a month or two ago to send spam. I changed passwords quickly enough.

It was low-priority, but looking at the passwords that people have captured from yahoo's servers, I used a very very common password theme. Also, a lot of Yahoo users were born between 1970 and 1975.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be some confusion about the vulnerability on the client side, which I think should be clarified. The Heartbleed vulnerability seems to only affect OpenSSL clients and servers. The buffer overrun is only known to be in OpenSSL, so other SSL clients should be unaffected.

Client web browsers are not affected because:

Firefox uses NSS on all platforms.

Chrome uses NSS on Linux or platform libraries for SSL _or_ uses NSS on all platforms for SSL, and then uses the system libraries for other cryptographic operations and certificate validation.

Platform-specific browsers (IE, Safari) likely use their platform's SSL code.

Almost every other mainstream browser is a derivative of one of the four mentioned so far.

Edit: As another commenter pointed out, client-side consumers of the OpenSSL library are likely affected as well. That means web spiders and server-side code that uses web APIs are likely affected. That may or may not be concerning, depending on the networks that traffic travels over and the method of authentication.

<comment><USER6> While client _browsers_ aren't generally affected, other clients may be. If you have some form of web spider, or especially a web hook or callback service which can accept an arbitrary URL, you could be exploited relatively easily. This applies to language runtimes, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recovery process for this seems like it would be:

\- All affected sites need need to update OpenSSL, reissue certs, tell users to update their passwords.

\- All users need to reset their passwords, using a unique password for each site if possible. If they can't feasibly use unique passwords for each site, they need to make sure they don't use their new password on sites that aren't fixed yet.

That's pretty crazy, and getting anything close to 100% compliance is going to require a ton of visibility.

Someone should make a browser extension as quickly as possible to tell users if they're visiting a yet-unfixed site.

<comment><USER8> The problem is also that as long as a vulnerable site is not fixed, users should not attempt to login or interact with such site while logged in. Such interactions increase chances that users' cookies or passwords will be in servers memory.

<comment><USER9> That's a bit unworkable, particularly as you can get many sites to load a user into memory by putting a post-auth URL into an IMG tag anywhere on the Internet. Your browser will obediently GET that URL, passing along the session cookie to the legitimate server, where it will then be exfiltrated via heartbleed.

Basically: this vulnerability must be patched, or the server must be taken offline, and that needs to happen _everywhere_.

<comment> shock-value > Basically: this vulnerability must be patched, or the server must be taken > offline, and that needs to happen everywhere.

No one is arguing against that. The point is that from the user's point of view, they shouldn't interact with a server at all if it is still vulnerable to this attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, just piping the output from this proof of concept python script through grep and searching for the string "pass" shows that on a number of sites that are vulnerable it is _that_ easy to pull a logged in user's username and password.

Scary...

<comment><USER4> Although there are no guarantees there, what you are likely getting is people _logging in very recently_ because their POST request is still in memory. If you were just logged in with an old session from a few hours ago, it's unlikely your PUSH request will still be in memory.

But every time you connect you are sending a cookie which allows for session hijacking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A malicious server can also read the memory of a client using the same heartbleed vulnerability.

So the -NSA-mafia can go get the private key from a vulnerable server, MitM its clients, and attack those clients too.

Nasty stuff. And in the last day, even those agencies that didn't know about the vulnerability beforehand have likely spidered the entire web scraping everyone's keys just-in-case.

<comment><USER12> Anyone seen any evidence of attempts to do this, or set up honeypots?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is scary:

      # ./hb-test.py mail.yahoo.com |grep -A3 -B3 pass

<comment><USER6> What's potentially scarier than plaintext passwords leaking out is that key material leaks as well.

64k of random memory is bad, 64k of OpenSSL's state is worse.

Also, why haven't Yahoo taken down their login service yet? I really don't see how leaving your users' passwords leaking in plaintext is ever better than downtime. Someone had to have made that call, and I really don't think it was the right one. Will be interesting to see how the media treats this over the next few days.

EDIT: Looks like Yahoo is finally fixed. Wonder how many accounts were compromised in the interim, and if their cert and private key were compromised as well. Does not look like they've re-issued yet.

<comment><USER14> This isn't my area, but why would Yahoo even have plaintext passwords in the first place? Shouldn't they only have hashes?

<comment><USER6> In this attack, data from the server process's address space is sent back to a malicious client.

Yahoo hopefully/presumably store only password hashes _at rest_ , but just as in almost any system the user's real, clear password has to be sent from the user to the server to hash and verify against the database in order for the user to log in. Yahoo were following best practices by sending this password encrypted over HTTPS, but this vulnerability is a particularly insidious one because it actually _punishes_ sites for doing the right thing in the form of encrypting traffic.

Because of the particular memory read using this attack and the memory layout Yahoo's service ended up with, other users' decrypted login traffic would get sent back to malicious clients with high frequency.

<comment><USER15> If I remember correctly, a browser add-in using TOTP could remove this as a viable attack method. By the time the user's one-time-encrypted login token is sent to the server it's been invalidated after login, and a new token is required, so siphoning off durable creds from memory becomes useless. However, you can still skim sessions.

<comment><USER16> If I understand it all correctly, wouldn't the secret key exchange have been potentially exposed as well? It had to traverse some medium from server to client (or in reverse) at some point, so an attack could plausibly have account information as well as TOTP secrets to perform full two-factor authentications in perpetuity, no?

<comment><USER6> It's worse than that. Since the server has to use the TOTP key/secret to generate the token for validation, there's a very high chance the secret will be in the server's process memory at around the same time as the first-factor credentials are, unless a separate keyserver or HSM is in use. This applies on every login, not just during the initial TOTP exchange / setup process.

