Show HN: On-demand feedback from curated designers - <AUTHOR> http://pixelfold.com/feedback

<comment><USER2> As someone who has been looking for exactly this, I'm super disappointed.

1) There is very, very little explanation as to what's actually going on here. I don't know what the point of me signing up is. What do I get access to when I sign up? What sort of process am I going to have to go through? Are there marketers on the other end of this? _What 's the catch?_

2) Animations, animations, animations.

a) Your splash video is super distracting. Way too much movement and flash.

b) Your fade-ins on your scrolling animations on your homepage are _so_ slow, I scroll right by them or have to stop and wait.

c) Your front-end framework is, unfortunately, painfully obvious. Seeing gears for a few seconds on every... single... page... load...

d) Trying to load your designers portfolio pages was no fun. _105 requests for 19.2MB of content._

This site doesn't give me tremendous hope for the designers you acquire, or hope for your service, at the moment. Sorry.

The idea sounds great. But, for me, you need more info and a way better website regarding design if you're going to tout that you've curated the designers.

<comment><USER3> This is what happens when communities fail to make a distinction between visual design and interaction design. There's relatively strong visual design here, but as you've discovered, that's not worth much in the absence of actual communication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be really helpful to see some examples of feedback. Are they going to pull stuff into photoshop and say "actually do this?" or "Tweak this CSS to say this" Or am I going to get back "This page is too busy. I don't understand what's happening." The first is highly valuable to me, maybe (but probably not) worth how much you charge. The second isn't worth much at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> That really depends on the designer that is giving feedback. Some people might edit some things on Photoshop, others might send you some hand drawn mockups or just write you some notes on your designs. You can always set the conditions upfront with the designer before paying him for feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this is something where I pay $50 for a quality designer to spend 20 minutes writing a couple of paragraphs of feedback on a design, it would be interesting to me.

However, from the landing page I have no idea if this is the sort of thing you're offering.

<comment><USER6> Same here, I was excited for about 30 seconds. I'm a designer and developer myself, and I'm 95% finished a new project, but I'm stumped with a few design aspects. I've been working on them on and off for months, and these few parts of the design don't measure up to my standards. I feel like I need a fresh set of eyes to review things, and I can't ask my users because they're not designers.

I thought I could select a few designers on this site, submit screenshots of my WIP with notes about the areas I'm questioning, spend $50 or $100, and get feedback. When I say feedback, just some brief suggestions, some photoshop scribbles over my work, and links to other work that might offer some inspiration for what I'm trying to achieve. Most importantly, quality designers helping to point me in the right direction.

How this would ideally work in my mind...

I create a request for feedback, and select the designers I'd like to invite (perhaps 10). I choose the amount to invest, say $100. It basically starts a discussion, and any of these 10 designers can jump in, write feedback, post images, talk back and forth, etc. This lasts maybe a couple of days, some designers participate, some don't bother, and in the end, I choose how to split the money between them. So, maybe I give one person $40, and three people $20. Now, that doesn't sound like much, but they could easily give feedback on a dozen requests a day and make a few hundred.

Seems like a win/win situation. It's great for designers because it gives them a break from their typical work, and it's social, giving them a chance to network and chat with other designers in these feedback discussions. Only problem, you'll likely have 1,000 designers trying to signup to provide feedback, and only a few dozen people posting requests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Throwaway0812 thanks for the suggestions! The "group feedback" feature seems an interesting idea. Since we don't have that feature implemented I would suggest that you find a good designer and ask him for feedback. I am sure that with your budget you can get some helpful feedback.

<comment><USER6> How does this work exactly, because I can't find any info along with a number of other people in this topic.

1\. Pricing. Do I specify a price? Does the designer give a quote when I ask them for feedback? What's a typical price range? How are payments handled?

2\. What's the turnaround time? Should I see feedback in 24 hours? 1 week?

3\. What can we expect for feedback? Is there some kind of tiered system, so I'll receive X for $50 and Y for $100? If not, are there any examples of what I'll receive? I wouldn't want to pay $100 for someone to write a short paragraph of generic feedback I could expect anyone off the street to provide in 5 minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. If you Sign Up and click "Get Feedback" on the designer's profile page, you will see some notes the designer left about his pricing. Then you put together the materials needed for the feedback request (images/notes) and offer a price based on the designer's guidelines. If the designer accepts your request, you'll get charged once the designer delivers the feedback.

2\. You should agree on that with the designer when you are requesting the feedback.

3\. It really depends on the designer. Some people might tweak your designs on Photoshop/Illustrator, others might send you hand drawn mockups or just notes. Our designers have been curated by the community, based on the quality of their previous work and so you should expect insightful feedback. Also if you're looking for something specific, like Photoshop edits for instance, you should mention that when requesting the feedback.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the response, but you really need some examples. That's the only thing holding me back at the moment. Pay a bunch of the designers to give feedback on pixelfold, and let's see what they come up with, how much time they put into the feedback, whether they focus on recommending pretty design changes, or if they make an effort to understand the business and suggest edits to increase signups and revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7505054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7505054)

<comment><USER8> And the top comment is still valid - PixelFold appears to be a selection of designers from the Dribbble's front page and/or with large Dribbble follower count. If you have ever spent any time of D, you know that stuff that floats to the top is not exactly a real-life material, but shots specifically crafted to gather the likes. For example, Oykun guy is good, but half of his shots absolutely and utterly glance past UX in favor of the visuals. As such, his feedback is not something that I'd be interested in, leave alone paying for.

tl;dr - PixelFold's problem is not with the idea, it's with establishing credibility of those providing the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, do I pay for this? Is it free? Is the idea that I could possibly hire the designer eventually, and therefore it's worth it for them?

<comment><AUTHOR> The premise is that you might not have money to hire a top designer, but you have enough to ask him for feedback. If you liked the designer's work/feedback you can always make him a job offer through Pixelfold (although that's not mandatory)

<comment><USER10> how much does the feedback cost? i can't find any prices, or even ballbark figures, anywhere on the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's usually the designer that sets up the prices for feedback. To see it you must click the "Get Feedback" button on the designer's profile page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://imgur.com/ZqFRysC](http://imgur.com/ZqFRysC)

This is how I see the site in a 1024x1080 window without scrolling a bit.

TBH, this trend of animating content from a non-visible state needs to end, it's a serious UX disease that is replicating day by day in different sites, especially landing pages.

</comment><comment><USER12> Somewhat related: If you're looking for feedback from great designers in the context of improving your own design skills, head over to [http://trydesignlab.com](http://trydesignlab.com) to check out our online design course that includes one-on-one mentorship.

</comment><comment><USER13> Strange that there are no examples at all, or any mention of the type of feedback one would get it. Is it standardised or can each designer just spew 1 line generic statements if they want? And another give you an essay. Just gave it a shot anyway. Will see what happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I mentioned in the comment above it really depends on the designer, but you should expect some constructive and thorough feedback :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You need to check your copy. It's "i" after "e" except after "c".</comment>


A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/26/a-history-of-the-silmarils-in-the-fifth-age/ <comment><USER2> I realize this article is a tongue-in-cheek fan theory. However, it does make me wonder what Tarantino was up to with Pulp Fiction.

The Ezekiel "quote" always bugged me because even without looking it up, anyone who spent any amount of time in the Old Testament, could tell that it was fabricated. "Finder of lost children" is not an OT motif in general, and certainly not in Ezekiel. Obviously, Tarantino knew people would look it up and go "what the heck is this?" Therefore I have to think it was an intentional move on his part, but why?

I think it's a tell that there's a story-under-the-story in Pulp Fiction which lends credence to the other observations. There's obviously something supernatural going on. One of the things I love about the film is that Tarantino doesn't explain anything. He lets mystery stay mystery, as any good story should.

I don't buy the Silmarillion connection. Nor do I think that this movie is a loose retelling of any specific classical tale, ala O Brother Where Art Thou. It's more likely that he doesn't have any specific story in mind, but sprinkled the supernatural element into PF to give it an air of mystery. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

<comment><USER3> I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath.

If you want to see what happens when the writers lose their nerve and try to explain everything, watch _Lost_.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand there is X files.

There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

<comment><USER5> People who love this genre hang out at [https://www.reddit.com/r/rational](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational) They call it "rational fiction".

There is quite some overlap with fan fiction, because people like to "fix" non-rational fiction. Eliezer Yudkowsky and his take on Harry Potter is the prime example. I can also recommend Alexander Wales who also made original fiction.

Probably the oldest related work is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.

Another name mentioned often in this genre is Brandon Sanderson and especially his Mistborn series, but I have not read it personally.

<comment><USER4> I can't thank you enough for this pointer. Just what I had in mind :-)

<comment><USER5> A slightly better pointer might be the wiki of the subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/wiki/index](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/wiki/index)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a note on Santa Claus being something different than we think: "Is Santa Claus a god?" ([http://nautil.us/blog/is-santa-claus-a- god](http://nautil.us/blog/is-santa-claus-a-god)).

tl;dr: Omniscience (of child's deeds), rewarding the good (with gifts) and punishing the bad (with coal).

