I'm a technical lead on the Google+ team. Ask me anything. - <AUTHOR> http://anyasq.com/79-im-a-technical-lead-on-the-google+-team

<comment><USER2> Seems like most of the questions are watered down, and the answers are typical PR-speak. One of the tell-tale signs is the lack of any negative learning experiences, for example how explosive growth forced them to consider other architectural designs. "There's a ton of stuff to do" is neither informative nor all that forthcoming, IMO.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I stopped reading after: "How many people did you work with on Google+?"

"We're a surprisingly small team"

Useless.

<comment><USER4> I stopped reading after realizing they didn't use reddit for an IAmA.

EDIT: Directly.

<comment><USER3> Why do you think the fact they don't use reddit matters?

On a side note: I think they managed to come up with a good UI targeted at the use case of asking questions to one person.

<comment><USER5> There's no followup, which is an essential part of asking questions, both to deal with evasion but also to clarify what you were asking. If they don't answer your question, you have no recourse, no call out, no opportunity to say: "Obviously you don't know the exact number, but is it ten or a hundred or a thousand?"

<comment><USER3> "both to deal with evasion but also to clarify what you were asking"

Very true. They would need to add comments and allow the interviewee to edit his/her answers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Comments are coming; answers can already be edited

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Personal fave:

"How many people did you work with on Google+?

We're a surprisingly small team (esp. by Google's standards), but we try to make up for it with passion and speed."

To which I ask, how many people did you work with on Google+?

<comment><USER7> Heh, since Google is famous (infamous?) for saying most products are small teams, just 3 or 4 people. It sounds like they are working all by themselves :-)

That being said, given all the products that had to co-operate somewhat for this to be released I doubt they were 'small'.

<comment><USER8> that's just propaganda. Their Chrome team alone is over 300 engineers.

<comment><USER9> It depends what you consider a team. The "Chrome" team is big, but the team that works on the HTML5 parser within Chrome is pretty tiny, as is the team responsible for V8, as are many of the other teams.

<comment><USER10> How does "pretty tiny" compare to "surprisingly small"?

<comment><USER11> The same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unless you have a good reason for forcing really terse questions (even shorter than Twitter's 140-character limit), please, please make the tiny text input into a textarea. Or if you want to be fancy, start it off as a one-line textarea but expand it if I start typing more. I have to write my question somewhere else and paste it to actually be able to read it back. Otherwise, really great job hustling to get great people for these AMAs.

Edit: I guess the questions do have to be short, but there wasn't proper validation/notification when my question was too long (it just took me to a blank page to reask a question).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I think we're going to lift or lessen the constraint on question length. We were trying to have them fit in a tweet, and also we noticed that most interview questions are relatively short, but we've gotten that feedback quite a lot.

<comment><USER13> "See who I follow, and follow new people. / Update your profile."

No thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't use those, twitter doesn't have a fine-grained permissions system.

<comment><USER13> Wow, really? What a crappy developer platform. I question why Twitter even bothers to put that stuff in a bulleted list when they're not even giving the developers a choice as to what they want to use. My natural reaction is to blame the developer for trigger-happy permissions requesting. Sorry about that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> But why do need to use my twitter info to login !! And on top of that "anyasq" can tweet on my behalf !Sorry !! Aint gonna happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, we're working on allowing other login mechanisms. The publishing permission is so you can tweet out questions you ask easily if the box is checked. We never misuse any permissions.

<comment><USER15> While I realize that part of this comes from the structure that Twitter's authorization takes, which doesn't allow fine-grained permissions, ideally I'd love to see more sites _asking_ which permissions you want to grant them. I almost never want to allow a site to tweet on my behalf (though I don't mind if it wants to send me over to Twitter with a suggested tweet), and I don't want to trust the site itself to not abuse the permission; I'd rather just not grant that permission in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> We now prompt only for read access. Later on we might add back in some options to grant read+write access in order to more deeply integrate it with Twitter.

<comment><USER15> Thank you for that; greatly appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought the point of "ask my anything" was to get answers...

         - *How many* people did you work with on Google+?
         - We're a surprisingly small team (esp. by Google's standards),
         but we try to make up for it with passion and speed.

</comment><comment><USER17> "I think everyone feels the need to share different things with different people--and the desire to be able to hear from certain circles without losing them in the overall stream."

Personally I'm interested in the real numbers behind this. Have people actually split up their social network into circles? To what degree? Are people actually using the feature the way it was intended? How many posts are public or effectively public? How do people who only know a few people on G+ (essentially everybody outside the tech scene) use the service and Circles.

To me, G+ feels like a better content sharing network rather than a social network. For example, you can't even privately message somebody.

Now that I think about it, I wish the analytics lead on the team would do an IAMA as well. :-)

<comment><USER18> _To me, G+ feels like a better content sharing network rather than a social network. For example, you can't even privately message somebody._

There are two ways to send private messages: 1) The chat, which you have to enable for circles or individuals. 2) You can contact anybody with a private message by sharing a message just with that person. To find out if a message you received is private, you have to check the sharing details, though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Twitter login now prompts for read-only permissions, instead of read+write. I think that was the most popular suggestion from the HN crowd. Thanks all.

</comment><comment><USER19> I submitted a question, but there was no confirmation screen, just a screen asking for a new question. Hopefully it got submitted because it's important:

"Like many, I spend my days logged in to a G Apps for Domains account and all my primary emails are there. How can I use Google+ and how can people share things with me?"

</comment><comment><USER20> is there a God?

</comment><comment><USER21> If you're going to spam my favourite technical website with pr for an application that I'm not even allowed to use, are you at least going to send me an invite?

Seriously, there's a lot of people that are on the "in" already here, but for the rest of us, either let me see what all the fuss is about already or STFU with the incessant "I'm cool you're not" posts about this thing.

<comment><USER22> Hey everyone, let's all completely stop talking about G+ until run4yourlives gets an account.

<comment><USER21> Too late, somebody invited me as a result of that comment. :-)

Point still stands though. I'd prefer that we not turn this site into a "look what I have that you don't" PR session. It's so much more than that.

Especially since you can provide a wonderful amount of feedback to the team by, ironically, using Google+ itself.

<comment><USER23> It's one of the biggest pieces of mainstream technology news right now, and though that might be because of the exclusive aspect of it (remember the PR firm that offered invites to other PR firms as a way of getting contacts?), it's also because a battle between Google and Facebook will be really interesting, leading to everyone with an opinion writing an article. It will probably blow over in a week or two - just like the Bitcoin stories did, though they lasted for several months. Or the Color stories (slight resurgence as the company continues self-destructing, but it's the first I've seen of them on HN in months).

It's a really standard cycle on HN - not the first or last time it will happen. If it gets too irritating, then someone will write a browser extension to hide all stories about Google+, or adapt an existing extension (as they did with Bitcoin and a bunch of other topics that briefly took over the site).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"No Waiting Room" and Queuing Theory - <AUTHOR> http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=200912#30

<comment><USER3> My girlfriend is working tonight, in casualty in the UK. Emergency Room in America. Not surprisingly, she had today off, but got called in to fill in. She called me as she got there, telling me about the seven ambulances sitting outside, knowing its going to be an ugly queue inside.

Some days she gets there and finds a five hour wait, which they work hard to get down to a sensible level. Traffic is variable, often seemingly random, and not just number of people. Different kinds of problems need different kinds of solutions.

Some days she tells me about the number of people who died on her. Those are the hard nights. It's a hard job. It's not a job that lends itself to predictability.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is an interesting riff off my blog post.

What struck me about the particular hospital I visited in Munich was not that they were better at efficient triage or pipelining incoming cases, but that it had _no queueing facility_. There was no waiting room at all (unless you count a few empty chairs in the hallway).

I suspect the real reason we have such bad ER wait times in the US (3 hours and 42 minutes mean waiting time according to a Press Ganey study from 2006) is that for many Americans the ER is the go-to care provider. It's the provider of last resort for people who don't have insurance, or who simply don't have a primary care doctor. And even for people who do have insurance, there's a whole culture around going to the ER that's ingrained in many people.

As a Canadian looking from the outside in, the author of this post seems to think that the US health care system is a brutally capitalistic free market, and that it may leave some poor people without care but that supply will meet demand in some predictable way.

However, many of the people who show up at the ER are deeply unprofitable for the hospital to care for, and yet the hospital is legally required to treat them. (Though the hospital probably makes up for these losses with insured people in serious distress, making the ER profitable overall.)

The US health care system is not a free market, it's a tangled mess where patients, doctors and hospitals have no ability to control costs and are often motivated in the wrong directions. So it probably won't work to try to explain its behaviors from first principles.

<comment><USER5> I think you hinted at the real problem. Even if you have good insurance you may not be able to see your physician for a couple days. Some people choose to visit an emergency department when they want some kind of immediate relief from a non-urgent problem. If you show up while having a heart attack you aren't going to sit in the waiting room.

