Ask HN: Why do most job sites hide salary? - <AUTHOR> I understand that companies don't want people that are just after the money. But feels unproductive and inefficient to dig through offers and having to contact companies to know whether it's worth working for them or not.<p>With this in mind, how much value can a only-with-salary-disclosed-app bring? <comment><USER2> The answer is very simple: they don't want to pay their prospective employees any more than they have to. If they put a job listing for $70k and a developer currently making $50k applies and gets it, he gets a 20 thousand dollar raise.

On the other hand, if the employer requires the applicant's current salary on the application, and Mr. Qualified Engineer applies, they can offer him $55k instead (just enough to make him consider the offer if he's unhappy with his current job).

Using this strategy, the employer can make sure their employees never know their real worth, since every raise/promotion/new job they get is based on a "just good enough" improvement over their current salary.

<comment><USER3> So to defeat this you just write a higher current salary on your application, right?

<comment><USER4> No. To defeat this, you politely refuse to provide your current salary.

<comment><USER5> And be ok with a 10-50% chance of the new place declining to make you an offer?

It won't stop all places, but it will stop some places. You have to be OK with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was a recruiter for 20 years. In my experience, when a range was listed, every applicant expected to get offered at the top of the range.

So if the range was 80-100K and you had a candidate at the lower end of the experience/skills range for the job, that candidate becomes attached to that 100K number. He tells his friends "I found a job that pays 100K". Candidates don't pay much attention to the low number in the real world.

So the interviews happen, the candidate performs as expected (not superb) and gets an offer for 80K. He thinks he's leaving 20K on the table if he accepts, or that he's getting lowballed. If the job had been posted 60-80K, he wouldn't have felt shorted at all.

This is a simplification of course, but posting salary led to lots of refused offers when the offer < the top figure.

<comment><USER7> Could just be the job is acceptable at the top of the range and not the bottom. A company might not value the employee to the top of the range but the employee may equally not value the job at anything but the top of that range.

<comment><USER6> That's certainly a possibility, and in those situations an offer usually isn't given at all. If we (a) know a candidate will only accept the top end of the range and (b) the candidate doesn't qualify or interview at that level, there's no reason to make an offer at all.

When a range is given, in my experience a candidate will usually say "I'd only be interested at the top of that range" from the beginning if that's indeed the case. The point I made in my initial comment is more aligned to situations when a candidate says they are OK with the range but don't 'commit' (prior to interviews) on where they feel they qualify on that range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it is because you don't know what you're going to get / and honestly a lot of places don't know the actual market until they start making offers.

Maybe you're looking for a $100k type guy... but all you get are $70k applicants so you decide to hire one of them.

You don't want to pay dramatically more than you should, or insult them by offering less than the job listed or set them up for thinking they're getting a raise shortly after or something.

There are a lot of theories about negotiation and gamification and I think plenty of that is true, but I also think that for most places looking for a specific role, they're not 100% sure what they're going to get and thus can't say exactly what they'll pay.

As much as I loath job hunting, trying to get through the hiring industrial complex before I get to talk to the technical guy... I also don't think every job offer thing is a sort of dark pattern. I think folks hiring are flying blind too to some extent and thus not willing to commit to a number until they know the person they want.

</comment><comment><USER9> Many other responses are absolutely true, but here's something else to consider:

Over the last 12-14 years, I've never, ever had a "job" that had specific, clear requirements and duties.

In the field we're in staff are not line-replaceable units. Each employee is like a box of chocolates, and you'll never know what's inside until you bite (hire them).

Some staff will quickly exceed the expected duties and take on high levels of responsibilities and massively contribute to the organization far in excess in what anyone could have foreseen initially. Others will only do strictly what is asked of them (or less) and do the barest minimal to just get by, and basically be a disappointment.

Some staff will be able to kind-of fill the job, but not entirely, and will need some training to get there. Others will hit the ground running.

This is often why there is a large and ambiguous range for job posts. Basic IT jobs that do have specific, clear duties (and extremely limited growth potential) can have much more clear, lower, and narrow salary ranges.

</comment><comment><USER10> A couple of times, I found myself in a situation where I'm just opening a position and haven't hired developers in this particular stack and this particular skill level for a while, I may not even know what's a current market rate for this position would be. I'd get an overall idea after talking to 5-10 candidates, estimating their skill level and listening to what's their asking price is.

It's not even about trying to low-ball someone. Low-balling might be good in short-term, but not in long-term - both from perspective of a manager who's trying to do best by the company (because you want to build trust with your employees), and from a perspective of a political manipulator (when you inflate salaries of people you manage and budget of your department, you become more important in the hierarchy - saving company money won't earn you as much political points). What it is about is simply not having enough information about the market.

<comment><USER11> having sat on both sides of the table, this is a weak rationalization for wasting a lot of people's time. You're making candidates do so much work in terms of applications, preparation and interviews and you don't even know what the market looks like? Are the positions you're staffing so unique that you can't get comparable data from anywhere, or are you really just fishing for someone you can low-ball?

<comment><USER10> Why do you consider their application process a waste of time? After we get the taste of the market, I don't see any reason not to hire one of those early applicants if they're the best candidate for the position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When you have to hire a professional, for example a plumber, do you put out an ad and say "I need to hire a plumber to fix a broken pipe by running a new sewer line out to the street, and the job pays $60.00 per hour". Or do you call around, describe your problem, and see what solutions and cost various plumbers can provide? Basically, "Here's my problem, what is the fix, and how much will it cost?"

<comment><USER13> What in the world does this have to do with hiring an employee with salary?

Hiring a plumber on a per job basis isn't the same thing at all and getting bids for jobs like this, works.

Do you seriously think that people should bid to fill positions at companies?

<comment><USER14> How is it different ? From the perspective of the companies, it is in their interest for the prospective employee to bid to fill position.

<comment><USER13> I see. So we should start listing benefits to doing our job for a plumber?

"Hey there Plumber, if you do this job, I'll give you health insurance for the two days it takes you to do this job. I'll provide a gym membership, free coffee, and pay your taxes"

<comment><USER14> Its called analogy, not everything has to be the same.

In the case of plumber, the benefits for plumber to take the job is they get to make money.

<comment><USER13> I'm saying the analogy in this case, doesn't work. Hiring a plumber, carpenter, electrician on a per job basis is not the same as hiring an employee (hopefully for a long-term commitment).

<comment><USER14> We are specifically talking about the case of hiding salary right ? How is it different ?

<comment><USER15> It is different that plumbing/carpenting et al are one time gigs. They just walk away collecting their money once they put in their fixed hours. You will not be able to call your plumber at midnight if you feel like some thing that needs to be fixed.

Your analogy might work for short term contractors but not for a full time employment, where essentially you are putting yourself at your employers service virtually 24/7 with almost no extra pay while doing intangible (aka knowledge) work where the employer might get 5x or 200x return out of your work, but essentially you will just get almost linear pay raises (even including performance bonuses).

You cannot compare a full time knowledge worker with a gig worker that does tangible physical work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a hiring manager, I don't do that because it really does vary based on the applicant. I have a set of people in mind for a role, with a range of skills and experience. I may expand a junior role to mid level, or shrink a mid level to junior, based on who I find. In smaller companies, the number of engineers who just sit in a cube all day writing code in the same language is small. There are all kinds of side tasks, everything from sales and support to research and all kinds of sustaining work. How much I'm willing to pay is based on which of those side tasks I can give to the new hire.

</comment><comment><USER17> You might be able to find a small niche, like the remote work sites. You wouldn't have any competitive advantage or lasting business though.

In general, salary disclosures don't lead to better outcomes. It's very hard to communicate numbers appropriately. Too low, you're skipped by candidates. Too high, you get candidates with no interest in the underlying business.

For many companies, Glassdoor is effective. I've found companies stating "competitive" compensation are generally aware of the larger market and compensate appropriately.

Most companies that pay terribly are pretty easy to pick out from their job offerings.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's a two-sided market. Not showing salary range inhibits price discovery, preventing developers from asking for their real worth. So companies tend to reflexively hide it to give themselves an advantage.

</comment><comment><USER19> Because once they select you, they immediately want to low-ball you.

Government Jobs are completely transparent in this regard. You know exactly what you're going to make when you apply for the job.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think engineers are worse negotiators than companies. That way companies which want to gain on that can play the game.

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember going in for an interview not knowing the salary range that would be on offer, but having at least an idea of my worth in the field. During the interview, right after explaining the benefit I could bring to the company, the most senior interviewer asked if I expect to be paid for that benefit. I said of course, but that the salary depended on my contribution, something best judged by the company. At the end of the interview, not pleased with not having a number, the same interviewer asked if I am not willing to give a number and I asked "would you want me to? I can" and that settled it. They came back and I got the job, with a sensible salary. Of course it is in the best interest of companies to have asymmetry of information, same as with car dealers, but two can play that game. An a priori number could end up limiting in both directions. Try to politely decline to give a number ahead of time and see how much your skills are needed. If the company takes the number in a form I try to write In Person or leave it blank. If the company does not contact me, I sometimes wonder whether it was as a result of that, and then remind myself that such inflexibility would not be a good trait for an employer to have, so we were both spared.