<comment><USER7> I always wondered how Christians were able to square the existence of Santa with the 2nd commandment. Then again, how they can reconcile Jesus with the 2nd commandment is bit dodgy to me too so what do I know.

<comment><USER8> I don't think any adult Christian thinks that Santa is actually real, so there's nothing to reconciliate

<comment><USER7> Sure, but they're teaching sacrilege to their kids.

<comment><USER9> Of course, but sacrilege is in the eye of the beholder. It used to be sacrilege to own a Bible not written in Latin and for a layperson to read it directly, now many Christians consider any Bible other than the King James version to be sacrilegious. There's no objectivity or rational thought at work, it's essentially cultural norms and politics.

Many Conservative Christians do believe Santa Claus is an attempt by the "atheist establishment" to remove the Christian identity from the holiday, but that's due to a modern interpretation of Santa Claus as a capitalist icon, and the defensive nature of Christian conservatism. No Christian would likely have questioned the "Christianness" of Santa Claus a century ago, when the status of religion in Western society was unquestioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you enjoyed this, you'll probably enjoy the Unsong book, by the same author. It's basically the same idea, only bigger and better.

[http://unsongbook.com/](http://unsongbook.com/)

<comment><USER11> It reminds me of Thomas Pynchon's writing in which he threads together various bits of historical information to explain current events in a new light, 'The Crying of Lot 49' is a good start for anyone interested but unfamiliar with Pynchon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >I would guess that Maglor survived, found his Silmaril, lost his Silmaril again, and that Pulp Fiction is an account of him getting it back.

And now I want to rewatch and reread everything again!

</comment><comment><USER13> Quite possibly the best thing that I have read in 2017.

<comment><USER14> You might want to give Unsong a try then, it's the same author: [http://unsongbook.com/](http://unsongbook.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks, great read. It really reaffirms the brilliance of Tolkien's work. Lord of the Rings isn't just a nice story, it's a world with its own mythos and history.

</comment><comment><USER16> Extremely relevant, there's a rational fic that's about exactly this topic: [http://archiveofourown.org/works/3451040/chapters/7569143](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3451040/chapters/7569143)

</comment><comment><USER17> > The movie Pulp Fiction centers around a mysterious briefcase. We're never > told exactly what's inside

"Tarantino has admitted that there is no official explanation behind the briefcase's contents, and that it was simply written into the screen play as an intriguing McGuffin."

I liked the soul theory better i.e. Marcelus's soul was in the briefcase and he sold it to the devil.

<comment><USER18> The briefcase held a new drug that had been in development for 10 years, ever since Huey Lewis requested it in 1984.

The request that it not spill or come in a pill required a novel delivery system, producing the high via modulated stimulation of the optic nerve, but subtracting the shorter blue wavelengths that might disrupt the circadian regulatory system and therefore keep the user up all night or make them sleep all day. Hence, the golden glow.

Every time someone opens up the case, they are taking an e-drug.

<comment><USER17> "If you all are anything like me then you had no idea what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. So, through a friend of a friend of a friend who had a two hour conversation with Quentin Tarantino himself, I now know, and I thought I would pass along the information because it makes the movie even 100 times better than it already is.

Remember the first time you were introduced to Marsellus Wallace. The first shot of him was of the back of his head, complete with band-aid. Then, remember the combination of the lock on the briefcase was 666. Then, remember that whenever anyone opened the briefcase, it glowed, and they were in amazement at how beautiful it was; they were speechless. Now, bring in some Bible knowledge, and remember that when the devil takes your soul, he takes it from the back of your head.

Yep, you guessed it. What is the most beautiful thing about a person: his soul. Marsellus Wallace had sold his soul to the devil, and was trying to buy it back. The three kids in the beginning of the movie were the devil's helpers. And remember that when the kid at the end came out of the bathroom with a 'hand cannon,' Jules and Vincent were not harmed by the bullets. 'God came down and stopped the bullets' because they were saving a soul. It was divine intervention."

[https://www.snopes.com/movies/films/pulpfiction.asp](https://www.snopes.com/movies/films/pulpfiction.asp)

<comment><USER18> The briefcase held the actual, original MacGuffin _and_ the actual, original Chekhov's gun--which was never fired in the movie. The former was the treasure that had been used as a nonspecific plot device by Sophocles, Menander, and an unbroken line of storytellers, through Shakespeare, and ending with Alfred Hitchcock, George Lucas, and Quentin Tarantino. The latter had a more recent origin, but somehow ended up in Tarantino's possession without him knowing of its significance.

It is somewhat obvious that Tarantino lost the plot devices some time after production, as they reappeared in fused form 6 years later in " _Dude, Where 's My Car?_"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Spoiler warning for The Silmarillion" (but no corresponding spoiler warning for "Pulp Fiction").

I've read The Silmarillion, but not seen Pulp Fiction, so thbbbbbt.

</comment><comment><USER20> Absolutely wonderful, now I want to hunt down all the alternative theories so we can test them!

</comment><comment><USER21> This is great! A very amusing What If?</comment>


Is There a Line at Berghain? - <AUTHOR> http://istherealineatberghain.com/

<comment><USER2> Please also include a notification about who's playing right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! That's what the world waited for :-)</comment>


Start programming with Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.coursera.org/course/androidapps101

<comment><USER2> I remember seeing this before but the course wasn't available, cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Now the course is live</comment></comment>


Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900 - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2018/12/countries/ <comment><USER2> What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners.

If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true:

\- Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthcare.

\- You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of?

\- You might also hear about the US sports leagues.

\- You know what movies are big in the US. You know what songs are popular.

<comment><USER3> _> You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of_

I prefer to compare the USA with Europe as a whole, its member countries as states. In that light, I wager many Americans would know quite a few. Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Ireland surely would make the majority? Maybe even Belgium. Are we still allowed to say UK?

Americans love to chastise themselves for lack of knowledge of foreign countries. But, to compare a >300mm economic powerhouse to a <10mm sideshow? Neither would I. Don't be so hard on yourselves :D

<comment><USER4> What percentage of Americans could confidently name one state of India or one province of China? Our education system somewhat talks about Europe, but most of the world is basically ignored.

<comment><USER5> What percentage of people outside the US will know the name or location of more than a few US states? I'd bet it's extraordinarily low. I'd bet less than 1% of the world's adult population can name more than six US states. My experience has been, educated people I know from Europe struggle to do a lot better than that. Point them out on a map? Forget about it beyond the obvious or famous ones like California, Florida, Alaska (near Russia), Hawaii (island), Texas (they know it's big and in the middle), maybe NY, and a select few others. US states have the population and economies of European nations. Americans are unfairly criticized for supposedly not being able to name or locate a lot of other countries. The rest of the world can't name or locate US states either. Why? Because it doesn't matter to their lives. A few of my friends from Romania didn't know where Crimea was, because it wasn't something that mattered to them previously until the conflict. Ask someone from Bulgaria or Belarus which state is Alabama, they generally won't know because it doesn't make much sense for them to learn that.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, as an American I don't even need to go to Europe to prove how little non-US geography I know. I can't even name or point to any Mexican or Canadian regions except for British Colombia

<comment><USER7> Maybe you've heard of Quebec?

<comment><USER6> Ive heard of Quebec and Sesq... however you spell it, but BC is the only one I could point to on a map

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A few things which I found of note:

1\. The blanket of Union Jacks, especially in the first half of the 20th century.

2\. The impact of the Korean War clearly pales in comparison to the impact of Vietnam.

3\. If you didn't know better, it would look like the US and China were at war.

4\. France in 1926-27. I'm not sure what happened in France of international significance then? The bombing of Damascus?

<comment><USER9> The US and China are at war. Economic war. Cyber war. The Cold War never really ended, the players and the venues just shifted.

<comment><USER10> > The Cold War never really ended, the players and the venues just shifted.

That makes a good soundbite, but I think that changing the players and venues means it's a different war.

<comment><USER11> > changing the players and venues means it's a different war

The war of Theseus?

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is interesting more for what picking one country per month hides than what it reveals; the winner takes all approach submerges emerging trends and informative outliers and leads to abrupt phase change like artefacts in the visualisation - suddenly it's all about Russia, suddenly it's all about China....

<comment><USER13> It would be a cool feature if one could flip to the second or third most mentioned. Perhaps a different visualization of this data would be beneficial.

<comment><USER14> Another cool feature would be if you could click on a cell in the infographic and see the top headlines for that month. For example, what happened in Nicaragua in Jan of 1928, or in Laos in 1961?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a _wonderful_ illustration of American obsession over the years. Back in the 1990s, Japan was the target. Articles attacking Japan appears on NYTimes and the like daily. The accusation was Japan used all these unfair trade practices to protect its industries, unwilling to open its market to US companies, etc. Then after a while, these criticism disappeared. Has Japan changed much since? Apparently not.

Now the target is China. Which makes me wonder how much of this avalanche of attack on China is driven by a insidious political agenda.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was surprised that the Korean War barely stood out compared to most other conflicts (at least, if you're only looking for a Korean flag). There are indications of changes like Chinese involvement in late 1950, but I think it'd be hard to pick out the start date if you weren't sure of the decade. Compare that to Kosovo for example, where there's at least roughly half a year of prominence.

