Zuckerberg: Facebook Will Have A Business Plan In Three Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/zuckerberg-facebook-will-have-a-business-plan-in-three-years <comment><USER2> I'm not going to make a comment on whether or not FB can be profitable... but here is some doom and gloom comedy if you believe we're in a monsoon of a shit storm:

Employers will cut staff, trim the fat, and leave only the super productive. Businesses will put a stop on productivity leaks, this means the 18-20 people on my FB buddy list (99% of which have graduated) at 1pm on a Thursday will have to call it quits, or lose their job.

College students will be faced with a credit squeeze, halt their $30-40 a month @home internet and return to using school provided connectivity, making them a far less connected market.

Fb traffic declines, advertising expenditures are cut... Fb and Pets.com become soul mates.

Just kidding... :)

<comment><USER3> OR... because the job market is in the crapper, kids will extend their college visits, giving them several more years to waste networking on sites like FB, thereby keeping FB's valuation high and their profits coming when the markets rebound just in time for their "revenue plan"

<comment><USER2> That assumes they have access to credit and loans to extend their hiatus. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're now in a recession and branding budgets are almost always the first things that big companies cut. This is Facebook's bread & butter. Facebook will need to make some heavy cuts if they plan on searching for another three years.

<comment><USER5> > We're now in a recession and branding budgets are almost always the first > things that big companies cut.

Does/will Coke cut its branding budget?

I think that there are very few companies with valuable brands. (Sony might have one, but how many people buy something because it says Pioneer on the box?) The rest may have some name recognition, but that doesn't move much product.

<comment><USER4> > Does/will Coke cut its branding budget?

Yes, of course. They all do. When you have less demand and people have less disposable income, you tend to put more money into measurable advertising that can directly impact the bottom line. I think you'll agree that Coke's brand is safe and as Buffett says, the moat is very, very wide indeed so to them, cutting branding budget will not show any impact for at least 2-3 quarters.

<comment><USER6> Coke is almost 100% a branding company. The sugary water distribution and manufacture is franchised in most territories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It does say

"In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is."

There is a difference between being not profitable, and being optimally profitable.

*started with the wrong markup

</comment><comment><USER8> Last week I tried to buy some FB ads ... couldn't get past the setup/purchase screens (was improperly validating my info).

Do I have to wait 3 years for that to work?

</comment><comment><USER9> Current business plan (apparently only slightly facetious):

1\. Get everybody on Facebook 2\. Create a huge map detailing how everybody relates to everybody else. 3\. ???? 4\. Profit

I always figured that there were smarter people than me working on step 3, but maybe there weren't.

Maps of the non-social kind are useful because they can be bought and used to get to places you've never been to. Maps of the social kind are apparently useless because everybody wants their privacy and you're basically left with a map telling you where you are and what's within two steps walking distance.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm going to call it right here right now: Facebook will be irrelevant 3 years from now.

<comment><USER11> Why do you say that? Do you think people are going to lose interest in the things they do on Facebook, or do you think a new competitor is going to provide a product sufficiently better than Facebook to take over the market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are few people that I would rather see fall into a fiery downfall of fail more than Zuckerberg. Maybe he'll wise up and take the cash before it's too late.

<comment><USER13> Zuckerburg and Facebook as a business might fail, but it's still used by MILLIONS of college students all over. If Zuckerburg can't make a business out of millions of eyeballs, somebody will buy their husk of an indebted corpse and take a shot at it.

<comment><USER14> Yeah. I can't see Facebook going down without a massive fight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps it's still too early to tell, but this certainly does read a bit differently now than it did when I wrote it two years ago.

<http://www.aarongreenspan.com/letter>

<comment><USER16> let it go

<comment><USER14> Yeah. That's history by now. Give it a rest.

<comment><USER15> Two points:

A) Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

B) The point of my posting the link wasn't to remind anyone of the personal history. It was that as a business decision, Facebook not accepting Yahoo's buyout offer looked brilliant in 2006 and 2007, but now looks questionable (at best). Who knows what Yahoo can or can't afford at this point, let alone $100 per user.

<comment><USER14> I think Zuckerberg is pretty adamantly against selling. Money or no money, he's currently got the keys to the one web site that every college student is coming to rely on. That gives him a lot of power, and it gives him a lot of leeway with trying to make money. So, as of right now, he's still in a pretty good position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Three years?!</comment>


Ask HN: What stationary are you using? - <AUTHOR> Moleskine notebooks are a given.<p>But I'm struggling to find a good pen and pencil for every day use. Any suggestions? <comment><USER3> I found out, just yesterday, that it is stationery (with an ery) when talking about office supplies and stationary (with an ary) when talking about something that isn't moving. I'm not a grammar nazi and I don't care how people spell it at all, I was just interested that after years I had always been getting it wrong, so I am just sharing it here!

<comment><USER4> The mnemonic I remember being taught is this:

Stationery with an 'E' is for Envelopes and such

Stationary with an 'A' is when you Ain't moving much

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just FYI... I know it is considered uncool to correct writing, and I'm often told that grammar is irrelevant these days. I don't mean to be that guy, but I also don't believe grammar is irrelevant. Personally, I always get briefly confused when I read the wrong word. ("Stationary _what_?" \-- I thought briefly you might be talking about a stationary bicycle.)

[http://grammarist.com/usage/stationary- stationery/](http://grammarist.com/usage/stationary-stationery/)

<comment><USER6> Man, it kinda bums me out that we have to be so guarded these days when just trying to help someone by correcting an honest mistake.

The trolls ruin these things for the rest of us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For an everday pen, I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen[0] with an extra-fine nib. For a pencil I use a Pentel GraphGear 1000[1] in 0.5mm.

[0] [http://www.lamy.com/eng/b2c/safari/017](http://www.lamy.com/eng/b2c/safari/017)

[1] [http://www.pentel.com/store/graphgear-1000](http://www.pentel.com/store/graphgear-1000)

<comment><USER8> Hi.

Question regarding your Safari -- does it carry well ? For example, can you toss it in a courier bag and tote it around safely without it leaking ink, or having some other fountain-pen-specific problem happening ?

<comment><USER7> To be honest, I haven't really tried that, so I can't say for sure. I usually carry mine clipped to my shirt or sportcoat pocket. The only time I had an ink leakage issue was when I dropped it from about stomach-height and the ink reservoir came slightly loose and there was some leaking a few days later. So now I just give it a quick check if I've dropped it, to be sure nothing came loose. I've dropped it more than once, and it's only had a problem that one time.

I have also flown with it numerous times. I have the ink convertor, and I squeeze out the air (or make sure it's full of ink) before I fly, and have had no problems. I have even written with it in-flight, without issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> By way of pen, I use a Parker Vector ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parker-Vector- Stainless-Medium-Fount...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parker-Vector-Stainless- Medium-Fountain/dp/B002756BGI)). The plastic ones tend to break - avoid! - <USER2> the stainless steel ones are excellent: durable, attractive and well priced. Good ink flow and a nice thick line from the nib. The Parker blue and black inks have a watery cast that I've always liked too.

I don't use pencils.

It's probably UK only, but for note pads, I use the Pukka Pad Jotta ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pukka-Pad-Notebook-Wirebound- Jotta/d...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pukka-Pad-Notebook-Wirebound- Jotta/dp/B001JYKVJQ) \- reasonably priced, I think, but cheaper again at Costco if you're a member. Also available with squares rather than lines, albeit at higher cost). Inexpensive everyday notepad with good quality paper. Adequate construction quality. Spiral binding allows you to have it laid flat or folded back on itself.

(If you sit at a desk, and work somewhere where people won't mind if you have notepads that are purely functional, I rate these higher than Moleskines. They are cheap (but not crap), and cheap (but not crap) is good! You can't have too much notepaper.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Moleskin notebooks are OK, but I much prefer Leuchtturm1917 ([https://www.leuchtturm1917.com](https://www.leuchtturm1917.com)) which are available blank, ruled, squared, and dots. I like the dots as I am neatness challenged when writing. I also like the Fabriano Misto Carta notebooks, particularly the gluebound A5 stars version which allows pages to be easily separated.

I use a variety of pens and pencils--my brief case usually has a substantial selection, enough to start a small writing instrument store. Lately I have been using Pentel CLICK 0.7 pencils available from Costco. They are nice for fine detail and have a substantial eraser. They have a very different feel from the iconic Blackwing 602 Palomino wooden pencils which I use for hand written drafts.

</comment><comment><USER11> Paper: Modnotebook

Interesting product. It's a regular moleskin, but it comes with an envelope so you can mail it in and the notebook will be scanned and put into a cloud account for you in various formats. Then the notebook will be mailed back to you. I find this to be a great way to preserve ideas and drawings.

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

Pencils: I'm an artist as well as developer, so I'm extremely picky about my mechanical pencils. My number one requirement is the need for a replaceable twist-up eraser. I burn through erasers like no other, so having a long eraser that you can twist up as it's depleted is a necessity.

Paper Mate Clear Point 0.5mm [http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Mate-Mechanical- Assorted-34666PP...](http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Mate-Mechanical- Assorted-34666PP/dp/B001PV2KYM/ref=pd_sim_229_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HKHGPYXTZQA5YWRAMJ4)

Pentel Twist-Erase III 0.5mm [http://www.amazon.com/Pentel-Twist-Erase- Automatic-Assorted-...](http://www.amazon.com/Pentel-Twist-Erase-Automatic- Assorted- QE515BP2-K6/dp/B0034QTFXU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1437064265&sr=8-2&keywords=mechanical+pencil+twist+eraser&pebp=1437064272016&perid=0S302WEGBYYJS3TS9RZ2)

There are pros and cons to each of these. The Twist-Erase III's are more durable and there is more friction that keeps the eraser put. The Clear Point can break if you step on it or simply wear down from use. You'll also find yourself twisting the eraser back out as it likes to twist back down over time. The main advantage of the Clear Point is that the nib retracts completely so you don't stab yourself when you put it in your pocket. I can't tell you how many times I've been stabbed by the Twist-Erase III. The quality of both of their erasers is good.

