Ask HN: Places to get data visualization feedback? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering whether there exists any site/forum that allows people to submit their data visualizations and get feedback from others with expertise in the field.<p>If there aren't, I might try to create one myself.  But I wouldn't want to try to reinvent the wheel, if the wheel is already rolling. <comment><USER2> Try flowing data's forums (<http://flowingdata.com/>). It's a very good site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks -- this is just what I was looking for.

For anyone who's interested, here's the link to their data visualization sub- forum:

[http://forums.flowingdata.com/forum/statistical- visualizatio...](http://forums.flowingdata.com/forum/statistical- visualization)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The visualization sub-reddit might be worth trying.

<http://visualization.reddit.com></comment>


National park campers cut down protected Joshua trees during government shutdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/us/california-joshua-trees-cut-down-during-shutdown-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> It's too bad. The government shutdown did not cause this.

The truth is that overspending is the cause for the inability to maintain services. Those same people who are politicizing this mess are directly responsible for it.</comment>


Electric vehicles reached 2M cars in 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/june/electric-vehicles-have-another-record-year-reaching-2-million-cars-in-2016.html <comment><USER2> Norway is planning to phase out petrol/diesel cars by 2025 [https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/norway-phase- out...](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/norway-phase-out-petrol- and-diesel-cars-2025)

I suspect this is where we are headed.

However an EV car takes the same space up as an ICE car. EV cars do not solve congestion and if you move from a policy of maximising traffic flow to maximising road capacity you very quickly realise that the fundemental problem is the private car. So the conclusion is to ban the car [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/dec/09/car-free- city...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/dec/09/car-free-city-oslo- helsinki-copenhagen)

I believe Copenhagen now has only 9% of people commuting by private car and 62% by bicycle.

<comment><USER3> I agree. So we'll just sit in the same traffic in our electric car for an hour, each way to work?

I could see traffic a being a lot better with fully autonomous cars. Still, public transportation and more bike lanes seem like a much better investment and way to go.

<comment><USER2> I'd be surprised if private autonomous cars will be allowed into cities, whereas public ride share autonomous mini-buses with dynamic routing AI will be the way forward.

<comment><USER4> I think people like their privacy too much for that, as efficient as it may be. It seems more likely to me that private (or public single-occupant) autonomous cars will become smaller. Something like a Smart car size autonomous EV -- small enough to minimize costs, large enough to be useful for the single rider.

<comment><USER2> A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport — paraphrased from Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

[http://newyork.thecityatlas.org/lifestyle/developed-area- ric...](http://newyork.thecityatlas.org/lifestyle/developed-area-rich-public- transport-ways-city/)

I think privacy is something that is a function of cost benefit. When road pricing becomes ubiquitous (as it will given the march towards EV), people will begin shift to public transport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting to me that Norway is such a leader in deployed EVs simply because of their Sovereign Wealth Fund getting so much of its revenues from Oil interest. That would be like Saudi Arabia having 30% EVs, seems crazy.

The other fun number is that the US was only 160k out of the 2M vehicles. Much more in line with the US population proportion to the world. A signal perhaps of the US's waining global leadership. Perhaps in the next ten years America will shrink back into a regional superpower.

<comment><USER6> I doubt it has to do with the US's waning global leadership and more to do with the fact that Americans drive longer distances per year than people in any other nation. There are HUGE parts of the US where you literally couldn't get an electric car to without putting it on a flatbed or using standard 15 amp house outlets for days. I work from home and travel through rural parts of the US all year long and there is no way people who live >100 miles from an urban center would EVER think about buying an electric car because of range anxiety even with the new 200+ mile ranges that aren't really available outside a handful of cities.

The US is a large country with lots of empty space in it.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, having driven across the US twice I don't think people realize how much empty space there is. There's a whole lot of nothing out there.

Don't get me wrong, much of it is great and beautiful. It's also really, really big. We probably have stretches of uninhabited land larger than some countries.

<comment><USER8> plenty of places in the country where you can drive for 5 hours and not pass a town with over 1k living there

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Headline seems almost meaningless, and doesn't do justice to the importance of the story. It would be like saying "World population has another record year". What sort of disaster would have to befall the industry for the number of electric cars on the road to actually decrease from last year?

Hypothetically, I could envision growth declining or accelerating in any given year, both of which would be news worth pointing out. (And in a mature market like conventional gasoline cars with lots of near end-of-life "clunkers" out there, I could see absolute number decreasing, which would be worth knowing). But an increase in absolute number of EVs is so nearly certain as to just be noise.

<comment><USER10> It seems that EV are on the verge or climbing the hockey stick curve. That is hugely important.

Exponential growth in renewables is the only real solution to climate change.

<comment><USER11> More cars is not a solution in any way to climate change, no matter what they are. It helps such a tiny amount, and will probably add more problems as people switch over.

<comment><USER12> how dare you criticize consumerism!

think of all the poor rich people trying to feel good about their imense investment on a disposable toxic ton of battery. How insensitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think electric buses are really interesting. They are often perfectly suited to the task, really improved air quality (and noise) and also the ride experience is vastly better without a 8L diesel engine banging away.

London has a few routes with them on now and I wish TfL would invest more in it. The air quality on main streets is horrible here.

<comment><USER14> It's going that way. The only problem is double decker buses have only just been released as electric. TfL have trialled then as they've become available, I think they're doing what they can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" Still, electric vehicles only made up 0.2% of total passenger light-duty vehicles in circulation in 2016."_

The breakthrough will come when Beijing goes electric-only. Already, it's much easier to get a Beijing license for an electric car.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think bikes are going to be bigger than electric cars.

<comment><USER17> Especially e-bikes are gaining a lot of momentum. They take away the sweat factor of regular bikes while still having massive health and congestion advantages over car commutes (and within the city are often faster than cars due to congested streets).

<comment><USER18> People hurt themselves on E-Bikes, I can see it being a fad when people realise it's a relatively dangerous way of travelling.

<comment><USER14> In the EU ebikes are quite limited. If you're going to hurt yourself at 17mph on an ebike a normal bike isn't going to safe either, as soon as you go down a hill. American ebikes seem to be crazy powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Digging up millions of tons of earth to get a few pounds of rare earth metals to make batteries in order to charge those batteries using coal -- how environmentally thoughtful.

<comment><USER20> It's actually complicated, and how efficient it ends up being depends on how power is produced where you live:

[http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars- green](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green)

<comment><USER21> a us version of that map: [http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/winter16-electri...](http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/winter16-electric- vehicles-just-how-green-are-they)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best mobile phone for visually impaired people? - <AUTHOR> My dads vision has degraded over the past 10 years to becoming legally blind and up until recently he's always used an old flip phone with the text size set to maximum. I think he was mostly using memory when using the basic features but he still would ask me to help him with the more complex tasks.<p>His old flip phone recently broke and he asked me to find him a new phone that's more modern. I honestly don't have a clue where to start when searching for accessibility for phones, so I hope HN can help with this. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if his needs are more for magnification or of he needs something more so I've documented some information for different types of support.

The built-in screen reader to iOS devices is called VoiceOver and there are many tutorials on YouTube for how to use it. Apple documents a great deal of info on their site for VoiceOver as well as other accessibility options for visual needs. In addition to the screen reader, the iPhone also supports inverted colors, screen magnification, and many other options. If you have an iPhone you can poke around in the Accessibility settings (Settings -> General -> Accessibility).

[https://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision/](https://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision/)

iPhones are by far the most preferred device for mobile screen readers. WebAIM conducts surveys regarding the most used devices for screen readers which you can review to see adoption.

[https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/#mobile](https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/#mobile)

Android devices also have many accessibility settings but I'm partial toward iOS.

</comment><comment><USER3> You might find this site helpful: [https://www.gari.info](https://www.gari.info)</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook collects data on non-users for 'security' - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-collects-data-non-users-for-security-2018-4?r=US&IR=T <comment><USER2> Big Brother. 2018</comment>


QUOTE.fm - Share and discuss quotes, recommend articles and sites (beta) - <AUTHOR> http://www.quote.fm/

<comment><AUTHOR> I have 5 invite codes, each of which can invite another user. Mail me at email@example.com if you think this service is interesting, first come first serve.

<comment><USER2> Would love one. Content, media, articles and the sharing of opinions could be the new "rating" system of content, product, quality advice. Huge potential if executed properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please sent me a code i Realy want one firstname.lastname@example.com

Thank you :)</comment>


Tesla Muzzling Model 3 Buyers - <AUTHOR> https://seekingalpha.com/article/4116526-tesla-muzzling-model-3-buyers <comment><USER2> I've started to distrust Seeking Alpha on Tesla news. They're an investor- oriented site, so every article (no matter its position) feels like it's designed to move the market one way or another. They have both pro- and anti- Tesla contributors, but lately the biggest attention-getters have been the anti-Tesla contributors.