One other factor that stood out to me was that it seems like there are more countries popping up from the mid 70s to the 90s, then it flips back to the previous pattern of a handful of countries dominating the picture (Iraq, then China).

It's a very interesting visualization, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER17> > I was surprised that the Korean War barely stood out compared to most other > conflicts

Especially with regards to more controversial conflicts, this says more about what NYT chooses to drive. I'd argue in many cases they attempt to deliver narratives instead of reacting on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Far too noisy!

A simple line chart (each line labelled with the country) versus year would have been far better.

<comment><USER19> A line chart would forgo the act of scrolling which would eliminate the narrative feel of the graphic (scrolling through time to see what happened next). Considering that the content of the graphic is somewhat complex I think the "noise" serves to represent the data in the clearest possible way (representing countries by their flags) while establishing visual fields that represent relevant conclusions (the long-term preoccupation with a single foreign country). If this had been a simple line chart not only would the data need to be different (showing comprehensive amounts for each year rather than one or two top values) but it would be visually bland. The informational margins and somewhat infotainment-esque color variety are perfectly appropriate for this graphic. A more studious design would betray its content for something more quantitatively robust.

<comment><USER14> I like the infographic, but scrolling is an imprecise and annoying way to select a year to see additional information. There were quite a few years which I couldn't get the scrolling to stop at. Web designers: please don't mimic this technique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wonder how it would change if e.g. mentions of Soviets had flag of USSR rather than Russia, etc.

<comment><USER21> It would just split and dilute the mentions of the Soviets/Russia during the USSR's existence. While it existed, Russia and the USSR were pretty much synonymous.

<comment><USER22> I don't think Russian SSR and the USSR were synonymous terms for anything but for informal colloquial usage.

The Russian SSR had only 51% of the population and 77% of the land of the Soviet Union.[1] Both the Belyrussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR were United Nations members states and constituent states of the Soviet Union.[2] After the breakup of the Soviet Union, some scholars have referred to Russian Federation as a rump state.[3]

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_the_Soviet_Unio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_the_Soviet_Union)

[2] [https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/506/why-did- the-...](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/506/why-did-the-soviet- union-get-3-seats-in-the-un)

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

<comment><USER23> I think the previous poster's point was precisely about the vernacular - don't forget the flags in the articles derive from news headlines, of which the vast preponderance are very much expressed in the vernacular.

Speaking for myself, growing up in the 80s, I definitely wasn't completely aware that Russia and the USSR were separate concepts, probably until the latter's break-up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone from India it is probably a good thing that the US has seemingly not had us in mind at almost any point during the last 100 or so years, except for a brief period when we conducted some nuclear tests during 1998(?)... /s

<comment><USER25> Also during the Nuclear deal in the end of 2008

<comment><USER26> I would think the November 26 attacks were responsible for the spike in November and December of 2008. I didn't even think of the nuclear deal.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, I don't think any Indian even remember the nuclear deal, let alone the date. The terrorist attack is however entrenched in memory

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why was Germany not more prominent during WWII (but apparently during WWI)?

<comment><USER29> The US has a huge German immigrant population, and during WWI many people sympathized with the Germans and felt they were basically forced into a preemptive strike because Britain and France would have declared war on them soon anyway. A lot of Americans wanted to join the war on the side of the Germans.

Then the Germans sank the Lusitania and became the chief bad guy.

In WW2, as others have mentioned, the US was more concerned with the plight of the British (would they hold out?), and then especially focused on Japan. Japan attacked Hawaii and subsequently the Philippines, which was owned by the US at the time and home to a lot of Americans.

Certainly the US played a role in every theater in WW2, but there were almost two different wars going on —- in Europe, primarily Britain and Russia versus Germany; and in the Pacific, primarily the US against Japan.

<comment><USER30> > Then the Germans sank the Lusitania and became the chief bad guy.

The Zimmerman Telegram helped, too.

<comment><USER31> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is really interesting. I would be interested in seeing a visualization of just China by headline count, for the time it has been in mind, 2009 to present, as it seems to have picked up significantly in the last year or so.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why is 1964 empty? JFK was assassinated in November the year before, and LBJ took the con. Was the US simply distracted by its own domestic realignment?

<comment><USER34> Per footer, there's an issue with the API so there's no data that year or for parts of 1978.

<comment><USER33> Missed that tidbit. Thanks for pointing to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> One headline from 1913 was talking about New England.

</comment><comment><USER36> Fun idea but as someone from a country that has changed shape and occupation quite a bit last century (we also changed flags quite a bit) I find it a bit low on meat. It is conflating words or names with countries while doing a oh- so typical "let's drop lots of data into algorithms and visualize the result" dataviz for grabbing internet attention.

<comment><USER37> If you're going to be dismissive and somewhat pompous, You could at least point out specifics of what you see wrong with this and how you would've done it differently or liked to have seen it done differently.

At least that way people could engage with you beyond down voting you.

Personally I think this visualization is quite neat. Sorry.

<comment><USER38> Putting Russia and the Soviet Union under the same flag is the obvious one.

<comment><USER39> "...Through the Eyes of the US" they mean the same.

<comment><USER40> A lot of times this is done for continuity of the data not for political ignorance.

If you look at gapminder.org they use modern countries so that you can track data over time. Gapminder goes back to 1800 before Germany existed - yet they still call it Germany.

Gapminder was originally Swedish although it is now owned by Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What's the deal with Japan in 2002? I don't recall any Japanese events then, it was all War on Terror stuff.

<comment><USER42> Possibly the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Japan/South Korea that year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Odd I would have thought Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia would have taken October- December. At least that's all I think about the world outside of the usual US stuff.

</comment><comment><USER44> I am surprised does not include 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wonder what the 1900ish single Canadian flag was about.

<comment><USER46> Looking through the Wikipedia pages for June 1910, it looks like quite a bit was happening in the US. Oklahoma chose its capital, O. Henry died, statehood was given to two states, and Halley's Comet made a visit. Newspapers might have been preoccupied with domestic issues.

Other than Diaz winning yet another election in Mexico, it doesn't look like much was going on internationally. Goldwin Smith, who appears to have been very well known at the time with comments on American politics, died that month. He lived in Canada. A few front page headlines about his death might have been enough to put Canada on the chart, given the conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> No headlines on revolution in Russia in 1917?

</comment><comment><USER48> You need three different flags for China: (1) Ching dragon flag until 1911, (2) Taiwan sun flag until 1948 and (3) red Communist flag thereafter.

<comment><USER49> I think generally having time-accurate flags and names would greatly improve the look of the chart. It is just weird having modern flags for the Axis countries in WW2, white-blue-red for the USSR (that's not even the Russian flag at the time), and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> A graph for the decline of the British Empire. These Brexit fans still believe they can revert it.</comment>


Richard Dawkins and male privilege - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/05/richard-dawkins-and-male-privilege/

<comment><USER2> Dawkins says: "No, I obviously don't get it. I will gladly apologise if somebody will calmly and politely, without using the word fuck in every sentence, explain to me what it is that I am not getting."

Phil Plait, the author of this article, failed to articulate an explanatory response to Dawkins.

I don't get it either and this article isn't helping me understand why Dawkins is wrong.

<comment><USER3> I pretty much agree. I'm not blind to the fear that some women have in situations like this, and I don't doubt that the guy's behavior came off as creepy. And I think Richard Dawkins came off like a jerk and needs to soften his position slightly even if he is trying to make a point.

On the other hand, I think that there's been an overreaction here. Plait says:

"Oh my. I have tried and tried to see some other way to interpret this, but it looks to me that he really is comparing a potential sexual assault to someone chewing gum."

Here he makes a similar leap to the one he perceives Dawkins making, IMO. Comparing what seems to amount to just a creepy but harmless come-on to a "potential sexual assault" is a bit much. There was no sexual assault. I understand it was a scary situation for her, but is it valid to simply imagine a scary scenario, stick the word "potential" in front of it, and demonize the man for it while we lash out at anyone questioning the claim?</comment></comment>


Norwegian standards body implodes over OOXML controversy - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081003-norwegian-standards-body-implodes-over-ooxml-controversy.html

<comment><USER2> Notable among those resigning is Håkon Wium Lie, the inventor of CSS and the CTO of Opera.</comment>


Looking For The Yawn - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/looking-for-the-yawn.html <comment><USER2> Great moves may be greeted by yawns, but moves than are greeted by yawns are not necessarily great.</comment>


Larry Ellison Still Hates "Cloud Computing Nonsense" (Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/10/01/larry-ellison-still-hates-cloud-computing-nonsense-video/ <comment><USER2> How is the "cloud" any different from the "net" (as in Net Computer, or NC), which he promoted so heavily in the mid nineties?