I'm very much 50/50 on these two. I will say that I won't use anything but these.

Pens: I do not use pens.

<comment><USER12> I've always loved the idea of Modnotebook. The blocker for me was always the thought of my notebook being lost while shipping it back to them, before it's been digitized. Glad to see someone using it happily though.

<comment><USER11> I have that fear as well! But I live in the same city as the founders, so I'm sure I could track them down if necessary. I believe there is tracking on the postage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've tried a lot of pens, from fountain, to regular ballpoint, Fisher to Parker, and I'm yet to find a better pen than the Pilot G2 Retractable.

It doesn't look "fancy" but it is effectively a ballpoint pen than glides across the page. It is retractable so no caps, and it doesn't have a stupid thick stalk like some so called "premium" pens (so they're easy to hold for long durations).

Yet as much as I love these pens, they're only $12 for a box of twelve. Hardly super expensive.

I discovered them in what Americans would call "High School" and used them all throughout University and haven't stopped since. They're now my pen of choice. I have a whole draw of more expensive pens, but the G2's are the workhorse that gets it done.

PS - Yes, fountain pens glide across the page too. But I got tired of the mess/hassle.

PPS - My Parker Stainless Steel Classic is likely my favorite LOOKING pen. It is the same as the Parker Stainless Steel they still sell, but has a touch of gold leaf on the clip and cap. As much as I like the look of both the Parker Stainless Steel AND the Stainless Steel Classic, the G2 is simply better for actual writing.

<comment><USER14> |Pilot G2 Retractable

Excellent choice, I get a dozen or two of black and blue each year and probably one of red. Feels great to write with, clean lines, really nice and very economical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My notepad of choice is the Rhodia dot pad. They're bound on the top of the page so they're good at laying flat, and I've never had an ink bleed through the paper. As far as pens I use a Pilot Metropolitan with Noodler's black ink. However, I'm really lazy with refilling it so I tend to default to the PaperMate InkJoy pens that my office gets.

<comment><USER16> Second this. I use the Rhodia Grid, only recently, and love the paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pilot G-2 0.38 (I like the thin line) + Pentel Twist-Erase 0.5 (I like unique combo of mechanical pencil and full-size eraser)

</comment><comment><USER5> I have kind of gone off Moleskines due to their price and low page count. For my software development work, I've recently taken to buying 9x12 sketchbooks (Canson artist series at the moment, but sometimes whatever is on sale at Michael's) and I use these for notes, and especially for state machine diagrams, flow charts, charts, etc. Occasionally the results are even pretty, but mostly they just become a mess. That's OK. My pens are "Paper Mate® Flair® Felt Tip Pens, Medium Point, Black" and I buy them in bulk since I am always using them up and occasionally losing them.

I have at times had various fetishes for mechanical pencils and fountain pens but that way can lie madness, so this is sort of the antidote to keep me grounded in a state of "just write it, dude, stop fussing with your tools."

</comment><comment><USER18> Whatever gel pen my employer's supply closet contains.

A 5x8 tear-off notepad, ruled.

Postits.

A lab notebook for when it matters. It mostly doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well working in gov't I have a wide array of Skillcraft products, some are ok. So if I don't have to pay for the pens I request the Precision 305, it's not bad. But I mostly use Uni-ball Signo 207 pens ([http://www.amazon.com/uni- ball-Retractable-Translucent-12-Pa...](http://www.amazon.com/uni-ball- Retractable-Translucent-12-Pack-33950/dp/B000FDR47E)). I could care less about how someone couldn't wash away the ink but I really like how they write.

As for paper products I just use whatever skillcraft steno pads are available.

</comment><comment><USER20> I like using mechanical pencils over pens for everyday notes, although I'm probably in the minority. My goto one is the Uni-ball KuruToga Mechanical Pencil [http://amzn.com/B0026ICM1E](http://amzn.com/B0026ICM1E)

There's also a slightly more expensive metal version: [http://amzn.com/B004OHNTVC](http://amzn.com/B004OHNTVC)

I have both, but oddly enough I prefer the lighter weight of the cheap plastic one. Just feels more comfortable to write with for me.

<comment><USER21> My favourite is the Papermate Pacer: [http://www.inkman.com.au/items.asp?id=54523&gclid=CPyZm6GF4M...](http://www.inkman.com.au/items.asp?id=54523&gclid=CPyZm6GF4MYCFUgIvAodV9QG1w)

Especially if you like spinning pens/pencils, the tapered tip makes it much less prone to accidental stabbing from a bad spin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Rhodia notebooks are awesome. Lovely quality paper. I can write in a fountain pen and not have any bleed - so much nicer to be able to use both sides of the paper. I alternate between orange and black for different projects. The grid has a unique layout I like - [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DC5NW4?psc=1&redirect=t...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DC5NW4?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01)

</comment><comment><USER22> Pentel p205. (sometimes 207)

I don't use pen.

edit: [http://davesmechanicalpencils.blogspot.co.uk/](http://davesmechanicalpencils.blogspot.co.uk/) is a good resource for reviews of mechanical pencils and erasers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Parker fountain pen with an italic nib, and a notebook with squared paper pages.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use a different notebook, a Black n' Red wirebound hardcover, 8-1/4 x 5-7/8 Inches.

I usually use a Pilot Hi-Tec-C (0.3mm) pen and a Pentel Sharp (0.9mm) mechanical pencil with a polymer block eraser.

<comment><USER19> I've seen thos Black n' Red notebooks in our stationery store, but in 8.5 x 11. Have you been using them for a while?

<comment><USER24> Yep! I haven't found a nicer spiral-bound type notebook, the paper is heavy and smooth and the size is comfortably constrained.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I use my Fisher Space Pen almost exclusively. It hasn't let me down.

</comment><comment><USER26> Pen: Uni Pin fine line. 0.1mm is my go to for general day to day use, anything over 0.5mm tends to be too thick for writing.

Pad: whitelines black oceans (Lined) is really nice to write in.

</comment><comment><USER27> Notebook: Moleskine.

Pen: Uniball Retractable Jetstream 1.0 thickness. I give them to the people I care about. I have many packs at home. I mourn when the pen runs out.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why do people like Moleskine so much? I like a nice pen to write with, but binder clips with a stack of scratch paper to take notes is plenty enough

<comment><USER29> They're nice paper (although you can find nicer); they're robust; and they're available everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Depends what you want the pen for. I use a Staedtler triplus fineliner as far as daily use pens go and a uni kuru toga mechanical pencil.

</comment><comment><USER31> I use a Muji 0.38 black pen and a 0.7mm BIC mechanical pencil. For a notebook I prefer the dotted leuchtturm1917.

</comment><comment><USER32> pen: Skilcraft U.S. GOVERNMENT, black ink, fine point.

pencil: Zebra M-301, .5MM

eraser: Pentel clic eraser ZE22

paper: whatever is in front of me

</comment><comment><USER33> the tools matter less than what you do with them. you can write/draw with many things, on many things.

that said, i am fond of index cards and blu-tack. these go well with walls.

edit: for some reason this thread reminds me of the american psycho business card scene...

</comment><comment><USER34> Mouse, Monitor, Keyboard</comment>


Contracting with the enemy: 80% of DOD contracts in Afghanistan may fund Taliban - <AUTHOR> http://e-ring.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/04/11/contracting_with_the_enemy

<comment><USER2> > Contracting with the enemy: 80% of DOD contracts in Afghanistan fund Taliban

No. We have here a classic case of the submitter not reading the article.

 _What this article is about_ is the perfectly boring fact that DoD's funding overseeing is not anal enough to extend to 80% of contracts made in Afghanistan, since they're so piss cheap, and checking for compliance is so difficult. Yeah, it would be cool if those contracts were taken by Taliban shell companies to fund their warfare operations. And I'm sure a few of them are. But that's not what the article is about, and that's largely not what's happening.

Take that away, and what we get is, I'm afraid, a very boring story that could interest some accounting wonks somewhere, but not many more. Not nearly as interesting as the title hints at. Massive dissapointment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very familiar with Afghanistan (I spent a few years there as a contractor), and _very_ familiar with the subcontracting process. The article actually understates the problem.

Virtually 100% of the contracts in Afghanistan which involve transport are contracted to local vendors. Those vendors pay off the Taliban to not attack them; this has been known inside the contracting community ~forever, and publicly since at least 2005. The going rate is about 10-15% of total project expenses; usually it goes from DOD to prime to potentially a sub to a local trucking company to either a relative who is Taliban affiliated, or via a local government/warlord person who is Taliban affiliated.

The risk isn't that random contracts are possibly to Taliban front companies; it is that virtually every trucking and logistics operation (except air) funda the Taliban with a substantial percentage of contract amount.

For the high dollar contracts, or those with substantial on-base performance requirements (e.g. GD/L-3 supplying IT personnel), the prime contract isn't the issue, but the subsidiary support contracts those contractors sign. E.g. when they pay for their living trailers to be brought on base, the trucking company is either closely Taliban affiliated, or pays 10-15% of the trailer contract to Taliban. This means even the big contracts are paying a few percent to the Taliban, indirectly.