Thus, the key exchange doesn't need to be exposed for heartbleed to have a good potential to leak TOTP/2FA secrets.

<comment><USER15> Well I suppose you're right, if you're using your bastion host as the TOTP operation service provider, but I wouldn't recommend that for a whole host of reasons - the main one being that the bastion host is always the first host exploited, so you shouldn't be running anything from there but a proxy.

You should be able to simply move the TOTP operation to an authentication server on a more secure network and have your web-application server query it with the user's token. The web app will get back the result of the operation and never expose the secret key to the bastion host.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dollars to donuts the NSA has had this hack in its bag of tricks.

<comment><USER4> But using it would reveal it if anyone was capturing traffic of SSL requests. "Why in the world did they do a heartbeat test . . . hey, what's all that stuff . . . _OHMIGOD_."

<comment><USER18> It's unlikely that anyone would be logging that these network requests would be made, let alone the raw input/output. This level of network logging is typically only turned on briefly for diagnostics.

<comment><USER4> Maybe, maybe not. If you are paranoid enough to have this attack in your toolbelt, how paranoid are you that your victim will be watching his traffic and/or request logs? If you have that kind of inside knowledge about your target you probably wouldn't need a tool like this.

For fun and for research purposes, in the past I've set up SSL dumps that just log all the TLS commands and sort them by frequency. The ones at the top and at the bottom of the list were the most interesting.

<comment><USER19> Exploit hording is counter-productive. Exploits only have value when used, they have no defensive or other value. Their half-life is not in your control, at any time they can stop being usable. Therefore the best course of action when you get an exploit is to use it whenever you can until it gets fixed.

<comment><USER20> There are limited circumstances when hording them might make sense; rumors are that there's been hording of XP vulnerabilities in anticipation of the support period ending, as using them pre-support might have meant that MS would have patched them, whereas saving them would presumably keep them unpatched forever.

But yes, generally you're right, and this circumstance is obviously different from that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is the vulnerability, or this script to exploit it, platform-specific? I tried this script against a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian with an unpatched OpenSSL library, but received an unexpected EOF.

<comment><USER4> If your webserver has the vulnerable version of the OpenSSL library, then your server will return some extra bytes, from someplace in memory.

It may turn out that the space in memory it's returning from is useless. Or, like yahoo, you may be giving out plain-text ASCII passwords to complete strangers who can type a command line. Which of these two extremes you get is largely based on luck.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the information. I modified the script to request a different number of bytes. It seems that 16384 is too much and causes the server to abort sending, but lower amounts work to successfully dump memory.

EDIT: The other thing is that it seems better to check for "Server Hello Done" at the end of the handshake message as some servers seem to send all submessages within one handshake message (though not sure if they're OpenSSL- based), i.e. look for ord(pay[-4]) == 0x0E rather than at ord(pay[0]).

<comment><USER22> For those that don't python and/or don't know where to edit.

      hb = h2bin('''
      18 03 02 00 03
      01 40 00
      ''')

See that "40 00" there? That's hex and 0x4000 = 16384. Change it to something like "02 00", so it's 0x200 = 512, or 0x400 = 1024 ...or whatever you want.(But keep it at a power of 2... I assume).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_two)

<comment><USER23> As long as it's valid hex it should be fine, there seems to be a lower bound at which point servers don't respond but I didn't play around for too long with that part. Most articles also mention 64kb which the script can do with some small modifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For SSH it's common to use private keys to communicate securely with servers using public key cryptography. This is convenient and protects against key loggers.

What are the possibilities of using public key cryptography in the browser? For example, I upload my public key to some website, create an account which is locked to my private key. I get the convenience of not having to log in manually and some extra safety.

<comment><USER25> I believe what you're describing is encompassed by SSL client certificates. They're supported, but roughly nobody uses them for some reason.

<comment><USER26> StartCom is the only site I know of that uses them for user authentication. The biggest problem is that the client-side UI is rather confusing, and you still need a separate authentication system in case the user loses their certificate (or switches devices).

<comment><USER25> You're right, I actually have an account with them and remember setting up the client-side certificate. I completely forgot about it afterwards. I would say that "rather confusing" is a deep understatement. The process, at least on the Mac, is atrocious and makes this method only suitable for the most advanced users, and even then only if you're willing to take on only the most enthusiastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> python heartbleed.py okcupid.com |grep -C3 username=

</comment><comment><USER28> on some servers you can even get the credentials themselves :)

</comment><comment><USER29> TRWTF is how Jira doesn't apparently check if the session id is coming from the same computer (a simple ip address check for example). Pretty sure most sites are secure against cookie (and thus session) takeovers.

</comment><comment><USER4> What tool is he using for editing his cookies?

<comment><USER30> EditThisCookie extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/editthiscookie/fng...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/editthiscookie/fngmhnnpilhplaeedifhccceomclgfbg?hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Running the exploit and all I see are session IDs. Has anyone seen any passwords being output?

<comment><USER23> On my first run today I saw some passwords going to the admin section on our staging servers so it really depends on what you're targeting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's not a vulnerability. It's a BACKDOOR.

