Juicero May Be Feeling the Squeeze - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-valley-s-400-juicer-may-be-feeling-the-squeeze <comment><USER2> I'll offer a brief glimpse into the future. Juicero, burnt by the ease at which consumers rob them of potential revenue poaches someone away from the likes of HP or Gillette. That someone comes up with the perfect solution: add a coded valve to the juice bags which only opens when it has been inserted in a licensed Juicero machine. The added advantage is that the machine can refuse to squeeze more juice out of a bag which has been in the machine for more than X days, _all for your protection_ of course.

Next thing consumers take knives to the bags to circumvent the coded valves. Bags are reinforced. Consumers use better knives. Bags are made double-walled with some nasty tasting/coloured liquid in between the two walls, _all for your protection_.

Next step is Juicero goes bankrupt, consumers are left with useless machines which end up on flea markets or landfills.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Me? I just eat an apple, an orange or a banana. My daughter prefers to put them through the blender first and calls it a smoothie. Takes all of a few minutes and works with apples and oranges and bananas from _any_ source.

<comment><USER3> You should consider applying for an operations role at Juicero - the double- walled solution was truly a nice touch.

On another note, Juicero doesn't care what you or your daughter do to make juice, because you were never meant to buy a Juicero. It's a safe bet that their strategy was to sell B2B to large corporations and into the high-end hospitality industry (hotels, cruise ships, colleges) rather than B2C. I'm sure they extrapolated some crazy TAM/SAM/SOM for the B2B amenities market based on Keurig's success and used it to score an easy $120m.

<comment><USER4> No, it's built as a home appliance. If it was for the food service industry, it would be heavy stainless steel and cleanable with boiling soapy water, like everything else in that industry. And it would be faster; 10 seconds, not 2 minutes. It wouldn't look like an overgrown iPad.

<comment><USER3> It's a self-serve appliance, aka not meant to be used in a kitchen or prep room, but to be left out in common areas for customers to buy/take a bag and make their own juice, no mess no cleanup, see Keurig

<comment><USER5> Keurig markets itself to both consumers and businesses.

<comment><USER6> others like Flavia dont market to consumers though (its actually a selling point of theirs, "our machines are expensive and hence wont be purchased by consumers, so dont have to worry about people stealing your supplies")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Reporters were able to wring 7.5 ounces of juice in a minute and a half. The machine yielded 8 ounces in about two minutes. . . The company sells produce packs for $5 to $8 . . ."

\- So the machine is 6%, give or take, more efficient than hand. If I'm serving two juices a day during weekdays for me and spouse at average cost of $6.5/unit that's $0.78/day, $3.90/week, say I do this 50 weeks a year so $195 in juice recovery value (JRV) by using the machine :).

\- Also saves the household example above 3 minutes of time a day by using machine. Let's say average household who can afford $8 packets of juice is in the $100k/yr club at least so time value (for sale) of $50/hr gives me an efficiency gain of 750 minutes or $625/year in Juicer Time Return (JTR).

Using machine provides one year JRV of $195 and a JTR of $625 = $820

Product cost is $400.

FOLKS you are DOUBLING YOUR MONEY!

<comment><USER8> I know you're being facetious, but the machine is actually slower than doing it by hand.

<comment><USER7> The machine takes no time though - eg 2 min of machine time is zero human cost time :)

<comment><USER9> I was sure you were joking at the GP, now I'm not sure anymore :)

You mean, I go out and get a machine, something that will take constant handling at home, and waste some precious space, so it can make juice. And as a bonus, it's slower than the no-machine alternative (so it will make me wait). And I didn't even come into the cost of finding their brand of juice for buying, instead of any other one.

I did never hear about this company before, but I'm surely not becoming their client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's the first time I hear about this product but as someone who likes fermenting vegetables this part surprised me:

>We finish by sealing the produce (completely raw and never pasteurized) into our Packs, which get shipped to your door the day they're made.

Wouldn't raw, unpasteurized chopped fruits and vegetable start fermenting very quickly in those packs? Are they shipped refrigerated?

This entire thing is so weird to me. Those packs cost around $6 each and they only produce a small glass of juice. This is less cost effective than some hipster juice bars, and at least here you don't have to clean the glass afterwards.

Buying a good juicer sounds like a much better investment, although admittedly they're probably more painful to wash up.

EDIT: after some more digging up, it turns out that the packs _are_ delivered refrigerated. On top of that the machine will refuse to juice expired or any kind of 3rd party packs and apparently needs an internet connection and a smartphone app to function. Preposterous.

Here's the getting started video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg)

Step 1: open the box

Step 2: plug in the juicer

Step 3: sign up to your juicero account through the smartphone app

Honestly if you had shown me this video 2 hours ago I'd have assumed satire.

<comment><USER11> I'm also very skeptical that raw chopped vegetables can be hand squeezed in to juice. Given that the packets _can_ be squeezed by had in to juice, that leads me to believe that the vegetables are not as unprocessed as Juicero would like me to believe.

Lemme try this - I'll chop up a bunch of spinach, kale, and carrots, place them in a reinforced bag, and squeeze them by hand. Yeah - that's not gonna give me juice...

<comment><USER12> I was wondering about that as well and found an article [1] that has pictures of an opened packet as well as after juicing [2]. To me it looks like the produce is chopped very fine, maybe a little like produce that has gone through a blender for a few seconds.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.sg/juicer-juicer-product- review-2...](http://www.businessinsider.sg/juicer-juicer-product- review-2016-4/)

[2] [https://static- ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5710e74c9105842...](https://static- ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5710e74c91058422008bcd3a-960-720/heres-a-before- and-after-shot-of-the-produce.jpg)

<comment><USER13> Yeah my guess is that depending on the ingredients, the consistency of the bag contents will range from finely chopped produce to a pulpy slurry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Two investors in Juicero were surprised to learn the startup's juice packs could be squeezed by hand without using its high-tech machine."

This sounds almost comical...

<comment><USER15> I don't see why this matters at all -- the disposable juice packs are what extract money from the consumer. It's the razor / replacement blade or printer / ink model. If someone finds out that they really only need the blades, ink, or juice packs, it's no big deal.

The problem for the manufacturer comes when consumers figure out that they can use knock-off blades, generic ink, or 3rd party juice packs.

<comment><USER16> How many people do you know that drag the razor across their face without the handle? Sure it's where the profit comes from, but you do need the two parts to have a consumer story. Otherwise they'd just sell the blades and drop the ruse.

<comment><USER17> They also sell disposable blades with disposable handles attached to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The single most "Silicon Valley is a bubble" paragraph I've ever seen:

Doug Evans, the company's founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force—"enough to lift two Teslas," he said. Google's venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. Tech blogs have dubbed it a "Keurig for juice."

I've got bingo!

</comment><comment><USER19> > Juicero declined to comment. A person close to the company said Juicero is > aware the packs can be squeezed by hand but that most people would prefer to > use the machine because the process is more consistent and less messy.

"We kinda didn't think about this much because the real money is in the packets anyways. This stuff is way better than ink cartridges."

<comment><USER20> Why not just sell the packets. $5-8 dollars for a juice pack is already bonkers

<comment><USER21> As a daily veggie shake juicer, I'd be interested in packs that could cut down on the time I spend each morning cutting stuff up, if cost effective. But I get no satisfaction from status symbols, anymore than I care that my household appliance barely found a reason to connect to my wifi.

<comment><USER22> > As a daily veggie shake juicer

Does not really compute with

> I get no satisfaction from status symbols

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand this product at all. If you're willing to buy a pack of prepared juice, why not just buy a bottle of juice instead?

<comment><USER24> I read that vitamins in juice break down over time rather quickly. Juicero is supposed to be as fresh as possible, and therefore be nutritious and taste better than anything in a bottle.

I can't speak to the actual differences, though. I'm not really a juice person unless rum or tequila is involved.

<comment><USER25> Sure, their juice is fresh, so it's better than most non fresh bottled juice. But you can buy bottles of fresh juice. It goes bad fast, but so do these bags of juice. I'm really not seeing how this product is anything but a con to take advantage of people who don't realise that a well marketed solution isn't necessarily better than what you already had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm sad they didn't test how fast they could empty the juice container with the aid of scissors.

It's also unfortunate that a ridiculous, overpriced, bag squeezing machine keeps getting the charitable label "juicer".

</comment><comment><USER26> Then there's this $1500 toaster oven. [https://juneoven.com/the- oven](https://juneoven.com/the-oven)

In all fairness, most of the reviews are fairly positive. Though this takedown is pretty hilarious: [https://www.fastcodesign.com/3065667/this-1500-toaster- oven-...](https://www.fastcodesign.com/3065667/this-1500-toaster-oven-is- everything-thats-wrong-with-silicon-valley-design)

</comment><comment><USER27> What do the contents of a juice pack look like prior to juicing? As far as I know, it's not possible to manually extract meaningful amounts of juice from leafy greens or root vegetables (e.g., spinach, romaine, kale, beets, ginger) so the ingredients must be processed before going into the packs.

