Am i being unfair to request a refund from Crowdfire? - <AUTHOR> I signed up for the first time yesterday. Service is broken, Asked them for a a refund, they respond today asking me to wait and asking if I can contact Twitter on their behalf. Here's the communications:
The original message was via the app so I don't have a copy but it was basically:
" I just signed up for crowdfire, the service is not working, please refund."
Their response today, quote:
"Thanks for reaching out!
We're facing issues from Twitter's end and are waiting for a reply from @Twitter about this sudden disruption so we can get it. Until then, our team is working round the clock to get the other Twitter features like Scheduling/Publish and Mentions up and running for you.
For this, can I please ask you for some more time? Meanwhile, I please also request you to tweet out to @TwitterDev and let them know we're waiting for a reply and immediate restoration of services?
We'd really appreciate your patience and understanding at the moment. We'll be in touch!
Best,
Gwen"
If I'm running a business online or offline and there's service disruption, I don't hold on to a customer's money, I apologize for the inconvenience, explain it's not our fault, give them a full refund and let them know we can contact them when service is restored so they can opt to return. Especially a first time customer.
...but what are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> What kind of money are we talking about? There's such a thing as practicalities.

<comment><USER3> Yes, waste an hour and engage the community for chats to save $7, $37, $74 - only the last two are worth even an instant...</comment></comment>


iPad Haskell Editor - <AUTHOR> http://slidetocode.com/raskell/

<comment><USER2> This looks great, and something I've been looking for for a while. One thing: I tried checking the type of a function with Hugs' ':type' command, and it crashed. Peering a types is pretty much all I do when hacking Haskell -- would it be possible to have support for it?

I love the vi command keyboard!

<comment><USER3> That crash slipped in at the last moment, have fixed it now. Yes, I am missing those commands as well, I will look into adding them.

<comment><USER4> I experienced this too, but overall this is a great app. Hope you continue development. If only Apple ToS would allow package management...

<comment><USER4> Also seems to crash randomly when importing standard libraries (like Data.Map) in a file I'm currently editing, making it somewhat unusable for the time being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I applaud the effort, especially the virtual keyboard with the actual meaning of vi commands, instead of HJKL.

</comment><comment><USER6> The demo doesn't have a voiceover, but this project looks intriguing. I would love to read a side-by-side comparative review of Raskell and iHaskell (which I've used on someone else's iPad, and liked).

</comment><comment><USER7> Does it compile code on the iPad or does it use some online API like the other Haskell programs on the Apple App Store?

<comment><USER3> It compiles to a virtual machine, then interprets on the iPad. No internet connection is required.

<comment><USER8> This is allowed by Apple because no code is loaded from the net right?

<comment><USER3> Yes, interpreters are ok, but they must not execute downloadable code (including email imports and iTunes sync)

<comment><USER8> I read somewhere that it's ook if it is javascript executed with jscore; know if that is true? That would give slightly more leeway.

<comment><USER3> I think so. It is hard to disallow that without crippling the OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What advantages does this have (other than the changing keyboard button icons) over running haskell in MobileTerminal with an actual vim/emacs/nano/whatever I want to use? Why should I pay $3 for this if I can do it for free already?</comment>


Getting rejected from a startup incubator - <AUTHOR> http://mattsencenbaugh.tumblr.com/post/11982490057/so-you-didnt-get-into-a-startup-incubator

<comment><USER2> The majority of entrepreneurs I meet failed many times before their success. Having the tenacity (or stubbornness...) not to give up is a key personality trait.</comment>


Choosing the Right Programming Language for Your Startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/aws-activate-startup-blog/choosing-the-right-programming-language-for-your-startup-b454be3ed5e2 <comment><USER2> Definitely something to consider.</comment>


Show HN: JSON/REST API browsing tool - <AUTHOR> http://stray.io/tools/api-browser.aspx

<comment><USER2> We built an api browser. Demo starts 1:30 into the video.

A strange and pointless idea but nevertheless something appealing about being about to write 10 lines of javaScript to browse any API.

[http://youtu.be/yuSDU0JiI2c](http://youtu.be/yuSDU0JiI2c)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks good, personally I'd like something like postman for chrome wrapped up in node webkit rather than having to have a browser open. (I say that rather than native, because then I can tweak if needed easily)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hacked this up in a day or so to let me explore APIs more easily (and to test my own APIs). Whatcha think?</comment>


Git – Pushing to Multiple Remotes - <AUTHOR> https://manmeetgill.com/blog/2016/simultaneous-git <comment><AUTHOR> Not entirely sure if this fits the site, but since the github news hit, I was trying to configure a way that doesn't make ssh confused with multiple keys.</comment>


The Top 20 Twitter Applications (According to Compete) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications <comment><USER2> Twitpic is leading the pack.</comment>


Instacart Closes Latest Funding Round at $3.4B Valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-07/instacart-raises-funding-valuing-grocery-startup-at-3-4-billion <comment><USER2> In Vancouver, our most popular local supermarket chain (Save-on-Foods) has started offering a service where you can order groceries on the web or in an app at the same prices as in the store. Then, you can either quickly pick up the collected groceries for free, or you can pay them a fee for delivery if you prefer. Even though the chain is local and the service is new, the software works well, the service works well, and overall it's a good offering.

So my question is: how do investors project that an intermediary like Instacart can outcompete the same service provided by the supermarkets themselves? Doordash can compete on variety and speed, but most folks shop at the same one or two supermarkets all the time and rarely need groceries urgently.