I'd prefer to see this published by actual journalists or some approximation thereof. Tesla has a lot of fans, yes, but they also have a LOT of enemies, and this is the sort of outlet I would imagine they would publish in.

Does anyone have a reputable source for this?

Also, regarding the content, most of these stipulations seem designed to tamp down speculation and scalping among reservation holders. I mean, that sounds like exactly what they SHOULD be doing. A very uncharitable interpretation of that is what makes me distrust the rest of the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't bother if you're on a cellphone. They're super desperate to get you in the app.

<comment><USER4> The paywall is just JavaScript. On Firefox Nightly for Android, reading mode sidestepped the paywall with ease.

<comment><USER5> Same on iOS safari. Reading mode hides the app nag screen.

<comment><USER6> However there is no way to switch pages, but simply updating the URL with ?page=3 worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've wanted Tesla to succeed, but I find bullshit like this to be intolerable. Between this, and the impossibility of getting a dead-tree edition of the service manual, there's no way in hell I'm buying one. Cars with restrictive covenants? Give me a f*cking break.

<comment><USER8> And the fact they also fired a massive part of their workforce, just because they don't want a union...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "This gets really crazy when it comes to enforcement. Not only does Tesla threaten employees [who purchase a car and then resell it less than a year later, or resell it at a higher value than purchased] with disciplinary action up to and including termination, they threaten the future buyer!

...

So Tesla is actually threatening to "reduce or disable" a second buyer's purchased car!"

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't bother reading this article, as soon as you get to page two you will hindered from reading on!</comment>


TLS Attack: TeLeScope Reads Virtualized Systems' TLS Communications - <AUTHOR> https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/06/10/telescope-technique/ <comment><USER2> Oh my god, so you're saying I have to trust my VM hosting provider not to fuck with my systems?! That's totally new and unheard of! /s

Seriously, this is not a new attack. People have been able to extract private keys from RAM for years. But hey, let's give this a fancy name as if it's new so we can market it to all the non-security monkeys.

</comment><comment><USER3> So does this mean we can run Windows 10 in a VM and see what it's sending to the telemetry servers?

<comment><USER4> You could do that anyway. It will take a bit of looking into but go ahead and attach a debugger to your virtual machine and set breakpoints anywhere you want, even in kernel code.

[http://ddeville.me/2015/08/using-the-vmware-fusion-gdb- stub-...](http://ddeville.me/2015/08/using-the-vmware-fusion-gdb-stub-for- kernel-debugging-with-lldb)</comment></comment>


Why startups and small businesses need a multilingual website - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bablic.com/why-startups-need-a-multilingual-website/ <comment><USER2> What languages Internet users in general speak is not relevant unless you are Google. That's like saying 90% of those who have a phone don't speak English, so if you answer the phone you have to cater to them too.

You should care about your customers first, and potential customers second. Unless you actually offer your services, can give support in the language in question, and will take payments from the users, there is really no use translating your web pages.

More importantly, and I will say this in the nicest possible way: Never ever publish anything that has been automatically translated. Never. Don't even think about it.

You don't know the number of times I've had to re-run the translation backwards to English just to guess what the original intention was... and I speak a western language closely related to English. Botching someone's language does not gain you a user.

<comment><USER3> "Never ever publish anything that has been automatically translated. Never. Don't even think about it. You don't know the number of times I've had to re- run the translation backwards to English just to guess what the original intention was."

This. I've been telling Backblaze for years that their French localization is beyond unusable, and the copy in the very first screen of the installer makes this look like some 12 year old's job, not a company you're about to trust your data with.

Have it proofread by a native or just don't do it, period.

<comment><USER4> I'm the Backblaze employee that advocated for this system we have, which is: 1) Developers must add all features fully internationalized, meaning if the locale specific file is present it will display that translation, then 2) The developer must ship a locale specific file which was machine translated, then 3) We have native speakers fix any problems. Usually the first person who complains finds out there is a static text file they can edit to fix the product. I can email you the straightforward installer French locale file if you want to help us fix it!! (Or on Windows run "install_backblaze.exe -unpackonly" and go to the folder it tells you and edit the file called InstallerConfig.xml with Notepad on Windows ( __ _NOT_ __Wordpad) or TextEdit on the Macintosh.

This system allowed us to do a large deal in Japan, where the Japanese company helped us improve the Japanese with very very little additional Backblaze developer time involved because everything was "ready to go". We also did a pretty good German version. The Russian is Ok because several employees at Backblaze are native Russian speakers, but the Brazilian Portuguese is probably a train wreck.

I am curious, why does the presence of the badly translated French hurt you? You can always display it in English (one menu click away), or you can help us translate it better. If it is not there, there is nowhere to "start with", why does that make you happier?

I'm USA born, so it might be a cultural thing. It might be it doesn't offend and bother Japanese people to have a bad Japanese translation available (as long as they can fall back to English), but it REALLY bothers the French that bad French is ever seen in any form, or something like that?

<comment><USER5> a tip for fixing the pt-br translation: offer a year of free service for a native Brazilian to send the full fixed translation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with translation is that it's rather expensive and only pays off at a certain point.

I make Mac apps, and they are English only, even though my native language is German. Translating the app to German would be straightforward, since I could do it myself. However, it would make future development much more complex; I'm already struggling to keep up with one language. Especially for German I don't think that the effort would pay off; most German speakers understand English reasonably well (epsecially in my target demographic).

However, some countries are different. For example, I frequently get poor reviews from Spain; it's obvious that the people complaining didn't understand the description and purchased the wrong app. It fits my personal experience/prejudice that people in Spain are less likely to speak English. However, a Spanish translation would be more difficult because I'd need to hire someone, and I'm not sure if additional sales in Spain would make up for the up-front translation costs.

But, it's something to keep in mind: Consider how much of your target demographic speaks English even though it's not their native language. There are large variations among different demographics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, there definitely are pros and cons, but you'll never know the power of translating your app to Spanish until you do so.

It's an investment like any other in business, but it can definitely pay off. And once you see some results, you'll be more open to adding even more languages.

I'm not sure if you spend money on marketing your app, but let's say your CPA in English is $15, you may find out that in Spanish it's $7.

Bablic also offers inexpensive translation compared to other ways of building a new website/backend and so on...one line of code and relatively cheap monthly plans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is dead wrong. Until you have business in the language of your primary customers you shouldn't even THINK about less understood markets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure why you say this is dead wrong? It just stresses that focusing on only language is leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

Of course, make sure you have a business in your primary customers' language, I agree!

<comment><USER8> It _may_ be leaving lots of opportunity on the table but at the early stages of a company - which includes many in the Hacker News community - they're not taking advantage of the opportunities that are already in front of them.. or they're still figuring out how.

Adding an additional market at that stage ranges from a waste of time/money (if it doesn't work) to a poor customer experience (if it does). How do you sell to and support a customer if you don't speak their language?*

This is not a decision you want to make lightly without some deliberate thought and planning with the rest of your organization.

* I work for Clarify.io which although we don't do translation services (and no interest in it), we work with multiple languages on a daily basis. Adding support in even one language the founders don't know is challenging at best. Luckily, between our two founders, we have 5 languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who has a startup with a multilingual web service (English / Japanese), I normally tell people considering translating their service to hold off as long as possible.

Going from have a unilingual website to a multilingual one slows everything down. Now whenever you make a change to one of the strings in your app, you need to wait to have it translated before you can deploy a new version.

Furthermore, merely translating your service isn't enough, you need to localise it. To do this, you (or someone else) needs to understand your target market. This isn't something you can outsource (cheaply at least).

Finally, adding another language to your application means you need to do customer support in that language. This means the founders can no longer do support themselves, and you'll need to rely on a third party instead.

Think carefully before going down the multilingual path.

</comment><comment><USER10> The real A/B test is: custom translation versus automatic in-browser translation. Huge percentage of people use the latter now. Edit: I haven't done careful analysis, but I run a large site with global appeal and 50%/50% US versus non-US traffic. Everyone is using auto-translate, I can detect it easily in the logs. Engagement metrics are near-identical. Sometimes even better, for example in some Asian countries where auto-translation is being heavily used. Regular people use the browser auto-translate now and are quite comfortable with it.

Even bigger question: will you be harming the auto-translators if you don't make your site available in English?

Automatic translators are quite decent at the hundreds of English<->Rare- Languages combinations, but much worse at the thousands of Rare- Language<->Rare-Language combinations. It's all due to the available training sets, and where the most machine learning investment has been made, and that simply this size relationship:

        combinations(number_of_languages,taken_2_at_a_time) = i.e. all pairs.

is much greater than:

        1 * number_of_languages = i.e. English paired with everything else.