<comment><USER6> A lot of places have urgent care facilities, which is designed for stuff that isn't really an emergency but which you want treated that day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bit of missing data I am curious about would be the number of people who are turned away, or leave the hospital because of the long lines. i.e. if they had stayed the lines would have gotten longer and longer implying that there simply were not enough doctors not that they needed to be clever.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can model waiting room arrivals same way you can model server load - <USER2> the Poisson Distribution

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

As long as you can calculate the expected number of people that arrive you can adjust your operations to handle the worst case as you define it to be (ie, do we want to handle 70% within an hour? 90% within 2 hours?, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER9> He's wrong. Long lines mean a large number of people are being turned away. When your website is swapping and it takes 12 seconds to render a page, that doesn't mean "My website is serving all comers, there's just a bit of latency", it means lots of people are not being served.</comment>


Engineers: Do you read company blogs? Which ones are good? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For non-technical: I've always thought Buffer[0] and Hubspot[1] were fantastic resources for SEO, marketing, etc. Hubspot even writes extensively on how to write content for SEO/SEM, which is sort of meta.

For technical: Stripe[2] is a popular answer to this question. I also like Auth0[3], especially b/c they often have content that isn't just meant to market their services (eg this tutorial on k8s[4])

[0]: [https://buffer.com/resources/](https://buffer.com/resources/)

[1]: [https://blog.hubspot.com/](https://blog.hubspot.com/)

[2]: [https://stripe.com/blog/engineering](https://stripe.com/blog/engineering)

[3]: [https://auth0.com/blog/](https://auth0.com/blog/)

[4]: [https://auth0.com/blog/kubernetes-tutorial-step-by-step- intr...](https://auth0.com/blog/kubernetes-tutorial-step-by-step-introduction- to-basic-concepts/)

<comment><AUTHOR> cool, thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For my job, I often have to google a specific technical issue. It often directs me to company blogs, which I read happily.

I must say that, while I read happily the blogpost, I never once contacted a company because of a nice / useful blogpost they wrote.

The reason is that it is so complex to work with a new provider in a big company (purchasing process...) that we often prefer to stay with existing providers.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I get a mechanical keyboard? - <AUTHOR> I use an ergonomic keyboard at work (MS natural 4000), I am pretty much satisfied with it though my pinky starts to pain if i type too much than my average. I need to get a keyboard for home - should I stick with what I use or try a mechanical KB (i've never used one before). <comment><USER3> I use a Kinesis ([https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage-for-pc- mac/](https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage-for-pc-mac/)), which is a mechanical keyboard with an ergonomic layout. It saved my wrists while writing my master's thesis. I use an MS 4k for a while, but the Kinesis is lightyears ahead in terms of comfort.

It takes about a week to learn to type on it, as the columnar layout is very different, and I had to learn to retype some characters (like x, c, and v). It's easy to switch back and forth between typical keyboards and the kinesis, so nothing's lost in the learning.

<comment><USER4> I've used these since '98 (and my first one is still in use, through and ADB- to-USB adapter). For someone with pinky pain, they have the likely advantage that there are no long stretches (backspace, return) or tight curls (control/alt/meta). As a vi user, I map Escape to the Kinesis' 'Delete' thumb key, symmetrical with Enter, and also swap the up & down arrows to match J & K. Emacs folks will have analogous suggestions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To address pinky pain (based solely on my own experience, this is not ergonomic or medical advice), yes. In my experience, the most painful thing about typing for my fingers is the impact from bottoming out the keys while typing (which is required to activate the membrane switches found in most inexpensive keyboards). You'll want to learn how to type without bottoming out the keys (or pick up some o-rings to soften the landing), but absolutely yes.

I would recommend the Cherry MX Brown switches: they require less effort to push down than other switches, but still offer some tactile feedback when they're activated. If you're comfortable relying on muscle memory instead of tactile feedback, then the red switches will be a real joy to use. Blues are nice, but in your typical office situation they are almost universally reviled.

One advantage of going for reds - there are a number of game peripheral manufacturers which offer keyboards based on the Cherry MX Red.

<comment><USER6> As someone who was on the fence for a while, I ended up getting a CMStorm TriggerZ in Cherry MX Brown (SGK-6010-GKCM1). My thoughts:

Drop the extra cash and order a key sampler set e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/Max-Keyboard-Keycap-Cherry- Sampler/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Max-Keyboard-Keycap-Cherry- Sampler/dp/B00N6DXTW4/)

Assemble and set the sampler next to your current keyboard. Play around with it for a while. It makes a great stress-ball-like "thinking" activity! Swap the keys around, so you get a semi-blind test.

Research the switch activation points and feel them when you use that switch type. F.ex. Browns activate halfway down, but you won't know that using unconnected keys.

Figure out which switch feels the best to you. Research keyboards that provide that switch type as an option.

Purchase, making sure to get the correct SKU. Websites and resellers can be terrible about listing an SKU for one color of switch, then using the flavor text that specifies another color.

The only bad thing about having a mechanical keyboard for me is being on the road and not having it with me. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two of the better keyboard websites for perusing details and opinions are DeskThority ([http://deskthority.net/](http://deskthority.net/)) and GeekHack ([https://geekhack.org/](https://geekhack.org/)).

For those wanting real-time guidance, point your IRC client to the FreeNode network (irc.freenode.net) or go to their webchat here:

[https://webchat.freenode.net](https://webchat.freenode.net)

...and pop in to the #geekhack channel.

These expert sites and chat rooms can be a great help because there are a lot of potentially important details about key switches, layouts, firmware variations, key cap styles / materials and other characteristics that you may want more information prior to making a purchase.

<comment><USER8> /r/MechanicalKeyboards has a very large and active community, with a great wiki that documents everything you may want to know before making the big jump:

[https://reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards](https://reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards)

[https://reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki](https://reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You have a million or so replies saying yes. I'll say no, not necessarily.

I have grievous RSI issues. They mostly evaporated by going to chicklet boards. Your fingers go through a very minor range of motion with them. Notice how some of the replies caution you to not press the keys the whole way? Same thing.

Now any kind of full key keyboard feels sludgey and requiring of an inordinate amount of work.

I am less accurate (and thus less fast) on a chicklet board because of the reduced tactile feedback of where I am on the keys, but it is so worth it to be able to type all day and not be crippled at the end of it. I'm a very good touch typist and don't 'enjoy' the chicklet experience, but it really makes a huge difference in the ergonomics. YMMV.

<comment><USER10> I don't have anything close to RSI, but with hand pain a chicklet keyboard was quite painful for me because of the small range of motion. Maybe I just type too heavy, but the mechanical keyboard I'm typing this on right now feels much better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have Cooler Master Storm Rapid I mechanical backlit keyboard. It's pretty compact as it doesn't have numerical keyboard. It has nice light effects as it pretty configurable. I am not really impressed with this keyboard - I make a lot typing mistakes, it's very sensitive. For comparison, I can type faster and with fewer typing mistakes on Lenovo e325 laptop keyboard. It costs about 100euro in my country.

I don't have experience with other mechanical keyboards, so i would appreciate if someone can compare it to other mechanical keyboards.

<comment><USER12> I also have this keyboard. I find it to be really solidly built and the lighting effects are a nice touch, but would agree that it doesn't seem to make my typing any better then using the keyboard on my macbook pro. FWIW, I originally got the keyboard with brown switches but then sent it back for blue switches and that seemed to make a big different in how it felt. What type of switches did you get?

<comment><USER13> It's only better than using your macbook pro if you use emacs so you can mash control with your palm - can't do that on a macbook keyboard.

<comment><USER12> ha, that works pretty well! I currently have cntrl mapped to my caps lock button and mainly use that though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love the satisfaction of using a mechanical keyboard. The clicking sensation felt as each key has it's own distinct sound while LOC run down my screen. _Though I know for a fact that my co-workers do not feel the same way as I do._

Many years ago a classic Model M [1] landed on my desk and was great for a few weeks until I found it broken and used as a doorstop. Hmm.. No-one saw anything.

Spent the next few years on whatever run-of-the-mill logitech/microsoft keyboard came by way. Then I discovered Das Keyboard [2] which was great! It was fully worn in after many heavy metal code sessions (headphones on, mid-day in a room full of colleagues). Maybe I'm a bit overly aggressive with my typing, as soon after I had reluctantly switched to using Das Keyboard "Silent" Model. Another great keyboard, but still not soo silent.

To tell the same story twice - it just didn't work out. My daily typer at the office is now the Matias Quiet Pro [3]. It gets the job done at a reasonable decibel level - or so I think. Moral of the story (if there were any) - respect those who work around you. Any keyboard will do the trick. I should also be more gentle with this thing.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard) [2] [http://www.daskeyboard.com/products/](http://www.daskeyboard.com/products/) [3] [http://matias.ca/quietpro/pc/](http://matias.ca/quietpro/pc/)

<comment><USER15> The company I bought my mechanical keyboard from sells sets of O-rings that go under the key-caps[1] to reduce noise. They won't fit on every keyboard, but one could easily find different O-rings that do. I don't use them because noise isn't an issue in my situation, and I enjoy the sound of the key bottoming out. For those in open offices though, they might make the difference between tranquility and having your keyboard used as a doorstop(!)