<comment><USER32> I don't believe there's any evidence on that yet, so please cool your jets. One dev wrote that line of code but anyone could have made that mistake.</comment></comment>


Real-Time Device Communication (For the Internet of Things) Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://exosite.com/real-time-device-communication-part-1/

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Questions and feedback very welcome. This is my first real blog post so I'm quite curious if people like the format of this, if there are any big problems that stand out, or if the people here are actually even generally interested in the content.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to train oneself to be calmer/kinder? - <AUTHOR> Not referring to "grit your teeth and be fake polite" which I've noticed many people do. But genuinely be calm (when production systems go down and customers are yelling, for example) and kind (especially when others around us are unreasonable just because they can) and lastly, be kind to self. And absolutely not use crap like sarcasm to deal with the situation.<p>Any tools that worked for you in professional and personal life? <comment><USER2> A. Work on your health. Being in better physical shape makes it easier to take such things in stride.

B. Look to your health in the moment as well. While raising special needs kids, I learned that a glass of water, something to eat and/or a short nap was often the difference between losing my shit and continuing to rise to the occasion. So, stop, go to the break room and take care of yourself for 5 minutes. Then deal with it.

C. Journal and work on the person in the mirror. Often, things get a rise out of us more because of baggage from the past than because of how bad it really is right now.

D. Do volunteer work in something that exposes you to problems that get a big reaction out of you. Having perspective can be very valuable for keeping your cool in the face of stressful work situations. If you deal with life threatening, messy problems on the weekend as a volunteer, most problems that come up in an office job just won't get past your callouses enough to get under your skin.

E. Educate yourself on how to effectively solve various problems. Knowing you can fix it is probably the single biggest source of calm in the face of a tempest. So up your game. Figure out what your weak areas are and start filling them in.

</comment><comment><USER3> In Catholicism (and probably in some other religions), there is a practice of an "examination of conscience." It has helped me to make improvements of the kind you refer to.

Basically, the essence is to take 5 minutes at the very end of the day to think back through each hour of the day, perhaps with a couple of focus questions (eg "did I become angry, even internally"). You use your will to sincerely regret anything that you think was wrong, and maybe use a bit of problem solving to see how it could have gone differently.

Five minutes at the end of the day (maybe it stays on your mind as you sleep? but that's just my bro-science) every day for a month should help you make some small steps.

<comment><USER4> This is great, do you have any more resources where one can learn about this?

<comment><USER3> Sorry for the late reply, but most resources I know about would get more specific about particular morality of the religion. If that's what you're looking for, you should get plenty of results searching for "Catholic examination of conscience."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found Stoicism to be helpful in such events and a good philosophy in general. For this particular application you have to accept That there are external events you can't control but there are certain things you can do to improve the situation. So instead of focusing on the external and getting all stressed About it you think about what the best course of action is you can take to help the situation.

Sorry for my rambling I am just starting to learn the concepts myself from this book: A Guide to the good life

<comment><USER6> I agree. I recommend reading "The Daily Stoic" as a good introduction, and the format makes you think about the principles on a daily basis.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for the book tip. I will add it to my list.

<comment><USER7> Don't add it to your list, buy it and read it. Carry it with you. It helped me a lot. It's a great book because you can open it on any page and get a nugget of useful information. It starts with the title and then a quote by either Marcus Aurelius or another philosopher after which it expands on that quote with some context. There's some really good (and easily digestable) information in there. I earmark the best quotes and so far I've earmarked around 20 pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stoicism is a good philosophy to read up on and practice... it definitely helps being ingrained with this from a young age (parents who had an approach to problems this way) it's more difficult to re-wire your "impulse" responses later in life, but through constant evaluation of your responses to things, you can successfully retrain your brain. It will help you be more calm, composed, and confident under pressure.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would say weightlifting has made me much calmer in my day to day. If I workout in the morning, nothing else can bring me down during the day. It's just the iron against me. If I can conquer my mind telling me I can't do that I'm too weak, and repeatedly prove it wrong then, what else is my mind wrong about?

It annoys my girlfriend sometimes because nothing really bugs me or gets me really upset though she tries her best. I would say this, and stoicism are big reasons why. There are also numerous studies that show exercise reduces stress an improves your overall well being.

</comment><comment><USER10> TL;DR: relax, try, don't worry about being fake.

All you need is good intentions and to be relaxed enough to live up to them.

The problem of course: Relaxation is rarest in the moments you described. I see two ways things can still work out:

\- You start being calmer in smaller situations, like in traffic and little by little it will also help you with bigger situations. How exactly you stay calm is probably something personal. I need to rationalize and take a moment to think (simply not acting on anything until I have thought it through as a precaution). Further I can remind myself of how little this moment matters in the big picture. Especially at work: it's just a game we play to earn money, it's not my life.

\- You can try to reduce stress in general. There are many ways to do this: No driving, no group work, less work, more generosity towards yourself (especially embracing laziness), having a plan for a better future, taking a breath of fresh air (join the smokers, just don't get started smoking :) ), avoiding toxic power hierarchies, shedding responsibilities (especially professionally: make clear where your responsibility ends and worry less about the rest; where you are responsible also claim some authority)

About fakes: I personally hate anything fake, but this is especially true for two-faced fakers that kind of lie by doing it. If you are acting to be the person you want to be it is different: It has the underlying truth that you want to be like this. It can quickly begin to feel natural to act that way and become much less fake and more relaxing. Just make sure that it feels like an accomplishment if you act like you want to act (and not like you have to swallow anger and frustration and risking to burst at some point).

<comment><USER11> Going out with smokers without smoking - this plus after lunch walk, may sound trivial but does wonders to my body and mind. Also heped me leave geek zone and establish a variety of professional connections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Practice meditation consistently.

Also, if you are angry and I compassionate towards with yourself, it's quite hard to be genuinely compassionate toward others.