<comment><USER28> Quote from another article (with some pics):

Juicero workers receive truckloads of produce from nearby organic farms, triple-wash it, then chop it into specific shapes. A specialized machine then fills each pack, ready to be shipped. [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/business/juicero-juice- sy...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/business/juicero-juice-system- silicon-valley-interest.html?_r=0)

Customer(?) with an open bag: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cfj8DI- UEAAGi5F.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cfj8DI-UEAAGi5F.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That looks like a waste nightmare.

> The only element not recyclable by municipal methods are the Packs > themselves

> Request a prepaid shipping label from by clicking the "Get Started" button > below. We will then collect the Packs...

[https://www.terracycle.com/en- US/brigades/juicero](https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/juicero)

<comment><USER30> Isn't it though? On top of not only the waste you have the waste of shipping/transportation.

> Step One: Cut off the bottom section of the Pack and remove the pulp

> Step Two: Rinse the Pack.

> Step Three: Set the Pack aside until you're ready to recycle.

> Step Four: MAIL THEM IN Request a prepaid shipping label from by clicking > the "Get Started" button below.

At this point I'm better off not only saving money, packaging and associated shipping pitfalls but saving time by simply juicing everything myself at home and buying produce when I make my regular trips to the grocery store.

<comment><USER31> The worst part is that if a pack is too old, the machine won't squeeze it for you! So people just throw them out. That's how my friend figured out you can just squeeze them by hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anybody else get flashbacks to the Tom Hanks movie _Big_ where using the mentality of a kid renders all the focus group and marketing analytic charts, well, kind of irrelevant. "Who wants to play with a building?" correlates to "Why don't I just squeeze this weird Capri-Sun pack thingy into the cup?" pretty nicely to me. Neat to see this, kind of humorous in a non-catastrophic way. It's not like the machine catches fire or explodes. This is...just life.

</comment><comment><USER33> "The New York franchise drew rave reviews from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow."

This is absolutely not a phrase I would want to see in an article about my startup.

<comment><USER34> You've never heard of Goop? Gwyneth Paltrow is HUGE. People buy the things she recommends, simple as that. You might not, but there's several armies' worth of gym-going, juice-drinking women who hang onto her every word.

<comment><USER33> If I was starting a business just to make money, I'd love to have Paltrow's endorsement. But I'm not wired that way. I value integrity and science too much -- probably to my financial detriment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is this the trailer for season 4 of HBO's silicon valley? It sure could be

</comment><comment><USER36> So what's actually inside the packs, very fine bits of wet plant matter? Is there any real benefit of this over just selling bottles of fancy juice?

<comment><USER37> The same thing I was left wondering. What's the point here with $400 machine and juices 5-8 dollars per serving? I'm sure they could get some thousands of users, but how on earth could this be worth such a large investment?

<comment><USER38> The key idea is already in the second sentence of TFA:

"The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single- serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage."

Keywords: _IoT_ , _single-serving_ refill packs, _healthy_ fuit & veg.

further details reveal that the thing will track you at every single use pinging the central servers. It has a kill-switch to refuse juicing when they don't think you should be juicing anymore (for now expired package, but hey, nothing prevents updated from refining the "feature").

Need I continue?

Overall, it's a product that just rides the hype of juicing and IoT, but it's at least as nasty as the !#@%!# cloudpets [1].

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/02/creepy-iot-teddy- be...](https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/02/creepy-iot-teddy-bear- leaks-2-million-parents-and-kids-voice-messages/)

<comment><USER37> For them, sure, the idea is surely interesting. But for the end-user? Why would anyone go for this over just ..buying a bottle of juice? It doesn't sound like this would be freshly pressed or anything, just from a weird container.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> 'He said the company is a "platform" for a new model of food delivery, where fresh fruits and veggies are delivered regularly to the home'

For the past five years, I have gotten a box of fresh fruits and veggies delivered every Monday. The produce is organic, often local, always tasty, the box they come in is reusable, and it doesn't have DRM (that I'm aware of).

Edit: "Williams, a self-proclaimed health-food evangelist, said she'd like to see the company sell packs by themselves to people who can't afford the device"

Can't spare $400 for the device? How about $5-$8 for 8 oz of fresh juice? Make sure to put it into a paper cup with a lid and a straw so we can maximize the amount of waste generated (along with the juice packet).

</comment><comment><USER40> But... what is the point of a juicer if the contents you are juicing are already liquid?

I am in a state of panic right now because I cannot fathom how a group of people thought this was a good enough idea long enough for them to develop a final product. What????

<comment> nommm-nommm They say it's "single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables" not juice.

<comment><USER41> ...but there's no way that you can generate enough force with just your hands to turn chopped fruit into liquid, though. It must be mostly-liquid already for that to work, right?

<comment><USER42> Ya, that's the real point. They are lying. If anything, it's full of pre- juiced chopped fruits and vegetables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nommm-nommm Wow, I can't even... this is comedy gold:

>four tons of force

>delivered weekly

>QR code

>online database

>patent-pending

>400 custom parts

>scanner

>microprocessor

>wireless chip

>wireless antenna

>revolutionary machine

>subscription model

>"platform" for ... food delivery,

Guys, we are talking about a juicer here.

<comment><USER43> Its the "unix toaster" of the 21st century although, to be fair to the unix toaster, at least DRM was not one of _its_ requirements.

[http://www.danielsen.com/jokes/objecttoaster.txt](http://www.danielsen.com/jokes/objecttoaster.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> $400 for a machine that in the end doesn't give you freshly squeezed juice? I think a lot of the appeal from squeezing fruit juice is using actual pieces of fruit.

<comment> nommm-nommm It's apparently "single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables"

<comment><USER42> But I think that's the crux of the matter, although the article fails to hit the nail on the head.

The marketing was completely misleading. The bags seem to be filled with prepared, liquid juice.

You don't need a machine because they are just sending out Capri sun bags of juice.

The machine is just a lie to make you think something is being prepared fresh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> In some sense, this is an example of Natural Selection in Silicon valley. Idiots get weeded out after wasting some VC money. Part of me feels amused by this.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is what happens when all the most important innovation is illegal (housing, health, and transportation) and increasing shares of income goes to the top 0.01%. Innovators run out of real things to innovate on, and start creating 400$ bags of juice. You should Look forward to seeing more of this in the coming decades.

</comment><comment><USER47> Never change sv

<comment><USER48> It would have been better if it was revealed in a plot point on Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER49> I'm still trying to figure out if this is a viral marketing campaign for season 4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "He owned a cup which served also has a bowl for food but threw it away when he saw a boy drinking water from his hands and realized one did not even need a cup to sustain oneself."

<comment><USER34> Is that from the biography of Rob Rhinehart?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I bet you could also use a straw and drink it right out of the pouch!

<comment><USER34> That's honestly a good enough idea already, especially if the pouch was recyclable. Then the straw could be metal (reusable) with a pointy end to pierce the pouch. Boom, solid business to have 10 of these pouches delivered weekly.

<comment><USER52> Hipster CapriSun?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Was wondering why not just use a hand-operated lever press, like the sort of low-tech cast-iron device you might find on an old farmhouse.

Then realized this was the concept for the hipster Juicero.

</comment><comment><USER54> Sometimes the real customer is investors willing to give millions to an idea and the real product is a company that looks investable.

</comment><comment><USER4> The thing used to cost $700.[1] $400 is the new, lower price.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14296530/juicero-juicer- pr...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14296530/juicero-juicer-price-cut- after-ceo-shakeup)

</comment><comment><USER55> This whole thing sounds like a sitcom parody.

</comment><comment><USER56> Huh, I wonder if this was just with certain juice bags, or if they generally pulverize the materials in the bags to make it easier to squeeze. I can easily see this for berries, citrus, etc, but it seems less likely for beets, kale, and other hardier vegetables.

Regardless, their actual market has always been restaurants and offices that want to have juice without a mess or someone who knows how to make it, and that seems less impacted, if perhaps less appealing to their investors.

<comment><USER17> The bags don't have anything other than juice in them.

edit: Or maybe finely chopped stuff. Unclear. I would think they wouldn't bother putting stuff like orange pulp in the bags though.

<comment><USER20> but if you can squeeze the juice by hand, its just juice. They're selling a $400 machine that squeezes a packet for you.

Life imitates art i guess

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> A "juice luminary" \- Silicon Valley writes itself!

</comment><comment><USER58> Alright, someone needs to make a hand cranked version of the juicer now. You could probably 3D print one on the cheap and open source the specs.

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm waiting for the part where we find out the contents of the packets are from bottles of Odwalla purchased at the local grocery store.

</comment><comment><USER60> Juicero also expects customers to cut open the juice packs, trash/compost the pulp, wash them out, then ship them back in a box for recycling. It's more work than just using a blender.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg&t=1m53s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg&t=1m53s)

</comment><comment><USER30> Can someone solve the added waste and transportation problem these companies (Juicero, Blue Apron, etc...) have created by using home deliveries and lots of specialty packaging? Yes, some perishable food delivery services offer recycling but you're still left with the transportation issue.

<comment><USER61> The waste and transportation is easy to solve: just don't use these companies. Go back to the old-fashioned way of obtaining your food from the store.

The real problem would need solving (and I'm not sure it really does, because how popular are these things, really?) is people's desire for these wasteful services.

