I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it - <AUTHOR> I have built a Windows Desktop Application to solve a problem, the problem of creating Identity cards of a large number of students/staffs. The creation of ID card is generally done with photoshop and separately edited for each card, arranged in a sheet of 10 cards. I automated this whole procedure. I showed this application to people who make ID cards in manual way and have suffered a lot in past. They want the application but not interested to buy. Why do people want everything for free when other have put a lot of effort on making it? <comment><USER3> You are probably pitching your product to the wrong audience.

Your customer is not the one actually making the cards, rather their boss. Making the cards only costs the employees time, something they don't mind wasting for the most part. For the manager or owner it directly costs money, time wasted on making cards costs the employer money in the form of wages. They are also the one with the purchasing power in an organization like a school.

Creating a more efficient organization is generally speaking not part of the scope of someone making ID cards, but it certainly is for their employers or managers.

<comment><USER4> I completely agree. By talking to the guy making the cards and not the boss, you are essentially showing him a product that makes a big part of his value as an employee obsolete. Buying it would be like cutting off a big portion of his value to the company and future as an employee. To his boss however, it could be a huge savings, he saves on wages and he no longer needs someone with good Photoshop skills to do the same job, thus he can probably find someone cheaper.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't have to be that an extreme, making the employee(s) currently responsible for the cards redundant, but it would allow them to do more productive tasks. That said, those productive tasks may not be as relaxing and mindless as creating those cards in Photoshop.

Point still stands though.

<comment><USER5> Often when you automate a job done manually, the only productive work for that person to do is to contribute to the profit margin by getting laid off.

I've written a lot of MS Office macros that replaced people - immediately they became the person who ran the macro while other things were looked for that they could do, then a month later they were gone. The entirety of a lot of people's $30k/yr jobs is taking digital data from one source and entering it into a different program. $30k/yr is a lot of money.

I've seen it so often that it actually soured me to the work.

edit: This is exactly the kind of thing that I would work on. It could clearly be reduced to a .csv, template image, and a few Imagemagick calls.

<comment><USER6> > $30k/yr is a lot of money.

Another way to think of automation is that you're making it $30k/yr cheaper to run a business. The more automated the world becomes, the cheaper it becomes to start (useful, profitable) businesses--and so the more likely people are to start them.

Or, to put it another way: to whatever degree social mobility is enabled in a culture (and to whatever degree people realize "start a business" is an option to escape unemployment), automation converts a culture's proletariat wage- earners into bourgeois capital-holders. This process is lossy--it also outputs non-adaptive workers on welfare--but if the exchange is _recognized_ at a cultural/governmental level, it can be optimized through education and incentive programs to produce _more_ entrepreneurs and _fewer_ non-productive workers.

<comment><USER7> > _Another way to think of automation is that you 're making it $30k/yr > cheaper to run a business. The more automated the world becomes, the cheaper > it becomes to start (useful, profitable) businesses--and so the more likely > people are to start them._

And the less employed people would be out there to buy your stuff.

Sorry, but automation either ultimately leads to something like communism or similar, or to a severy damaged market economy.

The only reason neither has happened thus far is because we haven't achieved nearly total automation, actually not even for 10-20% of the jobs. And still, what there has been have led to a shrinking middle class compared to decades past.

> _it can be optimized through education and incentive programs to produce > more entrepreneurs and fewer non-productive workers._

The only reason entrepreneurs are "productive" is because there are workers (either productive or non-productive) that have salaries to buy their stuff and services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The creation of ID card is generally done with photoshop and separately edited for each card"

I've actually never seen this done. The schools and companies in my area all have systems that integrate the picture taking with the identity information and automatically print a card. What you're describing simply requires too much skill and time.

So you've built a product, but you're competing with packaged systems. I did a quick search and picked the first (non-ad) link: [http://www.idsecurityonline.com/photo-id- systems/?gclid=CI2s...](http://www.idsecurityonline.com/photo-id- systems/?gclid=CI2s8dqu3b0CFe99Ogod8VEADQ). It looks to me like you assumed you'd found a niche market without realizing the breadth of competition. Sorry ... and good luck.

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing from the author's writing that he/she isn't from the US. A quick stalking suggests India. This is important because the the market is much different in places with low labor costs and many eager and able workers. For example, cutting grass next to the highway in the US is usually done something like this: [http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4710027673_eff0b14e9e.jp...](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4710027673_eff0b14e9e.jpg) (with a tractor) but in other countries it is often done like this: [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lWs- yzp5oV0/Tn93Q7_ZQwI/AAAAAAAAAL...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lWs- yzp5oV0/Tn93Q7_ZQwI/AAAAAAAAALI/okRj24HZIlQ/s1600/weed+eater+guy.jpg) (with a "weed whacker").

This matters because we cannot think of the software in question as having the power to reduce costs by very much. If Photoshop is being used, it may be an unlicensed copy, and if a person has to do this job 10 hours a week, it may cost about 1200 USD per year.

<comment><USER10> What you say is true. But ... bosses are loathe to spend money when the current solution works "adequately" in their assessment. That's why they'll buy more weed whackers than a new tractor - to use your example. The tractor salesman would generally be disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Why do people want everything for free when other have put a lot of effort on making it?

I don't think that's the problem. People will pay if what you build solves their problem. More specifically, they'll pay if they see that what you build solves their problem.

Before building, you should check:

1\. Do they have a problem?

2\. Do they know they have a problem?

3\. How much of a problem is it for them?

4\. Who, exactly, has the ability to act on this problem?

5\. What language do they use to describe the problem?

6\. Do they have any requirements that aren't obvious to me? Can I incorporate them into what I'm building?

If this sounds like marketing, it is, but it's the good sort. Building something people don't actually want is a perennial problem.

Rather than trying to sell what you have, figure out what they want. Then you'll know whether to:

1\. Change who you're talking to

2\. Change how you're talking about the product

3\. Modify the product

4\. Abandon ship

<comment><USER12> I actually just had this experience. I was in need of a simple REST client to test APIs, and I know I could write one, but I figured I'd do a quick and dirty search and went to the Mac App Store to see if there was a decent free one. None of the ones in there were free (which I expected, because putting stuff in there isn't free). I found the highest rated one, went to the developer's site and downloaded the trial. The software is great, and it has more features than I could possibly have imagined, many of which I won't even use. It also has some idiosyncrasies that don't fit in with my workflow. So now I'm stuck with the question of whether or not I want to buy it anyway, or build my own, which I know I could.

OP is fighting that urge, especially since they're not selling a full packaged solution outside of badge creation - namely, identity management, or security access controls, etc. Customers may not be thrilled with the manual process, but don't find it a problem they'd spend money on. You have to know your audience, and either appeal to their problem, be cheap enough that it doesn't matter, or abort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The win-win here is not between you and the people who you are unemploying, it's between you and the person paying their salary.

Go and talk to the business owners or managers of those ID making people.

</comment><comment><USER14> Incentives, my friend..

This is the situation where both the Boss and the Employee have nothing (or little to gain). It may appear weird, but indulge me. I have seen this happen over and over.

\- Say employees are paid X amount a month. Now, with their current method, they can be slimey and not deliver, and then tell the boss it's complicated, Photoshop, etc.. So it's just few cards to deliver per day.

Maybe they have their macros, etc, to speed stuff up (not to the point of your software), but they only speed things up when they need to, and they slow them when they need a break. A card can take up an eternity, just because it's easier to do work on the same thing for 6 hours: You don't think much. Start the second thing for 2 hours and go home.

So a software that speeds this whole thing risks taking control out of these employees, because there would be a clear metric, a clear number of cards to expect.

It doesn't "depend" on anything anymore. They can't hustle their way around it.

Second problem is that, these employees make X amount a month, producing y cards.. With your software, they would _still_ make that amount with 10y cards, so they have nothing to gain, really.

Sure, they're making more cards but "what's in it for me".

There is one, additional tricky part: The boss doesn't want it, and why..

The boss is paying the employee X dollars/month and the employee produces, say 10 cards/day to fill a 30 cards/day order from their clients.

With your software, the employee produces the whole 30 cards/day, and then what ? Sits there all day ?

 _Even_ for the boss, an order can wait 3 days to fill. No problem. The employee is there, he's being paid anyway, so whether it takes 1 day or 3 days is irrelevant.

The reason they're not interested is that they don't ship that many cards anyway, so the benefit of having your software is only marginal.

But maybe you can do the following.. Make your own company and gut them.

Or if you don't want to, and you're willing to force yourself upon them, you can contact their clients and ask them if they had something against your software (which ?)..

The software that makes a gazillion cards per day your contractor doesn't want to buy/licence, making you wait to get your cards..

<comment><USER15> This is exactly the first thought I had when I read ID cards for "students/staff" i.e. likely a university.

Universities (probably government bureaucracies also) will hang on to some of the most nonsensical manual processes simply because they are loathe to automate anything to the point where a job position might become unnecessary. There are many reasons for this, but mainly that an administrative appointement in a university carries prestige and clout proportionate to its number of subordinate positions. Along with the number of subordinates, the size of the budget it commands is also a critical signal. Maintaining---and if possible, growing---these two peacock feathers is the driving rationale for most of the idiocy you see in university administration.