" _That magic part would connect the Network Computer to the Net. There would only be rudimentary software and memory on the Network Computer. Most software and serious memory would be out there on the Net where it could be easily maintained. The system would run on Java and use Oracle databases. Microsoft software would be nowhere in sight._ "

<http://www.mondaymemo.net/031103feature.htm>

<comment><USER3> I think that's the point he's trying to make. He's basically just saying "buzz words suck" and then riffing on the term Cloud Computing for a few minutes. It only seems contradictory because Techcrunch framed it as commentary on cloud computing rather than the silly joking around it's supposed to be.

In fact, Techcrunch actually misquotes him. The Techcrunch article opens with "According to Larry Ellison, it's nonsense and water vapor" when in fact what Ellison says is "[The Cloud] is NOT water vapor" (the point he was making is that the cloud is just actual computers on the other side of a network not "a cloud" which is where water vapor comes in)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh for the love of god, Larry, shut your smug mouth.

It's so easy to sit back on your mega yacht and dismiss cloud as something that's always been around and always will be and blah blah blah, but for a little startup it's MANA FROM HEAVEN.

To be able to do massively compute intensive or storage intensive tasks on demand without sinking a million dollars of capital into a datacenter is the difference between success and failure for my little startup.

How many times have you heard "oh, there's a ten week lead time on that server" or "there's no more power in the cage" or "there are no more cages at the datacenter" or "i'll be up all night recovering the raid array" or any number of other hidden costs in owning or trying to own hardware?

We check our cost projections for buy vs cloud almost every week, and when the time comes we'll definitely buy, but for we couldn't be doing what we're doing without it. Sure it's overhyped, but so was the fucking web. Yes, there's weird performance stuff and not always enough boxes, but so what? Sorry if I'm missing a subtler message he had, but i had to turn off the video after about 30s because it hurt my brain.

<comment><USER5> He's not criticizing cloud computing, he's saying "cloud computing" is an idiotic idiom. And it is. "Cloud computing" is just distributed computing. It has been around for decades. (See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_computing>)

But, it's the latest tech word-soup. Like in 2005 when everything Javascript became "Ajax", everything distributed becomes "Cloud".

<comment><USER4> As far as idioms go, it's as good as any. "Cloud computing" != "disributed computing" -- it's on-demand virtual hardware and storage. That's how most users of cloud think of it, in my experience.

I was hugely skeptical of the cloud concept -- sneered at it, even -- until i started doing the cost/benefit analysis.

<comment><USER6> On-demand virtual hardware and storage is Infrastructure as a Service. I'd be willing to bet that most developers think of that when they think of the cloud (since, as you point out, they're actual users of the cloud).

But then some marketer somewhere (I'm guessing Salesforce, but that's my own bias :) decided that any web application could call itself "Cloud" (since "Software as a Service" was no longer cool. Again, I'm blaming Salesforce for flogging that horse to death...). This way, even normal people can use the cloud/buy cloud services, and it's just as easy as using the Web since it's really just the Web! (Way to go, smart and savvy Internet^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCloud user—you're so much smarter than everyone else and can expect to get promoted over/laid more than your coworkers still using that ancient Web 2.0!)

The Wikipedia article on Cloud Computing is a good illustration on how vague the term has gotten, especially how ill-defined all of the sub-classes are: Platform as a Service, Application as a Service, Service as a Service. Pretty much anything on the Web can be made into a definition of "cloud" somehow.

I'd really like to see Cloud Computing only applied to things involving immense elastically scalable computing and storage that can be provisioned and taken offline immediately, but I don't think that's going to happen. The meaningfulness of the term has been destroyed by the rampant "me-too"-ing of the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To me, Cloud stands for 'a service of which you don't know how it works'.

People have been drawing the Internet as a cloud for many, many years. No one knows how his packet actually gets delivered and that's what makes it so powerful. Even this simple piece of text goes through an intricate combination of radio waves, copper and fiber criss-cross through the world. but... I don't have to worry about any of it! All I have is this dead simple IP interface to my NIC (or URL interface to my browser) and I don't have to worry about whatever kind of nasty stuff goes on behind it. That is the most powerful idea in the history of information technology.

Cloud Computing is simply applying the principle to computing infrastructure. I don't know how EC2 works, I don't know where they get their machines, I don't know where they get their power, I don't know where they put my instances, I don't know who's managing the cabling, ... and I'm a happier man because of it.

<comment><USER8> I would change that to 'a service of which you don't _care_ how it works.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please correct this title - Ellison clearly states that he hates the term "cloud computing", not the idea of virtualized services.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I agree with you here, and I agree with him.

When the term web 2.0 came out I hated it. It was just a description for what I was already doing. Similarly I didn't like the term cloud computing at first.

However the thing I have missed is that these terms are useful to explain to users what I am doing. If this is the case then these terms have value.

<comment><USER9> If you watch the video (which is pretty funny, and rather intelligent), his exasperation comes from the popular insistence that "cloud computing" is a new paradigm, and that businesses that don't use "the cloud" will die.

To somewhat paraphrase him: "All a cloud is, is computers and network (in terms of technology). In terms of business model, you could say that its rental."

Most of computing industry will remain unchanged, except maybe Dell's small business market, some of Microsoft's licensing revenue, and lots of desktop software that would be more productive as a network service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hype aside, there's no denying that the number of business offering and consuming services built on the cloud model have increased dramatically recently.

But no, instead of debating what the new services, platforms and business models are going to actually mean to the industry, let's quibble about the terms people are hyping for it.

Well played, Mr. Ellison.

</comment><comment><USER11> When there's free publicity in giving old tech a new label, then of course companies are going to take advantage of that. Suppose you're a CEO and some interviewer asks you if you will move your software to the cloud, or interface with the cloud you pretty much have to advocate you have big plans for the cloud (even when it's nothing substantial) or you'll be put on the defensive. Since you can't persuade interviewers or the general public that cloud computing is meaningless for your business (if you already do SaS), it's a no win situation.

That said, I do think that cloud computing is innovation, in the sense that you can no longer point to an individual server and say "my software runs on that machine". We're now in an environment where -nobody- knows where your software is, and yet it still works.

Cloud computing is way overhyped and suitable for relatively few situations, but there is some innovation here.

</comment><comment><USER12> If your main business consists of selling very expensive licenses on a per- node or per-cpu basis of a relational database then it makes perfect sense to speak these words. That doesn't make them true though.

The cloud is a real game changer, even though we are still working out exactly what it will do for us and how to deal with lots of issues (privacy, responsibility, reliability) it's got the established software businesses that came to power in the 80's and 90's quaking in their boots.

This will change the landscape of computing more than anything since '95, but it isn't going to happen overnight.

For every CTO that holds off a little longer based on Ellisons words the cash registers may ring one more time.

Key-value storage engines combined with cloud facilities go right at the heart of Oracles core business. What else is he supposed to say ?

<comment><USER13> _Key-value storage engines combined with cloud facilities go right at the heart of Oracles core business._

Really? It seems to me that key-value systems are more of a problem for MySQL databases than Oracle ones. Pop quiz: how many people implementing key-value storage ever seriously considered buying an Oracle database?

I'm guessing very few.

I think what Ellison is saying is that cloud computing is nothing new. It's just a new name for distributed computing and we've had that for years. In fact, if you go back far enough we had SaaS on time-sharing systems: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing>

<comment><USER12> They haven't considered buying an Oracle database when they're small, but when they grow now they don't have to either.

And bigger players are looking at switching from their expensive-software-on- big-iron to the cloud as well, and as a consequence will evaluate key-value storage systems vs rdbms, and some of them will switch.

<comment><USER13> What I'm arguing is that the trade off is key-value vs. MySQL for small companies. They pick their path at that point. If you go with RDBMS then you might end up at Oracle at some point. If you go with key-value then I guess you stay there.

If you've gone with key-value it's because you've decided that you don't need RDBMS features.

<comment><USER12> We agree on all of that.

I'm just wondering about those cases where lots of data is stored in RDBMS which could have been stored in key-value storage engines as well. And with the increased query capabilities of k-v engines the no-mans-land is getting thinner.

The incentive to switch is equal to the license fee - the cost of the switch.

And possibly the convenience of being able to use cheap non-specialist hardware.

For the majority of the companies out there the cloud is still more expensive (and more risky, and privacy sensitive) than storing it on their own infrastructure.

But there are solutions in that space as well, having your own on-site 'private cloud', using all of the infrastructural tricks of cloud computing without the loss of control or the service premium.

For many big businesses I think that makes good sense.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: SEO / Web site advice - <AUTHOR>

My weekend project is not a webapp yet more of a 'brick and mortar' business;  My wife and I have a Photography business in our area.  While we advertise locally going to 'trade shows', make use of adwords, etc, we continue to battle with our search engine rank.
I'm a software engineer who's real focus is backend development ( client, server, gui's, distributed systems, etc.. ) so I don't really have experience in the SEO area.
Also if there is a designer out there who really thinks they can help us take our site to the next level we'd love to talk.  You can contact us via our site or me direct, my email is my username @gmail.com
Our site:  http://staticmoments.com <comment><USER2> This isn't really anything to do with seo but make your front page static and move the rest (all the wedding pictures) to another page with a limit (maybe 5 or 10 a page).

I thought your site was broken but it was just loading so much.