<comment><USER3> this is not quite the right question to ask, because it assumes that the delivery business is the revenue driver for instacart, and that for instacart to win, they need to be better at delivery than the grocery store. it's very hard to make such a logistics business work in the last mile because it's so inefficient. grocery stores know this, which is the reason they are reluctant to implement such services themselves, not because they afraid of innovation (rather, lots of pricing innovation happens in grocery stores, to squeeze what little margin they can out of the value chain). companies like fedex and ups subsidize last-mile through their much more efficient long-distance logistics operations, which people are willing to pay more for.

the delivery service is actually a loss leader for instacart's underlying business, which is influencing purchase decisions through their app and getting paid for it. this is where brands compete with each other (just like shelf space in the store, which they also pay for), so it's where the money is. instacart also has fantastic shopping data tied to individual accounts that they can monetize in a number of ways. and then there is a bit of a winner-take-all element in that grocery stores are unlikely to want to integrate with more than one such service.

this last part is where the valuation comes from - it's a bet that instacart can become critical marketing infrastructure for the grocery industry. like many others, i'm skeptical because it's a risky strategy, but if they pull it off, they get a big payday.

<comment><USER4> This seems a bit left field. If you were a $100MM startup I could buy this argument but at $3.4B you better believe that their valuation is tied to their gross volume of goods and revenue moving through their platform.

Which is why the recently announced a change to tipping, where it would no longer be hanlded separately but instead as part of the regular checkout so as to make their revenue numbers look better.

They could certainly look into an advertising model for virtual shelf space, but that will be a significantly smaller amount of money than what they are doing in grocery delivery.

This is the same play as Seamless/Grubhub, and while they have a "promoted" listing which generates revenue, the majority of their revenue still comes from creating and order and doing the delivery.

The real benefit to Instacart from an investor perspective is that they are taking a distributed market and consolidating it into one single player. So while some stores may do their own delivery, by consolidating that space into a single player they are able to create tremendous volume.

Now, at 33% the value of whole foods that's a different matter. But there are some attractive pieces to Instacart's revenue story.

They don't stock inventory, so there aren't many carrying costs, they are charging 20% on the order which means they directly benefit from customers spending more and you can quickly see that their immediate revenue model assuming they can keep costs under control is definitely enough to justify the price.

The real question is how much money they are losing and if they are able to become profitable in the long run, but that will be a question that is decided well post IPO.

<comment><USER5>
      So while some stores may do their own delivery, by consolidating that space
      into a single player they are able to create tremendous volume.

OP's point was that shoppers typically shop at 1-2 grocery stores. Seamless/GrubHub is different because people are more likely order from several restaurants across time.

clairity makes an astute point that Instacart's personalized data is more valuable than any single grocery store's data. and competing on "store shelves" allows them to negotiate with brands directly, and totally circumvent the grocery stores.

.... but in order to do that, they need to capture the market, and they need their operating model to work well for long enough to meet that goal

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If there is as much money to be made as Instacart's valuation implies, then it's just a matter of time until the big chains, at least, start offering their own online shopping.

This strikes me as another version of AutoByTel.com Remember them? They worked between you and the dealership, and generally got you a much better price on a car, usually the fleet rate.

They did well until dealerships figured out how to use the web, and then the company hasn't been anywhere near as relevant for a long time. It tough existing between web-based customers and physical dealers. There isn't a lot of loyalty, so as soon as tgere is a better price customers will change sites. Also, Autobytel's business is really offering highly qualified sales leads to dealerships. The basics are nothing fancier than that.

I see the same thing for Instacart. Grocery stores tend to be effective at shipping stuff around, but tge same "shoping" experience has worked for many, many years.

It seems like the grocery stores have a lot more power than Instacart, and Instacart is going to have a very hard time getting between customers and stores. It's going to be hard to make a profit when stores offer free/cheap delivery and develop their own shopping apps.

<comment><USER7> What you are saying is correct. But this comment is true for every startup out there.

<comment><USER8> In this case though I don't see a secret sauce that keeps the customer with Instacart rather than going direct to the retailer.

With something like Uber or Lyft, you're accessing a pool of drivers that can't immediately be created by a small competitor. Even in a local environment.

With a grocery store I'm generally ordering from the same place repeatedly. If they offer the same service directly, I see no advantage to dealing with Instacart.

Maybe if they integrate vertically but at that point they become a modern grocery store without a store front ( _I bet they 're considering this already_). But otherwise they're just tacking a markup on something the stores can do directly.

Another example would be a maid service like Homejoy. It's great if you don't have a contact to begin with but once I've had a maid come to my house, I want the same person to come back again. It's in my interests (cheaper, same person) and the maid's interest (no commission to service) for it.

<comment><USER9> As far as Instacart vertically integrating, at that point they'd be competing with Amazon Fresh, and Amazon could likely muscle them out of the market

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It must be really weird to work for Instacart. The shoppers spend the entire day in the supermarket, shopping for other people, waiting in the checkout line over and over again. The drivers are just sitting around in the grocery store parking lot most of the time. [0]

[0] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/instacart- workers_n...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/02/instacart- workers_n_6548822.html)

<comment><USER11> You can tell the Instacart shoppers in the store by the way they charge around frantically, almost pushing people out of the way. They stick out like a sore thumb.

<comment><USER12> There's also the blue uniform. But yeah, they are pretty aggressive.

<comment><USER13> > There's also the blue uniform. But yeah, they are pretty aggressive.

Green?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=instacart+shopper&source=lnm...](https://www.google.com/search?q=instacart+shopper&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_w76IgsjSAhVBU2MKHajHBysQ_AUICSgC&biw=1077&bih=1411#tbm=isch&q=instacart+shopper&*)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For anyone that doesn't know how Instacart got into YC... "How Instacart Hacked YC":

[https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked- yc/](https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked-yc/)

<comment><USER15> Takeaway: Every "no" in tech can be solved with a 6 pack of beer and lots of persistence

<comment><USER16> ...and by being male and speaking English well. :)

<comment><USER17> I get that what you're saying is tongue-in-cheek, but yes, when you're usually trying to persuade anyone --person, organization, business, etc., having a grasp in the local language is almost always a requirement.