If you eliminate the need for a staff job, you reduce the budget and the number of reports the boss has. So the boss will be very protective of his/her little fiefdom and will reject any attempts to automate or improve efficnency in any way that might eliminate any jobs.

<comment><USER14> If I may go slightly off topic, and dive into University nonsense:

I passed by a stocking area in my Electronics faculty, where I catched a glimpse of Tektronix scopes, so I entered.

I asked the man in charge there what's up with those, he said they were obsolete (?) and the faculty doesn't need them anymore.. Sweet. I asked if I can buy them (there were a _lot_ of scopes, function generators, power supplies, etc).

He said I couldn't buy them. He said they're selling them to some companies "by the kilogramme". Most of these scopes probably had some cap going nuts to be replaced or something. I couldn't buy them because it needs to go through some regulations, and offerings, and contracts, etc.

I'm just a student who'd loved to have a Tektronix "scope". They're selling them as metal. If it came from any other entity, I would've understood.. But from the Electronics' faculty, it's kind of sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Why do people want everything for free when other have put a lot of effort on making it?

people don't. There is a market and you have to understand it before making your product.

It's not a question of how much effort you put, it's how much value the customer can see in it.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Why do people want everything for free when other > have put a lot of effort > on making it?

Ask yourself this: do you like to pay top-dollar for every product and service you buy? There's your answer. If given the choice, you would also want everything for free.

What was the asking price for the software? $1 or $1,000 changes the calculus in the customer's mind. Did you consider a subscription-based service? Charge a small amount every month and you get a steady source of income, and the customer thinks they're getting a deal.

> The creation of ID card is generally done with > photoshop and separately > edited for each card

This may be true for an institution you're familiar with, but cannot possibly be true everywhere. ID badges are ubiquitous and creating them en masse is a common problem (Google the competition: [http://bit.ly/1sW6BKq](http://bit.ly/1sW6BKq)). Photoshop is expensive, and while it's great at putting mustaches on the faces of the ID photos, it's not great for creating a ton of badges. Not to mention that it's difficult to find administrators with Photoshop skills that want to remain administrators.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am from Nepal. Its definite that nobody here can buy licensed copy of Photoshop. People ocassionally buy original Antivirus copies. Selling software in such a market is tough. I have just completed Bachelor of Software Engineering. Developing countries are being able to provide world class education but market is definitely not what they can provide. Creating this software was my friend's idea and he is definitely going to give me share from his earning by making cards but selling software in developing countries is tough since people still think intangible things should be free. Changing this mindset is a big challenge and I am still trying to convince some of the potential customers.

<comment><USER18> > _Changing this mindset is a big challenge and I am still trying to convince > some of the potential customers._

Save yourself time and money and find a different market or stop now. If you are a one or two man shop (or similar) with limited resources, you will likely fail. Educating a market is costly and time consuming, and changing mindsets even moreso.

Sorry to be blunt, but been there too many times. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment> zupa-hu I had the same realization few months ago with a product I have been growth hacking for too long, improving on feedback, A/B testing, only to figure out people don't _really_ care.

>> people want everything for free just everything of that value to them. Give them a software that turns them 20 yrs old and they will pay.

If you are about to give up on putting more energy into it, talk to your friends maybe someone wants to jump on board and put energy into selling it.

Hey, you are around 22, already experiencing a seeming-to-fail business. Awesome. Extract your take-aways, learn, move on. Go and read The Lean Startup if you haven't read it yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> We spent tons of time and effort making an awesome software program only to realize in the end the users were not computer savvy and would rather do the work in a non-technical way regardless of the benefits.

If any of the sales deal with Government entities there could be a million dumb reasons. I've seen: someone doesn't believe that there much be a catch with something so cheap--decides to buy the thing that costs tens of thousands more instead, manager decides they don't want to process paperwork for a new integration regardless of cost savings, management doesn't want something cloud based so they can "have more control over it" by buying servers, "the sales guy emails me alot, so it's kinda creeping me out", etc...,etc...

I also see alot of times the people making the decisions on technology for organizations (again, Government) are the people who don't even own computers at home and don't have even a basic fundamental understanding of the concepts of what they are dealing with. If the IT departments are brought it, it's more of a yes/no we can/cannot support whatever it is you are presenting rather than that sucks or this is smart. Actually, some of the stuff IT was suggesting boggled my mind too. It seemed like they were very against using anything internet based...

<comment><USER20> "I found this product that does exactly what we need. I've tested it and it works. It's $250."

"Yeah, but our deadline's in 2 weeks and there's no way we could go through the procurement process by then. How's that custom solution coming?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What if you implement in-app purchases. It will look like a free program, but when they get used to it: "Bang! You have used all your id-card-coins for the week. Would you like to buy more?". This is how consumers are owned these days and they seem to enjoy it.

<comment><USER22> A lot more dishonest... but haha so true!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How are you doing your sales - one to one? It helps if you have some pilot customers who can give you some testimonials or referrals. You could offer the software for free for a charity or event (e.g. creating ID cards for volunteers).

</comment><comment><USER24> You should take a different approach. Your target audience aren't the decision makers. a. Try to sell the product to the decision makers in that business (school management etc.). Pitch them about saving resources. (employee time) b. If for some reason you still wanna target the employees. Let them use it for a small number of cards (say 5% of what the general average for an employee is) and then make them pay for more. (they will only realise there time and effort saved when the witness it.(Pitching to them isn't really gonna help)

</comment><comment><USER25> Because they are used to that by now. Maybe offer a basic version for free and premium addons for a fee? And in the future I suggest first asking some potential customers before making your product. Will save you some time. But did you ask ALL the people that might be a customer? And the are also other organizations besides schools and universities that need to make ID cards. Maybe they are interested. Or change you software a little and you might be able to apply it to another problem?

</comment><comment><USER26> Do you have a website for this your product? Perhaps you are pitching it to your locality and the market is not large enough.

You may want to make is a SaaS product and as people have suggested have a free version with limited features. e.g maximum of 10 ID cards at a time.

Remember again, it is in the interest of the people that have the business of making cards to have this as complex as possible so they can charge companies more.

So you may want to pitch this to the companies directly and not the people who make the cards for them.

</comment><comment><USER27> How much value does the application create for end-users?

If you're targeting consumers, they can be very fickle. As we've seen time and again, they easily shell out $5 for a cup of coffee but complain about $1 mobile applications.

If you're targeting businesses, you got a better shot. Demonstrate how much money you're saving a business, and they'll easily buy. But if your product doesn't create a significant amount of value, it'll be hard to change the status quo.

<comment><USER28> When buying a cup of coffee, I am normally pretty sure that I am going to get a cup of coffee that I will enjoy to a certain extent.

When buying a mobile app, I may be buying myself a waste of time. Which is double loss.

Most, if not all, of the mobile apps I've bought so far either have free Lite companions or come free with an option to unlock all functions via an in-app purchase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is usually done in InDesign if it's a batch job, Photoshop - <USER2> not unless it's a tiny web shop. InDesign allows you to create a print-ready PDF and the printer will know how to "step it up" (basically lay multiple on a page to save $). Your software sounds goods for people who don't do this sort of work constantly - such as schools, medium-sized businesses, etc.

Try pitching to those audiences.

</comment><comment><USER30> Have you considered finding a sales partner? Someone that already has the relationships with buyers in your target space? For example, educational book publishers?

I always prefer to partner if I have technology that is useful to a niche market I don't have strong contacts in. They will be able to get to those who really have purchasing power and give you immediate feedback on whether there is really a market or not.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think you should fight this problem with larger availability. Create a website and put it online for people to download.

Moreover, if you can make it a webapp, even better where you can charge per ID card generated.

I have seen people having this problem and they paid decent money for the ID card generation. You are just targeting wrong audience. Don't talk to people who generate the cards, appeal to people who want the cards.

</comment><comment><USER32> Don't sell the _intangible_ product, instead try selling the whole package of creating ID cards. It will be a simpler pitch to your customer and for all you know potential customers may start to ask you for the software who already have a established process of creating ID cards but don't have the software capability to support it.

</comment><comment><USER33> Because secretly they love their complicated process. It's job security. As others state, go to a higher level.

</comment><comment><USER34> Open source your code. Let it get noticed by recruiters from big companies. Get hired by one of them. Make money. This is the current career model and is counter intuitive. Hey, Google and Facebook are free products! Imagine what would've happened if they were paid?

<comment><USER35> This is a legitimate suggestion. Just keep in mind not everyone wants to be an employee. Maybe OP wants to run a little business, rather than just make money. OP is asking a specific question, not looking for life coaching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe change it to a freemium app and have a very easy in-app purchase model.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh69406...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/apps/hh694067.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER37> Because there is a lot of free software out there.

I think a better marketing plan is to charge a monthly subscription. I have no data on this, but I believe a lot more people would rather pay $5/mo indefinitely rather than $400 one time.

<comment><USER38> I'd question your assumption on SaaS vs one-off payment.

Remember he's selling to large orgs. They have set budgets (often use it or lose it next year), and getting approval for a $400 payment might be easier than recurring payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I know it's not ideal but people are not willing to pay for software , maybe you should approach software firms and sell your app to them . They may have the resources to spread the word and get it to scale

</comment><comment><USER40> Maybe you are solving an annoyance and not a real problem. All problems are being solved somehow. It is important problems being solved poorly that lead to successful products. This likely fails that test.

