Ask YC: Can I make money with shareware? - <AUTHOR> By reading this site, it looks like you're all getting rich by building web sites. OK, not everyone is getting rich, but everyone assumes that there is a chance that it will happen to them.
But what about shareware? In 2008, is it too late to start writing software, actual installable software, and sell it on the internet? Or are my chance of getting rich much higher with web applications?
I know some Mac or iPhone developer got rich, but what about Windows and Linux and the other mobile devices.
I love programming too much to do anything else, but I also would like to acquire wealth.
Thanks, Norman <comment><USER3> > _Can I make money with shareware?_

In short - hell, yes.

> _In 2008, is it too late to start writing software, actual installable > software, and sell it on the internet?_

Hahahaha .. funny. Of course, not. Here's some anecdotal and motivational evidence for you:

# Project 1 - a software to deal with file transfers - feeds about 10 people for past 10 years. 3-4 major competitors of the same level and in the same niche. End-user oriented, effectively outdated at the moment, but still selling well due to a market inertia. The program itself is about 3-5 months of work to write from scratch (e.g. by just looking at the screenshots and a feature list).

# Project 2 - network sniffer application - brings about 800k a year in sales. Oriented on professional market, sales cycle is outsourced to a dedicated company and so it the support.

# Project 3 - a remote computer/desktop access app. I don't know exact numbers, but they are in the range of #2.

These are not, of course, very typical, but they all are single-developer projects. Moreover their success is a result of persistent focused effort rather than a fad or a blind luck. On the other hand if you work on a project in your spare time, it's not unreasonable to expect 10-30k a year. Assuming you are catering to a general home user crowd and your app in fact works and doesn't look like crap.

Also, if you investigate shareware development a bit you will see that there's an established and mature "shareware support" ecosystem. In a simple case you just write an app and other people will gladly do the rest - anything from creating a website and producing boxed version of the app (i.e. "publishing") to payment processing and a front-line support (i.e. "e-com"). Some care is needed dealing with these guys though, because frequently they rely on ignorance of the developer to milk him out of disproportionate % of a revenue.

Good luck, dude. You asked a great question and the answer is that the shareware is very much doable and it is in fact less delusional get-rich scheme compared to web-2.0 craze.

<comment><USER4> IS it a no-no to consider the respective markets for shareware/Web 2.0 _companies_?

As opposed to the products themselves, I mean.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand the question, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz>

That is a forum for shareware developers.

One of the biggest posters there makes a bingo card creator app that does like 1.5k a month sales. If you do that 10 times you can make some pretty decent money.

The key is finding a niche I think.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. I used to work for these guys (<http://www.fullshot.com>) and I can tell you they make plenty of money servicing a niche that small businesses need. They certain made more money per employee than my current internet (web- based) startup!

1.5k a month in sales is nothing. Plenty of people and small businesses make a living off of "shareware". The key when you get into this market is more about usability, marketing, and distribution as opposed to coolness, technology, or complex feature-sets (though the latter three can't hurt)

<comment><USER7> >>The key when you get into this market is more about usability, marketing, and distribution as opposed to coolness, technology, or complex feature-sets<< Great line. I might even go so far as to say that serving a small business niche with apps is more about price, marketing and distribution than the usability and complex features of your product. Simple and minimum functionality seem to work as long as the product has a minimum of functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Asking whether you can "make money" and whether you can become wealthy by developing shareware are two different questions.

Yes, you definitely can make money from developing shareware. You can make _good_ money. But wealth? People define that in different ways, but I assume true "wealth" to be a, say, multi-million dollar net worth. Now, that's certainly possible, but still rare in the shareware business compared to the number of players.

The short answer is, yes. But you will need to be on top of your game, ready to redefine what you're doing, and be prepared to put in an absolutely insane amount of time (unless you manage to catch a certain wave or craze at the right time to milk it fast).

<comment><USER9> You can still acquire wealth as employees do, by living beneath your means and investing the rest.

It's not as cool as a huge hit, but you still get to do what you love and be your own boss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The web is more fashionable than the desktop right now, but plenty of guys make a living writing desktop software.

Another guy mentioned Joel on Software /?biz, which is more desktop oriented than HN, and with a different tone to the conversation. You have truisms there like "picking a niche market is the key to success", and "25% of the work is coding and 75% is business management." You should stop by and see if it speaks to you.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's very hard to make money in the desktop apps world. Most desktop apps have been commoditized. Piracy is rampant.

What could you reasonably sell your software for? $20? $50? How many copies would you need to sell per month, constantly to pay your bills? Does that number seem reasonable?

I come from the desktop software world. I love writing desktop software, but I'm glad that I'm not selling it.

<comment><USER9> "Everything that can be invented, has been invented"? ;-)

I agree with your point about SaaS, that people are tied to you. It stops piracy; and repeat sales are the norm. Theoretically, you could achieve the same by renting software - but it doesn't seem to work in practice (and doesn't stop piracy).

But one solution is to make a product into SaaS in an odd sense: that you keep releasing new versions - so the "service" you are selling is your on-going development. The ideal need for your software to meet therefore becomes one that _can never be fully met_ , so that each improvement you make is needed. This differs from my perfectionistic urge to pick a problem that I can solve perfectly, and instead pick one that _can't be solved_.

In my software business, I experience the odd effect that when a new problem needs to be solved, people come out of the woodwork to buy it - as if they'd been using it without buying it. Before that they didn't have any problem, and so hadn't needed to contact me. Or is there a more probable and less cynical explanation?

This solution is not as good as SaaS, because you have to keep working. :-( But in SaaS, you also have to keep working, or the competition catches up. And that's a much more serious problem if the competition is free...

<comment><USER11> The last company I worked for before starting a startup did pro-audio stuff. Their stuff, generally, was cracked the same day it was released and estimates were that at _least_ 80% of users weren't paying for the software. If you get popular enough, it tends to come back to haunt you.

I think one solution, as mentioned a couple times in the thread is to work on software for rich niches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I avoid anything I have to pay for as far as software goes, but just the other day I paid for a license of TextMate. Why? Because it was an excellent piece of software, and it saved me a TON of time.

My point is, it can be very hard to get people to pay, but if you've got something that really adds value, or helps get something done faster/better, people will pay.

<comment><USER8> It's not scientific, but based on the seemingly sequential serial numbers and the dates of different serial numbers, a few of us in a Ruby IRC channel calculated the other day that approximately $1.5m worth of TextMate licenses are being sold each year.

That's a pretty inspiring number, even at half the amount.

<comment><USER13> I'd be interested in hearing your assumptions and napkin math that went into that number!

<comment><USER8> I'm not in a (physical) position to quote the numbers used, but I was one of the first people to buy the app and have a low serial number. I then got serial numbers and purchase dates from others to work out the intervals vs serial number increases (which we are assuming are sequential, as that seems to fit the pattern). Take numbers and multiply by usual license fee (not always applicable, but not a bad average).

<comment><USER13> Cool, thanks for sharing:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I made more than my day-job salary for quite a while with shareware. I wrote a pop-up blocker and privacy suite.

If I were doing desktop apps again now, I would go after a niche business market and not use the word shareware per se. I would also take any idea, and hold it against the "should it be a web app" lens.

There _are_ expensive specialized pieces of software in various niches that are not well suited to the web due to data privacy, the UI required, or other reasons. These niches can be tougher to see as an outsider, but great to target and build for--customers with budgets and IT departments that don't allow piracy can also be a great thing.

edit: Also, check out the Association of Shareware professionals. <http://www.asp-shareware.org/> They typically do an end of year thread where members post their revenues--very eye-opening.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well, if you want to be technical - the rise of shareware was mostly about the distribution model.

Shareware came about when distribution was very expensive. You needed to have retail channels to sell software - which is why software and hardware channels went hand in hand. If you wanted to sell Norton Commander, you needed to manufacture it, send it to stores, sell it, etc, etc. All very expensive.

So the idea behind Shareware was - make as many copies as you like, give them to your friends, if you like, send me some money. Obviously not everyone sends you money, but your distribution was free.

In a time where distribution was expensive, this was a big deal. You could make money from the occasional $20 contribution from what was a comparatively massive distribution channel - rather than charge many times more than that and have fewer sales. It enabled "smaller" applications to thrive.

Now - this isn't really applicable today. Distribution isn't as expensive as it was. So the same rules don't necessarily apply.

Not to say you shouldn't adopt the shareware, or philosophy of shareware, or some of the models - but depending on what you want to do there are many more options available to you nowadays. Have a think about your solution and how best to put it in the hands of people that need it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great post, Norman.

I also love programming too much to do anything else, so much so that I have always been reluctant to change technologies with the times. In fact, I still do much of my work in a 40 year old language: PICK BASIC. (Much like the lisp crowd, I have my reasons for clinging to something tried and true.)

