Best word of advice: Simplify - <AUTHOR> http://versiononeventures.com/best-word-of-advice-simplify/

<comment><USER2> Here are mine:

 _1\. Start simple, stay simple._

It cannot be said enough. Less is more – much more, and there is a very good reason that it pays to understand.

If you do less you can measure more. If you can measure more you can better experiment with what works.

Most products are simple, based on simple insights.

Make sure that you stay true to those insights, until you know you tried out every different interpretation of them. Don't add new features just because you think that it will help, it wont, not yet. If your product becomes a success it's not because of how many features it has.

 _2\. Don't confuse change with improvement._

One of the biggest challenges record artist face when producing a new album is fatigue. They get this from listening to the same riffs, passages, drum tracks, choruses etc. over and over and over. It's actually one of the reasons why many have a problem listening to their own album when it's finally out. Startups as intense and time consuming as they are, have similar problems. It's very tempting after a couple of months of looking at the same design to want to change it and think you are improving your product. You aren't, so don't succumb to the temptation. It's not worth it.

Furthermore, if it goes like it does in most cases, you will soon enough have to spend resources on changing things after you launch.

 _3\. Build to integrate._

Think about whether your product could be a good extension to already existing products/services. That way you can tap into already existing digital ecosystems and leverage on their popularity and reach this will give you some standards to adhere to. Remember that the more you are able to interface with other services the more trust you will establish. Guilt by association works both ways.

 _4\. Don't do everything that is possible only what is necessary._

Constrain yourself. A good product has limitations. It doesn't just succumb to every temptation that comes along. Focus on what makes your product the product and only add features if you get clear signs that it is needed. Most users will have to learn your product anyway so don't try to impress them with features before they understand what your product is all about. I-Tunes have many flaws, Basecamp from 37Signals leaves a lot to be asked for, but when all is said and done, their products are rock solid and there is no feature like the rock solid feature.

 _5\. Usability studies and focus groups are for refinement not for innovation._

Let me be perfectly clear. Running a successful and informative usability study or focus group wont help you understand whether the market wants your product or whether you have solved your interaction flow satisfactory. I know there is a lot of buzz around User Centered Design and that a hoard of usability experts will claim that they can help you design more successful products if you just ask the user (Which I find ironic). Don't believe the hype, I say this as someone who also makes a living doing usability tests. There are a few situations where usability studies make sense for startups, but most likely it wont be in your situation.

There is no one–to–one relationship between what people say in a focus group and what they actually do. It's way to complex and there are way to many psychological elements and social dynamics involved to allow you to extrapolate important data out of it at an early stage.

In most cases you are testing in a pseudo environment with mock-ups, html prototypes or even paper prototypes. Just imagine how Twitter, SMS, Google or LastFM in it's early days would have scored. So many products need to be experienced before users will provide you with any valuable insights to build on.

It would be like trying to determine the usage and usability of a hammer by looking at a piece of paper with a drawing of it. You get the picture.

 _6\. A feature is not a product._

Speaking of hammers.

Don't just think about your product as a bunch of features. Instead focus on what it is your are selling at it's core. What is needed for your product to function? How much can you take away from it without sacrificing the core product.

Think about features as something to add after you have launched.

[http://000fff.org/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/product_feature...](http://000fff.org/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/product_feature1.png)

A hammer has one purpose, which is to help you knock in nails. Everything on top of that is features. Therefore understand when you are working on your core product and when you are working on adding features.

The benefits of thinking like this, is that it will help you establish a very clear an precise picture of what makes your product your product. Which means you will much better be able to understand why you are adding features when you are and won't get caught in the "me to" behavior that can drive companies out of business very fast.

 _7\. Think how, not what._

What matters is not what functionality your product has, but how it works. A sign-up process is not just a sign-up process, a checkout process is not just a checkout process, a button is not just a button, a rating system is not just a rating system.

Think about how you can stand out by introducing something that everyone else might have but in a unique way. That's what Steepster did when they re- designed their rating system (se how they did here [http://blog.steepster.com/post/226679106/better-rating- syste...](http://blog.steepster.com/post/226679106/better-rating-system)). Skype was not the first VOIP provider, far from, but Skype managed to make it stand out and look like a product not just a technology. In other words they productified a technology

You will be surprised how much the "how" can help improving your product.

 _8\. It's not innovation to use the latest technology._

It's tempting to try and set yourself apart by using the latest build of some framework or technology. But don't do it just because it's the latest. Make sure that you understand the implications of what you are introducing. Is it processor intensive, is it increasing load time, does it improve the experience, is it understood by enough developers so that you can optimize it.

If you can't answer the above, you probably shouldn't do it.

All to often companies get caught in thinking that new technology in itself is the differentiation factor. But as most successful businesses know. Innovations have an introduction curve and not everyone should take advantage of a given technology just because it's available.

Full post here: [http://000fff.org/beyond-aesthetics-design-tips-for- startups...](http://000fff.org/beyond-aesthetics-design-tips-for-startups/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This makes some good point, except for (at least) one:

       > 3. Simplify your UI.
       > […] Taking away features can be so much harder than adding features,
       > but subtracting often creates the most value for your users.

Really? By this reasoning, Gnome 3 must be far better than anything before, and Nautilus 3.6 must have greatly improved over previous versions. Heck, based on such a general statement, 'mail' is probably also better than any GUI email client and 'cat' must be the best text editor ever.

'If you create a system that any idiot can use, then only idiots will find it useful.' still holds, even though dumbed-down versions of everything become somewhat more popular from time to time.

<comment><USER4> I think you're right in some circumstances and perhaps not so in others. Gmail in it's current amalgamation is slick and some features are hidden in menus that really don't get that much action. This is certainly a preferable user experience. At worke we track Omniture analytics on every click event on our websites, half of most buttons/links/actions are never interacted with.

<comment><USER3> The difference is in simplifying the UI versus taking features away. The former is perfectly fine, the best UIs (in my opinion) don't exist/are perfectly invisible. However, taking features away in order to 'simplify the UI' is the wrong approach – making these features accessible in such a way that they don't clutter the UI, preferably sorted/ranked by frequency of usage certainly is superior to dropping them. That's why Emacs has M-x/M-:, menus were invented, every sane desktop environment has some way to bring up a programme by its name and human-readable configuration files were invented: Such that the most obvious parts of the UI can offer the most frequently used features and all other, less-frequently used but still necessary, features are accessible in some way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone care to discuss this in relation to a product like AutoCAD?

(It's beyond my ken, but I'd like to hear)

<comment><USER6> I've used AutoCAD quite a bit, and it's complexity goes to show that a product doesn't necessarily need to be overly shiny and simple to sell. It does follow a few of the principles it's talked about, such as the simplifying of the UI by moving to a "ribbon" UI not too unlike the move Office made recently, and splitting out features to different products. For example all AutoCAD releases can draw lines and circles, but AutoCAD Architecture has different advanced features that that of say, AutoCAD Electrical. Backwards compatibility is a huge issue in the CAD industry, not only with files, but also UI issues like keyboard shortcuts. AutoCAD does this pretty well. I doubt someone who used AutoCAD back in the 80s would have a hard time sitting down in front of the latest version and still getting the same work done without the extra features. The UI and even the toolset are all extremely customizable, but the defaults are very sane as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It turns out the real challenge in creating excellent things is being as excellent at saying no as you are at saying yes.

Learn how to build an organization that can do a few things, really, really well and you will win. The trick is getting really good at saying No.</comment>


Should We All Be Taking 'Irony Poisoning' More Seriously? - <AUTHOR> https://static.nytimes.com/email-content/INT_4981.html <comment><USER2> This is a good article, but I think there is a lot more to be written on this subject.

I would really like to see a proper "long-read" exploration of what is a very real and under-acknowledged problem.</comment>


Docker Containers at Scale: Our Take on Docker Swarm - <AUTHOR> http://mesosphere.com/2015/02/26/deploying-with-docker-swarm/

<comment><USER2> If you've spent any significant amount of time with Mesos and Marathon, you've probably found that it's buggy (Marathon at least), complicated, and hard to work with. Zookeeper is just one part of the complicated web of infrastructure you need to stand up. To top it off you end up needing to run something like Netflix' Exhibitor to have any shred of confidence that if ZK goes away the state of your cluster will be recoverable. It definitely "works", but certainly leaves something to be desired in the stability and ease of use department.