The issue is that if the US had zero presence in Afghanistan, none of these contracts would exist. After opium, contracting-related extortion is the major funding source for the Taliban; higher than extortion of the local Afghan economy (other than opium).

If we decriminalized [Afghan] opium, either by buying/destroying or buying/medicalizing (or just decriminalizing narcotics worldwide), and pulled out of Afghanistan, there would be no funding to keep the bad guys going.

<comment><USER3> Your response seems credible, and I'm glad you brought this to everyone's attention. It's just one more reason I think we should get the hell out of Afghanistan. But please don't submit misleading titles.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was mostly that the stupid title "Contracting with the Enemy" is itself relatively context-free when linked from outside, and figuring out a useful title for the remaining characters is non-trivial. I hate sites that use anything but bland and descriptive titles for articles; the subtitle can be "cute" if they want it to be. Traditional print publications presume you're reading their articles in context within their publication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please don't link to sites that require you to sign-up to read their articles. Yes, you can hack the DOM and remove the pop-over to make it readable, or hit the escape key at the right time, but why bother?

<comment><USER3> I didn't have any trouble reading it, but here is a link to the report the article is based on [PDF]:

<http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/2013-04-10audit-13-6.pdf>

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I was able to read it after a quick refresh and escape key juggle, but that I should have to do so is annoying.

For reference: this is what I get when i click on link (and every previous link from HN to that site)</comment></comment></comment>


Remixing Ubuntu for the Enterprise Desktop - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1002 <comment><AUTHOR> Packages out, packages in. Rightly put by Mark, and I guess there is no other big difference.</comment>


Google Glass Porn [concept VIDEO] - <AUTHOR> http://glass-apps.org/google-glass-porn <comment><AUTHOR> "We just picked up a pair of Google Glass! We're thrilled to be one of the first (if not the only) porn store to start creating apps and content with Google Glass."</comment>


Typing Practice for Programmers - <AUTHOR> https://www.coderacer.dev/ <comment><USER2> Oh my god I _love_ this - the only problem is if people stop playing... hope this has a wide user base for a long time! :D</comment>


JPC: Fast x86 PC emulator in Java - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ianopolous/JPC <comment><USER2> I love that luminaries from Oxford, no less than the Particle Physics department of Oxford university use Duke Nukem 3D as their example how how much the emulator is kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.

</comment><comment><USER3> Author here: The sourceforge website hasn't been updated in years, and yes it used to launch demos in the browser, but most people don't have Java in the browser these days. The github page is more recent.

<comment><USER4> Does it compile with GWT? :)

<comment><USER3> The other author, Kevin, has compiled it with GWT, but the performance was terrible: [http://pc-emulator.appspot.com](http://pc-emulator.appspot.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clicking any of the screenshots just goes to the oracle site, I assume originally this would have launched JPC with the relevant image.

<comment><USER6> There is a messaging saying "You need to update your browser's Java" which most likely means it is either disabled in the browser or just not installed.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> JPC seems to have moved to GitHub:

[https://github.com/ianopolous/JPC](https://github.com/ianopolous/JPC)

<comment><USER7> Ok, url changed from [http://jpc.sourceforge.net/home_home.html](http://jpc.sourceforge.net/home_home.html).</comment></comment>


Facncy Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://yaha.me http://yaha.me HN a better interface just check it ;) <comment><AUTHOR> any suggestion, just click on the right bottom side's "contact us" link and leave comment there ;) !!! Let's Roll and Rock!!!!!!</comment>


Apps Without Programming? Yes You Can - <AUTHOR> http://www.icinetic.com/apps-without-programming/

<comment><USER2> It seems to be down at the moment.

 _edit_ After thinking about it, I realized that it is possible that this is a joke. Could it be saying that without programming all you will ever get is an error page? I don't seriously think that is what this means, but I found the thought mildly amusing.

 _edit 2_ Nevermind, it is back up. There goes my theory ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> 'The Bright App Builder for the Enterprise'

'Enterprise' and absolutely no indication of costs, so it must be really expensive.

So the 'You' in 'Yes You Can' is not really just anybody like me ;-)</comment>


How to Solve Enforcement Challenges - <AUTHOR> https://www.arkoselabs.com/how-to-solve/?lang=en <comment><AUTHOR> I was surprised to see one of these challenges pop up for me on LinkedIn this afternoon.

As annoying as these challenges are, I'm glad to see one asking for something other than picking blurry bicycles and invisible crosswalks. (Yes, I'm talking about you, ReCAPTCHA)</comment>


Ask HN: Best Text Mining Resources - <AUTHOR> I plan a deeper dive into text mining this year, and am looking for some suggestions on what resources are best.  A friend suggested Text Mining by Weiss, et al http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-0-387-95433-2<p>What would you suggest? <comment><USER2> Managing Gigabytes (Witten)

Information Retrieval (Manning)

Text Compression (Bell)

Natural Language Processing (Manning)

Natural Language Understanding (Allen)

Speech and Language Processing (Jurafsky)

The Text Mining Handbook (Sanger)

Statistical Machine Translation (Koehn)

Data-Intensive Text Processing with MapReduce (Lin)

Algorithms on strings (Gusfield)

Jewels of Stringology (Crochemore)

Regular Expressions (Friedl), also: <http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html> and automata theory (Hopcroft)

Practical Text Mining with Perl (Bilisoly)

Natural Language Processing with Python (Bird)

Computational Linguistics (Hausser)

Syntactic structures (Chomsky)

also check out these links: [http://measuringmeasures.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning- about...](http://measuringmeasures.blogspot.com/2010/01/learning-about- statistical-learning.html)

[http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/3/12/learning- about-m...](http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/3/12/learning-about- machine-learning-2nd-ed.html)

<http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gabr/resources/resources.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to learn more about learning over text I will recommend you to look at those lectures: <http://videolectures.net/mlas06_pittsburgh/>

First two lectures are great introduction to this topic and third is also related, but not necessary.

If you want to dive deeper to more advanced stuff I will recommend to look to the conditional random fields, which is kind of state of art of this field right now.

Great tutorial: <http://www.cs.umass.edu/~mccallum/papers/crf-tutorial.pdf> Wiki entry: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_random_field>

</comment><comment><USER4> Tapping Into Unstructured Data: [http://www.amazon.com/Tapping-into- Unstructured-Data-Intelli...](http://www.amazon.com/Tapping-into-Unstructured- Data-Intelligence/dp/0132360292)

Mining The Talk: [http://www.amazon.com/Mining-Talk-Unlocking-Unstructured- Inf...](http://www.amazon.com/Mining-Talk-Unlocking-Unstructured- Information/dp/0132339536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276405985&sr=1-1)

Text Mining Application Programming: [http://www.amazon.com/Text-Mining- Application-Programming/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Text-Mining-Application- Programming/dp/1584504609/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276406016&sr=1-1)

Introduction to Information Retrieval (available freely online): [http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/information-retrieval- book.h...](http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/information-retrieval-book.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> You could ask in the Machine Learning subreddit too : <http://reddit.com/r/machinelearning>

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Modern Information Retrieval by Baeza Yates

\- Data Mining Book by Jiawei Han et al

\- Managing Gigabytes by Witten et al

\- Hypertext Mining book by Chakrabarti

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great stuff here, sure to get me going in the right direction! Thank you all!</comment>


HTC's virtual reality app store launches today - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13113532/htc-vive-viveport-app-store-virtual-reality-launch <comment><USER2> Lets hope they can make some money out of this. They really deserve it.</comment>


The Internet Warriors - <AUTHOR> https://theinternetwarriors.com/ <comment><USER2> A blue screen of death?</comment>


Gevent at TellApart - <AUTHOR> http://tellapart.com/gevent-at-tellapart

<comment><USER2> Been wanting to learn about this. Thanks!</comment>


Bellingcat's guide to reverse image search: Yandex wins (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guide-to-using-reverse-image-search-for-investigations/ <comment><USER2> Yandex is definitely the superior reverse image search, but I find that it isn't very good at finding the original source of an image.

It's results are often inundated with sites that clone/mirror/archive original content sites, yet somehow fails to include the original source</comment>


Life Lessons After 10 Years of BetterExplained.com - <AUTHOR> https://betterexplained.com/articles/life-lessons-10-years/ <comment><USER2> Wow, that was a great post. I can share quite similar numbers: I run my business for 10 years now. It makes about 12,000€ per month. It grew 24% last year. Most traffic comes through evergreen content. I wrote about a hundred articles with 220,000 words in total. I answered more than ten thousand support emails over the years and generally try to be helpful. I didn't do social media.

I want to add two things:

1\. I change articles when I don't like them anymore. I treat articles like shopping windows. Nothing for eternity. I experiment.

2\. I don't get the newsletter advice. Seriously. Whenever I read something like this, it's always: _Start a mailing list for the simple reason to be able to contact people._ I get the idea, but I don't understand the details. This advice never talks about two quite important things:

a) What should you write in your newsletter, if your articles are evergreen and mostly to attract new readers? They're not made for existing customers – at least not in my case.

b) Email lists grow stale. People might read your newsletter for months and after a year or so, they'll forget about it or delete every email. That 50,000 subscriber email list grown over 8 years? Probably way less worth than many people think, because relevant are only the last 7,000 or so. Better than nothing, I guess.

Obviously, I don't have a newsletter, although I have people's email addresses, because people need to have an account to use my software. But I actually never contact them.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, glad you liked it! We have about the same wordcount after 10 years :). Far fewer support emails on my end, maybe about 4-5k comment replies.