But here's a dirty little secret: _the technology doesn't matter_. Right now, I could write the same app in 5 totally different technologies, they would all be about as much fun, and they would all work about the same.

But if I wanted to reach the widest audience, build something for the future, and maybe make a couple of bucks, I would only write it one way: a web app. Learn to love javascript, PHP, and MySQL (or whatever combo you like) as much as you love whatever you're doing now. In 3 months you'll wonder what took you so long. Don't make the same mistake I did and wait too long to adopt what most others are using (and buying).

You can also look at it this way: a web app is also a desktop app anyway. Since every PC already has a browser, just put a web server on the client and throw in a little AJAX or FLASH and no one would hardly notice.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hi Norman, I had the similar idea as well - what I most like to program are standalone windows applications.

I think it is still possible to get rich on that space, but maybe harder as it was before, since there is a global trend of using standalone apps less and less. I remember, how in the past I was keen to download and play with shareware software, but I virtually stopped doint that. First, I try to minimize the number of software apps I depend on and try to move on the web, and secondly, I don't already trust the apps from unknown companies (that they don't contain spyware etc.).

So this I think is a disadvantage - the market is very saturated and at the same time there is a trend to move standalone apps to web. But of course there is still a room. As funny as it might sound, I still don't know any really great POP3 client, there is also no clear winner in RSS readers, etc.

In my opinion, if you don't like web applications, the biggest opportunity is in the mobile apps. First, not enough apps exists for mobile phones yet, and secondly, many kinds of apps which didn't have a point in desktop are very useful in a mobile phone.

</comment><comment><USER18> I started about 12 years ago writing shareware apps for the Mac, towards the end of high school. It was easier then since there was much less competition, so I think you'd have to pick your niche pretty carefully now.

My business (actually just me) made a small name for itself on the Mac scene (again, easier then than now) and pretty quickly hit around $50K/yr in revenue. It stayed around that level for many years, sometimes peaking at $7K/month after a significant release.

I haven't released any significant updates for years, yet it still brings around $30K/yr. This is in exchange for a couple of hours of sales and support per month. That's what great about shareware - just like a well-designed web business, once you've written the code, it can become a tidy passive income stream. And I've no doubt I could have made more of it by marketing it better, but I never quite had the inclination.

Two concrete bits of advice:

1\. My two best and longest-selling products are tools for small (and occasionally large) businesses to get things done easier and quicker.

2\. Work the feedback loop. My top selling product ended up being used in a way I never predicted. I heard about this from my customers and over time made it highly specialized for that purpose.

When it comes to acquiring wealth, did shareware make a millionaire? No - <USER2> like 1/3 of the way there, after tax.

But shareware did give me the income and freedom to not have to seek a job when I graduated, and in turn that let me pursue further study, and in parallel develop other (web-based) ideas which turned out to be the real earners.

</comment><comment><USER19> Software is software. Monetization is monetization. Distribution is distribution.

Whether your app is installable or web-based is immaterial. The questions you need to ask are "is there a need?", "can I reach an audience?", and "will they pay for it?".

Web software has clear advantages-- lower support costs, no platform issues, easy to push updates, easy to charge recurring revenue, etc. All this means that you can build and operate your business with less cash.

The killer problem with software (aside from building something people want) is distribution. Assume that you can't/don't build something so freaking earth-shattering that people can't stop talking about it. How do you reach your buyer?

The iPhone phenomenon is so amazing because it solves that problem for app developers. The web can solve that problem (for web software or installable software) if a lot of people are searching for what you offer (and you're good/lucky with SEO).

I guess (in short), Shareware and "freemium" aren't that different. Installable / web apps aren't that different. If you can find a need/niche, go for it.

(note: our software has an installable and web component and we see very little drop-off when people realize they have to install something)

</comment><comment><USER20> Let the choice of platform depend on your idea, not the other way around. Especially if you already have an idea in mind.

<comment><USER21> That's true, but his main idea is "I want to make money as well as write software". And some platforms are better for that than others.

Anyway, the submitter knows the answer already: The way to make money is to note where the customers are and go to them. Quite a few people are making money selling Mac and iPhone shareware, and that's not surprising. These platforms have a culture of paying for quality, and there's a limited variety of hardware and software that you have to support. Windows shareware also exists and makes money. Meanwhile, I've paid for exactly one piece of Linux software in my life (printer drivers) and AFAIK my experience there is typical. If I want to pay for quality Unix software I buy it for my Mac.

So: Choose the Mac or Windows, and go for it.

Android is a wild card. I'm a skeptic myself, but there's no sales data yet, so maybe it will be a big hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Shareware is pretty much the same model that's used for web apps with paid plans. I don't know what the difference in odds are. I tend to think there's a better chance of succeeding with a web app just because your potential customer base is much larger and the barrier to entry is smaller. People are also hesitant to download/install programs these days. Then again, there's things you just can't do on the web. If you have an idea that really can't be a web app to work well then you should probably do it on the desktop and not worry about which is better.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Linux community should embrace the Apple AppStore and sell apps for Linux for less than $9.95, specially games.

There will be a gold rush to that model if implemented, benefiting the platform and developers as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> Some are doing pretty well (6 figs) on tiny little iPhone apps.

The Mac software market's humming pretty well. Their users appreciate good software and pay for it. A friend of mine's making a nice living on ~4 hrs a day on mac shareware.

I think you're asking two questions: 1) Is there money in desktop apps? 2) is there money in try-before-you-buy apps?

Plenty of money on the desktop (ask microsoft or adobe), and try-before-buy is just risk reduction. For both sides, actually, as you'll have fewer returns & customer complaints if they had a fair chance to try out the app first.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yes, you can make good money making desktop apps. I'm on a Mac, where there's a vibrant shareware community. Here are some of the apps I've bought: TextMate, SmartBackup, VMWare, Times, Delicious Library.

Times has a GREAT interface that no other RSS reader has, on the web or desktop. Delicious Library turns my iSight into a barcode scanner.

Do whatever you're passionate about - that's how you'll make a great product that stands out.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sure, and consider the new form of shareware: release two iPhone applications, one free with limited features and one < 10$, full version. Mobile appears the next big market for resident applications.

p.s. I can't find iPhone user base figures, somebody willing to share this numbers?

</comment><comment><USER27> Being passionate about programming, and software development is great (be happy you've found your _thing_ ). Choosing your platform based on your desire for wealth is probably not a great idea.

Stick with what you love and you'll be happy. If the money comes than it makes it that much sweeter.

</comment><comment><USER28> Definitely. Note that many great coders are rushing into web apps, by default. It's the obvious thing to do and you can get a result out a lot faster than a well-designed app that requires installation, licensing, help files, hassling with different operating system flavours.

Which is why it's great. If you're willing to put in the time to make an app really good, then you can do really well.

It is a momentum game. It can take a while to build up enough steam. Subbing to a web app is very easy. Convincing someone to fork over their cash to a download, is generally tougher. But you only need a couple of percent to do that, to do okay.

I'm kinda going to be doing both. I have a downloadable app and I'm extending it with Google App Engine to provide some online features.

</comment><comment><USER29> Judging by the amount of money I spend on shareware apps (for the Mac) someone's making some money. I can't be the only one, can I?

</comment><comment><USER30> The piece of OS X software I would gladly pay for is a good Typing Tutor. Make it a made-for-OS X typing app fitting the Apple keyboard layout, etc. The current typing apps on the market are horrific.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'd say its probably pretty easy to make a living off shareware, but it's unlikely you'll get rich. Of course there are exceptions, but I would imagine your software needs to be very popular.

</comment><comment><USER32> You could always code a shareware video game.

Thanks to the recent resurgence of indie games, it can actually be quite profitable if you manage to make a really good one.

</comment><comment><USER33> Am I the only one who saw the "Ask YN" instead of "Ask HN" or "Ask YC"?

</comment><comment><USER34> All software, even Microsoft software, is shareware now.

</comment><comment><USER35> If it's a mass-market kind of thing, maybe.

If it's a niche application, then not so much.

<comment><USER14> You have this pretty much backwards.

<comment><USER35> Just noticed your reply. I have personal experience with this actually. I had a niche market shareware product, and it got rave reviews. It was awesome, dominated its niche, and users loved it. All seven of them.

In the meantime, my friend had made a mass market shareware program. He got thousands of registrations, and made a lot of money.

But your experience may be different. I'd love to read more if you have any good links or even some google terms (names, companies, products) to suggest I look at. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> You can make over 9000 dollars.</comment>


How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://danshipper.com/how-i-made-350-in-two-days-with-three-pages-a <comment><USER2> This is misstated:

 _"You can find the post here. It didn't have any upvotes (besides mine) for about 10 minutes. Then it slowly started to climb. And climb. By about 1 am it was at the top of the front page and the orders were pouring in! By 2 am I was scrambling to fill orders. I had a huge TextEdit file open with customer names, site URLs, and email addresses. I sent every email, and set up every survey by hand.