<comment><USER3> Yep. In my experience, I've seen that the issue isn't with Mesos the Apache project, but rather with Marathon and Chronos, which are the applications built by Mesosphere.

There's a big naming and marketing confusion at the moment with the open- source project and the VC-funded startup having such a similar name. It's unfortunately giving a bad reputation to the Mesos project.

Curious why there actually isn't a trademark issue here...?

<comment><USER2> Because Mesosphere (the VC backed startup) hired the creator of Mesos (the Apache project), and is now trying to capitalize on the open source project as one of their "products".

<comment><AUTHOR> Mesosphere is arguably the largest contributor to Mesos, certainly on par with Twitter, especially when you consider all the surrounding ecosystem. The company also secured permission from the Apache foundation with the trademark when the company was founded. It's good for the open source ecosystem to have companies productize and support projects, particularly when they are plowing millions of dollars back into the open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a bit concerned about the network layer (or, rather, lack thereof). I've looked at one or two of the "overlay network" approaches (that essentially have a container act as a router/tunneller between hosts), and wish there was something in Swarm that let me do basic port-mapping/load balancing across containers on multiple hosts (preferably with auto-scaling) without funkiness and undue overhead.

</comment><comment><USER5> If only Mesos would drop the Zookeeper requirement. We've found Zookeeper to be overly complicated and difficult to troubleshoot.

<comment><USER6> Really? I've found it a lot easier to manage than etcd. The fact that you manually specify all of your nodes in the config file removes a whole host of errors you can create in etcd with its fancy discovery stuff.

What's your set up? How many zookeeper nodes do you run? What problems have you run into?

<comment><USER5> We would get increased latency interacting with Zookeeper over time until eventually it would completely fail. The log messages when this would happen (either latency or failure) were extremely unhelpful. The logging server-side for Zookeeper in fact I found downright terrible.

We wound up proactively restarting the ZK cluster regularly, which improved stability.

Granted, it was our own software written to use it, and we suspect there were problems with the way it was written. It was easier for us to just rip it out than debug, however. I find it overly complicated to write against given the need for thick clients.

Consul phrases it well ([https://consul.io/intro/vs/zookeeper.html](https://consul.io/intro/vs/zookeeper.html)):

"ZooKeeper provides ephemeral nodes which are K/V entries that are removed when a client disconnects. These are more sophisticated than a heartbeat system, but also have inherent scalability issues and add client side complexity. All clients must maintain active connections to the ZooKeeper servers, and perform keep-alives. Additionally, this requires "thick clients", which are difficult to write and often result in difficult to debug issues."

Edit: in retrospect our problems might have been solved by turning syncing off, as described here:

[http://www.edwardcapriolo.com/roller/edwardcapriolo/entry/zo...](http://www.edwardcapriolo.com/roller/edwardcapriolo/entry/zookeeper_psuedo_scalability_and_absolute)

But you can figure out from the above how scalable Zookeeper is... not very. We run in physical datacenters and I certainly wouldn't be thrilled about building out snowflake RAID systems just for our ZK clusters (we generally try to use whitebox commodity hardware and we want individual nodes to be as disposable as possible).

It's ironic that ZK requires such consistency when the goals of Mesos are exactly the opposite.

<comment><USER7> > It's ironic that ZK requires such consistency when the goals of Mesos are > exactly the opposite.

Is it ironic? Seems to me that if you want to have a distributed cluster that can deal with worker failure and still be useful, you need to rely on something to durably maintain your state at a lower level.

<comment><USER5> I agree and I want that thing not to be ZK. Consul or etcd would be fine.

<comment><USER7> Well, you've described how zk doesn't meet the needs of _your_ software as written, but I'm not sure you've established why Mesos would be better off without it...

<comment><USER5> Yes, I have. Zookeeper's logging (and thus troubleshooting ability) is atrocious.

<comment><USER7> And yet somehow they seem to have gotten it to work. I run a few Zookeeper- based systems where ZK just seems to work and I don't have to look at logging statements, either. I've never dealt with Zookeeper downtime that wasn't Amazon's fault.

<comment><USER5> So you are having ZK downtime? Such a system shouldn't ever really go down, even with Amazon problems. We strive for software in which individual nodes can be flakey or down without impacting the uptime of the whole cluster. ZK doesn't fit this criteria, as you have just stated. I prefer gossip-based Raft systems, for example (which is why I like Consul so much. We're also big Riak users).

<comment><USER7> > So you are having ZK downtime?

No, individual nodes have gone down based on hardware problems. The system stays up. Jespen has given Zookeeper probably the most ringing endorsement of anything it's tested, so I don't know what you're on about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is it called Docker Swarm rather than Docker Fleet or something similarly logistics-related?

<comment><USER9> CoreOS already has a project named Fleet[0].

[0] - [https://github.com/coreos/fleet](https://github.com/coreos/fleet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're in NYC, there will be a talk tonight on Building & Deploying Applications to Apache Mesos at the Digital Ocean meetup: [http://eventhunt.io/node/5984](http://eventhunt.io/node/5984).</comment>


PickyDomains – Risk-Free Naming Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.pickydomains.com/

<comment><USER2> I noticed they are soliciting reviews (read: links) to their site and paying for them:

[http://www.pickydomains.com/make-money](http://www.pickydomains.com/make- money)

...including a requirement that the site have a PageRank of 2. Is this consistent with Google policies or are they going to get dinged down the results because of this behavior?

<comment><USER3> Technically, they aren't asking for links, just reviews—definitely a gray area.

It would be a lot less suspect if they didn't require the blogger to have a PR 2. To me that just screams "I need backlinks!"

<comment><USER4> Kind of dark grey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently named my android app and website through them. It was quite a straightforward and pleasant experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> Similar to [http://BootName.com](http://BootName.com)</comment>


Writing a Text Adventure Game in Go – Part 4 - <AUTHOR> https://gocodecloud.com/blog/2016/04/24/writing-a-text-adventure-game-in-go---part-4/ <comment><USER2> If you like text adventures and need to take a break from coding them, you might like the Parsley System analog games from designer Jared Sorensen. Jared took aspects of the text adventure games we all loved from back in the day and distilled them into a (party?) game.

They are good examples of puzzle design and help expose the underlying pieces of a classic text adventure should you need some inspiration for your text game, as well. I own a complete set of physical copies, but you can pick the PDFs up for a couple of books from his site, Memento Mori Theatricks ([http://www.memento-mori.com/parsely/](http://www.memento- mori.com/parsely/)).</comment>


Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.unreadyandwilling.com/2012/06/looking-back-my-first-year-as-a-meditation-practitioner/ <comment><USER2> On 25 June 2012, Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True website recommended a LONG video of a lecture by Sam Harris, a meditation practitioner, from April's Global Atheist Conference in Melbourne. The video lecture is on the subject of the atheist attitude toward death, and Harris leads his audience through a mindfulness meditation exercise as part of the video.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums>

I watched the whole video, and participated in the mindfulness meditation exercise.

I have to say that after listening to the whole lecture, I have the same misgivings Sam Harris has about being removed from any thoughts or judgments about the external world. There is genuine suffering in the world that it is important to do something about. There is a tension between getting in touch with the present moment and using a meaningful part of each day to solve problems and help our fellow human beings. Having lived in a predominantly Buddhist society during two different three-year stays as that society transformed from Third World colonialized poverty to First World free and democratic modernity, I'm not at all sure that most people would be more happy if most people were doing more mindfulness meditation.

<comment><USER3> > Having lived in a predominantly Buddhist society during two different three- > year stays as that society transformed from Third World colonialized poverty > to First World free and democratic modernity, I'm not at all sure that most > people would be more happy if most people were doing more mindfulness > meditation.

Could you expand on this baffling non-sequitur? I truly can't make heads or tails of it.

<comment><USER4> As I understood it, the transformation happened because people were _not_ just accepting their negative emotions about their country but actually threw rocks and organized rallies.