Agree on updating articles over time. Text is infinitely tweakable and there's so many ways to improve it over time (often in response to comments I'll reword things, create/update diagrams, fix typos, etc. -- if there's an issue with a YouTube video, there's not much you can do.)

I wasn't sure about email either, but Patrick's post demanding I do something convinced me:

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/05/31/can-i-get-your- email/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/05/31/can-i-get-your-email/)

(He actually sent an email saying that was the most important thing to do, yelling it, and said 1% of people would actually follow it. I decided to start it just not to fall into the trap.)

Here's what I've found personally:

1) It has a better chance of being seen than other social channels. I don't want to be buried under political news and entertainment on Facebook, twitter, etc. Also, many older folks aren't as familiar with tech, but check their email.

2) It's a self-selected group. Here's a set of people who _want_ to hear from me, which means I can be myself a bit more when writing a newsletter update. I imagine I'm writing to some friends who want to know what's going on. I used my email list to get 50 paid beta customers for my Calculus class, which was itself delivered by email in its first iteration.

3) Marketing is way better. I sold more books by announcing it to my 20k email list (at the time) vs. getting on Reddit and HN homepages, with ~1M pageviews.

4) Engagement is higher. Many people reply to the email and we have a quick (or long) conversation, but they don't want to leave a public blog comment. Also, it helps keep in touch with a larger set of people.

5) For numbers, I have about 38k people, 35% open rate, maybe 5-10% click rate depending on the content. If your audience isn't engaged you should prune/remove people who haven't opened it in a while. But, for an engaged audience, you can get thousands of people to take a look at something.

6) Help people get started. I have a short auto-sequence that goes out with 3 lessons (I'd like to make more). Getting a gentle nudge every week with some new content helps people (vs. having to remember each week to find some articles to read).

When people think of "newsletter" they think of spammy groupon emails designed to sell sell sell. I aim for simple, plain-looking updates (not technically plaintext, sometimes I have images), with a casual vibe. "Hey, have something new you might like. Enjoy."

7) On what I write: announcements of new articles, new product launches, requests for beta customers. I probably email 1-2 times per month on average.

8) Lastly, it's fun for me. I don't like the FB/twitter environment that much -- it feels too much like a stage -- with email, I feel like I'm chatting with friends around a table.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your detailed response. I think 8) is good advice for me. I think of newsletters as this serious thing. Every email should deliver value. Maybe I need to rethink this, make it more fun for myself and don't try to think too much about it. 6+7) seems a good approach for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is now."

<comment><USER3> (Kalid from BetterExplained here, thanks for posting this!)

The impact of evergreen content was my biggest eye-opener. The more time, the better, but don't beat yourself up about "lost time". Just start today. Before we know it, 2, 5, 10 years will have passed.

This worked for blog posts, starting an email newsletter, selling books on Amazon, making YouTube videos (for standard math concepts), design improvements to the site, etc. You plant the seed once and it bears fruit for years.

<comment><USER4> I thought that this quote captured an incredible kindness to yourself (your "younger you"). Thanks for writing it down.

<comment><USER3> Really glad it resonated. It's hard to overstate gentleness with yourself, I remember the instant last year when I forgave myself for mistakes / regrets that had long bothered me. I was walking outside at night, and literally felt an evaporation from the back of my head. Tension I didn't know I had just disappeared.

Hope it helps someone do the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty much everything I know I've learned from the internet or from books I found on the internet... but for some reason I had not found your site until just now from this post! It looks really nice so I'm going to start reading it.

Actually, now that I think about it, I probably have come across your site before but I think I may have exited out after a quick glance at the front page. Maybe I'm crazy but when I first look at your site it seems like I have to sign up for some sort of service to access the content. I hate signing up for services, free or otherwise. The first thing I see is

'Math without endless memorization.

Instead of memorizing procedures, learn why equations work. This site helps you overcome mental roadblocks and truly grasp new concepts.'

and then a box right below it asking me to give you my email. If I press pagedown I get to a section titled 'blog posts' (in my mind not the actual content I would be looking for) and then at the very top of the page I see the horizontal navigation bar, but none of the titles really read 'click here to learn cool stuff for free'. By this point I've probably left your website. Something to think about, definitely going to start reading your site and I really respect what you do.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the detailed and honest feedback!

The newsletter is fully optional, basically to get alerted to new articles & other site news. The homepage should be fully scrollable with a big list of articles, you can also check out:

[https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet/](https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet/)

for a visual guide. That said, I'll definitely think about rewording things, and I've long wanted to make a "Getting started" section for students, teachers, parents, etc. Really appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just commenting to say I love your site. Used it a lot growing up / in college. Extremely lucid explanations

<comment><USER3> I love hearing that, thank you. I started the site to help other frustrated students -- I clearly remember cramming in a small dorm room and not having things click. Happy it helped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hello, Kalid. At the "critic" from the HN post, just wanted to say hi and that I am as big a fan as ever. It was interesting to me to read our discussion again.

<comment><USER3> Hi Charlie! Great to see you, and thanks for the support over the years :).

That discussion was an eye opener for me (in a good way), it showed me of how easily things get muddled in online discussions as context goes missing. It always reminds me to really see what the other person is thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I appreciate the effort and intention behind trying to avoid becoming an eHow or HowStuffWorks.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I was really disappointed to see what happened to HowStuffWorks. I loved reading it in high school, and it likely planted the idea in my head that a single person could start a learning site.

On paper it reached "success" (sold for millions, is now a Top 500 site) but unfortunately it's far away from its original mission.

There's been countless studies about happiness and income, but I realize once my reasonable needs are met, my life satisfaction comes from things that can't be bought (getting in the zone, helping people, feeding my curiosity).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good post. I run a small blog and your retrospective gave me some good insights on how to approach things moving forward. The idea of evergreen content and your monetization breakdown were nice to see.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love betterexplained and I almost religiously check if it has an article on any topic I'm reading up on.

At least the free content can't stand alone, but it makes khan academy or coursera videos much easier to follow if I've read an article on Betterexplained before hand, and I think that has tremendous value.

Does anybody have experience with any of the courses? Are they worth it?

</comment><comment><USER11> I think I might have been the Chris who was on his feels good list. I said it then, and I'll say it again - the guy is incredible!

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for the great post, Kalid! Both useful and inspiring.

<comment><USER3> Thanks Michael! railstutorial.org has long been an inspiration for me, showing what an educational site could become.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love the evergreen content advice!</comment>


Show HN: End-to-end deep learning experimentation platform for Tensorflow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/polyaxon/polyaxon/ <comment><USER2> I'm taking a course on Deep Learning right now, because my boss asked me to. It's Udacity course number UD730.

The first homework assignment was image recognition on notMNIST. That dataset has been used thousands of times before, so I decided to make it more interesting! I got data for 1500 Chinese fonts, so I could make a better OCR for Chinese characters.

I put that into the example, made the "pickle" files, trained the model, got a 90% prediction-test result value... but now what?

How do I take that model and make a real image OCR that can take a photo from my phone and analyse it?

I can write scripts to get data, and follow the steps in a course to make a model, but unless I have a useful output, I don't know how I'm going to apply this to my other programs. If you're offering "end to end", then documentation and examples of some kind of API would be great. (e.g. send a PNG to this REST service, and get the prediction back as text).

<comment><USER3> > How do I take that model and make a real image OCR that can take a photo > from my phone and analyse it?

I assume you're talking about some kind of endpoint to submit the image to, and offload the computation entirely.

However I just wanted to clarify for people that are new to this, that running the neural net on a mobile device usually requires entirely different models, because of the memory/compute limitations. It's a rapidly developing field, but it is not quite as accessible as developing for desktops yet.

I do believe Tensorflow allows you to run models on mobile now though [0]

[0]: [https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/](https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could you explain how it differs from Keras ? I've looked quickly at the blog intro and examples and it looks very similar to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> As it is mentioned on the github page, the project was inspired from keras and other great projects, but many decisions did not completely fit with the way keras does things. There will be support for keras models in the future, but currently we are trying finish the work on the web api, the web ui and the cli.

<comment><USER5> > but many decisions did not completely fit with the way keras does things

That's interesting. Could you expand on this some more?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, one of the reasons why we couldn't base the code on Keras at the time when we start working on the project was the integration of keras into the Estimator api, meaning that we couldn't have used the distributed training that was offered by the tensorflow team.

<comment><USER5> Ok, sounds like a good reason. But how is that situation now? Did the Keras team remove that limitation in the meantime?

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand your concerns, we had the same reactions from some of our friends, and I can assure you that the integration is planned, and any redundancy, duplication, or patches that we have right now for some tf code will be removed.

thank you for taking the time to have a look at the project, and I am very happy that we are receiving such a constructive criticism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I have to do MNIST with my custom images (either for training or inference) (png), what steps do I have to follow in here to get it working ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the comment, here's an example for a configuration file for a convolutional denoising autoencoder, where some preprocessing is applied during the input pipelines [https://github.com/polyaxon/polyaxon/blob/master/examples/co...](https://github.com/polyaxon/polyaxon/blob/master/examples/configs_examples/yaml_configs/denoising_conv_autoencoder.yml#L8)

<comment><USER6> Thanks xboost. Could you elaborate more on that. Is there a way to convert images files to TF records directly (as a pipeline parameter). Great project by the way! The easier it becomes to setup end to end training, the more easier it will be to use custom data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, we are preparing some ways to automotate datasets creation and versionning. For now, the way to feed data is through the built-in Tensorflow numpy/pandas input functions, there are some examples where this pipeline configuration is used. Otherwise there are different pipeline modules that could be used to feed the data especially for training where TF records could be faster.