</comment><comment><USER22> Simple: Because they want to get the cost as low as possible. Most employers know exactly what they are willing to pay, but speculate on the developer naming a lower number. There are few exceptions, like Berlin-based think-cell, who openly name their salary offer on their website. I think they can do that because they search for very few, very high-skilled developers - contrary to many larger companies who have less strict hiring policies.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a two-way street. By not actively mentioning a salary on a job advert, they can invite potential applicants to pitch themselves at a level they'd be willing to do the work (the low end) all the way to what they'd like to get in an ideal world (the high end).

Any efficiency gains from salary disclosure would be minor compared to the "inefficiency" of the hiring process in totality.

<comment><USER24> > By not actively mentioning a salary on a job advert, they can invite > potential applicants to pitch themselves at a level they'd be willing to do > the work (the low end) all the way to what they'd like to get in an ideal > world (the high end).

That doesn't seem much like a two way street, that seems more like a blind silent auction where lowest bidder wins. Naturally skills and experience come into play in part, but if multiple people can meet the expectations of the role, then they are bidding against each other. I'm not sure what the employee gets out of it.

> Any efficiency gains from salary disclosure would be minor compared to the > "inefficiency" of the hiring process in totality.

For the company possibly, but not for the employee. Being able to see what a company is willing to pay would really help refine an employees search.

<comment><USER23> You seem to be convinced that companies do things for employees or candidates, rather than for their own gain. ;)

<comment><USER24> Let's just say I've yet to hear a compelling argument for the average employee.

<comment><USER23> Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

<comment><USER24> I'm not trying to suggest unionization or a change in social order, but there's an information disparity here that I have yet to hear a compelling suggestion as to how it helps the employee - if it's a two way street, what advantages does the employee get out of it?

<comment><USER23> Sorry, not a native English speaker. I realise I may have used "two-way street" in the wrong way. It definitely provides advantages primarily for the employer.

Maybe I should have called it a "two-pronged thing" or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Speaking for myself if a company doesn't list salary or a range it's less likely for me to even apply. If recruiters and HR's push me to tell my current salary or give expected salary and they're really pushy about it I just flat out stop the exchange. They're waste of my time. If a company wants the right person for the job then salary can be negotiated despite the fixed ranges they've told the recruiter. If a company wants a code monkey then I'm definitely not the right person for the job. If the reason between they want to get me or not is 10k then I'm sorry, but I'm not working for you.

The current economical climate has already made it very hard to get a good raise if you stay in the same company and be loyal. The only way to get a big pay bump is to find another company that will pay you more from the get-go. It's very sad that that's the current state of things.

</comment><comment><USER26> Whoever gives a number first loses leverage.

<comment><USER11> I hear this all the time and it's overly simplistic. Maybe if I give you a single number that is my true desired value, yes. If I give you a range where the low-end is 25% higher than that true value, I've now anchored discussion at a much higher value and it will be hard for you to reset the anchor.

<comment><USER27> But you've now increased the probability of them stopping the conversation right-away. The higher anchor came at a cost. That's what loss of leverage is.

You want to know as much as you can about the other party, while revealing as little as possible about yourself.

This is exactly what employers are also doing.

<comment><USER28> That's good though, if an employer is unwilling to meet your anchor then you don't want to work there anyway so they save you time by pulling out early.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Largest pay rise I ever got, was when my employer accidentally published the "internal/official/never-published" salary for my role. Quick trip to HR brandishing a print-out, and I got a 25% bump within the week.

Of course, that only worked as I was seemingly good at my job, and my employer needed to get the head-count up. (and I might have muttered that if this got out, I guessed they'd have a lot of disgruntled people)

Other reason they're kept hidden, is that (at least in my industry) a fair number of positions are filled with specialist recruiters. They are made aware of salary guidelines the employer is willing to pay and also have a rough idea of what people on their books are wanting. They prove their value to employers by filling interview sessions with the best people at the lowest cost.

</comment><comment><USER30> Because:

1\. Companies have no incentive or competitive advantage to do so

2\. Salary is a negotiation, and you don't hand the person you're negotiating with information

3\. Companies can control pay variations amongst current and future employees.

Despite all this, some companies have chosen to be public about their salaries (GitLab, for example).

Public institutions often have a legal requirement to establish and publish salary ranges; for example, you can see the salary steps for GS-* ladder employees, or the steps for a public school teacher.

Even if you did create an 'app' to circulate 'only-with-salary-disclosed' jobs, I can't imagine more than a few companies wanting to participate. Why should they? What concrete, guaranteed incentive could you offer them?

<comment><USER31> (Going anon for privacy reasons here) To add some anecdata: GitLab definitely deviates from the salaries they publicize at least in some cases.

I was reached out to about a role with #s that were way below market for my area. At the time they did not have any employees in my state and advertised one low-ish statewide salary.

When I mentioned the numbers were off-base for being in <one of the most expensive areas in my state>, they were quick to bump the salary by something like +50%.

Note that this was before doing any interviewing (though a GitLab recruiter had reached out to me first).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not listing salary is a high indicator that the company will waste a candidate's time.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. This process needs to stop. I have never applied for a job where the salary (or hourly) price wasn't listed up front. Why waste my time and why should I waste yours?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> When you walk into a car dealership, do you announce "I want to pay $X for a car"?

Or do you see what prices are, think about the options, make decisions based on what your needs are, change your desires based on what is on the car lot?

Human beings aren't cars, but just like a car dealership is selling cars, workers sell labor.

> With this in mind, how much value can a only-with-salary-disclosed-app > bring?

I think that you might have a supply issue (employers listing jobs) but it'd be interesting to try. I know of at least one employer who was so fed up with salary mismatches that they started listing a range on their job listings.

</comment><comment><USER34> There is little advantage for a company to list the salary, ones that do commonly state up to $high_figure for the right candidate. There are other factors in total compensation though, benefits coverage, bonus, perks, etc.

As an applicant you could ask the recruiter/HR person what the salary range is for the position so you're both not wasting each other's time.

<comment><USER13> Having to reach out to find the salary range, is already wasting time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Because often the salary isn't decided when they make the job opening, the salary is decided when they make the offer.

At my company, for instance, there are a number of us who were hired at the same time under the same position. But we have varying levels of skill/experience, and our salaries can reflect that even though our title may not

<comment><USER36> I agree but only to a certain degree, a fresh grad vs mid-level, then a mid- level most certainly have a higher base salary. But for people applying for the same position, salary reflects how good you are at negotiating on top of your perceived value.

<comment><USER35> Everybody on our team, minus leadership (10-15 years+ of experience) has the same title and same level of 'seniority'. And our team hires people fresh out of boot camp, and they also hire people working on their second master's degree who have over 8 years of experience.

I certainly agree that salary doesn't perfectly reflect perceived value, but when perceived value can range from 70k to 170k there is a very significant correlation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Probably to drive sign-ups on their platform by job seekers. It's a metric that they can show to investors that their business is providing a valuable service.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've always used a recruiter. They call me about a job. they usually ask me about pay. I say I want to make this. they can either get it done or not.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why bother applying for jobs that don't list salary? The whole notion that it's a bargaining tool bothers me to no end. I'm not going to bother applying for a job that doesn't list their salary upfront.

Listing the salary allows me to decide that I really want to work for that company, the salary is within my budget, and that I'd like to apply. All without bothering anyone else or wasting my time (or that companies time).

</comment><comment><USER39> Companies may not want to people who are only after the money, but they also do not ant to pay more than the absolute minimum for the workforce, they can get away with.

Say you are working at company A for $100K/yr for position X. Along comes company B, which needs to fill a Position A which you perfectly fit in. And assume they can pay $150K/yr to fill this position. But if you are like any average employee, a 10-15% increase in your salary can and will make you jump ship.

So, if they announce $150K/yr compensation on the kb listing, your brain will switch to 50% increase mode and knowing that you can get this much from them, you will most probably not settle for something less. On the other hand, let's assume the salary is not in the job listing and you get to the interview and asked the dreaded question, "What is your expectation of a yearly compensation for this position?" I am sure you will dance around a bit saying things like "Market rate" or "I am sure you will pay me in accordance with industry norms" etc. but when the push comes to the shove, you will give them a figure like $120K, a 20% increase if you will, on your current salary, to give yourself a wiggle room. And if they are like any average employer, they will low-ball you a bit to see what you are amenable to and come back with something like $116K. You are happy that you've got 16% raise while 10% would suffice you to jump ship. The new employer saved $34K/yr on you. Only you by the way and this practice can be multiplied many, many times, ending up with a huge chunk of change.

On the flip side, let's assume you were making $160K at your current position and you came to the interview to wrangle say, a $175K salary. When you say that, first they will dismiss your candidacy and look for someone cheaper. Failing to find this person, they know they can come back to you and say, yes we are willing to pay you $170K/yr, knowing your price. All they have lost is a few days or weeks in the process.

It is like the prostitute story: The guy sees a pretty woman at the bar.He approaches her and says,

"I will pay you a million dollars if you have sex with me tonight"

Woman thinks for a moment and says "yes".

The man turns around thinks for a minute and says

"How about $100?"

Woman frowns and feels insulted. Comes back saying

"what are you thinking? I am a whore or something?"

The guy answers.

"We established that fact that you are a whore. I am just trying to figure out your price"

Negotiating for a job is just that and as a company you do not want to trap yourself in a corner.</comment>


Show HN: Social Lite: 212kb replacement for the bloated FB native app - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rabidgremlin.sociallite&hl=en

<comment><USER2> If it's just a wrapper for the mobile site, why don't I just save a bookmark in my phone's browser? That takes like 1k.