That page load absolutely killed my connection and google could be punishing it. (Though I don't know if they punish download size)

The option should be available in your wordpress install.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input, we have thought about going down that path with more of a static landing page something like a 'portfolio| blog | contact' format that would also address the load issues... We'd love to find a designer to help with the layout etc.. most people we talk with are all about templates that don't exactly fit our needs.

Great intput.. we'll look into it more.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Click: <http://staticmoments.com></comment>


Ask HN: A company wants me to do professional training, how much do I charge? - <AUTHOR>

I had a very large firm reach out to me regarding professional training for AngularJS. The training will take 40hrs (15 live webex, 12 live Q&A via WebEx, 13 providing e-mail support), and I have to write a curriculum around the specific topics they want me to cover during the live training.<p>This is the first time I've ever done professional training, and I don't know the standard pricing for this sort of thing. Specifically, when do you typically charge by the head, by the hour, etc and how much for each?<p>(PS - if anyone here has done professional training before I'd love to pick your brain sometime) <comment><USER2> You can charge them any number mutually acceptable to you. This is an important lesson to get one's head around.

Some things which may help you calculate how to price and pitch this:

On-site training by an expert in an in-demand technology can very, very easily hit $5k to $10k _per trainer per day_.

Sending an employee to a single conference on AngularJS would cost on the order of $1.5k to $2.5k -- on the low end, $500 plane ticket, $300 hotel room (2 nights), $350 conference ticket, $150 in per diem, etc etc. Seen in this light, $1k per seat at the training is cheap at the price, _and_ they can still get work done on days where they do training.

If it were me, I'd be shooting for anywhere from $25k to $50k for this gig, depending mostly on a) how much I thought I could get and b) how tightly scheduled the engagement was (an engagement which would get done faster would counsel not being quite as aggressive on the quote, whereas one where the email support dragged out over weeks would block other engagements and counsel charging appropriately for that diminished productivity). It doesn't particularly matter how you break that down on your invoice.

Remember, if you help a 5-person dev team bring in an application even 1 week early versus having them self-study, the amount the company saves versus not having you in is _considerable_. That dev team costs $50k+ every (two week) payroll period.

P.S. A good question to solicit useful information from the client is "I want to make sure that I have an appropriate curriculum given the group size, so, how many folks do you anticipate attending?" If they quote a small number, you can quote a per-project rate, if they quote a rather larger number, you can quote a (smaller) per-seat rate which works out to a larger number.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to respond Patrick! I have two more questions:

When I quote them, how should I be breaking down the quote? (I'm thinking the different price breakdowns would look something like "curriculum creation, live training, email Q&A," etc?)

They're planning on having 23 devs in this online training session, do you think that's enough where I would want to quote per seat?

(I'm a total noob at this, thanks again for your help!)

<comment><USER2> I don't think the mechanics of how you quote it to them matter all that much, to be honest. They're more concerned with a) what they get and b) what the cost is than how you break down your line items. Instead, I would prepare a few backup plans such that you can negotiate scope rather than negotiating rate if they come back with the answer that your initial quote is out of the budget.

Example:

Proposal A: Curriculum creation + 15 hours live training for 23 attendees = $25,000

Proposal B: Everything in A plus (fill in the blank) = $35,000

Proposal C: Everything in B plus (fill in the blank) = $50,000

So you could potentially have a conversation like "Alright, the budget is only $40k, so we can't afford the proposal." "No problem, we just move the (email support or whatever) out of scope and then we can do the $35k option." "Oh great." or "$50k sounds a little steep." "If you'd like a less expensive option to get started, we can just move (the email support or whatever) out of scope and do the $35k option." "Well we really want the email support." "Sure, that makes a lot of sense. After all, you have 23 developers working on this project, so if we shave a day off your delivery timeline that saves you, hmm, $23k or so, right?" "Sounds about right." "I think its quite reasonable to expect that personalized email support about their _exact_ blocking issues might let us shave at least a day off delivery timelines, don't you agree?" "Plausible." "So seen in that light, it's virtually guaranteed ROI for you to go for the email support in addition to the training, right?" "Alright, sure, let's do it."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just thinking out loud, but if you are going to have 23 students to 1 instructor in a single class, it may be hard to manage depending on how you setup your curriculum. Having done a few of these types of things on large dev teams (not 3rd parties really), the number of questions can get overwhelming quickly even if you try and set aside question time separate from lecture. Specifically, I am thinking if you are doing a hands on training versus pure lecture.

Not saying it can't be done, but I would think for teaching a programming language or a framework that a ratio of 1:10 would be more manageable when doing hands on training. If purely lecture than it is likely not an issue.

I'd defer to people who have done more of this though as my experience is limited. As for pricing, to me it is all about client value, and you already got awesome advice.

</comment><comment><USER4> As ussual, patio11's "charge more" advice applies. You should bill at a rate proportionate to the value provided, not the effort required from you to deliver it. Your client knows what value they expect to get out of the training, but they most likely have no idea of how hard you have to work to deliver it to them (and even if they are inclined to guess, they will underestimate it). Listen to Patrick, use a ROI argument and negotiate on scope.

With that out of the way, I'm going to throw some caveats at you. The idea is not to discourage you, just to make sure you realize the effort that will go into preparing for those 40 hour of training you will deliver and price yourself accordingly.

As a first timer on professional training, be aware that 20+ people to train is a large number. You won't be able to achieve much personal interaction with each student, and you might find a great deal of variance in their backgrounds and skill levels at the start of the course. Be prepared for outliers, at both ends of the spectrum, they can chew through time that would be better spent on topics for the bulk of the class.

You will also find that large firms can be notoriously bad at gauging the needs of their teams, you could deliver exactly what is asked of you by the management without meeting the dev team's needs. Take a moment at the start to gauge the team's expectations, explicitly ask them what they want to get out of the training and try to work some of that into the lessons.

You will have to take some time to learn about the team you will be training: Are they distributed? Do they all work together? Are they already working with the thing you will train them on? Are they building line of business software? Are they being rented out to third partys? All of this will influence what the team and what management expect to get out of you, and therefore what you whould deliver. Be ready to manage expectations from both ends.

Does it sound like a lot of work yet? This is just the start.

TL;DR be prepared for pathology on your first engagement. Charge more.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you enjoy training, you could make a "Fundamentals" course you could deliver to other clients.

I charge by the day for my CFEngine trainings: USD 2,500 to 5,000.

I also recommend you survey what your competition is charging - don't undervalue yourself.

Is this a distributed team you'll be training?

</comment><comment><USER6> To add a little to other commenters: Make sure the goals of the training are clear, with a checklist/scorecard agreed in advance, and proof of achievement and development areas on culmination. An applied project is one way to do this.

Doing so moves the focus from selling learning as a service to achieving a framework and how to achieve that as a product. Most large corps I know use SMART goal setting in their annual staff appraisals, which is extremely compatible with this kind of approach goal-based approach to training, and is a nice strategy to turn the proposal from a 'this is what our [client] idea of an hourly rate is' to 'this is what I'm [training provider] giving you'.

</comment><comment><USER7> Repeat after me: I am not selling training. I am selling a more capable, more efficient development shop.

If you're teaching a group of twenty developers and you're going to make them just 10% more efficient, then guess what. You've just made the company AVERAGE_YEARLY_SALARY * 20 People * 10% == AVERAGE_YEARLY_SALARY * 2 (that's the benefit to the company).

The better question to ask is, how much do I charge for handing the company $300,000 (or whatever it is you're saving them).

</comment><comment><USER8> If the training is going to take 40 hours, that means you're likely going to spend close to 80 hours all told (prep, making up lesson plans, unexpected overages, etc). I would recommend you plan accordingly.

10k per person per week isn't out of the ordinary (I don't charge that, but I know those that do, or more), but if it's your first time to the rodeo, 2k per would be much more reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've taught a Rails 12-week bootcamp, delivered on-site Ruby on Rails trainings for various Fortune 100 companies, and in a past life spent a considerable amount of time teaching in another field.

Patrick covered the "charge more" side of things much better than I could, so I'll say "what Patrick said times ten" and talk about things from the teaching side. Here are some of the things I wish I'd known when I started:

* Both the trainees and the suits upstairs are very happy with "And here is the finished product we shipped to Heroku during our class", even if this approach means you can't cover quite as many theoretical concepts. Think back to when you first start with a new framework: you're not sure how all the pieces fit together, yet, and until you ship a project or two you're not sure what you don't know. If they're sharp, they can fill the gaps in theory on their own—your job is to help them gain the confidence that they can ship.

* In my experience, trainees' eyes glass over after 6 hours straight or so, and covering new concepts is moot. If you have the freedom to mix up the training with 4-6 hours live, then drop down to QA, that should help keep their attention longer.

* I love mixing smaller exercises into the curriculum pretty regularly. Letting them actually try out the concepts helps them feel like they own it in their own minds.

* This may seem obvious, but schedule more breaks than you initially think you'll need. Your trainees will want a chance to get coffee and let things settle down in their minds. I'll usually give the trainees a full hour for lunch. I'll give myself at least 20 minutes away from the trainees to breathe, then I'm around to answer their questions during lunch before we start up again.