The way to create a TF record is still manuall, here's an image data converter that was used to create the mnist dataset:

[https://github.com/polyaxon/polyaxon/blob/master/polyaxon/da...](https://github.com/polyaxon/polyaxon/blob/master/polyaxon/datasets/converters.py)

More data converters will be available soon.

Once you have a record, numpy array, or a pandas Dataframe, you can basically use any operation/layer on your data by providing the feature name and the list of operation to apply. In general only operation that are necessary for data augmentation should be done on the input data pipelines, otherwise everything should be done during the creation of the TF records, to minimize the computations.

One last thing for reinforcement learnign, the way we feed data is through the feed_dict, because an interaction with an environement is necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lately, whenever I see a new deep learning library, I think of [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

<comment><USER8> I really can't stand that cartoon anymore. Especially since 99% of the time it's used to criticize efforts that are not attempting to be either universal nor standardized. Instead, it's linked whenever anyone does anything that resembles anything that has been done before. I think people try to use it as "ha ha, I get that reference!" But, in a feedback thread, it comes across as discouragement for it's own sake.

<comment><USER7> I had no intention of criticizing any efforts. One should do whatever makes them happy, and as a frequent user of these libraries, it is to my own advantage for them to improve.

For the same reasons, I have nothing against people who "do anything that resembles anything that has been done before," and I certainly wouldn't attempt to discourage the author. I'm sorry if that cartoon is over-referenced (in attempts to be negative), I can't really control that, but I think it's something to think about when starting a new project (i.e. what is your goal, does it differ from other projects, is that important to you?)

Sorry if my comment seemed like I was shooting this down, I certainly had no intent of doing that.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your experience with mentors/mentees? - <AUTHOR> Although most of my foundational/theoretical knowledge comes from a traditional university education, most of the knowledge I have that I regard as more important comes from 1:1 discussion with and formal teaching from mentor-like figures throughout my life. I have also had the opportunity to act as a mentor to others, and have found this equally as enriching. I think that the mentor/mentee idea is largely overlooked these days.
I'm interested in figuring out if I simply unusually enjoy 1:1 learning and teaching or if others also prefer this. What are your experiences with mentoring or having a mentor? How formal was the relationship? How often did you meet? Was it worthwhile?
I think everyone, especially in the tech industry, would benefit from having at least one mentor and at least one mentee. There are sites such as codementor.io which could facilitate finding and maintaining mentor/mentee relationships, but these are very programming focused and often are flooded with questions such as "Please debug my Python script for me".
Do you know of any platforms that aim to match up mentors/mentees that are more general (tech specific would be fine, but they shouldn't be programming specific)? Would you use such a platform if it existed? <comment><USER2> I have had a few mentors, not all of them deeply technical.

The interesting thing is that all of them are/were older at the time, as in more than 20 years older.

And that is the big problem in tech and corporate culture in general. There isn't enough room for senior engineers to just be engineers. You either go into management or you fall out of the industry, and that is a problem.</comment>


Police Emails About Ahmed Mohamed: 'This Is What Happens When We Screw Up' - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/police-emails-about-ahmed-mohamed-this-is-what-happens-when-we-screw-up <comment><USER2> The article doesn't make it clear (to me). Where did these emails come from? Were they leaked or hacked?

<comment><USER3> It looks like they were part of a Freedom of Information Act request.</comment></comment>


Creating powerful languages with Xtext - <AUTHOR> http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/07/19/creating-powerful-languages-with-xtext/ <comment><USER2> I used Xtext for a while in a bigger project. It really is a great tool. Probably a little bit hard to learn in the beginning, but extremely helpful.</comment>


Complex, Multicellular Life from Over Two Billion Years Ago Discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100630171711.htm

<comment><USER2> Its such an amazing find. Rock from that time period in Earth's history is rare enough, but to also find fossils in them is a lucky and/or fortunate event.

When you look at it in the right context, 600 million years of complex life is such a short period in the history of the Earth. If more ancient rocks and fossils could be found, I really wonder what it would tell us about those aeons and aeons of unknown time. What could have been happening here on Earth that we simply have little or no record for?</comment>


Would Y Combinator frown upon your team if your members developed side projects for fun/hobby? Would it be considered lack of focus?   - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> We like people who work on things for fun because it shows they really like hacking. That's why we have a question on the application form asking "what cool things have you built?" On the other hand, if someone were spending time on side projects during the first few months of their startup, that would be a bad sign.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would say list them because it shows your team's ability to innovate. Besides, if Y doesn't like the one you submitted, they might like the other ones.

Cheers

<comment><USER4> '... I would say list them because it shows your team's ability to innovate. ...'

And I would say put a watch on them because their focus on their prime tasks may drop. If you are putting in your 100% where will you get the extra time?

<comment><USER5> It can't be that cut and dry. Creative people tinker with stuff. You want creative people. Obviously there is a point where side projects interfere with what you are trying to get done, but a "if you're working on anything else you're not giving 100%" attitude seems very short sighted.

<comment><USER4> '... if you're working on anything else you're not giving 100%" attitude seems very short sighted. ...'

Non core creativity kills startups quicker than lack of focus. Why? Because the core product will be making the money not a creative side product. Lack of focus on the problem kills your ability to make money. Look at from the business point of view (yuck, but thats what will allow future creativity).

Remember we are talking startups here, not established businesses. You simply do not have the time or resources. Now in the longer term you are correct. But make sure you understand each startup is in a fight for survival and it requires a very different mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the last week of 2006 and couple weeks before the launch of our site, I had what I thought was a great idea(thankyou2006.com). I shared the idea with my partner, he liked it, we worked on it for a day and launched it.

I had to break my own promise to not work on anything else. And it made me a little nervous that this might cause the distraction we didn't need few weeks before our launch.

Keys:

1\. Know your and your team's limits from past experience. What has happened in past when you worked on side projects?

2\. Find some angle where the side project has the potential to compliment your primary company. In our case, if the side project it would have given us some much-needed $$$s for our main start-up.

\--Zaid

<comment><USER7> If you allow "much-needed $$$s" to determine what you work on, you'll never get your real project done. This is how consulting businesses are born (and products die).

<comment><USER6> Sure, that's why it's proceeds point #1:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My team members enjoy creating things for the hell of it because it's fun. The application asked if we had built anything else. A lot of the things we are building is almost entering beta stage. I would say maybe 3 of the projects. We built it because it was fun to build.

We're concerned that Y combinator may think that we lack focused if we shared the projects on our applications. Should we or shouldn't we list the other projects we developed for fun?

<comment><USER8> Variety of ideas are indicative of the plasticity of mind. Rest assured, this is something YC will see as a good thing. Go ahead and list them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While developing side projects, especially as a tool to your main project, you may come across something you may not have otherwise. Who knows -- one of these "cool side projects" may become the product you end up focusing on.</comment>


First Serverless Blockchain iOS App. Built to Showcase Innovations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/pocket-network/introducing-banano-quest-8edc04de88eb <comment><AUTHOR> If you have any questions please drop us a line here.

</comment><comment><USER2> Whats the difference in performance</comment>


Astronomers report the most distant radio galaxy ever discovered - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-08-astronomers-distant-radio-galaxy.html <comment><USER2> The crazy thing about this is that based on this article [1] and some simple calculations, this galaxy and us are moving away at 86 percent of the speed of light!

Every megaparsec of distance leads to an increase in relative speed of 70 km/s. A parsec is about 3.26 lightyears - so a megaparsec is 3.26 million light years.

Dividing 12 billion by 3.26 million gives us ~3680 megaparsecs of distance between us. Multiplied by 70 km/sec, we get a speed of 257,000 km / sec or 86% of the speed of light! (300,000 km /sec)

[1] [http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/104-the- universe/c...](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/104-the- universe/cosmology-and-the-big-bang/expansion-of-the-universe/1066-can-two- galaxies-move-away-from-each-other-faster-than-light-intermediate)

<comment><USER3> How linearly does that scale as you approach the speed of light?

<comment><USER4> Speed of light affects how fast information (force) can be transmitted through spacetime. The expansion is spacetime itself growing - so it should be completely linear. This is the basis for the Alcubierre warp drive.</comment></comment></comment>


A personalized material-UI landingpage template - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nordicgiant2/cool-landing <comment><USER2> Nice, thank you, I think GH Pages has a big future, interesting to see where Microsoft take it too...</comment>


Are self-driving cars the future of mobility for disabled people? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/are-self-driving-cars-the-future-of-mobility-for-disabled-people-84037 <comment><USER2> A rather obvious omission:

the author is aware of the Paratransit issue while totally ignoring the fact that Paratransit passengers _generally need assistance from a human_ for things like boarding assistance (in and out) and storage/retrieval/assembly of gear/chair/etc.

That needs strikes me as making driverless vehicles an _inherently_ incomplete solution for Paratransit needs.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do founders vent? - <AUTHOR> What app do they use? If they do it offline then how? <comment><USER2> I have seen some successful, tactful venting by founders here in HN comments... Also some bad examples, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mentors, partners, humans that know you and your situation well.

</comment><comment><USER4> FoundersNetwork.com

</comment><comment><USER5> In the shower.</comment>


SnapChat: a tutorial on web programming in Haskell using the Snap Framework - <AUTHOR> http://gregorycollins.net/posts/2011/10/01/cufp-tutorial-slides

<comment><USER2> it would have helped a lot if i'd seen this before i gave snap a try. :)</comment>


CEO's and Crime - <AUTHOR> http://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2017/06/19/corporate-managers-and-crime <comment><USER2> "Convicting a major firm, especially of a serious felony that can lead to de- licensing and debarment, often puts it out of business. Because the economic and social structure of the United States depends so heavily on the existence and survival of such firms, prosecutors understand that full prosecution is unrealistic."