</comment><comment><USER41> +1 for not putting a link to your product's website

</comment><comment><USER42> Maybe because there is a very decent application in Linux called gLabels.

Besides that, the most important factor is the cost of one hour of work of an employee for the boss.

</comment><comment><USER43> What's the link to your product?

</comment><comment><USER44> so the problem was not big enough...

</comment><comment><USER45> >Why do people want everything for free when other have put a lot of effort on making it?

This is a flawed question. People pay money based on the value delivered to them, not the effort the developer put into a project. This is tough to hear, but nobody cares if you put a lot of effort into something if it doesn't solve their problems better than their current solution. Check your ego at the door of your business if you want to be successful.</comment>


Michael Grunwald and the Assange Precedent Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/08/michael-grunwald-and-the-assange-precedent-problem.html <comment><USER2> On the same day the New York Times labels Djamila Bouhired a "terrorist wife" in their obituary for Jacques Verges, one of the most influential and intellectual lawyers in French history.

The medias enthusiasm to coddle up to the government and military is a dangerous development.

</comment><comment><USER3> Grunwald's bio from Time. - _" Michael Grunwald is TIME's senior national correspondent. Before coming to TIME, he spent nearly a decade at the Washington Post, where he served as a congressional correspondent, New York bureau chief, essayist and national investigative reporter. Grunwald has also written for the Boston Globe, The New Republic and Slate among many other publications, and is the recipient of the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting and the Society of Environmental Journalists award for in-depth reporting. Raised in Greenvale, N.Y., Grunwald holds a B.A. from Harvard College. He lives in Miami."_

This guy belongs on Drudge or Fox, or better yet, AM radio.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hardly. He belongs on MSNBC or The Huffington Post. He's a very far left guy, and since Obama has come into office, Grunwald now describes himself as an unabashed "statist".

It honestly shocks me that people as smart as HNers can't see that Fox News and MSNBC are two sides of the same ridiculous coin.

<comment><USER4> I have noticed that in many countries, the big 'left wing' newspaper and the big 'right wing' newspaper is owned by the same company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the things that repeatedly bothers me about this entire situation is the continuous use of the words "foreign" and "foreigner", from all camps discussing this.

Since when did it become acceptable to be so outright xenophobic? I mean, it's tantamount to the way that "Ausländer" ended up being used.

This "us and them" balkanisation of the entire American mindset is dangerous. It is _wrong_ to think of America as "all of the world that matters", and everything outside of America as simply "foreign", and therefore unimportant and to be treated as America sees fit.

<comment><USER6> Xenophobia seems like a deeply seated part of the American culture. We started out in an 'us versus them' scenario against our british rulers, then went on to subjugate and oppress various minority cultures that were supposed to be welcomed here. Not to mention the natives who lived on this continent in the first place...

<comment><USER7> I suspect that many countries have 'us vs them' struggles in their past. Surely the US is not unique in this regard?

<comment><USER6> Sure, but we have them right now, not just in our past, which is the real problem. Look at Arizona's behavior towards minorities, for example, or stop- and-frisk in NY, or the severe disadvantages African American children grow up under in places like Oakland.

Xenophobia is still a very real part of american culture, just like sexism - even if things are better than they were a hundred years ago. It's a long, difficult uphill climb.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SQLPad: A self-hosted web app for writing and running SQL queries - <AUTHOR> https://rickbergfalk.github.io/sqlpad/#/ <comment><USER2> This seems great app.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome</comment>


Most popular Firefox extensions - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/?sort=users

<comment><USER2> I was surprised to find Web of Trust addon ( [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/wot-safe-brow...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/wot-safe-browsing-tool) ) in top 10. From my past experience [https://mywot.com](https://mywot.com) is nothing more than a scam. Their ratings are not reliable and should not be trusted by anyone. For example, our business website was rated with "Child safety: Very poor" and there is nothing we could do about it.</comment>


Thumpware Media Controller - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumpware/thumpware-media-controller <comment><AUTHOR> I created a product to allow me to use my inline Android headphone buttons with my PC.

It used to drive me nuts that the buttons worked when I was writing on my tablet or using my phone but not when I was in the office at my desktop.

In case anyone else has the same frustration, a few hours ago I launched it on Kickstarter: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumpware/thumpware- med...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumpware/thumpware-media- controller)</comment>


How America Could Go Dark - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-america-could-go-dark-1468423254 <comment><USER3> So they are again beefing up a terrorism drama for simple third world copper theft problems, as they happen in all third world countries. No terrorist would try to attack 100 minor power stations, they rather attack 1-2 big lines or grid stations.

What is much more dangerous is this marketing tactic to attack the problem ("terrorists") and the ongoing erosion of core infrastructure, like water, streets and the electric grid by simple neglection, probably caused by outsourcing support for it. The US power grid quality is only comparable to India. You cannot trust them, and there are constant outages. Over- and undercurrents happen all the time, and consumers have to pay for the damages and outages.

Copper thieves are everywhere. Fight them, but don't call it terrorism. America will go dark, but not by terrorists. Don't blame the foreigners, they are homemade problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Government indifference (at all levels) to this risk is scary.

"The Metcalf substation (San Jose, CA, USA), while undergoing security upgrades, was hit _again_ in August 2014. Intruders cut through fences and burglarized equipment containers, _triggering at least 14 alarms over four hours_. Utility employees _didn't call police or alert guards, who were stationed at the site_ , according to a state inquiry."

The problem is compounded by a large (and growing) number of electrical outages caused by copper thieves ripping out wiring; it becomes more difficult to distinguish mere theft from terrorism.

<comment><USER5> If it's difficult to distinguish mere theft from terrorism, then here's a hint: it isn't terrorism.

The "terror" in "terrorism" is there for a reason. If nobody can tell that you stole the wiring because you resent the British rule of the Northern Territories/the French occupation of Algeria/US bases in the middle east/whatever, then even if you intended your act to terrify others into getting their government to comply with your wishes, you have failed pretty badly.

<comment><USER6> Maybe it just didn't work. Or maybe it was a dry run. Shooting up transformers in Metcalf was clearly not theft, I know that.

<comment><USER7> > Maybe it just didn't work. Or maybe it was a dry run

You may have crimes, but they aren't terror attacks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a good companion to Gibney's Zero Day Docu: [http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12045334/alex-gibney-zero- day...](http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12045334/alex-gibney-zero-days-stuxnet- virus-documentary-podcast)

Went to a SmartGrid conference in 2009. What I learned:

. $1T infrastructure is scheduled to be replaced,

. Power Co's operate on a 30 year amortization cycle,

. Utility regulations can not only change from state-to-state, but from county-to-county,

. The grid is hackable (known in 2009)

[Edit] spelling

<comment><USER9> Not to be confused with Zero Days (2016), which is also worth a watch.

Edit: I mis-read, you actually are talking about Zero Days (2016), which - <USER2> meant - shouldn't be confused with an earlier documentary called Zero Days - Security Leaks For Sale.

<comment><USER8> spell corrected; thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Article without the paywall etc:

[http://archive.is/HCwUJ](http://archive.is/HCwUJ)

<comment><USER11> Or just click on the _web_ button at the top of the page and click on the Google result (WSJ allows google clickthroughs to skip the paywall)

<comment><USER10> I get intermittent success with that method, only works about 30% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's scary to think about the damage an actually competent force can inflict in this day and age.

<comment><USER13> It really is. I can't imagine the havoc that an actually-trained strike team with some real equipment could cause.

I was reading _Band of Brothers_ recently, and the description of how accurate and deadly their mortar-men were in a number of engagements was impressive. A light mortar is not the most high-tech weapon, is mass-produced by every army in the world, and does not take a huge amount of training to handle effectively. Not to mention that it can strike from up to a mile away, from a position without direct line-of-sight to the target; with an accomplice acting as an FO to send adjustments by text. Or skip the accomplice, and use a drone (Is the army doing this? Seems like a natural application). I don't want to imagine the indiscriminate horror that could be inflicted at any kind of open- air event.

<comment><USER14> See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack) \- although in that case the bomb-proof windows worked. The second time the IRA nearly managed to assasinate the head of government.

The US army already has small portable tube-launched drones that function as a sort of guided mortar, although I can't remember the name at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So an obvious maybe long term solution here is to eliminate the need for a grid. The transition to battery solar powered homes would reduce the need for the upstream power supply and larger and transmission lines...

<comment><USER16> The grid powers a lot more than homes...

<comment><USER17> So an obvious long-term solution is to _reduce_ the need for the grid. Many commercial and industrial facilities could run at least partly on local wind or solar, and the more decentralised capability there is, the less the vulnerability.

(I'm actually not just thinking about terrorists and suchlike. I'm also thinking about other risks, such as another Carrington event.)

<comment><USER18> The more decentralized capability, the higher the need to distribute excess production to places of excess demand, hence a higher need for a grid.

<comment><USER17> There's an important difference between 'if the grid goes down, we will have some inefficiency because of excess production here and insufficient production there' and 'if the grid goes down, everything goes down'.

<comment><USER19> If your local "grid" can't distinguish between your TV usage and the ventilators at a local hospital then there is no difference between your two conditions. If such a distinction cannot be made within whatever circle you use to define "local" then the two cases are identical. The alternative is to wastefully over-provision each local area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let's not forget about squirrels!