In this particular example, however, those points are completely irrelevant as he just used his app to show off Instacart's delivery feature.

<comment><USER16> What I was saying (on International Women's Day) is that many opportunities are still afforded to people based on group identity that are denied to others, and that "all problems" can be solved trivially... for some people because of their inborn traits. It was a rejection of the "all problems can be overcome with sufficient gumption" theme of this thread.

Beer, Maleness, being physically present in the USA, English - all of these are group signifiers.

It saddens me to see HN users rejecting this on a day designed to highlight this inequality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've found Instacart to be prohibitively expensive. When in New York I've used Fresh Direct and have never felt that I was being over charged. I have never had an order with Instacart that made me thing the increase in price was worth it. I'm sure a lot of people like it but I'm having a hard time being one of them.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's from those markups on sales tax [0].

[0]:[https://np.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/5xj47l/ever_what_ins...](https://np.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/5xj47l/ever_what_instacart_is_really_charging_you_in/)

<comment><USER20> _At this point, the store cost me $86.87. Instacart is now up to $142.47 after taxes and fees. This is a difference of $55.60, or 64%. I added a 10% tip (honestly, the shoppers deserve it, especially shopping in a grocery store on a Sunday for me), which brought my Instacart total to $154.80 for an $86.87 grocery bill, or a difference of $78.20._

Ouch.

<comment><USER21> So it basically boils down to be a service for those few who either can make more than $78 in an hour working rather than shopping, or those who don't like shopping (spending all day in front of bunch of monitors I love to go shopping just to anonymously socialize for a moment).

So as long as Instacart can survive with 1% of regular folks shopping with them, they are golden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not entirely on topic, but in Denmark we have something similar called "Vigo", where other people buy your groceries for you, and deliver them to you. The fee you pay is fixed (about 6 USD).

People who want to make a little extra cash then log on to the app, look for tasks nearby, and pick a task they want to complete. Then they buy it, deliver it, and get paid.

The stores are partnering with the app to provide their inventory, so that you can pick what you need and expect it to actually be available for your shopper to buy.

Curious to see if something like Instacart would break through here.

</comment><comment><USER23> What's the big deal with going to a grocery store, I mean seriously? I can understand a market for wealthy people, who just want someone else to do things for them, but to have enough market that the common person would find this worth it?

Also, who wants someone picking through all their produce/meats/perishables? That's a pretty subjective thing.

<comment><USER24> I went without a car for a year, in Los Angeles. I lived near a subway, worked remotely, and used Uber when I had to. The one thing that was still annoying to handle was groceries, Instacart solved that. I only used them for stores where the prices were the same as in-store, and I handled tipping in cash (drivers were also the shoppers in my case).

I was very happy with the service, but my circumstances were pretty specific. I'm now in a small town in the outskirts of a city and they're not an option here. Even if they were, I have to have a car for other purposes and wouldn't use them anyway.

I don't know how they'll expand outside of urban centers, honestly.

On a side note, about half the Ubers I see around here are pickup trucks, which would make using them for grocery trips more practical. Hmmm.

<comment><USER23> I agree, this can really only exist in very urban areas.

<comment><USER25> That's not really true although some degree of density is needed. I can't get any of the latest VC-backed services but I can get Peapod and live well outside the nearest major city on a number of acres. Where I live is certainly not "very urban."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have no comment on the valuation, but the service has made my life better.

I no longer fight with my significant other about grocery store trips, and the house is always stocked with healthy, delicious food from Whole Foods.

In 3 years, I'm not sure I've ever had a problem with an Instacart delivery, other than them occasionally forgetting items.

edit: I should have mentioned that I'm not very picky about what is actually delivered, I'm just happy to have a bunch of fresh vegetables, fruit, and sparkling water stocked in my house at all times.

<comment><USER27> As a counterpoint, I've never had a positive experience with Instacart. Whenever an item is missing (and sometimes I suspect they just can't find the item in store - one time they told me Whole Foods had no parmesan cheese at all), there is a frustrating back-and-forth texting frenzy to decide whether or not you want something else. Not only is it not what you want, it inevitably costs more, and a typical order will have something like a dozen texts from the shopper. In addition to this, the markups are way too high in my opinion. And since I'm not in the store, I never know what's on sale and can never take advantage of it.

After about a half dozen tries I gave up on Instacart. It was so much worse than just going to the store myself.

<comment><USER28> For what it is anecdotally worth, this has gotten better. It launched in Chicago at least a year ago and the first few orders my wife and I placed, I felt like I should have shopped myself for how many items weren't found and how much hand holding the shopper needed to replace items. We almost gave up on it, but with a baby in the house my wife kept with it and the replacement feedback loop has really gotten much better. Nowadays, out of a 25 item order, maybe 1 item is replaced and usually without a back-and-forth necessary (something reasonable is picked and you have the opportunity to reject it). Also, luckily, in the Chicago market most of the stores are "same-price-as-in- store" and the prices seem fairly reasonable where I mostly believe that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >$400 million round of venture funding As it stands now, I believe Instacart will fail and this money will be wasted. The only hope for the company is to be acquired by someone larger looking to bootstrap grocery delivery (or maybe Uber or Amazon or something).

I regularly use Safeway grocery delivery [https://shop.safeway.com/ecom/home](https://shop.safeway.com/ecom/home) and I've always been happy. Delivery fees can get as low as $4 while grocery items are (I assume) the same price as inside the store.