Interesting article, but this passage is grossly naive. Such a firm going out of business means someone will purchase its assets in bankruptcy proceedings, and more than likely continue whatever the firm used to do.

E.g., if Walmart goes out of business, hundreds of thousands won't go unemployed and large sections of the US won't be left hungry, without any stores nearby. Instead, competitors and startups will buy what used to be Walmarts, and open new stores inside.

This sheds and uglier light on why prosecutors 'understand' full prosecution is unrealistic.</comment>


Best Movies about Startups and Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/best-startup-movies/

<comment><USER2> Startup.com and E-dreams are documentaries about high flying startups (GovWorks and Kozmo.com, respectively) from the first dotcom boom.

Interestingly, both document NYC startups rather than Silicon Valley ones. There are some great Sand Hill road scenes in Startup.com, though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am a great fan of movies and as an aspiring entrepreneur, I have been trying to find the best movies about startups. I couldn't find a list of such movies, so I decided to make one myself. Do check it out and tell me if I've missed anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> Boiler Room - one of my favorite movies ever. It will change you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will add that. Should I add Wall Street too?

<comment><USER3> Wall street:Money never sleeps, or the first Wallstreet?

Money never sleeps was decent, never saw the first one.

Also add Glengarry Glen Ross. Thats where "ABC, Always Be Closing" came from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Riot On! is quite an entertaining documentary. About a Finnish mobile startup with incompetent founders + tons of investor money to burn (and burn they did!). T</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find realworld examples of companies using 'serverless'? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Are you just looking for a list of company names? Or are you looking for more in-depth descriptions and/or case studies of how it's being used?

Ben Kehoe, who works at iRobot, has written quite about using serverless in production. [1] So has Paul Johnston. [2]

I've been curious about serverless adoption too, and I've thought about doing more structured research and writing. So I'm curious to know what kind of content you're interested in.

My impression is that a lot of companies are using bits and pieces of serverless tech/architectures here and there around the edges - for some data processing pipeline, for an internal tool, for a few supporting services - <USER2> very few companies have a 100% serverless stack.

[1] [https://medium.com/@ben11kehoe](https://medium.com/@ben11kehoe) [2] [https://medium.com/@PaulDJohnston](https://medium.com/@PaulDJohnston)</comment>


Ask HN: issue tracking for open source project? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on an open source project that happens to be moving its hosting over the next couple of weeks, and we're looking at ditching our current issue tracking system, Trac. Some of the members have expressed concern about switching to a hosted solution like Lighthouse or Assembla, but the less we depend on one person's personal hosting, the better for maintenance. What bug tracking systems do you use? What would you recommend? We need something that is easy for non-developers to submit to, and GitHub/git integration is important to us. We'd like something that is user-hosted (like Trac or Redmine), but a sufficiently awesome hosted tool might fly. <comment><USER2> Github + Lighthouse works pretty seamlessly for us. I wouldn't go back to self-hosted system. Why are the team members concerned? Lighthouse+github really beats the pants off of Trac IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to keep it private only, I love Eventum from Mysql (found at <http://eventum.mysql.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>).

However, for just a good solid bug tracker, you can't beat Mantis in my opinion.

Not sure how it integrates with GitHub, they use git to manage the code, and the latest version of Mantis has the ability to have plugins, so you could always write a plugin for git.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've come to the conclusion that a mailing list is the correct bug tracker, together with a file in the repository. The cool part is that unless people make an effort themselves, their "problems" are not likely to influence development.

By the way: This is not a joke. Think a bit about it and you will see that it _is_ a possible alternative.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess I'm surprised to hear anyone moving away from Trac (I've moved projects _toward_ it), and am curious as to why.

But for open-source projects I've relied on SourceForge, which certainly has a reasonable issue tracking system; and apparently it allows plug-ins for at least Bugzilla.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly it's the administration. Somebody was hosting Trac on her Joyent shared account and didn't want to go through the hassle of moving it, much less continuing to maintain it. Plus we had no GitHub integration. Of course, that's a pretty easy fix, but somebody's gotta actually go and upgrade it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been very pleased with Mantis.</comment>


Javascript that auto-fills captchas - <AUTHOR> http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/38736 <comment><USER2> This is exactly why when we wrote the CAPTCHA code that protects the creation of SpiderOak 2gb free backup accounts (well commented GPLv3 code here -- <https://spideroak.com/code> ) we took the approach of not making them 100% human readable.

Supposedly it greatly increases the cracking difficulty at the relatively small expense that humans may have to click Next a small percentage of the time. If we notice abuse, it will be easy to tweak the code (it's just a python gimp script) to produce a radically different captcha for a few hours work.

<comment><USER3> Last week, I was going to register a new web service (forgot which one) and after the third captcha I couldn't get right, I just quit and decided to use a competitor instead.

What I'm trying to say is that ideally you shouldn't use a solution that is less user friendly and possibly infuriating for your future customers/users.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. It's a balance. Three failures is way too hard. Ours is a fairly simple captcha -- 5 letters/numbers, and our logs show that somewhere around 94% of attempts are correct, and we see few abandoned signups during the captcha answering phase. We could probably improve that further, though.

The primary defense against OCR is to make the segmentation attack hard -- pushing the characters together somewhat. With more tweaking we could probably get closer to a sweet spot of just enough overlap. Not even all of the characters would have to overlap to be effective.

<comment><USER4> But it's a moot point, since anyone who really wants to defeat captchas en masse, can just go mechanical turk, or even better just setup their own 'porn/warez' sites etc to show your captchas and have random internet users solve it for them.

There's no defense against that... Which makes captchas just a big irritating bag of fail.

<comment><USER5> Indeed! In my experience, the best captcha is asking for a credit card number.

<comment><USER6> In the same vein, the best captcha is not letting anyone sign up at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The OCR thing is definitely interesting. But what I find more compelling is that the author created a simple neural network in javascript. Rock!

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a static demo at <http://herecomethelizards.co.uk/mu_captcha/> (via reddit comment)

</comment><comment><USER9> Imagine how much power Google could harness if they just put a little JavaScript that did some parallelizable task on google.com. Since it's so many people's default page, at any given time there's probably millions of computers idling with it open.

If I were Google I would be sooo evil.

<comment><USER10> If they did that, Google wouldn't be Google anymore and probably everyone including me would be so pissed that they would use alternatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It really doesn't look to me like megaupload worked too hard on their captcha. In the general case, this is apparently a difficult problem because of the character segmentation step. So, my guess is that if megaupload did something to decrease the distinction between characters (script letters, for example), the feasibility of a javascript implementation would break down.

</comment><comment><USER12> WOW is this going to piss of a lot of website owners who rely on captchas. If you can do this in Javascript, then you can do it much better in a server-side language and hook it to the front of your spam cannon. Boo to the spam arms race getting another degree more vicious.

<comment><USER13> Do you really think CAPTCHA-breaking is a new thing? There has been code around to break much more difficult CAPTCHAS for years.

<comment><USER14> is it...i don think so. Its verd hard to segment the captcha.Could any suggest some ida to split in to individual characeters

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's an idea I've seen implemented in some captchas:

Instead of generating an image of text that most people have to strain to read, instead, generate a relatively cleaner image but instead of typing that in, have it ask a question to be answered.

"What do you get when you add 2 and 2?"

etc...

Would that fare better?

<comment><USER16> I've seen those stupid mathematics captcha, there's a thing called eval() in javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> John Resig did a writeup on how it works (and the author makes an appearance in the comments):

<http://ejohn.org/blog/ocr-and-neural-nets-in-javascript/>

</comment><comment><USER17> I wrote a userscript to auto-fill the text-based CAPTCHAs that Drupal.org was using for a while. That was just some regexp fun. This is a bit more impressive.

<comment><USER15> Wait - you parsed an image using regexes?

Or is it something else?

<comment><USER17> Sorry, should have been clear. They were text-based of the form "which of these does not belong?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> how to segment the captcha's text</comment>


Climate impacts 'overwhelming' – UN report - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26810559 <comment><USER2> BBC hypes / linkbaits the title by quoting _one word_ out of context.

> Dr Saleemul Huq, a convening lead author on one of the chapters, commented: > "Before this we thought we knew this was happening, but now we have > overwhelming evidence that it is happening and it is real."

Not that the scale is overwhelming.

Diverting resources to dealing with these consequences will probably kill more people than it saves, but those people will probably be rich waterfont property owners, not poor people walking 10km for water every day.

<comment><USER3> > probably

Yeah, that's an interesting word. What if you're wrong? What if you're very, very wrong? What if you're catastrophically wrong?

I'm not a climate scientist, and I'm guessing you're not one either. Are you just going from your gut with that "probably" there? Should we really make policy decisions based on your gut instinct? What threshold of consensus should we have in the scientific community, before that's enough to drive policy? Not that consensus means ANYTHING in science, but what other basis would ever allow scientists to drive policy?

I'm genuinely curious, I'm not just trying to troll you. What do you think is the threshold for scientists driving public policy?

<comment><USER2> My "probably" is based on reseach by Bjorn Lomborg [1] and other welfare and environmental economicists.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg)

The waters are muddy and actually nobody knows. The BBC putting spin on like this really doesn't help.

This headline is a total lie :

Climate impacts 'overwhelming' – UN report

If you want to spend money to save lives and promoting economic development, you can do it now and get known outcomes.

The Grand Planners love climate change politics, they can have meetings and summits and policy documents and reports and frameworks for change and all the other unproductive stuff.