</comment><comment><USER13> The first things that come to mind is Buddhism or Sufism. You might think associated meditative techniques would be all that you need, but I don't think them alone do much without a surrounding framework to guide you in changing yourself and how you relate to others, the outer world, your inner world, reality... That is the subtext I am picking up on in your question. Or stoicism like someone else said, if you don't want anything too connotative of 'religion'.

Sarcasm, OTOH, is sometimes useful. It's knowing when is the trick. Justifiable expressions of anger are sometimes necessary; at the very least, ignoring it means you are ignoring something pertinent and meaningful to yourself which shouldn't be ignored. How to take action based on that anger is another question...

</comment><comment><USER14> 1\. Realizing how life short is, how precious it is, and how much you don't want your life to have been about causing other people pain.

2\. Realizing that everyone is doing their best, because no one chooses their genetics or environment. No one is trying to be bad at life, and no one is ultimately responsible for being good at life. Everyone is just doing the best with the hand they were dealt. Being incredibly understanding and forgiving of peoples' faults is the only logical thing to do.

The difficulty is keeping this in the center of your mind while your brain experiences real world stressors (see #2).

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, absolutely. Start by purposely working on your listening skills. Listening is the easiest and best way to be kind.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sure it's possible. At the same time, that degree of calmness and kindness sound virtually like super-powers - very advanced stuff. Not many people at all could do that. Probably you'd have to also deal with a lot of your personal shit to not be triggered in those situations. I know I'm not so advanced as that.

I got a lot from a wide range of self-help books. e.g. early Wayne Dyer, SARK; psychological books, e.g. _New Guide to Rational Living_ ; spiritual books e.g. new age, hindu, sufi, xtian, buddhism of various kinds.. Too many to name, and everyone needs something different - I just took what was helpful from a wide range of stuff.

Since you seem to know the kind of things you want to improve in, maybe Ben Franklin's method would work (it sounds not very different from the catholic "examination of conscience" written about on this page) : rule up a page with a grid, with the virtues/habits to want to see in yourself down the side, the days along the top. Then at the end of each day, you put a black spot at each virtue/habit you've lapsed in that day.

Patience with yourself is vital, loving yourself - treating yourself like you would someone you really love. (I used to say awful things to myself in a way I'd never talk to another person).. Good luck! I get the feeling you're already better at this stuff than most people.

</comment><comment><USER17> I try (and struggle) to be calmer/kinder. There are a lot of good suggestions here, and I have tried most of them. They work but I have found it hard to stick with them.

One idea you may want to consider is to do something pro-active to create calm, rather than using a retro-active approach. One place I have found that useful is when driving. I live in Boston. Drivers are a little aggressive. It is easy to get into a cycle of aggression and frustration. But I found that by trying to be more generous and accommodating (allowing space in front for people to merge, always slowing down when someone indicates they want to merge), it was easier to shrug off the actions of others when they were inconsiderate.

I would also hold the image of a duck in my mind. Odd, yes. It comes from the expression, 'like water off a ducks back.' It describes someone who does not let some issue become a burden that weighs on them. Rather, they 'let it go'... which is a phrase that I would say to myself to reset and imagine the weight sliding off my back like water on a duck. And then the movie 'frozen' came out and now when I say 'let it go...' I mentally start singing the song of the same name. Singing is not a bad solution either :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes, absolutely. I know because I do train people in exactly that.

Look up nonviolent communication; there's a lot of workshop recordings on YouTube.

Some of the things I like about the practice:

\- provides a solid scalable framework of understanding behavior (all actions are seen as driven by universal human needs, all feelings are indicators of needs met or not met)

\- effortless compassion - looking for the needs behind behavior helps connecting to the underlying driving forces that guide your actions, and recognize that at any time you're doing your best with what you have (current thoughts, emotions, rest and blood sugar levels etc.)

\- empowered commitment to take responsibility for meeting your own needs. Deeply compassionate self-care.

\- communicating your disagreement and disappointment in a non-confrontational way, opening possibility for understanding and connection in conflicting situations.

\- communicating requests in a clean way, without hooks or manipulation

\- communicating appreciation in a way that conveys the person's contribution and enriches their life, without transfer of power or manipulation.

\- while nonviolent, it is very powerful. Being aware of and committed to meeting your needs helps you being a good guardian. For example in a boring conversation, a person who is aware of her needs, and committed to meeting them, would interrupt the second she feels uninterested, communicate her list of interest in a non-offensive way ("while I am enjoying speaking with you, I am noticing my attention drifting. I think I've reached the limit to my interest in racing cars. Appreciate your excitement about them, brings me joy to witness your passion.")

Some of the challenges with the practice is that much of it has to do with language and that sometime leads to an intellectual approach to teaching it. The way I teach is much more embodied so that my students can ground the practice in their emotional response/physical reality.

<comment><USER19> I second the vote for nonviolent communication. It is very helpful.

<comment><USER18> It takes focused repetition as it requires rewriting of learned reactions. Worth the time in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >kind (especially when others around us are unreasonable just because they can)

Think about why you want to be kind to such people. It is one thing if you expect your kindness to disarm them and be reciprocated and another if you don't. If you don't, you would only be rewarding and reinforcing bad behavior. Surrendering to avoid conflict is not a viable long-term strategy in any career but that of a monk. It is far better to learn to stand up to those who mistreat you without undue kindness.

</comment><comment><USER21> A very good question!