By 6 am I had completed processing every order and went to bed. I got up an hour later forwork at 7 am. In those few precious moments of sleep I had made another $40. By the end of the day on Monday I had made over $330 and the number kept climbing.

So now I'm sitting here writing this blog post with a bunch of orders to fill, features to build, and customers to help. My Stripe account also says that I've made $350 to date. All from three pages and some payment code."_

You made $350 from 3 pages, a payment code, and 5 hours of manual labor from 1AM to 6AM. And the additional hours you spent creating the pages. So that is about $70/hr at best and closer $25/hr if you include the other time investment.

I only mention this because it is a common mistake people make when they see real money come in for the product of their work that they see it as paying $x for the product because they haven't included any value for their own time.

If you are not careful that mistake can have you working below minimum wage :-).

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey guys great to see an old article of mine like this posted here. For the people who asked, the site is down because I sold it and the new owner neglected to take care of it :(

Read about the experience here: <http://danshipper.com/110636263>

Happy to answer questions about it if you have them.

</comment><comment><USER4> To the people wondering whether the website is down: yes, Dan has sold the website: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3698539> (DomainPolish: From MVP To Exit In 6 Months)

<comment><USER5> Is this exit really a significant milestone? If I'm not wrong, he sold the site for $3,500 which really is not alot. That plus considering the fact that he probably got out at the right time considering the venture was not profitable for the new owner (a presumption based on the fact that the site is on longer online). Sales like these happen numerous times a day, usually theyre fly by night business ideas, spam adsense sites, or etc. Its nothing new, and posting stuff like this to hn does not make it any different, go to digitalpoint theres 15 year olds doing this stuff day in and out.

<comment><USER6> It's a very significant milestone. He created value for customers from a basic idea and managed to sell the entire thing to some other guy.

It's a great little story to get you funding. Ignore the 3.5k (which isn't horrible imo) the entire story is worth way more from a career building POV. It's not your typical adsense pump and dump either this is miniature startup entrepreneurship. I'm not a VC guy but a story like this would get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I come off sounding as a cynic from the start. But I have liked the quality and content of Dan's previous posts, and this is not anything personal. With that said - Really? I could find you hundreds of others doing this same exact thing and I wouldn't find that as a reason to qualify them to get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling. I think I see this from a different viewpoint because from my years on hn it seems as most of the readers are blind to the other side of the startup world - the one where people focus on building products for 1) money or 2) flip. There's a whole ecosystem out there full of these small, medium, large, business that are bought and sold everyday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I found particularly interesting about this is just how _minimum_ the minimum viable product was. I think it's easy to lose perspective on the MVP concept and forget that not everything has to be automated right off the bat. Instead of starting out with a web app that automated a process, he started out by offering a manual service, and then automated the job he had created for himself. Very smart.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was covered a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839534>

</comment><comment><USER9> In other news a friend of mine actually earned 600$ in 1.5 hours by selling a static html5 website (he had a site in his portfolio the client asked him to make the same ) to a client on odesk.

</comment><comment><USER10> "$350 In Two Days With Three Pages" sounds really awesome (and a bit linkbait-y), but how many hours did you actually work? Looks like you had to do a lot of manual labor.

I am also a bit skeptical about it otherwise, seeing as this is simply a proxy for another service.

<comment><USER11> I sometimes do "one off" stuff like this, and it usually takes about 2 days of solid work at the computer.

That said, it doesn't often work as well as Dan's did.

<comment><USER12> You have to take into account him manually creating surveys and getting reviews for his customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seeing as this site is no longer functioning and the article is 1.5 years old, is there a site that does inexpensive focus groups to review websites?

<comment><USER14> <http://fivesecondtest.com/>

<http://www.usertesting.com/>

<http://usabilla.com/>

<http://www.testgang.com/>

<http://feedbackroulette.com/>

<http://www.loop11.com/>

<http://feedbackarmy.com/>

<http://www.usaura.com/>

<http://www.conceptfeedback.com/>

<http://www.pickfu.com/>

<http://ethn.io/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is <http://www.domainpolish.com/> down, or just me that can't access it?

</comment><comment><USER16> Great story and good to see success - how scalable is it - from what I read, the early feedback praised you on the quality/depth of questions, which if you move to a more automated way of producing the surveys you'll lose?

<comment><USER17> I guess you could hire someone on mechanical turk to write tailored survey questions?

It's mechanical turk all the way down!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Posted on August 3, 2011

<comment><USER19> haha he probably doesn't know yet that he is one the first page of HN and his website is down.

<comment><USER3> yea pretty fun to wake up it. the site's not down because of traffic though. as others have alluded to I sold it a while ago.

<comment><USER15> would be nice to have a warning message there... unless all the work was done and no client waiting for results, and there is no will to carry on the site by the new owner

no news because maybe a competitor wiping it out? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love that you're not afraid to share both your failures and successes. The important thing I see is that you're out there testing different things, if one path leads to a dead-end, you figure out another path. I think you're on your way to success. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER21> Seems your site is taking a bit of a hit: <http://isitup.org/www.domainpolish.com>

What a great idea though, glad to see it's a success! Now you just need to automate it a bit further.

<comment><USER22> The article is 1.5 years old so it's possible that the website doesn't exist anymore (the domain is still actively registered though).

<comment><USER21> Oh wow, I didn't even notice how old it was. Guess it was more of a hit a run thing. A shame really, though it was a nice use of Mechanical Turk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The site: [http://web- beta.archive.org/web/20120525003840/http://domain...](http://web- beta.archive.org/web/20120525003840/http://domainpolish.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Reading this guys bio humbles me. He's done more in the last 10 years as a student than I've done in the past 10 years professionally.

<comment><USER3> You can still get stuff done! Read: [http://danshipper.com/the-choices-are- fake-and-the-truth-is-...](http://danshipper.com/the-choices-are-fake-and-the- truth-is-all-made-up). Feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have questions :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Man, this somewhat distresses me. It is so incredibly easy to add basic automation... write down by hand, really? (Although I really like the custom thank you videos for your first customers - nice touch).

Great story though, I'm glad you cashed out, i guess i just feel that twinge of pain at the fact you could have kept it going for hardly more work, but i understand entirely where you're coming from - so props to you !

</comment><comment><USER26> Making "How Do I" posts can only bring traffic to the site than any other benefit to others.

</comment><comment><USER27> Really enjoyed this article. Back to the drawing board is great advice

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there a mobile version of this type of service?

</comment><comment><USER29> How do you know someone goes to an ivy school? Don't worry, they'll tell you.</comment>


Facebook Austin, actively hiring and celebrating opening of new office - <AUTHOR> http://austintechgeeks.com/2010/10/23/facebook-austin-actively-hiring-and-celebrating-opening-of-new-office/

<comment><USER2> Welcome to Austin Facebook people.

Austin really is great town for nightlife. If you are looking for a good burger for lunch, you might want to check out the Whataburger chain. From the outside they do not look like very much, but the food is really good at every one I have been to.

Also, I have not seen anyone here wearing a cowboy hat here, except Willie Nelson.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say that Austin is really an Oasis in the middle of Texas. Great town!</comment></comment>


Hey, Bethesda Let's settle this - <AUTHOR> http://notch.tumblr.com/post/9038258448/hey-bethesda-lets-settle-this

<comment><USER2> This is not without precedent.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#.22Just_Plan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#.22Just_Plane_Smart.22)

Southwest Airlines was sued by Stevens Aviation over their use of the phrase "Just Plane Smart" in their advertisements. Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest, offered to settle the dispute by arm-wrestling the CEO of Stevens. He lost the match, but got rights to the phrase anyways, and both companies got a lot of good publicity out of the match.

<comment><USER3> You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up.

To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really.

PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.

<comment><USER4> Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. _T- Mobile owns the color magenta!_ [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors.

[1] [http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited- re...](http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-resource/)

EDIT: Fixed silly color theory mistake.

EDIT2: s/copyright/trademark/g

<comment><USER5> Black is the absence of colour. White is composed of all other colours.

<comment><USER6> Only in additive color mixing. In subtractive mixing, it's the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There were a few precedents from the 1980s and 1990s where Japanese firms in a few industries settled commercial disputes in the $ZOMG region via rock-paper- scissors. This nearly caused an aneurysm or three in my Japanese economy class, but the prof explained "It's fair, cheap compared to litigation, and even if you lose your CEO is not going to want to stab an icepick into the eye of someone who he is _almost certainly going to have to do business again with_."