Years ago, I would listen to a daylight only AM radio station located in Boulder, Colorado. If I turned on the radio and didn't hear it, I assumed that a squirrel had taken out their power. This seemed to happen every few months. I think that squirrels may have hit upstream from our home or office power once on twice back then.

Which leads to an interesting question: if I pitch the problem as scary enough, can I get a DHS grant to deal with squirrels I suspect of aiming to nest in my gutters or attic?

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there anything in process like the Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act proposed [https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house- bill/2417](https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/2417) in 2013?

Does any jurisdiction in the world have exemplary practices?

</comment><comment><USER22> The first action of the advance party in the Iraq offensive was to sabotage the grid and take out all the power which was accomplished by a small team in short order.

</comment><comment><USER23> All the more reason why we need to aim for decentralized (and ideally carbon- neutral) power.

</comment><comment><USER24> SoMa is dark right now. Lovely little power outage.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why do someone send a link that requires a subscription to read?

<comment><USER26> Because sometimes quality journalism is worth finding. If I say I read a lovely article in a magazine, are you going to fix at me for discussing something that cost money to access?

<comment><USER25> If I can get a summary before I pay for access it will be good, than proceed with buying.

Here the guideline to help us from the FAQs: It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thin the real problem is that we've set up only one grid. If we had competing distribution providers, the failure of one network wouldn't matter so much.

<comment><USER28> I dunno, the power grid is an enormous capital investment. It seems like having more than one would be like having completely independent road systems, that is, seriously inefficient.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do.

In the continental US there's three independent grids: East, West, and Texas. There's some interchange of power between the grids with DC ties, but it's pretty minimal capacity-wise.

<comment><USER29> God bless Texas. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, occasionally folks ask us why Texas has its own grid. We just answer "because Texas". ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My dad has been pointing this out for 20 years. He'd be pissed if I didn't comment here.

<comment><USER31> Perhaps you should have taken this opportunity to repeat some of those things he has been saying for the last 20 years so as to contribute to the conversation...

<comment><USER30> OK... he's been saying that it would be easy to attack our electrical infrastructure which is exposed and unguarded all over the place. I can't add anything that isn't in the article, besides pointing out that we've more or less been in this state forever and somehow terrorists haven't figured out how to capitalize.</comment></comment></comment>


IQ scores are malleable - <AUTHOR> http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2012/01/iq-scores-are-malleable.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Abstract of underlying study:

<http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/425.abstract>

The full text of the article

<http://www.ssb.no/filearchive/Schooling.pdf>

is hosted in Norway, perhaps because the study is based on a dataset from Norway.</comment>


Show HN: How the Git log of a side-project of mine looks like - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/napolux/7eddbf88334d3030cb55ddc4ad292baf <comment><AUTHOR> I regret nothing.</comment>


Warren Buffet in 2002 Berkshire Letter - "Derivatives a Time bomb" [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.fintools.com/docs/Warren%20Buffet%20on%20Derivatives.pdf

<comment><USER2> He spent time on CNBC a few years ago talking about the exact same thing with Maria Bartiromo.

</comment><comment><USER3> why is this a new problem? What changed?

<comment><AUTHOR> nothing.. it just shows the beginning of a historical record of Buffett repeatedly warning about the danger of derivatives, and the financial world as a whole not listening. This week would be Mr. Buffett's 'I told you so' moment, if he was so inclined.</comment></comment>


As Planet Discoveries Pile Up, a Gap Appears in the Pattern - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/as-planet-discoveries-pile-up-a-gap-appears-in-the-pattern-20190516/ <comment><USER2> Ok, so we can explain this plus Dark Matter in one shot. Basically, planets slightly larger than Earth are practically guaranteed to evolve intelligent life. Intelligent life eventually develops technology that allows them to shield the existence of their planet, or even entire stellar system, from the probes of the Evil AI Lifedestroyer. So, all that Dark Matter is just the intelligent life in the universe, using normal prudence to keep out EAILD (see above), more or less like most humans live in houses with walls.

So, any system that is not part of Dark Matter yet is either: 1) unconducive to life (or complex life, anyway) 2) was already zapped by the EAILD 3) like us, is in a transient state where the EAILD hasn't arrived yet, but we haven't learned how to cloak our solar system yet either

Again, the key here is that planets just slightly larger than Earth are the most likely to evolve intelligent life, so they nearly always end up cloaking, and thus we don't see them.

Enjoy.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this (very interesting and fun) theory is that Earth would have to somehow be the very last planet to develop such intelligence amongst the large list of planets within detection range, which seems unlikely.

<comment><USER4> Well, if you want to get technical, the major problem with this theory is that MACHOs are not a good candidate for dark matter: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_compact_halo_object#Th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_compact_halo_object#Theoretical_considerations) Even if you imagine they were all hiding, their previous effects on the universe are missing.

<comment><USER2> Aha, you must need to erase yourself from your timeline, else the EAILD will find you from your past traces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't gravity be a good explanation? Once your rocky core grows beyond a certain size, you start retaining some gas molecule X. If you are too small, the thermal velocity for the gas X is bigger than escape velocity and thus you can't retain it. So you generally don't have planets right at the small end of the X retaining size. They always grow bigger because they sweep all of X. Also it makes them heavier so they can hold onto X better, even if, say the sun becomes brighter. What is X? Helium?

<comment><USER6> This is indeed one of the possible theories to explain the Fulton gap, as far as I understand it. If you have a rocky core that accretes more and more atmosphere, the atmosphere collapses once it contains about as much mass as the core and you become much more efficient at accreting more gas and you form a gas giant.

<comment><USER7> If this is true, would that mean that life is rare in the Universe? I would mean that we are an anomaly in that we have the perfect size and core materials to be able to hold onto some of our atmosphere, but not so big so as to turn into a gas giant.

Kinda sad to think that there may be nothing but space out there.

<comment><USER6> A planet can have a atmosphere that is sufficient for life, but of negligable mass compared to the core. In our solar system we have at least 2.5 examples of that: Earth, Venus and Mars. And that is not counting ocean moons with an ice crust such as Europa that might be hospitable to life as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They really should have put a nice chart or something in that article. Talking about the gap without visualizing it is a missed trick

<comment><USER6> Go to [http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/](http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/) and select "Semi-major axis" for the X axis (this is the appropriate analog of "radius" for an ellipse) and "Planetary Mass" for the Y Axis. Note that the bottom right corner is empty because we can not yet detect stuff there. All of the solar systems planets would be in that corner. The Fulton gap is the lower density region at 0.1 to 0.2 jupiter masses.

<comment><USER6> Since a lot of people seem to have problems with that plot I have uploaded an annotated version to [https://imagebin.ca/v/4hQOkAKo27fq](https://imagebin.ca/v/4hQOkAKo27fq) . The black dots are data and are correct. The colorful annotations are by me and might be wrong as I am a plasma physicist, not a planetary scientist. And unfortunately I can not get the dots for the solar system in there using the plot interface of exoplanet.eu. But they would be in the bottom right triangle.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if a simulation could be made of planet formation in a solar system based on current data of the different stages for each type and size of star and the distribution of clouds of gas and matter. Run billions of simulations and see under what conditions similar gaps appear in planet mass and size. Perhaps that could provide a clue.

<comment><USER6> People are running models of planet formation. And some people run their model often enough to do statistics over the outcomes.

The problem is that modelling the formation all the way from micron sized dust to 100000 km diameter planets is hard (14 order of magnitude in length scale). No single model does all steps well, most of them do not include some steps at all.

Note: this does not mean that the models are useless. There is some things we can already learn and smart people work on improving the models. But as usual, HN overestimates the power of numerical models. Modeling real life is a bit harder than launching a ruby web app. And takes MUCH more compute power.

<comment><USER10> This is so interesting. Because it can't be this hard to do this kind of physics simulation at the correct level of fidelity if you want to apply RL to physical problems

<comment><USER11> What does RL have to do with this? The laws governing gravity are already well understood and specialized code will always be more computationally efficient while having less unexplainable behavior. Why would you use a slower, more opaque method to accomplish the same thing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well do we know how large the core of gas giants are? Maybe at a certain size they just attract too much debris and form gas giants.

<comment><USER13> The planets on the large size of the gap are _not_ gas giants, so that cannot explain it.

<comment><USER6> Do you have more information on that? "Hot jupiters" are close in gas planets and the should appear at low semi-major axis, above the Fulton gap. (Disclaimer: I am not a planetary scientist, but my office mate is and I learned just enough to be annoying)

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I don't have any further insight, as my reply was based on information from the posted story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How confident are they in detecting planets of earth size? I have a distinct memory that they weren't.

<comment><USER6> Depends how close to the parent star and how far that star is from us. But for earth sized planetes about 1 AU from the star we are rather blind.

<comment><USER15> For those who don't know (I don't think it's a common unit): 1 AU is the distance between the earth and the sun (Astronomical Unit). So apparently [citation needed] we're blind for earth-sized planets at an earth's distance from its star.

<comment><USER6> I am not a planetary scientist (my office mate is) and didn't spend much time looking at the literature. "A Revised Exoplanet Yield from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)" by Barclay et al. ([https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/aae3e9](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/aae3e9)) might be the citation you are looking for. Figure 14 shows that anything below 1.5 Earth radii is basically invisible to TESS. I can not find a good chart for the detection limit in the planet size vs star distance plane.