* You need two computers. One for WebEx, and one to run Google/Stack Overflow/debug quirky things off screen. It's much less confusing for your trainees, and far less stressful for you, to solve something on your own and then walk the trainees through how you solved it, than for them to try to follow everything you're trying in real-time.

* I'm not quite sure how WebEx works, but you need some form of group chat room if WebEx doesn't offer that already. A lot of your trainees are developers, and a lot of developers are introverted, and a lot of introverts will feel more comfortable asking questions via chat rather than piping up on a large conference call. Also, providing code samples and URLs orally is awful. Group chat solves that.

* If there are any tools or apps you recommend or require, make clear all trainees are expected to have them installed/compiled before class starts.

* This shouldn't be a problem since it's remote, but make sure all trainees have access to a computer. (You wouldn't believe how many of my trainees have shown up without computers...)

* I've taught anywhere from 3 to 20 developers at a time. 8 or so is my favorite. Any more than than and I highly, highly recommend you hire a TA for the live portions. The TA will be able to help you answer more questions, buy you a few minutes to get coffee and recover your own sanity, and if a trainee ends up with an issue that is halting the class's overall progress, the TA can focus on that trainee exclusively while you push forward.

(This is another reason to charge high rates: it allows you to do things like hire TAs and deliver a much better experience.)

I'm email@example.com. If you'd like to talk more, I'd love to hear from you.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've done professional training, but never in a programming language. Having helped to hire trainers before in front end engineering, CSS, Javascript, HTML 5, etc, I know that their billing rates were very similar to other professional services providers. Specifically, their rate was whatever they felt reasonable. When I traveled for on site training, I would charge $2,500 to $5,000 per day, depending on how far I was traveling, etc. Local on site training was a different story, normally billed at the same exact hourly rate as I provided other clients.</comment>


Disruption Is About Your Business Model, Not Your Technology - <AUTHOR> http://prtipsforstartups.com/disruption-business-model/ <comment><USER3> I basically disagree with the article, here is why:

Although it's true that disruption is not always caused by technology - <USER2> could argue that the Sears mail-order catalogue system was a disruption through the business/distribution model -, many disruptions like the radio, the internet, the smartphone etc. have been made possible by technology.

There is also a third area of disruption; namely in product design. Simply making a new consumption paradigm feasible (lack of frustration in use) for the majority of people can cause a shift in the market. Which is very profitable. Ask the guys at Apple.

I really still do like my Ipod, even though I don't have it anymore.

So I think the article paints a misleadingly simplified picture.</comment>


Winklevoss twins claim to own 1 percent of all Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/11/4213956/whats-cooler-than-a-million-dollars-winklevoss-twins-own-1-percent-of

<comment><USER2> The Winklevoss twins are a waste of time. As history has proven, they'll say anything to get an article written about them in a tech blog like Techcrunch or TheVerge. If Bitcoin continues on its current path, it wouldn't surprise me if they try and claim the idea for Bitcoin was stolen from them.</comment>


Someone Stole My Startup Idea: They Raised Money with My Slides? (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://steveblank.com/2009/12/07/someone-stole-my-startup-idea-–-part-2-they-raised-money-with-my-slides/ <comment><USER2> Someone taking your idea is annoying. There's nothing you can do.

Someone taking your deck is copyright infringement. You could sue but you'd wouldn't win much if you won at all.

Someone using your deck to successfully raise under the pretence that it is their own work is fraud. If you feel strongly about it you really should contact the police.

<comment><USER3> At least in the UK that'd get you one of these responses from the police...

"You haven't lost anything, there's nothing to investigate."

"That's a civil matter. You need to get a solicitor."

"Go away or we'll charge you with wasting police time."

<comment><USER4> They won't even investigate if you've lost something now. I had my shed recently broken into, and multiple tools stolen.

Their response was "This isn't an emergency. We don't have the resources to follow this up. I hope you have home insurance".

<comment><USER3> My local police force won't even answer burglary or theft calls any more. They have an automated service which gives you a crime reference number over the phone!

"Press 1 for a burglary crime number... press 2 for a theft from the person, for example a mobile phone... press 3 for the loss of an item..."

Option nine is "Minor assault against the person".

The non-emergency number (101) just give you the phone number for the automated service...

Did I mention it's a premium-rate number?

<comment><USER4> And yet Hammond thought it was quite appropriate to recently raise the 40% tax cut-off to £50k [1] giving an average increase of £390 a year to that bracket, a 1% cut in corporate tax [2], and all the while overall funding for the police has fallen by about 20% when accounting for interest in the past 8 years [3].

I earn to benefit from these tax cuts, and I still think that decision was beyond ludicrous - as does everyone else I know who is set to gain from it. It truly baffles me that we're approaching a period of increasing poverty, where crime will inevitably rise, and the police are getting gutted like this.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/30/budget- incom...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/30/budget-income-tax- cuts-to-overwhelmingly-benefit-the-rich)

[2] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and- allowan...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances- corporation-tax/rates-and-allowances-corporation-tax)

[3] [https://fullfact.org/crime/police-funding-england-and- wales/](https://fullfact.org/crime/police-funding-england-and-wales/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two great insight:

> _No business plan survives first contact with customers_

> _The real value is finding the product /market fit. That's not found in a > set of slides._

Business ideas are useless. They're inert. It's like pointing at a random spot on a map and declaring "let's dig there for gold".

OK, let's.

A bias towards _action_ is all that counts. And there's no stealing that. It's either innate or it's cultivated.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Addendum: lifted (stolen?!) from one of the best quotes I've read on business ideas:

 _This isn't rocket science and I'd never publicly discuss it if I were genuinely concerned that humanity was a species of action. It isn't. I could guarantee most anyone a pot of gold ten miles from their house, hand them a map, order them a pizza and turn 'Lost' (or whatever the show is today) on TV for them. Whatdaya think, are they going to hike ten miles or eat pizza?

Yup. Instant gratification, bird in the hand, risk aversion, you name it. People won't do SH%T.

So that's where the opportunity is. Ignore the status quo, realize where the opportunity for arbitrage lies, and take action. It's everywhere._

<comment><USER6> If indeed the pot of gold is guaranteed, by which I don't mean a verbal guarantee, I think most people will go to get that gold. But if it is some sort of mad, mad, mad, mad world scenario [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Mad,_Mad,_Mad,_Mad_Wo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Mad,_Mad,_Mad,_Mad_World) the smart person might be the one who took the free pizza.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=981167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=981167)

</comment><comment><USER8> I have the feeling that one should be able to copy and use my material at will. At the end of the day, will he/she be able to deliver on those promisses? He/She has already copy-paste things around, fact is he/she is a total looser and will be discovered in time. He/She is the impostor.

<comment><USER9> Or alternatively, it's evidence of the kind of ethics that helps you succeed in business, and the VCs made the most profitable decision. Consider, e.g. Steve Jobs scamming Steve Wozniak out of the bonus for Wozniak's Breakout circuit board design.

<comment><USER10> I strongly believe there are better ways to achieve success that do not come at such a complete loss of ethical/moral standards.

I've found the less intelligent someone is, the more likely they are to act this way. Perhaps an evolutionary defense mechanism. Lacking the ability to really process things at a 2nd/3rd Order level of thought perhaps frees them of the guilt that would result from doing such a thing?

<comment><USER11> Mark Zuckerberg is a fabulously wealthy and by all accounts intelligent individual, but many actions like using failed login attempts to access people's email accounts [1] certainly suggest "a complete loss of ethical/moral standards". While mediocre success may be possible, history is riddled with examples of success coming by compromising ethics and morals.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg- hacked-i...](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into- the-harvard-crimson-2010-3)

<comment><USER10> Give it time. When I meant success, I meant lasting success, not a hit and run. Given what his company is responsible for, I don't see them lasting forever.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unpaid Internships: A Loophole To Avoid Labor Laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.social42.com/news/Unpaid-Internships-A-Loophole-To-Avoid-Labor-Laws/36 Many, many, years ago, internships were called apprenticeships, and my dear departed grandfather used to call them. <comment><USER2> Another article on the subject mentions that there are more than a few companies these days selling access to other companies internships:

 _Whoever said a summer internship was something you had to pay for? The idea of getting a job is that they're supposed to pay you._

<http://www.slate.com/id/2209985/>

</comment><comment><USER3> it isnt really fair</comment>


Elon Musk believes solar alone can power the entire US - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1203178955211194368 <comment><AUTHOR> Counter argument from Bill Gates: [https://www.treehugger.com/corporate- responsibility/solar-en...](https://www.treehugger.com/corporate- responsibility/solar-energy-efficiency-are-cute-but-not-the-answer-bill-gates- says-nuclear-power-is.html)

<comment><USER2> To many in the anti-nuclear crowd, the environment is merely an afterthought; there's an alternative agenda. Right out of the mouth of Time's Person of the Year:

 _" After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all."_

[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate- strikes...](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-strikes-un- conference-madrid-by-greta-thunberg-et-al-2019-11)?