I'm mostly telling this for the "funny anecdote" angle, since without a social connection (either direct person-to-person or inferred by being a member of the same fraternity of elite megacorps), the likelihood of a Japanese firm agreeing to this method of dispute resolution with a firm of Notchs' size is zero.

</comment><comment><USER8> If only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population...

More seriously, I really hope that the legal system can start setting a practical standard for intelectual property debates. From patents to trademarks or even how we handle trade secrets, it's like the information age has created a new cold-war era in business mentality and it serves no purpose other than to abuse power.

<comment><USER9> > If only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even > better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side > and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population...

Ironically, the elimination of trial by combat was seen as a great advance, casting away a practice that was "superstitious and barbarous to the last degree".

And so the circle is closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love this idea, and in a society that prided itself on honor, Bethesda would take him up on it.

Unfortunately the law does not promote honorable behavior.

<comment><USER11> Remember, in Game of Thrones, that Bronn only became Tyrion's champion for the money, not any sense of honor.

What if Bethesda finds it easier to hire 3 top Quake 3 players for 1k each to fight Notch and friends? They might find it easier than going through the lawsuit.

<comment><USER12> No need, I'd wager Carmack and friends are plenty good at their own game.

<comment><USER13> Hmm? Bethesda didn't make Quake, if that's what you're saying...

<comment><USER12> Bethesda bought id in '09, so yes they do.

<comment><USER13> Er, okay. That seems unrelated since they never "made Quake" and likely have little/no influence over Carmack himself.

But oh man: Carmack vs Notch. Imagine it.

Nevermind, I _hope_ Bethesda can somehow persuade/pressure/bribe/extort Carmack into that. Because... C'mon. Carmack vs Notch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Come on Bethesda. Take the bait. It's great PR. (I'm sure valve would do it)

<comment><USER15> Except it's highly doubtful Valve would've sent the C & D in the first place.

<comment> A-K Considering that they're the guys making "Dota 2", I'm inclined to agree.

<comment><USER16> Well they did hire the creator of Dota to work on it for them, not like they've stolen the name from him..

<comment><USER17> IceFrog isn't strictly the author of DotA. DotA is, if memory serves, based on an even older mod called Aeon of Strife. And DotA's development history is riddled with support from the WC3 mapping community so it's really unfair to name any one individual as a sole creator or rights holder. There really is no rights holder to the game and there have been at least 3 major releases by distinct developing groups: Demigod (GPG), LoL and HoN.

<comment><USER13> He's not the author, but he's "the face of Dota" at this point.

(Well, he's "the person of Dota", at least. Mr. Ismail is far too reclusive to ever show his face.)

Unfortunately, it pains me to say this, but this is the truth: If you tried to commercially release your own DOTA, and if you'd copied skills/heroes/items from the original game, Valve, or rather Ismail, would sic lawyers on you immediately. I know this because they tried to do it to S2, the creators of HoN (a very similar game).

So it's unfortunately not true "There really is no rights holder to the game". Valve/Icefrog hold all the cards at this point.

<comment><USER17> Valve may have creative rights on the details, but I'd be surprised if they could convince a judge that they own the rights to a whole genre of gaming. Especially when there's already a plethora of popular games already under it.

<comment><USER13> True, however, the details _are_ DOTA. League of Legends isn't DOTA at all, for example.

It's hard to explain. You could only really understand if you'd played the game. "DOTA" roughly means "A highly/specifically competitive game, wherein that game also includes specific heroes and items which competitive players have spent years practicing with and the community in general have come to expect". For example both DOTA and HoN have an item which grants you 10 seconds of magic immunity on use, and can't be used again for more than 1 minute. So if your game doesn't, then it's probably not "a DOTA".

HoN and DOTA both share about ~75% of the "details" (and almost 100% of the details that matter) so it's very much "a DOTA". Whereas League of Legends shares maybe 5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would seem Bethesda fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Swede when trademark is on the line"!

<comment><USER19> Love the Princess Bride reference! I even read this in that character's voice (what was his name?)

<comment><USER20> Vizzini (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/>) - played by Wallace Shawn (<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001728/>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is tangential, but if you overlook the issue, then you'll find that this _is_ how you do PR. Gaming even the serious things out is the perfect stage for myth making. Asking a giant to battle you in a game over a trademark is the stuff of legends.

</comment><comment><USER22> The fact that Bethesda has engaged counsel means they've already invested in defending their trademark rights. Agreeing to any "contest" in which they'd abandon their mark would serve as record (to other competitors) that their mark is diluted. No chance of that happening. Unfortunately this is a legal issue now, not a game.

<comment><USER23> There is no abandoning or diluting going on. The trademark is still intact, and they take the word "Scrolls" off the table as an issue.

Now if you decided to create a game called "The Younger Scrolls" they could still go after you! The fact that "Scrolls" as a singular word is no longer contestable would hold no baring on the legal action taken against you.

O.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Bethesda's parent company owns Quake 3, so it's an away game for Notch.

</comment><comment><USER25> I thought Bethesda was a city in Maryland. Talk about name confusion!

<comment><USER26> Bethesda Softworks started in Bethesda, MD. It's now located just up the road in Rockville, MD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think they should actually make their lawyers play the Quake 3 match.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is a great solution because it can settle things quickly with less stress and let everyone get back to work.

Gamers are _not_ going to confuse Notch's and Bethesda's use of the word "scrolls," so I don't see why either company should take this too seriously. (Re-naming a game is less work than a drawn-out lawsuit.)

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know anyone who plays The Elder Scrolls but I could see their fanbase calling it "Scrolls" for short. If not for trademark, they could just be trying to protect SERPs:

[http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls&tbs=...](http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls&tbs=qdr:m) (query: scrolls)

[http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls+game&...](http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls+game&tbs=qdr:m) (query: scrolls game)

You can clearly see that "scrolls" pulls up mostly pages about The Elder Scrolls. (You have to ignore the pages about the lawsuit.) Then again, Notch called his previous game Minecraft, which certainly makes you think of Warcraft and Starcraft. Sounds like this is just his shtick.

<comment><USER30> No one in TES's fanbase calls it "scrolls", we call it TES ("The Elder Scrolls"), because that's what Bethesda calls it, over and over and over again. Or we mention the particular games by name and leave out the series title: Daggerfall, Arena, Skyrim, etc.

<comment><USER31> That is my experience as well. I've never heard _anyone_ refer to it as just "scrolls."

I have heard all of the things you mention, though (TES, The Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall, etc.), but never ONCE have I heard it called just "scrolls." Ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The economic factors are totally different here, but still it reminded me of:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2690799>

quote:

 _"See the following paper for an economic analysis of trial by battle:_

[http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO....](http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO.Leeson.Trial_by_Battle.pdf)

 _I particularly liked this quote: "[I]t's reasonable to expect to find a large number of retained legal representatives under a legal system in which people feel that their property rights are constantly threatened by rent- seeking litigiousness or in which rampant rent-seeking opportunity gives them an incentive to behave litigiously themselves. The rarity of retained champions in medieval England therefore suggests that rent seeking under trial by battle wasn't rampant.'"_

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems like a brilliant move on Notch's part.

</comment><comment><USER34> Can this method be adopted to solve software patent disputes?

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder if Notch thought this through... Bethesda can draw on id employees to play for them.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does that count as legally defending your trademark on Bethesda's part?

And _if_ Bethesda is right in that "Scrolls" is too similar to "The Elder Scrolls", as to cause confusion in the market place, how would a game of Quake rectify that?

<comment><AUTHOR> In ancient Mesopotamia (according to my grade 10 ancient history class a long time ago), when one man accused another of a crime, the accused would be thrown into the Euphrates river. If the man died, then the gods decided he was guilty. If the man survived, then he was falsely accused, and the accused gained possession of the accuser's wife.

I believe the point of a duel in this context, though, is simply to avoid an elongated legal process, arguing something so ridiculous and trivial. Notch just wants to keep developing.

<comment><USER37> Funnily enough, this got reversed by the time of the witch hunts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Now I want to see Larry and Steve battle it out over Angry Birds.

</comment><comment><USER39> Tonight on xplay Todd from Bethblog will be on. Rewteet?

[https://twitter.com/#!/jasongiedymin/status/1038604301575249...](https://twitter.com/#!/jasongiedymin/status/103860430157524993)

[https://twitter.com/#!/JasonGiedymin/status/1038613727057018...](https://twitter.com/#!/JasonGiedymin/status/103861372705701891)

</comment><comment><USER40> I like notch, even before this, but now I feel morally obligated to buy Minecraft even if won't ever play it, and Scrolls too :).