> "There is genuine suffering in the world that it is important to do > something about"

I wonder if I'm in the same now-democratic society. Does it have Daoist influences? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your Zen is showing :)

I really enjoy posts like this which take a subject which is usually discussed from a "mystical" or "spiritual" perspective, and instead attempt to approach it from a physiological perspective. This pleases the knee-jerk part of my brain which often screams "skip the mumbo-jumbo and show me the data!" (and I'm slowly working to tame that part of my brain, because I recognize that an "empirical or be damned" approach is not a balanced one).

In "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior", the author discusses how the idea of enlightenment being fully realized in an instant (like turning on a switch) is a misconception, and that in reality, its more about having enlightened moments, and then increasing the frequency of those moments, like slowly ramping up your enlightenment duty cycle over the course of several years.

This bit was one of those enlightened moments: "I realize that I should not ask myself how happy I am but rather how attached am I to happiness".

<comment><USER6> No one has attained Enlightenment through Zen nor meditation in human history. Buddha himself never claimed he was enlightened through meditation. That's a fabrication of Buddhist monks whose level of consciousness is quite a bit lower than that of Gautama. Nowadays, the misunderstanding has been passed down for thousands of years, so what I'm saying now seems unacceptable in modern society.

If you accept that meditation is a way to get Enlightenment then it opens the possibility that anyone can be Enlightened. But in human history, only one or two men had the evidence that they could perceive everything in the world and could tell the Truth. Instead, Buddhists will tell you that you have to experience things to understand and prove them. But that is not the case of a scientist, philosopher, and Enlightened Beings - all of which can immediately show evidence when they point out something in truth.

The term of Enlightenment means "opening eyes to what is in the reality". It's used similarly in Eastern languages to mean "to realize".

So a truly enlightened being can point out things in reality exactly as they are and can tell the law of how the world works.

So when you learn about happiness from an Enlightened Being, he doesn't teach you about sitting in meditation until you can train yourself not to care about happiness anymore. That's a way to lose yourself in the end.

Instead he can teach you exactly what the conditions are for happiness which must be fulfilled in order for you to be happy.

If someone claims he's Enlightened and teaches about happiness then they must be able to point out that where happiness is, what it is, what is the way to happiness, and what is the cause to lead you to the goal of happiness.

The reason why attachment is a problem is that attachment is one of the sources to make karma, and you can't be happy forever without conquering your karma (before it conquers oneself).

Things in the world operate by a very simple principle - and this principle lies at the essence of what is taught by all Enlightened Beings when they teach about "what is" in the world. But because the monks and Zen masters didn't learn this principle, I can realize that they don't know anything about true Buddha's teaching.

I'm telling you this because I'm worried that people will fall into danger practicing Zen and other forms of Buddhism. The truth in Buddha's teaching has degraded to the point that no one can know Buddha's teaching through the existent Buddhism - which although superior because of Buddha's teachings, nowadays has a similar quality to Christianity and other religions. I've seen people deceived so many times by monks and it's getting worse as time goes on.

<comment><USER7> Why couldn't anyone be enlightened?

The Buddha said the true nature of all beings is that of enlightenment.

<comment><USER6> I would ask you to give me a citation, but I'm not sure if it will be so helpful.

We know all the scriptures were written by monks, perhaps 500 or more years after Gautama Buddha passed away. Most of the time they just wrote down what they wanted, or from their own ideas and opinions.

"Buddha nature" is one of the first lies that Buddhist monks tell people. People donate to the monks who practice meditation because they want to invest in someone who is spending all his time on a path they think will get to Enlightenment. But it is not virtue to donate to the monks.

Someone only can have Enlightenment and Buddha nature by removing every falsehood from inside themselves. But if he did that he'd be a Tathagata in this lifetime, and it is ultimately very rare to encounter a living enlightened being.

<comment><USER8> Why would you say?

"Most of the time they just wrote down what they wanted, or from their own ideas and opinions."

When your master's webpage at:

[http://www.members.tripod.com/tathagata2000/questions_and_an...](http://www.members.tripod.com/tathagata2000/questions_and_answers_2.htm)

Says:

"What is the proof about a Tathagata? > The proof is in the Buddhist scripture."

Seems contradictory, no?

<comment><USER6> There are certain things we can know for sure through the scriptures, and finally I have a chance to talk about this question on this thread, so thanks for asking. :)

Gautama Buddha taught for about 40 years and met lots of people. If we try to summarize just a few parts, of _all_ of his teachings over his entire teaching career, what do we come up with?

The two things are as follows:

1\. Transmigration

2\. The law of cause and effect

An Enlightened being tells about 'what is' in the world, and can teach people how the world works. That's exactly what Gautama Buddha taught, although he taught it quite a long time ago.

Finally, there's more evidence in the content of the prajna paramita sutra, if you have seen that one, which explains about some cases in perfecting oneself and opening one's wisdom eye. No one can explain that content without already having been Enlightened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Should be Titled: "Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase MY Happiness".

For me it does but I practice a very different and rare form of meditation. I can only call it "Sleeping Awake". Which took a while to achieve.

Basically, when you go to sleep at night your body slows its breathing & heart rate and you loose feeling of your limbs, while your mind looses consciousness and you black out. Your body and mind shut down at the same time. With meditation, particularly deep meditation (out of body experience / trance / hypnosis) you "sleep awake". Your body shuts down and goes to sleep but you are completely conscious the entire time. You can't feel your limbs, heart beat, or lungs breathing. You completely loose track of time and gravity and feel like you're floating around in a massive black, empty, nothingness.

If feels like you're floating around in the universe before it was made. Completely empty and quiet. No gravity. No direction. No time. No space. No memories. No emotions. No body. No flesh. It's the most peace you'll ever experience in your life apart from sleep and death. There's absolutely nothing on your mind. The only thing you're aware of, is your existence. That's all. And when you wake up, you feel amazingly refreshed. Not just physically but mentally. For me personally, I feel content and happy the rest of the day.

It makes me happy because the experience reminds me that, honestly, I don't matter. None of us do. We might matter to each other, but to the universe (which is mostly empty) our existence is worthless, useless, meaningless, purposeless. No matter what happens in your life, good or bad. Existence goes on, even after life is gone. And this concept, that nothing really matters, just takes a huge load off your shoulders. I don't know why "Sleeping Awake" evokes these feelings but it just does. It's a very calming and neutral experience.

So meditation for me did the opposite of what it did to the author of the article. It allowed me to control my emotions much more and see things from a neutral point of view. It allowed me to think, and observe an event or thought BEFORE reacting to it with an opinion or emotion.

<comment><USER10> Can you recommend any tutorials or books about this type of meditation? I'm curious.

<comment><USER11> Kind of sounds a bit like lucid dreaming, or astral projection.

<comment><USER12> It would be lucid dreaming if he went deeper, but if he's still just seeing just black he's not deep enough into it for the dreaming to start. Next come color blobs, then sounds, then flashes of imagery and eventually full on 3d as if you're there dreaming. It's wicked to maintain consciousness without blacking out from the waking state into the dream state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the article, but I think the practice here is lacking something. I realize that there are many meditation practices, but the writer here mentions Buddhism, and so I'm assuming insight, or vipassana, meditation.

The practice of vipassana is not to focus everything on the sensations that you have, but only to note that they are there, and move on. I sort of say "that's interesting", when I notice a sensation, and then move on in my body scanning or noting--whichever form I happen to be doing.

By concentrating on those emotions, pains, and discomfort, you are giving them more attention than they deserve, and doing yourself a disservice. You are doing the same thing that screws us up in our daily life--hanging on to the countless emotional experiences we have all the time. The writer of this article could use the guidance of an experienced practitioner to help avoid and get out of potholes like this.

Another thing I'd like to mention is the emotional rollercoaster that this person is experiencing. One should look deeper than just the surface emotions that arise, and look to the cause in your body, mind, or whatever is coming at you from the "outside" experience of life. Just as with the discomforts of sitting in meditation, and emotions, you should consider the events in your life in the same manner, since you'll eventually realize that they have little intrinsic meaning, but have an effect on your thoughts and emotions just the same if you allow it.