<comment><AUTHOR> True but this keeps you logged in and sandboxes all those tracking cookies that Facebook puts out</comment></comment>


HN Bounenkai Party in Tokyo Japan - Sun, 19th of December  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.makeleaps.com/2010/12/informal-hn-bounenkai-party-sun-19th-of-december/

<comment><USER2> Jason and I decided to throw one together real quick just so everyone can meet up one last time before the year of the rabbit is upon us. Were not going to get as much food as last time and we're going to call it 'informal'. There will be plenty of drinks and snacks to keep us all going though.

Can't wait to see everyone again and hear how you're all doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm in America with my family so I'll miss this one, but have a great time everybody.

</comment><comment><USER4> I won't be able to make it out this time but I sure am looking forward to the next! These meetings are always entertaining with lots of inspiring and insightful people!

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, short notice - I'm throwing a party on Saturday and not sure if I'll make it. I'll give it a shot though.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, sorry for that. We'll plan the next one with more lead time for everyone. If you're having a party on saturday you'll have at least 12 hours to get ready for this one. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't make the Bounenkai so I'm looking forward to up voting the Shinnenkai..

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm in France for Christmas, so I won't be able to join. Have a great party !

</comment><comment><USER8> Damn! I leave Tokyo tomorrow for Moscow, I'd totally have come to this. :(

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll have to make my way up from Kyoto next time :) Have a great party!

</comment><comment><USER10> im out of the city then..wish i could be there. Does this mean there might be a shinnenkai?

<comment><USER2> perhaps...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll definitely be there.

</comment><comment><USER12> great, looking forward!</comment>


Clojure Lisp and a modern GUI - <AUTHOR> http://briancarper.net/2008/10/31/qt4-in-lisp/

<comment><USER2> UI on JVM suggestion? Again?

There are very good reasons why this combination hasn't been particularly popular. C++ with a few libs like MFC or WTL continues to rule on Windows being slowly replaced by .NET stack, Obj-C keeps rocking on OSX and C/C++ with Qt/GTK doing their job on Linux/BSD. Why is that? I suspect because of 3 reasons: very weak JVM penetration on the desktop, JVM is too heavy for most applications and because JDK-based UI feels foreign on every platform.

Developing a desktop application on JDK means that your users will have to deal with 100MB+ downloads followed by quirky installation process that rewards the with less then stellar UI experience at the end, especially the slow startup time.

Startup time is more important than most developers think: majority of desktop apps absolutely need it: imagine 5-second delay every time you wanted to launch Apple's "Quick View" to glance at a file, or imagine 5+ JVM-based apps load&initialize after reboot. Most desktop software I worked on was small-to- medium size and we just couldn't afford to add those 5+ seconds on JVM initialization. JVM I guess will work OK for projects like Ecilpse or a big Office suite or something like Photoshop. Microsoft understands this very well, this is why C#/.NET is so carefully optimized around loading time and comes with precompilation tools that essentially turn your C# code (including .NET itself) into native Win32 modules.

One project I want to do for myself is a usable Del.icio.us client for OSX. I can't see how I can use JVM-based tools for that... I want _instant_ start-up by a hotkey when I need to search for links or add one. Moreover, I want users to be able to download and try it under 20 seconds.

The only JDKUI apps I'v ever used were development tools for Java itself plus numerous crap for the enterprise. And, of course, every once in a while I get "Java. Please wait..." splash screen on a new cellphone, followed by a prompt "Cancel/Go Back" keypress: that pretty much sums up my JVM-based UI experience. Which is sad: Clojure is going to be locked up on the server just like Java has been for years.

<comment><USER3> >Windows being slowly replaced by .NET stack

Veryyy slowly... but I think its the same issue with it.

>100MB+ downloads

When is that ever the case? Certainly not the VM or even a "odd" toolkit like SWT.

>Startup time is more important than most developers think

Agree. Any app its more important them people think.

The bottom line is if you want maximum responsiveness, minimum size, you have to eliminate layers, not add them. And Obj-C + cocoa is a fairly productive environment. however, it isn't necessarily small or fast to startup - have you downloaded or tried to create a cocoa app lately? 30 + meg is common for the most basic things. And they are anything but instant to start up. Sounds like you want quicksilver like performance - which means pre loading - or just use quicksilver (probably already is a del.icio.us thing in existence).

<comment><USER4> Getting pretty off topic here, but "30+ meg... for the most basic things" is a totally unrealistic assessment of cocoa.

Sizes, INSTALLED, not from the compressed DMG:

An entire quicken-like 100% cocoa app: 6 megabytes,

Seashore, a streamlined graphics editor based on the gimp: 8.4mb

And for a "truly small" example, the "wakeup your computer and play an itunes song" alarm clock I first wrote to learn Cocoa years ago: 500k.

<comment><USER3> Well the only ones I know are as a user - adium, various dinky little utils like twitteriffic. Downloads seem to be min 30 meg, and memory usage around twice that, minimum. I just have never experienced cocoa apps to be any common definition of "lightweight". Maybe they are poorly written apps, but they work fine, and I only use the common stuff.

"quicken-like" - well that means nothing unless it replicates the girth of horrible accounting rules that quicken has to adhere to - if its a "quicken like" accounting app, I guess it would not, so I don't think that really is a useful measure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's wrong with using Swing?

I had some experience with using Swing and Clojure, and was able to easily wire up GUIs laid out in NetBeans to Clojure code.

This included subclassing elements such as table view headers to customize appearance, cross-platform on OS X and XP.

Note also that Clojure can be hinted to eliminate type reflection, bringing performance to a par with Java.

<comment><AUTHOR> _What's_ _wrong_ _with_ _using_ _Swing?_

It's interesting that Qt places itself as "a better Java". Regarding the UI and API parts, many coders knowing both Java and Qt seem to agree.

<comment><USER3> They both suck from a users point of view. Who cares what developers think - if you want your users to have the best experience, then as a developer you have to not think of your own convenience.

<comment><USER6> Which port is better? A Qt/Gtk/Swing port or no port at all?

Every time I use Inkscape on Windows I'm happy about the Gtk toolkit, because there was no chance at all of the software being ported to Win32 otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's up with you people who design UI programmatically?

This is 2008, jesus christ.

<http://code.google.com/android/devel/ui/xml.html> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Application_Markup_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Application_Markup_Language)

<comment><USER8> You didn't explain why it's a good thing.

From what I understand, it only complicates development even more without providing any real improvement.

<comment><USER9> It can be a good thing the way HTML-CSS-Javascript separation can be a good thing. In the case of Clojure, it actually is possible to write the layout code in a declarative style and keep the handlers completely separate, but for most of the popular languages, it's easier to just use Qt Designer, Glade or similar to generate an XML layout and write the handlers in your language of choice. Compared to the old approach of GUI designers generating a pile of C/C++ code, which you then modify, the XML blob is actually much nicer.

Also, most of the XML-presentation libraries offer multiple language bindings, so there's less of a requirement for your language to provide its own GUI toolkit, and it's easier to convert your app from one language to another (e.g. injecting Python into a legacy C app) without losing any of the details from the original interface.</comment></comment></comment>


MacRuby releases ControlTower - <AUTHOR> http://www.macruby.org/blog/2010/09/20/announcing-control-tower.html

<comment><USER2> Currently, this seems more interesting to me as a GCD[1] technology demo. Looking at #initialize and #open in the code[2] shows how easy GCD can be to use. Create a queue and add tasks (in this case as Ruby "do" blocks).

I'm looking forward to someone posting some benchmarks comparing ControlTower's connections per second and speed to other web servers.

[1] [http://developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/snowleopard/gcd....](http://developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/snowleopard/gcd.html)

[2] [http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/ruby/ControlTower/trunk...](http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/ruby/ControlTower/trunk/lib/control_tower/rack_socket.rb)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is interesting, but Apply is going to need to show the server space a little love before people will start to seriously consider OS-X as a server target -- but they should, because they have a nice cut of developer mind share and an advantage to leverage (not that they should, but they could) with iphone/ipad web services

<comment><USER4> Yeah, seriously. I can't even imagine how I would use this in production. Super expensive Xcode + built in apache that probably can't proxy to a backend server all that easily? It's just too inflexible to be seriously considered.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I understand. Xcode is free with OS X. Apache on OS X is just like any other Apache, it has mod_proxy, etc.

Not to mention you can install Nginx or any number of other web servers.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, meant Xserve. Apache can be modified, yeah, but you'd have to edit the config file manually, bypassing the graphical interface that Mac OS X server gives you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a Python developer on the Mac, I'm burning with envy.

<comment><USER7> Why? It's just as easy to get a Gunicorn server running, and it's not platform locked the way this is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does this only run on a Mac? If yes, who would want to use a Mac as a production web server?

<comment><USER9> Why not? It's easy to administer, has administrative capabilities similar to Linux and it's pretty stable. I'd rather have production Mac servers than Windows servers personally.

<comment><USER10> It also has no real support, even at the enterprise level[1]. At MacWorld 2009, the _entire_ Mac IT speakers track agreed that their best move had been switching all of their servers to Linux, hands-down, simply because Apple isn't interested in being a serious player in the server space. If you're a small design shop, yeah, an XServe is probably going to be fine but if your needs are any more serious this is a lot of risk to take for generally more expensive servers.