<comment><USER3> From your own source:

> After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused > of scientific dishonesty.

And:

> DCSD investigation - On 6 January 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the > complaints. The ruling sent a mixed message, deciding the book to be > scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of > expertise in the fields in question...

So, you're citing an "expert" who won a case because he proved in court that he wasn't an expert.

From Wikipedia:

\- Fabrication of data;

\- Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);

\- Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;

\- Distorted interpretation of conclusions;

\- Plagiarism;

\- Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

I object to your claim that we should pay attention to Bjorn, when deciding on public policy.

And I asked you what I hoped you would take as a serious question: what should the standard be for letting scientists push public policy?

Instead, you chose to attack "The Grand Planners." Sounds to me that you think governments are useless, that's a fine opinion as well.

But if you think scientists should ever drive public policy, what threshold should be crossed before we listen to the scientists?

Putting it again, there's a significant portion of the population that believes that there's a threat. If you really are opposed to government action, then I'm guessing you think they should solve Global Climate Change problems by donations and possibly suing people in civil court when they can prove their actions cause harm. Correct?

<comment><USER2> You'd have to prove more than harm in court, you'd have to prove that the harm outweighed the benefits.

It's not a scientific debate it's a philosophical one. A threat people believe _might_ happen, with indeterminate consequences vs real change you could be making now.

Air pollution affects millions of lives today, for instance.

Governments have _proved_ themselves to be useless at grand schemes. $23 trillion of aid to the third world in 50 years. You'd be think there would be some results.

<comment><USER3> And by the way, I'm pretty sure you meant $2.3 trillion.

[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/06/16/1149964738204.html](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/06/16/1149964738204.html)

But I don't really mind that you were off by an order of magnitude, because I honestly think it's a valid criticism. Sometimes governments spend a lot of money with nothing to show for it, or end up making things worse. That does happen.

So, you either believe that there's some standard a government should have to reach before it decides to spend money on things... what standard?

Or you believe government should never get involved.

But, if you believe government shouldn't get involved, I bet you think there's a valid way for people to organize themselves about issues they care about...

And what would you recommend to them, if they care about Climate Change, think it's a real threat, and want to do something?

And, again, what metric should they use, to determine that scientists should be listened to, when they describe threats?

<comment><USER2> Yes sorry, it is $2.3 trillion.

In domestic politics the recipients of the democracy get to vote on the govt. if it is doing a good job. Aid recipients don't have any say, they just get whatever comes and the feedback that makes markets work is missing. The suppliers and recipients are disconnected, and there's possibly a corrupt tyrant in between to make things worse. There's no accountability. The Western donors (we taxpayers) are told "something is being done" and we see news with grain being unloaded and given to hungry people with pots in their hands.

Good source material would be William Easterly's "The White Man's Burden".

If you think Climate Change is where the focus should be, you're going to have to persuade a billion Indians and a billion Chinese that they don't need fossil fuels and access to plentiful energy supplies in the near future.

Telling an Indian he can't have air conditioning from while you are sat in an air conditioned office is going to be a bit one sided.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Examining Windows 1.0 Hello.c - <AUTHOR> https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2020/05/22/examining-windows-1-0-hello-c/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty impressive that binaries from Windows 1.0 still manage to run on Windows 10.

I wish desktop Linux had even a fraction of that level of backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER3> Devil's Advocate counterpoint - being able to still run Win1.0 is evidence of the baggage that Windows is carrying around, and maybe it would do them some good to eventually cull out some old cruft. The transitions will naturally be painful, but how much further and faster could they go if maybe they stopped supporting code from 35 years ago?

<comment><USER4> IBM Mainframes laugh at Windows backward compatibility. 50-60+ years isn't unheard of. I actually want to at some point climb that cliff but my next write up is exploring Windows 3.11's networking features, and then Novell NetWare; the Windows one should go up tomorrow on SN, and NetWare next week.

<comment><USER5> I look forward to the NetWare one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a copy from an original article which was already posted on HN a few days ago and which did not get any traction.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23237045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23237045)

Could you please refer to the original article below and credit the original site it was published on:

[https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203](https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203)

<comment><USER7> OP's article starts with "The following is a guest post by NCommander of SoylentNews fame!", so I don't think there are any real attribution issues here.

<comment><USER4> I'm fine with either showing up, although it originally was posted to SoylentNews (which I'm a site administrator), and then sent to neozeed to post as SN deals with news more like HN and I didn't want it to get lost in the archives. It's also on DEFCON 201's blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article links to a place where you can run Windows 1.0 in a browser: [https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/windows/1.01/](https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/windows/1.01/).

Interestingly, even Windows 1.0's notepad had "Insert Time/Date (F5)". I always wondered where that came from, but apparently it's backward compatibility to Windows 1.0.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if it's to support the fact that Windows 1.0 bugs were tracked in a text file.

Source: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20200317-00/?p=10...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20200317-00/?p=103566)

> The history of defect tracking in the Windows team goes back to Windows 1.0, > which used a text file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > I was inspired to investigate the original HELLO.C for Windows 1.0, a 125 > line behemoth that was talked about in hush tones.

Should that have been "125k line"? Not to get too pedantic, but the units seem needful for "behemoth".

<comment><USER11> No, windows did not require a 125 thousand line program to display hello world.

<comment><USER10> The question was serious; the repercussions, severe; the message, received.

<comment><USER12> Very nice, grace under pressure. Upvoted, along with the original question.

<comment><USER10> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazing work. Thanks for the trip down memory lane

<comment><USER4> You're welcome. I just got tipped off on this ending up here. The rabbit hole was incredibly deep, but by time I was out of it, I was determined to share the pain with the rest of the world :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> PASCAL != stdcall

<comment><USER4> It does in Microsoft's world who #define it like that.

As I remember, and if I'm wrong, I'll correct it, the different on 32-bit was that stdcall and pascal change the order of how arguments are injected.

<comment><USER14> That's because PASCAL was used for 16-bit Windows. They only define it as stdcall in 32-bit and 64-bit compilers for source compatibility reasons.

The 16-bit Windows SDK does not define PASCAL as stdcall.

PASCAL pushes arguments left to right. stdcall pushes arguments right to left.</comment></comment></comment>


Need advice on contrasting two offers - <AUTHOR> I have two offers on the table.
One from a high paying fintech, offerning 80k base + 15-25% bonus  of yearly salary (92k for first year reasonably) 9-5 job, no overtime, sane culture but lots of regulations
Then there is a startup: 1.5mm pre-money raise, 65k, no equity now but undisclosed amount equity in 7 months, as a gentleman agreement (!). at least 18 months till they expand internationally.
I move on on average after 2 years.
I'm tempted by the gamble and if i do my math right, then i'm up for potentally losing up to a million by not taking this job, but on the other hand, i'm 36 now and questioning if i want to make someone elses dream come true or my own...
Help! <comment><USER2> You will not get any of the "magic beans" _even if they are successful_. The gentleman on the other side of this agreement isn't necessarily trying to deceive you - he may be just as ignorant as you in these matters.

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" never works out. They can write something down about the equity today if they wanted.

</comment><comment><USER3> The elephant in the room is that the startup may vanish without a trace. When you are 40.</comment>


Cable-backed anti-muni broadband bill advances in North Carolina - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina.ars <comment><USER2> This bill is ridiculous. They ignored the small towns, the small towns got their own connections and very good ones at that, and now they want to be the only players. As an NC resident I think this is a bill most people left and right could agree is bad, but unfortunately the only party who cares enough about it and has clout is Time Warner Cable, so it'll get through.

</comment><comment><USER3> The TriLUG (Triangle area Linux Users Group) mailing list had a very long discussion about this bill, that very quickly turned into a shit storm (it lasted for over 100 lengthy e-mails). One thing I learned from it is that not everybody views this bill as negative, even in the tech sector. Basically, TWC just strong-armed a few congressmen/congresswomen into voting their way by contributing to their campaigns, and the opposition could not get organized in time.

<comment><USER4> I'm in Raleigh, hate this bill, and want to bring attention to it. I bet there's a lot of us. We should get organized.

email is email@example.com, anyone who likes can drop me a line.

<comment><USER5> See this blog:

<http://savencbb.wordpress.com/>

<comment><USER4> Awesome, thanks! Will check in with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why shouldn't a city be able to build out a network, if the citizens vote to do so?

<comment><USER7>
       * having tax-subsidized government entities competing with private business doesn't exactly lead to a vibrant competitive marketplace

       * I'd rather not have any facet of government in an easy position to monitor my internet traffic.

<comment><USER8> By that argument, why is the government in the security business competing with the private sector to protect citizens against crime?

Up here in Socialist Canada, in addition to keeping its citizens healthy, the government actually provides the water I drink in direct competition with the private sector who sell water in nice little plastic bottles. Yum :-)

Also, the expression "tax-subsidized" is not correct. Funding an activity with taxes is one thing. Subsidizing an activity with taxes is something else, such as a program to give privately held corporations massive tax breaks in exchange for locating their businesses in a particular state or county. Which companies do, and somehow I never hear conservative pundits complain about the anti-competitive tax subsidizing going on.

<comment><USER9> _By that argument, why is the government in the security business competing with the private sector to protect citizens against crime?_

Well, that's the argument for anarchy, isn't it? (I am not being sarcastic).

But, as you know, "why is the government doing X" is a question which doesn't have much or anything to do with "ought we have the government do X".

<comment><USER10> Yeah, the point of the security/anarchy argument is that you can't just argue blindly from a position of "less government" as if it were an end rather than a means, because if that's your only concern, you're free to move to Somalia and experience the free market first hand.