Accept that the thing happened, and then move on or act as needed, without letting emotion and overthinking clog it up.

<comment><USER14> "The practice of vipassana is not to focus everything on the sensations that you have, but only to note that they are there, and move on." Exactly. Continuing to focus on it is a fixation of thought. From what I'm learning, meditation is letting the thoughts flow by without judgment. Focusing on pain, hurt etc for extended periods is no better than psychotherapy: it just reinforces it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can understand if this post is provocative to some, but I don't think there is any getting around that. To meditate is to reprogram ones mind. There are many ways to do this. This guy reprogrammed himself to feel more suffering and pain. Since he is so invested in the idea that meditation must be good, he instead of realizing that he is causing himself harm, he justifies his practice by saying that happiness isn't the goal.

"I realized that meditation was not meant to purge our minds of negative emotions or thought patterns," Meditation is a tool. It doesn't have any purpose.

"I realize that I should not ask myself how happy I am but rather how attached am I to happiness. How much do I judge my self-worth based on how happy or sad I feel?" There is no should.

I want to give everyone here the opposite of his advice. Focus on the positive things, not everything.

</comment><comment><USER16> The funny part about all this is the stark misconceptions westerners (and perhaps many easterners too) have about meditation in general.

The authority on meditation is long rooted in the subjective scientific (the observation and inference of trends based on data) scriptures of the East, yet most are willing to accept whatever their local practitioner has to say, or whoever is currently recommending meditation to them.

Meditation, whilst extremely easy to teach, is extremely difficult to practise. You will be EXTREMELY hard pressed to find any authority on the subject recommending meditation without specifying its prerequisite, self- control.

A mind that infested with thoughts and desires, constantly fluttering hither and thither is unfit to meditate. To force such a mind into single pointed concentration is dangerous.

Meditation is the final stage of spiritual practice, not the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not clear how just internalizing stuff via meditation can possibly help.

To understand and process experiences, you must be able to tell a coherent story about it to other people, ideally in writing. This is another reason I'm so gung-ho about blogging. And there's science behind it too:

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/07/nobodys-going-to- he...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/07/nobodys-going-to-help-you-and- thats-awesome.html)

<comment><USER18> Problem is that you might not be aware that your story has spun out of control and is heading down the wrong side of the road.

Meditation is designed to help you see if that is the case...and the fact that stories are just stories and not reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps not as scientifically minded, I still think Alan Watts (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts>) and his accompanying lectures (e.g. <http://archive.org/details/BuddhismAsDialogue>) are a great introduction to eastern philosophy from a westerner's perspective.

<comment><USER20> Zen and the Brain by James Austin (MIT Press) is also good. The author is an emeritus professor of neuroscience, who started doing Zen during the 60s while he was working in Japan.

It's a huge, dense book, about 900 pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In my experience Meditation directly increases happiness over longer term by decreasing our attachment to body/mind, there by decreasing the unnecessary suffering.

There are different forms of meditation, each with different emphasis. The one mentioned here is a Buddhist (Insight/Vipassana) meditation where one experiences sensations on the body without judgment. The Passage Meditation (<http://www.easwaran.org/>) for example emphasizes systematic training of attention to turn inward and dwell continuously on a single focus within consciousness, in this case memorized inspirational passages from worlds great mystics. In essence "we become what we meditate on".

To be happy we need to decrease self-will or ego. In my experience meditation alone is not effective in subsiding the self-will. Meditation along with allied disciplines is necessary to slowly chip away self-will, overcome conditioned habits of mind and find our true nature which is peace, joy and love - the very source of happiness.

</comment><comment><USER22> Meditation won't make you happy. It will help you deal with stressful situations so you can make better decisions.

And that as a result makes you happier.

<comment><USER23> Hate to be that guy - but is there good scientific evidence for your claims?

<comment><USER24> There seems to be quite a lot of research on this topic, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation>

This article: _"Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis"_ <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15256293> seems to be relevant to your question.

Of course the mere existence of articles does not prove anything. Caution advised :)

<comment><USER25> MBSR is becoming increasingly common in cognitive behavioral therapy as well -- it's interesting (to me) to see how much intersection there is between meditative practice and what cognitive behavioral therapy is discovering. Different paths to the same conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This shouldn't be surprising given that the traditional maps of the Vipassana explicitly talk about negative stages. The problem is that somehow this information is not commonly known. It would benefit practitioners a great deal. In this vipassana community, for instance, it is considered important enough to be mentioned as a sticky post right at the top, [http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_b...](http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/recent_posts)

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting article. I approached it wanting to share the vast insights I've gained after meditating for years. Though I left with a new perspective. Thank you.

<comment><USER28> _Vast_ insights? Now, do share.

<comment><USER27> "Vast insights" was a joke because I caught my ego looking for a chance to prove how smart it is.

When I started meditating (10 years ago?), I wanted to make a wildly successful business to show how smart and precocious I was. Though things don't quite work that way, and even if I achieved big success, I don't think I would have understood my motivations. Now I want to create a productive creative life. It's the same goal, but focussed the opposite direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Whoever said meditation will increase happiness is a false statement.

Meditating for 1 year will get you nowhere. Meditation needs to be practiced like clockwork.

Prolong meditation practice will instill stillness of mind. This is where the beauty is. Happiness is a state of mind. So "stillness" is the key and then it is upto you how you flow your stillness. Now, would it be stillness if it flows?

Stillness in every action and no-action.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Love the discussion here and I'd be happy to add a few thoughts when I set aside some time to. Just wanted to point out that there's a much higher quality version of the video than the one I originally linked to in the post: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwC7XBQq9o>

</comment><comment><USER30> To me it all depends on your thought process. Like if i meditate with a certain intent it may help me feel happy during a given day. I dont think one even has to meditate for that kind of effect. If i think to myself about how happy i am and why i deserve fantastic things, i become increasingly optimistic

</comment><comment><USER31> i'm amazed he did it 1 hour per day for a YEAR. i've been meditating for 2 years. the first 6 months i did it 1 hour each day. after that it fell off a cliff. i now average around 10 minutes 3x week.

</comment><comment><USER32> Every time I have tried to meditate I just feel ridiculous and stop. But reading this description of its effects, I really don't understand the benefit.

<comment><USER33> The benefit is cognitive defusion. That means you gain the ability to observe your thoughts instead of identifying yourself with them.

This gives you more control (because you also learn to accept whatever comes up) and as a result more happiness.

Check this video with a step by step guide how to meditate I did. It's pretty easy and everyone with a bit of patience can benefit from doing it.

[http://jayuhdinger.com/chapters/chapter-2-practical- lesson-m...](http://jayuhdinger.com/chapters/chapter-2-practical-lesson- mindfulness-meditation-and-the-state-of-being/)

<comment><USER34> Stated more simply: "you are not your thoughts"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >*"Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness"

Because there are no magic pills?</comment>


IE removed from spoon.net - <AUTHOR> http://spoon.net/browsers/#IE

<comment><USER2> Are they trying to make IE obsolete?

I know this is probably a move by the lawyers, and the browser-promotion folks probably don't even know about it yet, but seriously... If you want to promote your (free!) browser, you have to make life easy for developers.

<comment><USER3> They are trying to force people who develop websites for IE (which applies to 95%) to buy a copy of windows.

<comment><USER4> You can get evaluation copies of windows to run IE in for debugging free from Microsoft. My big complaint is that I don't want to run a VM for every browser.

It appears as if the IE exe's made by Xenocode still work. I don't have a link for them, I'm not sure if they're hosted anywhere still.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en)

You may also want to check out [http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on...](http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on_virtualbox/) if you wish to use virtualbox rather than paying for virtual PC

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Microsoft. This was a great service and really helped cross browser testing for IE.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's really nice about web development (especially mobile) these days is we're quickly reaching a threshold where dropping all support for IE is becoming a very real possibility.