[1] [http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/cherry-mx-rubber-o- ri...](http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/cherry-mx-rubber-o-ring-switch- dampeners-125pcs.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have the opposite setup, I use a mechanical at work and an MS Natural 4000 at home.

To be honest, I don't notice much of a difference in strain between the two and would even suggest that simply having two types may be beneficial. I do enjoy using my mechanical keyboard more. It certainly feels faster and you get a bit of a high when really pounding out lines of code, just because of the sound, but I don't know that its fast enough to warrant the price difference.

<comment><USER17> With a mere anecdote, I would also suggest having two kinds. Remember, the strain is a _repetitive_ stress injury. Mechanical keyboards may be able to cut down on it, but RSI can still happen. I was getting pain in my wrist from using a mouse, so I switched to a trackball. I loved it so much that I bought one for work, too. A few weeks went by and suddenly I was having sharp pains in my thumb and after another week I was unable to move my thumb. I switched back to a regular mouse at work, keeping the trackball at home, and it balanced out.

So in my limited experience, just making sure you're load-balancing the stress you put on your hands every day makes a big difference. Not sure if this will hold true for a mechanical keyboard vs a regular keyboard, as it may not be enough of a difference. But it might.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've never been able to get behind the ergonomic keyboards - I haven't really run into the RSI issues yet, and the weird layout is too difficult for me to get used to, particularly when I'm switching between desktops and laptops all the time.

I have a Das Keyboard (unlabeled, unfortunately) at home and a Logitech G710+ at work. The Logitech is technically a gaming keyboard or something, so it has a weird set of six mappable function keys on the left edge, which threw me off for a while, and I also found the CapsLock key far too easy to hit, so I just took the keycap off. The Das Keyboard is pretty vanilla, although I do wish I had gotten the one with labeled keycaps, but Amazon was out of stock at the time.

Overall, I prefer mechanical keyboards, but I think that is primarily because the build quality on them is just higher than your typical trash. The mechanical switches are much less mushy than the rubber dome style, although they can collect dust and hair more than more sealed-in types. The biggest thing is that the keyboard doesn't have some bizarre layout, and just adheres to the bog-standard IBM PC keyboard pattern, so that I can switch between keyboards without cursing at the keys that aren't where I expect them to be.

</comment><comment><USER19> Mechanical keyboards are like the whiskeys of the keyboard world. They're not for everybody, and can be an acquired taste, but there's a huge amount of people who swear by them. They're also a premium product, so there is a bigger barrier to entry than the normal products.

To me, a mechanical keyboard has been brilliant. I bought a Razer Blackwidow a few years ago, and haven't looked back. It's much easier to type quickly on than a non-mechanical, because every sensation of it is so defined and fast. As a programmer, that means the connection between my brain and my computer feels more natural.

However, I know programmers that can't stand the increased sound and don't need or want the speed.

If you can afford to buy a keyboard on a whim, I would say "try it and see". The only way to know if it is for you is by trying one for a while and weighing the benefits against the negatives. Even if you don't particularly like it over a regular rubber dome or ergonomic keyboard, at least you'll have a premium keyboard that will last you a long time and will be better constructed than most.

</comment><comment><USER20> I type on a mechanical, though non-ergonomic keyboard, and like it quite a lot. Specifically a DAS Keyboard Ultimate with Cherry Blue switches. I added o-rings to quiet the report of the click a bit. I have not had tying discomfort in a couple of years since switching to Dvorak layout and going with a mechanical keyboard.

That said. I am not an RSI expert, and can only say anecdotally what I have personally come to like.

I know at least a couple of developers who swear by the Kenisis Advantage - [http://www.amazon.com/Kinesis-KB500USB-BLK-Advantage- Contour...](http://www.amazon.com/Kinesis-KB500USB-BLK-Advantage-Contoured- Keyboard/dp/B000LVJ9W8). It's a bit pricey, but is apparently a true ergonomic option.

For a straight up nice mechanical with o-rings already installed, the Code Keyboard from WASD is a nice option - <USER2> [http://codekeyboards.com/](http://codekeyboards.com/).

</comment><comment><USER21> My employer wouldn't go for it, so I sprung for a mechanical keyboard out of pocket. I got an IBM M12, which is a variant of the Model M clicky keyboard with a Trackpoint built in. It looks and works like it's brand new.

Not thrilled with the trackpoint, the sensitivity is too low for a modern hi- res display. If I turn the OS-level mouse speed way up, the trackpoint works OK but the other mouse moves way too fast. I'd love one of the modern-built clicky keyboards with the built-in trackpoint, but I can't find them. Thinking about getting a gaming mouse that can have its DPI turned way down.

Or I could learn vim or emacs and forget about the mouse entirely...

<comment><USER22> Check out the TEX Yoda. This is the best description page I could find for it: [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/tex-yoda](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/tex-yoda)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was having a bit of RSI pain before I got my first mechanical keyboard about 4 years ago, and nothing since then. With that said, enough other factors changed that I can't really attribute it to mechanical keyboards.

As for the keyboards themselves, I own 3 with different kinds of switches (it's kind of a sickness). One cool thing about many mechanical keyboards is that you can replace the keys, and there are a ton of different options to choose from.

I would recommend Cherry MX Brown as a good starting point (since they are non-clicky, and not too stiff). With that said, they are common enough that you should be able to find some to play with before you buy.

</comment><comment><USER24> There is a lot to be said for having the same keyboard everywhere - I have several Logitech MK250's - the keys are where they should be rather than just slightly non-standard. Therefore consider sticking with what you know.

<comment><USER25> Agreed, though that keyboard would drive me nuts.

I stick with the basic non-mechanical cheap-o keyboards with what I call the "classic" layout- no weird shapes, no playing around with the "Insert", "PageDn", "PageUp", etc locations. This way, when I move to another keyboard or go to help one of the vast majority of people who use a "classic" keyboard, I'm not clumsily typing like it's my first day using a computer.

My family had an IBM PS/1 with a Model M variant that was clacky as hell and honestly the feel wasn't something I'd want in a keyboard. I do recall really liking the feel of the Apple Extended keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have been using a Rosewill RK-9000RE ([http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201044&cm_re=rosewill_rk9000re-_-23-201-044-_-Product)) for several months. So far, I really like it although I would probably try the Cherry MX brown switches next time. I think the tactile bump would be nice.

I've tried the Kinesis Advantage a year ago. But it took a long time to adjust, especially the arrow keys and numeric keypad. And after I adjusted, I had trouble using my home computer keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you have something that works for you, you may just want to stick with it. That being said, I've tried a bunch of mechanical keyboards and have been using a Kinesis Advantage for about five years: [http://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-on-the- ki...](http://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-on-the-kinesis- advantage-unicomp-space-saver-and-das-keyboard%E2%80%94two-years-later/) and am in fact typing on one now.

Perhaps the best recommendation I can give is simple: I'd never go back if I could avoid going back.

</comment><comment><USER28> I _love_ my mechanical keyboards and won't work without them. That said, they aren't magic and there is at least some evidence that they are bad for certain ergonomic style problems.

They can also be very pricey. I would ask around your colleagues to see if anyone has one you can borrow for a little bit.

That said, if you can afford the expense I personally think it is silly to skimp a little bit of money on your main input device for your main career (assuming) tool. My order of importance of spending on machines is SSD, Keyboard, RAM, Display, everything else.

</comment><comment><USER29> To be honest, I often get keyboards from thrift stores. The old ones from Microsoft or IBM about ten years ago are much more satisfying to type on than the stuff you get with new computers today. A colleague of mine showed off a "mechanical keyboard" a few weeks ago and I didn't understand the hype. It felt great, just like one of the old solid keyboards I would buy from Goodwill, but I still haven't seen what makes that innovative or worth big bucks.

</comment><comment><USER30> I use them and love them.

I was experiencing finger and wrist pain from typing and switched to a mechanical keyboard, which seems to have stopped the pain. Note that I also went to a tenkeyless layout in order to prevent a lot of motion when I move my right hand to use the mouse.

You'll want to do some research into switches, as not all mechanical keyboards are alike. The most popular variants are probably Cherry MX blues and browns. I prefer the clicky feel of the blues, but they are really loud.

</comment><comment><USER31> Mechanical keys are a pleasure to type on, but most mechanical keyboards are of the non-split, non-ergonomic variety, so you'd be taking a step back from the MS Natural keyboard. I have a wonderful tenkeyless keyboard with Cherry brown switches, but I have had to retire it in favor of the less-mechanically- satisfying but nicely split and adjustable Kinesis Freestyle 2. My wrists are happier, even if my fingers and ears are a little disappointed.

<comment><USER32> >you'd be taking a step back from the MS Natural keyboard

Not so fast; your story sounds just like mine, but in reverse. I used a MS Natural keyboard for a couple of years, and over that time I developed significant wrist pain. I tried a lot of things to alleviate the pain, but in the end I had a conversation with someone who suggested buying a narrower keyboard and keeping my mouse very close to the edge (thus avoiding stretching my wrist too far for mouse use).

