Matt Damon: Edward Snowden did a great thing - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57600048-71/matt-damon-edward-snowden-did-a-great-thing/ <comment><USER2> As Matt Damon was talking about "civil liberties vs. security" it resonated with essentially every second sentence DIRNSA was saying at his public appearance at BlackHat.

This is a false dichotomy, and definitely _not_ about some sort of tradeoff to protect us from "terrorists amongst us" (which in itself is a dubious claim.)

All these programs are about the creation of a de-facto authoritarian state serving nobody else but the powerful corporations and the decision-makers that said corporations keep in place via their accumulated wealth.

This isn't some democratic debate about civil liberties at conflict. This is a fucking plutocracy.

<comment><USER3> Your comment finally made me realize why the difference in analysis of the problem leads to difference in solutions.

Some people think that corporations are the root of all evil. They accumulate wealth, then put people in power to protect that wealth. Others think that government is the root of all evil, while corporations are either forced to cooperate or willingly abuse this system, because if they don't, then competitors will surely do it. Thus the latter group believes that businesses simply respond to incentives.

Thus it is no surprise that the first group of people usually believes we need more elaborate regulations and a good government. The second group usually sees the solution in eliminating part or all of the government as an inherently corrupt institution.

Matt Damon probably belongs to the first group, although I'm not sure.

<comment><USER4> Greed and lust for power are the root of all evil, corporations with lax oversight are simply our eras incarnation of it.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, and there's no Evil at all in governments, and corporations have the Monopoly of Greed? Don't make me laugh.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure why you comment was down voted. I never said they had the monopoly on it, simply that are are the very forefront of it in this country.

The Government is blatantly controlled by special interest groups. All one has to do is follow the money....

My main point was that it was the lax oversight and enforcement of rules meant to check large corporations that has led to our current predicament. There is nothing new to see here as we laws on the books to keep companies from getting to big or mixing certain types of activities, yet we/congress gutted most of those so here we are...

<comment><USER6> In most countries, bribes and abuse of power are illegal (and prosecuted), yet still happen at large scale. The problem is when the same people responsible for oversight (making sure that government doesn't get controlled by small powerful groups) and enforcing the rules are the ones that are most corrupt (in other words, if some corporation bribes a government official, then the latter's buddies help cover it up, is that the corporation's fault or the government's?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure how I hadn't already thought of this, so I wonder has everyone else missed this or not. We've all been thinking that not enough people outside the tech. world have been paying enough attention to these revelations - what better way to change this than through celebrity endorsements? Not necessarily of Snowden himself, but endorsements of the message that what is going on is wrong.

Or has this been happening already and I just missed it?

<comment><USER8> This is the first instance I am aware of where a mundane celebrity not known for an interest/connection to tech has spoken out against the NSA on this topic. I'm sure there have been at least a few instances of lesser known personalities doing so.

I sincerely welcome this; celebrities have large networks.

<comment><USER9> What counts as a "mundane celebrity?" Jimmy Carter has already said Snowden's actions were "beneficial" and that "America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time."

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter- edward...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-edward- snowden_n_3616930.html)

<comment><USER10> Sad reality: a lot more people care about what Matt Damon thinks than what Jimmy Carter thinks.

It's still only middle ground, though. Once we can get One Direction involved...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Though just a role in a movie (though one he co-wrote), his scene about why his character in Good Will Hunting should or shouldn't work for the NSA seems relevant.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYteE7XGaY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYteE7XGaY4)

EDIT: Here's the text of it (it appears unformatted because it's one long (well-delivered) line of text).

Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one. But I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the NSA, and somebody puts a code on my desk, somethin' no one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, cus' I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East and once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding... Fifteen hundred people that I never met, never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" cus' they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, cus' they were off pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie over there takin' shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, cus' he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work. He can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' cus' every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected President.

EDIT TWO: Watching that monologue in context made the scene more relevant. The NSA guys try to entice him with the opportunity to work on cool math with brilliant people. He responds with something I can only imagine current NSA smart people haven't done but I hope they are starting to -- to consider the consequences of their actions and their responsibility. Hacker News posted a story -- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258093) \-- about a math professor whom the NSA employed for a couple summers as a math undergrad in Princeton now calling on his colleagues to question their contributions and to speak up.

It raises a timeless question in science and engineering: "I _can_ do this, but _should_ I? ... What are the consequences?"

<comment><USER12> He also wrote the script for that movie with Ben Affleck, which means that at least one of them must be familiar with these issues. (Also, the original script focussed a lot more on the FBI's attempted recruitment of Damon's character.)

<comment><USER13> They got tons of coaching from a renowned script writer. Their original project was to be a spy movie.

<comment><USER14> So they got a mentor, and they pivoted? Seems like the sort of thing we like around here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "If we're going to trade our civil liberties for our security, then that > should be a decision that we collectively make,"

I don't understand how the blog author can relate the use of the word "collectively" to a hint at Communism, East Germany and the Stasi. Is this generally a taboo word in the US ?

<comment><USER16> Yes. A central idea of the American experiment is that there are exchanges of liberty for security which it is not acceptable to make _even if the people collectively decide to make them._

That is why certain liberties are enshrined in the Constitution, which is intentionally made hard to amend, rather than merely in law, which is relatively easy to change.

Looking at the number of totalitarian systems which started out as expressions of the collective will of their societies in the two-plus centuries since, I'd say the founders got this one right...

<comment><USER17> Collectively we can pass laws and change the constitution.

The supreme court has ruled, in Smith vs Maryland, that the government can capture message metadata from a third party when a message is conveyed by that third party without warrant. So the constitution doesn't help much here -- either we need to collectively change the constitution or collectively pass a lot of laws or collectively get different supreme court judges appointed and have the ruling overturned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this in general how reporting on 'celebrity opinions' is done in the USA? Apart from the one or two lines that directly quote Matt Damon, the rest of the article is an abomination.

I do however hope this reaches more people, there's nothing like a celebrity endorsement.

</comment><comment><USER19> Gee, I didn't have an opinion on Edward Snowden before, but now that I know what _Matt Damon_ thinks...

<comment><USER8> Not the point.

He's effectively equivalent to a TV news anchor reading a a teleprompter about the topic, except his message is being delivered to a larger network than many broadcasts and the message itself is less neutral and more sympathetic.

This is good from an information dissemination perspective, which has been a massive problem for this topic in the past. It's a sign that the topic is finally starting to grab mindshare in popular culture. That is a prerequisite for many, if not all, of the possible remedies to the problems of govt illegality and overreach.

<comment><USER19> Shucks, that's terrific. Send it to all your relatives.

Now, why is it posted _here_?

<comment><USER8> I would not think you'd need me to spell it out for you, but I'd wager it is because it illustrates the penetration of a major technology issue into popular culture. An issue who's presence (or lack of) in mainstream mindshare has significant ramifications for many many tech services (cloud, encrypted comms, email, etc).

We've already seen multiple tech services announce shutdown as a direct result of Snowden's revelations of NSA's behavior, and solutions to these problems can't be framed without factoring in public support/lack-of.

If you head over to the hackerNews FAQ (I'm sure you can track it down) you'll see that this is eminently on topic.

So yeah. It's an on-topic current event illustrating the traction technology policy that is affecting the entire globe is gaining in popular culture.

Can't imagine why a hacker would be interested in that....

<comment><USER20> Upvotes by 86 people in an hour suggests that people think it's of interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recently read an interview with Damon that covered some of his background, which was quite left wing (his family still are) so I'm not surprised this bothers him. I hope he uses his position to try keep the conversation about what's right and fair in terms of surveillance. It's not great that we need celebrities onside to try and remind people that something is awful, but it's not a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Could somebody please find Ja Rule so I can make sense of all this?

<comment><USER23> I want some answers Ja Rule might not have right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUa5oHgYV2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUa5oHgYV2k)

<comment><USER25> my thoughts exactly when I read the headline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Chris Matyszczyk sounded a bit condescending. But I had to laugh at his last line, "However, can we truly trust ourselves? We are, after all, the bright sparks who voted in the current Congress."

I would extend that line of questioning to include:

1) Can we trust ourselves given that we elected several Presidents who were - a) Obviously oblivious frat boys who were better at campaigning than governing (GW Bush and Clinton 2nd term); b) Ex-CIA (GHW Bush -- actually he was DCI, don't believe he was ever an agent); 3) Someone who campaigned on a progressive platform but quickly abandoned most of it upon election (Obama).

2) Can we trust ourselves given that we find a Matt Damon snark piece on Cnet so damned fascinating?

</comment><comment><USER27> A. Why does Matt Damon think _we_ care what he thinks?

OR

B. Why _do_ we care what Matt Damon thinks?

<comment><USER28> I care because, based on interviews I've read, as a person he is unusually thoughtful and intelligent. He is clearly a person of principle who is troubled by the goings on in the world around him, and who is articulate about what those troubles are and that it's important to address them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > It is, though, a tempting and charming notion that we could all get together > and decide on how much of our civil liberties we really ought to give up or > not.