Instacart needs to do something different. Why don't they just copy Blue Apron/Hello Fresh and offer meal packages with all the ingredients and recipe? Hell, I'd be way more interested in the service if I could get that along with groceries.

Postmates

Blue Apron

Hello Fresh

Instacart

Amazon Fresh

etc etc

These companies need to become each other, before Amazon becomes all of them. It seems like the biggest innovation from Instacart I could find was "the company wasn't collecting beverage can and bottle deposits accurately until recently, and the fix has increased gross margins by 25 cents on average deliveries nationwide.". This company is doomed.

Side note, I still can't get over the fact that I can't view a single item they offer without creating an account. Even going to browse their website for this comment, I walk away disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER30> I expected Whole Foods to acquire them. They have so much infrastructure on site at popular Whole Foods locations that it seemed inevitable.

<comment><USER31> I thought so too. However, the valuation of Instacart is now in the range of Whole Foods $3.4B vs $9.3B

Expect to see much rougher competition from Whole Foods. They have quietly already started this with their coupon app[1] (the wedge) and pickup (powered by instacart)[2]

[1][https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/whole- foods...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/whole-foods- introduces-digital-coupons-app-shoppering) [2][https://pickup.wholefoodsmarket.com/](https://pickup.wholefoodsmarket.com/)

<comment><USER32> The valuation doesn't necessitate what they may ever sell at. It'd be very easy for whole foods to acquire instacart after their hypothetical exit never happens and their valuation tanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> We use InstaCart to keep the fridge and pantry stocked at my small company. It works like a charm, and saves us nearly 2 hours a week. You get "free" deliveries with InstaCart Express for $149/year. The website and iPhone app are easy to use, and interaction with the shopper works almost flawlessly. Honestly, it's a no-brainer for us.

<comment><USER34> Wow! Almost 2 hours a week! What do you do with the extra time?

<comment><USER35> Why, post on HNews, of course!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Am I missing something or are of these "I'm too rich to be bothered with this task" services just creating a new servant class in the United States?

This "servant class" has already existed, but now I feel as if it's being carved out of the already diminishing middle class.

<comment><USER37> >Am I missing something

I think you are a bit, because I use a lot of these services and am not rich

Uber/Lyft isn't "I'm too rich to drive" it is "I'm drunk at the bars and need a ride home." or "The BART is closed because high winds blew stuff on the tracks and my flight leaves out of SFO in just a bit. "(Lyft really saved me on that one, no cabs around)

Instacart isn't "I'm too rich to go grocery shopping" it is "I'm a mom of two kids, one of them has diarrhea right now, we need some things from the store"

Etc - have to run but you get the idea

<comment><USER38> Even daily Uber use is cheaper than owning a car where I live (Toronto). Car insurance alone is $400 a month for a young single male.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have used their service many times and am in general not satisfied. Items are missed, the quality of produce picked is not the best, items ordered are not found and replaced, same day delivery is almost gone as an option now, the service fee of 10% stinks of mal-intent. Also, I am not sure how they will compete with Amazon Pantry/Prime or Google Express. The investment and valuation seem bloated.

</comment><comment><USER40> Are they actually making money, or are they going to be another fantastic short-sell opportunity, a la Snapchat?

</comment><comment><USER41> Those had to be some pretty bad terms.

</comment><comment><USER42> I just logged in for the first time and used a lower manhattan zipcode, the options seemed fairly sparse. I assume that it is more useful in other parts of the country?

<comment><USER18> If you're in Manhattan Fresh Direct is the best choice IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Obviously the numbers still don't add up for a delivery business so what exactly is driving the valuation up?</comment>


Is ChatRoulette the Future of the Internet or Its Distant Past? - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/news/media/63663/#ixzz0f75fouyh <comment><USER2> Eh. Not sure it's "the future" in its current form. While clicking next a few times (read: few hundred) is strangely addicting, a session feels like a bad night at the poker table - empty, wasteful, and morally depraved.

Without filters or some kind of account system it will remain mostly a diversion for bored and lonely youngins and pervs. I think random video chat has a place in the wider world of normal people (e.g., foreign language learning), but not in this form.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why the extremes of 'the past' or 'the future'? Can't it just be 'a part' of the internet?

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't get the upvotes/clickthroughs.

Everything has to be revolutionary(git) or disastrous(cuil) or outrageous(buzz) now.

<comment><USER5> What makes you think hyperbole in news started recently?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I want to know is why ChatRoulette hasn't converted completely into a gay hookup site yet.

<comment><USER7> Because gay culture is 10 years ahead of everyone else in using the internet to hook up. This ap is already 7 years obsolete in gay internet years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> ChatRoulette was also discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1123314></comment>


Ask HN: How to get part-time consulting work? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a software engineer experienced in backend development (C++, Python, Ruby). Currently a lead engineer in an European FinTech company, I'd like to transition to consulting by the end of the year.
My plan is to start consulting part-time on the side and then gradually transition to full-time consulting. My biggest problem is this: I don't know where/how to find (part-time) clients.
Do you have any experience in finding part-time consulting work? <comment><USER2> [http://www.warplife.com/jobs/telecommute/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/telecommute/)

There will be lots more there soon. I wasn't working on the site for a while but I picked it back up again just last week.

My former client Pete Burnight might have some advice for you, he was very helpful to me when I was just starting out. Be advised that he's rather high- strung. Real nice guy he only pretends to be pissed off all the time.

[http://www.photopete.com/contact/index.html](http://www.photopete.com/contact/index.html)

Pete wrote the user interface for AppleLink.</comment>


Time to Stop Paying GitHub's Toll - <AUTHOR> http://cloud.dzone.com/articles/time-stop-paying-github-their

<comment><USER2> "GitHub hit one of the great gushers of the last decade (and let's face it, they mainly hit it for reasons that had little do with, um, their actions)"

Really? If they didn't do anything why would you even be paying them your $100 to begin with. They essentially built a social network around version control with an amazing user experience. Do you remember Sourceforge? Which would you rather use?