[1] Simple example: 10.5.2 broke NFS permissions so non-owners could not write to files. The phone support could do nothing about this and we had two choices: wait months for the next fix, patch darwin ourselves and run with a custom kernel (i.e. completely unsupported), or use a different server. The situation's not much better on the hardware side.</comment></comment></comment>


Seeking help seeking female coders - <AUTHOR> http://www.mysociety.org/2011/02/14/seeking-help-seeking-female-coders/

<comment><USER2> Is it reasonable for the author to expect at least one female applicant to any given job ad?

It's not clear to me whether (a) the author expects the ratio of applications to be 50-50, and is surprised that it's not; or (b) the author is aware that only a small fraction of developers are female and wants to change that situation.</comment>


Things to Do With Your Own Drone - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/02/20/top-ten-things-to-do-with-your-own-drone/

<comment><USER2> "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

\--Ken Olsen, the founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation</comment>


Toronto's First Hack and Tell (Show HN/Ask HN, but in person) - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Hack-and-Tell/events/221374730/

<comment><USER2> Super excited to see H&T coming to Toronto. I think I'll present a little hardware project I've got on the go.</comment>


Primitive – recreate your photos with vector-based geometric primitives - <AUTHOR> https://primitive.lol <comment><USER2> An unexpected benefit of Primitive is that it helps create really cool animations (both by screen-recording the Primitive app as it renders the shapes for the image, and by working with SVG animation libraries on the web).

I played around with it a couple years ago ([https://minimaxir.com/2016/12/primitive/](https://minimaxir.com/2016/12/primitive/)) and it worked out surprisingly well.

<comment><USER3> You might be interested in Synthetik Studio Artist ([https://synthetik.com/](https://synthetik.com/)). Among (many!) other things, it can process images and animations and output SVG. There are operations that produce Primitive-style pictures, but also a huge number of others. And it's customizable! A graphics rabbit-hole...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sort of thing is useful for showing placeholder images while high-res images load: [https://jmperezperez.com/svg- placeholders/](https://jmperezperez.com/svg-placeholders/)

<comment><USER5> I've written my own placeholder image generator based on Delaunay triangulation inspired by this blog-post. The generator produces reasonable placeholder images at about 300 bytes. The overall effect is not as nice as the images produced by Primitive though. However, Delaunay triangulation is deterministic and relatively fast. Furthermore, the triangles can be efficiently serialized as triangle strips.

In case anyone is interested, the code is on GitHub [1].

[1] [https://github.com/astoeckel/aequipedis/](https://github.com/astoeckel/aequipedis/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Roger Alsing (Johansson) did this in 2008:

[https://rogerjohansson.blog/2008/12/07/genetic- programming-e...](https://rogerjohansson.blog/2008/12/07/genetic-programming- evolution-of-mona-lisa/)

<comment><USER7> Indeed. I mentioned that in the README: [https://github.com/fogleman/primitive#inspiration](https://github.com/fogleman/primitive#inspiration)

<comment><USER6> I did skim that file through but missed it, sorry. It's worth pointing out in the comments here in case others miss it.

The comparison is interesting since your rectangle version has superior image quality compared to Alsings. If I squint my eyes it is hard to tell a difference to the original picture. It looks blurred the "right way" somehow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm struggling to find again a c++ implementation of this I saw on github a while back. Does HN the hive mind remember?

<comment><USER7> The core of Primitive is open source, written in Go.

[https://github.com/fogleman/primitive](https://github.com/fogleman/primitive)

Only the UI is closed source. It's written in Objective-C and basically shells out to the Go code.

<comment><USER9> I was just poking through some of the code and noticed that there seem to a lot of open bugfix PRs [1]. Have you thought about going through and upstreaming some of them? Many of them seem like quick reviews.

Edit: Also, if you would like some help maintaining it, I imagine plenty of fellow HN-ers (including me) would love to help.

[1] [https://github.com/fogleman/primitive/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3...](https://github.com/fogleman/primitive/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr)

<comment><USER10> I noticed the PRs too. Looks like one of the people submitting them has also been maintaining their own branch[1] with a bunch merged.

[1] [https://github.com/bmaltais/primitive](https://github.com/bmaltais/primitive)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I modified this to try and compare against the last image it generated and feed it images via ffmpeg from a movie. Ultimately the results were still a little too choppy for video but the effect was very cool. The processing time was also incredibly long because lowering the polygon count made it very hard to tell what was moving.

<comment><USER12> Could you post a video clip of the output? It sounds like the effect from "A Scanner Darkly" perhaps -- loved that effect in that movie!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Almost a decade ago I remember using an online service called Vector Magic to do this kind of stuff. At that time it was considered the state-of-the-art auto tracer.

Is this noticeably better than Vector Magic when using Bezier curves?

<comment><USER14> I keep a windows xp VM around almost exclusively for Vector Magic. I've never tried it with photos though. Mostly for improving the quality of logos by vectorizing then exporting a higher-res PNG.

Maybe I will finally be able to get rid of it. I can't tell right now, I think Primitive is being hugged to death currently.

<comment><USER15> Vector magic runs perfectly fine and does a great job even in high Res photos on Win 10. About 90 seconds for 2048x1433 image with some intricate details at high quality setting (as compared to offered medium and low quality settings) with unlimited colours.

But results are still pretty nice even at low quality setting with limited colour palette. Hardly takes 15 secs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> real-hacker Rediscovered, posted multiple times on HN.

</comment><comment><USER16> Please build iOS version!</comment>


Navigator's bookcase found on Nikumaroro Island in 1989 - <AUTHOR> http://tighar.org/wiki/Navigator%27s_bookcase <comment><AUTHOR> Even the guys at TIGHAR don't believe that this artifact came from Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra. But I think it's an interesting story how they came to that conclusion.</comment>


Statement by Jill Bähring Regarding Jacob Appelbaum - <AUTHOR> http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sop8ps <comment><USER2> When I read all the complainers stories my initial reaction was I noticed a fairly consistent style of "spinning" each account in a way to smear Applebaum. They each seemed designed to imply he did evil things, without truly saying it.

Today we get this account, from one of Applebaum's supposed "victims" and, surprise surprise, her tale is pretty innocent and de-spun and totally oppositely aligned from the anti-Applebaum portayals we heard initially.

I bet more of the anti-Applebaum tales will start to get debunked. It sounded way too fishy and too much like a coordinated smear. Even the symmetry with how Assange (another big Wikileaks guy) was smeared by his Swedish sex thing seemed like a suspicious coincidence.

There may or may not be some kernal of truth in those anti-Applebaum statements. But there also smells like a lot of poorly disguised bullshit spin wrapped around it.

Keep in mind this space involves the NSA, Wikileaks, state actors, billion dollar budgets, multi-billion dollar empires at stake. False flag ops, bribery and propaganda are a real thing that govs do. Established historical reality.

Also... Rape is a real thing, and when it happens, thats bad. Lying and spinning and smearing are also real things that happen. So much of the skepticism we sometimes see about the former, unfortunately, is because of the latter. Truth is sometimes murky and often nuanced, or he-said/she-said.

<comment><USER3> Re: NSA, state actors, billion dollar budgets... I think you're giving Appelbaum way too much credit here. While he's been splendid at marketing himself, consider that he _might not actually be that important_ to the causes he's been championing. As others have pointed out: if said state actors wanted to hurt Tor and related projects, he'd be pretty far down the list of targets.

<comment><USER4> Did you forget that Appelbaum was involved in the release of the NSA ANT catalog[1], or his involvement with Laura Poitras and the Snowden documents? Never mind his involvement with Tor (which _has_ been a recent target of various state actors). I'm sure many intelligence community want Appelbaum only slightly less than they want Snowden.

Or do you want to argue that the NSA doesn't care about the person that revealed a catalog of their tools to the public?

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

<comment><USER3> No, I didn't forget that he was one of three people involved in writing stories about the NSA ANT catalog, nor that he worked with Poitras (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part). I also did not forget that while he's been good at marketing Tor -- I've seen him at CCC in Berlin/Hamburg a bunch of times 2009-2015, he's become a good speaker -- he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view, from what I understand.

So, yeah, I maintain that there are plenty of juicier targets that Jacob Appelbaum. I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise.

<comment><USER4> > (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part)

They are also targets. I made no claim about the relative importance of Appelbaum's involvement, which is completely off-topic. He gave the talk at 30c3, which makes him a figurehead and thus a target.

> he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view

So what? That doesn't make him any less of a target from agencies that are pissed off about their documents being leaked to the public. The TLAs would love to make an example out of any of the people involved.

> I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise.

That's your interpretation. To be clear, I haven't stated my interpretation, as my only point was that Appelbaum is absolutely on the short list of people we _know_ are the target of state agencies so dismissing the _possibility_ of their involvement is foolish.

<comment><USER3> So a number of high-profile, veteran, respected, typically anti-authoritarian members of the hacking community - including multiple Tor project members - have spoken out against Applebaum in the past week. That it's all being orchestrated by some three-letter agency is theoretically _possible_ , sure, but I think that's _extremely unlikely_. Applying some Occam I just end up with a tragic case of an abusive asshole.

