Kevin Systrom: From Stanford to Startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-C0wApn1vI&spfreload=1

<comment><AUTHOR> This was right before they launched their iPhone app and got acquired.</comment>


Show HN: Find alternatives to a word on any webpage - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/opinsrc/findalt <comment><USER2> In case anybody is wondering: it runs a Google search "<phrase> vs " in the background and presents the results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, although it just parses the autocomplete search results without explicitly submitting the search term.

P.S. A background window opens when you activate the extension.</comment></comment>


San Francisco's Skyline, Now Inescapably Transformed by Tech - rising-sky https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/technology/salesforce-tower-san-francisco-skyline.html <comment><AUTHOR> San Francisco grows at a positively glacial pace compared to even mature cities like London. Heck, even downtown Los Angeles rapidly outpaces SF in construction. While at the same time SF arguably has more money and demand for growth then both those places by a giant margin.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sacramento is adding more leasable square footage a year than SF.

It's not tech that's ruined the city, it's anti-growth NIMBYs that have caused the existing real estate prices to fly off to the Moon and critical infrastructure to stall in the courts for years.

If the argument is about "increased traffic" then they're simply wrong. Forcing people to drive in from El Sobrante or San Leandro because of a refusal to build more convenient housing, that's the policy that causes more traffic. Homes will be built somewhere.

If it's against the carbon footprint of new construction then use carbon negative cement, have rooftop gardens, and use solar windows. We need to start transforming our cities anyway.

And if the argument is against "greedy developers" then work on not for profit community housing projects built on land trusts. "Build nothing" is not a reasonable option

<comment><USER2> but NIMBYs still have not had their core claim dismissed: that new residential capacity is not being augmented with better transportation infrastructure or even schools. most NIMBYs gave up on neighborhood parks, they seem just impossible now. amusingly, even retail is being shunned (residential is build, sell and move on, which is why places like Silver Creek in San Jose only have one tiny pathetic market for 5k homes). most cities now have to force retail components on to developers

if you live in the US, chances are you attended a public school built by a developer in exchange for development rights, and the school was accessible by a road also built by the developer. the park was set aside as such and not filled with homes; instead the developer paid to put in a swingset and a tennis court

now developers refuse to augment transportation infrastructure or build schools (and it is illegal to decline a development due to predicted pressure on local school), and NIMBYs want to know why. all they get in response are downvotes on message boards or personal attacks

thousands new rental units are going up along Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara...but no new road capacity and no new schools, and no parks or open space at all. what kind of a community would you like to live in? in a few years the same urban professionals who are the core of the YIMBYs will be freaking out about no schools or parks, because they are going to want them.

<comment><USER3> If this is actually NIMBYs' core claim, I'm overjoyed, because it can plausibly be worked with.

Building literal greenfield subdivisions is a little different from infill/intensification in a city. Where one developer is building all the homes, of course he needs to provide all the infrastructure and amenities between them, or no one will want to live there.

Urban intensification is one site at a time. I _hope_ no single developer is doing so much of the construction that it also makes sense to make him responsible for schools and transit. The whole angle of YIMBYism is to reduce landlords' pricing power through competition. So if ten different developers are operating simultaneously, who pays for what?

If only there were some sort of institution for solving these coordination problems. We could call it... municipal government. If only there were some sort of mechanism for it to skim off of real estate value and use the money for public goods. We could call it... property taxes.

Maybe "our side" isn't campaigning loudly enough for increasing public investements in public goods, but the support is there. What you're probably seeing pushback for is arguments like, "well, I don't see a school in this proposal for 20 condos, so get lost" and other stuff that looks like a rhetorical strategy for a decision you already made, rather than your actual objection.

Road capacity is an interesting one, because people who live in dense walkable environments close to their offices need _less_ transportation. Killing projects in SF based on their traffic/transit impacts sends their potential residents out to Walnut Creek. That's not better.

EDIT: I will also add that huge multi-buildings sites developed all at once have a tendency to feel fake. There's a very real risk of uncanny valley when a developer is trying to bootstrap a neighborhood all at once. Organic, incremental growth is something we should celebrate and encourage.

<comment><USER2> "If only there were some sort of mechanism for it to skim off of real estate value and use the money for public goods. We could call it... property taxes."

what schools? land has to be set aside for schools. no developer makes this sacrifice anymore. it doesn't matter if revenue is generated if there is NO SCHOOL because no one would build one. and yes this is becoming a problem in the Bay Area.

"Road capacity is an interesting one, because people who live in dense walkable environments close to their offices need less transportation"

maybe like 0.1% of people in SF are candidates for walking to work, you can't be serious

<comment><USER3> If one developer is doing a single project so big that they can spare a school-sized plot of land... that's concerning in itself. The model of production that worked for cookie-cutter subdivisions isn't the only or best one.

Public money can and should be used to acquire and develop sites. The city can negotiate with developers to get schools incorporated into large multi-use buildings the same way we got museums/arts centers around Yerba Buena.

We don't need developers to plop down entire fully-formed communities all at once to get these things, and we shouldn't necessarily want them to. More, higher-value activity to tax only increases the city's ability to build what is needed collectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personally I'm a big fan of skyscrapers for a practical reason: they have more capacity, which a city like San Francisco certainly needs. Can't help but feel the writer has an axe to grind.

<comment><USER5> I'm a fan of high-density work spaces, as long as they're built _in tandem_ with high-density residential spaces _and_ high-density transportation systems.

San Francisco does the former without the latter. BART is an embarrassment when compared with Manhattan's subway:

* Manhattan subway map: [https://i.imgur.com/jOJO2C3.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jOJO2C3.jpg)

* Bay Area subway map: [https://i.imgur.com/9vKbKoq.gif](https://i.imgur.com/9vKbKoq.gif)

* Manhattan compared to SF: [https://i.imgur.com/nAvcoS3.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/nAvcoS3.jpg) \- the _entire_ first subway map fits in the white space of this one

Price is the big argument against BART... because we're thinking so small. More ambitious expansion benefits from economies of scale. If we could coordinate projects in multiple metropolitan areas, standardizing technology (boring, rails, power, etc), prices would drop even further... that's where Musk's Boring Company comes into play.

<comment><USER6> The size comparison is a bit off; Manhattan is about half the size of SF ([https://www.comparea.org/r2552485+r111968](https://www.comparea.org/r2552485+r111968)). Of course, NYC is over 6x the size of SF ([https://www.comparea.org/r175905+r111968](https://www.comparea.org/r175905+r111968)).

<comment><USER7> I've heard SF described as a Brooklyn without a Manhattan.

Which generally checks out in numbers. Brooklyn's density is ~14,700/km^2, SF's is ~18,500/km^2.

By comparison, Manhattan is 27,800/km^2.

<comment><USER8> You mixed up some units here: Brooklyn is way denser than SF (about twice as dense). Your SF number is people per square _mile_ , not per square km.

Same units, Brooklyn is ~35,300/m^2, SF ~18,500/m^2

Manhattan ~69,400/m^2

all from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density)

<comment><USER7> My figures are based on square _kilometres_. A square mile is quite different.

Edit: bonus round! I got Manhattan right but did the reverse error for SF (quoting km^2 for miles^2).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just hate the design of salesforce tower. it's a recycled take at the architects same building in Hong Kong and Santiago[0,1]. Not sure why you would make such a landmark, dominant building look so unoriginal and unremarkable.

0: [https://www.google.com/search?q=pelli+hong+kong&source=lnms&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=pelli+hong+kong&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_2au8g7PYAhVrlVQKHWx3Bv8Q_AUIDSgE&biw=1440&bih=762)

1: [https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=762&tbm=isch&sa=1...](https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=762&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=xDNIWqOgMqTb0gKy64_ADw&q=pelli+san+tiago&oq=pelli+san+tiago&gs_l=psy- ab.3...1367.4672.0.48220.127.116.11.0.0.0.105.649.5j2.7.0....0...1c.1.64.psy- ab..4.3.291...0j0i30k1j0i5i30k1j0i8i30k1j0i67k1.0.RHRGYu7Nw-s)

<comment><USER10> I think it looks very good by itself, since you don't have other skyscrapers around. If they build a second one, they will have to get more creative.

Also I believe they have to conform to very strict earthquake standards.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure what earthquake standards has to do with the aesthetic of the building. The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

The competing design had a similar shape/weight distribution but was much more beautiful and unique:

[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg)

<comment><USER11>
      The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

But _will_ they? The builders of the Millennium Tower sure didn't.

<comment><USER12> Yes, they did. Salesforce Tower's foundation is anchored into bedrock.

This is both easy to look up and not relevant to the conversation about design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This building was designed and begun without any Salesforce involvement. Only after did they put their name on it and lease the office space. It would have been built with or without Salesforce.

<comment><USER14> While it's true that they're only leasing part of it (and thus got their name added later), it was still built to serve _some_ hoped for tech company office. So while I'm not in agreement with the article, the point is that tech companies caused this to be built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The number of skyscrapers being built in the US pales in comparison to other parts of the world today. Besides Salesforce Tower, there's the upcoming Vista Tower in Chicago, and a few in New York: [http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/country/united- states](http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/country/united-states)

I'd like to see more, as well as maybe a focus on more detailed craftsmanship along with pioneering engineering. That story mentions the original Call building in SF: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Call_bui...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Call_building.jpg)

I'd love to see a resurgence of that kind of stonework and masonry in elements of future architecture. What has happened to all the basic brick and granite structured ornamentation, and the elaborate tilework in modern buildings?