It isn't fair to discount the value of GitHub or the effort they put into building a great product just because it costs more than you want to pay.

<comment><USER3> The author appears to have awoken from this binary worldview. He didn't realize that there were other services out there beyond github and sourceforge. Kind of like people who don't know that there are browsers other than Internet Explorer or Chrome.

In the case of source hosting, bitbucket turns out to be pretty great! So it's natural that someone who's just discovered it will be pretty enthusiastic about jumping over to it.

What's baffled me over the years is how bad bitbucket is about marketing themselves. It's been improved somewhat by the Atlassian purchase, but still, they are totally underperforming their potential.

<comment><USER4> Part of the issue is that they historically were a mercurial hosting shop, so it's not like they were a direct replacement for Github. It was only in the last year or so that they added git support.

<comment><USER3> It's almost precisely a year since they introduced Git support. That's cool.

Part of the history to remember is that Mercurial and Git started at about the same time and on almost equal footing. GitHub was frequently cited at the time as a reason to use git. As in, "yeah git has kind of a crappy interface, but look at how big that community is!" The GitHub team really grabbed the momentum and never let it go. Now git is so common that supporting it is basically mandatory.

But it didn't have to end up that way. In a counterfactual history where the positions were reversed and HgHub and Gitbucket were founded, I think that HgHub would have dominated through a better focus on acquiring a community.

<comment><USER4> Github may have been part of the reason, but the support of Linus/kernel devs plus the very active mailing list probably had a lot to do too. I knew people that were git fanatics prior to github. Git was also the vcs of choice for Ruby / Rails developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is a great troll that purposefully ignores the work behind GitHub, the value it provides, and how it changed the code hosting landscape.

I regret feeding the troll.

<comment><USER6> This is called competition.

Because of that work, Github changed the code hosting space, and they enjoyed their time(when they offered more). Now there is virtually no difference between github and bitbucket. Competition is always good, and it drives value to consumer.

<comment><USER7> Indeed competition is good, and I'm sure github is watching their potential competitors and customer actions like a hawk (despite their huge presence, github is definitely not stodgy and slow-moving).

Github charges as they do because they have _so much mindshare_ —for now, at least, github is the place to be, and the default choice for many—that they _can_ charge that much, even if it's painful for some. That's probably only going to change if their paying customers start moving elsewhere in significant numbers.

Of course there are very poor startups etc that want private repos, but cannot afford github, and that clearly represents a niche and an opportunity for their competitors. That's a good thing, and will tend to keep github honest. Github's appeal will in turn motivate their competitors to improve and innovate. Win-win!

That said, the article title (I'm not going to give them a pageview) is nothing but trolly flamebait, and never should have made it to HN. [EDIT: I notice they've tried to tone down the title since the original posting...]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the plan I want github to offer:

For 5(or 7) bucks, unlimited private repos, with no(or 1) collaboration

<comment><USER8> I moved to bitbucket to get exactly that, but for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love GitHub, the quality of their product, and what they've done for the open source community. But I've always thought a decentralized version control system deserves some kind of decentralized social network. Wouldn't it be cool to see an implementation of GitHub (following, pull requests, issues, all the rest) on top of, say, tent.io?</comment>


Facebook Chatbots Are Frustrating and Useless - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/facebook-messenger-chatbots-are-more-frustrating-than-h-1770732045 <comment><USER2> Huh. So we haven't come a long way since Eliza in the 1960s then?

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


Is it worth pursuing .net Core Razor Pages? - <AUTHOR> Is anyone out there adopting .net Core Razor Pages? If so can you give some insight as to what you like and dislike about it compared to MVC or WebForms? Seems to me that it is actually MVC just with a different way of magically connecting views to controllers. Kind of a mix between webforms and mvc? One concern I have is that even if it might be easier to use, if it's not going to be a mainstream standard then it might not be best to pursue yet. Thoughts?<p>https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/razor-pages <comment><USER2> In my opinion it looks a lot more like the single-page Web Form paradigm than the MVC paradigm. Some people enjoy its convenience... Personally, I'll be happy if I never have to work on a 'code behind' page ever again.

<comment><USER3> It's just razor with new syntax, you can use it just like you've been doing with MVC with all logic in the controllers and models.

The in page stuff is optional, I assume to allow more flexibility to allow you to throw simple pages and apps together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, I really enjoy working with .NET Core but this was a mistake. I even remember the presentation everyone was silent when they announced this "feature".

IMO this is a step backwards into asp.net era where everything was mixed and you had business logic in views.

</comment><comment><USER5> You probably want to look up the .net sub on reddit and ask your question there. I think most .net devs use Angular on the frontend, though React/Vue are popular as well. In addition, there is an experimental frontend technology that a lot of .net devs are playing with called Blazor.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone!</comment>


Six quick ways to refactor your Python code, and why they are improvements - <AUTHOR> https://sourcery.ai/blog/explaining-refactorings-1/ <comment><USER2> Concise, no-nonsense list of refactoring points. Looking forward to part 2!</comment>


Ask YC: How do I find a new programmer? - <AUTHOR>

I'm the majority partner in a start-up that needs a change in direction.  We need to find a new programmer that wants to take an equity stake in our company and receive significant creative freedom to design our user interface and process.<p>Occasionally, I see users on YC announce their interests, but it's not too regular.  Can someone direct me toward a resource to find such a programmer (the default requisites apply: smart, talented, whiz with the keys, creative, wants to work collaboratively with us to create something interesting).  If you're reading this on YC, you can reply with a note and I'll shoot you an email. <comment><USER2> Aside from news.yc... If you're in a metro area, Craigslist is usually a good bet as well. As a programmer, I've had reasonably good luck finding interesting jobs through Craigslist -- much better IMO than dice.com or Monster or other major sites.