<comment><USER16> The question that popped into my head in a disturbing manner was whether beings on those planets could see ours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been reading The Wheel of Time at a feverish pace over the last couple of months. Seeing a headline about a gap in the Pattern was a confusing experience complete with shock and a sense of dread and a triple-take.

For one brief moment I thought some fool scientist had opened up the Bore. Light!

</comment><comment><USER18> I know very little physics, but perhaps objects have a stable orbit w.r.t. their mass and objects in the Fulton gap have the highest probability to interfere with each other and as a consequence distribute their mass to the outer and inner orbit?

<comment><USER6> Orbits are stable and not sensitive to the objects mass, as long as the mass is much less than parent star. There is even experimental prove of that. An upper stage from the Apollo programm ended up in an orbit around that sun that was basically identical to the Earth orbit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nah, it's probably just aliens destroying planets of the dangerous, life- harboring, variety. And we're next!

On a serious note; I wonder whether the size of planets has much bearing on whether life could be started or sustained, or if this is usually trumped by other factors.

<comment><USER20> It would make for good Sci-Fi premise as an explanation for the Great Filter[1]. Some advanced civilization keeps destroying planets that have life or are ideal for it but the first heuristic they use to do it fast doesn't catch all cases. Earth is below the threshold so we get by, for now...

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

<comment><USER21> Why are so many people so in love with the idea that the solution to the fermi paradox is sapiocide on a cosmic scale? It neither fits the data nor does it hold any philosophical merit.

<comment><USER22> We are about to eradicate mosquitos.

<comment><USER23> Because they're an active threat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My (totally uneducated) guess is, in the early formation of a solar system the material is hot and volatile it is all moving around a lot. There are a lot of large / medium sized bodies moving around they are running into each other, joining, breaking apart, moving around, etc. In all that chaos, the available material is tossed around and "excess" material is toss out of the inner planet orbit.

I am imagining it like pouring a cup of sugar on a dinner plate and shaking the plate around until the amount of sugar on the plate is sort of stable. The excess material ends up outside the solar system (Oort cloud / kuiper belt) or part of gas giant cores and moons.

With that, there is only so much material in the inner solar system to work with and the law of averages works out and we end up with similar sized planets.

I would assert a hypothesis that a ratio of material in the inner solar system is linked, in some way, to the size of the star. That it is unlikely there will be massive earths out there in the inner solar system because of this natural distribution of material around a star.

I have no formal training at all. Just an IT nerd that watches a lot of Kurzgesagt.

<comment><USER3> That would be compelling if there were planets up to a certain size. However, that's not the case. You have increasingly large planets, a big gap, and then increasingly large planets again. It's a bimodal distribution, which implies some other factor at hand than just the law of averages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is so much trash orbiting that those planets appear to be more massive than they are

<comment><USER26> Or it's a shell world that used to be Earth-size.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Two obvious questions, perhaps someone knows their answers:

* Is the gap a measurement artifact? (Presumably not). * Are there other, small gaps besides the Fulton gap discussed in the article?

<comment><USER6> There is no (known) selection effect that would account for that gap. (And scientists have looked to find such selection effects). And yes, there is other gaps, e.g. a lack of systems with a planet at 0.2 AU (or rather in the range from 0.1 to 1.0 AU, separating the "hot jupiters" far in from the "normal" gas giants further out that we know from our solar system).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone explain this recurring pattern of elaborate art images produced for rinky-dink articles? Is that just to try to keep eyes on the page or something?

</comment><comment><USER29> Why no graph in this article? It'd be a lot more informative.

</comment><comment><USER30> > While TESS doesn't yet have enough planets in its statistics bin to confirm > or disprove the Fulton gap,

You can stop reading the article after that line.

<comment><USER31> Why? A key part of physics is collecting data. All the line means is the data are incomplete but _as of now_ suggest a gap that may be interesting to keep an eye on as new data are observed.

<comment><USER13> Yes, agreed. We now have a prediction. We will collect more data to see if that prediction holds. If it does, we'll work on theories to explain it. (Of course, these two processes will actually happen in tandem, as how things work in practice is much messier.) They are _not_ looking at the data set and saying "This anomaly will certainly hold when we get more data, it is now established fact." They _are_ looking at the data set and saying "This looks funny, we should keep an eye on it." That is good science.

<comment><USER4> I actually find it hard to imagine the model of science that some people seem to have is supposed to work, where, apparently, you are supposed to never look at the real data already collected out in the world and somehow just come up with hypotheses to be tested from... uhh... err... nothing, apparently, because looking at pre-existing data is somehow cheating, and, what else is there?

The "standard model" of science that seems to be embedded in the heads of the Greater Internet Commetariat is pretty ludicrously nonsensical in a number of places.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Basecamp Next - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/basecampnext/

<comment><USER2> With Trello[1] and ASANA[2] out there for free, they have no chance but announce upcoming facelift / upgrade -- so existing customers will stay around, and perhaps, when releasing, attracting new users as well.

1\. <http://trello.com>

2\. <http://asana.com>

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure their chances are just fine. :) They are still making hires which I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do if they saw their company declining. Also trello and asana attract very different markets of customers I'm sure compared to 37signals core demographic. Take a look at the featured customer videos at basecamphq.com. It's wedding planners, brand design, a self help firm. Not software developers who seem to be the folks gravitating to trello and asana.

<comment><USER4> If my business is threatened by several competitors one of the things I might do is hire new people to work on new initiatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 37signals, when will you learn? You need to put up a LaunchRock lander, tell us little to no information about what you're doing and make us think you hate users enough to never let anybody in.

</comment><comment><USER6> a todo-app, a revolutionary mobile chat, a breakthrough internet collaboration device. a todo-app, a mobile chat, a internet collaboration device. are you getting it?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it just me or the copywriting is incredibly similar to Apple's when they introduced iPhone 4[1]: "This changes everything. Again"

1\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1edQuxclUs>

<comment><USER8> Except 37signals didn't change nothing. The only thing about Basecamp is that it's so easy to use.

What Apple does is innovation. 37signals just makes things foolproof.

<comment><USER9> * only thing about Basecamp is that it's so easy to use.*

Goddamn, if I could say that about the apps I write, I could retire happy. Being "easy to use" is an amazing accomplishment for anything, especially project management.

<comment><USER8> Sure it is, but calling that "reinventing" is unfair to people who actually do something innovative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They're up to... building a new Basecamp. Less interesting than building a new Segway or whatnot - that could be useful information for the title.

<comment><USER11> Basecamp could theoretically be less interesting than a Segway. But a Segway won't help me run a freelance biz with a guy 4,500 miles away.

Utility is far more valuable in many ways than entertainment.

Can't wait for the new updates

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In early 2012, 37signals will introduce Basecamp Next , And you'll see why 2012 won't be like "2012"

<comment><USER13> Hardly it

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You know what we use for project management... our bug tracking system. It seems like some of the most influential people in our industry (Spolesky and dhh) have to write software and make books on "their" philosophy of getting shit done. How about changing the topic for once. You know like solving the power crisis or something.

<comment><USER15> They're in the pickaxe business so what else would they talk about except mining? If you're looking for a different kind of luminary look elsewhere.

<comment><USER14> So google should have stayed with just search? Come on... I would love to have DHH's clout. He could start a whole bunch of new products/ideas and easily get thousands of people to signup. Or is that a 37signals philosophy: "stick with what you know and don't try anything new"?

<comment><USER16> That's not even apples to oranges, that's apples to orange groves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am surprised, I thought 37s was against rewrites.

<comment><USER18> It is not necessarily a rewrite. It may be a fork of the existing product. All the page really hints at is some dramatic changes to the interface.

<comment><USER19> From what dhh posted on Twitter it sounds like a full rewrite:

> The tech and the design is all new, all fresh.

<https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/144061889201188865>

I agree that UI is really going to be the story. Customers don't need to care about what's underneath.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My guess is it's going to be an HTML5, realtime, mobile-focused thingy. Also probably backed by their mobile/html5/javascript framework "Cinco".

</comment><comment><USER21> So great to see this. I'm a fan of their products, but they have really started to feel a bit outdated (mobile support, real-time, Dropbox integration). I hope they keep the core of building great communication tools without too much shenanigans, and reinterpret them for today's online environment.

</comment><comment><USER22> This partly explains the lack of updates to PrototypeJS (last version shipped over a year ago). My hunch is that if they are building something from scratch, they have abandoned Prototype entirely in favor of jQuery.

<comment><USER23> Basecamp isn't what explains the lack of updates to PrototypeJS. jQuery itself is, however.

It is (MUCH) faster, got traction quicker, has a larger community and is definitely more flexible. Rails moved from Prototype for good with version 3, which was released a little over a year ago - it would make no sense for Basecamp to stick with prototype.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm sure it's just a coincidence but the image on that site closely resembles the the temporary facade of the Covent Garden (London) Apple Store while it was still under construction: [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GTXylOUSEM0/TFNV8AbQfQI/AAAAAAAADM...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GTXylOUSEM0/TFNV8AbQfQI/AAAAAAAADM0/JzSpdOJ0nLQ/s1600/Apple- store-covent-garden-london.jpg)

<comment><USER25> Unveiling things by having a velvet curtain or cloth on top (and then lifting it up!) has been done for decades, perhaps centuries. It's not unique to Apple or to 37signals, it's a common occurrence that they were expressing digitally.