<comment><USER16> Maybe it's pent up demand after a lull that lasted a few decades. It's just a feeling, but I don't recall much building happening in the 90s and 00s. Not that there wasn't any at all, but it seems after the 70s boom, there was a tapering off and a resurgence in the late 00s. Could be wrong though.

<comment><USER11> The entire China Basin area exploded in developments in the wake of the ballpark construction (Pacific Bell Park opened April 2000).

<comment><USER16> True. I'd consider those mid-rises though whereas the article is talking more generally about high rises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a grainy photo of the Salesforce tower I took while flying out of San Francisco on a foggy day earlier this week.

[https://i.imgur.com/qdGUhc1.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qdGUhc1.jpg)

It would be pretty fun to be on a higher floor on a day like this!

<comment><USER18> Wow, I look at the building everyday but this is the first I've seen it from that vantage point. Thanks for sharing.

Found another photo that is a little closer:

[https://i.imgur.com/Px7Apnq.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Px7Apnq.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> eye-roll... as if the existing skyline wasn't composed by corporate temples to greed like the transamerican building?

It's like when the people who gentrified SF yesterday complain about the people doing it today... news-flash, it's always been an expensive pretentious place to live and do business, and yes, it's always smelled rather rotten and moldy as well...

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems needless. It's big, yes, but it's no different to the TransAmerica Pyramid.

It's more newsworthy that it's the first major one in so long tbh

<comment><USER21> The TransAmerica pyramid and its travails are discussed in the article. It was different.

<comment><USER20> Not really. The article is utterly unconvincing there.

The writer obviously chose a conclusion and tried to make it fit. It's a very weak piece if you don't come into it with the same conclusions

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been out of SF almost 2 years to the day. I went back for Christmas and was driving around and BOY has the downtown SOMA area east of 4th street changed. So many new apartments and condos popping up. The new train station is going in. Sales Force 1 sticks out of the sky. It's crazy, but for some reason I can't wait to move back.

</comment><comment><USER23> A recent trip to Hong Kong really highlighted San Francisco's inability to handle a rising population density.

As of mid-2014, HK's population was 7.24 million across the Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories [1]. The main Island alone has a population density of 16,390/km^2 with an area of 78.59 km^2 [2]. The city is covered in high rises and there is still a drastic housing crisis [6]. However, public transportation was readily available, on-time, affordable, and clean. I was able to travel across the region, to/from Macau, and to/from Shenzhen using only these services. At no point did I need to call a Lyft/Uber/Didi/taxi.

Looking at the 9-county portion of the Bay Area, we have a population density of 425.7/km^2 over 18,040 km^2 [3][4]. I realize it's more difficult to support a larger region with accessible public transit, so let's focus on the 7x7 in the city: 7,170/km^2 over 121.46 km^2 [5][7]. Over 40+ km^2 with under half of the population and we can barely keep MUNI/BART running, residents can't afford rent increases, and employees are commuting hours to reach the city [8]. How is the city so far behind HK with a 2016 GDP $470.5 billion (compared to HK's 2016 GDP of $319.7 billion) [9][10]?

These articles that complain about skyscrapers changing the skyline or ruining the historic feel of the city drive me nuts. How else will the city be able to keep up with the growing housing demand? We're on a peninsula - we have a fixed area in which we can build. The construction of SF tower has brought 60-ish floors of new employee space into the city without providing an equivalent number of apartments (yes, there are condos but those are certainly not housing all new employees). As these office high rises are constructed, we need to be pumping investments into public transit (a new 60 floors worth of employees will now be commuting within the city) and high rise apartments. They don't need to be luxury apartments (ie. Jasper) but affordable options that can house more than the standard 3 story house in Pacific Heights.

[1] [https://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/populati...](https://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/population.pdf) [2] [https://web.archive.org/web/20090824065021/http://www.statis...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090824065021/http://www.statistics.gov.hk/publication/feature_article/B70906FC2009XXXXB0100.pdf) [3] [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/counties...](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/counties- total.html) [4] [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/total- me...](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/total-metro-and- micro-statistical-areas.html) [5] [https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps- data/data/gazetteer/20...](https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps- data/data/gazetteer/2016_Gazetteer/2016_gaz_place_06.txt) [6] [http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-coffin-homes- housin...](http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-coffin-homes-housing- crisis-2017-6) [7] [https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06075,0667...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06075,0667000,00) [8] I'm getting tired of finding citations, but there have been numerous articles re:housing/transit/commute posted to hacker news these past few months [9] [https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/2017/pdf...](https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/2017/pdf/gdp_metro0917.pdf) [10] [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/weodata/weo...](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/weodata/weorept.aspx)

<comment><USER3> >As these office high rises are constructed, we need to be pumping investments into public transit

Salesforce Tower is accompanied by the adjacent Salesforce Transit Center and several residential skyscrapers built over the last few years. It's not enough, but it's something. Not as egregious as a giant Apple/Google expansion with 0 homes.

>How else will the city be able to keep up with the growing housing demand?

Why would it do that? Less than 10% of the population is exposed to market rate rents. That segment (tech-driven transplants) also happens to be regarded as obnoxious, privileged, and undesirable.

<comment><USER23> Tech-driven transplants strike me as a related but slightly separate issue. Yes, they make up a large portion of the recent influx and gentrification needs to be addressed. I don't have a good solution for this and it deserves a lot of discussion, but ignoring the rising housing demand is certainly not the answer. If anything, that will force out even more tenants who can't afford tech-salary rents, right?

The Bay area is at the heart of the Third Industrial revolution and hopefully will continue to be a driving force in the Fourth. Not evolving city infrastructure and housing to match this strikes me as Luddism.

<comment><USER3> Funny you should mention the industrial revolution, because resisting tech- industry-driven growth is done under the banner of progressivism, with the same pride and zeal of old-timey Peogressives fighting for better labor conditions in factories.

<comment><USER23> I don't follow. Progressivism advocates for the general improvement of society. This applies to both technological advances and social reform. Why not modernize social structure, infrastructure, and technology simultaneously? That should at least to the goal - hindering one will likely hinder the others.

<comment><USER3> Stopping money from getting what it wants (which in this case is housing, infrastructure, and attendant changes in the character of the region) seems to be enough of a social reform to be satisfying on its own, regardless of the consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> SalesForce Tower looks like one hack of a ugly building. Does anyone else feel buildings in US are becoming exceedingly bland and uncreative in architecture? Just look at skyscrapers in places like Singapore, Dubai or Shanghai and you would be amazed at diversity and imaginativeness of people who built them.

<comment><USER25> Ironically largely from western architects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is up with the NYT being negative about the tech sector? Especially on the west coast. Can you imagine the headline:

"Manhattan's Skyline, Now Inescapably Transformed by Finance"

</comment><comment><USER14> > The skyscraper came late to this city, a shipping and manufacturing hub for > much of its existence.

Huh? The Pac Bell building (which Yelp is now in) is a classic 1920s skyscraper [1]. San Francisco never ended up with as many tall buildings as say NYC, but that's also partly a function of city size.

NYC had 5.6M people in 1920 [2], while San Francisco was about 500,000 [3]. Even if you compare just to Manhattan to avoid metropolitan area comparisons, we're talking about 2.5M almost (so 5x).

If anything, it would be apt to say that skyscrapers never caught on in San Francisco like they did in Manhattan. New York currently has ~10x as many skyscrapers (buildings taller than 150m) than San Francisco [4 and 5]. The article even goes on to point out that early newspaper folks competed over tall buildings:

> San Francisco has always been like this. There were so few skyscrapers in > the city's first century that the ones that were built tell a tale of > rampant egos and unrestrained power. At the end of the 19th century, the > city's newspapers had hubris and wealth to rival today's internet companies. > In 1890, the owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, M. H. de Young, erected a > 10-story building worthy of his publication. It was the tallest building on > the West Coast.

The Bay Area is just spread out compared to NYC. It developed much later and wasn't a big city before automobiles were popular (and didn't have a real metro until 1980!). With Silicon Valley being in the peninsula, and tech only developing somewhat recently, San Francisco simply wasn't that big of a commercial city (in comparison to New York) to dictate large skyscrapers.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/140_New_Montgomery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/140_New_Montgomery)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_New_Y...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_New_York_City)

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

[4] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City)

[5] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_San_Francisco)</comment>


Spikenail: Node.js GraphQL API Framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spikenail/spikenail <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, looks like it meets the guidelines. Should it be reposted or just edited?

<comment><USER2> At this point, probably only the moderators can edit the title. They can be reached using the |contact| link at the bottom of the page.</comment></comment></comment>


US testing surveillance balloons on Mexico border - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2012-08-surveillance-balloons-mexico-border.html

<comment><USER2> We have had those up for almost 20 years now..