That relation is the power of a lingua franca, at least until translators vastly improve for all the obscure language pairings.

<comment><USER11> > Automatic translators are quite decent at the hundreds of English<->Rare- > Languages combinations

This is not true. They're not even good at most English<->Common-language pairs.

<comment><USER12> Let's say I can almost always understand automatic English<->German translations. It's decent in that regard. But it really is not a pleasure to read.

Personally I just read the English version, and I know my peers all do the same. I wonder how the use of automatic translation differs around the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "only 27% of internet users are English-speaking."

This metric has probably less meaning than it seems . How many of them are multi-lingual. What level of English-proficiency makes somebody English- speaking? What percentage of purchasing power is within users with English skills? What is the trend of English skills in young internet users?

</comment><comment><USER14> Obviously even a kebab shop would benefit from a multilingual website. The question is priorities, and with start ups there is heck of a lot to do before you can think of your potential non-English speaking Chinese customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, there's always things to do at a startup, this can be up there with them and eventually I strongly believe it will become more of a necessity than a luxury.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's how you bootstrap multiple language support.

First, hire bilingual customer support. I have been both a bilingual customer/tech support employee, and hired people for that type of position. You want to hire someone for whom the mother tongue is the target language, and they still speak/write good enough English that they can do English- language support (because you need to train them, and you need them to also do English customer support because your second-language support volume will be too low at first). Don't bother hiring people people who speak your target language as a second language, unless they can demonstrate exceptional proficiency. Your customers need to feel HEARD, and a second language speak can't really provide that.

So you start by offering the customer service in a target language, and then you listen to your staff; they will tell you which are the worst pain points on your site for customers in your target language. Then you can do MVP-style translation, and you go from there. If you're lucky, you'll manage to hire staff that have the ability to do that translation for you, saving tons of money (though then it's worth taking those savings and hire a translation proofer).

</comment><comment><USER16> The problem is you need the requisite staff to handle support requests in a foreign language, and the logistics in place to ship across the world. That doesn't happen overnight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, almost nothing worth doing happens overnight! In terms of staff though, many do have staff that speak another language for example Spanish, yet they still don't offer Spanish as a language on their website.

Later on, when hiring staff, you can make it a requirement to be at least bilingual which a lot of European and Asian companies have started doing.

<comment><USER17> > Later on, when hiring staff, you can make it a requirement to be at least > bilingual...

I'd _guess_ the majority of the people who are bilingual in that setting speak their language and English?

<comment><USER16> Actually, parent is somewhat incorrect here in my own experience. Possibly because he's based in Asia or in the UK. The trend in Europe, from where I stand, is to expect trilingual employees for a growing number of professions (native language, English, and something else) and bilingual employees (native language and indeed English) for a great many others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ugh. I can't imagine there being enough benefit to a multilingual website, especially for a b2b or technically proficient clientele, to make the overhead of translation worthwhile -- it's a cost, but much more importantly, a speed/complexity tax whenever you change anything.

If I'm going to get a shitty automatic translation, I'd prefer to do it myself on the fly with Google, vs. having a bad version actually provided by the website.

</comment><comment><USER19> Follow your market, pivot when necessary, etc. Be lean. There is an argument for having support, even minimally, for different languages while you find your market. Still, there is the catch-22 of expending resources to support potential markets that may not exist. Take for example the Lean Startup's example of building many integrations for chat applications. In the end, they were using flawed assumptions and didn't need ANY integrations. The opportunity cost of the time they spent was gone.

For myself, I had a side project unexpectedly take off in a big way in Germany although I launched it from the US. It was even latency sensitive (a web-based video conferencing solution). The site wasn't translated before that point, but it was certainly an indication that perhaps it was the time to do so...

</comment><comment><USER20> What happens when I translate my website into Russian and get my first customer who only speaks Russian??

<comment><USER6> In my experience you'll get them regardless of wheter your website is translated or not. For simple things you might be able to get along with Google translate (make sure to include both english and translated version in email, so they can get help from an english speaker in case the translation is gibberish)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems simple but in my experience there's always hidden complexity and gotchas that don't reveal themelves until the localisation step.

Usually it's when there's some phrase that needs interpolation, or when it's time to run a quick A/B test, or you've emails to send to your user... Etc. Nothing that can't be solved but it adds time and complexity.

I like the advice to wait as long as possible... Look at those users/sales as an incremental that you can capture one-day, after you've picked other low hanging fruit.</comment>


How to avoid the most common mistake by borrowers when comparing loan options - <AUTHOR> https://blog.stilt.co/the-most-common-mistake-borrowers-make-when-comparing-loan-options-1211be2c15aa <comment><USER2> TL;DR - don't read articles like these with convoluted examples comparing different loan terms (tenures) from different lenders and assuming the APR (annual percentage rate) is what matters.

I don't understand why someone who's interested in getting a lower outgo would even conclude just based on the interest rate when the loan terms are different with different lenders. The example given in this article is somewhat convoluted because each lender's loan term is different from the other, and that justifies the existence of this article. If the loan terms were the same across lenders, then the lowest APR would be the winner, and aspects like origination fee (included in the APR) wouldn't matter at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree that IF the loan terms are same, then lowest APR would be the winner.

Unfortunately, most people are not financially savvy and unable to make logical financial choices even if they are well educated with good enough incomes. Most of the financial education content emphasizes comparison based on APR (which is correct) but they miss out the impact of loan term and origination fee especially if someone prepays the loan. That's what the article is trying to explain, if the loan terms are different, then don't just make decisions based on APR thinking you'll prepay and save more money with the lower APR loan. Perhaps, the article could've done a better job at explaining the concept.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that explanation! I didn't think about prepayment when I wrote my comment.</comment></comment></comment>


Court blocks the release of Brendan Dassey - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/wisconsin-court-blocks-release-of-brendan-dassey-making-a-murderer-2016-11 <comment><AUTHOR> Makes you wonder when combined with another HN posts comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12978811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12978811)</comment>


Tartaglia, Cardano and Ferrari – 16th Century Mathematics - <AUTHOR> https://storyofmathematics.com/16th_tartaglia.html <comment><USER2> I can recommand this video on the subject: Mathologer -- 500 years of NOT teaching THE CUBIC FORMULA. What is it they think you can't handle? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-KXStupwsc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-KXStupwsc)

<comment><USER3> As a working applied mathematician, I can tell you it's with pretty good reason. I learnt this stuff in high school and never used it since. It is one of the least useful things you could imagine. It is fun, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One never knows when one might need a particular bit of mathematics. I wrote a mathematical model of DNA transcription events inside E. coli, [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5425810/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5425810/). For this, I needed the solution to a cubic equation. Thankfully, Cardano had published the solution in the 15th century, and Wang had shown which was the relevant root in more recent times, [https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1016/0014-5...](https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1016/0014-5793%2895%2900062-E)

<comment><USER5> Why not use Newton's method? Your computer is using numerical approximations for computing those roots anyway. The reason the cubic formula isn't used is because it's very convoluted and it doesn't solve any problems you couldn't solve with Newton's method, unless you're doing algebra and you need an exact solution.

<comment><USER6> exact analytical solutions are nice as a check against any numerical solutions imo. (checking the same calculations in multiple ways is handy for error catching ime)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> first is italian :) hn will bash me for saying but the name reminds me of a pasta brand or name

<comment><USER8> Trivia from googling:

Tartaglia comes from _tartagliare_ , meaning to stutter.

"Tartaglia was not the family name. Tartaglia took it as a nickname, which referred to his inability to talk clearly as a result of terrible wounds to his head and jaw during the sack of Brescia in 1512"

[http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/tartalia.html](http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/tartalia.html)</comment></comment>


Why Chromium has code owners - <AUTHOR> http://meowni.ca/posts/chromium-owners/ <comment><USER2> If you're confused why you don't see any enums or cats at her first link, it's because the file has changed since March. She was talking about [https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/d413b2dcb54...](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/d413b2dcb54d523811d386f1ff4084f677a6d089/chrome/browser/chrome_browser_main_mac.mm#37)

<comment><USER3> Ahhh thanks! I've added a note about it :)

<comment><USER2> Well, the new link is prone to the same problem.

It's a bit of a hassle but you have to go to View In (top-right corner) -> Git Revision Log, copy the SHA1 of the topmost commit, go back, View In -> Git, and replace "master" in the URL with the copied SHA1.

(It appears Gitiles doesn't support using the SHA1 of the tip of the tree as showed in the latter page, which is why you have to get the SHA1 of the latest commit to that file from the former page instead.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, we should have owners for code. I hate shared ownership ( "The WHOLE team owns the code !"). Quality happens when at most one person is responsible to make it happen. If there are two people responsible to make good quality software, each person will think that the other person will do the hard stuff.