(I don't personally know Appelbaum, nor his accusers, although I've spoken to several of them and seen them at conferences throughout the years. I thought Appelbaum was great at promoting Tor. I also remember my second conversation with him, at 26C3 in 2009: he bragged about how he'd stayed at a squat during his visit in Stockholm the month before and fucked some anarchist girl. Which, at the time, I thought was a bit odd bringing up in casual conversation with someone he didn't know.)

<comment><USER5> > Which, at the time, I thought was a bit odd bringing up in casual > conversation with someone he didn't know.

I'm not sure that being crass is necessarily an indicator that he's more likely to be a rapist. That's the problem with all this, there's a lot of substantiated stories about him being an asshole, an actual refutation by the party involved of one of the stories that was originally conveyed by a third party, and a bunch of unsubstantiated stories about him being as asshole and a rapist. I don't think the correct thing to do in this case is to assume his guilt. The right may not include assuming his innocence either, until more information is presented.

There's a lot of "you should believe the victim" stuff going around, but at this point are we sure there even _is_ a victim (in the rape accusation)? Is it all third party accusations about anonymous victims, or do we actually have a victim that has come forward? I think that's an important distinction. I put a lot less trust in anonymous sources.

<comment><USER2> it almost makes me wish we had some kind of... I dunno... "system" by which we as a society can be very specific about what is allowed and not. and a system for determining whether the disallowed things happened or not. and a system also for then punishing people who have been found guilty of those disallowed things.

I'm just brainstorming. Perhaps in a hundred years we'll create a way to do that. Until then, let's all just whisper and rumor and accuse and retweet and go with how we "feel" at any particular moment. /s :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Wonder about the witnesses in all these stories, who coincidentally always seem to consist of the same set of people."

Yeah... From what I've seen, the confirmed first-person stories suggest that Appelbaum is probably a huge asshole, but the worst stuff is contained in anonymous accounts filtered through a handful of people, at least one of whom has a weird axe to grind about "plagiarism".

Something feels very off about the whole coordinated effort. This is not a normal way to accuse someone of terrible criminal behavior, by mixing those stories in with mere jerkitude.

<comment><USER3> I think the first-person stories of @hypatiadotca [0] and @violetblue [1] suggest more than that.

[0] [https://hypatia.ca/2016/06/07/he-said-they- said/](https://hypatia.ca/2016/06/07/he-said-they-said/)

[1] [https://twitter.com/violetblue/status/740446500891860992](https://twitter.com/violetblue/status/740446500891860992) / [https://twitter.com/violetblue/status/740446782505779200](https://twitter.com/violetblue/status/740446782505779200) / etc. (argh twitter)

<comment><USER7> I think these people would be wise to go to the police rather than writing blog posts/twitter comments that imply vague wrong doing without any clear crimes involved.

<comment><USER8> Honeywell stated a couple things that clearly violate consent, and could reasonably be described as rising to the level of legally actionable. I was very critical of some of the weak discounting of the possibility of JTRIG- style character attacks, but when notable, reputable people in the community come forward with specific relevant first-person claims, I believe it's important to take it more seriously.

<comment><USER7> It's impossible to draw any conclusions without a fair trial. Apart from saying we should assume innocent until proven guilty. It's a really good idea that seems to have been marginalised in the age of the web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Wonder about their motive to speak on my behalf without my consent._

Thank you, Jill, for your statement and I'd like to offer you my sincerest apologies on behalf of all of civilized society.

</comment><comment><USER10> @jillbaeh confirming authorship: [https://twitter.com/jillbaeh/status/741023991041646592](https://twitter.com/jillbaeh/status/741023991041646592)

<comment><USER11> Thank you!

But, since these are Tor people, shouldn't statements be digitally signed?

Does a confirmation tweet from anything less than a celebrity mean anything?

<comment><USER12> Not everyone involved in Tor and the surrounding community is a cryptographer who uses PGP regularly, or even at all; AFAIK Jill Baeh is not.

In any case, basically you'd be saying that Twitter and/or her Twitter acount is compromised, as a few others are interacting with that account, and have been following her since well before the tweet (I personally know many of the people in the conversation around Jill's tweet). In the unlikely event this is true, I think we'll find out soon enough. edit: I personally am a Bitcoin dev who uses PGP regularly, and in a similar situation even I can see myself being lazy and not signing my statement.

tl;dr: I'd be happy to bet a beer that the Tweet is authentic. :)

<comment><USER11> OK. I won't take that bet, because you're probably right. :)

I'd still like a more general solution to determining the authenticity of statements on the internet.

In practice, people use Twitter for that. Seems weak. But, I don't use twitter, so I'm disregarding the community trust aspect that you described. Maybe it deserves more respect that I'm giving it, but we do have PKI available...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "How covert agents infiltrate the internet to manipulate, deceive, and destroy reputations"

[https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig- manipulation/](https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/)

 _" Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable."_

Maybe the other recent negative stories about Appelbaum are true. Or maybe they are created by GCHQ. Prior to the above being made publicly known, I would have just assumed the former. But now, how can we be sure?

<comment><USER2> also suspicious that none of the complainers went to law enforcement. you know, the way we as a society determime whether a true crime happened or not. innocent til proven guilty, trial, judge, etc. instead they took it to the public and smeared a man's name, directly. that itself is suspicous, as well as unethical.

<comment><USER14> > also suspicious that none of the complainers went to law enforcement.

People who have been raped don't go to police because the world is full of stupid cunts who do stupid shit like putting the word "rape" in quotes to try to deny that rape happens as often as it does; and then spread lies and fud about what rape victims should have done while being raped ("Why didn't you fight back?"); or what rape victims should have done after they had been raped ("Why didn't they go to the police?"). Those people will also say that any rape accusation that doesn't result in a conviction is a false allegation, and that the rape didn't happen, and that the victim lied about it.

<comment><USER15> While we're having the super broad brushes out: People who DON'T ask for evidence and due process are part of a stoning for which they think have plausible deniability.

[https://twitter.com/Shidash/status/741259721756319744](https://twitter.com/Shidash/status/741259721756319744)

This your world now. This is what you wanted, whether you admit it to yourself or not, this is what it _means_. Not having the courage to hear what oneself is saying does not mean one is not saying it, also see [http://warprayer.org/](http://warprayer.org/)

So enjoy it, because you're stuck with. "Respected people" pulling all sorts of obvious, low shit, unable to answer the most simple questions without straw men about all those women haters and rape apologists, and a whole lot of other "respected people" keeping their feet still. Who respects these people? People who don't mind lynch mobs, and don't even lose respect for people in them. Let me add that up and weigh it real quick -- oh look, it adds up to nothing.

They came for someone, they did something to them, and you are complaining about the precious few people who were and are not complicit. The nerve! I wouldn't normally say but just think this, but considering your comment, I'll say it's only fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm confused. This was on the front page a moment ago. Now it is not.

This article was

119 points @ 3 hours

Current front page contains (sampled):

38 points @ 2 hours

87 points @ 4 hours

59 points @ 3 hours

26 points @ 2 hours

110 points @ 6 hours

35 points @ 7 hours

Or am I just not seeing it?

<comment><USER17> Stories that get flagged by users will drop in their rankings; this story was probably flagged by users.

<comment><USER18> Any idea of why it has been flagged?

Were the ones that spread suspicion about Appelbaum flagged too? It looks to me as this would be quite relevant news.

<comment><USER17> I have not flagged it, so I am speculating. But users flagging stories is the most common reason stories with a lot of points leave the front page.

These types of stories tend to get user flags for two reasons: they are more voyeaurism than news, and the actual discussions often become flame wars. Also note that I am not a mod, I've just been here for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> the infosec scene is in a place the OSS scene was in ˜13-14 years ago, before the formal introduction of the gnome foundation, kde reorg. guess what both of those projects have? outreach programmes and ombudsmän.

now, guess what the tor project lacks.

as you're probably thinking right now "but how in the f..." simple, OSS has had to deal with toxic enviroments and individuals. one of the cornerstones is, listen, corroborate, recommend, act.

the infosec community as a whole lack formal mature organisations to deal with these kinds of situations.

what we're still lacking in the witness accounts are timeframes, we have something of a picture from very vague details from leaked emails, these can be regarding pretty much anything, aside from one which is about _unspecified_ misconduct at a conference.

the sad thing here is that people can change, victims with trauma live with the trauma, so listen, validate, no-shame or pre-judgement.

but the infosec scene isnt a special snowflake exempt from the social contract of society, we all co-sign it by living in a nationstate, so we need to uphold it because the alternative is chaos.

if there is a legitimate grievance, report it, go through the system. hell, even brokep says as much, and he trusts the system on this, even though the process he has been forced to endure.

</comment><comment><USER20> Media & mob justice at it's finest, requiring people to prove their innocence instead of the other way around.

Disgusting.

<comment><USER21> What most people don't see yet is that when enough of these counter-examples to allegations of abuse surface, people won't believe the allegations any more.

Reputation and reputation destruction is a dynamic system that will find equilibrium in a place different from where we are right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow. just wow. I feel ashamed for making up my mind too quickly.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's especially shameful about all of this is that a ton of smart people rushed to condemn Applebaum before we had a complete accounting. If this many intelligent people can prematurely convict someone in the court of public opinion, what hope is there for the rest of society?

</comment><comment><USER24> Who is "Jill Bähring"?