</comment><comment><USER41> This reminds me of a certain high stakes rock-paper-scissors match... For future reference, use scissors against normal people: <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/arts/design/29scis.html>

<comment><USER42> According to Fez from _That '70s Show_ , rock always wins!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have no clue who Bethesda is, but if they took him up on the offer it would be great PR in the eyes of gaming(?) consumers. It would show they're cool and don't take themselves _too_ seriously. They'd certainly win cool points from me.

Do it, Bethesda.

<comment><USER36> Right. But, Bethesda already have a stellar reputation in the gaming community, their "The Elder Scrolls" series is many _many_ orders of magnitude more well known than Mojang's upcoming game "Scrolls". The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of _the_ most anticipated games this year.

Mojang and Notch have far _far_ more to gain from this than Bethesda do.

<comment><USER44> it goes without saying that a 17 year old series is more well known than a new game. on the other hand, i have never referred to "The Elder Scrolls" as just "Scrolls". i've called it "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" and i'll probably refer to the new game as just "Skyrim". if i saw a game that was just called "Scrolls" i would not confuse it with Bethesda's games.

<comment><USER36> I'm not saying you would, I'm saying PR wise Mojang and Notch have _everything_ to gain from settling this matter of law in a game of Quake, while Bethesda has very _little_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> awesome way to settle frivolous lawsuits</comment>


Ask HN: Do managers really not know about upcoming layoffs? - <AUTHOR> One of our company branch got a mass layoff with 80% employees gone due to merger. Some of the middle and upper management was shocked and told us that they really didn't know. I am not buying it as some of the people who remained in the company clearly has influence and selection of layoff seems biased towards certain employees.<p>Can HN managers throw some light on this ? <comment><USER2> Some stories:

Layoff 1: The manager knew in advance, and couldn't tell us. But rumors were flying. In a team meeting on Friday, someone asked about the layoff rumors. She specifically said, "I can't say". Someone alertly asked "Can't say, or don't know?" She replied, "I can't say." So we all knew. Most of us got laid off on Monday morning.

Layoff 2: I was feeling uneasy. I walked into my boss's office, closed the door, and asked, "If you were in my shoes, would you have your resume on the street?" He said, "No, I think you'll be fine." The next day _he_ got laid off. I didn't. He pretty much knew it was going to go down that way.

Layoff 3: My boss knew it was coming, because he walked past a meeting room that contained what he described as "an odd collection of managers" \- and not him. From that, he surmised that there was a layoff coming, that they were figuring out who to lay off, and that, since he wasn't in the room, it was going to get him. He still didn't tell us beforehand.

So in all three cases, the managers knew or could make a pretty good guess.

And, one bonus story that didn't happen to me: I have heard of a legendary layoff at Evans & Sutherland. They laid of some managers, and some team members, but not every team member of the laid-off managers. And they botched it by first laying off the managers. Then, when it came to the workers, some of them didn't have managers to do the layoff. So IT logged everyone off of the network. If you could log back in, you still had a job. If they had killed your account, you were laid off.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no one, single playbook for layoffs. You can't assume anything.

If you're losing 80% of employees, that's more than a layoff. That's a severe restructuring of the entire business.

Your managers very well might not have been informed until the last minute. These things are best handled all at once, rather than slowly leaking information out to different levels of employees over time.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's very possible they're telling the truth. Mass layoffs tend to be discussed only at the senior executive levels and within HR with strict instructions not to communicate downward, mostly for legal and anti-disruption reasons. Middle managers often only find out very slightly before their employees do. Of course, there will always be well-connected employees who hear of things ahead of time.</comment>


1000 [Indigenous] Languages on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://indigenoustweets.blogspot.com/2011/12/1000-languages-on-web.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Of note is that Kevin has put the data on GitHub (<https://github.com/kscanne/orthotree>) so that others can make their own visualizations. He offers some suggestions near the end of the post.</comment>


The Problem with the Node community - <AUTHOR> http://wiredhorizon.com/the-problem-with-the-node-community/ <comment><USER2> I agree with a lot of the sentiments in this post, but I wouldn't go so far as to say beginners should not learn node at all. (i.e. - stop teaching it to beginners)

It boils down to using the right tool for the job. As the author mentions, some people do get it right, but it leaves you a lot of rope to hang yourself.

There is people who feel teaching rails or django to beginners is also doing them a disservice too, because at times it can mask how SQL or other things work, and can encourage developers to not learn how things work at a lower level.

Developers should learn SQL before noSQL, but I don't think that will make or break a career, nor will learning node first or rails or php or java.

One key to being a diverse developer, is not being religious about any one technology, but try as many out as you can reasonably, and learn from all of them.

The author definitely nails this point, that people are often "unwavering" in how they support node (or insert another technology in that sentence).

TL;DR - use the right tool for the job. Sometimes it's node. Sometimes it's not. At least that is my take on the article. Cheers.

<comment><USER3> "I wouldn't go so far as to say beginners should not learn node at all."

I'm showing my age here, but… I remember a quote (but can't recall who to attribute it to) along the lines of "Perl is not a good first programming language. It's a great _last_ programming language"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only reason why Node is taken seriously is the fact that beginners only have to learn one language and switching languages initially can be a deal breaker for many.

I have personally taught programming to a few people, and most people are really motivated if they get to see a usable web app rather then a terminal program, and for a web app NodeJS + Browser is far easier to teach then PHP,Rails,.. + Browser in my experience. They never really understand callbacks initially, but they can mash things up to see something on their screen.

Another big thing about Node is the boilerplate to run NodeJS programs (compared to PHP where installing apache can be a nightmare for beginners, and makes it much harder to understand the big picture)

Async is hard, and takes a long time to breath in I agree. But closures + callbacks nearly look similar to to sync code in other languages. Async code looks much more scary in other languages

</comment><comment><USER3> "But seriously, does anyone really think that a beginner should learn NoSQL before learning SQL?"

Hmmmm - back in the day, I learned to use hashes, tied hashes, and BerkleyDB way before learning to use SQL and SQL libraries.

<comment><USER5> Original author here, I agree the depths of abstraction in CS are endless. But in todays day and age, it seems like SQL has matured enough to be learnt without too much background in CS

<comment><USER3> Sure - it's mature and rock solid.

But it's also overkill for many problems requiring persistent storage. If I were teaching a programming beginner how to save data for a program to persist across invocations of the program - there are tools I'd reach for before saying "well, first we need to install MySQL or Postgres, then the db abstraction libraries, then we need to talk about ORMs … ". Pedagogically, going from variables to hashes to tied hashes to NoSQL is a relatively direct progression - at least to me.

Having said that - there's an enormous amount of PHP ( and Perl and …) code out there showing beginner programmers getting shit done with minimalistic but workable understanding of SQL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly enough, the only people who have a hard time with callbacks are those who have been coding synchronous code for a long time. Anyway though, with async/await, the callback days are coming to an end. Other than that, the article is just complaining that express and mongo are too low level. Seems almost better to teach people low level stuff first.

<comment><USER5> Original Author here, I agree that it while it could be argued that express/mongo is more "fundamental" or low level than a stack like rails + mysql, I'd also argue that because its lower level, it could act as a barrier to learning. Having to wire together a database adapter with an ORM before being able to save data seems like a tall task to someone just starting out.</comment></comment>


Http:// vS https:// - Lazy Pro Blogger - <AUTHOR> http://lazyproblogger.com/http-vs-https/ <comment><USER2> This doesn't seem suited to HN. It assumes a level of technical ignorance that people on this forum have long got beyond.</comment>


Practical File System Design with the Be File System - <AUTHOR> http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/practical-file-system-design.pdf

<comment><USER2> Oh man, this brings back memories! I have a physical copy of this book, which I read cover-to-cover, years ago. I even worked at Be for awhile, until they went out of business. Dominic Giampaolo was long gone by then, of course.

The Be file system maintained state that was a lot like database indexes, which could be created by user-level programs. I made specific use of this feature in my first big program for BeOS. When I eventually ported it to MacOSX, I had a lot of additional work to do, because the Mac file system doesn't have anything like that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The author made this out-of-print book available on his site (<http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/>). I was looking for information on how filesystems work, and stumbled on this. Since I've heard the Be filesystem described as "a marvel," this looks like a promising read.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a classic. I have it on my bookshelf from back in the day. :)</comment>


Most Extravagant Purchases by Wealthy Tech Execs - <AUTHOR> http://www.ranker.com/list/most-needlessly-extravagant-purchases-by-rich-tech-executive/keaton

<comment><USER2> This reminds me. I got to ask for a raise.

<comment><USER3> Asking for a raise will never get you there. Just saying.</comment></comment>


Why is PayPal so successful yet they treat merchants like crap? (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/2981203/Why-is-PayPal-so-successful-yet-they-treat-merchants-like-crap <comment><USER2> Quite interesting that it fails to notice that Paypal et al seem to put the end user first, vs their customer (merchant), which makes customers push for merchants to accept paypal and eat costs or lose their business.