I ended up buying a tenkeyless mechanical keyboard with Cherry Browns[0] and losing the wrist pain. [0] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VDKLLM/ref=oh_aui_searc...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VDKLLM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm using 'Ducky Zero' keyboard. In my particular case (sometimes I spend 14 hours in front of the screen) I see no big improvement apart from the fact that when I type a letter it is typed (I hate when I'm typing a password in console and I'm not sure if keyboard 'took' a letter) The keyboard I use is a bit noisy however it reminds me old commodore times and I actually like this noise.

</comment><comment><USER34> For me the geometry of the MSNE 4000 outweighs the advantages of mechanical switches. Symmetric Alt and Ctrl plus sitting in my lap comfortably while I type matter more[to me].

The MSNE 4000 is the result of Microsoft's dogfooding more than a consumer facing product development cycle and it shows. If the marketing folks were running the show it would have wireless, an asymmetric layout, and a Google with Bing key.

</comment><comment><USER35> Should probably look through reddit. Lots of resources of right.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards](http://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards)

e.g. Keypress force.

Red (45 centiNewtons, 60 cN) Brown (45 cN, 60cN, tactile) Blue (50 cN, 65 cN, click/tactile) Black (60 cN, 80 cN) Clear (65 cN, ?) Green (80 cN, 105 cN, tactile)

Most people seem to like Blue and Brown. Blue sounds clicky.

<comment><USER36> There's also [http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/](http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/), which is a bit more active.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I prefer the Kinesis Freestyle over mechanical keyboards. The Kinesis has low- force key switches, so overall fatigue is lower. I also use the Ascent bracket from the same company, which gives me a split, vertical keyboard. It's really nice, and I've seen a noticeable drop in wrist and finger fatigue because of it.

<comment><USER38> This is a wonderful keyboard (although not mechanical). Having a split/angled keyboard has done wonders for my shoulders/wrists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I use a mechanical keyboard. And I have used it for a couple of years.

With rubberdome or ergonomic keyboards I always had problems with finger strain. The tactile feel of the keyboard allows you to use both short and long actions on the keys so that you don't get that strain.

However, they make a lot of noise and now I can't use it at work. ;(

<comment><USER40> Brown switches with an o-ring mod are only slightly louder than, some, membrane keyboards. Also, if you practice typing without bottoming out the keys no one will notice although it's very difficult to get used to. If you take it slow for a while though you'll be able to retrain your fingers. I have no proof but I've read that it's also better for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ars Technica did a video overview of various keyboard technologies: [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/02/ask-ars-ergonomic- ke...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/02/ask-ars-ergonomic- keyboards-101/)

</comment><comment><USER42> I've found mechanical keyboards start to give me a touch of RSI, where the slim Apple keyboards don't. Maybe I'm just hitting the keys too hard or something. I always give up using them, which is a shame because they feel nice to the touch.

</comment><comment><USER43> Has there been any scientific studies done on the benefits of mechanical keyboard?

I've used one for years and it definitely _feels_ faster and more comfortable, but I honestly can't tell how much of that is due to the placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER44> I use a Maltron with linear cherry blacks. It was a great investment. Move away from qwerty (I use colemak) and you will be on the safe side. Never had a problem since switching.

</comment><comment><USER45> I like the MS Sculpt (the newer sexier ms natural).

If you look up 'sculpt for business' ($60) you can get it without a gross mouse bundled in.

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes. Period. I have two, one each for work and office. Each of my colleague bought one over the past few months.

Our favorite is Poker II.

</comment><comment><USER47> I use poker 2 with blue switches and code keyboard with green switches. Amazing experience. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER48> I love mine (tenkeyless, brown switch).

</comment><comment><USER49> ==Background== I suffer from crippling joint pain. When it attacks my wrists I can't even hold a cup of coffee with one hand. I feel every beat of my heart as a pulse of pain in my wrists. It's not carpal tunnel though so I'm not sure how that plays in to this opinion for your situation but some co-workers have told me this holds for their CT too.

==Mouse== First, your mouse is your worst enemy. The buttons on your mouse are crappy and way too stiff. The constant small motion of clicking, clicking, clicking from the exact same position just sets you up for a fast increase in pain when you go back to your keyboard. I've tried mousing left and right handed to spread the pain. You can hook up two mice at the same time with no change to functionality and you get used to using your other hand fairly quickly. Still not much good though! I've tried trackballs, sideways ergonomic mice, and everything else you can think of. They all suffer from the crappy stiff minimal travel buttons. The thing that works best for me is a touchpad ... and learning to use a light tap! My favorite stand alone is the Logitech Wireless T650 ([http://www.logitech.com/en- us/product/touchpad-t650](http://www.logitech.com/en- us/product/touchpad-t650)). Tracks well, handles very light taps, and is nice and big for a touchpad. Next is the Adesso Smart Cat 410 ([http://www.adesso.com/products/product- detail-97.html](http://www.adesso.com/products/product-detail-97.html)). It's wired and not as big, but it has edges and I like the ability to bump up along the right edge and scroll with one finger rather than the Logitech two finger scroll. It gets the scroll right a bit more consistently. Either of these touchpad allow me to use a keyboard longer.

==Keyboards and Switches== The Cherry switches are ALL too stiff. The reds and browns are best with the reds having an activation force of 45 cN. The browns are smoother but have a 55 cN activation force. And none of them bottom out nicely for me. You can use little o-rings to help a bit. The best way to try all the Cherry switches is with this little device here: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6DXTW4](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N6DXTW4). But I couldn't come up with any keyboard/configuration that really helped me. I've got a good dozen high end mechanical keyboards sitting in a closet. And I found little difference between brands, keyboard layouts, "ergonomic keyboards", etc.

Topre makes what might be a good solution in that they make keyboards with variable key weights depending on key positions. Their boards are about $250 but I've not tried one as their home keys still seem too great a force for me at this point.

For me, my go to keyboard is the Adesso SlimTouch 4400 series ([http://www.adesso.com/products/product- detail-82.html](http://www.adesso.com/products/product-detail-82.html)). It comes in both USB and wireless versions. The keys are cheapish membrane switches and are still too stiff, but the travel and bottoming out are very good. Unfortunately, it's a bit hit or miss as any particular keyboard might be stiffer than one in another batch. Not sure why though. It also has a built in reasonable quality touchpad for your right hand. There are some new Adessos that I've not tried but look interesting. For example [http://www.adesso.com/products/product- detail-149.html](http://www.adesso.com/products/product-detail-149.html). I probably should give it a go.

The best keyboard I've tried is the Razor Deathstalker Ultimate ([http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer- deat...](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-deathstalker- ultimate)). The key travel and bottoming out are excellent. The activation force is still too high though. However, this is a silly expensive keyboard because of the built in touchpad/display which, for all the hype and engineering effort they put into it, is a crap touchpad. The sheer number of times a tap isn't turned into a touch or turned into a double tap makes this thing a joke. All the time and effort razer must have spent making the little display do everything imaginable EXCEPT making it work as a touchpad. WTF razer!

Finally, it's worth it to look in to Dragon for voice to text. It's worthless for programming but can help take joint burden away for long text only things. Speaking of which ... I'll stop here.

</comment><comment><USER50> Nice a topic I know a lot about on HN

Mechanical keyboards are more enjoyable to type on for one so that's something to consider on it's own. In terms of your pinky getting sore after long usage it might be less likely to occur with a mechanical keyboard because most mechanical keyboard switches don't require you to press as hard to register a keystroke compared to a non-mechanical/rubber-dome keyboard like the one you have.

Most mechanical keyboards today use Cherry MX switches, there are a variety of different Cherry MX switches to choose from. Some are louder than others and have a different tactile feedback. A good reference to get an idea of what I mean can be found at this link here: [http://www.mechanicalkeyboards.com/mechanical_switches.php](http://www.mechanicalkeyboards.com/mechanical_switches.php)

It's a bit difficult to know which Cherry MX switch is right for you right away, you can narrow it down to some degree beforehand but it's difficult to have much certainty of which you'll like best until you try them. You can visit your local computer store (Frys, or if you're in Canada than Canada Computers) and try some out there. Otherwise you can order a switch tester: [http://www.cmstore.eu/cm-storm/keyboards/mechanical-key- swit...](http://www.cmstore.eu/cm-storm/keyboards/mechanical-key-switch- tester/) and decide from there, Coolermaster will also give you a discount on your mechanical keyboard if you buy one of their mechanical keyboards from them after purchasing one.

One of the most popular, entry-level, mechanical keyboards is the Coolermaster Quick Fire Rapid and the Quick Fire XT. It's a safe purchase and good value.

There are a bunch of other factors to consider with mechanical keyboards as well than would take forever to get into here. Some of those factors would be keyboard layout, the standard layout is what you'll see on the Quick Fire Rapid/XT (i.e the backspace/shift/enter keys are the standard sizing/spacing).

Another consideration is what type of keycaps you want on your keyboard. You can buy aftermarket keycpas for premium that are usually better than the ones that come with you keyboard, and with mechanical keyboards you can easily replace your keycaps. This is where keyboard layout, as mentioned earlier, is important because if you want to replace the keycaps at some point it will be difficult to find a full set of them for a keyboard with a non-standard keyboard layout.