Other job boards with intelligent readers that you might consider are at 37signals and Joel on Software.

</comment><comment><USER3> I participate in the The San Francisco Ruby Meetup Group, and notice many messages re looking for programmers. You might try posting on a NY board. Here's the SF Board link. <http://ruby.meetup.com/6/boards/>

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd budget 3-6 months if you aren't networking w. smart people already. I've tried dice, monster, craigslist and I expect it takes me 150-200 resumes before I get to one interview.

</comment><comment><USER5> Are you one of these kind of guys?

<http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/692562510.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I've just moved to NYC and plan to go to many networking events, including the upcoming Internet Week meetups.</comment>


Ask HN: How to do translations before release? - <AUTHOR> I am looking to implement translations of our web based products into 15 or more languages.
The assets consist of Javascript files, php templates, handlebars templates etc. I don't want to assume I have control over dns or even the webserver.
What is a good design pattern and version control flow to handle translations?
Should I use "themes" - like folders basically, and do automatic translation of text, and is there a program to do automatic translation of images??
When I push a changeset, some of the views or strings may have changed. What is a good way to detect the diffs, so I can automatically update the translations with Google Translate during the build process and then add issues to the translators to do just the new strings? <comment><USER2> I'd highly recommend using Transifex. [https://www.transifex.com](https://www.transifex.com). They have many integrations and their API is pretty solid. You can easily hook Transifex into your build pipeline. As an example at my place of work we've got it set up so that on master merges when the test are running on CircleCI all source (English) strings are pushed to Transifex.

Once all necessary strings are pushed to Transifex, you place your order.

In addition all of the above Transifex also has "Transifex Live". Which allows you to detect/translate strings live. Though this involves including their Transifex script tag in the head of your page.</comment>


Glenn Greenwald: The NSA tampers with US-made routers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden?r <comment><USER2> So RMS was right after all, OpenSource gives you visible security where proprietary products are encumbered with all sorts of unwated and even dangerous "features".

my 2c

<comment><USER3> Open-source designs (for software _or_ hardware) aren't a complete solution. You need to regularly audit the end-result, lest the compiler/fab add unwanted nasties to your design.

<comment><USER4> We might want to move to mostly FPGA-based or similar reconfigurable systems, where what we perceive as hardware is more easily audited.

OR we might want to go back to shopping anonymously "offline", hoping that the NSA will not bother backdooring every device on the market.

<comment><USER5> What bitstream is the FPGA currently configured with? The one in flash? Really? What's to say the bitstream made it to the FPGA correctly? Can you tell? What if it reconfigured itself [1]?

There's some research [2] into using authenticated, encrypted bitstreams, but even if the implementation matches the theory (and after all, it's crypto, we know how that goes...) this only reaches the same level of security as a fixed-configuration ASIC, since FPGAs are vulnerable to the same nefarious fab attacks as ASICs.

1: [http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/caslab/publications/selfreconf_f...](http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/caslab/publications/selfreconf_final.pdf)

2: [http://www.saardrimer.com/sd410/papers/bsauth.pdf](http://www.saardrimer.com/sd410/papers/bsauth.pdf)

<comment><USER6> FPGA bitstreams are big, sometimes even big enough that you couldn't fit another bitstream in hardware anywhere. What's more, making even a small change to the bitstream and re-synthesising tends to completely change how the design is laid out in hardware - so launching an attack that targets a specific bitstream, like most of the obvious nefarious-fab attacks, isn't much good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So stay away from routers that are Made in China and Made in USA - what's left?

Is there a country small enough without a world domination agenda, yet large enough to not be swayed by bullying from U.S, China etc.? It's time to start a router manufacturing business there...

<comment><USER8> There are basically three sovereigns left in the world. You've listed two, and the third is where Snowden ran. Everywhere else has chosen to give up on the idea of ultimate state security in favor of economic cooperation, and has therefore lost a bit of self-determination and will be easily subverted by agents of the three.

The takeaway from Snowden's revelations shouldn't be that we need a sacrosanct place for trustable manufacturing / hosting / development. It's that all of these "hypothetical" subversions are actually continually taking place on an institutionalized scale by _many_ parties, and to have any hope of having anything ever being autonomously secure (rather than ultimately ruled by informational superemperors), we really need to get serious about stomping out reliance on centralized authority/closed source/trusted hardware/etc.

<comment><USER9> ...perhaps the answer is to layer everything behind interleaved stacks of these sovereign's hardware.

That way, you can _count_ that any traffic is known to them all, and thus avoid surprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not surprised by the hypocrisy of the US government here, but where is the proof? He doesn't directly link to the June 2010 report to back his claims. While I trust him, the critical thinker in me despises not being able to check sources.

> Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in > precisely the activity that the US accused the Chinese of doing.

Only points to the generic page [http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa- files](http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files) Couldn't he be more specific?

<comment><USER11> Maybe the reason you're not surprised is because you've heard this story before.

We learned last year that the NSA has an "interdiction" operation to intercept hardware en route to its destination and install monitoring devices or malware.

For example, here's a Der Spiegel article from December 2013 [1]:

      If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related
      accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery
      to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction.
      At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package
      in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware
      components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence
      agencies.

[1] [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses- power...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful- toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969-3.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is anything safe? I mean, at this point, would it be too much to assume that given that the NSA has so much brain power (mathematicians) working for them, that they have not already cracked most encryption schemes we trust? I am not being a conspiracy theorist, I am genuinely curious.