Admittedly, this is a bit simplistic, but credit card companies get that too: end users push bank's customers to eat the card company fees.

And as another example, the techy end-user base pushed for Google to become the default search engine down everyone's throats (I was part of the bandwagon too — what's not to like about bannerless, unbiased web index compared to Altavistas and Yahoos of the time and their "registries").

Paypal got huge help from integrating with eBay, where customers looked for merchants using it, until it became an obligatory payment method and was soon acquired by eBay.</comment>


Swift 5.3 will bring official Windows support - <AUTHOR> https://swift.org/blog/5-3-release-process/?hn <comment><USER2> More interested in the "additional Linux distributions" comment in the release announcement. I hope this means Apple's iOS and iPadOS development tools are coming to Debian 10 and perhaps popLinux ("Pop!_OS").</comment>


Cannabinoids promote new brain cell growth [2005] - <AUTHOR> http://www.jci.org/articles/view/25509

<comment><USER2> Newer articles on the subject appear in the obvious Google Scholar search:

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?gcx=w&q=cannabinoids+n...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?gcx=w&q=cannabinoids+neurogenesis)</comment>


Mockingbird: New tool for building mockups, written in Cappuccino - <AUTHOR> http://gomockingbird.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice effort, and great to see someone building a Cappuccino app; I like that I don't need any plugins to run it. Clearly it's still beta, but something to keep an eye on.

<comment><USER3> _I like that I don't need any plugins to run it._

I second that. Requiring a plugin is the only reason I don't use that other really cool mockup tool. Good luck to the team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=ebdb...](http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=ebdb192fce519a7ae32dff361a66b05d727ab082)

<comment><USER5> Oh hey! Another dvorak user!

<comment><USER4> Heh, nice notice of nonsense name :-).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Might want to consider a different screenshot on the main page. The big centered arrow made me think it was a clickable demo video.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you really want to build a valuable web prototyping app, please make it spit out HTML/CSS. That would be the killer feature! Give me a limited, but functional web site/app that I can then modify/refine, instead of a "picture" of it in whatever else format.

THAT would make me use your product in a hearbeat...

<comment><USER8> Any HTML or CSS spit out by that app would be unusable without a tremendous engineering effort. Anything can be dragged anywhere. Even if export was only available if you limited yourself to certain functionality and layouts, I'd still be extremely impressed if exported HTML and CSS were worth using.

<comment><USER9> HTML output would be valuable even if it were as simple as possible and completely unstyled. That's still a tedious step I don't have to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Neat. I spent a few weeks working on something similar in jQuery, but gave up on it, because I wasn't really confident it could be done well enough to beat Balsamiq.

</comment><comment><USER11> I met the founders (saikat and ??) at HeyZap's (post SUS) party. They described it as (Peldi's) Mockups but for the Web. Interesting underserved niche.

<comment><USER12> ?? == sheena

<comment><USER11> Yup, that's her :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like how the volume slider intelligently resizes. Nice attention to detail.

</comment><comment><USER14> Bug Report:

1) Put a button on the screen.

2) But a box on the screen

3) But the box on top of the button

4) Select the button (oh wait you can't)

Otherwise seems like a great product. I love that you used cappuccino, I can't wait until they give us Atlas.

<comment><USER12> Yeah that's a good point, I can see how this is fairly confusing. This happens because the box is added on top of the button - you can, however, hit the "Back" button on the toolbar (after selecting the box) to move the box back.

<comment><USER15> doesn't seem to work

<comment><USER12> Might have to hit back more than a few times if you have more than two widgets on the screen. But I'll be sure to make this work better.

<comment><USER16> I just tried it. I created a box over the line/arrow. Hitting the back for the box, you can't select the arrow. Selecting the arrow and bringing it front, it works ok.

UX suggestion: allow me to use the mouse scroll to change the size of the hovered/selected element, maintaining the scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's a picture my friend made that I like: [http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=73c3...](http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=73c3156b49b1f3b2137eb3abacfa5f0777399edf)

</comment><comment><USER17>
          index.html
          Mockingbird

          Created by You on May 22, 2009.
          Copyright 2009, Your Company All rights reserved.

accurate?

<comment><USER12> Hah! Nice catch, that is not in fact accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very happy about seeing a Cappuccino app. I can see myself using this. I'm concerned about the lack of an "export" mechanism. Being able to export to html would be ideal. At the very least, having a PDF or other universal format file that I can email around is probably a must.

I wonder what "Try it now" implies? It would be nice to know if this is planned to become a paid service once out of beta.

Side note: Looks like 280 Atlas is finally rolling out. I don't know what the $20 fee is all about. It feels disrespectful. I thought it was hard enough to find developers to test out a new beta platform/service in the first place.

<comment><USER12> We are planning to charge once we iron out all the bugs and we add a few more features, though there will probably be a free version. We'll have more details on that later. Export is definitely a feature we plan to implement, but for now, E-mailing the share link is the way to get others to see your mockups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very nice. I like the simplicity of the syntax you've created for editing elements. Seems to work quite smoothly for me in Safari, OS 10.6

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks cool, but it is painfully slow (Linux + firefox). Maybe other systems run it better, but for me it is too slow to do much good.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, we just launched this today and are in very early stages of beta. We realize speed is an issue right now (we've mostly been testing on Windows and OS X, on which it runs better), and it's definitely something we're working to improve.

<comment><USER21> Yet:

"Powered by Cappuccino: no Flash slowing down your browser."

<comment><USER12> Point taken. We changed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hihi,

Obviously a great product. One thing though - I wouldn't use this because of the nature of my business, I was hoping and praying that it was a downloadable tool....!!!!!

(My business: ideas generation, spitting things out quickly).

If you can download, or are going to make available for download. Please let me know : )

Thanks,

Geoff

<comment><USER23> > My business: ideas generation, spitting things out quickly

How does that work? I mean, how do you make money from it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cool idea but it's very buggy. With 2 minutes of use I discovered that upon double clicking text to edit hitting enter makes the widget disappear, now I can no longer drag widgets onto the work space and the scroll bar on the widget "library" is frozen (although it still works).

Looks like it could be very cool with the issues ironed out.

<comment><USER12> Interesting, I haven't been able to replicate that problem. What browser/OS are you using?

<comment><USER25> Here when I hit enter after changing the text/value of a control, it suddenly disappears. os x tiger, firefox 3.5.4

<comment><USER12> I managed to reproduce the bug last night and pushed a fix. Hope that helps, and thanks for the catch!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My browser tab (Google Chrome) froze up when trying to do a Copy and Paste of a Rectangle element. Other than that, it's a nice tool. Keep up the good work!

<comment><USER12> Yeah we just found out about that bug. I just pushed a fix for it about 30 minutes ago.

<comment><USER26> Well, you sure respond to feedback fast. Great service, thanks!

BTW, I've been designing a few screens for an up-coming project over the past week and haven't had any problems. It is a joy to use. Keep up the good work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nice! A bit sluggish here (linux/firefox) but usable.

If you had some iPhone UI templates, I'd use it.

</comment><comment><USER28> seems very similar to sketchflow [http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/1eea789b-c69c-4...](http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/1eea789b-c69c-4b09-a13b-b7422c0ff104) but for the web

</comment><comment><USER29> Awesome, nice job!

</comment><comment><USER30> Nice effort (great to see a real Capp app), but a bit ugly.

Perhaps unleash a really good designer on the UI?

</comment><comment><USER31> What I can't understand is why you'd model a language after Objective-C. It's verbose to the point of ridiculousness.

<comment><USER32> It's not the language that's verbose, it's the Cocoa libraries.

Instead of this:

      NSString *s2 = [s1 stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8Encoding];

You could easily have:

      NSString *s2 = [s1 percentEscapes:UTF8];

(I like the first way better, though. It reads like an English sentence, and you know exactly what the arguments are.)

EDIT: formatting.

<comment><USER31> Good point, but Objective J seems to have borrowed that as well.

i.e.

      [CPApp sendEvent:[CPEvent mouseEventWithType:CPLeftMouseDown location:[theWindow convertBridgeToBase:CGPointMake(x, y)]

or

      [CPApp setTarget:self selector:@selector(disposeOfEvent:) forNextEventMatchingMask:CPLeftMouseUpMask untilDate:nil inMode:nil dequeue:YES];

It's not that I don't applaud the creation of Objective-J, because I do. I think it's a big step towards the next generation of in-browser applications.

To the 280 guys: I'm not trying to insult you or your hard work, and I'm sorry if it came off like that. All I'm saying is that you're going to have a harder time making this a new web standard because of this design fact. It certainly won't deter me, but it will definitely deter others.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: mass-submitting your pitch on forums (etc) during launch?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
What do you think about mass-submitting your pitch on forums, facebook groups, google groups etc during startup launch?
Best, Wiktor <comment><USER2> Refrain from it.