It's astonishing (and scary) how these things are being conflated. I thought Elon was a man of science?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> He's right and it's a quite obvious observation if you realize that mass producing solar panels and mass producing batteries is something that is going to inevitably lead to economies of scale and cost reductions. Obviously, Elon Musk figured that out quite long ago; hence his prolonged investment in this type of stuff.

The arguments against this are a combination of naive and wrong. Basically lets pick apart the most common one: "the sun does not always shine". Yep, hard to deny. It gets dark sometimes. Luckily the Sun comes out every day on a schedule that we know down to the last second. Of course that leads to the follow up arguments related to "winter" and "clouds". When it is cloudy or winter, you still get some yield from solar panels. And of course it's never cloudy everywhere at the same time and definitely not for very long. Also winters alternate between southern and northern hemispheres.

So, what that means is that a modest amount of batteries can absorb peaks and dips in production and usage of solar power. Furthermore, you can compensate for local differences by inter connecting production sites with a very old school thing called a cable. If your local coal plant stops working, you simply get power from another one. You never even notice if that happens. Why would that work differently for Solar? There's no good reason why a cloudy Texas would not be able to import Solar from a sunny California; or vice versa. Likewise a wintery new york could probably import power from sunny Florida. Most of these places get plenty of sun on average throughout the year.

So, you don't need months of battery capacity. Hours/days are actually pretty good. And actually, if you own an EV and a bunch of solar panels, you technically have enough battery to cut loose from the grid already. 60kwh is a lot of battery to power a house. Tesla's powerwall batteries are a lot smaller (about 10x).

Finally, another notion to absorb is that you can over supply both batteries and panels. So, if you think your panel production is going to produce only half of what you need, just install twice the capacity. Or three times. Or four times.

It's just a matter of volume and prices. Battery prices and solar panel prices steadily improving in price/peformance over the next decades are only going to improve things. But they are already pretty good for building a really reliable and robust interconnected grid of solar and batteries. Actually building that won't happen overnight but it's obviously feasible from a technical and economical point of view.

Nuclear doesn't even come close to being price competitive with any of this now (and certainly not when prices continue to drop) and all of the above is likely to happen at scale in the time it will take to even agree to start planning to build a fraction of the nuclear capacity that is actually needed to achieve the same goal (which is not happening at all right now). It takes decades from planning to flipping the on switch with current nuclear plants and only a handful are actually in the enormously slow process of being planned at all right now.</comment>


Importance of College Drops Nearly 50% Among Young Adults in Just Six Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonbusteed/2019/12/15/importance-of-college-drops-nearly-50-among-young-adults-in-just-six-years/#51e4c9e84b56 <comment><AUTHOR> Just had a discussion with a friend of mine who's a college professor about this article. He's a former entrepreneur and has a working relationship with a Fortune 500 company that includes multiple patents.

He told me there's a constant debate between the majority of professors that are academics to tilt the curriculum more heavily towards research as opposed to practical real world knowledge. I said less than 5% of students in your field end up teaching or doing research. Couldn't there be two tracks?

He sighed and said they're in charge and that's what they want. What's best for the majority of students apparently just isn't important to them.</comment>


Ask HN: Rate my project/startup (location based chat) - <AUTHOR>

I started a side project that I would like to have some feedback on? ATM it is just myself developing it but would love to get more help.
The site is chatnearme.com and there is also a mobile web application at the same url for iPhone, Android and tablet use.
You can reach me by email: firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> Hey, this is cool..I was attempting to create a local chat web application (mobile and regular versions) several months ago, but the reason why I had stopped was the fact that it's hard to make the app seem like it's used if you can only chat with people in your area...So I like the fact that you allow the user to select a location and talk with people other than people just located in your vicinity..it means that a user won't be turned off when no one is available to chat in their area..

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but there is still the problem of usage though. Getting people to visit and comeback to any social site is tough these days with the likes of FB and Twitter especially if the ui is ugly like the one I have now atm heh.

<comment><USER2> That's also true, UI plays a very important role..although the initial FB and Twitter UI's were ugly..as long as the product is solid the UI usually gets better over time and is what drives mass user adoption

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> link: <http://www.chatnearme.com/chatnearme/>

</comment><comment><USER4> I love the intro video that is skippable, I'm going to copy that for my project ;). Maybe you could add the ability to put a picture on your profile, and to make a profile page so you can find out about the people you are chatting with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the recommendation, there is so many things like this I would love to add to the site need to make more time somehow :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it possible to increase the range of the circle determining my location to an entire city (or even more)? Great idea.

EDIT: by range of the circle I mean radius/diameter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is, there is a maximum radius but the max should encompass most cities

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neat idea. I tried moving the location to Los Angeles, CA but my posts didn't appear. Is registration mandatory?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you can post as unregistered and I just saw a post 2 minutes ago. There is still a bit of a delay i.e. it is not yet real-time</comment></comment>


OpenKeyval.org, a free data store/social experiment - <AUTHOR>

Howdy, HN'ers; A few weeks ago, we had an idea for a fun side project: a sorta-Memcache-like data storage system that could be trivially used for building simple web apps. After a few evenings of hacking, @dustball and I are pleased to present OpenKeyval.
OpenKeyval is a completely open key-value data store, exposed as a drop-dead simple web service. The goal is to make this a very easy way to persist data in web applications.
http://openkeyval.org/
As a data storage system, it's pretty basic: you can store any data you want under a particular key, and then fetch it later. You can also serve it back with a particular MIME type, so it can be used to serve small resources. The keyword small is operative here: the data is limited to 64 KiB, which is plenty of space for storing interesting data, but not really big enough for storing images or any other sort of media.
As a social experiment, I think it's sort of fun: there's no authentication of any kind -- just come up with sufficiently unique keys to make it unlikely that anyone else will stumble upon them. Scouts honour that anything you put here is safe in our hands.
I'm curious as to what people think this might be useful for, and if you have any feature requests. I'd love to see people try to build something with it -- but go easy on us, since it's just an experiment. :) <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://openkeyval.org/>

If you want to help people make webapps, promote the jsonp store to the top of the documentation and explanation of how it is used (including the fact that you aren't going to be able to store anywhere near 64kib with it -- more like ~2kb). While it is less neat, it seems to be the only viable solution for todays non-IE limitations on cross-site form posting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I forgot to mention -- it's open source, too. <http://github.com/shinyplasticbag/openkeyval>

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you considered supporting the memcached protocol? It might help with takeup as client libraries already exist.

[http://github.com/memcached/memcached/blob/master/doc/protoc...](http://github.com/memcached/memcached/blob/master/doc/protocol.txt)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have discussed it, and even considered just building an HTTP layer on top of it, but haven't done anything with it yet. As for supporting the memcached protocol, we considered that, too, and at this point, we're not targeting that use case. Personally, I've been planning on using this for entirely client- side JavaScript apps, where a memcache layer wouldn't be useful at all.

(That being said, the code is up on github, and patches are welcome. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, but maybe you can create some sort of namespaces so we don't override each other's keys.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can create your own namespaces by prefixing your keys. The whole idea of this is a flat, totally open namespace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm using a similar approach in a node.js module if you'd like to try it. <http://github.com/stagas/chaos> stores the data in files using the sha1 hash key like you do, you could easily implement an http api layer on top of it. I get about 2k writes/s and 4k reads/s on a regular hd, and 40k-60k writes/reads per second on a ssd.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice idea, super simple, and poses some interesting questions.

There could be security issues with this given you can serve arbitrary MIME types. XSS won't be a problem because there are no cookies to steal. Maybe you could make a script that self-propagates across the key-space using AJAX.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of OpenDHT, "a publicly accessible distributed hash table (DHT) service", which has since been taken down: <http://www.opendht.org/> I do think being able to store information without too much hassle is pretty useful.

<comment><USER8> ... which in turn reminded me of the Vanish project <http://vanish.cs.washington.edu/research.html> which leveraged both OpenDHT and Vuze's (aka Azureus) DHT to store data (specifically: redundantly stored encryption keys, with the intent of letting them expire).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Instead of storing the data in files, this looks like a perfect use case for TokyoCabinet or similar storage engines.

</comment><comment><USER4> Share your keys on Twitter: #openkeyval

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> hey sorry to burst your bubble but this is pointless.

<comment><USER2> This post is a great example of being "a hater". You aren't disagreeing about the application of a tool to a problem, you are dismissing all opportunity for anyone to enjoy or get value out of the item in question. Since the creators put effort in to creating this, it at least has value to them. So do the people that have upvoted it. So you're dismissing their opinion without offering any information, which is not very helpful.

<comment><USER11> I share the GP's feeling, although not his short-sightedness. I would have made the same comment in a different way, namely:

I have no use for this and can't imagine where I would, so I can't give you any feedback. However, I'm sure that some people will find it useful and dream up new things to do with it, so good job!