<comment><USER5> Quality happens when people feel like they are allowed to invest the time to clean up. Telling someone they are an owner is one way to do that.

Most companies base your performance only on new features, creating a culture of fear around refactoring ("I would love to refactor that, but it's not going to put any points on the board in Pivotal, so I'll just wait until some unspecified future day when the refactoring will get scheduled as a project." Which of course never happens because product owners are also judged based on new features.

Ownership has a bunch of negative side effects, particularly around balkanization of styles and practices. Which isn't to say it's not the right choice in many situations.... it absolutely is. But to say it's the only way to get quality is just wrong. Another approach would be to encourage coders to add refactor stories to their queues and include those in performance reviews. Or have dedicated code quality engineers.

Almost anything where you can make people believe that cleaning up is part of their job will do the same trick.

<comment><USER6> Well, what you measure improves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like specifying the owner as a OWNER file and using directory structure to express granularity. It's much better than having to dig through your project wiki.

By the way, epictacular domain name!

</comment><comment><USER7> off topic, but I very much like the multicoloured pulsing links on this blog page. It gives the impression of something alive and important that the link is pointing to. It makes me want to click the link.

      a:hover {
    	animation: 0.5s ease 0s normal none infinite running zomg;
      }

where zomg is the animation name (with the multi coloured keyframes)

<comment><USER8> zomg, please, never use such monstrosity.</comment></comment>


Turning Wordpress Into a Framework With MTV - <AUTHOR> http://blog.apps.chicagotribune.com/2011/10/19/turning-wordpress-into-a-framework-with-mtv/

<comment><USER3> I think this fits some use-cases very nicely, where there's not enough incentive to use a proper framework like Django, also not enough incentive to mix a framework and WordPress in a CMS+app setup (e.g. [http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/blog/2010/nov/24/a...](http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/blog/2010/nov/24/argo- network/)), but on the other hand where doing everything as plain WP plugins would be a grueling experience. Yes, I can see myself actually enjoying this.

Of course, it'd be better if WordPress, the kick-ass blogging platform that it is, would just _be_ a framework or be built on one, so the Tribune wouldn't have had to do this, but when stuff like WordPress and Drupal got started, (1) nobody had ever heard of MVC in PHP and (2) the OO was crap. So it's hard to blame Matt.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm sort of shocked at the negative reaction this project has elicited. When I first saw this work, I was thrilled.

When I popped the hood on my first big WordPress project a couple years ago, I was appalled with what I found. Modern web frameworks have converged on a MTV- or MVC-style development style. Writing code in WordPress is like travelling a decade back in time.

This project is a very thoughtful effort to keep all the best of WordPress, while replacing the backwards template system.

I suspect that the ire this has drawn is the result of developers in the WordPress community not crossing over to other languages/frameworks. Anyone who's made a website in Rails or Django would feel right at home in WordPress MTV.

<comment><USER5> I'm sort of shocked that you're shocked. The rigid and inflexible architecture of systems like Rails and Django are the primary reasons for WP's success. There's a reason WP has more themes and plugins than these other systems, and that reason is ease-of-programming.

Every time I see some programmers advocating the use of highly rigid architectures or programming models, I'm forced to remind myself of Lisp. Lisp is _the_ programming language. Lisp created most of the fundamental constructs you see in modern programming languages today. It's quite possible to do damn near anything in it, and it's arguably as close to the perfect mathematical construct of a computer language that can be made. It's a bit rigid and weird in it's syntax, but the list model is just great once you wrap your head around it.

On the other hand, the language that is clearly the most successful one ever is C, and it has often been argued to be the worst language ever. It has arcane syntax, it requires detailed knowledge of memory pointers and other oddities, and it's very much a lower level language. And yet it is clearly the most successful language ever. Why? Not because of its model or architecture (which are frankly terrible), but because of its flexibility. Programmers both inexperienced and experienced can use it to produce powerful systems. It covers the whole gamut of skill levels.

That's the problem with rigid architectures. Programmers tend to flock to them as they become better at their craft, because they provide organization and a system of management of the large scale code they're creating. But inexperienced programmers find the learning curve just a bit too steep.

You can't go from "Hello World" to creating a new WP theme in an MVC style. But you can go from basic HTML and PHP knowledge to creating a theme modification or a plugin. It may not be the technically best solution, but by god it'll get the job done for now. Speed of delivery _matters_ , and if the choice is between doing-it-right and doing-it-right-now when you have a deadline and need to get paid, guess which path is going to get chosen?

Code has a limited life expectancy. It doesn't survive long in the wild, and this time is more and more frequently measured in years, not decades. So it doesn't make a lot of sense, in the long run, to spend extra time to build around a large framework when, damnit, we've got work to do. Every moment you spend learning yet-another-framework is a moment you didn't spend creating the next product and earning the next dollar.

Systems that are fast to learn and flexible enough to get the job done quickly _always_ win over systems that are rigid and hard-to-learn.

<comment><USER3> WP is more successful than Rails and Django because WP is a blogging system and more people need a blog than they do a development framework. Secondly, it's successful because it's in PHP. But successful because it's "not like Rails", are you kidding me?

Also, check the damn tutorial. A line for url routing, a couple of lines to fetch some data from the DB and then a couple of lines to render a template. There's nothing scary about it. The reason people find it so easy to make and mod WordPress themes is because they can start from existing code. If they'd have to make one from scratch without the ability to copy-paste or look at existing themes, 90% of 'em wouldn't even know where to get started, no matter how good everything would be documented. There's no reason why this same learn-by-copy-pasting routine couldn't work on top of an MVC approach. Beginning programmers _do_ learn Rails and Django, y'know. Hundreds every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To widen this templating-aspect perspective to yet another extreme, here's more fuel for the fire.

[http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/19-promising-php- template-e...](http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/19-promising-php-template- engines/)

List of nineteen promising PHP template engines. Nineteen. And this isn't even tip of the iceberg. The templating diaspora can partly explain how MTV was received.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why in heavens name would you want to change wordpress like this? If it doesn't live up to your standards, just use Ruby+Rails or Python+Django. (Or even PHP+some framework)

<comment><USER8> Wordpress does publishing right. The admin is easy and intuitive for writers, photographers, editors and the news production. Ruby on Rails and Django have admins best saved for programmers.

I suspect the time and effort to create a user-friendly admin and publishing system for either framework was higher than just using Wordpress, which already just works and people are familiar with. This makes sense.

But, Wordpress can be a pain for programming teams with front end and back end developers. The code is often embedded, which means both a designer and programmer often have to touch the same file at the same time. The MVC model fixes this problem allowing teams to work simultaneously with designers designing and coders coding, while also simultaneously making the coding easier by creating a model built around standard framework structure.

Wordpress wins for writers. MVC wins for programmers and designers. MTV wins for both.

<comment><USER6> Noble and geeky effort, but I'm skeptical whether I'll use it (disclaimer: I did try smarty implementations before and had similar experiences.)

Think the dissenters' consensus is that this goes against grain of what's been organic WP development (not that it's all perfect, but, there is a massive contributing base.) This thing might become obsolete nightly or I could be entirely wrong and it'll get adapted whenever WP guys wrangle major internal design changes at some point.

I'll skip over all that and just address specifics that make me feel uneasy.

As they stated in their writeup, one problem is that function exports have to be hard-coded. Not to say they won't fix this (switch it to smarty3-like model or control what gets installed), but that means they've interfered with the admin process of installing plugins that need minor template alterations or otherwise meet unspecified limits; ex: wp-paginate. That means that the core MTV team is still involved with the end user, and the template designer.

Secondly, sure, WP templating hasn't changed all that much lately - <USER2> historically it has changed drastically between major releases. This MTV implementation forces Trib. guys to spend time keeping up with updates and changes that will come out of nowhere. I'm not sure if MTV breaks WP's template hierarchy, or its template inheritance features, but those I rely heavily on.

<comment><USER9> We're concerned about the upgrade path, but so far we've upgraded from 3.1 to current without any issues.

MTV can break a lot of plugins that filter front-end output. But it depends on how you use it. It doesn't have to.

We like having function exports be hard-coded. Making all functions available to the templating engine is unnecessary. It's pretty trivial to declare new functions to use in the templates, and it doesn't have to be done in the MTV plugin, you can declare those in your theme or plugin.

We are always involved with our end users and we design the templates. Our users can't install plugins or themes and we typically lock down lots of settings. So we don't mind if we break template tags because we have complete control over how our sites are used.

MTV has it's own template structure and supports all sorts of template inheritance. That all comes from Twig. It also supports child theme inheritance, if you're using MTV to build your themes all of your themes.