<comment><USER13> My opinion:

If everything was broken, then why did they go through so uch trouble in the lavabit case?

<comment><USER8> It's not out of the realm of possibilities for intelligence agencies to _let soldiers die_ rather than risk divulging their actual capabilities.

But I personally don't see much of a (self-determination-ful) way forward other than making the assumption that _some_ public key crypto works (ie one way functions exist), and building secure systems based on it.

<comment><USER14> _It 's not out of the realm of possibilities for intelligence agencies to let soldiers die rather than risk divulging their actual capabilities._

Not just soldiers, witness the Coventry Blitz.

<comment><USER15> > In his 1974 book The Ultra Secret, Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham asserted > that the British government had advance warning of the attack from Ultra: > intercepted German radio messages encrypted with the Enigma cipher machine > and decoded by British cryptoanalysts at Bletchley Park. He further claimed > that Winston Churchill ordered that no defensive measures should be taken to > protect Coventry, lest the Germans suspect that their cipher had been > broken.[1] Winterbotham was a key figure for Ultra; he supervised the > "Special Liaison Officers" who delivered Ultra material to field > commanders.[2]

> However, Winterbotham's claim has been rejected by other Ultra participants > and by historians. They state that while Churchill was indeed aware that a > major bombing raid would take place, no one knew what the target would > be.[3][4]

> Peter Calvocoressi was head of the Air Section at Bletchley Park, which > translated and analysed all deciphered Luftwaffe messages. He wrote "Ultra > never mentioned Coventry... Churchill, so far from pondering whether to save > Coventry or safeguard Ultra, was under the impression that the raid was to > be on London."[5]

> Scientist R. V. Jones, who led the British side in the Battle of the Beams, > wrote that "Enigma signals to the X-beam stations were not broken in time," > and that he was unaware that Coventry was the intended target. Furthermore, > a technical mistake caused jamming countermeasures to be ineffective. Jones > also noted that Churchill returned to London that afternoon, which indicated > that Churchill believed that London was the likely target for the raid.[6]

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz#Coventry_and_Ul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz#Coventry_and_Ultra)

References:

1\. Winterbotham, F. W. The Ultra Secret, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974 ISBN 0-297-76832-8; also London, Futura, 1975, ISBN 0-86007-268-1

2\. Ray, John, "The Night Blitz", Cassel & Co 1996, ISBN 0-304-35676-X p. 155

3\. "Defending Coventry" ([http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/blitz/defend- cov.php](http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/blitz/defend-cov.php)). Historic Coventry.

4\. Hunt, David (28 August 1976), "The raid on Coventry", The Times: 11

5\. Calvocoressi, Peter (1981). Top Secret Ultra. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0-345-30069-6.

6\. Jones, R. V. (1978). Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945. London: Hamilton. p. 149. ISBN 0-241-89746-7. This book was also published in the US under the title The Wizard War.

<comment><USER16> All that being as it may (because you're right), don't let that detract from the larger point about the tension between using intelligence products (like a tip-off about a bombing raid) and protecting the sources and methods of those intelligence products for the future.

The British were _paranoid_ about this; if they wanted to attack a tactical target where the Germans would think "there's no way they could have known about this, our codes must be broken", they'd always send a decoy scout or something out first to "accidentally come across" the secret target.

The Americans did similar things; when Adm. Yamamoto was shot down, his flight was duly "detected" by a reconnaissance plane first, even though the Americans knew full well when it was taking off and where it was going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Remove "Patriot Act" or the fascist law obligation of any American to collaborate with 3 letters agencies by force.

It converts any American worker in a spy of the Government.

<comment><USER18> Not everything that is wrong is fascist.

<comment><USER19> No, but forcing absolute adherence to the will of the state is pretty much the definition of Fascism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas..."

Which is Somewhat Ok, given the NSA charter.

What is the more interesting question - Is this limited to "US servers heading overseas..?" I mean we already know that NSA intercepts Laptops, Keyboards and such routinely for special "people of interest" within the US. Does it do the same i.e. routinely and indiscriminately bug routers even within the US?

<comment><USER21> Excuse me? How is that _somewhat OK_? I don't give a damn about the NSA charter or even the constitution which so many people seem to bring up in hopes of justifying mass surveillance of civilians abroad - is mass spying on foreign civilians really OK at this point? Pre-emptively setting up infrastructure for surveillance without any warrants, in a sovereign state?

What about enterprise customers? Is it still "OK" if they carry out economic espionage?

Surely laws should only be considered if the situation in question relates to an american?

<comment><USER22> There is a difference between having the ability to spy and using it en mass without warrants. Tampering with routers gives the NSA the ability to spy.

The question of whether or not data is being collected illegally should not be confused with the ability of data to be collected.

<comment><USER21> You have a point. However, something really rubs me the wrong way about them having the _ability_ to spy on every person. They are actively going out of their way to set up future channels of spying, without the consent of customers who bought the router in question.

And honestly, while your point is valid, there's plenty of discussion available online about rubber stamping warrants - and this sort of implanting of surveillance tools just makes it economically/logistically viable for them to spy on everyone.

The question is - do you feel OK about a foreign nation state embedding the _ability_ to invade your privacy? Like you said, they don't have to use it, they just have to be _able_ to use it when necessary. Honestly this sort of hairsplitting is just silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm curious to know if using a different firmware would be a valid way to secure a (potentially compromised) router, or is this kind of tampering done at the hardware level—in some hidden part of a microprocessor?

<comment><USER24> NSA and company probably do it all levels, but any level below the OS is probably preferable because it is less risk of being caught.

Who would you know if they targeted only you with a microcode update for your Intel/AMD CPU that made crypto weaker? All the assembler instructions that you execute are just the same as someone with a proper microcode blob.