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I remember seeing them a few years ago flying to/from mexico. Is this weird government propaganda, horrible reporting or both?</comment></comment>


Theorists Debate How 'Neutral' Evolution Really Is - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutral-theory-of-evolution-challenged-by-evidence-for-dna-selection-20181108/ <comment><USER2> theorists who want to focus on a pedantic semantic point.</comment>


Trillian for iPhone: Two months later, still no response from Apple… - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=307552530382

<comment><USER2> I love how someone suggests that they make an app for Windows Mobile. I haven't seen anything suggesting that Windows Mobile app development is anywhere near profitable for anyone.

<comment><USER3> If you never are able to sell your iPhone app because it is stuck in limbo, you might as well have written it for Windows Mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original link: <http://blog.ceruleanstudios.com/?p=757>

OT: I understand facebook notes may bring you more readers when you link your blog to it, but I feel them as an internet black hole.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been wondering whats the hold up with Meebo after they had stage time at the iPhone event -- wonder if they are experiencing a similar fate? Would be weird after said stage time, but who knows with the appstore.

</comment><comment><USER6> That screenshot is the best looking Trillian I've ever seen.

<comment><USER7> Funny + sad.

<comment><USER6> True</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Available .com brandable domains names - <AUTHOR> http://brandpire.com/showcase <comment><AUTHOR> hello,

finding a business / domain name is time consuming and can be expensive.

we hunt brandable names with available .com domains.

this is what we have for a minimum viable product. if there is interest we plan to release daily a list of domains.

any feedback is welcome.

thanks!

<comment><USER2> Like it and would appreciate daily lists/more names to choose from. Problem I have now is figuring out a side project to pair with one of your catchy names :)

*edit: would also be great if you could gray out names that are taken (there are at least a couple now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great list. Have purchased dugglo.com :)</comment>


Whitehouse.gov Net Neutrality Petition Passes 95k Signatures - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-net-neutrality-directing-fcc-classify-internet-providers-common-carriers/5CWS1M4P?t=1

<comment><USER2> Have any of these petitions actually resulted in significant policy changes? Seems to me that the system is just a way to pacify would-be protesters by giving them an outlet for their discontent that has a low barrier to entry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who knows what's going on behind the scenes, but as you say the barrier to entry is low, and yet the vast majority of petitions still don't reach the 100,000 threshhold, so that gives the Whitehouse some insight into peoples' priorities, at least among netizens.

Also, I have heard that Congress has a rule of thumb - if more than three of their constituents take the time to write and mail an actual letter about the same topic, and they're not looney's but serious-minded people, that signals it's a real issue amongst their constituents and something that needs to be on their radar.

I suspect this petition system works similarly.

<comment><USER3> _...the vast majority of petitions still don 't reach the 100,000 threshhold..._

That's right, only the important petitions get that many signatures:

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/deport-justin- bieb...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/deport-justin-bieber-and- revoke-his-green-card/ST1yqHJL)

[currently at 233,220]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Less than 5k needed to require a response. If you haven't signed it yet, please do.

</comment><comment><USER4> Guys, before you jump on this bandwagon, do your research. Common carrier is bad for everyone, including the consumer.

It means that a floor will be set on the price of peering as well as a ceiling, so ISPs that currently peer at no cost will be forced to charge each other and then pass that on to consumers.

I'm a huge fan of Net Neutrality, but common carrier status is not the solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a solution that prevents carriers from privileging different types of data but maintains ability to peer at no cost?

<comment><USER4> Congress can either give the FCC the power to mandate it without common carrier, or congress can simply legislate net neutrality on its own.

But I don't think a solution exists that is soley in the pervue of the executive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "Deport Justin Bieber" petition blew past 100K signatures a couple of days ago; I don't see him being told to leave the country yet.

Could it be that these petitions are completely useless?

<comment><AUTHOR> It costs little to nothing to participate, and the E(X) is somewhere between 0 and saving Net Neutrality - aka non-negative, no downside - it's not like you lose your firstborn if the petition fails.

And yet the majority of these petitions fail anyway, so the few that do provide some useful signal, even if we can't know the extent to which it influences the decision-making process.

<comment><USER6> The obvious downside would be the typical slacktivism worry that by allowing an easy, ineffectual way for people to voice their opinions you're reducing the likelihood that they'll bother to go for more difficult but more effective ways; sort of a crowding-out effect for effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The signatures are racking up. It's good to see people standing up for net neutrality. Just added mine.</comment>


Vegas needs Uber - <AUTHOR> http://jdorfman.posthaven.com/why-vegas-needs-uber?t=60907152014

<comment><USER2> Enjoyed the piece, and the fact you documented your vegas cab ride experience with pictures. I think one of the best things Uber is doing is forcing accountability on an industry that hasn't had it in a while - I don't view the sorry state of the taxi system as the drivers' fault, but rather the failure of lawmakers to keep regulations up to pace with the times.</comment>


The Monster of Bad Spelling - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2015/11/giant-despair-of-doubting-castle <comment><USER2> The first letter of the newspaper is clearly an upper-case eth, not a d.. Weird mistake for a researcher to make!

<comment><USER3> Upper-case eth? That would be a Ð.

I assumed it was a cyrillic glyph, but that doesn't seem to be right either; the closest I could find was ъ, which loops the wrong way. It would appear to just be a glyph the newspaper people made up, like the I-like vowel that follows it, or the one representing the ng sound, or the filliped O in "Anglo".

Why pick on the researcher? She couldn't type the invented d-like glyph, so she used an actual D. She couldn't type the invented ng-glyph either, and used an n, but you're not complaining about that.

<comment><USER2> Because the name of the newspaper is 'Thi Anglo Sacson'. The reversed N is another decorative glyph.

<comment><USER4> I suspect rather that the reversed N is a take on the letter ŋ ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eng_%28letter%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eng_%28letter%29)), or "eng", since that's the sound that the 'n' in 'Anglo' makes anyway (when followed by a 'g').</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This is an experiment in scientific methodology - <AUTHOR> http://thisscientificmethod.com/2010/02/28/this-is-an-experiment-in-scientific-methodology/

<comment><USER2> Fundamentally, science is a two-step process:

Observe. Theorize. (Repeat as long as it takes to stabilize.)

A great deal of structure has arisen around both of these things. Descriptions of how observations should be carried out, how experiments should be designed to test theories, how results should be reported, how outlying data should be handled, when your data is "good enough" to stop repeating (95% CIs and such), and more.

But our methods for "how results should be reported" were developed in an age when print journals were the main source of scientific reporting. There simply wasn't room for long descriptions of specific setup details, daily travails, etc. There wasn't room for complete data sets of millions of points. Now there is. It's refreshing to see someone taking an approach to science that says "we've got the space to report every detail, so let's do it. Anyone can dig deeper and get the full story if they're interested."</comment>


"Space Jam" movie website, untouched since 1996 - <AUTHOR> http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm <comment><USER2> [http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/tunes/soundtra...](http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/tunes/soundtrackframes.html)

I tried calling the number and ordering the soundtrack on cassette for $8.99:

 _"Hello, J & R Music World"_

 _Me: "Hi, I'd like to order the Space Jam soundtrack on cassette."_

 _Them: "What?"_

 _Me: "I'd like to order the Space Jam soundtrack on cassette."_

 _Them: "On cassette?"_

 _Me: "Yes, on cassette."_

 _Them: "Uhh...we don't do cassettes anymore!"_

I guess I will have to settle for the RealAudio 2.0 previews.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pedantically, it's not untouched; it has been modified as recently as 2007, according to <[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www2.warnerbros.com/spac...](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm>);

The sorta changes made are interesting in their own ways. Things like the removal of a html comment "Temporary Placeholder. Netgravity is functioning correctly if you can see this." Netgravity was a circa 1996 advert server.

Overall impression is that it's been bit rotting in a CMS in interesting ways since 1996.

<comment><USER4> I ran this website (and all the other Warner Bros sites) back in 2001 on Netscape Enterprise Server, after it had been sold to Sun and was effectively a dead product. We admins always wanted to move to Apache but there was a Netgravity module for serving ads and we only had a version that worked with NES (NSAPI). It looks like they finally got rid of that and moved everything to Apache, about a decade too late.

<comment><USER5> Any insight into this long dead link? Did you know a S. Herrod? It was a scan of a diary found IIRC, on Market Street in SF. A sad tale of drug abuse and street life from the perspective of a young woman: <http://www.thematrix.com/~sherrod/diary.html>

Archive.org has a partial copy: [http://web.archive.org/web/20010124050200/http://www.thematr...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010124050200/http://www.thematrix.com/~sherrod/diary.html)

<comment><USER4> No idea. It looks like maybe it belonged to a Bruce Sherrod?

At the time the movie came out the official website was whatisthematrix.com, presumably because all the more obvious options were taken, so this was probably some other site whose domain was eventually yanked by WB's lawyers.

Interesting find though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> :) The browser icon page tells you how to use ResEdit to hack your copy of Netscape on Mac to have a basketball throbber. Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER7> Who did they think they were writing the copy for? It's a kids film right? Check this paragraph out:

"You've made it: Jam Central Station, the central depository for all things Space Jam. From the best seats in the house, you can peruse the production notes, find out about the filmmakers , check out the theatrical trailer , and look at a bunch of photos from the film."