In terms of ergonomic mechanical keyboards some exist but they aren't that prevalent. I would recommend getting a keyboard with a standard layout and progressing from there if necessary.

If you want to learn more check out the Wiki on reddit for the mechanicalkeyboard sub: [http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/index](http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/index)

and if you have any questions you can ask them there are well, there is a thread stickied at the top for people to ask questions.

As another user mentionned deskthority and geekhack are good resources also, although they have more of an established community and although helpful are less eager to walk newcomers through the buyer process. They would prefer to answer more specific questions with regards to mechanical keyboards, as opposed to the 'what keyboard should I buy if I should even get one in the first place' type of questions.</comment>


Online sports streaming site owner avoids jail time in new deal with Feds - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/online-sports-streaming-site-owner-avoids-jail-time-in-new-deal-with-feds/

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, just maybe this more reasonable behaviour is a positive outcome from the Aaron Swartz tragedy.</comment>


Remarkable Trio of Young, African-American Chess Masters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/crosswords/chess/chess-three-young-african-americans-earn-recognition-as-masters.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> I'm not surprised. I remember playing chess in Africa years ago and was amazed at the speed that some people picked up the game and dominated everyone else, including me, who at the time already had many years of chess experience. I believe chess is something that, if your mind is wired the right way, you can become really good at. But those people who were so good at the game back them - well, they still play, but they don't compete because, well there are no real tournaments, and the prize money is tiny compared to what other pursuits would bring.

There is a lot of ability to play chess with many people all over the world, irrespective of ethnicity, but there are just situations where people are born into, where being focused on such a niche sport means you cannot be successful in general.

It's the same problem that mathematicians face. When society is developed and most things already exist, some people will choose such narrow activities, but when it's a dog eat dog world, there is no time for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a shame the article doesn't mention how they got interested in chess

<comment><USER4> Indeed, there are many interesting aspects to this that should have been discussed. How did they get so good? How long have they known each other? Has their skill grown in unison? What type of environment led to this statistical oddity of 3 Black kids from the same area to become such strong players?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My three hopes for these kids are:

a) they manage not to become insufferable d-bags by the time they get to university

b) their parents don't drive them completely insane

c) they still love chess when they're 30

I can only assume it's stressful to be a prodigy in _anything_ , and I could imaging the chess scene being particularly pressure-rich.

<comment><USER6> I misread your comment. I thought you said "my three hopes for my kids...". I thought: that sounds like a good strategy for any parents to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> this is really encouraging. The image of African people usually vastly misrepresents their true potential. Great to see some positive news that casts some true light on the immense talents of these gifted people.

<comment><USER8> ...you write this like you don't expect any black people to be reading your comment. _I'm_ offended by reading this, so I can't imagine how black readers of HN that come across this feel.

Also, they're African-American. And no, that's not nitpicking or trying to be PC; it's an important distinction.

<comment><USER9> No, I disagree - and I'm black. He's right. The image portrayed of blacks (by everyone - including many blacks that have "made it") is that we are artsy folks who "do" music and play sports. As a result, people often don't intuitively consider blacks when they think of professions and otherwise intellectual activities.

In fact, the only reason most people are going to even click on this link is because they are amazed to see "3 black guys playing chess" ... whoaaa! The simple fact that people are surprised and curious to see "how they got interested in chess" is proof enough that "The image of African people usually vastly misrepresents their true potential".

<comment><USER8> I'm certainly not disagreeing with what you're saying or the core of what the parent meant to say regarding images of blacks in the media.

What I'm reacting to is an "Othering" of blacks on HN implied by the comment. A phrase like "these gifted people" implies that the audience he's speaking to is assumed to not include "African [sic] people". It's a default whiteness (and maleness, but that's a story for another day) that's rife in the tech industry that reinforces the image that it's a white boy's club. Yes, the industry is certainly predominantly white male, but when rhetoric and attitudes _assume_ white maleness, the environment becomes unfriendly to everyone else.

-Gay Asian-American woman tired of explaining things that should be taught in schools</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google brings in BERT to improve its search results - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/25/google-brings-in-bert-to-improve-its-search-results/ <comment><USER2> is this the same piece of news as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21353861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21353861) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for noticing that it was a duplicate!

Didn't see the other post on HN from Google's blog :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The project mentioned (BERT) in the article is really interesting, you should look into it.

[https://github.com/google-research/bert](https://github.com/google- research/bert)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've done personal experiments with merging PageRank and Word Embeddings (trying to make a high quality Extractive Summarizer).

Word Embedding techniques and Graph Ranking are a natural fit for each other.

</comment><comment><USER5> i just googled "why are google search results getting worse" and was redirected to this article. Thanks BERT!

</comment><comment><USER6> I think we'll need an extension that automatically put quotes around search queries' words.</comment>


Being Blind to Majority of the Software on the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://crossplatform.net/dev/being-blind-to-majority-of-the-software-on-the-internet.html

<comment><USER3> I wonder how much of this discrepancy is driven by the motive of the person writing such software. I remember how amazingly crappy the Roxio CD burning software was, mostly it was tool to sell labelling supplies and CDR blanks. Pretty much all the open source I've used was written by someone who really wanted to write it rather than achieve some alternative objective by making it available.

<comment><USER4> A lot of the crap software is white label, like you say; something to sell something else. It's like most hardware; if you buy a camera you get free editing software which is white labelled crap usually but at least you can tick the boxes compared to your competitors.

Then there is the 'getting rich' thing which is more prevalent than, I think, most people here realize. Currently it's about apps => get rich making apps; there are countless 'internet marketing' ebooks online how you make apps without programming and 'get rich' doing it. This used to be actual printed books 'how to become the next Bill G.', usually with VB/Delphi like 'almost codeless' development. A lot of crap comes out of that unfortunately.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you go to Google and type in "make your own software", you'll find a site with the same domain as the keyword. And guess what? It's "patent pending."

To a lot of buddies of mine who want to learn programming, I keep saying that "writing code" is a very small part of it. But one cannot understand that statement without going the distance.

<comment><USER4> Yeah <http://www.makeyourownsoftware.com/> this is a very famous one; and he sold a lot of copies (the original developer). What it does is it allows you to make a doc with variables; you 'save an .exe' which you give/sell to clients; when the client starts the application they get a form with those variables to enter and then the doc appears with those variables in it.

I have seen those 'apps' on download sites, like 'unique recipe printing application' and such. It doesn't even store the result. Another, more modern, 'no coding software creator' is ; <http://www.profittigersystems.com/vbforum/> which also sold quite well and at least can do a bit more. But from this 'codeless' stuff comes mostly garbage which you can find for sale on eBay and such.

<comment><USER5> Wow, sounds cool! I could use something like that that to make these bingo cards I need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can agree wholeheartedly. At this point, if software is freeware, I don't see as reason as to why it shouldn't be open source in this day and age. While there are probably numerous reasons, it's certainly created a mindset of suspicion, regardless of how valid that suspicion is.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are a fair amount of things that are better when they're not free. I remember spending a half hour or so wading through free credit report offers online to find one I could pay fifteen dollars for.

Why? In that case no one's doing it for fun do they have to be making money somewhere to pay for the ads. I'll take the devil I know over the devil I don't.

With open source you know why it's free - the least altruistic possibility is there's a user whose main motivation is solving the particular issue you have, and that it's open in the hopes that someone can improve it. With freeware, who knows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there are a lot of kinds of software that are better if they're paid. The main reason being the amount of concentrated research and work that has to be done. And let's not forget copyrighted and patented technologies that can make something "non-free."

GIMP is great, but Photoshop is a killer tool. Same goes with Computer Algebra Systems and Electronics tools. These are areas where open source is yet to catch up.

However, when it comes to web servers, programming languages, databases, and any great cutting edge technology, open source just rocks. The very building blocks of most of the software today is open source. And that's marvelous.

<comment><USER8> In other words, utility software (that is, software that has a use for a wide variety of applications such as OS, server tools and programming languages) tend to be more and more free - simply because so many people need it, that it quickly turns into a sort of commodity.

Specialist software, which includes photoshop, but there are heaps of others like electronic circut design software, and geological survey software, tend to be paid for simply because no one uses it (other than the handful of profrssionals). The cost to make them can't be amortized across millions of its users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I honestly can't think of one proprietray program I've paid for (and I have bought some expensive software) that exceeds the quality or reliability of the free, open source programs I use.

Sometimes I feel like I've been duped by every vendor I've paid for software. It sounds terrible to say that, but honestly the open source stuff just blows the commercial stuff away. Alas, open source is just not possible for all software needs; it only covers so much.

<comment><USER10> I know one you have paid for: OS. If it is Windows or Mac OS X, you have paid for it. If it is Linux you have either paid for it with your time spent for configuring it or by buying more expensive hardware that just work with Linux. If your time is cheap that's OK. If you got lucky with configuration - <USER2> people don't.

<comment><USER11> I stopped worrying about the OS a long time ago.

I happened to have purchased Lenovo laptops because I like the keyboards and generally believe that the reason Apple laptops are better than the majority of Windows laptops is because people are willing to spend more on quality hardware. I prefer the industrial design of Richard Sapper to Jonathan Ives so it was a no-brainer.