Since you will be doing mass posting, forum moderators will very quickly catch you doing that, and probably will ban you.

This might do more harm. Its better going to events nearby you live and doing a talk with smart plugin of your product at the end.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but this post could not be treated as spam, but as a some kind of advice or something like that, or I can make much smarter submition like asking first, and from another account posting an answer.

<comment><USER2> That's still a spam. Moderators always treat new account created with pinch of salt and can be very aggressive as well. A new account asking a question, and new account answering it. This will surely be treated as spam.</comment></comment></comment>


The FBI has collected 430,000 iris scans in a so-called 'pilot program' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/12/12148044/fbi-iris-pilot-program-ngi-biometric-database-aclu-privacy-act <comment><USER2> So how long before someone get's shot in the back because some bottom dollar networked security camera feeding bottom dollar image processing software flagged them as a false positive for an armed fugitive?

How long before you auto insurance company jacks up your rate because a scanner at a toll both picked up your brother when you let him borrow your car.

Who the heck is responsible for allowing this to happen with no apparent oversight?

Does the scan still work after the suspect has been pepper sprayed and beaten to a pulp?</comment>


Tesla's Cybertruck Aerodynamics Do Flow Smoothly, as per a CFD Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://interestingengineering.com/teslas-cybertruck-aerodynamics-do-flow-smoothly-as-per-a-cfd-analysis <comment><AUTHOR> > So, as one does, an aerospace engineer decided to check for himself and ran > the Cybertruck through a CFD simulation (computational fluid dynamics — a > computer version of a wind tunnel). Here's what he found out.

> One note to point out is that Martin decided not to share a coefficient of > drag number as his assumptions of the wheels and fenders could have affected > his results.

> Regardless, Martin's results are impressive and have sparked an ongoing > debate on Reddit. You can also view his images and comments via Martin's > Instagram page.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics/comments/e2095o/cfd_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics/comments/e2095o/cfd_analysis_of_teslas_cybertruck/)

[https://www.instagram.com/p/B5ODYyBBUgh/](https://www.instagram.com/p/B5ODYyBBUgh/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Elon's comment:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1200976907417702400](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1200976907417702400)

> With extreme effort, Cybertruck might hit a 0.30 drag coefficient, which > would be insane for a truck. Requires tweaking many small details.

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1201020290853044224](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1201020290853044224)

> Laminar air flow due to a completely smooth bottom is underappreciated

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1201027408221966337](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1201027408221966337)

> Overall shape is good for low drag coefficient. Matters a lot exactly how > you trip airflow at edges & guide air around wheels, like an invisible > sculpture.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best island to live and work from? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to try to live on an island for a few months (with my girlfriend who needs to finish her thesis). The timeframe is from January to March 2013.
We have looked at Curacao, Bali, Cahuita and Seychelles.
Does anybody have any experiences doing this? If so what would you recommend and what are the pitfalls? <comment><USER2> Bali-I sepnt a couple of weeks there for "Startup Abroad" and connected with the local scene. There is a new 'Startup City' in the process of being built, theres co-working spaces, lots of great ex-pat locals, foods amazing, money goes far, its paradise, people are amazing, local culture is rich and evident, cheap to do small weekend tours to Indonesian Islands etc.

Contact me if you want some more thoughts / have any questions.

<comment><USER3> Seconding @scottmcleod as well as @taligent below -- key issues with Bali are traffic and tourists. You could also consider neighboring Lombok / Gili islands which are growing more expensive and more trendy, or if you find you can do without any western amenities, there any number of hidden coastal gems through the archipelago such as Manado / Bunaken. IMHO, quality of Internet varies inversely with quality of life -- live happy :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Singapore. Seriously, check it out. Great stability, awesome for business, gateway between east and west (in both directions), thriving startup scene, govt grants for entrepreneurship. Downsides: cost of living is a bit high, culture can be hard to adapt to for some, weather can be stiffling (equatorial tropics are hot and muggy).

<comment><USER5> Are you in Singapore at the moment? Would you mind answering a few questions about the 'scene' there? My email is in my 'about'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Curacao is a gorgeous place to visit - not sure if I would want to live there for more than a few weeks. It is incredibly small -- maybe try a bigger/more populous island? I loved St. Kitts, although that's still quite small and there are lots of gorgeous, secluded areas.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it possible to get any work done on Curacao given how hot and humid it is? And does air conditioning cancel this issue? Also what about the Internet :-)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know what your criteria are, but I have some experience with this. I lived on Honshu Island for 5 months, Penang Island for 2 months, and Manhattan Island for 2 years. I recommend all three. The pitfalls: 1) the islands are somewhat expensive compared to many other islands, although there are inexpensive locations on all three 2) and they are somewhat noisy and distracting.

</comment><comment><USER8> One of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, US. Possibly San Juan Island itself, depending on your needs and what's on offer.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_Islands>

<comment><USER8> Ah, I notice you may not be US-based.

If you don't want to pass through US customs, you can probably get a similar experience on an island near Vancouver BC, Canada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tuvalu - not only have they only gotten their money from the .tv domain, but they'll be gone once climate change wreaks its havoc. The dollar goes a long way and it'll be a very unique experience and you'll likely work hard too.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great Britain. Friendly locals and no language issues.

<comment><USER11> Looks like you were downvoted too...

<comment><USER10> Blatant racism ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The UK or Ireland.

<comment><USER11> Downvoted? Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone have any experience with Kona, HI?

</comment><comment><USER13> Australia. Maybe Tasmania for something different ?

Otherwise Thailand would be nice. Cheap. Great food. Decent internet in parts. Good beach. Bali will suck a bit because of all the tourists (Bali is Australia's Cancun). But inland it is much better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where would you stay in Thailand?

<comment><USER14> Chiang Mai. It's in the north of Thailand.

Pros: cheap, people are really nice, more relaxed and cleaner air than Bangkok, some expats, the food is delicious, and the internet is not fast but reliable.

Con: Not an island</comment></comment></comment>


Flickr is removing Facebook and Google sign-in - <AUTHOR> https://accounts-flickr.yahoo.com/account/update/default/ <comment><USER2> This is (kind of) one of the reasons that I don't use third party services to sign in to anything. I'd rather have an email+password option and use a password manager (I'm aware that most people probably don't do this and Flickr isn't offering this).

If/when users do as Flickr is asking, I wonder if Yahoo will redirect them to use Yahoo Mail etc. In any case, I'm not a flickr user anymore but it would be interesting to know how smooth they've made this process.

<comment><USER3> I've always made a policy of not signing into things with Facebook. FB recently tried to encourage people to do so more often by allowing you to prevent them access to your data, or even sign in without letting the website know who you are at all, but that doesn't solve the problem where it's Facebook I don't trust with my Flickr data and not vice-versa.

<comment><USER4> What Flickr data would be fed to Flickr if you did the Facebook sign in option? Besides the fact that you use Flickr, that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really annoying and not the direction I hope internet companies will move toward.

What we need is to be able to login to facebook/yahoo/whatever with google account and vice versa of course; we need to see the idea of OpenID come alive.

<comment><USER6> I'm completely on the other side of the fence. I NEVER use Facebook or Google (or Twitter) to log into anything. If a company only allows that for sign up, I never sign up for those products.

<comment><USER7> You're not alone on that side. Every service must have its own user/password. Single sign on with fb/g+/etc is convenient but it is good especially for those companies.

<comment><USER8> While I do agree with you in sentiment, I don't think it's always better than passport sites.

The problem with every site handling their own logins is that you're creating more vectors for attack. Most people reuse passwords (bad practice I know but it is what most non-technical people do) and not all sites are properly secured - in fact some don't even encrypt passwords! So at least passport sites outsource the data protection issues to larger businesses that you'd expect (no; _demand_ ) to have experience to handle that data securely.

<comment><USER9> Oh god every time I see this argument it makes my blood boil.

It's 2014. There's no excuse for re-using the same damn password over and over again.

And it doesn't make sense to make the situation worse for everyone else because they don't care about their online security.

Get a yourself a damn password manager and use a unique password for each service then we can kiss all these password leak problems goodbye.

Time after time we see people making a big drama because company X had all their 50 million password leaked. Oh was it hashed? Oh was it salted?

If you use a unique password for each service, the service provider can store your password in plaintext and you will be safe.

That's what I do and I couldn't care less if all the passwords in the world are leaked in plaintext.

<comment><USER8> You're right in principle but couldn't be more wrong in practice. I certainly don't have time to educate all 7 billion people in the world about password managers and you're clearly doing very little in that area either (aside kicking off condescending rants at your peers....) so deliberately implementing a scheme that's shit for 99% of the worlds internet users just so it's better for last 1% who are technically minded is just elitist and wrong.