<comment><USER8> This one is also a gem: "Bugs Bunny, the linchpin of the Looney Tunes, has been called everything from "classic" to "perennial" to "an American institution" to "one of our national heroes"--and "wascally wabbit," "long- eared galoot," and a lot of other things besides! But most of us just like to call him Bugs."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now that brings back memories, since I was working on Space Jam the Video Game in 1996.

Love that the backgrounds are 300x500 pixels. Huge!

<comment><USER10> Also, 'Jam Central' has a feature to download "full-size, full-color, internet-quality stills".

The thumbnails are 72px × 43px. When clicked, it loads a separate page with an 360px × 216px image. Huge!

[http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/jamcentral/pho...](http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/jamcentral/photos.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can barely remember when websites used to look like this. Nevertheless, the odd nostalgia of it all makes me smile.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whacky.

Anders Sandberg (a Swedish ethicist and futurist) hasn't updated his old web site at <http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa> since 1997. Chunks of it that were moved to other sites are missing.

I can't think of any older examples - all the other pages I hit circa 1994/95 are simply _gone_. As much as we want URLs to last forever or be properly redirected, stuff doesn't seem to stay up forever.

<comment><USER3> I have websites with VCS repos that go back to September 1994. If you ran into Shaksperean insult generators or Escher art galleries back then, I probably still have the original web pages you saw. Some of the data is currently offline pending expiration of copyrights. (As if that'll ever happen..)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "If your browser is equipped with the latest 'Shockwave' plugin, you'll see the game below"[1]. On Chrome I see nothing. I guess the latest versions of Flash dropped Shockwave support.

[1] [http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/bball/shoot.ht...](http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/bball/shoot.html)

<comment><USER14> Shockwave is a separate format, not part of Flash. Nobody uses it anymore, which is why you do not have the plugin.

<http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/> if you are curious, but I _strongly_ recommend not installing that.

<comment><USER7> Fyi, Shockwave is still installed on roughly 50% of net connected pcs. most bought in last 2 years wont have it installed by default, but more do than dont:

[http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/shockwaveplayer/...](http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/shockwaveplayer/version_penetration.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just remember, a lot of the cutting-edge HTML5 websites we're building today will look like that in a decade or so.

<comment><USER16> I don't think that's true. They'll look out of date in amusing ways, sure, but the particular out-of-dateness that accompanies very early entries in a medium's history, when the technology is very poorly understood, is special. Movies from the 1930s look old-fashioned but they're totally watchable, and the good ones can still be enjoyed. Movies from the 1910s are only worth watching for their historical interest or exoticism.

<comment><USER15> The volatility of our medium hasn't decreased at all yet. If anything, it has increased in recent years. There's no way to know what point in the medium's maturation we're presently at; we may be _much_ earlier on the timeline than us early adopters perceive.

Just think, _IE6_ was light years ahead of 1996's state of the art web technologies, and look at IE6 now. Firefox 4, IE9, and Chrome 10 will eventually be just as dated as IE6. The sites designed for them today will probably be horribly broken messes in 2020's latest crop of browsers (which will probably be more prevalently a function of whatever device defaults are by then, ala iOS and Android).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dang. Can IE9 handle this level of CSS?

</comment><comment><USER18> <!-- Badda Bing, Badda Boom -->

</comment><comment><USER19> Anybody have a copy of Netscape Navigator 2.0 to browse the site? I'm noticing some bugs in Chrome 10.0.612.3 dev on a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER20> I found it really interesting that the "Movielink" button to "find out where space jam is playing" goes to blockbuster.com

<comment><USER10> "On August 8th, 2007, Blockbuster purchased Movielink. According to the 8-K filing by Blockbuster, the total purchase price was $6.6 million. [...] On December 16th, 2008 the Movielink website was shut down. The site was re- directed to the Blockbuster home page."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movielink></comment></comment>


SenseCam: A wearable digital camera from Microsoft Research - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/sensecam/

<comment><USER2> Theres a bunch of MSR funded university research projects which have been ongoing for a good many years now, eg <http://www.cdvp.dcu.ie/SenseCam/></comment>


Blogger sues Google over court order - onreact-com http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Blogger+sues+Google+over+court+order/1925992/story.html

<comment> onreact-com This is a follow up of this submission:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=772519></comment>


Facebook: Improving account security with delegated recovery - happy-go-lucky https://www.facebook.com/notes/protect-the-graph/improving-account-security-with-delegated-recovery/1833022090271267 <comment><AUTHOR> They are making Facebook and other "Recovery Providers" target for hackers and secret court orders. To be reasonable secure, you would have to use more than one; (2fa?, 2 out of 3fa?). They are stamping your requests and can be held liable if they don't allow government agencies into your account, or they can be forced to never let you use it.

Mega breaches would still be fun, that hardly solves anything. We are working on private key (&passwords) recovery manager, that • doesn't need any passwords/pins/codes, • zero-knowledge (we don't know what you are trying to sign into), • allows you to do distributed recovery (each trusted contacts holds a share to a backup key) •opensource clients [https://www.zeropass.io/](https://www.zeropass.io/)

We are planning to implement fido style authentication, but with private key recovery (Yubikey-s don't provide the recovery functionality)</comment>


Slavoj Žižek on GReferendum: The Greeks are correct - <AUTHOR> http://analyzegreece.gr/topics/greece-europe/item/270-slavoj-zizek-on-greece-the-greeks-are-correct/ <comment><USER2> The biggest point that is rarely raised in this whole debate is that Germany has benefited for the last decade from the low Euro; which has been courtesy of the Greeks. In the last decade the Germans have had their main stock index gain some €40T (much more if you take from 2003). The increased tax income to the German state over this period would handily pay off Greece's debts. So Germany has benefited from Greece over all these years and now they refuse to pay for that benefit.

This is a case of ideological holier than thou treatment, a bureaucratic banality of evil. Meanwhile people sleep on the streets in Greece, from children to pensioners.

Both the past Greek governments shouldn't have borrowed the money, and the past European governments shouldn't have lent them the money; now both sides will suffer. And I'm starting to get the feeling that only one side will learn from this (and it isn't the EU bureaucrats, calling them technocrats is too generous; they follow the rules and ideologies even when they are wrong).

<comment><USER3>
        Meanwhile people sleep on the streets in Greece,
        from children to pensioners.

GDP in Greece is $18k per capita. Why do they sleep on the street? Where do people in Slovakia sleep? They have only $16k per capita.

I have friends in Macedonia. They have a GDP of $5k per capita. And I witness nobody sleeping on the streets, when I visit them.

Isn't Greece a relatively wealthy country, compared to several others in Europe?

<comment><USER4> Wikipedia gives $16,138 vs $18,863 and $29,209 vs $26,773 PPP estimated for 2015, so Slovakia is actually a bit better off.

<comment><USER5> > Wikipedia gives $16,138 vs $18,863 and $29,209 vs $26,773 PPP estimated for > 2015, so Slovakia is actually a bit better off.

...on average, _and_ Slovakia also has (as far as the most recent numbers I can find) a lower Gini coefficient, so should have smaller numbers far above and far below that average.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A very readable and insightful piece by one of the great (in some meanings of the word) philosophers today.

A somewhat parallel piece by Zizek a year ago: [http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/slavoj-i-ek- onl...](http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/slavoj-i-ek-only- radicalised-left-can-save-europe)

<comment><USER7> Rather puffed up fluff piece. TL;DR: "a clientelist corrupted state if there ever was one."

<comment><USER8> So who is at fault for loaning money to what everyone knows is "a clientelist corrupted state if there ever was one"?

Surely not the borrower? I mean, historically, for basically all time, it was the job of banks to say "no" to borrowers who were not good credit risks. That was their job, first and foremost, not to lose the principal.

In the last decade or two for some reason they decided that preserving their principal wasn't the primary goal, "returns" were.

I don't think it's surprising that people who historically have not been given enough rope to hang themselves suddenly get more rope and are expected to know that the world has changed. They don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am an ultra-free-market Objectivist. Still, I think that the Greeks voted correctly.

The problem is: even in a democratic country, you are not accountable to where and how much your government's borrowing. Governments do not produce money; they take it from taxes. Which means: _they_ are borrowing money, and _you_ have to repay it.

While being responsible for debts is a good thing, it only concerns your own debts, not something that was made on your behalf. It's the businesses who will suffer the most (as they are taxable), and they are innocent.

<comment><USER10> >> Governments do not produce money; they take it from taxes.

Exactly. Where does Greece thinks the bail out money they received came from? That's right, the tax payers in the other EU countries.

Greece saying NO is not Greece giving the finger to Europe, it's Greece giving the finger to the people of Europe.

<comment><USER5> > Greece saying NO is not Greece giving the finger to Europe, it's Greece > giving the finger to the people of Europe.

Its not giving the finger to anyone. The Greek government was offered terms, which it could accept or reject (neither of which constitutes "giving the finger" to anyone, choosing to accept or reject an offer is just a routine part of negotiating.) The government gave this choice to the voters with a recommendation, rather than acting unilaterally on it. The voters made a choice to reject the terms, which was the recommendation given by the government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> chestnut-tree _"...only a new "heresy" (represented at this moment by Syriza) can save what is worth saving in European legacy: democracy, trust in people, egalitarian solidarity."_

I'm glad the Greeks voted No. The zeal with which austerity politics has been unflinchly pursued has caused enormous hardship for people in Greece and across Europe. But do people in Europe really feel a sense of solidarity with each other?