Anything Microsoft does to accelerate their own obsolescence should be encouraged.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I heard this news, I assumed it was related to something like the licensing agreements Microsoft has with third parties, rather than their simply being spitefully "evil". If they licensed H.264, for example, surely that license would stipulate boundaries to avoid every browser using the "IE video plugin" to render H.264 and circumvent the patent.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, What a move by MS, Well bloody done :|

</comment><comment><USER9> Duplicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1905967>

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you say it? - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose introduction to computers consisted of sitting home alone and hacking away and only ever communicating about technical terminology via non-spoken media like IRC. What I wonder is if anyone else consequently developed their own quirky pronunciations for technical terms that differ wildly from convention.<p>As an example, I may pronounce "sudo" as "sue dough" or say "regex" with a soft "g", but what really makes my colleagues laugh at me is when I pronounce "bin" and "lib" with long i's (as in "binary" and "library"). <comment><USER2> I usually say "su-doe", not "su-doo"; "reg-ex", not "re-jex"; bin, not "bine"; and "lib", not "libe". I also say "lin-ux", not "lie-nux"; and "s-crypt", not "script".

<comment><USER3> Likewise on all but Linux, which I have pronounced "lee-nux" after a friend showed me <http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I doubt there is any such thing as "convention". Some words are pronounced phonetically and some as fragments of the words they were abbreviated or concatenated from; who's to say which is correct? People don't even apply their own pronunciation patterns consistently.</comment>


WWDC 2016 – Registration link - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> This link has been posted to HN before so it is registering as a dupe. But the same URL now works for 2016:

[https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/register/](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/register/)</comment>


Do you think launching here can hurt your startup credibility - <AUTHOR>

YC News is a great resource for startup entrepreneur or anyone in the startup and/or tech  environment. several entrepreneurs have launched their startup here, but when it happens it automatically makes me think it is another feature, or someone who wiped a tool in a few hours and throws it out to see if users will bite or not. do you think launching your startup here can hurt its credibility, making it look less serious then it could be? <comment><USER2> I can recall at least 3 startups (non-YC funded) which announced their launch here and went on to gain traction and good blog coverage. The quality of the product speaks for it self really. Some have been good, others weak. Regardless I dont think it has any affect on credibility of others announcing their launch here. The goal is just to show people what you've built and get feedback, right? If a product is truly good, it will gain dedicated users and begin its viral spread.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Launching" a company by relying on _any_ single site to drive traffic sounds like it could hurt credibility. Aren't exclusives for old Web 1.0 people?</comment>


On Tone Policing Linus Torvalds - <AUTHOR> http://manymachines.tumblr.com/post/108367431489/on-tone-policing-linus-torvalds-or-linus-torvalds

<comment><USER2> The problem is often Linus is right. He wrote the first version of git which is used by a world of programmers today. I'm sure a ton of smart but subtly less smart programmers would have had a lot of different opinions on its design. Had he compromised from his thoughts in this design, git wouldn't be where it is now. Same can be said for the linux kernel. In a way he is a bit like Steve Jobs, and if he were to compromise, or tried to be nicer or less reactive, the results of projects would be technically lesser.

Many people who don't like Linus' personality still use the linux kernel and git most of the time. They don't realize that the very reasons they disagree with him were at the roots of how he managed to get out such tools as the kernel and git.

In the discussion referred, Linus is opposing the fact that Mac OS X filesystem was "silently" changing uppercase characters in a filename to lowercase? Behind the back of the user. Now this is a bad design, but if you are not allergic to it as much as Linus is, then you would probably be OK with it. Then numerous technical mediocrities would creep in over time. He is reactive to issues he sees, and this is part of why what he does is at least technically superior.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author seems to think that Linus's aggressive tone only has a single effect on the community - to dissuade developers from contributing. It's possible that's true, but it's unlikely[1]. Things rarely have a single isolated effect on the world. It's entirely possible that the way Linus interacts with the community makes people stop and really think before they post lest they be 'flamed'. Or makes people more likely to group together for support from his 'burns'. Or keeps the community small enough to stop Linux becoming bloated (hmm..).

It's easy to focus on the downside of the way Linus writes his posts, but that doesn't mean there isn't an upside.

[1] This is an interesting example of the Principle of Double Effect - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect) \- The negative effect of writing aggressively is inseparable from the beneficial effect, consequently making the act good if posting is a good thing, if Linus is acting with good intentions, and if the downside of annoying people is less than the upside of being fiercely opinionated about the way Linux should evolve.

Thomas Aquinas writing 800 years ago about the morality of killing people in self-defence applied to whether or not flaming people on message boards is acceptable... This is why I love philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Genius computer programmers are often far out on the aspergers continuum. It's not reasonable to expect them to be polished in their social interactions.

Once I stopped taking life so seriously, I began to find this charming.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not really clear on what the point of this article was.

<comment><USER6> That Linus' approach to disagreement over technical matters is counterproductive.</comment></comment>


A New World Order for High-Growth Firms - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/03/24/a-new-world-order-for-high-growth-firms/

<comment><USER2> I have talked with Bo Fishback (VP of entrepreneurship) about this program briefly, and he certainly knows what's up. Kauffman Labs is going to be a mover and a shaker in our arenas. Technically this is old news, Kauffman Labs was announced in January, but Ken's gives a pleasant non-press-release write- up of the program.</comment>


Flexbox-layout: Flexbox for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/flexbox-layout <comment><USER2> This was much needed. I feel a bit disgusted to look at the attributes naming though. I dont work a lot with XML but why should an attribute be "layout_alignSelf"

and not

"layoutAlignSelf" or "layout_align_self" ?

This is a general rant and nothing specific to Flexbox.

<comment><USER3> The "layout_*" attributes are a bit special in that they are specified on an element, but are provided by the element's container. Rather than affecting the element and its children, such attributes affect the element's relationship with its container/siblings. So in this case, the attribute is "alignSelf", but it is defined and understood by FlexboxLayout rather than the TextView that specifies it.

Perhaps this isn't the best implementation of such namespacing (maybe they could've done something more with xmlns?) but I find the visual and semantic distinction useful when reading and writing layouts.

<comment><USER4> Is this distinction documented somewhere?

<comment><USER3> Not very well, but you can start with [1] and explore the LayoutParams hierarchy from there.

[1] [http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/declaring- layou...](http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/declaring- layout.html#layout-params)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> joe-stanton Couldn't this have built upon [https://github.com/facebook/css- layout](https://github.com/facebook/css-layout) ?

</comment><comment><USER5> its funny, I was searching for a library doing this a day ago :) I guess this is going to be mainstream soon, once the windowed mode gets out :)</comment>


Debunking the pseudoscience behind the "3D can't work" myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2282376/

<comment><USER2> Setting aside the ocular arguments, I think the Slate post overstates things here:

 _Take Toy Story 3: I've gone on record with my admiration for the scene at Daisy's window, where Lotso finds he's been replaced by another toy. There's no sight gag there, no objects hurtling off the screen; instead, the image contorts visual space into a crisscrossing, emotional depth. If the scene were flat, Lotso and Daisy would be right next to each other on the screen; in 3-D, they're spread across a lonely chasm, separated by rain-streaked glass._

I've seen Toy Story 3 in both 3D (IMAX) and 2D (home DVD), and the scene retains its poignancy (and potency) even on the small screen without the 3D apparatus. He's wrong when he says _"If the scene were flat, Lotso and Daisy would be right next to each other on the screen"_ \-- when the scene is flat, our brain stills views the scene as a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional situation, and inserts the gap between Lotso and Daisy.</comment>


Groupon leaks entire Indian user database - <AUTHOR> http://risky.biz/sosasta

<comment><USER2> _We have begun notifying our subscribers and advising them to change their Sosasta passwords as soon as possible. We will keep our Indian subscribers fully informed as we learn more._

This is a lie. Neither I nor my brother have heard from them. Keep in mind that this happened on Friday and it's already Tuesday here. In the meantime, I have been spammed about deals that I don't care about through e-mail and text messages four times.

<comment><USER3> I suppose we also have no verification that the passwords are no longer stored in plain text either, so changing it seems to be postponing the inevitable -- it is now a target for getting hacked again, with a delicious plain text payload as the reward for anyone doing it.