<comment><USER34> I kind of wish stores would just sell pre-cut vegetables. There HAS to be a way to do this en masse. The pre-cut kale at whole foods is almost ALWAYS sold out. Not to speak of the cauliflower "rice" that people actually battle over at Trader Joes.

If stores stocked these kinds of pre-cut veg, that would take 3/4 of the pain out of cooking.

<comment><USER62> My local mid-range grocery store sells peeled garlic, containers of chopped onions and other vegetables and fruits. It's great for people who want to save time or lack the dexterity to do it easily on their own. I personally don't buy them because I can and don't mind doing it myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Well, maybe it's even better than the original concept: now you can consume the product even if you don't have the hardware. As long as the juice is good - why not. They just need to start selling their juice packs to those who don't own the device.

<comment><USER64> Yes, but they're also out $400 on every customer. And those customers can now very easily switch to a different juice provider without losing any "investment" they made in hardware.

I can't find any info on their site about subscription pricing (always a red flag) but this whole thing seems absurdly stupid. I'd be amazed if they managed to scale this in such a way that shipping refrigerated juice to individual customers is more affordable than people picking it up in the store/receiving it with their normal grocery order.

<comment><USER65> The juice bags are DRM'd (yes, seriously): [http://boingboing.net/2017/03/15/a-juicer-that-wont-make- jui...](http://boingboing.net/2017/03/15/a-juicer-that-wont-make-juic.html)

<comment><USER20> can they DRM your hands?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Convenience at the hospitality level makes sense. That said, there is room for a squeezer with 396 less parts in sub-$200 range that provides empty open-top squeeze funnel bags. Allowing end user or companies to fill and dispense whatever..

</comment><comment><USER67> why not have a bag of preselected fruit (unjuiced), you attach it to the juicer which has a fan to keep it from pulverising the plastic, and the fan stops when the blade has fully stopped spinning. and then you just have to wash the blade.

<comment><USER34> You better patent that. Actually... I CALL IT. No take-backsies.

<comment><USER68> That is, in fact, pretty much how the first-to-file US patent system works today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm surprised to see google ventures in here:

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/juicero](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/juicero)

Anyone have better knowledge of these VC firms?

</comment><comment><USER70> Surely what they need is some way it can be consumed straight from the pack?

</comment><comment> Const-me Can't they replace online database with asymmetric cryptography in that QR code? This way a machine can validate manufacturing date even offline, i.e. more reliably.

<comment><USER71> But then how do they recall contaminated pouches?

<comment> Const-me Depends.

If it's contaminated 'coz expired, it's doable. Many devices have accurate real-time clocks even offline, e.g. GPS. It's easy to include the expiry date in that cryptographically-signed data. BTW, Kerberos protocol does similar things with their timestamps.

If however it's contaminated just because the producer decided to recall a batch of their product, then yes, a centralized server is a good choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> These guys must have sold investors hard for Google to put 120 million into this. Maybe there is an angle here I'm not seeing.

</comment><comment><USER73> keurig for juice? this is not what the world needs. [http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/04/news/k-cups-keurig- inventor-...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/04/news/k-cups-keurig-inventor- regrets/)

</comment><comment><USER67> this sounds like what lexmark do (used to do?) with printer cartridges, most of the electronics in the cartridge and you have to buy a new cartridge costing more than the original printer with a half full cartridge.

</comment><comment><USER74> This isn't a juicer as much as a juice dispenser.

</comment><comment><USER75> how much value do the venture capitalists add?

</comment><comment><USER76> hilarious

</comment><comment><USER77> $120m from investors none of whom were aware you don't need a $400 machine to squeeze the juice from fruit?

How do people with so little sense get so much money?

<comment><USER78> Because they sell to people with more money than sense.

<comment><USER79> Like the Campbell Soup company, for example:

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/juicero/investors](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/juicero/investors)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> >> an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage.

Wow, internet connected? I just can't understand this craze to connect anything and everything to internet.

<comment><USER81> "we want to know EVERYTHING about you", what you do, eat, drink, watched (smartTVs getting screenshots), listened (see BOSE article), make love (iCon), self-satisfy (iVibrate - or whatever it was called), when did you use the toilet (formerly known as "playing angry birds for 10mins) and this is the main purpose of IoT devices..

Looks like people/companies don't focus on how to solve a problem and make money from the solution but more like how they can get into our homes and monetize on the activities recorded.</comment></comment>


A small study shows crunch time makes developers less effective - <AUTHOR> https://blog.gitalytics.com/gitalytics-and-crunch-time/ <comment><USER2> I think anyone who's gone through and completed an intensive collegiate CS program can strongly attest to this.

I can also relate this research to quality / seemingly-well-meaning managers I've had over the past few years. Managers who seem in control never pass off the stress of deadlines or crunch to engineers - longer time thinking about things regardless of difficulty result in better code and fewer potential land-mines down the road (even in startups). As soon as you deviate from that or start putting the pressure on engineers to crunch for a deadline you're asking for high-turnover and bad code that WILL cause issues down the line (many engineers also see this as a direct attack on their ability to uphold their quality of work).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been harping on this with evidence from other industries gathered by Evan Robinson ([http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)), but nice to see direct post-facto evidence from software teams.

Some more reasons why longer hours make you less effective: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long- hours/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long-hours/)</comment>


Interactive Exploration and Alignment of Visual Data Collections - <AUTHOR> http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~junyanz/projects/averageExplorer/

<comment><USER2> Quite excited by this as a creative tool for making abstract composite photographs that would look good on a wall.

Previous techniques have mostly been manual. The easiest of which is multiple exposure using a film camera (and you get great results[1]).

Now once the research team release the software (hopefully open source), I'm sure a whole new genre of creative photography will take off.

[1]:[https://www.flickr.com/photos/forestclara/sets/7215762581978...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/forestclara/sets/72157625819780265/)</comment>


Do People Really Want To Make New Facebook Friends Around the World? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theworldchat.com/ Would anyone be open to make a new friend with someone in a different country on facebook even if you've never met them in real life? <comment><USER2> I barely want to make FaceBook friendships with people that I meet on a daily basis!

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL, Facebook has turned random acquaintances into friends since 2003!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What problem is this solving?</comment>


In-memory instance of Postgres for Node.js unit tests - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oguimbal/pg-mem <comment><AUTHOR> I developped pg-mem for a personal need, but I think it could be useful to others.

Feedbacks are more than welcome... what do you think a about it?

Play with it here: [https://oguimbal.github.io/pg-mem- playground/](https://oguimbal.github.io/pg-mem-playground/)</comment>


If Computers Are So Smart, How Come They Can't Read? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/adaptation-if-computers-are-so-smart-how-come-they-cant-read/ <comment><USER2> Computers aren't smart. Who told you they were and why did you believe them?</comment>


The web's first ASMR generator for positive feelings and relaxation - <AUTHOR> http://asmrion.com/?rsound <comment><AUTHOR> ASMR stands for Autonomous sensory meridian response.</comment>


My Tech Journey: From Art to Engineering and Getting Started in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/my-tech-journey-from-art-to-engineering-and-getting-started-in-silicon-valley

<comment><USER2> Go Ingrid!</comment>


Forget MSP430 Launchpad - TI ARM Cortex-M4 Launchpad at $4.99 - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2012/08/31/preorder-tis-arm-cortex-m4-launchpad-for-5-delivered/

<comment><USER2> Add this to it and it is very interesting: <http://armpit.sourceforge.net/>

(Yes I've ordered one)

</comment><comment><USER3> So what exactly can I do with one of these? What do I need apart from the Launchpad to get started? Would someone be so kind to explain that to a microcontroller-newb?

<comment><USER4> It looks like a nice 32bit ARM microcontroller, so its great for small projects like talking to sensors, running servos & motors, etc. Compared to other microcontroller platforms like Arduino, this Stellaris chip is much more powerful (32bit vs. 8bit, 80mhz vs. ~16mhz, floating point support, etc.) so perhaps it can even run an embedded linux operating system like the Beagleboard, Rasberry Pi, etc.

If you just want to make an LED flash and play with a couple buttons you don't need anything else--the development board includes everything to hook it up to a computer and program it using Stellaris' software: [http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontroller/arm_stellaris/code...](http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontroller/arm_stellaris/code_examples.page)

If you're totally new to electronics and microcontrollers, Make magazine has a good book to check out: [http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery- Charles-Pla...](http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles- Platt/dp/0596153740)

<comment><USER5> Are there embedded linux distributions that work without a memory management unit? I ask is because it looks like the Stellaris doesn't have one. The Memory Protection Unit allows the OS/monitor/etc. to limit access to specified regions from unprivileged processes, but it does not appear to have any sort of remapping facility.

<comment><USER6> Apparently you can configure a vanilla linux kernel for mmu-less systems - <http://opensrc.sec.samsung.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a handy forum at <http://forum.stellarisiti.com/> if you want to share your stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bam ordered, this is really excited to have such a powerful core. I'm wondering what the actual per chip price will be in bulk

<comment><AUTHOR> TI sites states a €4.40 per 1000 units: <http://www.ti.com/product/lm4f120h5qr#samplebuy>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ordered two. Can't wait!</comment>


Recently Bought a Windows Computer? Microsoft Probably Has Your Encryption Key - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/12/28/recently-bought-a-windows-computer-microsoft-probably-has-your-encryption-key/ <comment><USER2> I'm going out on a limb and suggest that Micah Lee understands why Windows works this way: because Windows is the most popular operating system in the world, and the overwhelming majority of Windows users don't understand how encryption works, and are shocked and dismayed to discover that losing their key more or less forfeits all the data on their disk.