1) The statement is pushed via the same odd channel as Appelbaum's message.

2) The person exists for one year as a retweet twitter account. From a privacy perspective this person does not seem to "exist" on the internet for long.

3) The name sounds like a combination of a German name and an American(?) surname, the legend is also that she resides in the Netherlands. Is this person for real? It was used as a token persona by an apparently base- and meaningless Der Spiegel article, an interview of few youngsters including Jill (20) who - apparently without training as a DaF teacher - carried out German language courses in Costa Rica, returned and lived with her parents. [http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelwissen/d-79922555.html](http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelwissen/d-79922555.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, that's certainly not what I was expecting.

If this person really is who they say they are, I'd have to agree that it's more than a little chauvinistic to speak on her behalf as the Gizmodo story did.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's so nice to see that Appelbaum's defenders have finally found a woman they believe.

<comment><USER15> Defenders? More like, "it's lame to see the attackers still haven't found a way to explain themselves in a credible manner, and are still excusing it with the same smear."

You are projecting. The evil you're looking for, it's in you.</comment></comment>


Petoskey stone - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petoskey_stone <comment><USER2> Fun fact: Claude Shannon, father of information theory, was born in Petoskey, MI [0]. He grew up not far away in Gaylord, MI, where you can now visit Claude Shannon park [1].

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon)

[1]: [http://www.gaylordmichigan.net/member-37/claude-shannon- park...](http://www.gaylordmichigan.net/member-37/claude-shannon- park-329.html)

<comment><USER3> See, you can bring up information theory in almost any context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By brother collected these as a kid living in Charlevoix and threw a bunch into Lake Champlain, nearly a thousand miles away, in the hopes of trolling some future geologist.

My brother does stuff like that.

<comment><USER5> This is fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I grew up in the small town of Petoskey, MI. You can indeed just walk down the shores of Lake Michigan and find these. People at local camps come and gather them one day and then spend the rest of their vacation polishing them in rock polishing stations and fashioning them into jewelry and stuff. All the gift shops sell Petoskey stone paper weights, knives, boxes, necklaces, Michigan- shaped Petoskey stones, you name it!

<comment><USER7> Is the Mole Hole still around.

<comment><USER6> Woah, random! I loved that place. The Petoskey location closed but they're operating in Sault Ste. Marie [1].

[1] [https://www.themoleholeonline.com/history/](https://www.themoleholeonline.com/history/)

<comment><USER7> There was one in Barnegat Light, NJ - and i assumed it was named after the entrance in Petoskey

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All the way from Traverse City to Charlevoix is, indeed, very good and never crowded. Storms are good for stirring up the aluvial deposits to reveal new finds. Rubber boots will help if the temperature is significantly below freezing. Otherwise, I prefer barefoot with some local microbrews. The biggest one I found, about the size of an american football, was the one I stepped on. :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I was there and found a few on Saturday. I try to make it to Petoskey at least once per year. Looking for these is one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

</comment><comment><USER10> They look like organically grown voronoi diagrams - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram)

</comment><comment><USER11> My Mother has a bit of a fascination with these, going so far as to put a "rock shop" in her garage.

Here's a blurry image of one that she gave me (after I wore down the polish a bit). [http://i.imgur.com/IhvgT.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/IhvgT.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> Serendipity! Just looking at a large one last night, here at my wife's parents house in Boyne City, found decades ago. (My mother in law grew up here.)

<comment><USER2> The craft fair in Boyne over the 4th of July is a good place to buy trinkets made with Petoskey stones like the ones in the shape of the state that someone else mentioned. We didn't make it there this summer, but stop by Kilwin's and Lake Street Deli for me!

<comment><USER12> Lake Street Deli is amazing, as is the Boyne City Bakery, run by a world class French baker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We always used to go up to Torch Lake during summer when I was a kid. Collected a bunch of these. The easiest way to find them is to bring some water with you and go for a walk on a rocky road, and pour the water on likely rocks. The water makes the pattern much clearer and fewer people look for them on the roads.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well this was a serendipitous post! My wedding anniversary is coming up and I wasn't sure what to get my wife. Thanks to this, I looked up 'Petoskey stone' on Amazon and found a pretty necklace for sale. Someday I'd love to visit Michigan and buy matching earrings/bracelet in person.

</comment><comment><USER15> My grandparents retired on the eastern shore of the Leelanau peninsula, very near the town where the recently discovered 93 pound stone was found. We would walk the shoreline after a fresh rain to find these. They kept buckets full of them that they would give away to whomever wanted them.

I never realized how unique the stones were until I was in my 20s and discovered most people know nothing about them. The buckets are long gone and one of my biggest regrets is not having claimed any before my grandparents moved back down to southeast MI.

</comment><comment><USER16> The even cooler part of these stones is that they often look totally plain when dried out, because the white coral pattern blends into the light gray of the stone. If you're walking the beach looking for them, you might have to pick up likely looking candidates and dip them in the water to darken the gray parts of the stone; every time is like a little lottery that you might win.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've always found it fascinating collecting fossils.

Of course the rock is millions of years old, but the fact that it has the shape of a shell embedded in it from millions of years ago just makes the fact so much more real.

</comment><comment><USER18> My Grandmother used to take me hiking along the northern shores of the lower peninsula of Michigan in search of these stones.

</comment><comment><USER19> Spent many summers up at Glen Lake as a kid sanding and polishing these stones. Lots of fun.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why a Wiki page of a stone on the front page of HN ?

<comment><USER21> Probably because yesterday on reddit, this article was trending: [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6p1iwi/til_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6p1iwi/til_a_michigan_rock_collector_found_an_impressive/)

("TIL A Michigan rock collector found an impressive 93 lb. Petoskey stone in Lake Michigan in 2015, only to have it promptly confiscated by authorities. The stone violated a Michigan law that states no more than 25 pounds of rocks or minerals can be taken from the Great Lakes per year.")

I'm guessing that someone reading that reddit post found the phenomenon interesting and submitted its Wikipedia page to news.ycombinator.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is exactly right. I'd never heard of Petoskey stones before, found them pretty interesting, and I figured many people on HN would think the same.

<comment><USER22> I'll send you one if you'd like to see one in person. DM me at @taylorbuley</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Four-year professional visas get green light in Thailand - <AUTHOR> http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2017/08/18/4-year-professional-visas-get-green-light/ <comment><USER2> This article is a good example of the primary form of click-bait used by websites catering to the Thai expat / digital nomad market. No new visa has been introduced, and it is unlikely that anything along these lines ever will be, no matter how many times it is suggested in expat forums or Facebook groups for digital nomads. All the expat websites know this, but they keep pumping out these articles because they are, by far, their most reliable source of traffic.

Every foreigner who spends time in Thailand indulges in the fantasy that their bizarre visa system will, somehow, be fixed to allow "good" visitors to spend longer there. It seems obvious that this _should_ happen, that the Thai people would benefit financially, but it would not be in the interests of the Thai elite, and that is the only things that currently matters.

<comment><USER3> "was endorsed Friday by the Cabinet"

<comment><USER2> It was not endorsed in the legal sense, the writer is using that word to justify his claim, in the title, that the plan has the "green light".

Endorsed, in this context, means that it was mentioned in cabinet, and the soldiers present agreed that it sounded like a fine idea. This is no different from all the other times it has been discussed, but nothing has actually been drafted, given the go-ahead or any sort of actual green light. This is just the usual spit-balling and bullshit.

The best way to tell when a Thai expat website is trying to magic up a story out of nothing is that none of the other major expat websites have bothered to mention it. When a real new visa is introduced, such as the current 10-year visa for retirees, you will see it being discussed on all the sites.

<comment><USER4> Why is it referenced from the PM's Delivery Unit Facebook page?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am mystified probably coming from South Asia, what makes Thailand so attractive? when you can do similar cost arbitrage with many places in Carib and Latin America, while being in the same time zones and probably better way to get in touch with US based clients.

<comment><USER6> Food, safety, proximity to other Asian destinations, low cost, fast Internet, everything close by (e.g. one can take a break from Bangkok with a quick flight to the south)... it goes on.

<comment><USER7> Everything you listed bar the connection to asian countries you can find in latin america

<comment><USER8> The internet in Latin America sucks compared to east Asia.

It's not even remotely close. I say this having used 130 gigs of high speed mobile data over the past month, tethering wherever I felt like it, and spending under $30 USD for the privilege.

<comment><USER9> South East Asia != East Asia

<comment><USER8> I have been mostly bouncing between Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, but even so, what Latin American city offers internet service at a similar speed and price as you could get in Chiang Mai, Saigon or Singapore? I sure haven't seen one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Southeast Asia is a really interesting case study for me when it comes to political ideals vs. optimizing for life situations. There's a growing creep of authoritarianism in different nations -- given what we know of the military regime in Thailand and their propensity to arrest people for expression, it would be somewhat ironic to preach for the "open Internet" while living there. The tradeoff, of course, is much lower costs, higher security as others have pointed out. But I do wonder about the greater costs involved -- those perhaps not weighed on foreign workers, of accepting that this is the way things happen to be there.