After running Windows for a while and getting bored of using KiTTY for SSH I switched to Linux Mint.

I honestly have configured nothing. It all just worked, and installation was less than 10 minutes end-to-end.

I know you will say I got lucky, or that I spent more money... but luck didn't come into it and I spent not a penny more than I did for the Windows machine and good industrial design.

If you just use the system, it just works. I've had zero pain in my personal computing for a long time now. I don't understand the "Linux costs you time" mantra.

<comment><USER8> > I don't understand the "Linux costs you time" mantra.

its because this mantra is FUD that opponants of GNU/linux often use to discredit it. If you spoke to a businessman who doesn't know his microsoft from his unixes, he might be veryeasily convinced that something which would've costed thousands could've been had for free must have some sort of catch. Because physical goods that you can get for free always has some sort of catch (whether its just for adverts, or whether the "free" month of trials automatically becomes a paid month the 2nd its over etc). Most people aren't equpped to deal with software, simply because its so new and recent, and the brain is evolved to deal with the physical and the now.

<comment><USER10> Well, I'm big GNU/Linux proponent but I will never ever use on Linux on my laptop or desktop unless it will support Linux out-of-the-box. I just got fed- up after 14 years of trying to do that. There are machines that work really well with Linux (e.g. Thinkpads) but a lot of cheaper machines is royal pain in the ass.

<comment><USER9> This is a frustrating problem. Not only with Linux (which I'd argue has some of the best support of any open src OS).

The only solution I've come up with is to steer away from hardware that is brand new on the market. Buy stuff that is a few years old.

With an open source OS, it's still going to as fast (probably faster, and certainly more agile) than new hardware coming fresh off the assembly line loaded down with the latest crapware OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's things like this which make me want to create a free, opensource, fully featured but well designed version of the various software programs I occasionally need to use. Something without gimmicks, easy to use, doesn't have a super-flashy interface.

Audials Tunebite and all the Roxio tools are a mess with all non-standard interface items. Do I click this to get a menu of options or is it a button? I can't tell! Is this element disabled or is it just not activated because my mouse isn't hovering on it? What is crash number 0x0000###? Why did it randomly close?

And then there is FileZilla. I like that software and encouraged its use at my employer. I've had ZERO trouble with the server and the client. But the interface could be a bit simpler, and a nice template packaging for corporate installs would be nice. Too many buttons, outdated buttons, and extra options are problematic. Anytime I see someone struggling with some other ftp client I always steer them towards FileZilla (since it is now company policy, thanks to me), but there are some things that could be cleaned up.

Unfortunately, I'm not a C programmer and I currently don't have the time or energy. Wife, puppy, condo -- you know the drill.

<comment><USER12> I'm curious about using NME for cross platform programming whenever I do investigate making my own programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My theory is that there is a direct correlation between the quality of free software and the likelihood that developers directly or indirectly use the software for their work. The exception is utilities, but for non-dev business tools, commercial applications tend to be better than free software.

</comment><comment><USER14> Open source software also means that you won't be trapped with some dead-end software when the developer goes out of business or changes their business model.

<comment><USER15> This is _almost_ true. I've been burned by unmaintained Open Source software as well (which resulted in costly in house maintenance) as well as commercial software disappearing.

Keeping all your eggs in one basket is the real problem.</comment></comment>


Pirahã:  a non-Turing-complete human language - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto <comment><AUTHOR> I submit this post in response to the article on scripting by Larry Wall (inventor of Perl) (see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033677>, linked article <http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/997>).

In his article Mr. Wall says: "So it's rather ironic that my views on Postmodernism were primarily informed by studying linguistics and translation as taught by missionaries, specifically, the Wycliffe Bible Translators. One of the things they hammered home is that there's really no such thing as a primitive human language. By which they mean essentially that all human languages are Turing complete. When you go out to so-called primitive tribes and analyze their languages, you find that structurally they're just about as complex as any other human language. Basically, you can say pretty much anything in any human language, if you work at it long enough. Human languages are Turing complete, as it were."

The former Wycliffe Bible Translator/Summer Institute of Linguistics member Dan Everett reportedly counters this in the New Yorker article. "Everett, once a devotee of Chomskyan linguistics, insists not only that Pirahã is a severe counterexample to the theory of universal grammar but also that it is not an isolated case." This article is fascinating.

My grad school experience is too far in my past to exactly distinguish the nuances between "non-Turing-complete" and "not conforming to Chomsky's universal grammar" -- so have at it discussing the differences. In any case, this article describes a language where it's impossible to describe some common human ideas -- and not through lack of vocabulary, and perhaps not even because of inadequate grammar. Rather, the language betrays a completely different mindset where such ideas may not be relevant to survival.

Dan Everett, former Wycliffe missionary, reached crisis when he found no way to describe the notion of a God or Jesus Christ and their relation to humans to this Amazonian tribe. Mr. Everett decided that if there are people to whom one cannot convey a Christian message, the message must not be universal and cannot be real.

<comment><USER2> Really brilliant article. Thanks!

I'm wondering whether the premise of the language as not Turing complete holds up though. The article claims that the Piraha language lacks abstractions, including counting. Perhaps that could count as incompleteness, but I'm not so sure, and the article doesn't say enough to clear it up. Even if a person cannot use recursive linguistic forms, such as "I saw the dog by the river", they can say, "I saw the dog. The dog is by the river". Can they also say, "Another dog came to the river"? Is that enough context, without tracking the precise count?

Another thought, just because they don't _care_ about a historical fact, is the fact that the story can be told in the language enough for completeness? Even without precise numeric counts?

Does Turing completeness even make sense as a description for a natural language?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using "Turing complete", perhaps incorrectly, in the sense that Larry Wall (inventor of Perl) did in a related article at <http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/997>, where he says: "Basically, you can say pretty much anything in any human language, if you work at it long enough. Human languages are Turing complete, as it were."

Pirahã seems to be a language where expressing certain kinds of complex ideas doesn't work. Sure, one might say "I saw the dog. The dog is by the river." I'm not sure that's the same as "I saw the dog which bit me while I was down at the river yesterday looking for fresh-water oysters to feed my mother-in- law to impress her because she's telling my wife I'm a loser because my alligator hunting sucks." My impression is it's hard to express the latter thought in the language, even breaking it up into separate sentences, without using recursion, which the language lacks, at some point.

<comment><USER3> It is not in fact impossible to express that sort of sentence in Piraha. Embedding is accomplished by "noun-ifying" a clause by adding "-sai". The debate is whether or not this suffix represents actual embedding/recusion. This debate has been discussed at length in Language and other sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Piraha language exceptionalism is overdone (<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Enevins/npr09.pdf>).

Even Everett Says: _If you go back to the Pirahã language, and you look at the stories that they tell, you do find recursion. You find that ideas are built inside of other ideas, and one part of the story is subordinate to another part of the story. That's not part of the grammar per se, that's part of the way that they tell their stories._ ([http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/everett07/everett07_index.ht...](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/everett07/everett07_index.html))

As the Harvard people argue, Everett kind-of redefined Piraha Grammar. So there isn't recursion in Everett's official grammar even through the Piraha use recursion in their communication by everyone admission.

<comment><USER5> I think you have to read the full paragraph.

 _"If you go back to the Pirahã language, and you look at the stories that they tell, you do find recursion. You find that ideas are built inside of other ideas, and one part of the story is subordinate to another part of the story. That's not part of the grammar per se, that's part of the way that they tell their stories. So my idea is that recursion is absolutely essential to the human brain, and it's a part of the fact that humans have larger brains than other species. In fact, one of the papers at the recursion conference was on recursion in other species, and it talked about how when deer look for food in the forest, they often use recursive strategies to map their way across the forest and back, and take little side paths that can be analyzed as recursive paths. So it's not clear, first of all that recursion is unique to humans, and it's certainly not clear that recursion is part of language as opposed to part of the brain's general processing._

He says Piraha doesn't have recursion and that he thinks recursion isn't essential to human languages (thus in contradiction with Chomsky theories), but that it's part of how the brain processes information.

<comment><USER4> I took note of the whole passage. _Everett_ defines the Piraha grammar as not having recursion. He claims that when the Piraha use recursion in their linguistic communication ("story telling") they are somehow doing it outside the Piraha language. But the Piraha language is defined by the usage of the Piraha, not by one or another codified grammars.

Nevins et al. (linked above) note that recursion takes multiple forms in multiple languages and there isn't even anything terribly unusual about the form it takes in Piraha, even if this is a form Everett cannot accept into the grammar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was talking to a friend and they said that in order to quantify objects this tribe counts on a logarithmic scale and not an ordinal one, which I found quite cool, since there's really no reason why we must count in one or the other (logarithmic or ordinal).

This seems counterintuitive at first, but logarithms are just ratios and henceforth sometimes actually more useful than ordinal counts - for example, when comparing say, land mass sizes and one plot is 1sq mi larger than the other. Without the context of the size of the plots, this is relatively useless (if they are huge, they're about exactly the same, if one is small then the other is massively bigger). If we say plot B is 1 log unit larger than plot A then it is twice (if base 2) bigger than plot A, no extra context required.