It's straightforward to set Bitlocker up so that Microsoft doesn't hold a backup key.

Microsoft is doing what their userbase wants them to do. I'm not sure what's interesting about this story.

<comment><USER3> Ending up being tech support for a lot of my family, I tend to agree with you. Microsoft is likely holding the keys to be able de-escalte users who forget their key. I doubt many home users understand that encryption keys are not like online account passwords (you can't reset them).

Since Microsoft presumably doesn't have the data, they get little value from holding the key. However, I would never copy a key without telling anyone.

<comment><USER4> About a year ago I had to re-enter the world of MS desktop OS's for commercial use. Given a need to dual-boot (GNU/Linux & Windows 7) I looked at the handful of options that existed for on-disk encryption that was palatable to both, and settled on VeraCrypt (one of the TrueCrypt forks). Biggest surprise was the inflexibility with key management.

What you say here -- _encryption keys are not like online account passwords (you can 't reset them)_ \-- is NOT the default for people coming from dmcrypt[1], for example, where I can have multiple pass phrases / files to the same vault, easily adding and removing them.

It feels odd to work with at rest encryptions systems, and I'm guessing Win10 has the same constraint out of the box?, that don't offer this feature.

[1] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm- crypt/Device_encrypt...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm- crypt/Device_encryption)

<comment><USER5> You can add multiple protection methods with BitLocker: [https://technet.microsoft.com/en- gb/library/ff829848.aspx](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- gb/library/ff829848.aspx)

This is also how they implement recovery passwords (as 'numerical passwords') by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > As Green puts it, "Your computer is now only as secure as that database of > keys held by Microsoft, which means it may be vulnerable to hackers, foreign > governments, and people who can extort Microsoft employees."

One way to think about this: before Win10, my computer was only as secure as the car I sometimes left it in, not to mention that it was only as secure as a bag which I admit I sometimes left out of my sight in coffee shops for seconds at a time.

Overall this is a great win. The NSA is not the only actor that FDE secures us from: FDE is more critically protection from anyone who can smash the window of your car or grab your computer in a public place and run. Security is always full of compromises, and MS here is making a compromise to provide protection from the latter group without significantly damaging data availability.

Think about this from a C/I/A perspective - that is, Confidentiality/Integrity/Availability as the security industry often discusses. Will-implemented encryption, with as few parties as possible in control of the key (e.g. only the data owner), is excellent for confidentiality and integrity. However, it can have _severe_ impacts on availability if the key is lost. Controlling availability often requires policy and procedure controls (e.g. manually keeping a backup of the key on media stored in a secure place) which cannot simply be automatically enabled like FDE can.

Users who are worried about protection from actors like the NSA must take significantly more stringent security measures, including less technical policy and procedural controls, and Windows gives them the capability to do so by re-encrypting without backup to Microsoft and making their own backup which they can manage as they see fit.

<comment><USER7> >before Win10, my computer was only as secure as the car I sometimes left it in

This was nobody's fault but your own. FDE has been available for Windows for over a decade. You didn't have to wait for Microsoft to (poorly) implement this.

<comment><USER6> I've actually had FDE for ages (back to when I was using TrueCrypt!), that point was for illustration from the perspective of a normal user, who would have had almost zero exposure to these options.

Totally guilty on leaving my computer in coffee shops, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One can replace "Windows computer" with "Android device" and "Microsoft" with "Google" and the article is still factually correct. In other words, how is this any different from Google doing the exact same thing when you sign in to an Android device? On another note, the article gives clear instructions on how to generate a new key without giving it to Microsoft, something that (to the best of my knowledge) is impossible to do on Android or Chrome OS.

I get it, it's easy to pick on Microsoft and for good reason. But the hyper focus of this article screams bias.

<comment><USER9> How do you know that the key for full disk encryption on Android is sent to Google?

<comment><USER10> How do we know they don't? But at least with Microsoft, there is a way to remove the encryption key from them.

Few years ago, I helped a person unlock their quicken backup file with help of Intuit by calling their support number. User forgot the password he created for the backup and when he tried to restore, he was unable to do it. Intuit was able to unlock that file for him using a master password...

<comment><USER11> > How do we know they don't?

Maybe someone can resolve this question by asking Google, examining Android source code, finding relevant online documentation, or even monitoring what a new Android device does on the network when setting up FDE. I don't feel like this should be a big insoluble mystery for the ages; it's a basic security property of a largely open-source OS that's one of the most popular in the world. We could even ask Micah Lee to do a follow-up article directly addressing other operating systems' FDE key management behavior.

<comment><USER12> You can't audit the firmware of the baseband processor, which is capable of sending the key to anyone, so there's not much point of auditing Android/asking Google. You cannot rely on any phone with a closed firmware baseband processor to be 100% secure.

It might also come as a surprise to many than most every post-2008 Intel processor is similarly insecure: [http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel](http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel)

<comment><USER13> > You cannot rely on any phone with a closed firmware baseband processor to be > 100% secure.

That's not the question being asked. The question being asked is:

"How do you know that the key for full disk encryption on Android is sent to Google?"

 _Every_ technical person understands that any part of a system that has unrestricted read access to RAM can be used to thwart any FDE scheme. For the purposes of this conversation, it's not useful to talk about this.

Doing so is like saying "One can be instantly vaporized by a nuclear bomb, therefore the question is irrelevant." in a conversation about whether aspirin or ibuprofen is safer for occasional relief of minor pain.

<comment><USER12> My post does not answer that question and it wasn't trying to. The answer to that question is "We don't know". But suggesting that we do an audit of the code to find out doesn't seem productive, which is what I was responding to.

That's a terrible analogy. It would be more accurate to compare this to aspirin and ibuprofen both sharing an _unknown_ compound known to be capable of easily killing someone when the manufacturer wants it to, then suggesting we audit both aspirin and ibuprofen of their _known_ compounds to make sure they don't have anything capable of killing someone. It doesn't really matter if it does, because you don't want to use aspirin or ibuprofen if you want to guarantee you won't die through someone's arbitrary decision, in the same way you wouldn't use Android on a phone if you want to guarantee security of your data.

<comment><USER11> Microsoft isn't trying to hide the behavior of Windows in this respect, independent of whether Windows could contain a backdoor in some part of the code. That's why The Intercept was able to report on what Windows does, by testing it, seeing what the UI says, asking Microsoft for comment, or whatever. The same methods could be used to report about Android's behavior in this respect, in exactly the same way.

After all, the article isn't claiming that Windows has a backdoor or that the Pro version secretly also escrows user keys with Microsoft while claiming not to. Backdoors in devices and operating systems are an important risk and an appropriate and interesting topic for researchers and journalists to dig into, but this article is about, essentially, documented or disclosed OS behavior!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The keys are stored in your individual OneDrive not a centralized database. OneDrive key integration isn't on by default even if you link a windows live account to your windows ID.

Also it's important to note that Microsoft doesn't have your key it has a key recovery element they still need the TPM and your physical drive to recover the full key this is a very very important part as they 1) still need physical access to your machine and 2) cannot arbitrarily encrypt data on your behalf.

FDE isn't there to stop government surveillance it's to stop your life from being ruined because you forgot your laptop at a coffee shop or because the guy who you gave your laptop for repairs is a watcher.

FDE's biggest problem is that it can fail very easily and very miserably especially when anti-tampering is enabled with external hardware. This solution solves all the usability issues as long as you can get online your laptop will not turn into a paper weight, I can't count the number of times that BitLocker especially 1.0 failed on me when the anti tampering was triggered due to power failure, BIOS update, boot loader reconfiguration and just because it can. With this you get to keep all the anti tampering while still keeping your key relatively secure, OneDrive is probably more secure than pretty much any location you would normal keep the key recovery element yourself (Mine was both my wallet and a scrambled version under the battery when i still have laptops with removable battery).

P.S. This is like the 10000's time this has been posted every time some one else discovers this and goes for the clickbait.

<comment><USER5> The recovery password doesn't require anything stored in the TPM; if you just had an image of the disk and the recovery password, you could decrypt it.

I agree with everything else you stated though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hasn't this been discussed multiple times? Microsoft tends to backup your key because the majority base doesn't understand how encryption works. When an average person thinks of passwords, they think there is a way to reset it. Good luck explaining to your grandma why all her favorite photos disappeared when she forgot the password.

I think for an average Joe this seems like a good strategy. With the defaults being off if the computer is stolen, all of their data and identity are stolen with it. This atleast acts like a door for an otherwise open house. Advanced users can use another encryption or do what the article suggests to not sent the key to Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree that this is better than no encryption. And they're likely escrowing (in most but not all cases) the key for valid UX reasons. The tricky part is doing it without asking the user. Apple used to do optional escrowing on OS X with File Vault 2, but they asked the user.