<comment><USER25> ucode blobs are usually signed with strong crypto (RSA-2048 on Intel iirc), so unless the NSA doesn't get the keys or the raw transistor layouts of the CPU in order to look for bugs, no way to mess with the bytecode.

<comment><USER24> I'm paranoid enough to assume they have both the keys and the layout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The NSA continues to undermine US businesses, further isolating us from the rest of the world.

</comment><comment><USER27> So essentially the NSA warned us about China tampering with hardware because they knew how it could be done. They just forgot to mention they'd been doing it already.

</comment><comment><USER28> Perhaps software and virtual routers are the way to go, especially if any are open source. It would be great if someone with knowledge in this domain could comment on this.

<comment><USER29> Switches have reasonably sophisticated hardware to prevent packet collisions which would probably be hard to do away with.

<comment><USER30> Digilent NetFPGA board, basically plug a bunch of gig-e connectors into a FPGA, upload some ethernet software and away you go. Upload a softcore and run spanning tree on the softcore.

You won't like the price of the board I mentioned. On the other hand, nobody said a dev board with a bazillion extra features you don't want, made in extremely low quantity, is the cheapest possible way to stick a bunch of ethernet PHY to a FPGA (and you could optimize the size of that FPGA if you wanted...)

The point of that provided example multi-ethernet FPGA development board isn't that its the best you could do financially or technologically, but that if you tried to do your own thing and screwed up, its probably difficult to do worse.

As a practical matter having fooled with much smaller and simpler things the price should end up competitive in the end.

The biggest problem is synth takes a long time, god only knows what the CIA and KGB ops embedded in the source, and the IP licenses probably make distribution of the source rather difficult. Its mostly a business/government problem, not a technological problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Greenwald is back at the Guardian? I thought he left to do his own thing.

<comment><USER32> He did: [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/)

But it appears to have snarled itself pretty thoroughly in its first few months: [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/04/14/passover- greet...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/04/14/passover-greetings- editor/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm watching to see if CSCO takes a hit from this--so far, doesn't seem to be a big issue.

It's not like this is _surprising_ , as such; it's just really bad that these chucklefucks got _caught_ doing it.

(Yes, it's arguably morally wrong and so on, but just from a purely economic perspective, bad show.)

<comment><USER33> I'm curious to where you got Cisco from, as I can't find in the article where they are mentioned.

Not to say that Cisco isn't in cahoots with the NSA. I totally believe they are, but it's best to level accusations with facts, to lower the SNR, so to speak.

As a point of trivia: most Cisco routers and switches are manufactured in China and are stored in the US as inventory, and are shipped to customers as ordered from the US.

<comment><USER9> My chain of reasoning is:

      article announces compromise of American networking gear --> Cisco is major American networking gear vendor --> CSCO may suffer cancelled orders because of this

Not 100% certain or anything, but it's a big canary that's trivial to watch. Remember, they didn't actually have to _do_ anything, just suffer from market fears.

<comment><USER33> Also: Juniper, Brocade, HP, Dell, Arista, NetGear, Apple, Extreme Networks, etc etc etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, the NSA tampering here at least doesn't happen in the factories...

<comment><USER34> >repackages the devices with a factory seal.

But perhaps with the covert assistance of the factory?

<comment><USER35> Tamper evident only provides evidence of a home user that hasn't spent time learning how to evade them. You don't need the means to obtain or produce replica seals, but the NSA also has the money to do exactly that. And that assumes by 'seal' the author even meant to imply something as strong as tamper evident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you wanted to build an Internet product that could be trusted internationally where and how would you build it?

Unfortunately it looks like one part of the answer that's known is "not in the US."

We have only begin to feel the effects on this massive violation of trust. Unless trust can be restored, the US will become techno-provincial and only trustable with unimportant technologies like entertainment products.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just read something else he pushed.

He used some pretty strong words against the politicians.

Call Hillary a Neocon and corrupted, but he guesses she will win the next election. Page 5. [http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201406/glenn- gree...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201406/glenn-greenwald- edward-snowden-no-place-to-hide)

<comment><USER38> Hillary was considered a shoe-in for Dem Pres nominee in 2008 as late as Jan '08, 11 mo before the 2008 election. Keep your speculation in perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> When you register WatchGuard firewall it asks all kind of questions which are absolutely strategic. What kind of data it is used to protect, are you in tech or military business etc. And you won't be able to even use it without registration. And they call it security appliance. Lol. How about honestly calling it spy appliance.

</comment><comment><USER40> I can't help but thinking Intel has something to do with this mission.

I mean think about how many hundreds of thousands of consumer computers come with Intel AMT vPro by default.

</comment><comment><USER41> "surveillance competition"!</comment>


Cabinentaxi personal rapid transit system (1975) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERdF0FK-2io

<comment><AUTHOR> I love the optimism of this video. Sadly, it was never to be: "The Hamburg development coincided with a request by the American government for increased defence spending by the NATO allies, which resulted in a funding cut to all other departments of the German government. BMFT withdrew funding for the Hamburg project with a statement that, among other things, the failure to pursue the export market and the mandated budget cuts led to its decision."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinentaxi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinentaxi)</comment>


Why RSA Works: Three Fundamental Questions Answered - <AUTHOR> http://doctrina.org/Why-RSA-Works-Three-Fundamental-Questions-Answered.html

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're not that familiar with RSA you might want to start with <http://doctrina.org/How-RSA-Works-With-Examples.html>

But if you've been working through Matasano's challenges and were confused why encryption and decryption seem to be commutative, or why the totient - (p-1)*(q-1) - is used, then equation (1) of the main link could well be the revelation you have been searching for.</comment>