We've tried to get around the future-update-breaking-shit issue by making the core of MTV sit on top of WordPress. It's totally possible to build an app with MTV and no WordPress.

Again - MTV works for us, but won't work for everyone. And it's really only useful if you're gonna build a site from scratch.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shrinking Sun under the gun - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/10/sun_under_gun/ <comment> patrickg-zill Sun has some aspects of their business, that are like a Web 2.0 company.

For instance, Solaris and OpenSolaris are given away free (Sun will even send you a free CD of OpenSolaris), so there are some number of Solaris users - <USER2> how much are they worth? How do you "monetize" them?

<comment><USER3> They started heading down that road when they developed Java... because when the rest of the industry outpaced Sun's hardware performance, Java made it easier to get their software off of Sun's platform. And the didn't really do all that good a job of monetizing Java, maybe because they thought that it would make it easier for people to develop on their PC's and migrate to Sun servers?

BTW, as an aside, it seems to me that MS is to some extent following that route; there have been an increasing number of projects using various dotNET technologies cropping up in the open-source community over the years. Unless the trend has changed in the last year or so, most of them have been based on Mono rather than MS' implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think an Apple purchase would be cool. Lay off just about everyone at Sun that's not directly related to Solaris or the engineering on the boxes, and then make it Apple's Enterprise brand. Probably the worst idea in the history of commerce, but I like it.

<comment> patrickg-zill They could call the combined company Snapple.</comment></comment>


SCO fires CEO Darl McBride, architect of litigation strategy  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/10/sco-fires-ceo-darl-mcbride-architect-of-litigation-strategy.ars

<comment><USER2> I hope that guy will never ever have a job again.

It takes a lot for me to develop a strong disliking for someone that I've never ever met but Darl McBride has definitely managed a permanent spot near the top of my shit list.

He's the exact opposite of a role model.

<comment><USER3> The action that McBride took resulted ultimately in what could be seen as a failed strategy, but the fact that he went out on a limb in attempting to revitalize his company speaks wonders. There are a lot of companies that would value a CEO who can take risks.

<comment><USER2> Allowing your company to be used as an attack vehicle against a global movement is not just 'taking risks', it's criminally stupid.

For what McBride has done he deserves to be behind bars, not to be someone that is 'valued as a CEO' or in any other capacity. I remember the 'millions of lines' episode, as well as a whole bunch of others.

He played the dirtiest game ever and made a lot of money in the process while shafting his shareholders in the process. Don't forget that SCO was a publicly traded company.

If he had had a real strategy instead of positioning SCO as a tool for microsoft to do their dirty work for them they might have made it in good health to today.

<comment><USER3> At the risk of being downvoted out of existence, perhaps I should clarify.

I'm definitely not advocating his actions in the least, just saying that there are other companies that may not be doing well on the market and would be interested in someone who can take risks. More than anything this entire endeavor has been a warning to us that we haven't seen the last of this sort of behavior -- whether or not from McBride remains to be seen, but there are others who will also take these sorts of risks.

<comment><USER4> Darl McBride wasn't taking any risks. He was being compensated to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for driving SCO to bankruptcy. There was no risk involved if he was going to be rewarded regardless of the outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> McBride has been fired, but the company still plans on pursuing it's litigation strategy.

They're broke, and most of their current litigious efforts are about avoiding bankruptcy and contesting judgments.

This seems like a grace note to a swan dive.

<comment><USER2> > This seems like a grace note to a swan dive.

Pure poetry.

<comment><USER6> Diving into a deep madness would be more poetic. Maybe in the style of Nietzsche: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche#Mental_brea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche#Mental_breakdown_and_death_.281889.E2.80.931900.29)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> SCO used to be a great company - I remember emailing YasminK about all sorts of Xenix and unix questions, and she always helped out. In the days before open source and Linux they offered a great system for the time and excellent customer service.

They could have leveraged their unix experience and customer service culture and built up a strong Linux business. very sad.

</comment><comment><USER8> Already?

<comment><USER9> upvoted for making me laugh :)</comment></comment>


Men's Rights Activists Don't Want You to See 'Mad Max' - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/mens-rights-activists-mad-max_n_7276144.html <comment><USER2> These guys are not MRA's.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to authenticate for RESTful service? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building a server that allows users to control and access a web-connected sensor. The server lets the user connect to the device, change settings, and retrieve data that the sensor uploads.
All of the requests are stateless, so the the server does not have to maintain a session or any session state. I do however need to make sure that the user only accesses the devices and logs they are authorized to.
So my question is this: is it better to have every request be authenticated with the user's username and password, or should I still establish a session and use something like HMAC? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> HMac is usually the best option for this. You don't want to have to save an unknown amount of sessions as your service scales. And you don't want to have to store a password on the client device or send it across the line on every call. Hmac will allow you to check authentication as well it will allow you to verify that no one has tampered with the request packet or has tried to replay an old request with some sort of man in the middle attack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, is the idea that user should log in once on the client device, and the client should not store the password, encrypted or otherwise.

Then all subsequent messages to the server use HMAC for verification?

When does the user need to enter login information again?</comment></comment>


Nuclear weapon statistics using monoids, groups, and vector spaces in Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://izbicki.me/blog/nuclear-weapon-statistics-using-monoids-groups-and-modules-in-haskell

<comment><USER2> all this proves to me is that Haskell can make even the simplest of tasks difficult to understand or follow. perhaps i miss the point... :/

<comment><USER3> I wish I didn't agree with you. I'm still a Haskell novice, and I've enjoyed the time I've spent learning it, but this post was just terrifying. All I could think was how simple all that would be in R (or any statistical package), or even Ruby (or any popular scripting language).

Of course, one can write overly complicate code in any language. I think the purpose of the post was more to show off conceptually advanced techniques rather than to actually analyze the dataset in a straightforward manner.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I think the purpose of the post was more to show off conceptually advanced techniques rather than to actually analyze the dataset in a straightforward manner._

Correct. I admit it turned out to be a bit too much for one post, but i wanted to use some real world data (the nukes) to demonstrate the techniques.

Edit: I could be wrong, but I don't think R (or any other stats package) supports "group subtraction" of distributions, which is how we calculate the survivable nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER3> And actually, I want to amend that on second read through it was considerably easier to follow than the first.

It's just an article for Haskellers at least a little more advanced than me. I probably should have read it twice before labeling it "terrifying".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it more precise, uses less resources, runs faster than if done with R or Octave?

What are the benefits, if any?

<comment><AUTHOR> When analyzing data in stages, algebra saves you from repeating work you've already done. It also makes implementing the library's back end easier.</comment></comment>


The deep sea diver who saved Winchester cathedral - <AUTHOR> http://classicdivebooks.customer.netspace.net.au/oeclassics-diver-walker.html <comment><USER2> Cool story. I love these history pieces that end up being men against the problem and it gets brute forced.

The cathedral site has some good history on it.

         http://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/our-heritage/our-history/building-the-cathedral/</comment>


Show HN: Simple seed for PHP-based applications - <AUTHOR>

I know this is a hard place to show this kind of stuff, but here it goes...
https://github.com/eridal/web-seed
After writing the same glue-code for a couple of webapps I decided to put all that into a simple project that I can later use as a `seed`. It's based mostly on my common needs, but I hardly think they are too specific -- yes, it's an opinionated project.
This is my attempt to create a baseline for small webapps that quickly bundle the common ecosystem tools available. I've been digging the web for some related projects and it's sort of a compendium of tools.
My idea was to reduce the code needed to it's minimum, keeping it as much declarative as possible.
It was baked using modern tools such as: Composer, Slim, PhpUnit, Leesc, Mustache.php
Althoug it's a work-in-progress, I would love to get some feedback. <comment><USER2> It looks promising :)

Would be good to get some unit tests written for the "seed" app itself.

Asset versioning is one of the big pain points at the moment when setting up an application eg /js/main.min.v2.js. Will you be looking at addressing this in your seed app?

I generally use Symfony2 for my applications but it can take quite a while to configure/setup at the start of each project. There are a number of skeleton projects I've used in the past which have included a lot of the fruit I'd need in a new app, reducing startup time.

If the PHP community adopted your "web-seed" and started asking for other components to be baked in, such as Grunt, Assetic, authentication/authorisation, do you think your web-seed could stay lean compared to Zend, Symfony etc?

Do you see this app optionally supporting Sass instead of Less, or Handlebars instead of Mustache?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the problem is with the tools availables out there, is there a sass or handlebars compiler for PHP?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> link: [https://github.com/eridal/web-seed](https://github.com/eridal/web-seed)</comment>


Show HN: Comb – an issue tracker that focuses on prioritizing - <AUTHOR> https://www.withcomb.com <comment><USER2> From a quick glance this seems to be a tool that helps with the task prioritization and distribution. It's not clear to me if this is a webapp or if this is a desktop/mobile app (and which platforms are supported).