Is this really possible in US? Or is someone just going to explain to him that he is socialist/communist? >:-)

</comment><comment><USER30> Author suggests we should consider Damon an expert on whether someone is acting. That's rather silly. Why aren't we using actors instead of torture, then?

</comment><comment><USER31> worst writing ever.

</comment><comment><USER32> >the actor who must know a thing or two about the covert world

and

>He is being asked what he thinks of Edward Snowden. Astonishingly for someone who has been Jason Bourne and knows the danger of such things, he is answering the question.

WTF. Actor who has been playing Jason Bourne and been in Good Will hunting now is now expert?

<comment><USER33> You are assuming that because he's an actor, he isn't an intelligent, informed, politically aware human that may give a shit about people.

<comment><USER10> No, I think the OP was more balking at the idea that an actor "must" know about the covert world. He may well do, but it isn't an immediate assumption just because he played a spy guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Really? Who cares? His opinion is not any more relevant than anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER35> Finally! I have been waiting in anticipation, not unlike a pre-pubescent girl at a Justin Bieber concert, for Matt Damon to make a statement. Oh thank you, great actor whose day job is to read what other people tell you to say, for telling me what to think. I would be lost without his voice, guiding me like a compass towards the truth.</comment>


Show HN: Kiwi for Android Wear – Control your phone with a wave of your hand - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwiwearables.app

<comment><USER2> Interesting.

I think the myo armband could be a good competitor, and it sits right under your elbow.

[https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/](https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/)

It's $150 to pre-order and you get full developer access.

I got an alpha version of the myo and had some time to mess around with it. It's pretty powerful. Definitely worth checking out.

Pre-oders of the final production version are shipping next month, in case anyone is wondering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Myo is a great product, providing the extra degree of freedom through EMG profiles allows for further expansion in regards to interaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I dig this idea. I wasn't able to actually get it to work, I think I was doing the moving-right action incorrectly.

I do wish it had the ability to change the phone's volume, that's the one big lacking thing from music playback that annoys me, you can pause/skip using the watch, but if you want to change your volume you currently have to use your phone.

<comment><USER4> It's not super-convenient (it takes two swipes to get to), but the Android Wear Mini Launcher ( [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.npi.wearmi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.npi.wearminilauncher&hl=en) ) has a settings screen which includes a number of useful options about the phone's settings, including volume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks pretty cool, I'll check it out

</comment><comment><USER6> this works on LG G and Samsung Gear Live watches</comment>


The Google Monopoly Needs To Be Broken Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelcropper.co.uk/2011/06/the-google-monopoly-needs-to-be-broken-up/

<comment><USER2> This article is wrong about six different ways. Hell, he didn't even make it through the first sentence correctly: "... Google... are heading in a completely different direction than their core business, search." Search is not their business! Google is an advertising company! Search is just one of the mechanisms they use to attract eyeballs.

"They now seem to be heading towards providing users choices based not on their normal SERPs, but choices via their own Google products. This is a very worrying direction since once they create a product and effectively force users to use this by prominently positioning it in the SERPs then this flushes all competition down the drain." You mean like happened with Google Wave?

"When did it become Google's job to make [comparing flights] easier?" When did it become Google's job to make search easier?

Idiot!

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell you what -

let's succeed in breaking up the big banks - whose contribution has been demonstratively harmful as well as criminal -

then I'll listen to discussions about breaking up Google - a company whose contribution has been to revolutionize global access to information.

<comment><USER4> Right on!</comment></comment>


Microsoft: "dropping support for IE6 is not an option" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/microsoft-dropping-support-for-ie6-is-not-an-option.ars

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, for some companies, IE6 is just a front end for a lot of legacy applications. To them, internet browsing is a secondary function.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/07/announci...](http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/07/announcing- sharepoint-server-2010-preliminary-system-requirements.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER4> As a designer and front-end developer I view it as a service to people to force them to realize their browser is out-dated.

<comment><USER5> That's all well and good. There are a lot of internal corporate applications that were developed on IE6. Knowing that IE6 required workarounds that would break in IE7/IE8/FF3/etc, it would be irresponsible of Microsoft to force upgrades to IE7 or IE8. Meanwhile, corporations are not likely to revisit working apps and upgrade them to IE7 or IE8 - there are better things to do with people's time. So, the sad truth is that IE6 is going to live on as a legacy application, but not one that necessarily must be supported by present and future applications. There are plenty of alternative browsers that can play alongside IE6 in corporate environments and allow web development to progress.

This reply is a bit blunt, but if you're outside a big corporation, it's easy to say 'bad developers, get with the program', which is an overly simple answer that ignores the reality of most big businesses. They want to get things done, and that doesn't always mean doing things 'correctly'.

<comment><USER4> I understand why IE6 is around – I have plenty of friends stuck on IE6 who can't easily use my personal site.</comment></comment></comment>


The Mother of All Demos - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos <comment><USER2> Here is the full 100 Minutes on youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv- zdhzMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY)

EDIT - Mother Of All Demos - 18:57 Hyperlinks / 31:50 Mouse & VC 45:59 Video Conference / 1:03:59 Collaborative Working / 1:12:58 Collaborative Working with VC / 1:34:09 Cross Country WAN / Internet Concepts (via youtube)

<comment><USER3> Yes, please use this link instead of the 11-part version that was uploaded before on YT. This one is better quality and of course all in one piece. Was coming here to link it myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Until now I was not caring much about the news of the death of the guy, it was like: "oh, he invented mouse, so what?"

But no, he invented a lot of the internet concepts and technologies, at the same time, and with help of a distributed team, before internet existed.

He is so fucking awesome, that I feel bad not knowing about all this until now!

In fact, this guy is so awesome, so awesome, that I think he could defeat Chuck Norris.

If upon my death I managed half of what this guy did, I would die very happy.

</comment><comment><USER5> Saw this a few years ago. Mind boggling what he had created back then and how long we have waited for it. Things like the demonstrated collaborative working didn't (and sometimes don't) even work as well as then a few years ago. Very impressive.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do ppl surround words with underscores? - <AUTHOR> I've tried Googling but I haven't been able to figure it out. I've seen it used exclusively by hacker-types and have always wondered what it was about. <comment><USER2> I'm typing words in a comment. I want to underline one of them, but HN doesn't support that. So, I surround the word with _underscores_ and hope that you understand what I meant. Same for /slashes/ to indicate an italicized word.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's just used to emphasise a word. Asterisks, _underscores_, /slashes/, -hyphens-: they all work for that.

It just lately got more standardised with the markup languages that they actually correspond to bold, underscore, italic, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> In some implementations of markdown underscores italicize the word(s) they surround. On HN this is achieved with _asterisks_.

<comment><USER5> I could have sworn I saw it used in email in like 1997 to indicate underscores in plaintext.

<comment><USER6> Yup. Markdown is directly inspired by this _𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱_ convention ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's shorthand for text foratting when you only have ascii characters to dela with.

        *Bold*, _underline_, /italics/, etc.</comment>


Ask HNN: Have you gotten YC interview yet? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Not yet? Anyone else?

<comment><AUTHOR> no!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any talented graphical designer want to join me? i'm a programmer - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm a programmer lacking the skills of a graphical artist I would like to join forces with a graphical artist to work on a couple of projects and make our own business come to live.  anyone wants to join me? please reply with email if yes if you have a link to previous works please I would like to see.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> Do graphic designers hang out @ Hacker News? I think developers would find more responses if they branched out to sites that graphic designers frequent.

<comment><USER3> I'm a developer (specifically, a web developer), but I try to occasionally stop by some of the larger graphic design sites to get ideas from time to time.

Here's a few of my favorites: <http://www.smashingmagazine.com> <http://www.sixrevisions.com> <http://logopond.com>

Also, here's a good article with a list of social news sites for designers: [http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/12-excellent-social- news-...](http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/12-excellent-social-news-sites- for-web-designers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm in a similar boat. I guess a follow up question to the OP, are there communities similar to this one focused on UI (not just Web)?

</comment><comment><USER5> Yo I want it dude! I'm a fantastic graphic designer and web developer.

<comment><USER5> firstname.lastname@example.com is my mail</comment></comment>


Bootstrap Toggle Buttons - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nostalgiaz/bootstrap-toggle-buttons <comment><USER2> Dude, these are great, ignore the haters. People understand slider toggles and, for top level, high value on/off values or mobile versions of a UI these will be fine.

Just keep polishing them and getting them cross browser. I'll be forking the project and using them.

<comment><USER3> I feel that there is a mix of legitimate criticism and "hating." Of course I don't like to read the actual hating, but I also don't understand why we on HN should unquestioningly praise everything posted here simple because someone worked on it.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that's fair: I'm lumping legitimate criticism and reasonable UX opinions in with "hating", but I'd bet for the guy who put his technical heart into these things, the short, unqualified (no "hey, cool stuff!") criticisms are tough to swallow.

I was surprised that Bootstrap didn't have these from the get-go, so I'm going to say, again: hell yes. This is practical, useful development that will make a lot of apps better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would strongly advice against using these. While these type of toggle switches work great on mobile, they can we really confusing on desktop/mobile web: where does one click to change state, which state is active etc.