Which ever solution is implemented _needs_ to work for all groups of internet users - not just yourself ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I predict this will be a trend soon, also people are going to ditch services like disqus. Big websites want to have total control over their client account and comments. This is not really clever to always trust third parties, especially with comments which are a huge part of the SEO.

<comment><USER11> It's interesting that the Huffington post went the other way, just this week. Dropping their in-house commenting system in favour of facebook-comments:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/otto-toth/were-moving-the- conv...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/otto-toth/were-moving-the- conversation_b_5423675.html)

<comment><USER12> In some way it makes sense, as you ditch the whole dynamic part of your page generation, allowing you to effectively use a static dump for your website. You can then update that periodically. Facebook is left to pick up all the hosting hassles and expense. Also you tap into the Facebook ecosystem. Having said that I doubt I'd even leave a Facebook comment on another website, I haven't yet.

<comment><USER11> There are middle grounds though - if you want to have a mostly-static site, and still allow dynamic comments.

There are some self-hosted systems out there, including my trivial e-comments code: [https://github.com/skx/e-comments/](https://github.com/skx/e-comments/)

<comment><USER12> Perhaps that is what they already had. If they were to use your app, they'd still have to manage and carry the costs associated. That probably isn't their main motivation.

I remember a few years ago whenever you clicked on a Guardian news link in Facebook it would try and get you to sign up to their Facebook app/plugin, that would then publish on your timeline what you'd been reading, let alone commenting on. I thought that was a bit ghastly.

I'm assuming that when you make a comment through Facebook on the Huff post, it displays on your timeline or some such, providing additional reach for the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think that is a good move on Yahoo's part.

They may lose some Flickr users but this should strengthen Yahoo's walled garden.

I still like Flickr, where I post my very best pictures. I use Google+ and Dropbox to automatically archive every picture and video I take with my smartphone, but use Flickr to actually look at my new and old photos.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's a pretty bold move, given over 100k people a day/800k a month use the facebook auth alone[1]. and though looks like its on a bit of a decline. Maybe losing 100k users a day doesn't matter much to yahoo.

[1][https://factets.com/application/flickr- AQkvRaEJ](https://factets.com/application/flickr-AQkvRaEJ)

<comment><USER15> "Number of users per day" is a vanity metric. It doesn't matter to a business like Yahoo. The thing that actually matters is whether or not those particular users make money for Yahoo. If they're run the numbers and discovered that Facebook users don't turn in to paying subscribers or click on adverts (and they can't find a way to do that) yet cost them $0.25 per day in bandwidth then turning off Facebook login will _increase_ their profits by £200k/month due to the saving.

<comment><USER16> I assume that they are also handing over data to Facebook with every auth that helps the competition with targeted advertising revenue?

<comment><USER17> That would be a correct assumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We're obviously not all in agreement about how identity should work online (let alone how it works offline), which is kind of a big problem considering identity is something every single one of us automatically has from birth. We may never agree on it, but we may at least mostly agree on it one day (outliers never go away).

In the meantime, I'm okay with some level of fluctuation in the practice of online identities, since it indicates some level of (at least attempted) innovation, and trial-and-error at the internet level is never really that bad of a thing.

So yeah, this would probably be annoying for a while. But let's see how it pans out.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've had my flickr account since before they were acquired by yahoo. That, combined with yahoo's crappy user sign-in experience, means that my flickr account, yahoo account, and some other junk account I accidentally created while trying to log in once 5 years ago, are now all conflated. To this day it's still not completely worked out.

<comment><USER20> Same here. I also went through the del.icio.us merger and demerger, thankfully with my data intact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they are going to remove anything it should be the purple bar at the top of the screen. The layers of navigation remind me of someone with all the toolbars installed on their browser. I've used Flickr for years, but unless they step up the design of the site I'll be searching elsewhere to showcase my photography.

</comment><comment><USER22> I used to be a huge proponent to single click sign in, in theory it's great. The problem I found with my own startup was that by allowing Twitter, Facebook or Google+ sign in, it was a point of confusion for the user. The amount of duplicate, even triple accounts was far higher that what I would have expected.

After reviewing the pros and cons, I switched to a simple email/password combination which also solved another problem of having to ask the user for their email address.

There really is a need for a true single sign in provider, in which you link your identity accounts to one 'super' account and then sign in with that, allowing whatever information is available from each as you wish, or simply a blank profile with only your identifier to link back to you.

<comment><USER23> Doesn't every sign on method provide the user's email address?

As far as I understand it, you're supposed to create a single account in your database using the email address as the identifier, and link all the sign on methods to the same account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Again?!

I really hope they don't f* up it again, like the time when Yang-era Yahoo! bought Flickr, forced you to get an Yahoo-ID and then deleted it after 6 months of inactivity, effectively locking you out of your own photos. That was great.

</comment><comment><USER25> Any good reason for this, or is it just to push their Yahoo accounts on everyone?

</comment><comment><USER26> I wish they would keep it, since I really don't want another account to log into just to use the site, but I admit they handle it a lot better than Hacker News did with this transition page. With Hacker News the Google login and whatnot just disappeared one day and I lost my account and had to start over.

</comment><comment><USER27> The account creation page (for those who like me used Flickr without a Yahoo account) is a mess – for any account name I tried entering, it said that an account with the same name already exists. Finally managed to create my Yahoo account somewhere else in the settings.

<comment><USER28> I've had that problem as well. I'm not sure if it's a bug or it is genuinely taken

<comment><USER27> I just went to my settings, changed the password somewhere in them, signed out, signed in using my gmail address and the new password, and it worked.

But yeah, flickr is buggy. The Android app on my tablet never seemed to load anything (except on rare occasions), and I uploaded a large amount of photos a couple of times, edited the names and tags, and some of the names/tags were lost. But I enjoy some of the groups there, got some good advice on buying a medium format SLR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> hey, it looks like we don't have any good competitors now! let's just push Yahoo accounts on everyone, because yeah.

</comment><comment><USER30> THANK GOD! I tried signing up with my G+ account once. Holy shit, 30 minutes later a developer cannot figure this out.

</comment><comment><USER31> What is a good Flickr alternative?

<comment><USER20> Depends what you want to use it for ...

Tumblr? Dropbox (I've used this for sharing a large album to family and it worked well)? Self-hosted (maybe Owncloud, could do with more suggestions)? Picasa?

Presumably there'll be a service that lets you host photos out of S3 somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Flickr did this already, now the story is repeating

</comment><comment><USER33> Go yahoo!

</comment><comment><USER34> "OH NO HOW DO I SIGN INTO FLICKR NOW" said the 0.00001% of people who still use Flickr.

<comment><USER35> Flickr does have one huge selling point, which is the 1tb account size for free accounts. Combined with a python upload bot, you can backup all your photos and videos for free to private albums.

The newest version of the UX is also very nice, IMO. I often use it to show friends and family photos over and above just using Windows because the albums look so nice on a big screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Time to ditch flickr.

<comment><USER37> Sure, but where to? I had worse experiences with many other such services, or they have a very narrow focus.

<comment><USER38> Well, if you don't mind Google, Google+ lets you handle images pretty well. I would have said picassa before, but that was merged into G+ (and some features were lost I think).

<comment><USER37> G+ is not focused on pictures. Picasa only allows 1GB (used to be 200MB). I take multiple Gigabytes of pictures on all photo trips.

Flickr is the perfect match for amateur photographers without ambition ;).

<comment><USER39> Excuse me?

Google+ share the quota with gmail. Gmail currently offers 7 or more free GB. Additional GBs are cheap (although they have new price structure now.)

Also pictures 2048px (*) or smaller doesn't count towards the quota (and you can easily, in g+ settings on phone, choose to only upload photos resized to that size if you don't want to pay for extra storage.)

<comment><USER40> > Excuse me?

Unrelated to your original comment, but as a British person when I see the use of "Excuse me?" it seems very coarse and sometimes can appear rude.

It is interesting, because my wife (who isn't British and English is her second language) uses this often (as do her friends) and sometimes it appears out of place and is misread as rude (which she is not usually trying to be).

I'm not complaining or dissing you at all, I find these small linguistic nuances very interesting :)

<comment><USER41> As a brit, I agree with that sentiment. It comes across as passive-aggressive way to tell someone you think what they just said is utter nonsense.

You heard them just fine, but you don't like what they said, so you exagerrate your reaction and pretend they're an idiot.

Of course, it depends on the tone of your voice as well, so everything comes across in the worst possible way when all you can see is the words :)

<comment><USER20> Funny how this works. Normally on the internet people disagree with one another point-blank with no niceties, so a "polite" "excuse me?" stands out.

(Brit here as well)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>