If my doctor was leaking my medical records left and right to advertisers around town, I would sue him... at some point leaking my online identity has to have some sort of repercussions behind it besides me getting online and being openly angry on the internet.

Yep, that'll do it ;)

ADDENDUM. Speak of the devil (another HN story): [http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/06/cloud-site- dro...](http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/06/cloud-site-dropbox- drops-the-ball.html)

<comment><USER4> > If my doctor was leaking my medical records left and right to advertisers > around town, I would sue him... at some point leaking my online identity has > to have some sort of repercussions behind it besides me getting online and > being openly angry on the internet.

What would you do ? sue them? The EULA you have accepted usually forbids it, or limits the amount of damages you can claim to a few bucks. I am not a lawyer, but i doubt such an EULA would be declared void in court.

<comment><USER5> Somehow, I think this wouldn't be the case. Otherwise, doctors would be throwing EULA agreements left and right, and saving millions on malpractice insurance fees.

<comment><USER6> They do. They are called waivers. You sign them all the time when using the health care system.

<comment><USER7> I've never seen a complete waiver of rights. What you typically sign is an agreement to try arbitration before (or instead of) suing in the courts. I don't believe it is possible to waive the ability to be penalized for negligence, just the venue the penalty is assessed in.

Of course, said arbiter is much less likely to give out a seven digit award than a jury is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the communication they sent. This is totally a lie - my email was in the database, and they have been only saying an issue potentially affecting them \</comment><comment>-

Hi SoSasta Subscriber,

Over this weekend, we've been alerted to a security issue potentially affecting subscribers of Sosasta. We wanted to let you know that the issue has been brought under control and your accounts are secure. However, as a precautionary measure, we recommend that you change your SoSasta password immediately, by visiting the SoSasta website (Sign-In using your existing password, then click on Profile followed by Change Password). If you use the same email/password combination at other websites, we recommend you change those passwords as soon as possible, too.

Please be aware that none of your financial information (Credit Card, Debit Card, NetBanking etc) has been compromised since this information is not stored on SoSasta, as per law.

If you have any concerns or find any unusual changes in your SoSasta account, please contact our Customer Support team as soon as possible at 1800 103 2111 between 9.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. IST, Monday to Saturday so that we can review your account.

You should know that we are working aggressively to prevent this from happening again. Sosasta takes security and privacy very seriously -- it's important to us to provide you with a safe shopping experience of the highest quality, and we will do everything possible to keep your trust. Please accept our apology for any inconvenience or concern we've caused.

Sincerely, SoSasta Customer Support

<comment><USER9> Was your password in plaintext? Just to confirm what others have been saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> as we are currently groupon bashing, take a look at groupon.de (germany) <http://www.groupon.de/deals/berlin>

scroll down ... down ... down ... there it is (gray text on black background), the crappiest example of SEO i have seen in a long long time. keyword stuffing is so 2004.

"Berlin ist als Hauptstadt der Bundesrepublik bekannt für seine Sehenswürdigkeiten und das umfassende Angebot an Freizeit-Aktivitäten. ... ... Berlin Deal ... ... Rabatten ... ... Geld zu sparen... ... Gutschein ...bla ... ... Angebote des Berlin Deals ... ... Wellness-Angeboten ... ... Restaurantgutscheinen.... ... .Freizeiterlebnisse, Events und Dienstleistungen in Berlin ... ... Shopping und Online Shop. ... ... Berlin Gutscheine ... ... "

i would have guessed that a multi billion dollar company could at least hire a decent SEO guy.

<comment><USER11> While arguably interesting, I don't see how this is related to the linked password leak

<comment><USER10> yeah, i know, but shitty SEO is not worth a separate 'submit' - also the overall theme of this thread is 'just another poor business decision / f*ck up by groupon' and this seems to fit the bill

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can guess, how this can happen.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- First,Take the db dump, for backups/setting up another server etc.

$ mysqldump -u <user> -p <password> <db name> > xyz.sql

Now, lets move db dump file to webroot, I hate SSH,FTP,RSYNC -- too complicated for me. I like clicking hyperlinks. KISS FTW!

I guess nobody will notice that file is present here. How can they know, I won't tell them!

$ mv xyz.sql public_html/uploaded/users

now, I can download it simply by going to

<http://www.sosasta.com/uploaded/users/xyz.sql>

See how easy this is, why complicate things unnecessarily.

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

I guess the guy wouldn't have even imagined mighty google will index this & people from around will download the file, resulting in major security breach.

This is what you get when you act ignorant or plain lazy. poor guy...lol

<comment><USER13> > This is what you get when you act ignorant or plain lazy.

Or, in general case[1], when 'industry standard' tools are PITA to use. Simpler solutions are always preferred, for better or worse.

[1] I'm not defending here the person that caused the SoSasta breach.

EDIT: Formatting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ok my mouth is literally a-gape at the number of database dumps indexed by Google. I guess I just never thought of searching for something so simple and now I'm floored at how often this seems to happen. How does anyone possibly allow a data dump to come anywhere near somewhere Google could index it?

<comment><USER15> > How does anyone possibly allow a data dump to come anywhere near somewhere > Google could index it?

Let me just put this sql dump in the web root for a couple hours to copy over to the test server.

<comment><USER16> Google also has to know that the file is there, before indexing it, either from a link available to Google, or from the website's sitemap, or by activating directory listing in Apache, or some other shit like that.

<comment><USER17> This is very simple. If you're using Chrome Browser, ChromeOS, or Google Toolbar, then google is using their pagerank tech ... or essentially sending the url you type into the browser to their servers for ranking purposes. If you can access it freely on the net, assume it is already indexed, even if there are no links to it.

<comment><USER18> Is this true? Can you (or anyone) point to some kind of reference or evidence? If valid, I'd consider this an almost dangerous breach of privacy.

<comment><USER17> As requested:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#The_intentional_surfer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#The_intentional_surfer_model)

> The Google toolbar sends information to Google for every page visited, and > thereby provides a basis for computing PageRank based on the intentional > surfer model.

For it to display a pagerank, it has to send the url to Google (otherwise, how is it going to know what to display the rank for?). Google can then send the crawler to that address later.

> If valid, I'd consider this an almost dangerous breach of privacy.

I don't believe they monitor who is going where. Just where people are going. Although it would be trivial for them to monitor who is going where ...

Also, an FYI, if you are logged in to Google and you're using their search engine, then they ARE monitoring you. Check out Google Web History.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the link.

I was concerned more with content indexing of URLs that are not meant to be public, to the point where that content could show in search results. Imagine my editor emails me a link to a blog article for approval before publishing. Or, as a designer, you create a draft of a web page to show to your client; and for the convenience of said client, you prefer not to have it password protected (nor take the time to set it up - you have enough to do!)

In both cases, imagine that someone loads the URL in their Chrome browser. If that action resulted in the URL being added to the googlebot's itinerary, even though no publicly visible webpage links to it, the result could be the exposure of information that we don't want. Or for the blog post example, it could even affect SEO by causing a duplicate content penalty.

Of course we can password protect the page, exclude the urls in robots.txt, etc. But there is a labor cost and inconvenience to having to do that, and there is always risk that something would slip through.

That said, what I write above is likely pure speculation; I don't know of any evidence that Google is actually doing this, and it seems unlikely to me that they would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did anyone manage to get a copy of the sql file? A password analysis of a largely Indian audience could be pretty interesting.

<comment><USER5> I'm mostly wondering if their usernames and passwords are strictly ascii, or if they're using another alphabet.

<comment><USER20> Most Indian computers I've seen are standard American or British layouts. India has a lot of English speakers [1] and most computer-savvy folk, especially the kind that use Groupon will definitely know enough English to use English usernames and passwords.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English- sp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English- speaking_population)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Incidents like this make me think that if success is anything to do with talent? Even a mediocre developer wouldn't do such mistake and these people are acquired by Groupon. Then, I think, it's all about who you know ?

<comment><USER22> As you get older, you realize the world isn't a meritocracy. Only the young, poor, and/or foolish will believe that.

<comment><USER23> If you're lucky, you might also realize that being condescending is alienating and a bad way to get your point across.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sosasta means "so cheap" in Hindi. Maybe they are too cheap to spend any effort on security of their users' data.