The privacy/surveillance concern comes to play now that China has a law (as of Sunday) saying that tech companies need to be able to hand over keys on demand/request (whatever). Since Microsoft escrows them, they'd be capable of complying. Google and Apple who don't escrow them at all anymore, can't actually comply. Uncertain is whether the law requires them to start a key escrow function.

EDIT: And then what if/when U.K. wants access on demand to that escrow service? And then what if/when the U.S. does? If the companies have the keys, it doesn't require a law to get access to them, just a subpoena. It'd require a law to compel the companies to create the escrow capability though.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm more confused now than ever.

Is it true that all Windows 10 SKUs have full-disk encryption turned on by default?

And this automatic full-disk encryption is called "device encryption", which is really the same as BitLocker but without any way for the user to control it? And you can't get BitLocker on the Home edition?

If you immediately set up BitLocker, it allows you to save or print your key instead of sending it to Microsoft. But does it use the same key as the default "device encryption" that was already sent to Microsoft? BitLocker doesn't create a new key and re-encrypt the drive?

And the TPM automatically loads your key into RAM when the device is powered on, so it's still vulnerable when the device is not in your possession?

Are you safe if you (1) create a local account instead of a Microsoft account, (2) use BitLocker instead of device encryption, (3) save your key locally instead of sending it to Microsoft, and (4) require a separate PIN or key to boot the computer in addition to the local Windows account??

It would be helpful to describe exactly how to create a local account, because the Windows 10 setup procedure hides this pretty well. It looks like the only option is to use an existing Microsoft account or create a new one during setup.

And it would be great to explain how to create a secondary PIN or key since that doesn't show up in the BitLocker UI until you edit the local policy[1].

[1] [https://weikingteh.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/how-to-enable- bi...](https://weikingteh.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/how-to-enable-bitlocker-to- prompt-for-pin-during-startup/)

<comment><USER18> From only reading the article, it looks like they're shipping BitLocker already on, and that the recovery key Microsoft has is the BitLocker recovery key for the already enabled BitLocker configuration. Turning BitLocker off and back on resets this key. As long as you don't send it to Microsoft after re- enabling, Microsoft won't have it.

<comment><USER19> Just an aside: I'm running Windows 10 Pro and Bitlocker is off for all 4 of the drives in my machine. This machine was setup from a fresh install of windows 10 shortly after it went live in July. Only a single data point, but apparently there are cases when Microsoft does NOT encrypt the drives.

<comment><USER20> Disk encryption is enabled on _some_ shipping machines, which is to say, it has been enabled on the three brand new Windows 10 machines I've used. The OEM is responsible for the installation, so I'd assume this is an OEM choice, but obviously I don't _know_.

I didn't notice at first, and really, there's no reason why I should have noticed. Also, I assumed Windows 10 Home didn't come with BitLocker anyway.

The Windows 10 security overview on Microsoft TechNet includes the following statements:

"Modern Windows devices are increasingly protected with device encryption out of the box and support SSO to seamlessly protect the BitLocker encryption keys from cold boot attacks."

"BitLocker supports encrypted hard drives with onboard encryption hardware built in, which allows administrators to use the familiar BitLocker administrative tools to manage them."

[https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/mt601297%28v=vs....](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/mt601297%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

<comment><USER20> _> Also, I assumed Windows 10 Home didn't come with BitLocker anyway._

Apparently it's "device encryption" but it's not BitLocker. And while it's optional at the moment, it becomes compulsory in summer 2016.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know that this article is specific to Windows 10.

However, it sounds like the same caveats and risks also apply to Apple's iCloud keychain.

I'm not trying to excuse one by pointing at the other... I genuinely want to understand any differences in the implementations and the security implications of those differences.

</comment><comment><USER22> I still wouldn't escrow my disk encryption keys, but I'd be happier if Apple and Microsoft could guarantee that they couldn't access the escrowed keys, kind of like how tarsnap's design means that cpersiva doesn't have access to my backups.

<comment><USER23> Tarsnap's design means the keys never leave your possession; they're never escrowed. You can do this with Microsoft and Apple products, but it's not default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So yeah, Linux is stable, and secure.

I suggest Calculate Linux or Slackware, if you want to have a good time. they both run Steam.

</comment><comment><USER25> TLDR; Micah Lee writes an article that takes an in-depth look at how various encryption policies work by default on Windows platforms. No good deed in netsec goes unpunished, so of course Micah is attacked by Ars P.Bright and @SwitftOnSecurity (you know, really reliable people compared to The Intercept :-p).</comment>


Why I am no longer on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_17017194

<comment><USER2> Being on Facebook and being a Facebook junkie are two different things. You can get the benefits of Facebook (being accessible to old friends/classmates and occasionally checking out an old friend or ex-girlfriend) without being an addict.

Because everyone _is_ on Facebook, that's actually a huge amount of residual value to keep an account there. So for most people, it's not sensible to delete their account. Just be relaxed about it, don't connect to everyone and their dog, and use it every once in a while when you need to or when someone contacts you via it.

That said, I understand the need to just "remove the hooks permanently", as you put it. When you're addicted to something, when it grabs your brain in just the right way to keep you hooked in, often the only sensible way out is to cut all ties. I did the same for World of Warcraft (see [http://inter- sections.net/2009/02/21/destroying-the-world-of...](http://inter- sections.net/2009/02/21/destroying-the-world-of-warcraft)). Many people play WoW casually and don't need to delete their characters and quit so permanently... but I was totally hooked, so I needed to... so I understand why you did too.

Good luck with the new life without the big weight on your chest :-)</comment>


2008 Data Mining Shootout - <AUTHOR> http://www.smu.edu/en/News/2008/data-mining-champs-4nov2008.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Shameless plug for my school :D

> The goal was to use weather data to predict flight cancellations and pre- > reserve hotel rooms and rental cars for stranded passengers.

This kind of stuff is fascinating.</comment>


Ask HN: Reduce sign-up hesitation by offering account deletion? - <AUTHOR> I have some sort of mysophobia of digital footprint, and it often stops me from signing up for new products/services. IMO, a product/service offering account deletion can really increase my intention to sign up.<p>I would love to hear your thoughts about this. <comment><USER2> This is a feature that might create some value for people who _are not your intended market._ They are not your intended market in several ways:

      + They are high demand.
      + They are predisposed to delete their accounts.
      + They have low interest in what you offer.

Signups only matter if the person is retained. It is not the best place to optimize. Making a product good enough to overcome that reluctance is harder and being easy to implement is why account deletion is attractive.

If people can try out the product/service without an account, then there's no friction for people with a reluctance to sign up. Not requiring an account may mean directly interacting with users on a one on one basis. That's a good thing at the point when signups by people who demand account deletion move the needle on the size of the user base.

</comment><comment><USER3> You started a great topic. As a customer, I also want VISIBLE option to delete my account anytime, not just after request and writing to particular support. Being in a role as a service provider I offer this option directly in the dashboard as I believe if users don't need an account, they must have the option to delete their data completely.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe if you're targeting techies. Most other people won't care. Personally I like the idea and imagine something like "We provide easy and complete account deletion (not just account archival)".</comment>


Anybody know what kind of protest this is? - <AUTHOR> http://www.caption-of-the-day.com/anybody-know-what-kind-of-protest-this-is.htm

<comment><USER2> Lokpal bill in India. There was a big discussion about it recently on Hacker News[1]. It's an anti-corruption bill. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Lokpal_Bill> for details.

Also, I thought that in India people code in Java, not in C ;).

EDIT:

[1] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931598>

</comment><comment><USER3> When it doubt, RTFM. If TFM can't help you, read the code.

Line 1: #include <india.h>

Ok, so we're talking something in India here.

q = "india"

Line 2: #include <jan lokpal bill.h>

Hrm. This isn't something I recognize. Better add it to the query.

q += "jan lokpal bill"

I think we have enough to go on here:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=india+jan+lokpal+bill>

</comment><comment><USER4> Hint: One of the easiest ways of finding out origins of (probably any) picture, is drag and drop it into <http://images.google.com/>.

<comment><USER5> I had no idea you could do that. Thanks for the tip! All I knew that was out there was TinEye

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Indian_anti- corruption_mov...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Indian_anti- corruption_movement)

Quite a big deal; underrated in the west during this Arab spring.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had this same question a while back. Seems like it was something to do with a bill in India, but I never figured out exactly what. Cool hacker picture, though.</comment>


Ask HN: The Downvote - <AUTHOR>

At a certain threshold of Karma (~500), A new HN user will receive the ability to Downvote. Athough per-user Karma is visible, it is so only  for your own account and on a net-basis. Meanwhile, the reaction to other user's comments is only visible indirectly, via page rank.  Having now a more than theoretical interest, I ask you for your Advice.
Ask HN:
What "Applied Philosophy" do you live by on Downvoting?
How do you use it?
How have you seen it being used? Against you or Others. Etc.
The end goal being a reference:
(1) Increase the data available to any given user from 1 experience (his own) to N experiences; and
(2) Articulate as appropriate best practices and/or debate areas of contention, etc.
Look forward to your thoughts. <comment><USER2> I'm fairly lenient.