The biggest things that have worked for me (and as a side effect of the slightly related pursuit of improving my conscientiousness) are:

\- meditation, 15 minutes in the morning after waking just sitting and watching the breath

\- deeply realizing that I'm a flawed being, but I can improve with hard work

\- increasing my sensitivity to disgust, while keeping it personal and subjective, not thinking that I'm tuning into some objective and universal way that things should be cleaner

</comment><comment><USER22> For dealing with people learning psychology helps, you'll see people differently and eventually accept irrational behavior as a norm and won't care as much. For production systems designing for failure and learning how to do it also makes failures mundane, you'll start expecting them to happen all the time, even inducing them on purpose, and won't care.

</comment><comment><USER23> Headspace. A few minutes a day, a few months of intermittent practice, and I find myself with more "internal time" to process my experiences before acting.

</comment><comment><USER24> That sounds exactly what meditation promises to do to you.

Have you tried?

</comment><comment><USER25> what helped me: read more(both fiction and non-fiction) think of every interaction in your life in the other side's perspective to develop emphathy</comment>


Show HN: Weekend project, Intro.js - <AUTHOR> http://usablica.github.com/intro.js/ <comment><USER3> Brilliant and almost perfect. I will incorporate it into my project, next week. Thank you so much.

Most people here are asking for more features. Please be careful with that; it would be a pity to see such a pearl to swell into bloatware. You have very good taste, let it be your guide.

<comment><USER4> You could potentially build a commercial version of this on the same technology, if you wanted to keep the core of it lean. I know several people that would pay money to have this plus analytics about user progress and drop outs, user feedback etc.

<comment><USER5> Somebody already thought about it: walkme.com

<comment><USER6> Or HN's own, <https://taurus.io/>

<comment><USER4> Thanks for both the pointers!

<comment><USER6> I can't speak to the other one, but I will go on to say that Taurus is moving _very fast_. I was an early adopter, and while I don't use them anymore, I saw them go from a barebones product, to a barebones product with an on-site tutorial builder, to a fairly rich product with customizable themes, etc., in just a few weeks.

I can't speak for what they've done since I stopped using them, but looking at their homepage, the velocity still seems pretty high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is very nice but I have some suggestions to improve:

Navigation: The "next" link is very small and it's in different place on every step. A fixed navigation and/or bigger link would be nice.

Also, showing me that it's "Step 3" is useless to me - I can count myself and even if I couldn't, I don't really care how many steps I've already seen. I'm more interested in how many more there are.

There should also be automatic scrolling so that I could actually see the next highlighted area. If you already do the scrolling, remember to scroll in a way that guarantees to show whole area, not only top line.

Thanks for the great work, I think I might use it in my next projet!

<comment><USER8> i think numbers in some cases are necessary. but can be optional.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah we should have a config method.

<comment><USER9> Just give them a less "active" default color and you're halfway there. As they are now, they seem to be asking for action. I'd also write "Step n of N" or simply "n/N" to help clear the meaning.

Congratulations on your good work, by the way. I don't usually vote TFAs up, but you totally deserve it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that's a good idea also. Thanks for your vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Place the Next and Prev buttons on a fixed position that doesn't change - <USER2> touch devices probably at 50% height, unless they block a tooltip.

The current implementation feels more like a whack-a-mole game than a guided tour. :)

<comment><USER11> Agreed. That, or put a small reminder on the first step (or on each step) that lets users know they can use the arrow keys. Seeing the arrow in 'Next→' was not intuitive for me (if that was intended to convey that you can change steps with →).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> And it's from a guy in Tehran according to the meta info.

I'm pointing to this, because, even in tech forums I follow, some people believe Iranians are evil and they should be nuked or something.

Don't confuse what your local media say for each country (and how they choose to present it) with what the country actually is.

Don't even judge by the government of the other country (would Americans like to be judged by Bush or Nixon? Maybe Kissinger and Rove?).

And don't judge by your pre-determined cultural notions either. As a European, I abhor the death penalty, the practice of executing 15 year old children and protestant bible thumpers. Still I find the people of Texas mighty fine, including those that agree with those things, and not just the SXSW crowd. So I can also understand people in Iran (or whatever) having their own culture, religious etc and being backwards (to my view) in some regards.

Unless a country has done specific, unprovoked and tangible harm to another country, there is no reason to hate it at all. As for what happens INSIDE the country, it's mostly their thing to deal with.

<comment><USER13> If you're from a country with a decent visa situation (I.e. not the US or UK) I'd really recommend visiting Iran, its incredible and full of the friendliest people I've had the privilege to meet.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A nice alternative is Zurb Joyride: [http://www.zurb.com/playground/jquery- joyride-feature-tour-p...](http://www.zurb.com/playground/jquery-joyride- feature-tour-plugin) <http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/components/joyride.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah but it works with jQuery. What if I don't want to add jQuery to my page? IntroJs built with pure JavaScript.

<comment><USER15> Sure, if you don't want to have jQuery as a dependency intro.js is probably the winner.

However, do note that Foundation's javascript plugins also work with Zepto[1][2] which weighs in at under 10k gzipped.

[1] <http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/javascript.html>

[2] <http://zeptojs.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks very cool but the fact that you have to hit the tiny "next" link makes it hard to use on iPad. It's compounded by the fact that the page isn't scrolling down all the way from step 1 to step2 so you have to scroll down manually.

On the computer, though, this looks slick and works reasonably well. Good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> We're working to prepare the next version for iPad and other touch devices also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool project, love it when I see devs from Tehran publish their work on HN and become the top on the news with the current situation in Iran and the worst internet connection ever! Good job

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your nice comment, I think you know our situation exactly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nicely done. Bonus points for not making it a jQuery plugin!