I'm from the UK, a country often lambasted for it's aloof and isolationist attitude to Europe. I used to be embarrased by the scepticism shown by British MPs towards closer EU integration. Now, however, I'm just a bit indifferent. The reason? I've seen clearly that self-interest among European countries (almost) always trumps a greater collective good. Yet the press and politicians continue to pretend otherwise. I don't blame individual countries for doing this, but I wish they would drop the pretence that they are pursuing a greater collective goal for Europe when in fact they are often pursuing a best-for-my-country approach. And who can blame them when it will always be to their own electorates that they must first appeal?

The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean really amplified this for me. I was ashamed of the UK response, but no other country was willing to share fairly the number of migrants rescued either. And even the rhetoric around Greece is rarely about solidarity and common European humanism, but instead about keeping the integrity of the financial system in place.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33132595](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33132595)

<comment><USER11> But do people in Europe really feel a sense of solidarity with each other?

Yes, yes they do.

I'm also glad the Greeks voted No. About time this charade that is the €zone was fixed properly. And I say that as an ardent proponent of the €. The sooner a politico-fiscal framework is set up the better. Of course people _hate_ the idea because it means that sovereign states become even more closely knit. And they also hate the idea that a mechanism will be put in place whereby regions that benefit more from the integration help regions that don't benefit as much. By all means, the Greeks should get their house in order, but the stereotypes that are being bandied about the place are embarrassing.

Smart move by you guys (UK) to stay with the £ while the € experiment got under way. If people put aside their differences and fix it though the € has a chance at becoming by far and away the world's second reserve currency. We're closer than we imagine to that state of affairs I believe.

Regarding the immigrant crisis in the Med. Surely a tragedy that every EU citizen should be ashamed of. How many have died already? I don't even know. UK has responded now though (and bravo for that), as has Ireland, Germany, and others?

</comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel Ultimately, the market has to bare the loss of the Greek government. It's really no different than when a corporation fails to pay its debts. Mind you, it does cause a massive decline in the country's economy. I think the IMF has the right idea, give Greece a means to grow its economy and put a hold on all debt payments. To do otherwise, I think is to court failure of the entire Eurozone.

<comment><USER12> except the "market" already got a bailout laundered through the greek government so merkel, sarkozy, strauss-kahn, et al, could pretend they hadn't given their banks giant checks

<comment> norea-armozel The ECB bought the debt from the private banks, right? So, I think the burden is still to be carried by someone. So, I don't think the ECB should've never bought back the Greek debt at all. The banks need to learn that there's no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to loans. But it seems all governments are hell bent on making the lives of banks far too easy (where the rest of us if we should fail are told to get bent).

<comment><USER12> ain't that the lesson of the last 7 years?

private gains, socialized losses, and fuck the taxpayers

<comment> norea-armozel No doubt. And at this point I'm beginning to lean towards the idea of abolishing money altogether (and I'm the market anarchist here).

<comment><USER11> Don't throw the idea of money under the bus. Money in itself is not the root of the problem. Money is a tool, an instrument -- let's keep that perspective clear in our minds. We can innovate in the money space (crypto-currencies, blockchains, and all that) if we want better solutions.

Somebody posted a G.K.Chesterton quote on this site a mere 6 hours ago that is apropos: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845506) [But donkeys, I fear, will never be abolished.]

Look to how money is misused abused and try to figure out how we can remedy those situations. Much better :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pacta sunt servanda - contracts must be adhered to.

Greece has to pay back its debt. You can philosophize all you want. There is no way around it.

<comment><USER11> Which is exactly the point Zizek was making. You (in the guise of a so-called technocrat) say that your position is not ideological -- "contracts must be adhered to" according to you -- "while the EU technocrats talk as if it is all a matter of detailed regulatory measures" according to the article. Notice a similarity?

So, no. Contracts do not have to be -- and indeed, frequently -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default#List_of_sove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default#List_of_sovereign_debt_defaults_or_debt_restructuring) are not adhered to.

You wish poverty on millions? You wish social unrest? You wish the perpetuation of an unjust financial state of affairs then.

I've said this until I'm blue in the face, the €zone as it exists cannot function without fiscal transfers. That requires _political_ redress. Until that happens sovereign states within the €zone are not playing on a level playing field. Each state gave up a lever of power (sovereign currency) to join the club and a similar virtual lever must be established in return (fiscal transfers). Within the USA there are fiscal transfers. Between regions in sovereign states (Germany, UK, Spain, etc.) there are. The €zone has got to have them.

But nooo - "Pacta sunt servanda". That simple is it? Give me a break.

<comment><USER3>
        You wish poverty on millions?

How much does Greece have to pay per year? I think it's something like $5bn? AFAIK they have a GDP of $300bn and $100bn of that are converted into taxes. Why would paying $5bn result in poverty of millions then? Isn't their spending on military alone in the billions?

<comment><USER11> The unemployment rate is well over 20%.

If more austerity measures are imposed the rate of unemployment will go up even more. This translates to increased poverty. Those repayments have to come from somewhere else within the Greek economy. That somewhere else will have a knock-on hardship.

If that is the case then Greece should default and leave the €zone. But that is not a great outcome. As the next weakest economy will come under fire. Also, others will be reluctant to join the €zone.

Restructuring and short- to mid-term solutions kick the can down the road. Ultimately a fair system of fiscal transfers needs to be put in place. Loans are _not_ fiscal transfers. Like it or not the €zone is in this together now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a bit amusing how suddenly everyone seems to be an expert in economics.

In any case, what all those people are missing is this: The Greeks signed the contract. The contract hasn't changed since then. If they are "correct" now they shouldn't been willing to sign the contract.

Sometimes, the truth hurts.

</comment><comment><USER14> My Great Depression Economics professor at university had the opinion that the newly formed ECU was going to be temporary or at least limited in scope, due to the lack of exchange float - similar to the gold standard. I also see a lack of "political float" here. op/ It's too idealistic to expect separate nation states to ignore their differences. /op</comment>


Submit.co – Where to get press coverage for your startup - <AUTHOR> http://submit.co

<comment><USER3> These publications are only relevant if you're building a tech business - <USER2> one that sells to tech businesses or consumers. If you're doing anything else then these are worse than useless because they'll distract you from things that will help your company grow. Find the media _that your potential customers read_ and target those publications and the journalists that write for them. Build relationships with them. Respond to their tweets. Tell them you liked reading their articles. Treat them like human beings. _Then_ pester them for coverage.

Naughty Hack: When I was building UsableHQ I signed up for a free trial on [http://muckrack.com/](http://muckrack.com/) and scraped the entries using [http://import.io](http://import.io) to build a target list of 'journalists who write about business tools or write for business publications'. It didn't really help us considering we failed, but it felt good and with more runway it may have been useful.

EDIT: Looking at Muckrack again it looks like they've killed off the free trial. Probably because of people like me. That's a shame. I'm sure the same idea would work on any other journalist database though.

<comment><USER4> The funny thing is that the truly mainstream publications (e.g. NYT, Time, CNN, etc.) no longer have such a high bar about what's interesting or meaningful to the world. Rather, they're already down on their knees losing impressions to Facebook and Twitter and the only thing they care about is "what has the potential to be forwarded like crazy on social media and generate impressions".

Time magazine decided on their own to feature one of my personal little embarrassingly-simple late night Arduino hacks, and my guess is only because I made a Youtube video out of it, and that it had good potential for a witty headline that could go viral on social media with its connection to something from popular literature that everyone knows. There was absolutely zero innovation in it as far as technology goes.

Tech publications, on the other hand, tend to have a higher bar in terms of content quality and meaning to society and the world, but mainstream, non-tech consumers don't read them.

Moral of the story is, if you want to get featured on the mainstream publications, make it catchy, witty, funny, fashionable, potentially viral on its own. Oh, and use technology to realize something well-known from fantasy, science fiction, or popular movies and you'll have an instant hit on mainstream media.

<comment><USER5> It's a good point - to some degree, you design not just for your customer, but for the distribution of the message. (This is also why packaging is underrated as a product in its own right.) Design the product so that it's self- explanatory in an image, and balancing against feature deep, include a feature that has a level of novelty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't chase coverage. Chase customers.

I need to take this advice myself.

<comment><USER7> I agree but at launch, I think it's good to take some time to chase coverage and then stop. Here's why:

\- Search results. People will google your company, and if you lay some nice groundwork at launch, there will be descriptive google results from publications that the user has at least somewhat heard of. SEO doesn't hurt

\- Logos. It's proven that having a few "as seen in" logos on your website sets yourself apart from the average SaaS/app people find. There's so much junk, it's nice to easily be able to set yourself apart as at least a mildly serious thing.

\- The "Oh I've heard of them" effect- if enough people see your launch, there are now a lot of people in various networks who will say "oh I've heard of them" or "oh have you heard of?" when people are describing problems. This has an effect later on.

It's good to get these things out of the way, put some logos on your website, and establish yourself early as "not just another weekend side project" and put yourself into another tier in the users' mind. After that's done, be done with it - handle the leads that come in, get good feedback, go back to work and go find your actual customers where they actually are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My word this is impressive.