I can't read minds, so if someone is technically wrong (or wrong in _my_ opinion), I will never down-vote them. My reason is simple; they might be entirely sincere and believe they're contributing even though they're unknowingly wrong and unfortunately spreading misinformation. If I have better information, I post it, politely, and with references if at all possible. If it's a matter of differing opinions (not facts), then it's best to just quietly let it slide. I didn't come here for an argument, or lessons in getting hit over the head (sorry for the Monte Python reference).

Additionally, I don't need to agree with someone to appreciate the time they took to share and post their views. Even if I never agree with them, I benefit from knowing how the other side(s) sees things.

If someone is being rude or intentionally insulting, that's good for at least a down-vote, and possibly a flag if it's egregious.

Both flagging too much, and down-voting too much _does_ have effects on your account. The precise mechanics including the value of "too much" have never been made public. I can't prove this in code that's actually running on HN (no public), but there's an ancient post by pg that mentions it. I could probably dig it up from my notes if anyone needs further confirmation... But, who's to say pg hasn't changed things in the years between that old post and now?

It makes sense that there's a price to pay for abusive flagging and down- voting. If you spend a lot of time on the 'new' page (/newest queue) and flag the spam as it happens, you could very well trip the abusive flagging threshold. On the other hand, if you do trip the threshold, and pg/mods see that you're actually trying to help out with the spam, they'll be thankful rather than upset.

Some down-votes are entirely unintentional. The voting UI/UX has issues in mobile environments where small screens and large fingers result in miscast votes. It wasn't so long ago that I saw Joey Flores (YC funded - earbits.com) apologize to pg for accidentally down-voting him, so it indeed happens to the very best of HN users.

As you might expect, the result of miscast votes is some voting patterns you see are actually somewhat random. Adding to the randomness are language barriers causing misinterpretations. Also adding to the randomness are quickly written and poorly communicated comments. Even when you mean well, others might not understand what you wrote.

Off the top of my head, I think it was you (001sky) who recently replied to one of my posts, and I didn't really understand your comment... Yep, it was you:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4493615>

Maybe it's written perfectly and I'm the sole cause of my failure to understand? ;-) But anyhow, the point is, miscommunication happens constantly and it is one of the causes of down-votes.

My ability to type comes and goes due to my health, so I don't post or contribute very much. When I do post, I rarely get down-voted. I might get one down-vote in fifty posts or so. I do keep a very close eye on the score of my posts, and if I notice a down-vote, I'll dig in my comments to see where it occurred. Since I know about the randomness problems in voting patterns, I never take a down-vote personally. For all I know, it could have been an intended up-vote that went wrong, or someone in the habit of down-voting for mere disagreement of opinions.

Even if someone down-votes me out of mere disagreement, it's still useful feedback.

The best practice for debates on matters of contention is simple; be certain to give the other person both polite respect and the benefit of the doubt on their intentions. Some people will _still_ react in rude and insulting ways if you politely pose a tough question, or dare to offer an opposing view to their imaginary authority.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4489017>

It's just one of the risks to open forums. Some people think being rude and insulting (i.e. "mean" in pg-speak) will somehow make their point more convincing and help them "win" --whatever that means. It's very unfortunate, but it's just part of life when interacting with others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is a great post. I appreciate your taking the time to comment here. It was recently reading another Ask HN post, and one of your comments inspired me to post here:

<From: Ask HN: What is the consensus on Hacker News?>

 _A large part of the supposed "sentiments" show in comments, submissions, and voting/flagging are really just playing to the crowd. Though it might be offensive to some, the typical phrase is "karma whoring." It's really just human nature at work; if you buy or buy into some expensive widget, you promote your choice publicly to gather the esteem of your peers. Similarly, if you abandon something, you disparage it publicly to promote your choice and gather the esteem of your peers._ [1]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4489216>

Having just clocked over 500 myself, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this subject more specifically.

From my personal perspective, I've seen things a bit all over the place. I've seen some things that are on point, some that are off. Some things driven by subject matter, others broadly by the form of expression. In one or two cases, people may actually write a note with explantion. I actually apprecitate that, but there's a reason we probably don't see more of it.

The information and inference aspect -- ie, if this is feedback how to measure it and repsond -- was recently highlighted for me. I made a post with a subtle but salient observation (including quotation from the article, etc.) on the nature of science. That received half a dozen or so +1s. An couple of ours later, the net +1 was as per original post. Which led me to think: Hmm, if I did not just see this go up +6 I would not have seen it go -5 to +1. I wonder how many other posts have such latent information in them? So, this thought has been sitting in my head since, I'm not sure if it has crossed the paths of others as well. In this particular case, as in others, I think there was an element of something like this:

If A then B......If B is true it might signal weakness in C

So, people who support C for whatever reason go ballistic.

Unfortunately, the logic of these attacks is usually a mess.

Somewhat Ironically, I've seen this happen with C once being the concept of Decorum. Actually, more than once. And again, this was something I thought it useful to note and put aside, but ultimate to ask here to the larger group.

Personally, I appreciate people guiding via comments when someone is off topic or out of order. I think it shows a bit of leadership and of course the person is taking a risk of catching some flak. It sets a tone for keeping the cruft light. Which allows people to follow and hopefully develop the argument, rather than have it digress into a spiral of minutae.

By the same token, It is also useful to see orthogonal comments occasionally. A pointed, counterintuitive thought. Or counter-example. Etc. The edge-case here is the use of Irony. It arguably does not translate over the internet. Is somewhat exclusionary to people not well versed in its particulars. And it is arguably counterthetical to certain forms of logic. But it is information efficient.

This leads to another point you make, which i think is worthwile to highlight: Not every HN reader is a native english speaker. I think this is a very valid point to always keep in mind.

In the quest for information efficiency, I try too keep most posts short (cue: Irony alert). The old saying "sorry I wrote such a long letter, I didn't have time to write a shorter one" comes to mind. But condensing information can make it inpenetrable and lead to mis-understandings and ultimately more side- bar discussions, etc.

Which brings me to one last point: I looked at the comment I made that you referenced, and yes that was arguably inpenetrable. The Tl;dr - I was agreeing with you.

<comment><USER2> First off, I think you'll enjoy the following:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4507024>

The research being done is fascinating. It roughly explains why some people go ballistic when something is said against something they unknowingly "love" even if it's just a device, technology, or company.

Secondly, if you've studied linguistics at all or know multiple languages, you'll notice how human languages have significant variance in their dependency on context. For example, in a "high context" language like Vietnamese (one of the very highest), things are more often implied rather than expressed. In a "low context" like English (particularly American usage of English), things are more often expressed rather than implied.

In English, the use of irony, satire, and sarcasm are unexpected "high context" usage of a generally "low context" language. Without being a native speaker, the intentionally subtle but surprising switch from low context to high context results in endless amounts of confusion and miscommunication. A great example would be the recent "Porn Star Brogrammer" post. If you didn't recognize it as satire, it would be highly offensive, but even if you did recognize it as satire, many would _still_ consider it offensive. A lot of satire is still offensive even if you do understand the context shift and recognize it for what it is.

Lastly, in English the term "argument" (outside of formal logic) implies disagreement, and often, harsh disagreement or even a fight. If you use the term "argument" in the sense of formal logic, it's best to qualify it to prevent misunderstanding.

And yes, a lot of people post on HN for the sake of having a fight, rather than to have a pleasant and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas. The smart thing to do when you see heated exchanges or harsh replies, is to just stay out of it. You have better things to do than fight with people on the Internet.

<http://xkcd.com/386/>

If you find someone reacting badly, ignore it. If it still bothers you, give it a few days or a few weeks to cool off, and then bring it up with them again politely, and possibly privately. At times, miscommunication just happen in spite of our best efforts and intents, but trying to fix it while people are still hot or angry usually makes matters worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a user who's been around for over a year, I've recently decided to get more active in the commenting community here on HN as I've found it to be incredibly valuable and wanted to make meaningful contributions.

I quickly learned that comments based solely on humor tend to fall flat and get downvoted.

Also, being overly negative and not offering something productive to the conversation will get you downvoted quickly.

Overall I've found the feedback of downvotes to be helpful and it's directly responsible for me raising the caliber of my comments rather than writing the funny responses that I initially think of. I tend now to just write them in the comment box, chuckle to myself, delete them, and then (try to) add something worthwhile to the conversation. Everyone wins!

</comment><comment><USER4> I only really downvote people who set out to be dicks. And no that doesn't mean I downvote people who give constructive criticism or a differing opinion.

</comment><comment><USER5> Simple: I never downvote for disagreement. If somebody's wrong, people will tell him (or I will). If he's wrong repeatedly you can tell by looking at how deep he's getting in a thread.

Downvotes, in my opinion, are to indicate things that don't belong here. Usually because of tone, sometimes because it's a one-line throwaway comment that doesn't add anything or is a joke (that also doesn't add anything).

I think this is sort of the consensus way of downvoting here. Sure, there are people just arrived from other forums with different norms who still downvote for disagreement, but they're the minority and they tend to change their ways once they realize it.

The end result is that if you find yourself being downvoted, it's usually because of the _way_ you made your point rather than the point itself. The exception being certain contentious topics that to be honest don't belong here anyway (global warming debate, apple vs. android, etc.) that are more likely to attract the newly arrived "downvote for disagreement" crowd.