<comment><AUTHOR> VanillaJs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would suggest using the non-minified version of your library on the demo page, because programmers like me will want to look at the source in the fastest way possible, which is in the browser. (Your library is so small I don't think it will make much of a difference to bandwidth, and anyway you are cleverly using github as your static host.)

Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah cool. So I will change the resources to non-minified version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good stuff! Thanks for this.

Just to put it out there, here is an alternative built on jquery.

<http://trentrichardson.com/Impromptu/>

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious, what connection to Canada does a Tehran-based web development company have?

<http://www.cira.ca/why-ca/ca-101/who-can-register-a-ca/>

<comment><USER22> What connection does bit.ly have to Libya?

<comment><USER23> Only that at one point, to purchase the rights to that domain name, they effectively paid the Ghaddafi regime a small amount of money, and that they run a popular service that at any time could be hijacked by the current regime in Libya.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was trying to build something like this and what stopped me from finishing it was handling z-index of different stacking contexts, I couldn't make it work on all cases, from the code it seems you put a very high z-index to the displayed section, which was my approach as well, but on different stacking contexts, I found out that sometimes no matter how high is your z-index, it will still be dependent on the parent stacking context, I guess I could have just released it (it was a jQuery plugin) as it was probably going to work for 99% of the use cases.

Great work in any case!

</comment><comment><USER25> This is - quite simply - one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. "In game" tutorials are such a fantastic way of demonstrating functionality in that sector - why shouldn't websites be the same ?

</comment><comment><USER26> Great concept and execution!

One item of feedback: the styling of the numbers look nearly identical to the feedback badge on iOS, which made me think for a second that it was some sort of alert, rather than a step in a sequence. Obviously the styling is customizable by the developer, but as a default, I could see it being confusing to iOS users.

Edit: one more tidbit: resizing the browser doesn't force the box(es) to resize. Admittedly an edge case. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah correct, there's a problem when you resize the browser. In the next versions I calculate all box(s) position again to keep focus element helper layer updated.

</comment></comment><comment> js-coder The HN effect: Visited the project 3-4 hours ago, and it had 40 stargazers, now 650. :)

I really like it by the way, and I think I'll use it for my next project. How about some events though? Like `introJs.on('5', fn)` would execute `fn` when the fifth hint is shown. It could be used to introduce several views to the user (one page app).

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, I think we can manage it better if you make an issue on our Github, so I mark it as enhancement and I'll work it for next versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> AWESOME!

The next button could be way bigger though, I felt like I was trying to catch it every time :)

And maybe you can pre-focus on it with JS, so you'd give users the affordance that they can press enter to move on. (You enabled the right arrow key, but I didn't immediately know I could do it).

</comment><comment><USER28> Overall though its nice to see a non jQuery plugin! And it's very nicely done.

Could use some finessing, on Opera there appears to be a white square/rectangle that appears on the next element for the second and third ones (not sure why). Then it disappears. Maybe it's an Opera thing.

The styles that get applied to the element inside of the "white box" get applied before the white box moves. This is noticeable for the links in the top right. They turn light blue before the box even moves. It should be after the box has moved, since that kind of stuff is pretty much instant.

<comment><USER29> Just curious ... why is it nice to see a non-jQuery plugin? Isn't the point of jQuery that it's tested and standardized for all browsers, thus theoretically reducing the odds that a plugin won't work on any given browser?

<comment><USER30> Probably the fact that you don't have to use jQuery if you don't want to.

<comment><USER31> Yep. We're primarily built using the Closure library so it's nice to not have to bundle jQuery for third-party libs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Very nice!

Just one thing. I pressed the Enter key thinking that it would take me to the next step (like the right-arrow), but the page background went darker. And, each successive press of Enter made it even darker. I actually liked the effect (even if it was unintended) as it increased the contrast between the step being focused and the rest of the page.

However, I found no way to get back to original page after all the steps are completed (by right-arrow navigation). Pressing ESC had no effect.

Edit: Using Firefox 20.0 on Ubuntu Lucid.

<comment><USER33> Same here, using Firefox 19 on Windows XP.

You can go back to normal by clicking with the mouse, the more you click the brighter it gets.

<comment><AUTHOR> And I ask again, it's very very helpful if you report a bug to our Github.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really like this. I think it would be neat to see a discrete help button or toggle switch, that allows novice users to go into a help mode overlayed on top of a live web app.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the next versions I'll add it so. Thanks for suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hey, we have been looking to integrate a solution like this in our product, I got a couple of suggestions.

First, using data attribute is too intrusive, a json object would have been much better, we just cannot add these attributes everywhere in our app.

Using a json object would also make it possible for anyone to create a UI tool for creating guides.

Also a "scenario" concept would be nice, having the ability to have multiple scenarios in a page is essential for a support team.

Last thing, the UX is fantastic, it's clean and simple :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Aha, good idea for JSON (but I think attribute is a good one for some frameworks like ExtJs that you don't know your element id or something like that).

What you need by "senario"? Could you please explain it more?

Thanks anyway.

<comment><USER35> Yea, the support team want multiple scenarios (intros) in a page, we use a param, so they can link to it and push them to users asking how to do stuff,

it becomes for us like an advanced, usable, faq system

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Good work. It would be cool if you could also scroll the browser window. For example, in my the I need to scroll down to see the 2nd bubble and up to see the following.

</comment><comment><USER37> As others have already suggested: I think it would be even better if the explanation box was fixed (e.g. top left corner of the screen) and had a FAT red arrow pointing to the area of the screen that it explains.

This would (imho) make it more obvious what's going on ("Ah, _this_ is explaining _that_ ") and would improve usability.