<comment><USER24> I'm not arguing with any of that, however these two works share a lot more than just the act of "unveiling", in particular they both reveal a small but identifiable part of a logo.

In both cases there's no physical product to unveil (one is a retail store that is too big to be unveiled and the other is a service with no real physical manifestation) so the graphical representation of the product is abstracted away to a logo which is being unveiled. Only showing a small (but identifiable) part of the logo creates a sense of motion, it tells a story. It communicates that there's something new and exciting going to happen very soon in relation to this well known logo. In my opinion this is a creative idea that indeed builds upon the old tradition of unveiling things but it also goes way beyond it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Their real 'competition' is iOS and native platforms. They never made it big on these platforms, and they loose traction because of that. They must rethink their approach for tablet and mobile, and please...not in HTML5.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really wish it was two-way Highrise contacts integration with Google Apps.

</comment><comment><USER28> SVN has been quiet the past few months.

</comment><comment><USER29> I suspect that the 'new basecamp' will be a seamless integration of Basecamp, Campfire and Highrise with one simple API where people can extend it to whatever level they wish. So Basecamp 2.0 will be a project management platform. Maybe an SAP and Salesforce of Small Businesses?

Adding to the above, I also assume they would be the first major app that would be fully acessible via the browser. Maybe 'kill' the need for the app store?

I look forward to what it would be.

<comment><USER30> _SAP and Salesforce of Small Businesses_

We did something like that in mid-2000s as an Open Source project (<http://openpsa2.org/>). Never really caught fire with us, though. Business apps are a difficult area.

<comment><USER29> _Business apps are a difficult area_

Open Source and Free do not work for serious businesses.

For open source, you want someone responsible. Except you have a strong re- seller and support program, I doubt it will work.

Free is an entirely different issue. A business will not want to be 'Gowallad'. i.e, Sell suddenly and say have your data and thanks for your time. We are shutting down next month. See thread discussing this <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3318458>

When you create a company i.e charge money, businesses know you are serious and have someone to complain to. Then you have a higher chance of gaining traction.

<comment><USER30> _Open Source and Free do not work for serious businesses._

That is probably a too extreme take on this as well. Open Source is a great "insurance policy" for companies, but not enough on its own. You also want a company dedicated to supporting and developing the software that your company uses so that you can have a proper contractual relationship into it.

For example, MySQL AB was running quite a good business supporting the freely licensed database for companies using it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_AB>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It seriously makes me wonder how these guys have survived so long without making any changes. It's the same today as when I had an account 6 years ago. It's basic and functional.

Game changer my arse, it's about time they changed it!

<comment><USER31> And whoever down votes me I want a reason why you think 37 signals is so fantastic when they have essentially changed nothing in 6 years.

<comment><USER32> The fact that a product built six years ago is still relevant and effective is testament to just how fantastic their original decisions were.

<comment><USER30> Also, the fact that BaseCamp has quite decent APIs has enabled a "cottage industry" of third-party clients and add-ons to evolve. This has probably made the product a lot more durable:

[http://basecamphq.com/extras?cohort=Landing%20Headlines%20/%...](http://basecamphq.com/extras?cohort=Landing%20Headlines%20/%20together,No%20CC%20Upfront4%20/%20No- CC&utm_custom\[Landing_Headlines\]=together&utm_custom\[No_CC%20Upfront4\]=No- CC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> +1 for Trello, I am a big fan

</comment><comment><USER34> But will the rewrite be in node.js ?

</comment><comment><USER35> They're going to add secondary mailing addresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER36> They found out that Rails doesn't scale, and are redoing everything in hand- coded, no framework PHP.

(Jokes aren't only for Reddit, ya know)

<comment><USER34> judging by your comment and mine it would appear downmods are _always_ for jokes, around here...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Rebuttal: <http://i.imgur.com/pRUqr.png>

<comment><USER23> I think you created a new account in the wrong site. Thanks for your great contribution to this thread, but, no thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's a rather rude signup form. Put in your email address -- if you're lucky or you're important, you get a "chance" at a beta invite.

<comment><USER39> Come on. Standard practice for beta invites these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Strikingly similar logo concept to Uber...

[http://blog.uber.com/2011/12/05/take-ubers-new-logo-for-a- sp...](http://blog.uber.com/2011/12/05/take-ubers-new-logo-for-a-spin/)

Maybe 37signals are back to client-design work... ;)</comment>


Java won't curl up and die like Cobol, insists Oracle - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/07/oracle_java_9_10_roadmap/

<comment><USER2> Some surprisingly well balanced comments on that article, colour me surprised, might actually read more of the Register's tech articles from now on.</comment>


The best bug reports are pull requests - <AUTHOR> http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2011/01/27/the-best-bug-reports-are-pull-requests.aspx <comment><USER2> A friend of mine has a little poster by his wall that says, "Stacktrace or GTFO" for all people who give him bug reports. It follows the same mentality as this - the more resources you can provide a developer for a bug report, the a.) faster it'll be fixed and b.) the happier the developer will be. I think you're right though, a pull request is pretty much like spoon feeding the bug to the developer. That said, I think he's right in that it might clutter up the repo a bit with bug examples - if pull reqs for bugs become common place (and I hope they do) it'd be nice to have a way to classify them as such (or perhaps there is a way that I don't know about yet?).

<comment><USER3> Some developers have a mentality that if not enough information was provided in the bug report then it's not a real bug.

They are wrong.

Just because you didn't get enough information to reproduce and/or fix it, doesn't mean it's not there.

But, it does mean there is nothing you can can do about it. (Obviously try to get clarification and more info, etc. this is assuming you were not able to.)

Nevertheless, in the back of your mind you should try to remember the bug and maybe you'll come across something that will let you figure out what it was.

This doesn't scale so well for OSS projects, but if it's paid work and the bug came from your client then you better track such things, even if you can't immediately fix them.

<comment><USER4> I get both ends of this.

On one side, I have trouble getting information out of people ("It had an error" ... "What did it do?" ... "I don't know anything about computers, so I clicked okay. Can't you just fix it?") and on the other, some of the people I report things to aren't willing to even try to reproduce bugs ("I need 8,000 different files, screenshots, etc. of the bug in action, which will require you to shut down production for an hour" ... "Can't you just look at the code for X? It fails every time with the same behavior." ... "No, I really need you to waste a lot of time on this because I'm way too busy to implement any kind of logging." ... "No wonder you won't let anyone else have access to your bug tracker. Something tells me it's a sticky note or whiteboard based system.")

I completely understand how people can fail to report enough information to give anyone any hope of finding the bug, but it's frustrating when you know you've got a good bug report and the developer doesn't want to listen to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In general, when I have an issue, I try to produce a small snippet of code that shows the problem. I haven't done it as a unit test before, but I don't think I've ever submitted a bug report to a project that has them...

It helps both me and the developer, because the developer can run the code and see if he fixed -my- problem, rather than -a- problem, and I can run it afterwards to verify that it's fixed. I've also had it show that the same code will hit many bugs before it works... This allows the developer to fix it all the way down.

</comment><comment><USER6> *pull requests containing a new, failing test. Love it.</comment>


How to build a community around your site - <AUTHOR> http://www.foundread.com/view/vet-reward <comment><USER2> I like Strength is not only in numbers. I have never thought of it like this before. I was always under the impression that millions of users equals millions of dollars....

</comment><comment><USER3> non-actionable.

<comment><USER4> Explain.</comment></comment>


Ferengi Rules of Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.sjtrek.com/trek/rules/

<comment><USER2> Thanksfully most of these rules are abolished at the end of DS9 ...</comment>


'Striking weaknesses' in adult financial skills - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/education-43384434 <comment><USER4> Some of the skills tested in the study seem more like arithmetics rather than financial skills:

\- "About a quarter could not work out how much change they should receive from a shop..."

\- "About one in three adults struggled to work out the price they had to pay.. per litre or per kilo"

\- "About half could not read a simple financial line graph"

\- "Most struggled to calculate discounts involving more complex calculations"

I mean.. people can't do math in their head. Who cares? In my opinion, the most important financial skills are simple things like monitoring your credit, your spending, creating a budget, pay off credit card in full, pay down high interest debt ASAP, avoid pay day loans, don't spend money on stupid things, invest in high quality index funds, etc.

These skills are mostly psychological and will help your financial health WAY more than calculate price of chicken per pound in your head.

<comment><USER5> Especially when you consider that most supermarket labels will also include the "price per unit weight" or "price per unit volume" on the shelf with a smaller font, it becomes trivially easy to compare which bottle of soap is going to get you the most for your money. Or maybe you neglect to do this (simply opting for the container that looks the most appealing rather than optimizing for the amount of liquid per dollar you'll receive) and as a result you have to suffer the catastrophic consequences of spending $9 per month on dish soap when you could have spent $7.20 instead.

The funny thing is that some of the asked are all arithmetic are constructed in such a way that you will get a "wrong" answer if you treat them as practical financial questions as opposed to purely arithmetic ones. For example, one of the sample questions in the article is "If a litre of cola costs $3.15, how much will you pay for a third of a litre?" This seems to be asking you to take $3.15 and divide it by three, but as a practical matter, it would be folly for me to take the price of a 20 oz soda bottle and then assume that I could calculate the cost of a 12 oz can simply by multiplying by 0.6. This question isn't a test of practical or financial literacy; it's purely arithmetic.