</comment><comment><USER6> I downvote something when it's really stupid or not useful. I very rarely downvote, and I really don't care if I get downvoted.

I'm not here to earn karama, I'm here to discuss hacker stuff. If I have 10 karma or 100,000 I'm going to have just as much fun.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've adopted the policy for my own comments to delete (immediately) any comment that gets a downvote. I wonder how many other people do that.

I do find it discouraging how quick people are to downvote things they don't personally agree with, rather than simply downvoting noise, spam, or low- quality comments. :(

(I cannot downvote people myself.)

<comment><USER8> _I've adopted the policy for my own comments to delete (immediately) any comment that gets a downvote. I wonder how many other people do that._

Despite believing downvotes exist as a means of labeling content as not belonging here I _hate_ when people delete their comments in response to any number of downvotes. Generally speaking, once you've added your comment it's become a part of the history of the discussion and I don't like said history being removed. Further, while I could see a certain nobility in people removing a comment because they see the community says it doesn't belong, most people doing so just don't want to harm their Imaginary Internet Point total and I have a strong distaste for people who put too much stock into that number.</comment></comment>


Go and OpenCV - <AUTHOR> https://gocv.io/ <comment><USER2> Looks great!! Can it can load and play mp4 files ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hiya,

I wasn't able to find that support, but I am no expert.

Can you explain your use case?

<comment><USER3> Well, to process video streams in computer vision applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, the demo I saw pulled in a camera feed and processed it, but it's not clear to me what formats are supported.

<comment><USER3> Support for mp4, or any other video format, isn't necessarily related directly to how camera feeds are handled. Video files are extensively used to test and benchmark cv applications. It's far easier, faster, and more convenient to feed a collection of video streams to your module instead of enabling a camera, which may require deploying the whole application, and capture the same sort of scene over and over again.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX CRS-6 Launch - <AUTHOR> http://livestream.com/spacex/events/3959775

<comment><USER2> The launch is scheduled at 1633est with coverage starting at 1615est.</comment>


Javascript Brainfuck Interpreter and Visualizer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fatiherikli/brainfuck-visualizer

<comment><USER2> Very interesting visualization. It's always hard to wrap in mind what a Brainfuck program does while executing.

While reading the source of the interpreter, I found out that the "[" command is not working properly. It is suppose to jump to the next matching bracket when the value of the current pointer is zero. I'm quite sure the creator is aware of that as he wrote on the demo page what it supposed to do. Good work still !

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice.

An improvement would be to highlight the currently active instruction in the source code. Also, for debugging many algorithms it is nice to see the current ASCII character alongside the numeric value in a cell.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice gui. It needs a fast-forward speed. It also needs to interpret the , instruction for accepting input. Maybe you could use <http://www.iamcal.com/misc/bf_debug> (in Debug mode) as a guide.

</comment><comment><USER5> ++[>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<-]>.++++++.

It would be nice if there was a url parameter to auto-populate the source code and run it. Generated the above with <http://goo.gl/aD67C>

<comment><USER6> goo.gl/aD67C -> <http://www.primaryobjects.com/CMS/Article149.aspx>

      > Advantages of Brainf-ck as an AI Programming Language

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know brainfuck, however, if you set the code to something like

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

the cursor moves away from the tape.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice, I finally bothered to play with it. I have read about many languages, ut this was so nice visualisation I wrote my first BF program.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are there any benefits to learning Brainfuck? I can imagine it might help with learning pointers and how memory works.

<comment><USER10> It will help you understand the turing machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> i like the visualization. but i still don't get how Brainfuck works. I guess I'm just not tech-savvy enough.</comment>


How to structure your JavaScript code - <AUTHOR> http://peter.michaux.ca/article/9081

<comment><USER2> This is pure blogspam; the real link is <http://peter.michaux.ca/article/9081>

</comment><comment><USER3> Nothing vastly new here (especially if you've watched Douglas Crockford's videos) although I must admit I quite like the local

      var global = this;

concept for when you're creating more than one element in the global namespace/object. The reason you wouldn't use window is of course that your code will port to non-browser platforms, and you don't use unqualified names because they look like a mistake (e.g. you left the 'var' off)

</comment><comment><USER4> Man, I'll have to write up how _I_ structure javascript at some point. I prefer using objects for namespaces, while he's got good points about why those can cause problems, there's well-known workarounds for what he points out.</comment>


LibreOffice 6.0 is coming - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fossmec/libreoffice-6-0-is-coming-8d7a66b83973 <comment><USER2> > LibreOffice is considered to be more actively developed than OpenOffice

This is such an understatement that it borders on the absurd. OpenOffice is mostly abandoned and has had issues even marshaling the resources to get security fixes out as shown by a previous exploit that took 6 months for a patch. A quick glance at the source trees shows LibreOffice has somewhere between 40x and 100x the activity as OpenOffice.

The "pulse" for the last 30 days:

OpenOffice: Excluding merges, 3 authors have pushed 14 commits to trunk and 14 commits to all branches. On trunk, 42 files have changed and there have been 207 additions and 240 deletions.

LibreOffice: Excluding merges, 97 authors have pushed 1,509 commits to master and 2,042 commits to all branches. On master, 5,583 files have changed and there have been 60,123 additions and 519,150 deletions.

<comment><USER3> Serious question: why didn't they merge their efforts?

<comment><USER4> Apache OpenOffice devs consider themselves to be at war with LO (but that's fantasy, the project is dead, only its bureaucracy survives). One is copyleft and the other copyright. One is owned by Apache while the other is the result of the cooperation of many entities.

OpenOffice.org/StarOffice/Oracle_OOo/IBM_Symphony/Apache-OO have probably more users (despite being dead) because of brand recognition. Keeping these users hostage until none remains is the biggest FU they can do to the document foundation to have forked, so they did.

edit: Added the other brands OOo is known by

<comment><USER5> > _because of brand recognition._

I assume long-term corporate support contracts play a large part, too.

<comment><USER4> I don't think so. When LO forked, Oracle disbanded the whole OOo team (AFAIK). When they did, IBM was furious and that ended up causing the move to Apache. In return, IBM merged their commercial fork into Apache OO to save the project.

But then something unexpected happened, LO rebased thousand of commits (a huge effort) _on top_ of the IBM code dump. That allowed them to resolve copyright issues. But it also killed IBM attempt to revive OpenOffice. I think most support contracts went to SuSE(?) or Collabora, the entities that actually make money from those contracts as a business model instead of sponsoring OOo to save themselves money on MS Office licenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's more than that though. There are countless improvements, but the _option_ of a more ribbon-like interface is more polished than its ever been, and in many ways more usable than the Office Ribbon. And I do emphasise that's an option - we retain the old UI and will always do so for users. We haven't forced a radical change on them because we actually value our power users.

Aside from way better compatibility improvements with Office interfaces, there are stability fixes, we've done extensive document fuzzing, improvements to mail merge, updated our table styles, a huge improvement to our grammar checker, way better OpenPGP integration, a complete rewrite of the EMF+ filters (that has been a _huge_ effort, and a much bigger impact in handling Office docs than you might realise)... the list is huge!

 _edit:_ I've been rate limited, no idea why (check my history for the last month if you don't believe me...) so if you want info about the project from a contributor I sadly can't provide info on HN till someone lifts the rate- limit.

<comment><USER7> You know why we rate-limited you, since I've explained it to you in numerous email threads going back more than two years. But for anyone reading this who doesn't know: we rate-limit accounts that post too many low-quality and/or get involved in flamewars. On Hacker News, "low quality" means uncivil or unsubstantive. The standards are described in more detail at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

It's true that your recent comment history has gotten better overall (although this thread itself is pretty borderline). We'll try taking the rate limit off your account for now. To avoid it kicking in again, please stick to civil and substantive comments only.

<comment><USER6> I don't actually. I can publish the emails if you'd like. Not sure what sort of "low quality" comments you have been referring to for the past two years, I'd be happy for you to point them out over email.

And how is this thread "borderline"? I explained some info on LibreOffice, as I'm a contributor!

Incidentally, this was on the front page only about an hour ago, and now it's on the third page. Curious how this came about?

<comment><USER7> Ah, I mistook which thread I was posting to. The borderline thread was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267301) which you were also commenting in.

I'll try to give you more of a response later when I have time. In the meantime, though, aggressively barraging us with emails is not helping.

<comment><USER6> Which, uh, isn't a thread I started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing I keep hoping for is improvements in the UI side of LibreOffice. I presume under Windows and Linux the UI feels more fluid and natural, but under macOS it is definitely inferior to that of MS Office or Apple's iWork apps.

<comment><USER9> On Linux, I still miss MS Office. Not just because of the UI, much as I prefer the MS Office one, but also because of compatibility issues. This is for LibreOffice Writer. Simply opening a file and saving it on LibreOffice or OpenOffice gets it distorted on MS Office. I've resulted to using Google Docs more often that I would like.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. All other improvements LO makes are futile until compatibility is 100%. LO works very well in a closed environment with only LO users, but it doesn't work to share documents with Office users.

<comment><USER11> MSO works very well in a closed environment with only MSO users, but it doesn't work to share documents with Office users.