But either way, this is a great start (I love the limelight-effect) and we are definitely going to build on this. Thank you for open sourcing it!

</comment><comment><USER38> Very nicely done. I find interesting how an intro of this kind makes clearer information that is already to be found within the site itself; it doesn't _create_ new information, it just forces the user to focus on the different areas of the site. I can't help but think we are trained to ignore when we can't _see_ what's on the screen unless the site forces focus over the different areas.

</comment><comment><USER39> I like it.

I'd recommend that you make a block link out of the text bubble that contains your 'next' link. Honing in on the actual word 'next' slowed me down.

For especially... uninitiated (?) web/computer users I could see there being an issue wherein the text bubble containing 'next' is cut off by the bottom boundary of the browser window.

Just recently I had to make a series of screenshots to walk someone through something. Great weekend project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that's a mistake, you're correct. I'll fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Afshin, I think it would be good if you add an example (usecase, scenario, etc.) to the website for a quick introduction of the functionality.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure yeah. I'll add it so. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've been looking for something like this for a while now. Brilliantly executed, thanks! I'll definitely be trying it out on my next project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoho, Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Neat! Fantastic first version! It has lots of potential. I love how it's not tied to jQuery. And I agree with what some of the others have said - it's possible you could build a freemium service with this. I don't know how ample that opportunity is though.

Here's another feature request to your list too: Have the word bubbles remain in the viewport, or scroll so they are always in view.

</comment><comment><USER43> How do you achieve the effect of the rounded corner box w/ box-shadow masking the overlay, but allowing content to show through?

<comment><USER30> It's hosted on github, go and take a look ;).

<comment><USER43> Ahh, was looking for some new css property - it looks like it just sets position:relative on the content it wants to highlight, and then uses z-index.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah yeah. I didn't find better way for doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I was recently part of a brainstorming session where it was decided that we needed something that could do exactly this. (The way we described it: something like the "Joyride" feature in Zurb Foundation, except it could also highlight the relevant section.)

Keep this simple and fix a few of the bugs, and I think you have a winner.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hhm, nice. It's the first version of IntroJs, I'll fix the bugs asap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Awesome project, this plugin is great to do "howtos" and online interactive manuals. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER46> Very almost perfect. The only issue I have is with its scrolling - when it scrolls down it only scrolls enough to show the highlighted area, not the textbox underneath it with information. 1366x768 resolution if that matters.

</comment><comment><USER47> Thanks.

I like what seems to be the differentiating feature here -- highlighting the actual elements on the page rather than pointing at it.

I'm looking forward to the pull requests that fix some of the style issues (next button etc, as mentioned already).

<comment><AUTHOR> Great. Pull-requests are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Amazing work, mate! I will definitely use it really soon on Javascript 2d Games to show how to play the games. If you are looking at monetizing it, you could sell it as a plugin for Crafty.js for instance

<comment><AUTHOR> Good news! Let me know when you use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> My suggestion: take all the presentation. Make it less graphical and more scalable, lets say i dont want red circle with number i want just the overlay part.

Looks good and I will use it no doubt!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, good. I think I should add a config function to prevent some features, red circles for example.

<comment><USER49> That would make it. The problem is just that: designers doesn't want anything default. They like to customize to the extreme, take, put, etc.

Keep going nice work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We built something similar like this based on jQuery Impromptu and merged it together with HowlerJS. This way we have a nice website walkthrough with voice if desired.

<comment><USER50> Any chance you guys released that as open source? This is exactly what I want. Would be even better if it animated the boxes, so that the users eye is drawn to what you're showing them.

All these projects are really impressive.

<comment><USER20> Sorry we haven't yet. Let me clean it up and get back with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> great work, i feel like the rest the next link is to small, and even if you try to navegate with arrows <-, -> and works some other mechanic like (enter/click/tap) to keep going and then (esc/del/back) to avoid the intro, but its a great aid as it is right now a friend of me built something like this (not that good), from zero to his app but now everyone can have this, going to recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Look great for super lightweight tutorials.

If you need to customize more, <http://tutorialize.me> is my favorite.

<comment><USER53> Thanks abailin for plugging my startup! Guys this solution is really cool, and I love the "spotlighting" animation. When it comes to flexibility you definitely cannot compete with implementing a simple library like this. Nevertheless, for ease of installation and for a bunch more amazing features I highly recommend you check out <http://tutorialize.me>. Fully hosted, asynchronous, installed in minutes, full markup (mustache.js) and CSS editing, Cross browser support, and a sweet dashboard with tutorial analytics. PEACE!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is piece of brilliant work! When I saw it I suddenly got the idea I have to use it the project I'm working on. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER55> Good job. In past I wrote something like this but it was just to save the day, therefore I didn't have a chance to publish.

</comment><comment><USER56> Great to see some proper Irani geeks doing good stuff.

Does this work in mobile browsers? maybe a compatibility table in the front page?

</comment><comment><USER57> There are a bunch of tutorials as a service companies out there. Awesome to see one as F/OSS though! Nicely done!

</comment><comment><USER58> I love it. I wish the next and skip links were larger so it would look good on a mobile device. :)

</comment><comment><USER59> Really nice idea. will use this and have a 'tutorial' button at the top of my page to trigger it.

</comment><comment><USER60> "Currently for Modern Browsers only". Can you be more specific? No IE? IE from version 9? 10?

<comment><USER61> There is only one way to find out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for bad README, I'll complete it asap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Nice but lacks automatic scrolling to guarantee visibility of highlighted part and comment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I just used a JavaScript method `scrollIntoViewIfNeeded` to scroll the page to the target element but it works in modern browsers AFAIK.