It turns out that many subjects require more knowledge and sophistication than a 2-word bumper sticker if you want to set smart policy.

<comment><USER9> Strangely, it turns out that there are groups in Somalia who will demand that you pay them in order to continue to exist, and the penalties for not paying this -- what shall we call it? Oh, yeah -- tax is even worse than not paying taxes here. The US has far less government/crime* for its GDP than Somalia.

* "government" being what large criminal enterprises are called, basically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why can't cities build and maintain the lines and lease them out to ISPs? Then TW, Cox, Comcast can compete on add-ons and how much markup they have.

<comment><USER12> Why can't _private_ companies build duplicate lines and compete? It seems to me that what's keeping broadband prices high is government-enforced monopolies, usually awarded to a private company. Allowing government itself to have a monopoly won't fix the problem.

<comment><USER13> So ISP-One digs up your town and lays lines. A year later, Deux Tubes observes fabulous profits being earned by ISP-One and comes along to dig up your town again.

See the problem?

<comment><USER14> Not if Deux Tubes pays for the digging

<comment><USER13> I submit that your neighbors wouldn't allow several companies to repeatedly dig up roads, driveways and lawns. Also, at some point you just can't add another set of lines in the ground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like an ALEC-based bill. The article mentions weird-accounting rules for indirect subsidies, see section 13.5 of this, ALEC's model "Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry Safeguards Act":

www.muniwireless.com/reports/docs/antimunicipalbroadband.doc

(I don't know if this is the most recent model bill from ALEC)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you promote a GitHub project? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on an open source project on Github, and I feel it has value to others. I've rolled with Google Ads, Facebook pages and Slack channels - are there good ways to promote projects to the community? The project isn't picking up traction as much as I'd like.
I've done things already like paid people to try it out, and give me feedback, but I suppose the hardest part about getting the word out is getting the initial word out to others.
Do I keep on tooting this project until it takes off? Or are there established platforms that you know of that are good for launching open source projects?
I'm purposely not mentioning it here because I've already posted twice on the project in HN, but can mention it to you only if you are interested. <comment><USER2> \- Show screenshots on the home page of key features and explain how they'll help users

\- Respond to people in Twitter looking for budgeting software

\- Cold email people who'd get the most value from this (freelancers?)

\- Improve the product based on feedback

\- Keep improving the product while soliciting feedback until people start talking about how good it is

<comment><USER3> May be add to that list writing blog posts? About usage of the project, detailed description of internals etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also a great idea, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried Reddit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I did that too. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Show HN :)

<comment><USER6> OP did try that in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762974)</comment></comment>


SpaceX failed landing caused by leg failing to latch - <AUTHOR> http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/01/18/spacex-narrowly-misses-booster-landing-at-sea/ <comment><USER2> Interesting that they couldn't get an environmental approval to land it on land. Typical California :-). It does sound however like it would have falled on land.

<comment><USER3> We're afraid it would light off this huge methane leak that we aren't doing anything about.

If we let it run long enough, we think we can sell carbon credits for sealing it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would suggest they use 6 legs that mass the same as the previous 4 to ward against leg lock failure - or some sort of fail-safe leg locking mechanism</comment>


Personality and Change Inflamed Mozilla Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/technology/personality-and-change-inflamed-crisis-at-mozilla.html <comment><USER2> The left-wing anti-liberalism streak that's fueled this crisis is apalling to me personally. And those who were so insistent on burning Eich, the heretic, because he wouldn't recant will hopefully regret their actions once it happens to someone, for example, who donates to Planned Parenthood and is pressured to resign by a bunch of conservatives.

If you would have been outraged if he was pressured to resign for having the opposite opinion but think what happened is somehow appropriate: you are a bigot.

I wish him the best of luck, some good rest to think things over, and know that (despite his opinion otherwise) _we are worse off_ when there's a Mozilla without Eich.

<comment><USER3> You're kidding, right? Liberals get fired by their conservative employers for their views all the time. It's nice to see it work the other way for once.

Everyone with the "what if it were the other way around" argument is completely out of touch. Our side has been dealing with it _all along_. Sucks to see it thrown back at you, doesn't it? Time to eat your own dogfood.

<comment><USER2> >Liberals get fired by their conservative employers for their views all the time. It's nice to see it work the other way for once.

Where's the evidence? And regardless of whether that's true or not, it's not right: you're effectively feeding social pressure to keep your beliefs private out of fear for retribution.

Almost as if you're reinforcing another closet on everyone else.

>Sucks to see it thrown back at you, doesn't it? Time to eat your own dogfood.

Tit for tat bullshit: you are no better than the anti-gay bullies.

I've supported equal marriage rights since high school, for the record, and lean left-lib.

<comment><USER3> > _Where 's the evidence?_

The highest-profile example I can think of off the top of my head is NBC firing Phil Donahue. But it's normally people without a voice, like my mother, who don't have anyone leaking memos to prove it for them.

Edit: Oh look, someone who's not afraid to admit it: [http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/18/2-Obongo- supporter...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/18/2-Obongo-supporters- fired-in-Utah/UPI-96441358532952/)

> _it 's not right_

Isn't it? Why should I give money to an organization who's going to turn around and give it to a guy who's going to use it to compare my friends to child molesters?

> _Almost as if you 're reinforcing another closet on everyone else._

If your views involve enacting your religion into law, then yes, I want them buried in the closet where they can't harm anyone.

> _Tit for tat bullshit: you are no better than the anti-gay bullies._

I'm not using the power of the state to enforce my views.

<comment><USER2> Phil Donahue is a nice example, I'll concede, but it says more about the corruption of the MSM than anything.

>Why should I give money to an organization who's going to turn around and give it to a guy who's going to use it to compare my friends to child molesters

Where's the evidence that Eich has compared your friends to child molesters? You have none. Eich reaffirmed his own stance on equality going forward, at issue is that he just didn't want to recant his support for Prop 8, for which he donated his own money on his own time.

I'm not going to dignify your bullshit with any further responses just based on that comment.

<comment><USER3> Did you seriously not see the ads his money funded?

If he can't recant his donation, there is _no reason_ to believe his vague "stance" on equality. Someone who is willing to enact their religion into law should be even _more_ willing to enforce their religion in private employment. A promise not to do so rings hollow at best, incredibly hypocritical at worst.

Would it make you feel better if he were tossed for being a hypocrite?

<comment><USER2> Ah yes, he could've spared himself the trouble by just parroting empty words. The heretic should've just recanted!

>there is no reason to believe his vague "stance" on equality.

There is: no one at Mozilla Co. publically doubted his stance on equality, in fact you had many coming to his side. It was people at Mozilla Fnd. who've never interacted with him, were the ones with doubts.

But instead of waiting for Eich, who said "I can only ask for your support to have the time to "show, not tell"; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain,[1]" to actually back up his words with actions, a bunch of social justice warriors decided that the heretic must burn. I'm not going to call them equal-marriage rights advocates because they're just acted like a bunch of bullies who thought he'd somehow "evolve" like our politicking President did.

It's shameful.

Hello to the person who decided to downvote all of my posts in a dead discussion, though. You must be so proud. Could've at least replied with a comment comparing Eich to the KKK or something.

[1] [https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at- mozilla/](https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/)

<comment><USER3> Two tips:

1) Don't whine about downvotes.

2) You can't downvote comments replying to your own, so the only post I could (and did) downvote was your first one.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Memory Monitoring With LXC - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeship.io/2014/01/14/memory-monitoring-with-lxc.html

<comment><USER2> Docker instructions would be good.

But how can a build need more than 2GB of memory??

<comment><USER3> Complex C/C++ projects can need lots of memory at final link, especially if they're using WPO/SCU or aggressive optimisation levels.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you worried about generative programming AI models? - <AUTHOR> We're starting to see more sophisticated uses of code generated by AI models that go beyond the typical IDE intelli-sense.
Recently there was a HN post about an AI model [0] (believe a NN) that wrote a bunch of CRUD Python code given human sentences as input.
Though the example seems simple, I think it's implications are far reaching. Personally, seeing the example has shortened my estimated timeline for "deep" code generation by a substantial amount.
Naturally I wondered how soon until basic CRUD applications, and other low-hanging software development fruit are picked by AI driven software.
I think the average programmer is safe for the next 5 years, but soon after only highly domain-specific use cases for human programming will be cost effective for businesses. CRUD apps, static websites, and perhaps more complex applications with some human programming, will greatly reduce the needed headcount of programmers in a typical business.
I see this similarly to IT, where initially IT teams were much larger, however more recently with the advent of DevOps processes and technology, a small team of IT-centric developers can reliably handle a medium-sized company.
Likewise, an easy value proposition will be the aforementioned AI models as products to reduce development cost for simpler applications.
Should we begin to prepare for this wave now by learning some tangential sub-field to retain similar magnitude of job opportunities? If so, what would be some examples?
Obviously we should be constantly learning, its a necessity in the field. My point isn't to fear-monger, rather contemplate if this wave could be larger than the typical language/technology advancement, both in magnitude, and in time of adoption.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23250379 <comment><USER2> I think we have 10-20 years before that type of technology becomes common. I'm not too worried about it. I hope to 'retire' from software and buy a small farm.</comment>


Surveillance Video of Robbery that led to false arrest. Police Deny wrongdoing - <AUTHOR> http://www.iwasfalselyarrested.com/ <comment><USER2> I have to imagine that surveillance videos have been as much of a life saver for the innocent, as they have been damning for the guilty</comment>


Show HN: Threaded Async Video Chat - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/metamitya/status/1259956539290464258 <comment><USER2> Add some video spice to your notes and research</comment>