That is because LO actively uses a standardized and well documented document format while MSO created it's own that has dependencies that only MSO resolves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's the actual release notes instead of medium.com blogspam: [https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/6.0](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/6.0)

<comment><USER13> Thanks! This should be the canonical URL posted here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If LibreOffice's "Online" frontend can get traction, I think this suite can become a true competitor to Google Apps, etc - without the vendor lock in, and crucially, with the ability to self-host or have it hosted for you.

<comment><USER15> I had no idea that it was a thing. I really hope that it will be released sooner than later!

<comment><USER10> I saw this advertised years ago. Surely something as heavy as LO isn't really suited to a webapp.

<comment><USER14> No less so than google docs or the msoffice equivalent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I for one am very grateful for the continuing efforts of the open source community to develop this. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER17> I used to love this project when it was OpenOffice and supported by Sun. At that point in time it was a pretty good MS Office alternative and it was getting better all the time.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that there is some open source alternative to MS Office. That being said, it felt like they gave up on improving MS Office compatibility at some point. I'm not talking about MS Publisher but the major three: Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Their support of key features from those three hasn't noticeably improved in the last 10 years.

I've tried to use OpenOffice multiple times over the years. I always give up because files I receive from colleagues end up looking really bad.

<comment><USER18> > I've tried to use OpenOffice multiple times over the years. I always give up > because files I receive from colleagues end up looking really bad.

Try LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice. There have been several MS Office compatibility enhancements in LibreOffice which are not present in OpenOffice.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, I meant LibreOffice and OpenOffice. I've tried both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can you specify margins in centimeters yet?

<comment><USER20> Works for me in version 5.3. Maybe it depends on your locale? Check Options -> Language Settings -> Languages.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Gatsby-Gitbook-Starter: Build modern documentation websites using MDX - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hasura/gatsby-gitbook-starter <comment><USER2> Modern yes, as far as style goes. Without a search engine the scope is somewhat limited.

<comment><USER3> Can you recommend similar projects that include search functionality?

Or, alternatively, an easy way to add search to any static documentation site? Doesn't algolia offer something like this?

<comment><USER2> [http://www.sphinx-doc.org/](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


OpenTrons: Open Source Robotic Liquid Handling - <AUTHOR> http://opentrons.com/ <comment><USER2> Wait a minute - are you actually depressing the top pipettor here? (I was about to say "manually", but that doesn't sound right). That can't be too reproducible. And how is the pipettor attached?

Why not use an electronic pipet that does all of that for you? I remember using a digital pipettor years ago that was already programmable for just this type of application (eppendorf maybe?).

That's really the issue that needs to be front and center - how reproducible is this machine. For any lab that could use one of these, that is always the primary concern. What I'd like to see is something like a dye test where you diluted a dye into each well on a 96 well plate and then used a plate reader to determine how precise you are.

The second consideration is speed. How fast can this possibly be? I've used a liquid handling robot before that "only" had a 4-channel head, and it was slow enough that I eventually gave up and set the plates up by hand with an 8-channel pipet. Precision is the main concern, but speed is a close second. If you want to replace manual pipetting, you better be faster than a grad student.

And if a lab is able to use automation, the P1000 in the front page video is not going to be what they need. There are few applications where you'll want to pipet 200-1000ul in an automated manner - there are many more applications for 1-10ul. So I'd like to see more information on what pipettors are supported, and how do you change them?

As someone below mentioned - there is just too much missing information on the page. I had to resize my browser just to see the full video, which answered a couple of questions, but not all.

How many labs are currently using your machine, and for how many are these just toys to play with vs production machines? Meaning - if a lab is setup to properly test the machine, they probably have a few other liquid handlers in place. How many of their protocols can they transfer to the OT-One? And would any of them choose this over a more advanced machine?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for taking a look at our stuff and taking the time to comment.

As I said below, we have shipped 51 robots so far and most are in daily use by the academic research labs and biotech companies that bought them. Serial dilutions, mother daughter plating, ELISA, PCR prep, ligations/digestions, heat shock transformations, and soon Gibson assembly are the applications most widely run on the OT-One.

Yes we do depress the top of the manual pipette, just like you would do by hand. Do you trust your manual pipetting to be reproducible? Thats exactly the same thing that is happening here. Agreed we need a dye test to show reproducibility/precision/accuracy, and it is currently in the works (you can find a scale test showing accuracy/precision on our blog, blog.opentrons.com). But from running the machine for 6 months and getting good biological data on it, I can tell you that it reliably hits the desired volume when correctly calibrated. And it can hit different volumes each transfer w/o setting the pipette, it just presses the plunger down the desired amount (say you want 100ul using a p200, it pushes down 50%). The electronic pipettes you are talking about cost more than our whole robot.

Our current users disagree with you that we need to be faster than a grad student, thought when turned up to full speed it is faster (but needs to be bolted to the bench when you turn it up that fast). In fact, the grad students that use the machine love it because they can go do other things and not worry about errors in their pipetting. Also, the PRO version of the OT-One can hold a single and an 8-channel pipette at the same time. Users can choose a p1000, p200, or p10, and we can consistently transfer 1ul of liquid fusing both single and multi-channel p10.

Actually, most of our users do already have liquid handling robots when they buy an OT-One, and our machine is often labs' first form of automation. Users like this have had lots of success porting their manual protocols onto the OT- One, and you can see the different choices already available for users to download and run on Mix.Bio.

I agree we could use a lot more info on our website, and we are working on it. Till then, happy to talk more details if your interested, just email firstname.lastname@example.com and we can set up a time to talk.

Thanks!

Will

<comment><USER3> woops -- should say 'most of our users do NOT already have liquid handling robots...' sorry

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Happy to talk to anyone about our robot! Currently have 51 machines in labs around the world doing things from serial dilutions to Gibson assembly and shipping more every week. Email email@example.com to get in touch

<comment><USER4> Fix your website. It is unusable on an iPad. Information quality trumps hipster trendy UI crap any day of the week. This is particularly true if you are actually trying to sell something.

People want information. Lots of it. Pictures and videos. Downloadable PDF's and specifications. They could not care less about these dumb fucking trends that make websites impossible to use.

Sorry. There's just too much of this crap out there. If you understand sales you know this is precisely NOT what your website should be about. Your web developer is costing you sales.

<comment><USER5> From the HN guidelines "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face- to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity."

What I mean to say is your comment about a UI that can be improved would have worked without the words 'crap' and 'dumb fucking'.

<comment><USER4> The words you picked out of context were not aimed at that OP's site.

Profanity is not equivalent to lack of civility. Some of the most well-spoken people have been some of the most profane and brutal in human history. For example, I wonder if Hitler ever cursed in his speeches.

Anyhow, the flowery language was intended to impress upon the owner of this website that there's an urgent need to fix this website because, well, it won't sell very much as it is.

Too many entrepreneurs think selling is done by showing what you make (hardware, software, website). No, it isn't.

I was in that camp twenty-five years ago. I thought I knew how to sell the wonderful hardware I worked so hard to develop. To my credit, I had the good sense to give myself an "F" during a self evaluation of my ability to sell. And that was followed by working hand-in-hand with our first resellers for a full year.

We'd go show the hardware to potential customers and they'd let me do the pitch. After the visit we'd stop at Starbucks for a post-mortem. For the first four to six months they often started with "why the FUCK did you say...".

After a year I got to the point where I could sell our products almost without uttering a word about them during sales visits. I graduated.

Anyhow, from a salesmanship perspective this website is terrible. All it is good for is to mimic current trends in web styling, yet, from a sales perspective it will be horribly ineffective.

When you are trying to sell a product being clever, trendy or sexy seldom works. Having a beautiful woman eat a burger half naked on a pickup truck isn't going to make me want to go to that restaurant. It's a spectacle. It has shock value. I'll probably watch it. But it does nothing to position the product in a useful manner, compel me to learn more and consider buying it.

Building a website loaded with cool and trendy crap is having a website loaded with cool and trendy crap. It is NOT building a website that rocks at salesmanship.

Some of the ugliest ads and websites rock at selling. A/B testing often reveals incredible surprises about how people respond to what they see online.

The OP needs to pay a sales consultant to help them redo the entire thing. It won't be trendy, but it will sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm interested in something like this, but for a different application.

I want to mix up stuff like beard oil or vape juice. Interested in delivering between 0.1ml and 10ml of solution (Eg: 0.1ml of 100mg/ml nicotine, 10ml or vegetable glycerine, or 0.5ml of an essential oil, 10ml of hemp seed oil.)

I never could find a reliable way to deliver small amounts of fluid repeatedly.

In this type of work its the same fluid going to each place so you don't have contamination. I would to produce an arbitrary mix from, say, 40 containers of different fluids.

Would love any suggestions.

I looked at peristaltic pumps and all that, never could find a cost effective solution--- closest I came was syringes attached to linear actuators, and maybe an optical system to observe the position of the syringe to ensure it was the correct distance. OR possibly a squeezing assembly with disposable plastic pipettes, but that seemed imprecise.

I put the idea on the back burner as a result.

<comment><USER3> Hi - our robot is great for your application. Send me an email firstname.lastname@example.com and we can talk more about it. We have talked to a number of people interested in the same thing.</comment></comment>