<comment><USER11> This is certainly a very real part of living in Thailand. There are certain subjects (i.e. the monarchy and Buddhism) that you can not be negative about. It's possible that you could be arrested if you are overheard speaking negatively about these things. Practically, this isn't an issue. You are as likely to talk about the Thai Monarchy and Buddhism as you are here in America. That said, it is certainly surreal when a conversation veers that direction and it the group collectively realizes they need to stop talking about that for fear of imprisonment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great move Thailand! I expect the kingdom will be loose with these as it has been in allowing this class of foreigner use tourist, ed and extensions when they know full well what's really going on.

The previous system was essentially a checkpoint to allow for the removal of party goer types who have become more trouble than they're worth.

</comment><comment><USER13> Would be great if you're eligible - no more visa runs or "self-defense" ED visas, but not that much info is provided at this moment. The visa should roll-out in January 2018 according to FB page...

</comment><comment><USER14> Sadly, there are no details yet. What constitutes investor or highly skilled?

<comment><USER15> We're probably not talking crazy money to be qualified as an investor in a developing country. But there might be a requirement to invest a certain amount into the local economy.

<comment><USER16> As a point of reference, you can get a business visa in Japan by starting a company with about $50K in capital. The idea is that the company has enough money to pay your salary for a year or so (the $50K is a minimum and depends on whether or not they think the company can look after you as an employee). I have heard that similar kinds of visas can be obtained in some SE Asian countries, so I'm guessing that Thailand will introduce something similar -- so a few tens of thousands of dollars (I'm not entirely sure what the cost of living is like there, but it's probably lower than Japan).

<comment><USER17> Very interesting. Where did you find the $50K figure for Japan?

<comment><USER18> It's 5 million yen. I actually did this back in 2012. It's a complicated procedure but plenty of Japan based lawyers can help you out.

I did it myself, without lawyer help but you will absolutely need someone fluent in Japanese. The paperwork is suffocating. In retrospect I should have just married my then girlfriend, now wife.

<comment><USER17> Thank you! I will investigate this possibility as a third of my clients are in Japan so... ( btw, my daughter loves EasyBeats! )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Any idea how would they evaluate highly skilled professionals?

Most importantly, a lot of people living in Thailand have an offshore source of income (a business or a freelancing contract), those people don't need a regular work visa as they are don't participate in the Thai Labor market. Is this law somehow applicable to those people?

<comment><USER4> > those people don't need a regular work visa as they are don't participate in > the Thai Labor market

Sorry that isn't how the law works. Unless those people travel out of the country to conduct their work, they're breaking Thai law - it doesn't matter where the company is, what matters is that they're _doing work_ in Thailand.

<comment><USER20> Can you please cite sources for that? I really don't think that's the case.

<comment><USER21> Not sure for Thailand but I've heard the same for Japan.

The counterfactual would be that if this were possible, every foreigner in Thailand would be made an employee of a company in Ireland or something to avoid dealing with visa issues (or tax issues )

<comment><USER22> You can't licitly work for a foreign company from Japan without a work-capable visa, though Japan won't work too hard to detect and penalize this given that you're keeping your nose clean. I'd strongly recommend keeping it legal; it starts to matter a lot more as you put down roots and get asked "So what were you doing last N years?" by various authorities.

<comment><USER23> hey, I tried emailing you at the address in your profile but didn't get a response , so am assuming you didn't get the message

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The biggest problem is the weather. It gets brutal hot march to June.

<comment><USER24> Can you comment on the air quality? Is it as big an issue as some people make it out to be?

<comment><USER2> Chiang Mai is the nicest city but all of Northern Thailand is affected by terrible air pollution in March and April, you simply get out of town during those months.

The confusion about whether or not it is "as big an issue as some people make it out to people" is because influential members in the various forums and Facebook groups have a vested interest in down-playing it, their business in some way benefits from having a steady stream of nomad newbies arriving throughout the year. They try to shout down any mention of it, and will outright lie when someone asks a question such as yours.

Do real research on particulate pollution and look at the stats. The haze is genuinely bad for your health long before it becomes as visually obvious as it does in those months. A year in which the smoke season is considered to be "not so bad" can actually do more damage, because people are inclined to spend more time outdoors.

My opinion is that, although Chiang Mai is relatively cheap, no-one should move here unless they can also afford to spend those two months elsewhere in Thailand or South East Asia. Most Westerners on tourist visas have to spend stretches of time away from Thailand anyway, so, I treat the smoke season as an opportunity to spend time in Vietnam or The Philippines.

<comment><USER25> I was speaking recently to a student of mine who lives in Singapore (for the last 4 years) and asked him about this air pollution / haze issue; he said it is has become less bad over the last few years.

<comment><USER26> The haze in Thailand is different from the one in Singapore.

In Northern Thailand it's locally generated in the dry season around March- April (forest fires plus farmers burning fields on purpose) and considerably worsened by the topography (no ocean, mountains on three sides).

In Singapore it's forest fire smoke from Indonesia blowing in with the winds, and it's usually during the summer (June to October, peaking around August).

<comment><USER27> So is there no way to address this problem? I always thought of places with polluted air to be in that situation because of lack of regulation of factories or car emissions

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Slightly OT: Everytime there's a discussion about living in SE Asia or Thailand people give many good reasons to go.

Very rarely to never one dares to mention girls there as a reason. In this thread there's one person only who does mention girls.

Since I have never been to Thailand or SE Asia I am just wondering how much weight does this factor have in decisions to live in SE Asia (this is a serious question).

 _Edit: Fyi, this post got so many downvotes and I just don 't understand why. People try to hide the truth and want us to believe that everybody goes to Thailand because of all these amenities, good Internet but not the one reason I mentioned? If downvoters keep on this hypocrisis I will delete the post again. This is ridiculous. I would like to see one downvoter replying and explaining why he downvoted.

Guys, keep on downvoting. I think the downvoters are exactly those who visit Thailand just because of this one reason._

<comment><USER29> It wasn't a factor for me, because I am more attracted to European/Caucasian women. And sure enough Murphy's law did have me end up with quite a beautiful Thai lady, I dare say could possibly be out of my league in the US or Australia. However this was not by design.

I came mainly for the tax benefits base and low cost of living of setting up an office in Thailand. There's quite a lot of annoying bureaucracy involved but a good agent can handle that. It's also a great place to self fund a startup as your team can all live quite cheaply giving you double the runway.

Anything else I can add has probably already been said.

<comment><USER30> > Murphy's law did have me end up with quite a beautiful Thai lady

I'm not sure what our think Murphy's Law says, but it doesn't result in someone finding a soulmate.

In a nutshell, Murphy's Law states that "anything that can go wrong, will". It is sometimes decorated with the add-on "and at the worst possible time".

<comment><USER29> Yeah you're right, I'm quite jet lagged right now and it was a poor choice of phrasing. oops

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am not sure if this is ao good for your personality and character devlopment.

Just compare two guys: One lives in a country where his personal purchasing power is much much higher than in his home country and his ethnicity signals a high status and value to locals as well (e.g. American in Thailand).

The other guy lives in a super expensive hub with high competition and just finding a flat and paying the rent ia already a huge challenge (eg some guy in New York or SF).

I could imagine that the first guy will degenerate over time (like animals in the zoo) while the other one has to fight night and day for everything and gets thougher.

<comment><USER31> high level of stress will kill you young, it doesn't matter how much you think your character developed when you are dead!

<comment><USER32> Even without factor of stress lifestyle of many people in IT is not too healthy to begin with. And it's certainly easier to remain healthy while live in SEA countries.</comment></comment></comment>


Let's Deploy to Openshift - <AUTHOR> http://www.goncharov.xyz/it/deploy2openshift-en.html <comment><AUTHOR> It is story about migration an application to Openshift. Also, I compare some of the most popular solutions and tools for managing your application inside Openshift.</comment>


Reflection of a Young Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://milogao.tumblr.com/post/3027398440/a-passage-to-look-back-at

<comment><USER2> Aside: The part about cramming for tests and getting good grades as proof of being smart reminds me of a piece of research (that I can't recall) which found that kids learn more when they are praised for effort rather than praised for being smart. The kids that were praised for being smart tried to maintain appearances by not working too hard (as per the blog post) and subsequently did not improve as fast as the kids who were praised for effort.

On the comment of going from -3 to +3 without falling between +- standard deviations, my guess would be that you'd have to pass through that territory anyway, rather than a spectacular jump from one end to the next, seemingly overnight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well see, in my opinion being on the left of the -3 is somewhat a tradeoff. Of course there are plenty of within +- standard deviation folks who goes past the +3.

It's definitely not an overnight process, it's hard and difficult. Consists countless nights of unpraised hard work all just for a belief. There's no one there to give you a pat on the back. The journey gets really lonely.

As for the praised for effort, I definitely agree with that because usually people who work harder are those who achieve and improve faster because there is a learning curve and when a person learns a lot, he/she becomes a learning sponge and retain more info in less period of time. The best example I could think of is Michael Jordan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> God, this reminds me of me.

I was really smart at school and was used to being able to try hard and get As.

But with girls, I get Cs. And so I don't have relationships because I can't bear getting Cs.

And it's even worse being in tech, because when I have to compete with an office full of guys competing with me for the C, I'm only going to get an E if I'm lucky.

Sometimes the pain is so unbearable it kills all my motivation for days or weeks.