How did you find all of these outlets? I always find that in the aggregation era, it's very tricky to find _everyone_ covering a topic, rather than just the top 2-3 people.

I wish there was something similar for the film world.

<comment><USER9> I've accumulated this list over time. I've also curated it with the help of virtual assistants (FancyHands.com).

> I wish there was something similar for the film world.

Noted! Definitely worth considering branching out to other verticals.

Disclosure: I'm the creator of Submit.co

<comment><USER10> puhLease make a film one. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You probably are already aware, but your twitter counts are off. TechCrunch has followers in the millions, but indicated as non-million units. You might want to check your counts. Also, allow this to be sortable in this list view (understand that there is a Google doc on the back of this).

<comment><USER9> Yeah, there seems to be something funky going on with the Twitter followers. We currently use a Google Spreadsheet Script to fetch these numbers. Will have a closer look today!

As for sorting, I think it's a limitation of embedding a Google Spreadsheet. We'll probably move away from it shortly so we have more flexibility, but for now you can visit the document directly: [http://edit.submit.co/](http://edit.submit.co/)

Disclosure: I'm the creator of Submit.co

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't actually get the link to load here so I can't evaluate the site itself.

But on a general note: Hire an agency and spend your time growing your business in other areas and stop doing your own PR.

A good agency will help you create the proper messaging to use from your business' strategy, make sure that the announcement newsworthy, and, frankly, likely already has rapport with journalists and knows what they need to write a good story -- this will make them more effective and more efficient than you at pitching your announcement.

The opportunity cost on the pitching alone is insane so, seriously, don't do your own PR.

<comment><USER9> Site might have been briefly down (perhaps a minute) when pushing some changes. Should be back up: [http://submit.com/](http://submit.com/)

As for delegating your PR I'm curious to hear on your personal experience with this. I generally do my own PR and it works out really well. Doesn't cost too much time either if you know what you're doing and at least the tech media prefer to deal with the founders directly. (I happen to be in the fortunate position that tech media actually cater to my customer group, so that's where my experience lies.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the community is interested, you can easily build a custom list of reporters based on keyword searching their articles or twitter accounts at www.BoloHQ.com; there is a 21 day free trial. We have 32,000 profiles, mostly of tech and gaming reporters. We ask people not build massive lists (or, ahem, scrape, as I see in a comment), but have a targeted approach to interested journalists and accordingly build a relationship. E.g., you're a food delivery startup search for that and see the authors that write most frequently, set an email alert, note relationships with colleagues and in general build a communications workflow, not just spam a list, only a small subset of whom may be interested in food delivery startups. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER14> Impressive.

A CSV download of the whole table would've been very nice.

<comment><USER15> Press on edit, which opens the google doc backing this. Then download in whatever format.

<comment><USER16> I am unable to add more links even on opening in google docs

<comment><USER17> The Google Doc is on comment only mode.

<comment><USER18> Just copy paste it on excel

[http://pastebin.com/Lxx1Cjpt](http://pastebin.com/Lxx1Cjpt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I saw this on Product Hunt and immediately bookmarked it. I love the simplicity and the abundance of information contained within the site. Bravo! More more!

</comment><comment><USER20> FYI - your domain is currently rated with Bluecoat as suspicious so will get caught on most corp proxies.

[http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp#/?search=submi...](http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp#/?search=submit.co)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for noticing! I acquired the domain name a while ago. There must have been some suspicious content on it before. I have reached out to Bluecoat to see if they can reconsider.

Disclosure: I'm the creator of Submit.co

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Impressive work.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good initiative.

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://hubski.com/tag?id=startups](https://hubski.com/tag?id=startups), [https://hubski.com/submit](https://hubski.com/submit), [https://twitter.com/hubski](https://twitter.com/hubski)

</comment><comment><USER24> Great resource. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Let's use LaTeX - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/nickymarino/lets-use-latex <comment><USER2> Switching my resume to LaTeX was one of the best decision I've made.</comment>


Having your cake and eating it too: The maturity structure of US debt (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2012/11/debt-maturity.html <comment><USER2> _Why not go long?_

People forget that the market is bigger--many times bigger--than the Treasury and the Fed put together. Why not go long? Because the market for 20+ year debt at a laughable yield won't allow it. I suspect the economists at our governing institutions know what they are doing: Rising rates will cause havoc, and so they sell paper based on avoiding said havoc.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would make sense, except reality disagrees: long-term debt is salable. US 30 year debt used to be perfectly liquid, and even more extremely, perpetuities like the British consol have had no troubles being sold or traded. The US government did not switch to short-maturity debt after careful consideration and research proved longer maturities didn't work, it was much more accidental than that...</comment></comment>


The Entrepreneurship Myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2008/sb20080123_809271.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz <comment><USER2> A little more economics and a little less statistics would've helped his argument immensely.

Entrepreneurship flourishes when there are diseconomies of scale and dies when there are economies of scale. It's not hard to see why: if things get cheaper as you get bigger, then the first company to get big will gobble up all the smaller companies, and you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly. If things get more expensive as you get bigger, then no firm will grow larger than a certain limit, and after a certain point the most productive employees will leave and start their own businesses, because they can make more money that way. (If costs stay roughly the same, as in most professional services, the industry trends toward many small firms because of the psychological benefits of working for yourself.)

Software is the perfect example of a business with diseconomies of scale. Every experienced software engineer knows that adding people to a project makes it go _slower_. The only reason why a large software company might be more efficient than a small one is if there's an additional factor of production that has large economies of scale: for example, data centers (Google/Yahoo), logistics & warehousing (Amazon.com), buyer eyeballs (E-bay, Facebook), or retailing (Microsoft, Borland, Ashton-Tate, and all the boxed- software manufacturers of the 80s). Other than that, there's no economic reason why big software companies should exist.

Big companies buy little companies when there's a market that they want to get into and apply their economies of scale to. They can't develop the product in- house, because small teams of programmers are more productive than large teams of programmers and so the startup would continually outpace them. But the resulting merger would be more economically efficient, because the startup could take advantage of the large company's datacenters & warehouses. So they trade money for product; the small company's founders get rich, while the big company buys a product that can make more profit under the large firm than as an independent firm.

It's probably also worth mentioning that technology developments can fundamentally change the structure of an industry. Intel single-handedly destroyed the minicomputer industry, because those firms had relied on their economies of scale in manufacturing to justify their size, and Intel brought _greater_ economies of scale to the thousands of ISVs who could then produce software more cheaply than the big proprietary vendors. The RIAA held a distribution lock on the music industry for years, but when the Internet came along and made distributing music free, power shifted to the independent bands who have significant _diseconomies_ of scale. The Internet looked like it was heading towards a universe of big firms with large datacenters, but then LiveJournal and Flickr published their scalability approaches and made it possible for everyone to scale out for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> He seems to have missed one very important fact about startups. If it doesn't work, you can try again! I think the odds are pretty slim for everyones first startup but you learn from it and have another go. Its like saying that everyone has a very low chance of getting over 10' on thier first pole vault so its bad policy to have it in the olympics.

Just to offer a counterpoint. Our startup has grown far less than we hoped. We have only one large cororate account and 5-10 smaller local offices. There's only three of us and we're half-way thru year 4. BUT we've already made what we would have made in 10 years at the jobs we quit.

</comment><comment><USER4> From the article:

"I hate to deflate egos, but on the other hand I want people to have a realistic understanding of things. The industry a person picks to start a business has a huge effect on the odds that it will grow. If you go back 20 years or so, about 4% of all the startups in the computer and office equipment industry made the Inc. 500, 0.005% of startups in the hotel and motel industries made that list, and 0.007% of startups in eating and drinking establishments."

This ignores cause and effect. Presumably a lot of business in the hotel and motel industries are simple mom and pop shops with no intention of growing. This is almost never true for "the computer and office equipment industry" Also presumably there there is a significant difference in the capabilities of founders in these two industries.

I hate when writers cannot see beyond their numbers, and cannot distinguish between cause and effect.

That being said I found it interesting that "you have to hit the top 10% to have income as an entrepreneur better than what you would have gotten working for other people."

Maybe if I hadn't done those startups I would have a red ferrari by now ;-)

<comment><USER5> _Presumably a lot of business in the hotel and motel industries are simple mom and pop shops with no intention of growing. This is almost never true for "the computer and office equipment industry"_

Well, I don't think you can assert that without statistics. I wouldn't be surprised if the "median" computer company is a one-person consulting firm -- a services company.

 _Also presumably there there is a significant difference in the capabilities of founders in these two industries._

Well, there, I agree -- I suspect that the average grocery store owner has a _lot_ more business skill than the average computer-industry founder. ;) By necessity -- the grocery business is more complex, with literally thousands of moving parts; there's more competition, and the margins are a lot smaller.

Having said that, your basic point is correct -- computer startups have a much better chance of making big money, for reasons that have been explored _ad infinitum_ around here -- low overhead, low cost of volume manufacturing, cheap distribution, large and international markets, etc. And that's exactly what this guy is saying when he suggests that you "choose the right industry".