Matt Gemmell wrote a good post about toggle switches some time ago: <http://mattgemmell.com/2011/11/01/on-off-switches/>

<comment><USER3> That article is about a particular implementation of toggle switches that makes a number of usability mistakes. He contrasts that implementation with iOS' implementation, and highlights how the iOS version avoids these mistakes.

The buttons linked follow the example from iOS and avoid the mistakes he talks about.

<comment><USER5> Except that you can't do the 'drag' style toggle on mobile devices. But if they had that, I'd agree with you.

<comment><USER6> android 4+ has drag style toggles that also respond to a tap like ios in addition to actually being draggable

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please don't use these. I've seen too many mobile users get confused by these sliders, wondering why they can't manually slide them.

<comment><USER8> You _can_ manually slide these!

<comment><USER9> Not on Jellybean Chrome.

Regardless, like everyone else suggests.. please don't use these.

<comment><AUTHOR> I opened an issue for that

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had toggles like this on my site and found that a checkbox was a lot less confusing. It is just too hard to tell if state is successfully saved and if clicking things turns it on or off.

The behavior I ended up implementing is... when the box is clicked, it is immediately hidden and replaced with a loading animation while the ajax request is hitting the server saving state. When that finishes, it shows a icon-thumbs-up for a second and then the checkbox again (either checked or unchecked).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm wary of these, because form elements tend to be very, very very veryvery platform-dependent, and users (like me!) develop expectations about how toggles (i.e., checkboxes) should behave on the platform they're using.

I know this isn't your intent, but when the behavior of something like this fails to match my expectations, it is extra irritating, because I feel the author thought having something pretty and iOS-looking was more important than it being usable for me. Either that, or else s/he decided that I'm too stupid to know what I like, and decided to shove an iOS form-control down my throat.

That being said, I must admit that these are visually gorgeous, and their behavior seems pretty excellent at first blush. (But again, I am unsure how I will feel once I start seeing them pop up and inevitably being _even slightly_ misused in the wild. I also haven't tried them on my phone yet.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Please package this as a Component for better interoperability and modularity.

<https://github.com/component/component> <https://github.com/component/component/wiki/F.A.Q>

Twitter bootstrap isn't modular or supported by a package manager.

</comment><comment><USER12> Funny. I just started using these.

The assumption that the "toggle" is 50% of the width is hard coded into the library. I went to change it and, holy cow, the code is a mess.

I got it to work, but had to disable the click-and-slide behavior.

Be warned if you decide to change any of its behavior!

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks great.

Two things,

#1: If you modify the attribute checked of the input, the state doesn't change.

#2: I don't see a programmatic way of changing the state from your source without re-initializing all the elements?

<comment><AUTHOR> #1 That's not possible [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4836818/jquery-how- to-cat...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4836818/jquery-how-to-catch- change-event-from-inputtype-checkbox-if-it-was-checked)

#2 You're right

<comment><USER13> #1: Not really impossible, just requires additional maintaining of a monitor, methods within the script, or custom triggers to handle the switch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mattia DMed me about this earlier today asking if it could be included in the Bootstrap core. For the time being, I've decided against it as it's another custom form element and we're not implementing anything like that at this point.

That said, if any iOS style switches were done very well, we can explore adding them down the line. I'm not against them 100%, but custom form elements can get tricky. I'm not going to discourage their development—tons of folks have created their own implementation of this. I look forward to them improving over time.

Looking at this again, I'll try to shoot him some feedback so he can improve them and we can get closer to a solution that's fit for the Bootstrap core.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm mixed on using these buttons. I've seen people in user research tests use them well, and then I've seen people use them horribly in such a situation too. However, there are times when they're perfectly acceptable.

I've forked and pull requested.

The background states were light at the top and darker at the bottom giving a button feel, rather than an inset feel. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> These are terrible for ui/ux. not only do they not behave as you would expect, by actually sliding Them, but this pattern is inconsistent with mobile ui native to both IOS and especially android recently where they actually slide.

</comment><comment><USER16> So sad to see people discouraging the effort.

</comment><comment> J-H Someone should come up with an unofficial list of all these bootstrap additions. They're really great, but I always forget about them when I'm actually get to doing work.

<comment><USER17> <http://bootsnipp.com/> & [http://designshack.net/articles/css/20-awesome- resources-for...](http://designshack.net/articles/css/20-awesome-resources- for-twitter-bootstrap-lovers/) were recently posted here although they doesn't perfectly match what you're suggesting.

<comment><USER18> Couldn't a lot of these, including TFA, be pull requests to Bootstrap?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ugh I hate these on airbrake. They never work properly.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems to me that the on state of the button should have the outline around the blue area (of the default button) also be blue instead of gray. Keeping the border gray when the slider goes to "on" gives the button the wrong appearance. The blue area doesn't look like it has been uncovered but instead looks like a tab sticking out of the side.

</comment><comment><USER21> Awesome, one suggestion I would make is that the buttons should ignore input in when translating between on and off. It seems awkward that it will just keep switching on and off even though I have stop giving it input, or accidentally double clicking on it and set it back to what ever it was.

<comment><USER22> Just added a pull request for that

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For some reason, I had expected this to be default in Bootstrap. Thanks for posting this

<comment><USER24> Bootstrap has Toggle Buttons <http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/javascript.html#buttons>

<comment><USER23> Oh cool. I skimmed right over that. I still meant iOS-like toggle buttons but thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've managed to break it and get a few pixels of pink showing through at the corners in OSX Chrome. <http://imgur.com/9jT7m> Look good otherwise

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks nice, can you set their color and apperance using clases in the same way as normal Bootstrap buttons, e.g .btn .btn-primary, etc?

</comment><comment><USER27> Dear Matias, why do you require us to put a div around the input? Why not just make this targetable by class?

</comment><comment><USER28> Very nice. I wish these were in the core bootstrap to let people who need to use them, use them.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would recommend getting rid of the styling options and let people style in their own CSS.

<comment><USER15> Isn't that against the point of Bootstrap? The fact Bootstrap is opinionated is what makes it's rapid development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting. I always expected the way to do this was with radio buttons.

<comment><USER31> Do you mean checkboxes? But if so: yeah, me too.

<comment><USER32> Well, either radio buttons or a single checkbox, because the point of these sliders is that you can only make a single selection: on or off, not both.</comment></comment></comment>


Pure Go implementation of the NaCL set of APIs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kevinburke/nacl?hn <comment><USER2> I love the README, it's very modest and I enjoy reading things like "if a function is longer than, say, 5 lines, I didn't write it myself." and "While you probably shouldn't trust random security code from the Internet, I'm reasonably confident that this code is secure. I did not implement any of the hard math (poly1305, XSalsa20, curve25519) myself - I call into golang.org/x/crypto for all of those functions. I also ported over every test I could find from the C/C++ code, and associated RFC's, and ensured that these libraries passed those tests."

I will wait for other companies to use it first - but it looks like a very level-headed implementation that won't be hard for the author to maintain - and a very useful tool.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks! I've been wondering why the golang crypto repo contains only half an implementation for so long. I guess people are not generally eager to take responsibility for crypto implementations, especially semi-official ones...

It would be nice if the golang devs would pick an Argon2 implementation too (Blake2 hash is already there); it always feels prudent not to use any crypto libraries lest they receive some sort of semi-official blessing from the either language's own creators or renowned cryptographers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Did a quick ctrl + F in the readme to look for how they handle timing attacks in Go. As this is a pure Go implementation, I'm curious - how are these attacks mitigated, or is that left to consumers of the library?

<comment><USER2> Some of these attacks are mitigated through the underlying golang crypto package [https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/](https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/) \- you can see what's constant time and what you have to handle yourself to deal with timing attacks in [https://github.com/golang/go/commit/850e55b8c028440f2fe28285...](https://github.com/golang/go/commit/850e55b8c028440f2fe282858b332cb810a06864)

The library (as a wrapper) doesn't do anything with regards to timing attacks.

<comment><USER4> Nothing seems to state that it _isn 't_ vulnerable to timing attacks. Everything seems to be. That's unsurprising, since it's all pure go.

<comment><USER2> I'll clarify - it _is_ vulnerable to timing attacks (except where explicitly mentioned otherwise) - and you should take care of that in your code.

It is pretty trivial to defend from timing attacks in a language like go (just race a goroutine with a delay). I agree that it's a good point to bring up though.

<comment><USER4> Seems like something that should be mentioned in the README. Users of this library, by default, are vulnerable.

I'm not sold on the 'race a goroutine' solution either, but I'm not much of a Go programmer.

<comment><USER5> Do you want a situation where the guy who reads the whole README shouldn't use the library?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing work, thank you! Let's see if saltpack[1] will move to this at some point! :D

1\. [https://github.com/keybase/saltpack](https://github.com/keybase/saltpack)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm confused - does this have anything to do with Google's NaCL plug-in architecture for Chrome? Or is it only a set of crypto routines that have an unfortunate name collision with the former?

<comment><USER8> I had that thought as well... wasn't sure if it was meant to present an NaCL capable runtime.. then the readme pretty much cleared it up. Naming things is hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also interesting, this is the first package I've seen in the wild that uses Bazel.