I thought it was cool...

<comment><USER7> It is surprising, but the human brain is wired to think logarithmically, it is only by years of training that our brains get re-wired to do otherwise. Stanislas Dehaene has done a lot of research in this area (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene>). The study of how the brain interprets continuous and discrete signals (for example sound and numbers) has led to the discovery that the neural representation of number is comparable to the slide rule calculators, which was also graduated with a logarithmic scale. See ([http://www.unicog.org/publications/Dehaene_WeberFechnerNiede...](http://www.unicog.org/publications/Dehaene_WeberFechnerNieder_TICS2003.pdf))

It is very efficient to do calculations logarithmically and evolution appears to have optimized our brains (and that of a few other animals) in this respect.

<comment><USER8> _It is surprising, but the human brain is wired to think logarithmically_

Then again, we perceive forces, brightness, and loudness logarithmically. (This is not just the subjective experience. The way we are wired to our sound, light, and kinesthetic receptors is indeed logarithmic.) Why shouldn't we also naturally think that way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe this tribe has small mutation in FOXP2 gene causing impairment in comprehension of typical human grammar.

EDIT:

Maybe not.

> Gordon ruled out mass retardation. Though the Pirahã do not allow marriage > outside their tribe, they have long kept their gene pool refreshed by > permitting women to sleep with outsiders.

Unless this mutation is dominant.

> A Pirahã child removed from the jungle at birth and brought up in any city > in the world, he said, would have no trouble learning the local tongue.

I wonder if they tried that.

<comment><USER10> See jimmyjim's comment below:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1034232>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great find, thanks for sharing.

It's important to note that the case of the Pirahã doesn't salvage the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. Whereas Whorf posited that the absence of a word for a given concept in a language means the people who speak that language cannot think about the concept, the evidence of the Pirahã seems to suggest the reverse: that the reason they don't have words for certain concepts is that they don't think about them.

<comment><USER12> But this is circular. They don't think about it because they don't have a word to describe it... because they don't think about it....

<comment><USER11> Nonsense. Extending a language to denote new concepts is easy. You can borrow a word from another language ( _ennui_ , _schadenfreude_ ); you can repurpose an existing word ( _broadcast_ , which once meant to stand in your field and throw seeds in every direction); and you can coin a new word ( _Twas brilling, and the slivy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe_ ).

The Pirahã don't have words for concepts that fall outside their cultural worldview for the simple reason that they have no need of such words.

<comment><USER12> But they've been _exposed_ to other concepts, perhaps these new concepts don't become important because they don't understand them. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Regardless of the completeness of the language, I was really stunned by the total lack - as characterized in the article - of natural human curiosity. Does anyone know whether this component of the story is accurate?

<comment><USER14> Pretty much every component of this story is being filtered through the claims of one man, a man who's one of only two known outsiders who speak their language to any extent - and according to the other person, _not very well_. Think how very weird you could make any group of people seem to another if you were the only person who could translate between them.

These people have no art, but they make impromptu sculptures with moving parts and decorative necklaces. They have no use for change and reject all things of the outside world, except for clothing, cloth, thread, machetes, movies, and random strangers, including families who hang around for decades trying to learn their language. They don't point...except maybe with their chins. Their language is strange and unusual - unless it's in a way that casts doubts on Daniel Everett's understanding, like Keren Everett's claims about prosody.

We don't know what these people are saying to Everett, and we have no idea what he's saying to them, due to either deception or a language barrier. Skepticism strikes me as entirely appropriate.

<comment><USER15> My spouse, being a scientist, watched one of his presentations and was astounded by the lack of real examples that would support Everett's world changing (in Linguistics) thesis. If he has made so much effort to try to convince others, why hasn't yet simply recorded enough data to support it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At University, my degree thesis was about an editor. You type in simple text phrases and it tries to parse, and if it can parse, displays the results in the bottom half of the editor window. This way you can write a database in plain English (eg, 'The cat is green') while making sure it's parseable too. You know it's parseable because the bottom window makes sense (it shows Prolog predicates - is_green[cat] )

It's just a UI concept, but something I've never managed to get finished.

</comment><comment><USER17> Dan Everett is a pretty engaging speaker, you can listen to a talk he gave at the Long Now Foundation:

Talk Description:

[http://www.longnow.org/seminars/02009/mar/20/endangered- lang...](http://www.longnow.org/seminars/02009/mar/20/endangered-languages- lost-knowledge-and-future/)

Direct MP3 Link:

[http://foratv.vo.llnwd.net/o33/mp3/2009-03-20_everett- LNF-16...](http://foratv.vo.llnwd.net/o33/mp3/2009-03-20_everett- LNF-16x9-9262_download.mp3)

</comment><comment><USER18> This will sound bad, but did anyone check if they are the same species as other humans? (Not sure if species is the right word.)

According to the article they have been isolated for thousands of years.

Perhaps they don't have the same DNA for language as other humans do. Wikipedia said they don't have the ability to count, even when taught.

<comment><USER19> >Wikipedia said they don't have the ability to count, even when taught.

[http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Language...](http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Languages_and_Lost_Knowledge#fullprogram)

In this interview, Everett mentions that he met a 13 year old girl in Brazil who happened in fact to be a Pirahãn—working as a cashier clerk, fully well able to count and do maths.

<comment><USER12> The children can learn to count. The issue is reaching the age when your brain stops forming new connections without having language for certain concepts. If you lack the language to describe something you can't understand it. The only way an adult understands new concepts is in terms of previously known ones.

<comment><USER12> Does it not violate ycombinator etiquette to just vote someone down past 0 without explaining why? My comment wasn't remotely snarky, nor something I wouldn't say to anyone's face.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it does violate etiquette - although it's usually pretty obvious that the comment being downvoted is not a good contribution, either in the insulting or rude category, or in the unhelpful "lol, ++, good read, {joke from TV show}" style.

I can only guess, but I wonder if yours was downvoted for making claims that seem wrong without backing them up - I don't think there is an age when new connections are no longer made nor do I agree that adults can only learn from what they already know - but I wouldn't vote it down because of my disagreement.

Though there has been recent discussion on people voting down purely for disagreement, and that might well violate etiquette. But just <0 without a comment doesn't necessarily do so.

<comment><USER12> Well my mistake, I didn't realize this point was still under contention. I was under the impression that it's common knowledge that new connections are not created in the brain after a certain age (15-ish as I recall) and all new connections must be formed from existing ones.

This is why e.g. bilingual kids learn new languages much faster than people who only speak one language, people who learn an instrument as a child can pick up new ones much faster, etc.

What _is_ a personal theory of mine is that if you don't have language to understand a concept by a certain point you can never truly understand it. The only places I point to that support my theory are the few cases of children being raised away from humans [1] and this Pirahã story. It's pretty difficult to prove scientifically since it would require destroying someone's life.

But on this site, of all sites, I would expect discussion about it, not a simple down vote.

[1] I've heard of at least 2 seperate cases where through some odd circumstanced a child reached teenage years without learning any kind of communication with humans. After they were rescued, in both cases they were never able to grasp concepts much further than a young child (around where chimps who learn sign language get to). This is by no means conclusive, since they obviously went through an incredibly traumatic experience, but as I mentioned above, there is no easy way to apply scientific method to this theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Everett's claims are extremely controversial. Also, this article is over two years old; hardly news. There have been several articles in the last few issues of Language have discussed the "exceptionality" of Piraha.

<comment><USER21> But it was posted as a direct response to a statement made in another article that was on the front page today, which sparked some discussion.

In this case, it's not about "news," it's about having an intelligent, informed discussion. And interesting stuff that is explained well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone have a recommendation for a good introduction to Chomsky's work for someone completely new to formal linguistics?

<comment><USER23> Stephen Pinker's _The Language Instinct_ is a good popularization.

Caveats: Pinker diverges from Chomsky on a lot of things, but he makes it fairly plain what's his and what is Chomsky. Pinker also gets a bad rap (unfairly in my opinion) of being a retrograde right-winger, because of his association with evolutionary psychology.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Publicize – PR for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://publicize.co <comment><USER2> If your startup is targeting influencers at blogs, why do you have pictures of Michael Arrington at TechCrunch and Arianna Huffington at Huffington Post, both of which have had nothing to do with their respective blogs for some time?

I also found it suspicious that you have reference to "as featured in" but it's an image and not a link, so I did a little digging. For your _The Next Web_ feature, all Publicize has is participation in a pitching contest ([http://thenextweb.com/voice/2015/04/14/all-75-startups- that-...](http://thenextweb.com/voice/2015/04/14/all-75-startups-that-will- pitch-on-stage-at-tnw-conference-the-votes-are-in/)) and an guest posts written by the CEO ([http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/11/22/tech- reporter-...](http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/11/22/tech-reporter- will-create-next-great-startup/) and [http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/12/13/5-common- mista...](http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/12/13/5-common-mistakes- guaranteed-screw-pr-strategy/)). Neither would count as a feature.

Additionally, why do you have a Y Combinator logo under "our successes?" Having success with batch companies is a bit different than having success with the parent entity.