It seems like your tool integrates with some tools (I see 3 icons) but I'm familiar with the GitHub icon only. What are the other 2 icons for?

[https://www.withcomb.com/attributes/](https://www.withcomb.com/attributes/) I don't know what did you mean here at all (I'm a SW developer btw).

The animations are great, they add a lot of value (because otherwise it would be difficult to imagine what are you talking about). It would be interesting to see a video that would show things like basic setup, integration with git, team task management,... so that I get better understanding how could we use this tool. Currently it seems it's meant for simple tasks as if I have a more complex one I'd give it to a concrete person who was the best suited for it.

Also, your site targets mainly SW development businesses (also based on your animations), but I believe this could work very well in other businesses too. Perhaps if you make the site more understandable for general public, it could be of a value.

Also, I'm sorry, but I don't know what feature shall I imagine after reading this: [https://www.withcomb.com/button- actions/](https://www.withcomb.com/button-actions/)

If you want feedback from more people, you can try [https://usability.testing.exchange](https://usability.testing.exchange) (disclaimer: I am associated with it).

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> > From a quick glance this seems to be a tool that helps with the task > prioritization and distribution.

That's correct. It's similar to Jira and Trello, but instead of letting people have free roam on what task they work on, the system assigns them work according to the prioritized task list.

> What are the other 2 icons for? The other 2 are Bitbucket & GitLab.

> but I believe this could work very well in other businesses too It is > definitely applicable to a wide variety of audiences. I focused on SW devs > because that's my background, and I thought that focusing on a single market > would allow me to better communicate the message. But it seems I've got some > work to do anyway

I've had a lot of trouble trying to articulate the value that Comb brings. I'm not sure if it's because I'm trying to make it look too much like marketing fluff. Do you think that more specific examples would help?

Thanks for all the feedback! It's really valuable

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a really exciting approach to issue tracking! Can't wait to hear more about the details, so I can tell others. :)

<comment><USER4> I absolutely agree :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Getting customer development meetings - <AUTHOR>

I'm a big believer in customer development. The place I'm stymied is in getting appointments set up with potential customers. I am not a sales guy with a big Rolodex (worse, I hate the damn telephone!).
How do I go about setting up these appointments? More important, how do I make first contact or get introduced and in front of my potential buyers?
FWIW, my product is a SaaS product with strong enterprise overtones. I see sales people or biz dev people in our future, but I don't want to pay any now if i can help it. <comment> d-lectable My Modified Answer from Quora:

I'm at a start-up that is a follower of the lean startup movement, a term coined by Eric Ries.

The ideology behind a lean startup is a customer-centric approach where you build a minimum viable product (MVP) and always be learning from your customers and make changes till you build out something that they actually want to use. Be flexible on your vision, and don't waste time and resources to build out an amazing product that no one wants.

For a SaaS partner, conventions and meet ups are probably the best places to start. It helps when you're building a relationship by getting out of the office and talking to your customers, and cold calling isn't the warmest approach (duh). Meet-ups are a great opportunity to build relationships and get to know your customer's needs and eventually make the sell. As you keep talking to people, keep making notes of iterations on your product to build something that those customers want.

There are so many companies that have flopped in the past, such as WebVan, who built out expensive supply chains before really understanding their customer's needs. They were an early pioneer of e-commerce, but many argue that it grew too fast for people to really jump on board. Had they slowed down and spent time understanding their customer's needs, they wouldn't have over-invested in infrastructure.

In short, don't build out a product with all the features and functionality you want before you figure out what your customers want/need. As you talk to people about your MVP, you'll organically figure out who your pilot customers will be.

Get out of the office and talk to customers!

Suggested reading: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (fresh off the press!) Running Lean by Ash Maurya <http://www.runningleanhq.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey SoftwareMaven

Have you read Ash Maurya's Running Lean startup guide (<http://www.runningleanhq.com/>). That's basically our bible at Betable. It walks you through all of the steps for finding customers, interviewing them, and digesting the results

<comment><AUTHOR> Two recommendations in two responses. I'll be putting that at the top of my list! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bring on a co-founder with a big rolodex who likes to talk on the phone</comment>


Inside San Franciso's Fire Department, Where Ladders Are Made by Hand - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-where-ladders-are-1552279252 <comment><USER2> A surprising and interesting lesson path dependency and the real meaning of efficiency.</comment>


Html5 canvas support matrix - <AUTHOR> http://philip.html5.org/tests/canvas/suite/tests/results.html

<comment><USER2> Whoa...

I don't know much of anything about Canvas, but it looks way too involved for different implementations to ever have any hope of reliable compatibility.

<comment><USER3> Or just like most of Javascript, the big library makers (Prototype, JQuery, YUI) will implement a nice wrapper that hides all the implementation details for you and lets you get on with your life.

<comment><USER4> eg. <http://processingjs.org/>

<comment><USER5> I love Processing, I really do, but I'd like to see it implemented in pure javascript instead of a meta-language on top of JS</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gartner: Windows is collapsing - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9916717-56.html?tag=nefd.top <comment><USER2> I've still never used a vista machine. MSFT should probably take a cue from apple and make more-or-less meaningless updates to the OS and call it a new version. Charge 50 bucks for an upgrade, but do them every year like clockwork. You have _de facto_ subscription software at that point.

</comment><comment><USER3> Usually every upgrade of Windows makes sense. Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 were logical but then Windows ME didn't make any sense as it didn't improve much upon 98. Windows XP made sense as it was a real improvement but the move from Windows XP to Vista didn't gain any real benefits to the end user and since you are only as good as your last product, MS is getting a great deal of blowback.

Windows Vista to "Windows 7" may make sense if Microsoft is rewriting the core to handle legacy apps differently then installing 2 gigabytes of unneeded files. If they scrap out the high level stuff that manages DRM, scrape off the extra crud they added, they will be fine again and Vista will be in the past.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am convert now; using ubuntu linux full time on laptop & desktop both.(I just posted the same here <http://ketankhairnar.blogspot.com> )

Actually linux still has to go long way and programmers have to contribute more not only by improving the desktop experience(which distros like fedora/debian are doing); but also by showcasing alternative approaches like ubuntu/fedora and its usability to other people who are lost into windows world.

I know this shift is happening faster than ever before. I may not do significant contrubution on development part but surely would make people around me aware of alternative (which in turn would make lot of people happy about hardware/cost and performance )

<comment><USER5> Why do you think it still has a long way to go? It works fine for me (also Ubuntu) - more than fine actually. So fine that I don't want to use anything else atm.

Sure, there were some rough spots in the beginning (solve them once and you are done), but every operating system has them. Overall Ubuntu seems more usable than the alternatives to me (unless you can wrap your mind around the Apple way of thinking maybe - I can't).

Everybody is laughing, but I'll say it again: the single coolest move Microsoft could make would be to switch over to Linux. They could provide a fancy theme (they are actually reasonably good with user interfaces, having a research lab and all), port their applications to Linux, and everybody would be happy. I don't think Windows itself is the big moneymaker, anyway. Rather, I suspect they tend to pay people for using it, so they could save money by moving away from it.

<comment><USER6> > Why do you think it still has a long way to go?

Have a play around with keyboard shortcuts and try to get WindowsKey+E to open your home folder. The bugs in keyboard shortcuts has been an exercise in balloon squeezing for as long as ubuntu has been around.

Another - audio. On a default install to my laptop sound didn't work at all, and now I can only play from one device at a time. I don't have these problems on my Apple.

Much as I love my ubuntu, it simply doesn't compare to the level of polish in XP, Vista and OSX.

> I don't think Windows itself is the big moneymaker, anyway

Why do you think that? I think that Windows is an spectacular moneymaker.

> Rather, I suspect they tend to pay people for using it, so they > could save > money by moving away from it.

Not sure what you mean by this. Can you rephrase?

<comment><USER5> Can't comment on your hardware problems, as I don't have them.

Windows: maybe I am wrong, but I would suspect that Microsoft pays PC vendors to put Windows on their machine.

<comment><USER6> If Microsoft were paying people to take its product then it wouldn't have a business model :) What causes you to think that they pay other people to distribute it?

<comment><USER5> They sell lots of other stuff, for example Office. I think if Microsoft were not paying the vendors, more vendors would offer PCs with Linux or without any OS at all.

Weren't the first Linux PCs by Dell even more expensive than the Windows variants (I am not sure if I remember correctly)?

<comment><USER6>
        I think if Microsoft were not paying the vendors, more vendors
        would offer PCs with Linux or without any OS at all.