<comment><USER10> Sort of expected being a Google project but Istio [1] is being built using Envoy. Google is involved but Envoy [2] is owned by Lyft and is also using Bazel.

1\. [https://github.com/istio/istio/blob/master/devel/README.md#s...](https://github.com/istio/istio/blob/master/devel/README.md#setting- up-bazel) 2\. [https://github.com/lyft/envoy/blob/master/DEVELOPER.md](https://github.com/lyft/envoy/blob/master/DEVELOPER.md)

<comment><AUTHOR> for the record - this is not a Google project, I'm not a Google employee. I just put the Go license on it because I borrowed some of the code and didn't want to deal with the hassle of relicensing etc.

I'm interested in Bazel because of the speed/caching parts, and because Go might be headed in that direction soon.

<comment><USER9> Neat.. For go I haven't really thought about using it, but I've been working on a project that uses a bunch of bleeding edge C libs.

Building the project involves building 3 repos from different git branches before building my little C program. Literally just

git clone && checkout && ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make install

3 times.

I'd love if I could just make a BUILD file for bazel and be able to just have $MAGIC happen. Especially since it looks like the bazel c target has 'linkstatic' for building a static binary.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's getting there... see the Travis CI config for getting bazel for this repo specifically, or, [https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go](https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go) has go-specific instructions

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent. I am using my own pure-go lib, hacked up just to avoid hassle of binding to native code, but it supports only features I need.

Thanks Kevin.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh good. I was just about to use [https://github.com/GoKillers/libsodium- go](https://github.com/GoKillers/libsodium-go), but I'd rather not have to depend on CGO.</comment>


A Python Interpreter Written in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/RustPython/RustPython <comment><USER2> This is wonderful. This could become the best way to move Python projects to Rust: initially just run on the RustPython interpreter, but then optimize low level routines in Rust. In 15 years I wouldn't be surprised if this or something like it surpasses CPython in popularity.

Still, no discussion about Python implementations is complete without some mention of the infamous GIL (global interpreter lock). :-) CPython has it, Pypy doesn't (I think) (EDIT: yes it does), Jython doesn't, etc. What is the GIL plan for RustPython?

<comment><USER3> Writing a concurrent runtime system including garbage collector is a serious effort, and that's why all those other versions of Python don't support it and are stuck with a GIL. Hence, I highly doubt that this Rust version of Python has gotten rid of the GIL.

I'd love to see a better separation of language and VMs. I think it's a bit sad that a language designer has to either implement their runtime system from scratch, or has to run it on top of a VM that was designed for another language (Java in the case of Jython).

Therefore, the thing I'm looking forward to most is a concurrent, generic and portable VM written in Rust.

<comment><USER4> > I'd love to see a better separation of language and VMs. I think it's a bit > sad that a language designer has to either implement their runtime system > from scratch, or has to run it on top of a VM that was designed for another > language (Java in the case of Jython).

Wasn't Perl 6's Parrot kind of meant to fulfil that role?

<comment><USER5> > Wasn't Perl 6's Parrot kind of meant to fulfil that role?

Yes, that was an original project goal. You can see this as far back as Larry's State of the Onion 2003:

[https://www.perl.com/pub/2003/07/16/soto2003.html/](https://www.perl.com/pub/2003/07/16/soto2003.html/)

... the "Parrot: Some Assembly Required" article written by Simon Cozens in September 2001:

[https://www.perl.com/pub/2001/09/18/parrot.html/](https://www.perl.com/pub/2001/09/18/parrot.html/)

... or, if you trust Git commits rather than articles which could have been edited in the meantime, the same article revised as introductory docs in the Parrot repository in December 2001:

[https://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/9bc8687beb5180e4cc8971...](https://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/9bc8687beb5180e4cc89712dc69d0b828670d5ba/docs/intro.pod)

<comment><USER6> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Neat. Was able to clone the repo, run cargo run, and drop into a python shell. Doesn't seem like can do much right now, but I really like the idea.

      >>>>> a = [1,2,3]
      >>>>> a[2:]
      [3]
      >>>>> a[1:]
      [2, 3]
      >>>>> fh = open('~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub', 'r')
      thread 'main' panicked at 'called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: RefCell { value: [PyObj instance] }', src/libcore/result.rs:999:5
      note: Run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace.

What would be really cool if this could one day be like Nuitka- but in rust. Write in python, compile into Rust. Maybe even support inline Rust like cPython supports inline C.

<comment><USER8> > cPython supports inline C

First time I am hearing this. Can you share an example?

<comment><USER7> [https://cffi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://cffi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) & [https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html](https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html)

There also is [https://github.com/rochacbruno/rust-python- example](https://github.com/rochacbruno/rust-python-example) which is something I want to look into.

As for an example, I'm using Snappy right now, so here you go: [https://github.com/andrix/python- snappy/blob/master/snappy/s...](https://github.com/andrix/python- snappy/blob/master/snappy/snappy_cffi_builder.py) & [https://github.com/andrix/python- snappy/blob/master/snappy/s...](https://github.com/andrix/python- snappy/blob/master/snappy/snappy_cffi.py)

It still requires you to compile the C part- which is why sometimes you need GCC when you're doing a pip install.

<comment><USER9> I've done a lot of interfacing with C and C++. pybind11 [0] has been the easiest and most effective for me to use. It targets C++, but it's easy enough to wrap C code with it. Cython brings along a lot more bookkeeping code and overhead in my experience. cffi isn't bad, but it's not as flexible/expressive.

[0] [https://github.com/pybind/pybind11](https://github.com/pybind/pybind11)

<comment><USER10> CFFI has the huge advantage that you don't need to link against libpython, which in turn allows you to have a single wheel for multiple Python versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a naive interpreter. The source is parsed into a tree and then flattened into byte code. All values are stored in PyObjectPayload structures. Each operation has a function. Here's "hex":

        fn builtin_hex(vm: &mut VirtualMachine, args: PyFuncArgs) -> PyResult {
            arg_check!(vm, args, required = [(number, Some(vm.ctx.int_type()))]);

            let n = objint::get_value(number);
            let s = if n.is_negative() {
                format!("-0x{:x}", n.abs())
            } else {
                format!("0x{:x}", n)
            };

            Ok(vm.new_str(s))
        }

There's a big dispatch table, generated at compile time, and an interpreter loop. Just like you'd expect. It's useful if you happen to need a Python implementation to embed in something and want something cleaner than CPython. Probably slower, though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Serious question with no irony at all. But why? How is this useful?

<comment><USER13> Serious Question: does everything need to be useful?

<comment><USER14> I think everything in the Universe is useful for some purpose. Can you name anything that is completely useless?

<comment><USER15> Apparently the word "useless" itself, from what you're saying

<comment><USER14> If word "useless" is actually useless then the word "useless" cannot be useless

<comment><USER15> Oops, Russell's paradox strikes again

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If anyone is at FOSDEM this will be presented tomorrow in the rust room. Can't wait!

<comment><USER17> I found the slides and info at [1] but does anyone have a recording of this presentation?

[1] [https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/rust_python/](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/rust_python/)

<comment><USER18> The video is now available on the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If anybody had any doubt about how welcome the project is...

Since this has been posted to HN, the repo got 8 new PR.

</comment><comment><USER20> Now this is something I will donate money to…

Python with Rust as its foundation sounds like the best idea ever.

I'm curious to know whether or not it would be possible (or reasonable) to eventually get the same or better performance as CPython.

<comment><USER21> CPython is really quite slow by design. The reference implementation is meant to be obvious and pretty easy to interoperate with C.

I think a RustPython implementation would be pretty cool. You could definitely take that opportunity to worry about performance more than CPython does while also worrying about interoperability more than PyPy does.

Or I'm missing your point and you're suggesting a drop-in replacement for CPython that supports _all_ the same C-based libraries as CPython does.

<comment><USER22> PyPy is doing really well on compatibility these days. It can use all the C libraries natively, and a lot of the speed issues there have been resolved.

<comment><USER23> > It can use all the C libraries natively

Literally all of them, without any issues? I'm working on implementing support for Ruby's C extensions in an alternative implementation and it's a right slog.

<comment><USER24> PyPy dev here. Yes to both - all of them and it was a right slog. If it doesn't work report an issue. We have a proposal looking for funding to make it fast.

<comment><USER21> This is wonderful news to me. So broadly speaking I should be able to drop in replace cpython with pypy for my fairly not so special projects?

I have a Django app that does some heavy data serialization and I'm not yet ready to optimize those serializers in another language.

I can't wait to try this out.

Crumb. I didn't realise pypy is on 3.5.3. Loves me my f strings.

<comment><USER24> We backported fstrings to 3.5. We also have an alpha quality linux 3.6 available on nightly builds

<comment><USER21> Great! I appreciate you sharing this. I checked the PyPy main page, Downloads page, and Compatibility page and while I didn't look exhaustively, nothing mentioned 3.6 or 3.6 features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wish, I wish, I wish .. something like this is done for Tcl/Tk

I like Tcl the language a lot, and I love the idea of two language systems

One high level for scripting Tcl One low level for high performance commands and parts Rust

You can of course do that today, using Tcl and C But .. well C is no Rust

<comment><USER26> Why do you like Tcl? I worked at a place that used it for their general purpose web servers... and most of their programmers complained that it was like using Fortran for modern web development. That's the only experience I've had with Tcl professionally in the field.