<comment><AUTHOR> author here. the reason we used michael arrington, ariana huffington and matt marshall is because they are the founders of the respective publications (not because of their current involvement).

for the featured in, you are right (it actually goes back to when we were expecting publicize to be featured in a tnw article as our design was being implemented and this was pushed back). because we've only been included & written guest articles, we will change this to as seen in.

update: we've fixed this to "as seen in".

<comment><AUTHOR> about your comment on the y combinator logo, i do see your point. the aim wasn't to be deceptive, the reason we included the logos of some of the accelerators is because for the founder institute we've worked with a bunch of fi founders + multiple publicize team members are mentors there, with 500 startups i'm a global mentor there + having worked with companies, and for yc we've worked with a number of its companies. however if this comes off as misleading that we work directly with y combinator / others, then it should be removed.

update: we just removed that bar at the bottom (so the logos are no longer there). thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's what the page looked like before I had any chance to read what is the service.

[https://i.imgur.com/g7dLXCZ.png](https://i.imgur.com/g7dLXCZ.png)

0/10

<comment><AUTHOR> author here. thank you, i will fix this today.

<comment><USER4> For clarification: Your website is an advertisement for your business. You don't need an ad for your business obscuring your ad for your business. It reeks of desperation, and the vast majority of people visiting your page right now who are seeing that modal pop up, will promptly forget you exist.

I shouldn't need to explain why that is that case, of course, because public relations and marketing and UX are based entirely on the same psychological principles. And therein lies the problem. You're a public relations company displaying the inability to relate to the public.

Don't fix this "today", fix it right now. It should be your top priority.

<comment><AUTHOR> bryans, we'd fixed this earlier (with the pop-up, moving it back to a later time). i'd meant to write this earlier.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you quite understood my point. There should not be a pop-up at all. Ever. Period. You have calls-to-action all over the site. Having one more pop up while the user is trying to read or navigate your site will do nothing but alienate them.

Like I said, it reeks of desperation. Every time something pops up over the actual content of your site, you might as well just replace the text in that pop-up with "please, please, we beg you to give us your business!" Because that is all anybody sees. I assure you.

Source: Web developer of 18 years, watched companies literally go out of business based on similarly poor user experiences that I could not talk them out of.

<comment><USER5> While I agree that this popup is poorly timed, and also agree that they are pretty annoying in general, there are plenty of case studies out there about people getting big conversion boosts with these kinds of things when implemented correctly.

That doesn't necessarily make them a good idea, since annoying many of your users or going against your principles may not be worth the boost, but you should be careful about assuming your own ux preferences will lead to the best conversion rate--unfortunately, the data will often prove you wrong.

<comment><USER2> Most websites to the promotion-model when reading unrelated content, like a blog post from the company.

Doing a promotion-model on a page _that already is promoting the product_ is "yo dawg" levels of silliness.

<comment><USER5> Agree completely in this case... just pointing out that for better or worse, there are situations where they can be effective.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty late in responding to your comments, but I feel the need to point something out.

If an annoying UX element actually increases conversions, it is purely a sign that your overall UX or UI or marketing verbiage is failing. Conversions will increase significantly more if you fix the core issue, because not only will a proper UX/UI still elicit the conversions from users who might have been pressured by desperate tactics, it prevents alienating those users who are _not_ susceptible to those tactics.

I have never once come across a situation for which this was not the case.

Edit: I think the perfect example of this is your own website. And I don't mean to insult you, I'm just giving you my take as a visitor and an experienced developer.

I was entirely turned off by the pop-up, which puts me firmly in the insusceptible category. Then after closing that pop-up to explore your actual marketing message, I was overwhelmed. Not just by the meaningless industry jargon, but by the sheer amount of dissimilar and unorganized content on a single page.

I can guarantee, without any shadow of a doubt, that a more succinct and meaningful message will increase your conversions more than the three desperate elements currently on the page ever will.

<comment><USER5> You are certainly entitled to your philosophy... but I don't get the sense you've validated it with data. When you hold yourself to account in this way, your level of certainty about what works and what doesn't decreases dramatically.

Completely agree that our site and message can be improved. It's a continual work in progress. That said, the exit intent popup has been a large driver of leads for us. There are doubtlessly better ways to get leads, but given limited time to seek perfection, for now I'd rather have the clients this gets us than the approval of a purist who offers no data, just personal opinions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi, I wrote a guide just a week ago that may have quite a bit of relevant information for your target customer - [http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2015/07/21/An-intro-PR- guide-f...](http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2015/07/21/An-intro-PR-guide-for- startups/).

I love that there's a few people starting to innovate in this space, but I'm having a pretty hard time from the outside getting an idea of what your product actually is. Are you strictly focused on outreach to outlets, or is there more to it. Is it even a product, or how are you different from other PR firms? Would love to be able to get more clarity on that without having to create an account.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks craig. publicize is different from traditional pr firms because as opposed to charging 6 month retainers for $10,000/month (a $60,000 total commitment), we provide a month-to-month PR service for $400/month ($320 if purchased longer-term). we're 100% transparent, listing out the journalists we plan to contact, and we also create all of the editorial as well. we follow a specific process, which we list out in a client's dashboard, and look to pass on savings to clients.

<comment><USER6> So if I understand correctly, essentially trying to better scale the model, and provide some nice dashboard for the company getting insight, but it's not so much a product as it is making the model a bit more approachable?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, you are right that it's not a pure product. publicize actually does the media outreach, and we're 100% transparent so companies can see what we'll send, who we'll contact, and more. i think the problem we tried to solve is that historically startups could either pay traditional pr firms $10,000+ a month (many which can't afford it), or founders can do PR themselves (many which don't have experience in this area or the time). i think the current PR industry model works well for larger companies that aren't price-sensitive, but we wanted to create a PR service that minimized risk (we provide a 2 week money-back guarantee and prices are as low as $320/month) and maximized ROI for a market (early-stage startups) that I think historically was underserved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't worry about being rough around the edges (and the problems other posters are criticizing here). All those minor things are easily fixable and they don't take away anything from the value you provide :) Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER8> You've got a weird issue with your text/register button:

[http://imgur.com/zbhpFY3](http://imgur.com/zbhpFY3)

(FF 39 on a MBP)

<comment><AUTHOR> many thanks, i will fix this today.

</comment></comment><comment> rebekah-aimee If I were you, I'd show off the gem that is your pricing system on the front page. There are a lot of PR firms; show right away what makes yours different.

Couch it in friendly language, like: "We'd love to help you X! For $400 a month, we'll Y to help you get there--or check out our other pricing plans [here]."

When people see "Sign up for free!" on a web site, they're used to having it mean, "Give us your email and we'll send you a ton of ads for free until you hit unsubscribe!" So, not a great tactic. Being up-front with your deal in that space instead will make you seem a lot more legitimate.

I'm a pretty good writer. If you don't mind, I'd like to give a little free nitpicking--er, editing advice about your front page.

>"Publicize is a next-generation PR company.

>"We help leading technology startups grow faster."

"Next-generation" is a pretty meaningless phrase. It may have been meaningful at one point and I can see where you're getting it, but it's become an overused buzzword. Avoid. Plus, you're using two sentences to say not very much. It's just clutter.

How about: "Publicize is a PR company tailored to the needs of lean, fast- growing technology startups. Here are some of the services we offer:" and then list your services so it doesn't seem like they're just randomly stuck there.

>"I had a great time working with publicize"

Did you mean to capitalize "Publicize"? From what I can see, it's not one of those always-lowercase names. Be careful about how you represent the writing on your web site, especially if you're offering a service that manages press releases! Capitalizing your company name is like fixing a spelling error; it doesn't invalidate the quote as long as you're not intentionally trying to warp what he said.

Greg Laughlin's review sounds genuine and earnest, but it has a problem: its sentence structure doesn't quite flow. I suggest basically keeping it how it is to preserve the quote, but maybe make Alan Grant's review the one that shows by default instead. It has a more professional feel, better punctuation, and better flow.

Just suggestions! It looks like you've gotten a lot of good feedback already on this, but a little bit of polish on the writing on your site would really make it shine. When you're a PR firm, you have to really make sure your own marketing is stellar. If you can't market yourself really well, customers will assume you won't do any better for them.

</comment><comment><USER9> So many basic webdev mistakes here, that you all are fixing on the fly here, wonder how solid the service will be.

<comment><AUTHOR> founder here: i'm 100% confident in Publicize. we always offer a 2 week money- back guarantee, but if you write email@example.com this month we'll provide you with 2 free weeks of pr service so you can see yourself (there are no strings attached). you can see some of our client results on our site as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love how startup-friendly this product is. Instead of having to give a $5,000-$10,000 retainer to traditional firms, it's just a few hundred dollars a month. I definitely plan to use these guys in the coming months for my new startup in SF.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> author here. i'm conrad egusa, i'm available to answer questions and really appreciate the feedback.</comment>


Turn.js: A book about Steve Jobs in HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.turnjs.com/#samples/steve-jobs Turn.js is a JavaScript library that will make your content looks like a real book or magazine with CSS3. <comment><USER2> It seems way too hard to turn pages in a predictable way on an iPad.</comment>