EDIT: _Actually_! I think that this would be a great way to persist data in static, local html documents. You can probably create a full-blown web app with this in just HTML which someone can unzip and run in their browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your EDIT hit the nail on the head — that's exactly what I had in mind when I wrote this. I plan on writing some web apps that can run from anywhere as a pile of static files, using this as their backing store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> hmm...</comment>


Responsive Design Is Imperative For Any Businesses – Offline And Online - <AUTHOR> http://blog.usabilla.com/responsive-design-is-imperative-for-any-businesses-offline-and-online/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I agree with the concept of responsive design in general. It sure sounds convenient from a maintenance perspective, but pretty terrible for a usability perspective.

A phone and a desktop are two completely separate user experiences. Cramming them both into one site either reduces the utility in either one in particular or complicates code with confusing branching conditions depending on what kind of device is being used.

It always felt to me the lazy way out.. I'm sure it applies to certain sites well, maybe simple content sites. But anything more robust and I think it breaks down.

</comment><comment><USER3> * resizes window of post</comment>


Wget thinks github.com is a threat  - <AUTHOR> http://notes.jetienne.com/2011/04/15/wget-thinks-github.com-is-a-threat.html

<comment><USER2> This doesn't look like much of anything. It's certainly not wget "thinking github is a threat." That cert says it's for subdomains of github.com, not the root domain. He isn't accessing a subdomain, so the cert doesn't apply. If he'd used www.github.com, it would have worked.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the cert _does_ apply, because 'github.com' is explicitly listed in the subjectAltName extension. (Names in that extension are considered valid alternatives to the common name in the subject; see RFC 5280 126.96.36.199.) It really is a wget bug, or more likely an OpenSSL bug.</comment></comment>


How 10 Instructors Earned $1.6 Million on Udemy in One Year - <AUTHOR> http://thinktraffic.net/udemy

<comment><USER2> Until this post I was never interested in Udemy, even though I've heard their name. And now I have to say WOW - what a great model and they're executing it well. I remember when Google opened adwords to agencies and people could start selling their SEM services - immediately creating a huge motivated salesforce for their product. The same for facebook.

I mean if you wan't to create value, first create value for others, and by enabling anyone to earn a living by teaching on their platform - that's huge! More power to them :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone having a breakdown of the data? Like which courses, which instructors, etc?

<comment><USER4> well, if you look on their front page/most popular, you can see the top courses, prices and number of students... top 2 are Excel courses with like $3.5m in revenue generation apiece. Nice to see Zed Shaw up there with around $150k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Udemy helped me launch a side project that now has more than 1,300 paid users across 3 different platforms. I've been super happy with these guys.</comment>


How to get square roots of numbers without a calculator  - <AUTHOR> http://gkurl.us/5moqm

<comment><USER2> I see you've not only changed your username, but you've also re-directed through a different domain URL.

Flagged. Again. And your other submission.</comment>


Python Development in Visual Studio Code - <AUTHOR> https://realpython.com/python-development-visual-studio-code/ <comment><USER2> pycharm sucks but is better than vscode

<comment><USER3> Can you give at least a bit of rational to either of those statements?

<comment><USER2> In my own opinion, vscode is good for small demo/test project. It falls short when it comes to manage a lot projects in parallel. I manage near twenty different (very small) python projects that are published on a private pypi. When I need to change a tool that is used by another one, I find it more easy to do that in one pycharm project.

The git integration is far from good and seem to do a lot a magic that is not needed. Branching, merging, viewing history, upstream management, are not clear enough for me. I'm never sure if the upstream will ends all messed up after a push.

The debugger is doing the minimal job but it lacks the pycharm feature "python console" that allows to execute arbitrary python code within the select stack context. For instance in a recursive method, you can put a breakpoint to get the stack context and then code new line with a real execution context which helps to code faster (for me)

vscode uses plugins ala sublime text (which is my defacto notepad). And like sublime text you need to explore/test/uninstall for your plugins and there are a lot of bad ones, working in progress, halfbaked plugins. If you want to have python IDE that works, you need to test a lot of non working plugins. And then, when you reinstall vscode, all this job need to be done again.

pycharm (free community version) is shipped with a strong base of features that is ready to use. But it lack the "sublime text" ease of configuration. You want to highligth or fold a java file, you can't ( buy intellij for that :( ). Sort lines/unique, view a CSV like in libreoffice, sort json, realign obscure file type like logstash.conf are all things that are easier to do with vscode/sublime text. pycharm is heavier and the development seems to be slower than vscode. new versions tends to be buggy.

My best wish would be that jetbrain changes its business model to deliver only one IDE that can manage all type of code (like vscode) but with all the strong features that comes by default, that could be activate on demand.

So pycharm is still better that vscode, but it will die if it does not adapt. (sorry english is not my first language)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your ideal Android phone like? - <AUTHOR>

Recently, we've seen a few topics on HN discussing the virtues of different smartphone platforms, most noticeably iOS and Android. Although differences between the two platforms exist, most tend to come to the conclusion that Android is slightly less polished, and therefore slightly inferior to iOS.<p>So I've been thinking about this question quite a bit recently. How would your ideal Android phone be like? What features should it have (or not have)? I know that the HN crowd isn't representative of the general population, but let's face it. We're early adopters. What we're excited about today, will be popular mainstream in a few years. <comment><AUTHOR> I haven't come to a good answer for this myself, but lately, I've been wanting a simple phone more and more, one which doesn't clash with the feature-set of the tablet. One that does simple things, like syncing, texting, and calling, really well. With an insane battery life. Design-wise, it has to be clean and beautiful, both the phone itself, and its UI.

</comment><comment><USER2> Must be able to take a beating without falling apart, waterproof is also a definite plus. Must be able to carry it in a pocket with keys, spare change etc. without worrying about the screen getting scratched. A battery that gives me minimum of 2-3 days of 'regular' use between charges. Cost less than 3000 SEK (~$400) without any sort of contract or subsidies. And a manufacturer that is reasonably good about updating the OS even after it's more than a year old.

For what it's worth the Motorola Defy+ is probably the closest to my dream phone available at the moment.

<comment><USER3> I think the last one (manufacturers providing updates) is the most important and is probably why Android is doomed in the long run: because carriers do not appear to care about updates at all.

Having a device with Android 2.1 was cool for about a few months until it became clear that it would never, _ever_ be upgraded again. I have since moved to an iPhone and am overjoyed that it is updated regularly (probably because it is Apple, not the lazy carriers, who decides when an update is allowed). Sure, Apple eventually drops old hardware too, but at least they wait _years_ to do that and in between there are several really substantial improvements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some kind of integrated messaging. Something forced on all Android users by default the way iMessage is. Google Talk could've replaced SMS years ago if Google had the vision to do it. Instead it's still a 3rd tier messaging solution used by a small minority of users while everyone else remains fragmented on Skype, Yahoo Messenger, MSN/Live Messenger, and to some extent AIM. Why Google Talk and Google Voice continue to remain separated is a mystery to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cheap, simple and IP68. I'm quite happy with nearly every feature of my HTC Magic, apart from the build quality.

</comment><comment><USER6> Industrial Design of Apple, "Openness" of Android, and UX of WebOS. That's my ideal.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hardware quality and software polish of Apple, feature set of Android.</comment>


How Obama Officials Cried 'Terrorism' to Cover Up a Paperwork Error - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/no-fly-coverup/

<comment><USER2> That president Obama's name is in the title of this article seems incredibly irresponsible and misleading. Obama is not the FBI and the fiasco didn't even begin during his presidency.

<comment><USER3> It is true though a bit (not incredibly) misleading. Adding "Bush and" would be better. We theoretically elect President's to lead our government.

The massive abuse of hiding government policy and actions behind claims of "terrorism" and "national security" by both administrations shows they both actively created and directly encouraged the environment that leads to exactly this type of behavior.

<comment><USER2> I find it annoying that making incendiary accusations about political leaders has become commonplace and acceptable. It encourages people to think of things in terms of good vs bad people instead of good vs bad policies.

<comment> mal-2 The main purpose of representatives is that we trust them, the person, to have the character and sense to create and support good policy. It's reasonable for the government to have secrets, but if the people running it aren't virtuous enough to admit their own mistakes and choose to cover up, then they aren't good people.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Custom String Parser ( Python) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotpot/Custom-String-Parser

<comment><AUTHOR> it's my first open source project, please feel free to comment, contribute and etc :)</comment>


Disney Research Patents ETH Zurich's PuppetCopter - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/disney-research-patents-eth-zurichs-puppetcopter#.U_92EcJcVmA.hackernews <comment><USER2> One thing is certain, this could make for a very interesting Macy's Thanksgiving parade[1] :-)

[1] -- [http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/jackjackjack-1409213501720.jpg](http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/jackjackjack-1409213501720.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love it, its super odd and fun.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this a fair offer for a mobile dev position in Austin, TX? - <AUTHOR>

What is the typical salary range of a senior mobile dev in the Austin, TX area? I was given an offer in the 105k-115k range (with other typical benefits). This is over a 15% base salary drop from my current position in the DC area which makes me a little leery even with the cost of living differences.<p>Any help would be really appreciated! <comment><USER2> As a dev working in Austin, I'd say that's about right, especially when you consider the cost-of-living difference: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+washingt...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+washington+dc+vs+austin%2C+tx)

<comment><USER3> Agree. That number seems to be in the sweet spot.</comment></comment>