<comment><USER25> I think you really have to like the idea of 2 language system, to appriciate the potential of Tcl

Having one team create complex tool using Rust, or Ocaml or Go or C++

And another team more domain oriented, created UIs and Interfaces and Script using Tcl (a language that is simple enough , yet powerful enough)

The one size fit all language, dont exist, I think, a two language team, is very good option

A (stretched) example, is SQL ..and the DBMS Expert programmers enrich the DBMS using C++ or whatever And domain experts use SQL and Procedureal-SQL to solve business problems

Tcl as a universal declarative language, is an idea I like

<comment><USER27> > The one size fit all language, dont exist

Lisp?

(or perhaps lisp is an n language system)

<comment><USER25> I think any one size fit all language, will have to have optional typing, and be both compile and interpreted

i dont know of any language, that have both, and was successful

Not sure if clojure specs, achieve the same outcome of optional typing, so maybe you have a point :)

<comment><USER27> > optional typing

The problem with that is that all the languages seem either to inherently be dynamic or static. Any attempt to add the other kind is hamstrung by the language's inherent tendencies, and it doesn't really work. Perl or python, for instance, have optional typing, but it's not checked at compile-time. And then there's things like c++ or d variant that--again, they don't quite feel quite as dynamic as they would in a dynamic language. I don't think these features can truly coexist well in the same language.

> both compile and interpreted

That's no hard ask. You just have to fight inertia, but there's really not much standing in the way of something like that.

<comment><USER28> > The problem with that is that all the languages seem either to inherently be > dynamic or static. Any attempt to add the other kind is hamstrung by the > language's inherent tendencies, and it doesn't really work. Perl or python, > for instance, have optional typing, but it's not checked at compile-time.

Python optional typing is checked in an optional pre-compilation step. Except that there is no opportunity to use typing for optimization, this isn't meaningfully different, when used, from being checked as part of compilation. In fact, other than using type information for optimization it's pretty much what most compile time type checking does; compilation isn't an indivisible atomic step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Given all the great ideas here, maybe it's time to fork Python. Ok, so maybe a close derivative as opposed to a true fork.

Given the language names involved (Rust & Python), I'd like to suggest "Copperhead" as a name for it.

<comment><USER19> Forking implies keeping the C code.

I think a rewrite in rust is more future proof: we benefit from a safer, more modern language to implement it, which comes with cargo, and hence, the potential of an hybrid python/rust toolchain and dev plateform.

<comment><USER30> copper doesn't rust (it does patina though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I stopped paying attention to the Rust parsing ecosystem for a while, curious how LALRPOP compares to nom/pest/combine and if something about python's grammar led to the choice.

<comment><USER32> Totally different use cases. nom/pest/combine are parser combinators, where you stitch the functions together yourself. LALRPOP is more in the vein of yacc where you specify the _grammar_ and it generates the Rust parsing code for you in a build step.

<comment><USER33> pest isn't a parser combinator. It also uses a grammar file.

<comment><USER32> Oh, wow! Thanks for the correction. I had somehow missed that. I'm working on a rust parser of Elixir myself, and using LALRPOP for it. But looks like I'll have to check out pest, too. LALRPOP has the advantage that it takes a BNF grammar, which the Elixir parser in erlang includes, so it's a somewhat straightforward translation. Not too sure how similar it is to a PEG grammar that pest takes.

<comment><USER34> LALRPOP is an LR parser, which is a very different formalism to PEG: it's easy to write a grammar in either that's difficult/impossible to express in the other.

If you'll permit the immodesty, another Rust parser is lrpar ([https://crates.io/crates/lrpar](https://crates.io/crates/lrpar)) which is a more direct drop-in replacement for Yacc, but with better error recovery. [Note: I'm biased because I wrote parts of lrpar and the wider framework, grmtools, it's a part of.]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yes. In particular, I like the potential for:

* using Rust's borrow-checking to develop new lightweight/shared-memory multiprocessing tools for Python (think "import SharedMemoryPool from multiprocessing") without having to mess with the GIL, so as to maintain compatibility with existing libraries;

* using Rust's type inference on Python code for applications in which type safety is highly desirable; and

* compiling Python code for speed, targeting all architectures and platforms supported by Rust (e.g., WebAssembly).

<comment><USER36> How does an interpreter written in a statically compiled language use the type system of said language after being compiled?

<comment><USER35> Not sure. Perhaps this project could eventually lead to compiled Python...?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I want to create the Ramon's Law (as a corollary of Atwood's Law):

> Anything that can be Written in Rust, will Eventually be Written in Rust

Please go on, cite me, consider it «Attribution, Share-alike»

<comment><USER38> Maybe, "Anything that can be Written in Rust Will Eventually be Suggested, and then Celebrated with Great Fanfare on HN as the Obvious Future of Reality."

Atwood's Law was a prediction about the future that was based on something that had _already_ happened (zillions of apps and libraries rewritten in JS). I'll quote your law when we have anything like comparable evidence that this is happening with Rust.

<comment><USER37> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool. Rust with a garbage collector :)

</comment><comment><USER39> Curious what the general story on Rust <=> Python interop is like now (beyond writing a Python interpreter in Rust). I'd checked out rust-cpython a couple years ago, and I see there's now PyO3, but I just looked at some code samples and it seems like they're a long way away from the convenience that you get with CFFI + C code, boost::python, or even SWIG. Anyone have experience writing Python extensions in Rust or embedding a Python interpreter into a Rust program? Could you comment on how hard the process was and how robust the result is?

</comment><comment><USER40> This is awesome. I hope more features from CPython are ported. It looks a little bare bones right now. Is there any chance it will gain full Python compatibility ?

<comment><USER41> Let's wait for it to support dictionaries first, before we start dreaming about full compatibility.

edit - it looks like it supports dictionaries with string keys, but not with integer keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> How nice, even a wasm interpreter, that's dandy

</comment><comment><USER43> Neat. Now keep a hash of the types/info for instructions at runtime, and when a set is called enough times and appears reasonably pure/simple, JIT it with cranelift (akin to a tracing JIT).

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there anything about Rust that would make it hard to use existing python extensions that are written in C? I see the FFI docs, so it seems like it would be fine, but have no Rust experience.

<comment><USER45> Fwiw, nothing about rust (probably) but a whole lot about CPython's implementation. Extensions can and do poke around in object internals and will break if the internals don't work the way the extension expects them to (that is, the way CPython works). This has long been PyPy's big stumbling block (though it seems to have gotten better).

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Does it have a GIL? If not, it's already better than CPython :-D

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't get the wasm craze in the rust crowd. There is no popular language that cannot be compiled to wasm. It just feels sad to spend time there.

<comment><USER48> If this ended up making it possible to run Python in the web browser, that might be interesting to a fair number of people.

(There are advantages to running the same language on the server and client, and there's plenty of server-side web application Python code out there.)

<comment><USER49> >There are advantages to running the same language on the server and client

I see this said quite often. What are they?

<comment><USER50> Not having to learn 2 languages and duplicate efforts for starters...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Another amateur project that will go no where, look back at this project project 5 years from now, nothing will run on it / be maintain.</comment>


Practical Common Lisp author Peter Seibel writing "Coders at Work" companion to Livingston's Founders at Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/blog/2007/06/12/change-of-plans.html <comment><USER2> So this would be an updated version of Programmers at Work?</comment>


Introducing BangFit by PornHub - <AUTHOR> http://www.bang.fit/ <comment><USER2> The band is sold out already!? I need the high score.. this is upsetting</comment>


The Creativity Imperative - Nurturing Nature - <AUTHOR> http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/08/the-creativity-.htmlf

<comment><USER2> the link for this is not working, most likely a copy and paste issue. the real URL is below

[http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/08/the-c...](http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/08/the- creativity-.html)</comment>


Google Made "Substantial" Contributions Towards Climate Change Deniers - <AUTHOR> https://www.euronews.com/living/2019/10/11/google-made-substantial-contributions-towards-climate-change-deniers <comment><USER2> > The world's leading search engine has been outed for backing "more than a > dozen" companies which have campaigned against climate legislation or called > for a withdrawal of environmental protections implemented by the American > government.

By this same logic any organization that opposes FOSTA is in support of sex trafficking. Thus Google is also supporting organizations that are in favor of sex trafficking (such as the EFF). Not every law that purports to solve a problem actually does it, and many times laws have other effects that may outweigh the benefit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222045) (52 comments)

Also, 5 years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355631) : Google's Political Donations to Climate Change Deniers (pando.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353639) : Google will stop supporting climate change science deniers, calls them liars (arstechnica.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Important to differentiate "Global Warming" / "Climate Change" / "Extreme Weather" .. every single model predicts things differently and suggests different solutions.

I think pollution is a great start because it also directly affects the quality of life, reducing depression and mental health that became endemic on large cities. We just should be honest and not make apocalyptic claims or inject ideological things in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not surprising as all.

We have seen it many times over where once a company reaches a certain size, core values don't matter as much as cash.