<comment><USER6> I've started noticing some sneaky math in my local supermarket. When comparing two items, both list the unit price, but they list the price in different units. Example: A 1.4-lb package lists the price per oz, while the 0.8-lb package lists the price per lb. In every case, the intent seems too be an attempt to induce math errors and cause someone to accidentally purchase the package with the higher true unit price.

<comment><USER7> Just multiply or divide by 10s or 100s or whatever. It's not hard.

Oh.. oh yeah. ;)

<comment><USER8> That's not going to work with imperial units :-)

<comment><USER9> And heaven knows programmers can't multiply by 16.

<comment><USER10> Only bad programmers multiply by 16.

The good ones use a bit shift.

<comment><USER11> For about the last 15 years the compiler will generated the same code in either case. Thats really old advice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you want capitalism to work, you need some kind of "homo economicus" that is able to look for their own selfinterest.

If what you have is companies powered by complex financial systems and artificial intelligence help while consumers are not able to get a discount right, you are going to end with all money in one side of the table with the other empty handed.

This is another reason to improve our education systems. We need to function in an increasing complex society and that requires an incresing education quality with more resources, better methologies and more time dedicated to build knowledge and less to build national identity. (To memorize the list of presidents is not as an useful skill as it used to be, I guess).

<comment><USER13> _what you have is companies powered by complex financial systems and artificial intelligence help while consumers are not able to get a discount right_

Yeah agreed. Perhaps products (chatbots, voice?) that simply tell people what to do can partially solve for this.

In many cases however, people have self-interests based on vastly different _values_ (think relationship or hobby), and their instincts are good enough at approximating what they want. And while personal finance is tricky for many folks, not every decision is like personal finance which has a easily defined value function like calculating compound interest or choosing discounts. So my view is people are usually right!

<comment><USER14> "Alexa thinks you should apply for a personal loan through Amazon Finance"

Yeah, no conflict of interest there

<comment><USER15> Capitalism is great for the many when most business are small and there's plenty of competition.

Capitalism is great for the few in more or less all other scenarios.

We live in one of the others, I'm afraid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Having lived for a while in Chile (where according to the article financial literacy is below average), my experience very much agrees with this. I noticed many people struggling with basic arithmetic resulting in me having to check the change at small shops since it would often be wrong. It also leads to people making crazy decisions with respect to choosing to buy in cash or on credit (in quota). I'm not talking about household appliances that people need, but I've seen things like a person buying a 50$ blanket in 12 installments over a year. Many people would just fill up they're salary with monthly credit payments.

I've heard some people say this shouldn't be an issue with most supermarket labels including the "price per unit weight/volume". I agree this should be an obligation by law, but I feel like many people are unaware of these labels. I know it sounds crazy to a tech crowd but I'm sure many people don't compare the weight/volume with the price but instead go for the cheaper product price.

<comment><USER17> > labels including the "price per unit weight/volume"

We overestimate the average person. Not everybody knows what that even means. They just don't have a concept of ratios that can be compared.

> go for the cheaper product price.

That might still be a valid option if the packaged quantities differ my a lot. E.g. if I only need 100g of ham for a sandwich, it's not better to buy a whole 1kg piece if that's just going to rot in my fridge.

<comment><USER18> I don't think we overestimate people necessarily, I think we overestimate how much they desire to spend their time thinking about the same things we do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >Examples of the sorts of questions asked > >1\. If you bought four packs of tea: chamomile ($4.60), green ($4.15), black ($3.35) and lemon ($1.80) with a $20 note, how much change would you get?

Put yourself in the mind of somebody taking this questionnaire. Do you actually _care_ if the answer is correct? Will you lose money if you get the answer wrong? Are you in a hurry to finish the questionnaire and go and do something else?

Now put yourself in the mind of a lobbyist who represents utilities companies, financial services companies and HMOs. Your customers have all come under fire because they have needlessly complicated pricing structures designed to confuse people. This is a _very_ profitable practice so they want to continue doing it, but they'd like to draw attention away from it. Regulators sometimes come under political pressure to do something about it (among others, Elizabeth Warren has put this kind of pressure on, and they _hate_ her for it).

If, as a lobbyist, if you get others to reframe the issue as one of "lack of financial literacy" it helps take the heat off your customers. However, It's all very well saying "people just need to become more financially literate!" but that wouldn't sound very convincing coming from a lobbyist representing a company that has a financial stake in everybody believing it.

Therefore, it's better to be able to get your media contacts and politician friends say " _studies say_ people need to become more financially literate". There is, as such, a demand for studies like this.

And, Aditi Bhutoria, John Jerrim and Anna Vignoles happily (although possibly unknowingly) filled this demand by giving a bunch of random, disinterested people a math quiz where it didn't matter if they got the answers wrong and calling it "science".

</comment><comment><USER20> Some will look and this and say, "big deal, people can't do math in their heads."

There may be more to it. Consider the recent "riddle" in which a man buys a horse, sells it, and buys it back again, then sells it. The question is, how much money did the man make or lose:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/math-riddle- quiz-q...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/math-riddle-quiz- question-man-buys-a-horse-viral-a8221136.html)

It was so simple to me that it seemed like it must be a trick question. It's not.

I asked this question to people I was certain would get the right answer - <USER2> they didn't.

This is a deep topic that needs to be explored much more thoroughly than it might appear on the surface. I suspect that many of the people who can't do this kind of reasoning are running companies and countries.

<comment><USER21> I had a really funny experience trying that problem. As I began reading it, I developed a strong desire to glean over it and 'just get done with it' and felt a distracting buzz in my mind. I enjoy studying maths and doing proofs myself but I got this basic questions wrong. I just went'ugh, started with 60 spent, ended up selling for 90' and I went wrong with it.

The point is, I felt a strong aversion to word problems and such, which I think remind me of riddles which always trump me. Therein lies the desire to 'just be done with it' and the underlying aversion to maths I think other people also have.

<comment><USER18> It's because word problems are nothing but obfuscation. Here's the same problem written out in conventional mathematical notation:

(-60 + 70) + (-80 + 90)

Boy, that's pretty straightforward isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> These aren't even "financial" skills but a lack of basic arithmetic ability. It is a failure of the education system.

I expect if we tested for actual financial skills the results would be even worse, as that requires some domain knowledge beyond basic arithmetic. I'm not sure this is easily fixable; most people I know have a very limited interest in understanding financial maths.

<comment><USER18> I don't think the education system is at fault. Mental arithmetic is a skill you need to practice, and since a lot of us either spend a lot of time at a computer or always have one in our pocket, why would we?

<comment><USER23> Here are the questions, if you can't get them correct without a computer handy, than your education is suspect. I would expect them to appear in a 3rd grade math book.

1\. If you bought four packs of tea: chamomile ($4.60), green ($4.15), black ($3.35) and lemon ($1.80) with a $20 note, how much change would you get?

2\. If a litre of cola costs $3.15, how much will you pay for a third of a litre?

3\. If a football club offers the same discount for all season tickets - <USER3> Stand - $50 for single entry, $300 for a season; Stand 2 - $35 for single entry, $210 for a season; Stand 3 - $25 for single entry, $150 for a season - what would the price be for a Stand 4 season ticket, where a single entry costs $21?

The answers are $6.10, $1.05 and $126 respectively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This study does not mention whether the participants where asked to do the arithmetic in their head : [https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working...](https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working_report_march_2018.docx)

</comment><comment><USER25> At a local Starbucks the other day the person working the register insisted the quarter(25c) I gave him was nickle(5c). Later when giving me 16c in change he gave me a quarter and a penny. At McDonalds the next day I was refunded for a 4.67 order that took too long with 5.50 cents. My experience matches the article. On a more serious note: We design software for use by finance experts. After user testing we've had to:

\- remove error bars from charts because folks didn't know what they were and found the concept confusing

\- remove histograms (users didn't know what they represented).

\- remove "percentile" after no one could agree if 99th perctile was higher or lower then 1st

\- eventually change rankings from "3rd" to "3rd highest score out of NN respondents"

<comment><USER26> I actually have had the same thing happen at McDonalds, sometimes they seem to just not have a receipt for you so they give you whatever they feel like. It's always been more than I paid, but it is kinda like "you had one job."

Supposedly if you pay with cash some cashiers pocket the cash and give you change from their own pocket, so maybe that's what happened here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One argument against redistribution is that one is taking money from high-IQ, more responsible people who know how to manage money on average and giving it to low-IQ, less responsible people who don't know how to manage money.

This needs to be balanced against the primary argument for redistribution, that someone earning $30K/year can use an extra $1K more than someone earning $300K/year wil l miss it.

<comment><USER28> To follow this line of thought, you're then advocating for heavy inheritance taxation?

A heir of a multi-billion dollar fortune is not more likely to have an above average IQ or be more responsible, so he should start from scratch as does the average Joe?

<comment><USER27> Billionaires are smarter, more hardworking, and ambitious on average, and there is likely some genetic competent to each of these qualities. Certainly there is for IQ.

Is your guess for the average IQ of Bill Gates' children 100? I'd guess say 130.