His argument isn't addressed to the folks around here. It's primarily addressed to the "average" founder -- the person who founds a corner store, a dry cleaner, a hair salon, or a decorating business. These are the folks who go to "entrepreneurship" seminars (featuring lots of photos of the guys from Yahoo, Google, McDonalds, and Pepsi) and imagine that any chain of hot-dog stands could lead to similar financial success -- whereas, in fact, it's likely to cost them money. Of course, running your own company also makes you _much_ happier, on average -- a point which the author readily concedes.

<comment><USER6> "I wouldn't be surprised if the "median" computer company is a one-person consulting firm -- a services company."

This is one thing pg has been very clear about: a start-up isn't about taking away a monthly paycheck. It is about scoring big.

If your _start-up_ is helping pay for your apartment, that is good but hardly the goal of your start-up. Founders know that.

When your _consulting firm_ is helping pay for your bills, the end goal is reached. Little growth happens once you reach that goal.

There are exceptions--and almost any business can be transformed into a start- up(doesn't mean it will succeed). Infosys would be a good example of starting out as a small consulting firm and transforming itself into a start-up and now a giant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _The median startup is a business that's capitalized with about $25,000. The financing of that business comes from the entrepreneur's savings. The business is a retail or personal service business, a hair salon or a clothing store, that kind of thing. The founder doesn't have expectations of a very high growth business, in fact [the entrepreneur is] probably thinking a goal of $100,000 a year of revenue is a good goal._

The economist guy isn't wrong -- it's the article's title that's misleading. It _is_ hard to bootstrap your own gas station or hair salon. I'd argue, though, that developing new technology is a fundamentally different undertaking.

</comment><comment><USER8> Of course I don't agree with this guy, but I think we need to dissect the common entrepreneurial statement "I don't want to work for others". Now I am sure that we all agree that entrepreneurs do in fact need to "work for others", namely the customer!

But yes there is something different about doing it in the role of supplier rather than employee. I think in general what entrepreneurs are after is about "controlling their creative outputs and at least having the chance of being highly rewarded". Sure you can do that to an extent as an employee, but putting your heart and soul into something as an employee makes one feel like a chump. Especially when you are surrounded with all the loafers and parasites within the common organization. (Sorry if that sounds harsh)

Since the guy in the article didn't really make any concrete policy recommendations, he could consider suggesting reforms within larger organizations to reduce alienation.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think anyone on here is starting a hair cut business (unless its like robot hair stylists or something)

<comment><USER3> The suck-cut! As you can see, it sucks as it cuts...

<comment><USER10> You mean the Flowbee? <http://www.flowbee.com>

<comment><USER11> No, I'm pretty sure he meant suck-cut: [http://www.free-press- release.com/news/200509/1125942792.htm...](http://www.free-press- release.com/news/200509/1125942792.html)

<comment><USER3> HA! Its real! Priceless!

I actually meant the "Suck Kut" from Wayne's World... Who'da thunk someone would actually try to build one!?

Thanx for that link. Made my day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are two kinds of businesses. First, there are so-called "lifestyle" businesses, like bars, restaurants, B&Bs, etc. that people start because they'd rather work for themselves than someone else. Most owners of these types of businesses aren't interested in expanding or getting rich -- just doing what they enjoy. Then there are "growth" businesses, like (most) technology startups. Many people who start tech startups are interested in working for themselves, but they are more likely to be interested in expanding the business as well... not to mention the most important fact, that technology companies can expand much faster than other types of companies. As demand increases for, say, a website, it's much easier to scale up the infrastructure by adding new computers than it is for a hotel chain to build new hotels, or a "brick and mortar" retailer to build more stores.

<comment><USER13> But you can have lifestyle tech companies too, or can't you?

<comment><USER14> _"... he most important fact, that technology companies can expand much faster than other types of companies. ... But you can have lifestyle tech companies too, or can't you? ..."_

Facebook & Apple for example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this article misses the point of the book. The reviews on Amazon seem to frame a different picture of what he is actually writing than this Business Week article does.

"Scott has clearly and entertainingly shown why policy makers, entrepreneurs and investors should focus more attention on high growth, high potential start-ups and less on the ''me-too'' new companies than is currently the case."

I think this is something that most people here would probably agree with.

</comment><comment><USER16> _I think part of it is that we're trying to make sense of this paradox--that we really like it, but financially it isn't so great._

What? No one told him the oldest cliche in the book, that money doesn't buy happiness? Is it a mystery that so-and-so would be happier making 40K and owning a business than another person doing inventory at WalMart for 50K?

<comment><USER17> It's not a paradox. The more unpleasant a job is, the more you have to pay to get people to do it.

<comment><USER18> Rock star?

<comment><USER17> The most famous rock stars, and actors, and sports players, are paid a lot due to high demand and low supply. (Plenty of supply of willing people, but not plenty of supply of people with hundreds of thousands of fans.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "It shows the average new venture will fail within five years, and even successful founders usually earn 35% less over 10 years than they would working for others." -- That's fine, that's not why I'm starting a company anyway, I don't want to work for others.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's something very simplistic and reductive about this guy's reasoning.</comment>


Quality Is Fractal - <AUTHOR> http://ramenapp.net/post/53a4b26b35343800020a0000 <comment><USER2> Agreed, but I'd argue that striving for perfection in every detail is a bit of first world problem, and it also assumes availability of infinite resources. Starve a man for enough days, then give him a steak on a stick and I'll guarantee that he'll be happy just to tear the meat apart with his teeth caveman style, forget the formalities of napkin, plate and utensils. Same goes for software, esp. startups, where the first challenge is to get to having something that will do a right job however imperfectly, than the wrong job, however perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't find this to be an accurate description.

Yes, quality (often) has this _one bad apple spoils the whole bunch_ property. If we have to have a math metaphor we might say that quality is _multiplicative_ , in the sense that one low value in a sequence still impacts the entire product. Or we might say that quality has an _absorbing element_ , by which we mean that any zero value kills the whole set (100 * 100 * 100 * 0 still equals 0). But _fractal_ means that we see self-similarity at all levels. That hardly seems to be the case.

According to the original argument, bad software implies bad programmers which implies a bad company. That seems not only incorrect but also non- constructive. It ignores (e.g.) the idea that good employees could release bad products under bad management. Likewise, great programmers can write applications which are terrible to use. There are other skills involved in that process (interaction design, for instance). The criteria for evaluating programmers and software are vastly different and thus it doesn't make sense to say that there's a fractal relationship between these two vastly different kinds of entities.

</comment><comment><USER4> While I mostly agree with the premise, I'm worried many people will internalize the wrong lesson. It seems to imply that quality, as implicitly defined by the examples provided, is a barometer of success. The reality is that there are numerous vectors that you can compete on outside of quality and still be wildly successful.

I'd be happy to have 3 lines of subpar code if it gave me an advantage on other competitive angles.

<comment><USER5> Sure, there are many routes to success. In general though I think quality is one of the strongest and can lead to the most enduring products and companies.

Nevertheless, "quality" is an ill-defined concept, and it's easy to be led astray in pursuit of notional quality at the expense of real-world practical improvements to your product. For example, cost and ease of use are not independent factors. Consider VHS vs. BETAMAX video recording as a classic example. BETAMAX had superior recording fidelity, but it was significantly more expensive, and expense plus network effect was a major factor in the adoption of video tape standards.

Part of the "quality fractal" are meta-features such as robustness, elegance, usability, performance, and cost. It doesn't matter how theoretically perfect your product is if it's not practical or it's too expensive to serve the market effectively. A Bugatti Veyron may seem in many respects to be a "perfect" automobile, but it's not. The luxurious interior, amazing build quality, and high performance make it easy to overlook the downsides such as the extreme cost, low mileage, low lifetime of many components (such as the tires), high maintenance cost, etc. In most regards a Toyota Camry is a superior car to a Veyron. That's a result that it's very difficult to arrive at if you focus too myopically on the ideal of "quality" without looking at things holistically.

Compare, for example, consider the world-wide-web vs. project Xanadu, or Linux vs. Hurd. It's so easy to let perfect be the enemy of good. The concept of "worse is better" is on the surface a refutation of the importance of quality but in reality it's just a reminder that "quality" isn't always what we think it is and practicality is always by far the most important quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> About a month ago it was posted an article[1] about why Van Halen requested the infamous no brown M&M's clause in their concert contracts, it struck me as a practical way of measuring overall quality on a complex situattion.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7754334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7754334)

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the analogy, but is good advice to software startups?

"Finished is better than perfect" is probably a better startup philosophy. I've seen too many friends waste time on the nth refactoring of their code rather than focusing on shipping and proving customer value.

<comment><USER8> "Finished is better than perfect [ _as long as it isn 't crap_]"

I've seen too many products become a miserable mess because people believed in "finished is better than perfect". But that's something you learn when you're rewriting your code for the nth time to add the nth feature because otherwise you just can't fit anything new in there.

But as I always say on these occasions, please keep shipping bad code. I make good money fixing it.

<comment><USER9> Ah, but could your clients afford to hire you to clean up their messes if they hadn't finished something first?

<comment><USER8> The clients I've worked with from the get go maintained enough flexibility to finish something every couple of weeks ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You explain the concept, but where do you offer any evidence to support it? I don't dismiss the concept, in fact I think its an important one, but if you are making such a bold assertion, you would be well served to have something supporting your claim.