Whether it's apple or google its all about the bottom line.

Sad but true

<comment><USER6> I'm confused. Do you consider a stance on climate change to be a core value?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's worse, noise or glare? - awinter-py <comment><AUTHOR> Glare, because I can't just listen to music to block it

</comment><comment><USER2> Equally bad.</comment>


Sweden's Success Is Kryptonite - <AUTHOR> https://jordanschachtel.substack.com/p/swedens-success-is-kryptonite-for <comment><USER2> In the comments on the post, "Sam" makes very compelling arguments. Sweden's success is anything but.

Sweden's death rate is 5x its neighbors. Every nation is making tradeoff. So did Sweden. Is it a benchmark for everyone else?

I dunno.

<comment><USER3> It's five times its neighbours _now_ , but most countries which had a lockdown are now seeing the numbers rising, Sweden isn't. My guess is that at the end of this, most counties (with equivalent healthcare systems) will have similar rates, but Sweden will still have a functioning economy.</comment></comment>


OpenBSD version numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/OpenBSD-version-numbers

<comment><USER2> I love that OpenBSD doesn't play the version number games that some other OSes do.</comment>


Chrome has updated - How to fix the changed New Tab page - <AUTHOR> http://www.anupshinde.com/posts/chrome-update-new-tab-apps/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty clear what Google is doing here, and it means that trying to keep the old Apps page will be fighting the tide.

For all the betas of the App Launcher until its recent release, the ability to select apps from within Chrome itself disappeared altogether when the App Launcher feature was enabled.

Google seems to think that 'Chrome apps' should not live in your 'web browser' (Chrome), but rather should just be a kind of regular app, for which Chrome is the backing platform -- like Java apps, or Air apps, or Silverlight apps, etc.

Apparently this was a bridge too far for users on release, so instead of moving to this new mode of thought all at once, they're giving us this intermediate form -- apps accessible from within Chrome, but much less conveniently.

In short: they're incentivizing you to use the App Launcher. Get used to it; they'll probably make it the only way soon!

</comment><comment><USER3> Updating Chrome just now caused my Cookie Clicker tab to wonk out, leading me to believe the update had broken it.

It was almost the worst day of my life.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can be turned off: [http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/08/changes-to- chromes-...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/08/changes-to-chromes-new- tab-page.html)

<comment><USER5> "paste this in Chrome's address bar: chrome://flags/, use Ctrl+F to search for "Enable Instant Extended API" and click" Disable

Although it only appears to be enabled on non-Linux platforms

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How can Google get away with intrusive changes like this especially if you can't even seem to disable major elements like the horrible most-recent boxes?

<comment><USER7> Tell me. How much did you pay for Chrome and what sort of service do you feel entitled to for that money?

Oh. Nada? Nothing at all. Then I guess they are at liberty to do whatever they damn please. Like they've done numerous times in the past.

If you want a browser you can make (and keep) yours, I suggest you move to Firefox. It's free (as in beer), so it suffers the same problems as Chrome, but it's extensible way beyond what the Chromium allows.

The biggest difference is probably that the Firefox-developers main concern is _the browser_ , not the 200 other systems the company is trying to promote and shove down your throat, so asshattery like this is much more rare.

<comment><USER8> Tell me, how much did Google pay me for the right not to be criticized? Oh. Nada? Nothing at all. Then I guess I am at liberty to say whatever I damn please.

<comment><USER7> Oh feel free. I'm just telling you that you aren't entitled to anything. And that complaining is pointless.

Google is way past not listening to its users, power-users or regular users alike, as far as Chrome goes. They have a bigger strategy and Chrome is just one of many means to that end.

Make no mistake about it: Chrome will be bent and reshaped to fit that strategy, not your needs or desires.

<comment><USER8> I am entitled to complain and I don't think it is pointless at all. As you say, Chrome is part of a larger commercial strategy, but no such strategy can ever be completely detached from what people want.

In this particular case I'm actually pretty sure they will listen, at least partly. Forcing people to show their browser history to everyone around the desk every time you open a new tab has no future. This bug will be gone very very quickly.

Also, we need to finally realize that we are in fact paying customers of Google. The currency in the ad based parts of the economy is our attention. Using Chrome is paying Google. Chrome is how they gain privileged access to our attention. That is their strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's an extreme solution: a completely empty new tab page.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab- page...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab- page/dpjamkmjmigaoobjbekmfgabipmfilij)

</comment><comment><USER10> Since the update, when I open the browser it goes to google.com now. New tabs after that bring up the new tab interface.

I don't understand why this is happening.

The "On Startup" setting is set to "Open the New Tab page", yet it doesn't.

Anybody know a way to fix this?

</comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR Install an extension.

No, thanks. For the very same reasons I don't want all that junk on my new tabs, I don't want extensions.

Google can make the default whatever they want and I wouldn't complain if they'd just let me change it to what I want and if it would keep those settings across machines. Everytime I start Chrome and evertime I open a new tab in an existing window I want a blank page and an empty, focused omnibar. I'd also like to be able to remove the back, forward, refresh, bookmark star, and the '3 lines' button that no one has a good name for.

<comment><USER12> _the '3 lines' button that no one has a good name for._

It's called a hamburger button: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/18/whats- a-hamburger-but...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/18/whats-a-hamburger- button-a-guide-to-app/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hate this thing, now I have to scroll to open the most accessed pages. And what is the point of having a search bar there? I already got one below the tabs.

I bet the first draft for this thing was written in crayon.

</comment><comment><USER14> I actually find myself using a blank page in firefox. But in chrome(ium) I use the extension Currently - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/currently/ojhmphdk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/currently/ojhmphdkpgbibohbnpbfiefkgieacjmh?hl=en) Makes a new tab actually useful for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm happy that the most recent pages now don't look so ugly and don't have that horrible white gradient when you hover over them now.</comment>


Data-centre software: progress without profits - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665070-flock-startups-making-cloud-computing-faster-and-more-flexible-most-them-will <comment><USER2> The flip side of this is the "profits without progress" that is endemic to classic enterprise software such as Oracle, SAP, etc.

Companies like that can't grow their businesses organically either because potential customers see them as an enemy but not a friend.</comment>


Implementing a key-value store, part 1: Linear Hashing - <AUTHOR> https://samrat.me/posts/2017-11-04-kvstore-linear-hashing/ <comment><USER2> This was lucid. I'm looking forward to the next post.</comment>


Bigfile: Quickly find the biggest files lurking deep in a directory - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/breck7/bigfile

<comment><USER2> Cool. Why did you decide to do this in node rather than a shell script with du?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I work with Node most of the day. Also, NPM offers many advantages: easy distribution, easy inclusion of 3rd party libraries, and simple standardized way of adding executables to a user's path.</comment></comment>


Rimac approached to help Audi launch R8-replacing RS e-tron - <AUTHOR> https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/spy-shots/audi/e-tron-gtr-electric-supercar/ <comment><USER2> Audi approached Rimac here, in case you're wondering.

"Rimac approached to help Audi" could be interpreted as "Rimac was approached" or "Rimac approached Audi". I know I wasn't sure, which is why I clicked the link just to check. The point of titles is not having to do that (ambiguous titles I consider clickbait, even if unintentional), which is why I propose the formulation of "Audi approached Rimac".</comment>


'Unwoke' Jobs Site Launches, Is Brutally Trolled and Hacked Immediately - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wdyx/unwoke-hr-job-listing-platform-hacked <comment><USER2> It's funny that it's ok to commit computer crimes if you do it to against the enemeies of the current zeitgeist.

Not exactly a paragon of a fair and just society

<comment><USER3> Its not a crime if the cops are defunded.

<comment><USER2> Actually it still is because the law is not the same as law enforcement

<comment><USER3> Don't forget the prosecutors who will drop the cases, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They also exposed the emails of applicants and cos that had posted there. The site was just embedding them in the html

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok but after they clean up the site and fix these issues it will be there.

And why not?</comment>


Byte Pair Encoding - <AUTHOR> https://leimao.github.io/blog/Byte-Pair-Encoding/ <comment><USER2> This is plagiarism. You stole code form [https://github.com/rsennrich/subword- nmt/blob/master/subword...](https://github.com/rsennrich/subword- nmt/blob/master/subword_nmt/bpe_toy.py) and don't even bother to change method names. There is better explanation with code here [http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~helcl/courses/npfl116/ipython/byte_...](http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~helcl/courses/npfl116/ipython/byte_pair_encoding.html)

<comment><USER3> It looks like you did not read through the whole blog post, and such kind of comment is unfair. The author of the BPE paper did include the source code in the original paper, and the author of the blog did mention he was modifying the code based on that.</comment></comment>


Free PacktPub Book: R for Data Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning?utm_source=Sentori&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Free+Learning+30th+April+15 <comment><USER2> FYI, this is part of PacktPub's free daily book giveaway -- every day at midnight UTC (e.g. 4PM PDT) -- or a little after -- the book at the free- learning link changes to a new title, which can be downloaded in a variety of formats or read online. They sometimes have thematic weeks, e.g. Android, Data Science, etc. (Note: you'll need to set up an account at PacktPub.com to be able to download the free book).</comment>


Logicoma Elysian: a 56kb demoscene project using Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWwNgVwQG1A <comment><AUTHOR> The creator is in the /r/rust thread answering questions if anyone is interested to learn more about how this was made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/597hhv/logicoma_elysi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/597hhv/logicoma_elysian_1st_place_trsac_2016_pc_64kb/)</comment>


Only So Many Ways to Do Something Right - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/575-but-theres-only-so-many-ways-to-do-something-right

<comment><USER2> I sort of disagree with the example of wristwatches. A wristwatch is not a blank canvas, it's a highly restrictive environment creatively. People look at those constraints, look at the bigger picture (that a watch is also a clothing accessory) and then stretch the limits.