<comment><USER63> As far as I can tell it's a non-standard Webkit function. See <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=403510> and <https://gist.github.com/hsablonniere/2581101>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Falls apart on IE7. Love what you've done though. (Note to employer, UPGRADE MY COMPUTER)

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on old browsers is a big change in the next version of IntroJs.

<comment><USER64> Very cool. I'll be following this project. It has some very good points so far. Cleaning it up a little will make it that much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Brilliant.

I needed something that could easily explain application workflow to the customer - and this is it!

Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER66> This is just the sort of thing I've wanted to add to my web app. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER67> Very good, love the idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :]

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Nice and simple. Would be great if this worked over multiple pages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. What you mean by "multiple pages"?

<comment><USER69> He means that if intro instructs the user click here, and the browser goes to another page from within the same intro scope, then intro would pick up and continue.

<comment><USER68> Something like that yes :)

Maybe step 1-3 is on "start.html" and step 4-6 is on "anotherpage.html". So when the user clicks next from step 3, he should be redirected to anotherpage.html and the intro continues.

<comment><AUTHOR> I got it, I got it. Good idea, I think you submitted an issue on Github also, right? Thanks for the awesome suggestion, in the next versions we will have that also.

<comment><USER70> +1 - ability to guide a user through multiple pages would definitely be useful. Anyways, thanks a lot for a great contribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Submitted a pull request with some basic copy-editing for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, merged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> This is AWESOME! I'm totally going to use it in my project

</comment><comment><USER73> Awesome - well done :) I'm loving this!

</comment><comment><USER74> Very nice indeed, looks very well done!

</comment><comment><USER75> Superbly awesome work, afshinmeh! :D

</comment><comment><USER76> Nifty little thing! Thank you. :)

</comment><comment><USER77> Really nice job, well done.

</comment><comment><USER78> This is so cool.

</comment><comment><USER79> Wow.

Wow. Wow.

What a great way to do an on-site tutorial.

Thank you!!

</comment><comment><USER80> Great project!!

</comment><comment><USER81> Congrats Afshin

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks :) I glad to see your comment here.

<comment><USER81> your project is such a great idea, we're going to use it at theRedPin.com

keep me updated on your other projects. i may have more works for you

very proud of you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Bamdad Jan :) I glad to hear that you want to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Great work!

</comment><comment><USER83> this is simply brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER84> well done!

</comment><comment><USER85> You are changing the z-index of the "focused" element but you need to check if one of the parents have z-index defined already because in that case the effect doesn't work.

Instead of looking for a workaround I would suggest that since you are already aiming for modern browsers maybe you should use SVG (clip-path) with CSS {pointer-events: none} so you have a real "hole" and you could use 4 dummy divs if you want to disable interaction with non-focused elements.

<comment><USER86> It depends on the complexity of the highlighted element, but you could also just clone & absolute-position said element.

<comment><USER85> That can become a PITA if you want to preserve events and CSS in the focused element.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Nice weekend project - cool!

Worked fine on my laptop - a few problems on my iPad. Suggestion: enlarge the next/prev buttons.

Thank you Afshinmeh and happy new year! :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks! Sure, I'll make that buttons better for next version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Regarding usabili.ca, the domain you're using... If you're "three geeks in Tehran", you really shouldn't be using a Canadian domain. Unless you're Canadians, or are incorporated within Canada.

Just saying.

<comment><USER89> Unnecessary. There are plenty of .in or .it domains that have nothing to do with India or Italy. It's just a domain name and it's inevitable that people will use it in new ways.

<comment><USER21> Not all country-level TLDs are administered in the same way. According to Wikipedia, there are no restrictions on .in domains, and .it domains are only available to EU residents.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.in>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.it>

CIRA, who manage .ca domains, have stricter rules. They can be found here: <http://www.cira.ca/why-ca/ca-101/who-can-register-a-ca/></comment></comment></comment>


Indie Microblogging: owning your short-form writing by Manton Reece - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manton/indie-microblogging-owning-your-short-form-writing <comment><USER2> Why the need for this kickstarter, what IndieWeb.org isn't good enough?</comment>


CSS deep-dive: matrix3d() for a frame-perfect custom scrollbar - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/custom-scrollbar <comment><USER2> Please don't let this become a thing. Touching my scrollbar is a huge "Fuck you". Like the date picker example - _thank god_ devs can't change it because they or their designers will find ways to ruin it. The scrollbar is one of the "sacred" UI elements like the default mouse cursor. Don't. Touch. It.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, the Nyan cat demo has problems scrolling on iOS too. For example, if you accidentally scroll a single device pixel up before scrolling down, then the page frame bounces up and down, instead of actually scrolling down to show the content on the page.</comment></comment>


Machine Intelligence Summit to Be Held on 14th July 2017, in Berlin, Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.innoplexus.com/news-posts/machine-intelligence-summit-berlin-2017/ <comment><AUTHOR> There is a panel discussion around "From Past Learning to Predictive Future" at 13:45 CET on Friday 14th July at Deutsche Telekom Hauptstadtrepräsentanz Französische Straße 33a-c, 10117 Berlin. The other participants on the panel are Prof. Christoph von der Malsburg, Barbara Pogorzelska, Josh Chen.

The discussion is on how machine intelligence is used to accomplish the tasks on reducing efforts and complexity in understanding the data sets to recognise the patterns and to predict future behaviours. The panel of cross industry experts shall discuss use cases where machine intelligence predictions have real impact.

</comment><comment><USER2> This article is an unvite. It's a nonvitation.</comment>