They're totally not paying the vendors to install Windows. The reasons the vendors don't offer linux is because in the past when they've done it they've done a really half-assed job of it, and as a result sales have been bad, and they've been burnt.

        Weren't the first Linux PCs by Dell even more expensive than the
        Windows variants (I am not sure if I remember correctly)?

I remember that. This is all speculation: perhaps their OEM agreement with Microsoft said that they had to pay costs for Windows for each machine they shipped (regardless of whether it had Windows or not), OR maybe they paid RedHat a per-license deal for the linux and the margin on redhat installs was greater.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vaccine U-turn: Measles surges as campaigners ride populist wave of distrust - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/16/health/anti-vaccine-movement-history-pushback-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> I remember the mumps as being fairly painful. I recall the chicken pox as being extremely itchy. What do I recall about measles? Not much at all really except that they forced me to stay home from school.

The alarmism surrounding the measles is exactly the kind of misinformation that should be avoided, yet all I see are articles from authors that keep talking about the number of cases of measles as if the number itself is some kind of horror. Please people. Childhood diseases were always just a normal part of growing up. Don't run around like chicken pox with your heads cut off hysterically calling .00003% of the population a "pandemic."</comment>


Secure Your Cloud with Terraform Foundational Policy Library - <AUTHOR> https://www.hashicorp.com/resources/secure-your-cloud-with-terraform-foundational-policy-library <comment><AUTHOR> ReadMe:

 _This repository contains a library of policies that can be used within Terraform Cloud to accelerate your adoption of policy as code. To learn more about the Sentinel language and framework, please review the Sentinel documentation._

— [https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-foundational- policies...](https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-foundational-policies- library)

Sentinel docs:

 _Sentinel is a language and framework for policy built to be embedded in existing software to enable fine-grained, logic-based policy decisions. A policy describes under what circumstances certain behaviors are allowed. Sentinel is an enterprise-only feature of HashiCorp Consul, Nomad, Terraform, and Vault._

— [https://docs.hashicorp.com/sentinel/](https://docs.hashicorp.com/sentinel/)</comment>


Fundamentals of Relational Database Design - <AUTHOR> http://r937.com/relational.html

<comment><USER2> This is interesting because the exact example they provide of an order table, when released in a production environment, will more than likely _not_ be 3NF.

If you have an order table, with order details line items linked to products, you need to keep an audit log of the state of the database at the time of an order being inserted.

Putting it simply, the line must 1) reference the product and 2) duplicate the product details ( price + tax definitely). In case the price of the product changes later, we need to know how much we charged the customer at that point in time.

I've worked with a lot of large databases and with the greatest will in the world to keep them normalised, sometimes certain tables will require duplication.</comment>


Show HN: Trendingly – Discover the best apps and games trending right now - <AUTHOR> http://www.trendingly.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

Just a little experiment in creating a Techmeme-style news and review aggregator, but for apps and games.

Tracking iOS apps only for now, but Android support is planned.

Any thoughts or suggestions much appreciated :)</comment>


Qst.me - New URL and Text Shortener - <AUTHOR> http://qst.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

I wrote this over the past day. A little simple URL shortener, which stands for Quest Me (hey, good names are hard to come by).

After bit.ly got $2 million, I figure it can't hurt.

I have plans to add a nice, simple API, bookmarklet.

Currently, if you create a URL or block of text, you can append a $ at the end (<http://qst.me/5$> for example) to see where it redirects to or the block of text and how many times it's been viewed.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> how are you going to make money?</comment></comment>


Gravity's Kiss: The third ripple - <AUTHOR> http://mitp.nautil.us/feature/159/gravitys-kiss <comment><USER2> I'm going to save you some time, having lost mine. The article consists of a sociologist listing the mentions of gravitational waves he has seen in the media. But it has no meat to it, and there is no payoff: it just lists them, and ends. It's excerpted from the guy's book, but it won't make you want to buy it.

The only slightly surprising things (I won't go as far as to say "interesting") are:

1) The Daily Mail and Barack Obama apparently made the same mistake about Einstein's predictions.

2) Without comment:

> Later I will discover that my major thesis about social construction, which > turns on pointing out that no gravitational waves were seen but merely a few > numbers that were interpreted as gravitational waves, has been thoroughly > anticipated (albeit on a strange, flat-earther YouTube channel that appears > to treat conspiracy theories as an art form).

<comment><USER3> "1) The Daily Mail and Barack Obama apparently made the same mistake about Einstein's predictions."

Einstein predicted the phenomena of gravitational waves mentioned by Obama, but Einstein did not predict the gravitational wave chirp of coalescing black holes detected by LIGO and mentioned in by The Daily Mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The US military has had an SBIR out for years to develop a gravitational wave radio. It could go right through the earth, no need for satellites. The transmitter though would probably use enough energy to destroy the enemy, maybe even the whole Earth.

<comment><USER5> Do you have a link to support your affirmation?

The gravity waves detector are enormous. To get a good signal, the gravity waves emitter must be enormous too. I haven't done the calculation, but I doubt that gravity waves can pass through the Earth. Gravity affect dirt and it will absorb the waves.

<comment><USER6> Gravity waves don't "go through" the earth but rather the earth expands and contracts in space-time. This contracting and expanding of the earth itself, although minute, is the evidence and detection of gravity waves.

<comment><USER5> I know about LIGO, but ...

Can LIGO "see" only upwards or it can "see" downwards too? Neutrinos can pass though the Earth because they only interact with week force and gravity, and both have a very small coupling. Can "gravitons" pass though Earth?

As someone noticed in an comment a few months ago, there is no experimental evidence of the gravitons and no complete theory about them, but I think it's a good guess.

So, in other words, the minute contracting and expanding of space inside the Earth while the gravitational waves pass though it must interact with any particle with mass. The coupling is weak, but there are plenty of them. So some of the energy of the waves will be dissipated as heat inside the Earth. How much of the energy of the waves is lost while passing though the Earth?

<comment><USER7>
      Can "gravitons" pass though Earth?

Yes. And the fact that there is no complete theory of gravitons doesn't really matter. It is sufficient to know that scare-quoted "gravitons" (which may be real fundamental particles or may simply be mathematically convenient pseudo- particles corresponding to a classical gravitational wave) can pass through the Earth.

They must be able to do so, for essentially exactly the same reason that neutrinos can: they couple extremely weakly to matter. Which should not be a surprise, because gravity is such a relatively weak force- weaker even than the eponymous "weak force". The fact that neutrinos couple so weakly to other matter is also why they are so dang hard to detect. Meanwhile, gravitons / gravitational waves couple even more weakly to matter, and thus are correspondingly even harder to detect than neutrinos, and pass through solid matter even more easily.

Annoyingly, if it were easier to detect them, that would necessarily imply that the Earth is less transparent to them, and vice-versa: they harder they are to detect, the more transparent the Earth must be. Because, if the Earth were not transparent to them, then that entails that there are materials in the Earth that interact strongly with them, and we could use those materials to build a better detector!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trump GROUNDS Boeing 737 Max planes – effectively immediately - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6805505/Trump-grounds-Boeing-737-Max-planes-effectively-immediately-crash.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381931](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381931)</comment>


Sendoid (YC W11): Finally, Sharing Big Files Isn't A Huge Pain - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/sendoid-finally-sharing-big-files-isnt-a-huge-pain/ <comment><USER2> Missing from the article (and the linked summary of other sites that do this) is letscrate.com, which does it so well that I'm not even interested in looking at sendoid. It's dead easy, and my clients understand and remember the name after I say it once.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the mention! A lazy link because I'll never miss a chance to shameless plug: <http://letscrate.com/>

Excited to check out Sendoid though.

<comment><USER4> There's a limit in file size for the "free" plan (50mb?). What makes Crate a better alternative to Sendoid?

<comment><USER5> This is a total deal breaker for me. This is something that needs to work for all files in order to be useful, and I'm not willing to get tied into a monthly subscription for something so occasional and basic. This is the kind of thing that people used to charge $5-20 one time for as shareware, not $9/mo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the emphasis on sending rather than hosting. I think the Drop in DropBox makes sense for sharing folders, but I don't think it makes sense for sharing individual files. There are services for hosting different types of large files, like Vimeo, DropBox, GitHub or just a web server. Secure transfer of files is a different problem from the user perspective IMO.

I also like how they've went through the trouble to actually make it more powerful than (most of) the competition, by allowing direct connections. (Sure, AIM supports it but it's brittle, has a confusing UI, and requires more coordination between users.)

<comment><USER7> We definitely agree and think it's a huge area that's been overlooked. Files keep getting bigger and it takes forever to get them up to hosted services.

We're hyper-sensitive about our data as well, and wanted to create something that gives people built-in security and privacy but make it all super-easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excellent service! I tried it and it's very simple and easy to use. I'm curious... how does one initiate a P2P transfer between two computers using just browser technology?