I wish I wasn't in tech. I wish I could be more normal.</comment>


Show HN: (pre-beta SaaS) "Get organized, get Headspace" - <AUTHOR>

I am a software engineer working alone on a passion project, a website that helps you stay organized easily and efficiently.
Headspace.io is a webmail, notepad, task list and calendar, all rolled into on. The basic premise is that any data in Headspace can be "tagged" and then all relevant information for a particular tag can be displayed in one screen.
This is a pre-beta build and I'm hoping to get some early feedback from the wise and generous HN folks. Would you pay a small monthly fee ($5 maybe) for a service like this?
http://app.headspace.io/
(This is pre-production so please do not use real data.) <comment><USER2> I was going to try it out, but you require me to signup. No teaser page, no FAQ, nothing. I prefer when companies allow me to demo their product without signing up. Be it by allowing me to use the product, a video, or even clear pictures with detailed captions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, you are completely right. There is a proper website, which isn't linked up to the app yet: [http://headspace.io/](http://headspace.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> clicky: [http://app.headspace.io/](http://app.headspace.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I went ahead and signed up. Really like the interface. Haven't really tested anything out yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks never the less.</comment></comment>


Silkscreen: Automatic Preview of PSD on iOS app - <AUTHOR> http://getsilkscreen.com/

<comment><USER2> Hi guys, I'm one of the developers of Silkscreen. If you have any questions please go ahead and ask.

Btw, could a mod change the title? It's not about turning a .psd into an iOS App but just about previewing iPhone App mockups on your device.

<comment><USER3> So to be clear, this is not for transforming a mockup into an actual application?

<comment><USER2> Nope, this is for designers who need to preview their retina designs on a retina screen.

<comment><USER4> That makes a lot more sense. The title of this submission made it sound like some horrific image slicing and click-action tool!

<comment><USER2> Haha, we would never release such a tool. :)

Since we didn't submit the link we had no say over the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Easier technic to preview a PSD on iOS: Open an additional view for your file (Window -> Arrange -> New Window) and place it one the side. Download the free tool 'LivePreview' <http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/> and place its window on top of your cloned Photoshop view. Open your iOS device, install the 'LivePreview' app and connect to your machine. Wolla - a live preview!

<comment><USER2> Silkscreen reads the PSD directly, so you don't need a second monitor.

Also we support previewing iOS Home Screen icons on a fake Home Screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anybody used this and compared it to LiveView?

<http://www.zambetti.com/projects/liveview/>

<comment><USER2> The basic principle is different. Silkscreen reads the PSD directly, so you don't need a second monitor.

Also we've heard that LiveView is crashy on Lion, but I never experienced that.

<comment><USER5> LiveView is free and you see your edits live without having to press Cmd+S.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My friend finally came over and told me that you iterate the supported file types by a rotating animated gif. I am not a business guy but I would maybe write it at least once on your website. So far it seems the list is "PNG images and Photoshop images". Please help me interpret this so I can tell what you're selling.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, we're currently in the process of making a screencast, submitting 1.1 and writing our email list. We haven't yet had much time to work on the homepage.

Silkscreen is for designers who design for retina devices and need a retina density preview on the real device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a cool idea, but the site is not clear enough. A big video showing how it works would be more useful.

<comment><USER2> Year we're currently in the process of making a screencast. I'm thinking just zooming from Photoshop to the iPhone and showing how changes are reflected instantly should be a good explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bought the app for previewing Fireworks PNGs, but how can I view pages in it?

<comment><USER10> For now, it will show only the first page. Swiping between Fireworks pages is something we have on our roadmap.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Lavabit alternatives in countries that respect user-rights? - <AUTHOR> With the recent news of Yahoo and the fear of Gmail/Google, are there any stable hosted webmail/email providers that is similar in feature to Lavabit and reside in a country (such as Iceland) that respect a user's privacy/rights?<p>I know peoples and laws change, what may be respectful today may not tomorrow. <comment><USER2> protonmail.com

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! will have a look.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Eradicate Bedbugs? - <AUTHOR> I am facing problem with these tiny blood sucking creatures from past one year. I tried pest control (spraying medicine) twice to ward off them but still they are back. Unlike in other countries we don't have fumigators or bug bombing.
I often travel and looks like I got them home either from flight/hotel or in transit. Never knew that they are so intelligent creatures and very annoying.
I took it as challenge and tried all means to eradicate them (changed mattress, replaced beds, pillows, repainted cot etc), but they seem to outsmart me ..always. It subsides for some time but they are always back with a bang.
I have a small infant at home hence it scares the hell out of me.
Fellow hackers, do you have any ideas/hacks in eradicating them with no sign of them again? Any pointers in this direction is of great help. Btw, I live in Bangalore. <comment><USER2> This question may be off topic for HN, but never let it be said that I didn't answer the call. I eradicated my bedbugs by getting rid of the mattress, washing all the bedding at 90 C, stripping the room of all carpets and furnishings down to the floorboards, distributing some kind of powder that kills them by clogging their pores, and leaving it that way for several weeks. I feel bad about killing any living creature so I made an announcement in advance advising them to vacate the area. That was a few years ago and they haven't been back. When you check into a hotel room, the first thing you should do is look under the mattress.

<comment><USER3> > I feel bad about killing any living creature so I made an announcement in > advance advising them to vacate the area.

I would love to know what you mean by this, how many living creatures are there in your room... and how do you tell them to leave

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bedbugs/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bedbugs/) there is a section with guides including 'bedbug indentification', 'DIY treatment guide' ([https://www.reddit.com/r/Bedbugs/comments/3f5zro/crispys_diy...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bedbugs/comments/3f5zro/crispys_diy_ipm_strategy_for_bed_bugs/)), 'ineffective methods' and of course it's a forum where you can ask specific questions about bedbugs. Especially now that you've tried all the usual methods.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had them and I killed them dead. Bed bugs are very susceptible to heat so steam is the key. The second key is to divide and conquer room by room. I did this with masking tape. So take your steamer and heavily steam every crack, crevice and fabric, then seal that room off with masking tape. Repeat this room by room.

Bed bugs can travel up to 100m in a night so if you live in an infested apartment building you might be in for a battle but in that case seal up all through wall pipes and electric vias and then use masking tape on your door at night.

If you google bedbugs and heat you will see that some companies will wrap an entire house in a big plastic bag, raise the temperature to 50 or 60C for a few days to treat the whole house at once.

Heat, particularly steam, is the magic bullet for bed bugs.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's better to ask this kind of questions on Reddit.

You are in India. It should be easy to get rid of it. Spraying chemical won't do anything. Most chemical won't kill eggs. Also chemical won't reach hard to reach areas.

Heat is the best weapon against bedbugs. Everything should be out in the sun for a week. Including TV's. Things that you can't take out side spray rubbing alcohol. Make sure to shut off electricity.

When you are back from tracking to other hotels, don't bring bags and cloths inside your house. Get it washed.

There are tons of resources online. Google it.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're renting, just move out and discard as much clothing as possible. I had this issue in an apartment I was renting - I tried everything that I could, as a tenant. Nothing worked. I gave up and moved out, in desperation.

Bedbugs are horrible. They also stink bad.

</comment><comment><USER8> is HN the right place to ask these questions?

<comment><USER9> Getting rid of "real" bugs is no less than hacking!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> diatomaceous earth

<comment><USER11> DE is how you finally get rid of them. You need a bed that has posts and doesn't touch a wall, under each bed post you place a 'bed bug trap' (see YouTube, can make yourself with a glue gun and two metal pieces that fit inside each other). Dust the bug trap with DE. Have a pro exterminator spray your baseboards and lightly dust them with DE too. If you buy a new mattress get a bed bug cover for it and your pillows. The washer doesn't kill them but a dryer on reg heat setting does. All else fails you call a company that specializes in high heat extermination (prob expensive).

You have to repeat this for months redusting traps (and dusting baby powder on inside of traps so they can't climb out). Eventually the DE kills them all or they move to sucking your neighbor's blood.</comment></comment>


Help install tensorflow on windows - <AUTHOR> Hi i am facing problem installing tensorflow on windows, the best guide i found till now is http://bottomstack.com/installing-tensorflow-windows-and-visual-studio/ i have followed all the steps everything is installed according to the guide, the problem i am facing at the moment is that when i try to run basic program is shows error AppData/Program/Python/program.exe
Any help would be highly appreciated. Thank You!! <comment><USER2> I would recommend the Tensorflow documentation:

[https://www.tensorflow.org/install/install_windows](https://www.tensorflow.org/install/install_windows)

If there are things on it that you don't understand, it is probably better in the long run to deal with that knowledge gap directly.</comment>


Having the right users is more important than having the right features - <AUTHOR> http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/05/26/HavingTheRightUsersIsMoreImportantThanHavingTheRightFeatures.aspx

<comment><USER2> I like the suckiness curve graphs. Told me all I needed to know in a pretty picture. I didn't even have to read the whole article.

We found this to be true today...a couple of independent folks talked about our product in a thread on Slashdot, and we had our best sales day ever. All tiny sales...but a whole heckuva lot of them. And, they'll probably be the kind of customer that keeps coming back, assuming we keep them happy. And in all cases, we're finding that folks are saying, effectively, "All of these things suck, but this one over here sucks a lot less...and they fixed it when I told them X was sucky." And all along, we've been trying to remove the stupid features and add in new functionality without adding new complexity to the UI (as best we can). I think the battle against increasing complexity is a battle worth fighting, and I become more convinced of it every day.</comment>