<comment><USER25> Sasta means cheap ... the so is English ;)

<comment><USER26> But the intended meaning is 'so cheap'.

<comment><USER27> Sosastaa == too cheap

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In clear text? Really? How is this even allowed anymore?

<comment><USER29> And indexed by Google. That is terrible.

<comment><USER30> It might have been good that it was indexed by Google so that the problem was found quicker. Completely agree about how can cleartext be allowed. Harder to regulate overseas, but would it be possible to have an actual law in the USA against storing passwords and other confidential in cleartext? There are various consumer protections such as food, cars, toys, and could similar things be legislated for data?

<comment><USER31> Of course. Keywords: PCI, MIPSA/HIPAA, etc.

More: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Information_p...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Information_privacy)

<comment><USER30> Yes, my impression is that passwords are not treated with the same seriousness as say credit card numbers, or health info. That (passwords) was actually what I was curious about, before I generalized my comment.

<comment><USER29> Passwords are one of the safeguards (perhaps the most important) that protect personal/sensitive data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Heads outta roll for this one. The dev, the supervisor, his supervisor. Probably all the way up to VP.

It's a stupid, boneheaded mistake, but one of those that could only be made in an environment where security is extremely lax. Easiest way to fix the environment here is to just fire everyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER33> Continuing on that line of thought - a simple search like 'filetype:sql phpmyadmin' also shows a lot of 'interesting' results.

</comment><comment><USER34> Maybe Google should start working with security firm so that once their bots crawled on a leaked database they will notify the website owner immediately.

<comment><USER9> I think Google would rather just not index such data.

<comment> mike-cardwell I can't think of a reason why Google would care... I certainly can't think of a reason why Google would care enough to spend money on staff/research in order to get that type of content out of the index.

If you don't want something indexed, don't put it on the web. And sure as hell don't link to it.

<comment><USER24> True, if you are incompetent enough to expose your most sensitive data on the internet yourself, why do you expect others to come to your aid. Even if Google does not index it, what is stopping other search engines from indexing or hackers to get access to it directly. There are lot of tools which will automatically index all the content of a website with the click of a button. So I think it is best to put the onus on the website collecting the user data to protect it. If they cannot, then maybe they should just use some third party authentication and minimize the amount of sensitive data that they need to keep on their servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If Companies itself ready for compromising there email id and password then who can protect them. Hacker's just shown there mistakes done to the people. Otherwise a small child knows well how to hide his password from the other people.

</comment><comment><USER36> anybody got that sql?

<comment><USER37> All the data has been removed and only exists in sha1 hash form but you can see if you were affected at <https://shouldichangemypassword.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am not normally in favor of legislation, but I'd be okay with a fine for US- based companies that leak and expose this kind of data. Specifically a harsher fine for cleartext or anything less than bcrypt.

<comment><USER39> nothing is gonna happen to Groupon (or the indian subsidiary). OTOH, Dropbox just got hit with a class action lawsuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Your User Information - 100% Off!

</comment><comment><USER41> Sue this irresponsible company into oblivion.</comment>


Bill Gates Recalls Rivalry with 'genius' Steve Jobs on Desert Island Discs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/31/bill-gates-recalls-rivalry-steve-jobs-desert-island-discs <comment><USER2> both are the legends and will be remembered forever. Great rivals and have respect for each other.</comment>


Ask HN:do you read other's code? - <AUTHOR>

hi i'm a 17 years old guy who have started programming in my free time using the java programming  language . recently i got a little curious about wenether programmers tend read code that they haven't written (open source project on the web ?) so i touht to ask the HN community.
 do you read other's code ? if yes how often ? and do you apreciate that moment or is it just to get to how to make something specific? <comment><USER2> Reading other developers code could be the best way to learn programming. You always find some creative way someone did to solve a problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work as a software developer. I would say that I read other people's code quite often, depending on what I am doing.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a developer, we review each other's code to spread knowledge across the team and catch mistakes early.

</comment><comment><USER5> Downloading and unzipping code can be a hassle, so I just head over to Pastebin and read code there.

</comment><comment><USER6> At work I read about 10x more code than I write.</comment>


Migrating a large site from SQL Server to MongoDB - Lessons Learned - <AUTHOR>

SQL and NoSQL are different tools for different jobs. A couple of months ago we migrated a large site from SQL Server to MongoDB, it was a bumpy road and I decided to write this article to share what we learned: http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read <comment><USER2> I'm shocked and mortified ... Check out <http://bit.ly/v1cznd>

Why would you conclude that MongoDB was "fast" and SQL Server was slow? Did you run SQL server on the same SSD's and multiple HDD's?

to willvarfar's comments, what was the real fsync cost and didn't you get ACID with SQL Server? Now, if ACID is not really required, and you really really need flexible schemas, then by all means ... I understand that you want distributed-queryable-notepad, not a relational database!

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I never said SQL Server is slow - it isn't, anyone that would say otherwise must have an agenda, which is not my case. SQL Server is an incredible database and it has served us well.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also hosted a Q&A about our experience here on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141331>

</comment><comment><USER3> Clickable: <http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks byoung2!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So do you have fsync enabled?

<comment><AUTHOR> fsync is enabled for the vast majority of calls and it is our default setting. Disabling fsync should be treated as case-by-case optimization IMO

<comment><USER5> I assume when people talk about fsync, they actually mean journaling?

I'm not sure if there's ever a good reason to use {fsync: true} vs {j: true}

<comment><AUTHOR> Fsync means "wait for acknowledgement after each request", if Fsync is off, all calls are fire-and-forget, no errors are reported. There are a few Fsync levels though, you can use it to make the call block until the data has been relayed to at least N other nodes.

<comment><USER5> no, fsync means wait for the data file to be synced to disk. {safe:true} is what you are talking about. {j:true} is probably what yo should be using, {w:majority} is also important, and {fsync:true} is the data file option

I think given that one of the parameters is called "fsync" using "fsync" should mean that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes latch, you are correct, thank you</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nintendo system with HD graphics to be revealed this month - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/report-nintendo-system-with-hd-graphics-to-be-revealed-this-month.ars

<comment><USER2> I'd love to see Nintendo take a real chance and jump into another space — be it mobile phones or even making their version of a desktop computer.</comment>


Pebble takes on Apple App Review - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises/posts/1251424

<comment><AUTHOR> Given the infamous 'running to the press and trashing us' clause, sadly I don't think this will help their cause. However, if you've been in review for 43 days, I guess there's nothing else you can do.

</comment><comment><USER2> Can anyone say how long a typical Apple app review takes? Even ballpark. I just want to know if 43 days is unusually high or pretty normal for them. Seems high to me, but I've never submitted an app to Apple so...

<comment><USER3> It's normally ~10 days, with most of that time in the "Waiting for Review" state, and then just one day for the "In Review" state.

There's a public statistic on [http://appreviewtimes.com/](http://appreviewtimes.com/) driven by people tweeting their review times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> #FreeOurPebbleTime</comment>


FF3 user reported bug about SSL certificate warning - <AUTHOR> http://email@example.com/msg04900.html

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, there is no solution for stubborn, ignorant users who refuse to read or understand what the computer is trying to tell them...

The single biggest obstacle here is not that Firefox couldn't convey the problem to the user, but that the user didn't pay any attention to what Firefox was trying to tell them. When the user thinks they're always right, the software can never tell them otherwise...

Granted, I hate FF3's cert complaining process and I'm sure it could be improved, but no matter what you do, short of refusing to accept bad certs, this problem will continue to occur.

Oh, and Mozilla, while you try to fix this, will you _please_ add the CACert root certificate to your browser? For the love of God, why should I trust a $5000 certificate from an automated purchase with Verisign any more than a free certificate verified by community members?

Edit: the first reply seems to be a better / more thorough explanation of the point I was trying to make: [http://www.mail-archive.com/dev-tech- firstname.lastname@example.com...](http://www.mail-archive.com/dev-tech- email@example.com/msg04902.html)

<comment><USER3> It's always easy to blame the user, but without a complete mental model, they have no idea why they're getting these warnings, and they've gotten them enough in the past (try going to <https://paypal.com/>) that they think they aren't significant.