<comment><USER18> Exactly the same reasoning can be used to justify monarchy.

<comment><USER29> Monarchy is fine as long as you elect the monarch every few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Initially I figured this isn't testing the sort of financial skills that are really useful for adults. But, then I now guess that the skills that are important are probably more complex, so this is a pretty good proxy. Doesn't paint a good picture.

</comment><comment><USER31> That's hardly news, nor surprising given its done systematically on purpose. Imagine people would be aware of how they are being ripped off by the financial systems...that'd be bad. There is a reason why finance basics or general life skills are not taught in schools (no matter if US or EU). Sure you maybe learn how to calculate interest but that's probably about it.

</comment><comment><USER32> After reading 'Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, I'm not surprised people can't calculate their bill and determine change in line at the super market. Solving math problems like that requires deliberate focus and effort. Nobody has the time or energy to do that on line at the supermarket. Most probably estimate.

</comment><comment><USER33> I appreciate that the BBC links to the original study. The tables and figures are all at the end: [https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working...](https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working_report_march_2018.docx)

</comment><comment><USER34> Basic arithmetics is not the only deficient field in UK secondary school math curriculum. Higher tier domains like statistics, calculus, trigonometry, geometry, vectors, math analysis are deficient too.

<comment><USER35> Is this from experience or general "I read that exams got easier" hearsay? I got good coverage of all the topics you discussed (however I'm not sure what "math analysis" refers to). I went through the Scottish system (ending around 2003) but I cannot imagine it was much different/worse in England, NI and Wales and I've no reason to believe they made things easier.

<comment><USER34> I wanted to say that it is not only arithmetics that is bad, but the whole math field in general. Unlike in cases where a general knowledge of the field is there, but the person can't calculate 2+2 without a calculator.

<comment><USER35> Right and I was asking if this is from experience (i.e. you went through the system or worked in the UK or with UK-educated people).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I absolutely believe it.

Warren Buffet is working to fight this, he's made a series of "Secret Millionaire's Club" videos designed to educate kids about money. I think it's a great program.

</comment><comment><USER37> It bugs me that the list of countries isn't sorted. Who does that?

<comment><USER38> See page 26 of the report:

[https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working...](https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piaac_working_report_march_2018.docx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Results show clearly that those skills are not necessary for prosperity

<comment><USER40> But for those already poor, their lack will matter more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> They don't control for age, so their study is worthless. Many of the countries mentioned as "the worst" have ageing populations and lots of emigrants.

<comment><USER42> I hope you really mean "emigrants", so smart people leaving their home countries, leaving the aging population that was not capable of going abroad.

And I think people downvote because they assume you mean "immigrants" being stupid and thereby decreasing the average IQ in countries with lots of immigrants.

The second statement I would also downvote, but until I'm convinced of the opposite I assume you mean the first.

<comment><USER41> Ah, that makes sense. I did mean emigrants. Emmigration and immigration have no correlation with IQ regardless. The lever of education sometimes does dictate who migrates (due to legal requirements or financial motivation for example), but the paper requires only basic arithmetic so it wouldn't have much of an effect anyway.

At this point I'm used to getting downvoted for no obvious reason so I don't even bother to ask why.

<comment><USER42> My experience is also that the randomness increased over the recent years. That also means sometimes I get 40+ points for something that wasn't even worth one upvote in my opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Kubernetes operator to automatically deploy and run Tor hidden services - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kragniz/tor-controller <comment><USER2> If you include this in the image, then your machine can talk to .onion addresses natively across the system, without having to use torify or socks5 proxy setups. This enables in doing things like sending logs to *.onion , having an OOB at a different .onion , and more.

I send my IoT traffic to a MQTT onionseerver I run.

[https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/12985555550240/Linux%20DNS%20R...](https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/12985555550240/Linux%20DNS%20Resolver%20for%20Onions.txt)

<comment><USER3> Very useful, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great documentation!

I particularly like that you mentioned "NAT Traversal" as one of the benefits of hidden services.

I think that's an overlooked feature that would in many cases be enough of a reason for one to use them, even without caring for the added privacy.

<comment><USER2> It's not just NAT traversal. Having a flat naming scheme and every entity directly addressable is one hell of a feature.

When I describe Tor to interested techies, I explain that a .onion address is more akin to a phone number. You don't have to know what IP4/6 the endpoint is. You don't have to know the route path. You just need the "dialing address" \- the .onion . I find that this description gets away from the whole "Tor is just for drugs and child porn".

And no matter what's in between, if you send data to ###.onion , it either completes successfully or doesnt. And with the system modification I recommend elsewhere on this article, you can even set up Puppet, Ansible, MQTT, and more all over Tor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If all you need is a Go library for connecting to a Tor daemon and adding/removing hidden services: [https://godoc.org/github.com/wybiral/torgo](https://godoc.org/github.com/wybiral/torgo)

<comment><USER6> I wrote one too: [https://github.com/cretz/bine](https://github.com/cretz/bine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good stuff! I wish there was some good in-depth and well explained article on how to write or hook up your own controller. I mean, there is the official doc for this but it's not really a hands-on IMHO.

<comment><USER8> Check this one: [https://medium.com/@trstringer/create-kubernetes- controllers...](https://medium.com/@trstringer/create-kubernetes-controllers- for-core-and-custom-resources-62fc35ad64a3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice logo!</comment>


Which companies had the most fake followers in the Twitter bot purge? - <AUTHOR> https://craft.co/reports/twitter-bot-purge-analysis <comment><USER2> Some companies lost close to half of their followers. Looks like a good sign of cheating. It's interesting that Twitter lots 12% of followers, I guess following Twitter is the first thing that comes to mind to bot makers when they try to make accounts look real.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow - 81% lost by Tracxn</comment>


Scientists pioneer a new way to turn sunlight into fuel - <AUTHOR> https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/scientists-pioneer-new-way-turn-sunlight-fuel <comment><USER2> The quote "Natural photosynthesis is not efficient because it has evolved merely to survive so it makes the bare minimum amount of energy needed – around 1-2 per cent of what it could potentially convert and store" makes no sense to me; plants are usually in massive competition for access to light, so in what sense is there no need for it to be more efficient?

<comment><USER3> In full sun a plant can absorb far more light than it can handle. Apparently one of the little tricks of chloroplasts is how they shunt that power away without sustaining damage. Could we just do something with that power?

It's a bit like turning the rotor blades when the wind is too high to keep the thing from ripping itself apart.

But imagine if you could make a turbine that generated tons more electricity in a gale force wind. Think what you could do with that much concentrated power.

<comment><USER4> I've not been able to kill the idea of a plant that uses excess energy to create hydrogen which it uses to float its seeds far and yonder. Didn't know that there's already a lot of excess energy that could be used for such a project, though I suspect the knowledge of genegeneering needed to make it happen is a ways off still.

<comment><USER5> That's such a neat idea. I wonder why floating plants don't already exist. I'm also surprised that I've not seen it in Scifi.

<comment><USER6> How would an evolutionary pathway to floating look like?

<comment><USER7> Like tumbleweeds as air plants[∆], floating around like helium-filled beach balls, living off the humidity and occasional puddle or storm.

One problem with floating plants is that dirt and water are heavy.

[∆][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillandsia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillandsia)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> '...to achieve unassisted solar-driven water-splitting.' (into water and hydrogen)

'Their method also managed to achieve more efficient absorption of solar light than natural photosynthesis.'

<comment> village-idiot I wonder how much more efficient.

This process would have benefits where high density energy is needed, hydrogen powered container ships being a popular plan of mine.

But if you don't have space constraints, involving a hydrogen fuel cell only adds inefficiencies. Most fuel cells are in the 64-80% efficiency range, which the theoretical max being 84%. This might be worse off than the PV->battery->use pipeline that we're used to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off Topic: ( A question I have in my head for a long long time )

What are the purpose of these PR article from University to other Academic Science magazines? If it was to attract investors or sponsorship, surely companies and individual have other means of access to how to invest or not, and not looking at every magazine / papers / Website announcement.

There are countless battery "breakthrough" and we all know they are at least another 5 years away from commercialise, or in most cases, never. Apart from inner nerds wanted to know, what value do they provide? What purpose do they serve?

<comment><USER10> Universities are always under pressure to show impact. They need artifacts to show to funders (govt ministers) and demonstrate relevance. The explanation 'our lab turned water into fuel using algae' is generally intelligible, while the Nature reference lends a credibility the intended lay audience isn't intended to cash.

Also, there is some element of just wanting people to be aware of cool stuff that got done.

Universities are primarily there to produce scientific breakthroughs, not bring technologies to market. The value is in undertaking high risk research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to know more. If this is as simple as having liquid water pumped through tubing with algae this sounds great. How natural a system can this be? How pure does the water have to be?</comment>


Show HN: Build your own Rodak – portable camera powered by Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexellis/rodak/ <comment><USER2> That's pretty clean code, good job OP!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :-) Misspent my early career years as a C# developer following "SOLID" principles

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool

</comment><comment><USER4> Name look like words game

"Kodak" \+ "Raspberry Pi" = "Rodak"

Not good practice.

Why not _RasPiCam_ / _RaPiCa_?

<comment><USER5> How is "RasPiCam" or "RaPiCa" any less "words game" than Rodak? All three examples are taking multiple words and smushing them together.</comment></comment>