Most people don't start with a blank canvas and come up with great ideas, the great ideas more often come when there is a need to figure out how to make the most of a limitation.</comment>


Ask HN: How to render a partial screen with full resolution? - <AUTHOR> Is it possible for any operating system to display a partial area of the screen and enlarge it to the maximal resolution of the monitor? <comment><USER2> You mean a screen magnifier?

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

<comment><AUTHOR> But with full resolution for the specific area.</comment></comment>


Mine the long tail: Google keyword tool now has # of searches/month data - <AUTHOR> https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

<comment><USER2> This is actually pretty HUGE... And it's not just about the long tail-- it's about doing SEO/SEM more effectively.

Made my day!

<comment><USER3> Made my day too - this will save me scores of hours. Anyone who's had problems with SEO should definitely look in to this. Thanks utnick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the most expensive keyword you can find? I got "apply for mortgage online" at $23.84.

<comment><USER5> "mesothelioma survivor" for $42.58

"tax lawyer" for $28.68

"criminal defense attorney" for $27.11

Anything related to lawyers / attorneys seem to have the highest CPC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> yeah its nice, its nice to see a little transparency from google.

</comment><comment><USER7> These seem to be inexact data. Especially for rare keywords and non-US territories the results are off (I don't think Bulgarians search for "coroutines" more than Americans)

</comment><comment><USER8> Awesome. I'm rather excited about it.

</comment><comment><USER9> adwords.google.com is down for me at 4.11 pm pacific time. no other site/google service is down</comment>


Just in case anyone is still using YouTube for music - <AUTHOR> http://grooveshark.com/

<comment><USER2> It has been minutes and I've already found several new songs I absolutely adore.

For me, this is groundbreaking. It's like last.fm done right. I feel the same elation as when I first used Napster.

<comment><USER3> I was going to write the same thing.

Quick check. Lots of metal and folk. Some local stuff (Scandinavian). Seems to be little jazz and world (balkan folk, arabic, etc. Had e.g. Natacha Atlas and Susheela Raman.) Problems with Unicode.

Really really good start. Now just needs to add lots more esoteric stuff I can find! (Unicode would be nice.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.spotify.com/en/>

Since using that, iTunes: "Last opened: Thursday, 26 February 2009 11:27"

It just feels like I'm browsing for music on iTunes, and listening to the previews....except the previews are the full songs! It rocks! :)

<comment><USER5> The problem with spotify is that its only supported on Windows and Mac, and the only way to run it in Linux is via Wine. This is miles better and it just embeds into the browser which is nice.

<comment><USER6> And that it is "not available in your country"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice site, thanks.

In case anyone from Grooveshark is reading this, here are two minor UI suggestions:

\- It's rather easy to miss the volume control since it's so far removed from the other play controls. Perhaps it would be an idea to move it over there.

\- A button to queue up all the songs in a search result. If it exists already I'm not seeing it.

<comment><USER8> Also the "delete from queue" button is tough to get to (being on the right of that pop up div), I'd consider adding it either to the middle of that div, or on the main thumbnail in the queue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, how long will this last? :)

<comment><USER9> <http://thefeelgood.com> seems to have been around for awhile, and it's full of user-uploaded copyrighted content... so while they'll probably have trouble raising money from VC's, as long as the ad revenue is sustainable, I'd venture to guess "awhile"

<comment><USER10> <http://playlist.com> seems similar, but even links to (external) mp3 downloads, and has also been around a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, so no one knows about <http://deezer.com> ? It's been around for years. It's lack of popularity probably stems from the fact that it's French, same as <http://jamendo.com> (Creative Commons music)

<comment><USER12> Jamendo is quite a different beast, because it's a CC label, not a music sharing/streaming medium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the design and ease of use and it is definitely a site I would use.

The only problem for me, and the thing that it lacks that YouTube doesn't, is music that isn't mainstream and hasn't been released by a label. Songs that make it on mixtapes and other singles that artists use to promote themselves and their future albums don't seem to be available from the searches that I've run. But they are available on YouTube.

<comment><USER14> You may register an account then, and upload what you see missing.

Just like with YouTube. But with an Java app that would upload folders in batches.

I did so back in september. At the time there was even some scheme in which uploader would get money for uploading popular stuff, but I don't remember any details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> EMG ( <http://escapemg.com/> , makers of grooveshark) has other nice services like <http://tinysong.com/>

</comment><comment><USER16> This is, by far, the best music site I've been to. Mostly because of the perfect UI, autoplay and no DRM. deezer.com, musicme.com pale in comparison No flaw detected so far, have you found any ?

</comment><comment><USER17> Just curious, isn't that site violating music copyright laws? I would be afraid to use it for fear of getting sued by the labels.

<comment><USER8> They only people that would run afoul of the law would be the good folks at Grooveshark. Use it (without worry) while it lasts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm really impressed by this site. Huge selection of music and a very friendly UI. I like how when you add a song for immediate playback, it prepends it to your queue instead of overwriting your queue.

Facebook Connect / OpenID would be nice. Also, when I signed up with a taken username it gave me an "unexpected error" message, a bit sloppy.

<comment><USER19> No way to fast forward. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> <http://www.playlist.com/> which was announced on HN a while back provides this service too. It's worked quite well for me so far and their UI has drastically improved since it launched.

</comment><comment><USER18> And it works in Canada!

<comment><USER21> Man, that sucks almost nothing works in Canada. Hulu doesn't work in Canada. Netflix. But you have some good content on CBC.ca.

Dragon's Den is fun to watch.

<comment><USER22> ...no Pandora either, guess her box is closed for us in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat site. I got it to work in IE6 but like an earlier poster think that the volume control should be in a more logical/visible place.

Some of the metadata appears to be messed up, as well. I clicked on what I thought was a Lemonheads album and got Presidents of the United States of America covering "Video Killed The Radio Star" instead.

And the billion-dollar question: How can this possibly be a sustainable business model? Ads for Verizon surely won't cover the development, licensing, and operating expenses for this site, will it?

</comment><comment><USER24> I just wonder, what on this site is done in flash that couldn't be done with plain AJAX/Html, appart from the obvious streaming part ?

Just wondering, they may have some reasons

<comment><USER12> Actually it uses the flex framework (as you can see by looking at the scrollbars and the tooltips) that then produces an edible binary .swf for the flash player :).

Back to the topic, as a music site developer myself, I can assure you that everything (except streaming[1]) you see on grooveshark can be implemented using XHTML, a JS framework (I love jQuery über alles) and an HTTP backend. Wheter or not do it depends mainly from the target of your audience and the browsers they use, because to achieve 100% browser compatibility, especially when dealing with older IE versions, imposes a bit of headbanging over their quirks and issues. Another point is performance: on older machines, animating big elements on the page (like grooveshark does) causes flicker and a clumsy experience for the user. The last point is maintainability and integration: after all, flash software is another piece of the stack you have to coordinate, implement, integrate and deploy.

So, it's a bit controversial which path to choose; on our project we're following a mix of the two, by reducing the flash implementation to the bare minimum to accomplish streaming, upload (ajax upload via iframe is a bit of a mess) and a set of JS interfaces to implement the rest of the interface via XHTML. Similar to <http://playlist.com> 's approach.

The last consideration that comes to my mind is purely ethical/political: I prefer to use open standards and contribute back to open projects via source code, and not be forced to use closed technologies and tools and contribute back via cash, having to read clumsy documentation, little opportunity to improve anything, and the list could go on and on.. :).

[1] Luckily this is gonna change with HTML5!

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the complete answer !

I found the moving elements on grooveshark to be quite a bit annoying anyway.

Also the database is much less complete than the one of www.deezer.com as of now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Use fizy.com as a lightweight/mobile alternative.

</comment><comment><USER26> I actually prefer using <http://www.hypem.com>

Been using that site for months, all the other ones (even grooveshark) lack certain alternative songs which you can find on hypem.

The list with popular songs on hypem is also better, but that might just be my personal taste.

</comment><comment><USER27> I like.

Surprised to find some nice international selections on there; usually have a hard time locating some non-Western music so it's refreshing to find some good World genres out there especially in such high quality and with such a nice, clean interface.

(Y)

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow, this is amazing stuff. On par with Spotify in ease of use.

After a while it gets a bit too "flashy" though.

Would like to see some social/discussion functionalities.

</comment><comment><USER29> <http://www.seeqpod.com> does something similar, though it isn't as well designed.