This is a usability failing, pure and simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Long story short: user received the ominous FF3 self-signed cert warning for every site she visited. The problem: the sites weren't using self-signed certs; she was the victim of a MITM attack. Because that's what a MITM attack looks like: indistinguishable from a self-signed cert.

The moral: FF3's self-signed cert warning isn't ominous _enough_.</comment>


Ruby, Smalltalk and Class Variables - <AUTHOR> http://patshaughnessy.net/2012/12/17/ruby-smalltalk-and-class-variables

<comment><USER2> Towards the end of this article there is a reference to the 'metaclasss'. It should probably be noted that the prefered terminology in the Ruby community now is 'singleton class' and not 'metaclass'.

For quite a while there was little agreement on this name because there was no standard method that could be called to return the singleton class and therefore no agreed upon name. The only access was via syntax:

      (class <<object; self; end)

The results of this expression were called metaclass, eigenclass, singleton class, and probably a few more names.

There is now a standard method:

      object.singleton_class

and so, for the most part, the naming confusion is fading away.

<comment><USER3> Thanks Gary... yea and all of these things more or less mean the same thing.

At a more technical, detailed level, however, the Ruby core team uses both the term "metaclass" (in the same sense Smalltalk uses it - the class of a class), and the term "singleton" (the hidden class of a single object instance). You can see what I mean by looking through the MRI class.c source file.

<comment><USER2> Yep and that was one of the reasons that the naming confusion persisted for so long.

<comment><USER4> Also one of the reasons it's a little bit annoying that they picked a term that already had a different meaning not only within the wider context of programming in general, but within their own language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is one of the areas that prototype-based languages simplifies although access issues might trouble class lovers. I do miss NewtonScript for some things.

Example: I create an object called Polygon with the intent to use it as a prototype. I assign the variable sides with a value of 10. So, anything with a parent pointer of Polygon gets 10. I then create Triangle from Polygon and assign sides = 3. It doesn't affect Polygon (which has its own variable), but anything that has a parent pointer of Triangles get the 3.

<comment><USER6> Making that simple is not necessarily limited to prototype-based languages. Another (as good as) dead language of Apple's design, Dylan, is class-based, but has a 'each-subclass' modifier that makes a slot magically appear new in each subclass. You would have to design your polygon class for that, though; it is not something that triangle could magically add.

<comment><USER5> It is too bad someone hasn't gone back a released a retooled, s-expr version of Dylan. It was an interesting language. People should read the manual (infix) just to see how they did macros.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd never read the linked Alan Kay paper about the development of Smalltalk [1]. It's fascinating!

I've been trying for awhile to find readings or videos (or anything, really) about those early days at ARPA and then PARC. Especially the detailed discussion of the smalltalk development. The names and stories are also pretty neat to read, and have already inspired a few ideas personally.

[1] [http://www.smalltalk.org/smalltalk/TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltal...](http://www.smalltalk.org/smalltalk/TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk_Abstract.html)

<comment><USER3> I agree - it's an amazing narrative of an interesting time. I wonder if contacting Xerox directly would lead to some more historical archives?

</comment></comment><comment> why-el This was also discussed five years ago in this great post by Martin Fowler: <http://martinfowler.com/bliki/ClassInstanceVariable.html>

<comment><USER3> Yea it's been a source of discussion (and confusion) for years. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In the Perl/Moose world, class variables (attributes) are regarded as _a broken concept_ : <http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=690482>

ref: _stvn_ == "Stevan Little" who is the creator of Moose (<https://metacpan.org/module/Moose>) & and it's MOP underpinnings (<https://metacpan.org/module/Class::MOP>)

</comment><comment><USER9> In Kay's Smalltalk, humans never saw code like that in the article: they defined classes, variables and methods through a graphical interface. The verbose syntax was for computers to read, when you saved code on one machine and loaded it on another. Humans only had to write this stuff after Gnu released a text-only interpreter; the subset of Smalltalk syntax that was originally intended for human use is pretty clear.</comment>


Bing Maps at TED - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQzimblL3g8

<comment><AUTHOR> The new Silverlight-based Bing Maps are absolutely incredible. This video also includes a cool demo of Photosynth running off a _live_ video stream to the browser. Augmented reality: here we come!</comment>


What to Expect When Being Featured on Google Play - <AUTHOR> http://ryanharter.com/blog/2013/08/20/what-to-expect-when-being-featured-on-google-play/

<comment><USER2> He mentioned that he was doing 12 requests per second, and it was costing him $10/day on App Engine. I rent a server from Rackspace, and do volume in the 12 requests per second range, and including bandwidth this costs me under $40/mo. Am I doing the math wrong, or is App engine kinda expensive compared to rolling your own solutions with virtual private servers?

<comment><USER3> It definitely can be, if you write your app assuming that you are working with a traditional server. You're very directly charged for writing inefficient apps. I have a moderately popular app running on the AppEngine right now that initially had similar cost problems, but spending a few days with the cost profiler can resolve most issues. You have to be particularly smart about caching and datastore queries. What I found in the end was that after proper optimization, I was able to get a better value out of the app engine than with a normal VPS - but it definitely takes some extra work to get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am surprised that number of downloads for featured app is so low. Typically for Games and Entertainment apps when its trending it gets anywhere from 10K to 75K downloads a day on Android. We got some entertainment apps featured about 15 months back and got 20K downloads per day.

Downloads on Featured apps depends on category of app and other features like Icon, Screenshots etc.

<comment><USER5> I imagine games are different because people who own games still tend to buy games. Someone who already has a note taking app that works for him is less likely to try another one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I enjoyed the article. Kudos on rewriting your server to be more performant and efficient. It's amazing what a motivated dev can do in a weekend, and it's a great reminder of how much room there often is for optimizing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks James. I wish it hadn't been in a panic mode, but it worked out well and the users have told me they really like the new backend. The Mobile Backend Starter was a great starting point, but I needed something optimized for my app and didn't want to disappoint new users. Passionate users really are a great motivator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome. It's a welcome relief to see a happy story of an independent developer, instead of the sad endings that we are so used to when we see such titles. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jagat, I have had a great experience as an Android developer and working hard to make a product that people like has been a fun thing to do. Getting emails every day from users that like the app, even though they usually ask for a feature or two, is a great motivator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My app was on the 'Trending' section of Google Play a couple of months ago and in comparison I received about 1,200 downloads. Trending is only featured for 24 hours and does not have as good of a placement on the store, however.

Edit: Number of downloads is more than I originally put. The graph I was looking at is downloads by day - I thought it was total downloads.

</comment><comment><USER9> Did you do any other marketing when your app first launched? Being featured on Play is great, but what did you do in general to just get your application some awareness?

</comment><comment><USER10> It appears like a shameless self-plug article about the developers app.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess it sort of is, hOOk, though I'm not sure how to write about my specific experience without it being just that.

Before my app was featured, I was looking online for two pieces of information, how to get featured and how many downloads I could get from being featured.

All I could find for how to get featured was "make a good app", turns out that part is true.

I couldn't find anything for what to expect as a result of being featured. Some people shared general looking graphs, but I'm sharing actual numbers so that people can have an idea of the process, and the result, of being featured.

<comment><USER11> Sometimes HN is quite appropriately nicknamed Hater News, and we're also no less likely to get trolls than any other community!

Thank you for an amazing write-up. I wish more developers would open up about their experiences in public!</comment></comment></comment>


NGINX passive cache invalidation - <AUTHOR> http://syshero.org/post/68479556365/nginx-passive-cache-invalidation

<comment><USER2> Love seeing creative web architectures with nginx + lua like this, nicely done.

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


2 bash tricks - <AUTHOR> http://paulitex.tumblr.com/post/5903359530/2-bash-tricks

<comment><USER2> I can't see what either of these "tricks" have to do with bash, they would work in csh, tcsh, zsh, sh etc.

<comment><USER3> Sure, they are actually "shell tricks". I think he just happens to use bash, that's all, no slight to the other shells.</comment></comment>