<comment><USER11> Strongly agree. I'd love to see the study or what Nathan Bowers wrote.

<comment><USER12> googling i ended up here for Nathan bowers article [http://web.archive.org/web/20120214085940/http://uxhero.com/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120214085940/http://uxhero.com/ux- theory/quality-is-fractal/)

Guess we mentioned fractals

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The path of mastery is also fractal. You can iterate & zoom in on concepts & practices. Over time, repeating patterns will be seen & seemingly unrelated concepts will be connected in simple ways.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely. Mastery is knowing what details to pay attention to. When you're learning, you don't know which ones, so you pay attention to all of them until they progressively become more automatic.

This requires a lot of focus and mental energy, but it deeply rewarding in it's own right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I will lay a decent amount of money this is the next meme - it is succinct and yet once you understand applicable everywhere.

I will certainly be quoting the phrase "quality is fractal" \- so will you soon:-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Agreed. The implication is, to change a low-quality X to a high-quality X is a huge amount of work, that scales super-linearly to the complexity of X.</comment>


Is my splash page lame? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kapuno.com

<comment><USER2> yes, mostly lame. The owl is cute. Why would someone sign up if they have no idea what you are doing or offering? What kind of person do you think would sign up? Is that kind of person your business target? Slowly spoon-feeding info to the reader with animation is disrespectful. If you have something to say, put it out there so it can be read as quickly as the reader is able, or at least clicked through. Under the logo you have text in four different colors and weights. If everything is a different style, how do you know what to focus on? Is grab an invite a link? Compress. How about" Enter your email to get an invite" Do people really need a green example of what an email address is? the animated text is amusing, are you going to be a comedy site? I question the premise of this splash page. If anything, you should post a blog with some of the posts from your personal page about the process of putting together the site and go from there. I just don't get the "I am doing something so secret I can't tell you, but give me your email" concept. Go for the blog of your progress, at least that has something. Best of luck on the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the candid feedback. I'm not going to say, "I know," although a lot of what you've been saying was bothering me as I put it together.

Re: collecting email - that's not actually the goal. However, I'm collecting WAY more than I would if I put the logo and a general tag-line.

The goal was to just let people have some experience with the brand. Be it amusing or fun. I was hoping to garner a smile. I actually didn't think it would be considered disrespectful, and I question whether you'd feel the same if you stumbled upon it via my Twitter, etc.

Nevertheless, I really do appreciate the time you took to write up your thoughts and appreciate your well wishes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ditch the animation and present the teaser clearly in a way people can control their consumption of. Most users want to quickly skim over new pages to determine if it interests them.

With your animation I spent 20 seconds staring and still have no idea what your product is even related to. Leaving me frustrated and completely uninterested.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks nice, but I don't like having to wait through the description text. Also, there really isn't much of a description of what it is or what it does. Without knowing anything about it I wouldn't give my e-mail address to you. The link to the Facebook page doesn't work yet so I would take it off until it is functioning.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. fixed the FB link to my fan-filled page.

Re: the length, I realize it's a tease.

Re: trusting us with your email. I get where you're coming from. If I put a static page I knew I had little to no chance. I've got a few people and I'd assume it's because the conversation intrigued them. I haven't reached out so, I guess I'm in the "better than nothing" ship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice, I like that you opted for HTML5 instead of Flash. However I've no idea what you do or are trying to offer so why would I sign up for an invite? For all I know it may be an invite to spam.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's the dilemma. I didn't want to have a blank page, but I'm not ready to chat about it -- well, unless you are liquid and want to share some wealth! Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You need to get to the point _much_ more quickly. The animation violates the "10 second" rule-of-thumb for attention span. (<http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html>)

The graphics and layout are nicely done ... but I'm not sure to what end. (I realize that's part of the problem of announcing stealth projects.)

The layout will have to change if the teaser is presented all at once.

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess it was loading slow for me, so all there was a grayed bird and email box. I waited and waited, than the animation started. I was about to leave.

Then, the text was fast (for me, at least) and I was totally distracted by the animation and missed lots of text in the beginning.

Now I'm under the impression that it's social network site for pets, and I guess I misread it, but won't refresh to find out :)

Please don't do this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes. I see where you were going but having watched the full animation I still don't know what you are teasing. I glanced away right as the text said something about social network-something-something. Get to the point. If this wasn't a request for feedback I would have bailed almost instantly. solution. Keep the 'fun' speech bubble on the right but put another on the right with the <140 character tease text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the honest remarks. Problem with my HN post is that I thought my comment (below) was the description for the link :) Probably gives you a better idea of where I was coming from. Quite a noob I am!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The email box seems unnecessary big and the example email can be place inside the box.

Regarding the submit button, you did not put too much effort on it considering all the work you did in the html5 animation.

More importantly, I will not give you my email without knowing _what_ it is.

<comment><USER10> A little usability feedback - the large email box can be a good thing, what we call a good Fitt's Law object.

Placing text inside of input fields lowers the response rate, and creates issues when the user looks to see if they entered the correct type of input, yet the instructional label has been replaced by their own text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips. Always nice when you have two contradictory statements in the same thread. Because your feedback requires me to do no work, you're definitely my hero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cute mascot. I initially didn't see the text because I opened the page in a new tab, so I would definitely make something a little more static unless it's triggered by a user action. (Even then, try to provide a bit more incentive to sign up.)

<comment><USER9> I would not have seen the animation unless I read you. I opened in a new tab too and by the time I got there everything was over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Objects the user is meant to interact with (like an input field) should not move once they appear.

I'd say just tell people what it is and let them decide if they want to sign up. The animation has zero information value.

</comment><comment><USER12> I confess I was hoping that this was one of those domains like <http://islostarepeat.com/> where the answer is always "Yes".

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha. That's brilliant. I'm questioning whether my business can succeed in such a thrilling competitive market.

What a great affiliate play :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes. Why have animated text? I'm bored by the time it shows up. I see a sign in bar, but don't even know why the hell I would be interested in this.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have to agree it's a good start but I am still not sure what it is you are doing

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that begs the question, what should you put up when your business is stealth! The hope was people would enjoy the experience enough to "trust" us with the email and a follow-up down the road.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

<comment><USER15> _I guess that begs the question, what should you put up when your business is stealth!_

You should be working on your product instead of futzing around with a placeholder web site that you don't actually intend anyone to see.

If you actually want to gauge customer interest and collect e-mails, then put some content on that page and worry about the presentation (and I actually think that's a really good idea). As things stand, if you won't give any real info on the page then you're just dicking around, and it won't make a bit of difference to your business whether you put up the site you have now, a text only "Under Construction" page, or a trollface with a hand drawn penis chewing on its ear. Even any e-mails that you _do_ collect are essentially worthless because they're not targeted at all to your product, so any signups just indicate that some people will inexplicably sign up for anything at all...

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree with your sentiment which is why I only allowed an afternoon to put it together and out. My reason for posting was, honestly to see if people actually felt it reflected so poorly that I should replace it with the standard hand-drawn peni chewing on ear.

Re: focusing on the actual product. This was the first "hello world" deployed with the dev-environment setup. SCM, scripts, and all that BS that's annoying to setup after you haven't done it in years was where the majority of the time was spent. I'm pretty sad how long it took me to setup everything.

Re: random emails, great point. The majority of the people who sign up are people I speak to directly or are in my network.

You may be interested to know that today I've only had about 36 non-garbage looking sign-ups and seems like around ~630 page views. So about 5% of views today resulted in a sign up.

Appreciate the time/effort/honesty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> nice logo, nice design, good domain, witty text. Now you have to deliver ;) You have to do more to get my email, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the support. Your email isn't the goal -- just wanted you to have a decent experience.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN. I'm working on a new project, but wanted to have a splash page to send people. I wanted it to be a bit different -- hopefully more engaging. The other key limit was I refused to spend more than an afternoon putting it together and getting it live as I never expected too many folks to randomly stumble and go to it.

Feedback, suggestions, slander are all welcome. I realize folks have strong opinions. Happy Sunday.</comment>


Multiple inheritance and the diamond problem - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_inheritance <comment><USER2> I remember when I first ran into this with Python classes, and had to learn how the Method Resolution Order worked. They use the C3 linearization algorithm to sole this problem (at least for Python 3 and new-style classes).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3_linearization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3_linearization)

<comment><AUTHOR> I came across it since it is going to be implemented in c#, it's a c# future now though</comment></comment>


You Exec Weekly Report – Open source electric car project? (See bottom) - <AUTHOR> http://youexec.com/weekly/2017-05-01 <comment><AUTHOR> Are there any engineers interested in developing an open source electric vehicle, or vertical take-off electric vehicle?</comment>


Facebook Starts Merging Timeline URLs and Email Addresses - <AUTHOR> http://www.techieapps.com/facebook-starts-merging-timeline-urls-and-email-addresses-to-make-them-more-consistent/

<comment><USER2> isnt this a privacy snafu? they are effectively publicly listing email addresses of all their users whose profiles are publicly listed.

facebook.com/myname firstname.lastname@example.com

I can basically do a google search to get to get a list of user urls</comment>