</comment><comment><USER30> Rachel likes bacon. I like Rachel. <http://grooveshark.com/about>

</comment><comment><USER31> Yeah. I've been on Grooveshark for over a year and I love it! The clean interface really makes a difference.

</comment><comment><USER32> Sick, sick, I got some of my lesser known progressive house songs queued up while I work...thanks!

</comment><comment> cool-RR I get an empty page.

<comment><USER33> Are you using a flash blocker (like I am)? The entire page is flash

<comment><USER34> May I ask when you run flash blocker what benefits it provides you? Are you able to enjoy Youtube, Hulu and other flash video sites without configuring the plug-in?

<comment><USER35> I use clicktoflash...

1) It protects me from any security, privacy, and correctness flaws that might exist in the Flash implementation on my computer.

2) It makes my computer snappier by not letting poorly written Flash ads eat my CPU, RAM, and battery.

3) It keeps the blinky flashy ads to a minimum while I read content.

It is one click on the content area to load and run a flash, so if I go to a web site and really want to see the flash content that isn't too high a price to pay. (modifier click to white list).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER37> Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER38> Kinda reminds me of Mixturtle... but this is AWESOME!

</comment><comment><USER8> Blog link doesn't work, just opens a new window and loads the main GS page.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you market this? - <AUTHOR>

My girlfriend and I created a new workout app, found here : outdoworkout.com.<p>We're having a hard time marketing the app after trying several things on our own, so now we're really in need of suggestions! How would you get the word out in a saturated market such as Health and Fitness about an app like this? <comment><USER3> I like the product and you are clearly targeting regular gym-goers that care about measuring improvement.

You have the customer segment nailed down and that allows you to build a marketing strategy around the target audience their behaviours.

I am close enough to your target audience to comment, I do not measure my gym performance though. I can see the value to optimise for ease of data-entry and it is a clear differentiator.

      Observations from my gym experience:
      - the guys who do free weights seem to know each other and some only train in groups
      - lots of couples go together to the gym
      - personal trainers know a lot of gym members but they also market themselves to them
      - I know of several running apps because friends of mine shared their highs on Facebook
      - many apps use "races" or compare yourself with others as a way to get through to your users' friends.
      - my gym holds "challenges" where you can grab one of the trainers to time you on e.g. plank and then they have a public board.
      There are often 20+ participants per challenge but I don't think there's a reward for it so I have not participated so far.
      --> people are curious to see how they compare to others in the same gym.

      Suggestions:
      1. How did you find out about the other fitness apps you know of?
       -> I think I only know apps of Facebook and Apple store search
      2. leverage the competitive aspect, e.g. allow people to become the king of leg press for their gym and brag about it on social media.
       There are several ways you can slice who they compare themselves with
        - people in their gym
        - their friends
        - everybody else in the world
      3. find a way to reach active gym members (aka, define which channel you want to work with)
       I can think of three obvious channels
        - gyms themselves (B2B sales)
        - personal trainers
        - social media (sharing)
      4. ranking good on the apple store search is dependent on a lot of good reviews I think, you can look up what the ranking factors are for the app store (if they are known)
      5. mobile advertising to get more installs targeting keywords that your target market would use

      Other observations:
      1. your business model requires a lot of volume to work, why not build something for personal trainers and charge a monthly fee?
      2. Gyms can use some relationship management tools actually, the only time I talked to employees of my current gym was when I joined or when I forgot something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for all the great suggestions. The competitions are interesting. Reaching gym members through trainers may be hard unless we provide value for the trainers to have their gym members use the app (eg, both trainer and gymgoer can access the data at any time to track progress- a potential future update for our app).

We realize a lot of volume is needed to make this work with the current setup, but at the moment we are thinking to build interest in tracking through our application amongst regular gymgoers, build momentum this way, and then go after a trainer-to-gymgoer benefit, if this is something that's found to be needed.

Relationship management seems to be a hole in the gym system at the moment, but I don't believe there's an easy fit-all solution to that problem, so we're not pursuing it here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You've got a lot of competition but that doesn't mean you can't make a splash. Here are a few things that I would look at implementing to help bring your app to market:

1\. Without budget, the best approach to bringing this to market will be good old fashioned hustle. You should consider the power of leveraging gyms and trying to convert the existing clientele. That's a truly hustle hack and one that will be tough to scale without a lot of creativity. You could sell the technology to the various gyms or personal trainers, let them skin it to their own liking and use that as your business model. Or, you could get them to push it on their social channels and link it to an affiliate marketing service - There's all kinds of different approaches in that regard... 2\. On the flipside, you could take the traditional healthcare route and build (1) a following and (2) relationships. You can do this in a few ways - <USER2> quality content that people who are health conscious would care about is step one. Distribute that content in channels and networks where these individuals spend time. (eg. BodyBuilding.com, Reddit and other site that are focused on fitness) The more quality content you create, the more interest you'll generate from the individuals looking for this info. From there, use this content when building relationships - Send it in emails and tell VIPs you just wanted their opinion on the content. 3\. You could run adwords campaigns. 4\. Create YouTube videos about fitness - The market is becoming saturated but if you get creative with it, you can definitely still capture the attention of the right audience.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Details:

We designed it based on personal needs and the requirements we saw from people dissatisfied with their workout apps (on reddit, through personal connections, etc). We even wrote up a design breakdown for those choices: [https://medium.com/@dannyyaroslavski/outdo-design- breakdown-...](https://medium.com/@dannyyaroslavski/outdo-design- breakdown-74c556387e6a).

We've tested it on ourselves and with a few regular gym-goers, implemented suggestions, and have received generally positive responses and very active usage from testers (who still use it, some who've even switched from bulkier competitors like fitocracy).

</comment><comment><USER5> To be honest, I think there are way too many apps out there just like yours that are way way better. So instead of putting effort into marketing your app, I would put effort into making an app that fills a need that no one else fills instead.

Let the product do the marketing for you. Of course you need to do a little marketing yourself, but the more unique the product, the more your marketing efforts will scale it. In turn, I think with your product you can do a looot of marketing and nothing will come out of it, because the product isn't unique enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please see our design brief and why our app does fill a need- yes there are many apps in the category which try to do multiple things above and beyond ours- unfortuneatly those features arent needed for regular gym goers like ourselves and are a burden to use cause of it. You may very much be in a different workout segment (nonfrequent or gym-gamer).

Not many products can do the marketin for you from the getgo- the advice isnt really concrete- anything particular?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Essentially: outreach.

Reach out to relevant bloggers to offer to do a guest blog post and to relevant podcasters to get interviewed. Some podcasters will charge you to be interviewed.

Consider starting your own podcast about working out. It's actually not much harder than recording MP3s, publishing a RSS feed, and applying to iTunes.

<comment><AUTHOR> We considered this, any particular blog channels or just find applicable ones?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What about renting booths at 5k/10k runs? Those attract large numbers of people interested in fitness. You could give away schwag with your logo/link on it. The booths that always seem most crowded are those that have food/refreshments so I'd work that in too.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. I wonder what the return is on that, and especially how many people who run actually are interested in fitness beyond running (as far as I've seen, runners tend to enjoy running and perhaps one or two other extreme sports, but not generally gym-workouts. In terms of tracking running, there are better running-specific apps and devices on the market.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are quite a lot of fitness communities on the web. Did you try advertising on any of them? [http://reddit.com/r/fitness](http://reddit.com/r/fitness) might be a good start

<comment><AUTHOR> We're looking at specifically non-advertising approaches as well. We're playing a little with Google AdWords and will likely try paid ads on /r/fitness - however straight up advertising on /r/fitness like forums is against their rules (and well-moderated, cough* we tried).

<comment><USER8> Having an established relationship with the moderators and/or being an already respected member of the community helps a great deal in those scenarios. Obviously, that takes a lot of investment in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you have any kind of reason for the user to post of facebook or twitter. Share their success or plan or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of those personal utility apps that tries not to be social (as the social aspect of competitors is actually a deterent to our customer segment) that being said, we do not yet have a clear reason to follow/like yet- with the intention of those channels to be used for potential blogging

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What I can tell you is that any marketing effort takes about 20 times the effort that you think it should.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's understandable. It's generally easier to market in a non-saturated environment with ads, but here, it feels like ads are too expensive in terms of customer acquisition cost, in the short run at least-

<comment><USER10> Note I said effort, not money.

It takes a certain amount of money and effort to evaluate the effectiveness of an ad channel. Most of the people I know who make money with PPC spent probably $1000, $2000 or more before they developed a campaign that really makes money.

When it comes to online ads it really is you spend $X to get $Y of revenue and if you don't get to a place where $Y>$X fast, it doesn't make sense to spend more.

It makes more sense to develop organic traffic and that comes through mechanisms like you befriend a fitness blogger and if he likes the app he blogs about it. Another logical thing is to make your own blog about fitness where you can work something about your app into the posts.

It takes a huge amount of time and effort to do the above but not a lot of money, but the results are a lot more enduring. If you do want to spend money on it, pay a PR agency or a writer, a "growth hacker" or somebody who can do that kind of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What are you charging or what is your LTV of a user?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently chargin $.99 with LTV also $.99 for the moment with no upsells (too early imo)</comment></comment>