<comment><AUTHOR> We built a reliable file transfer method on top of the peer-to-peer media streaming technology used by Chat-Roulette and its clones, RTMFP.

<comment><USER9> what are you using as the server? it's my understanding that RTMFP was only recently reverse-engineered.

<comment><USER10> Not sure what Sendoid uses, but there is a project called Cumulus that implements an RTMFP server in C++.

<https://github.com/OpenRTMFP/Cumulus>

Haven't tried it yet, but the code looks pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hate to do a me too post, but I'm going to anyway. I made a very similar app for a weekend project back in early march of 2009. <http://www.fileinaflash.com> I used TFTP as the transfer protocol and it's not encrypted like Sendoid, but it works. Ultimately, although it costs next to nothing to run, I couldn't think of a good way to turn it into a business so it's just been sitting there for the past 2 years or so. Sendoid is _way_ faster and prettier than what I made though. Great implementation. Good luck!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, we are aware certain rare network configurations break things. Network technology is a finicky beast. In particular, symmetric NAT seems to wreck the setup for the direct connection. Definitely working on solutions for getting around these problems (I've got a couple ideas I'm hoping will work). If anyone hits connection issues I'd love details on your network/OS/browser so I can document things more completely and try to get solutions out there. You can harass us directly at feedback (atsign) sendoid.com.

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome service!

One major request: Please create an API.

So many startups/services need a good way to upload large files efficiently. It takes a lot of effort to create an file upload feature that works and provides a good UX across browsers/platforms. We would use it for Mugasha (artists upload large audi files) and would pay for it.

<comment><USER3> Check out Crate's API? <http://letscrate.com/api>

<comment><USER13> OK. It was cool the first three times you pointed out crate here and on the TC article but now it's getting to be a bit much.

EDIT: I'll take the karma hit.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry, but I can no longer delete my comment, or else I would. I just thought it could be of use. My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> it actually works. not sure about the mechanism but well done guys.

what I like most about this startup is that they provide file sharing service without actually incurring any storage costs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we dig that part of it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1) "[ ] Set a Password [ ] Reusable Link?"

Should have <label> tags on the text.

2) When you click "Set a Password" it should set focus to the input. I couldn't even tell it was an input box, I thought it was just a gray box. Style changes could help too.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the feedback, we're really working to make the site as easy to use as possible and you're right on about the set password input box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Neat technology, but I'm a bit worried about having to leave the browser window open before/during the transfer. I accidentally close tabs all the time, I wouldn't want to do that in the middle of a long transfer.

I'm going to give the service a shot for a few weeks though, maybe that will turn out to be a non-issue in practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats what the helper app is for! Sits outside the browser and lets you send and receive using the same technology without having to worry about the browser thing. Will do resume and everything. Still just as easy to use too.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, but I can't find a link to the app. Do I have to install the browser version first?

<comment><AUTHOR> The install button is the helper app! The in browser part should work immediately with no need to install any other software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> From the FAQ: "Files never touch or pass through our servers."

Peer-to-peer transfer has some speed benefits, but completely avoiding a server-based fallback seems more problematic. The sender needs to be online when the recipients are downloading the file. People increasingly use laptops/tablets that spend much of their life sleeping (as opposed to always- on desktops). Am I missing something?

<comment><USER7> Nope, you're just describing two different use cases (real time transfer vs. delayed transfer). Currently you can use the installable app and files will resume/restart whenever either disconnected machine comes back online to combat the often-sleeping laptops you reference.

The thing about persistence via storage is that now you're talking cloud storage, and that's a pretty overloaded and over-served market with a race to the bottom on price. We're fanatic about speed and privacy so we're p2p only right now and we really love the potential for this tech. Ideally, we'll make the persistence issue irrelevant rather than falling back to what we consider outdated tech...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can you merge the ideas of sendoid desktop client with a pinch of dropbox, so we can sync folders with other computers, other people's computers (multiple folders, multiple computers) without a central server?

i.e. sendoid, but semipermanent links and folders instead of files.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually an extension to the idea we've considered. We are implementing mesh transferring (similar to bit-torrent) and the idea was to have a server act as a peer in the mesh. We are still trying to decide if its something enough people want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Assume that I want to send a large file to multiple recipients. Does your P2P technology mean that it works like torrent, each node will contribute some of its bandwidth to uploading or that the file will be sent directly from my computer to each of my recipients ?

Edit: How does it compare to <http://www.bittorrent.com/dna> ?

<comment><USER21> Didn't know about BitTorrent DNA. Thanks for the link!

One difference I'd note is that DNA seems much better suited for mass distribution while Sendoid is much better suited for sending individual files (especially if you're on the same network, since you'd need to upload to a server and re-download to get p2p going).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very smooth, interesting use of RTMFP.

Couple of thoughts; you might want to consider a conditional note somewhere that Flash is required for those without.

Selecting and sending multiple files worked perfectly/instantly on my local network, though I could not select a folder.

I noticed that the list of successfully transferred files on the receiving end is partially hidden/obscured by a fixed height div. Also, files in that list are not autoamtically selected; it seems safe to assume the recipient would want to select and download all (rather than having to manually select or check the box.)

Good work, and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting concept never thought to do it via a website.

I don't know if its me or not, however when I click the "Choose files to share" in Chrome 10.0.648.151 on Win 7 it does not do anything.

Good work, going to try the desktop client :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you shoot us an email at feedback(at)sendoid.com with some info on your setup? Would love to get some more info from you so we can figure out what the problem might be. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wish it could work for me. I love the idea of sharing directly with PCs in our network. Our setup is that we are travelling with my wife and constantly sharing files , now we use dropbox for that, but that means outside connection that relies on slow wifi. if your tool worked - it would be genius

unfortunately, it doesn't and sharing between Windows 7 chrome browser -> Mac .. just getting Waiting for the peer.

I can't say more specifics about network topology as its a hotel wifi.

<comment><USER24> soo. Tried to install the desktop app on both W7 and Mac..but didn't help..the transfer doesnt work..not good

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What prevents URL wardialing? 5 digits, radix 36 = 60 million URLs (e.g. "hg4ba" ). Do you rate limit? Will you add more digits as you get more active shares?

It is nice that the key is short enough that it's easy to remember and enter manually (esp. for any smartphone apps in the future).

To answer my question: there's an option for setting a password. The UI for that should be improved for sharing multiple files with the same password, but there's no need to prevent URL guessing.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure about their support for really large file sizes, but lately I've been really digging Receivd for file sharing.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for mentioning Receivd - we've been in early-access for a month now and are growing pretty quickly. We do support large files, our last test with a 5GB+ dataset went swimmingly, and folks use it to share large photos and videos everyday. You can take a look here at <http://receivd.com>

If you signup with +hn in your email, we'll make sure you get access right away.

Sendoid - congrats on the launch!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Very nice! I wonder what your revenue model is going to be, if it's OK to ask that early in the game?

<comment><USER7> Sure, I can give you some info:

We're still discovering this space, but we've learned that there are a huge number of use-cases in commercial sectors for secured, fast file transfer-- especially out-of-network transfers that don't require the receiver to be part of the sender's existing IT infrastructure. Sendoid's tech is great for this.

Companies are having to pay out the nose for our kind of service right now from enterprise providers. We don't think secured file transfer should be expensive, and Sendoid is the first step to fixing that.

PS: If you have a company that wants to get involved with our beta program, get in touch: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congrats Zac! Works like magic :)

</comment><comment><USER30> A (non-programmer) friend of mine has been bugging me to do this for years.

So, one anecdotal data point in favor of your idea :)

(and one example of a missed startup opportunity for me, but I really don't find the time between the 8 to 6 job and 20 hrs/week university)

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice work. Met you guys before your YC interview. Congrats on the launch!

<comment><AUTHOR> We appreciate your not repeating all the embarrassing things I might have said that evening. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Sendoid app doesn't seem to be working behind a proxy. Is this going to change anytime soon?

</comment><comment><USER32> Please, could anyone explain how Sendoid implemented in-browser P2P streaming?

<comment><USER19> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2352211>

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> iPad version please! I know there are, um, some certain problems there ... but the need exists, especially with video editing. (I have ~2GB renders needing transfers that Dropbox can't handle.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have "methods" for implementing this stuff in iOS that I've been figuring out the last few weeks. Its definitely on the way.

</comment></comment><comment> Vic-nyc This is what drop.io should have been all along!

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow this is super efficient and was much needed.

</comment><comment><USER35> I like to use isendr.com

<comment><USER36> Sendoid is iSendr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> How different Sendoid is from Tonido?(<http://www.tonido.com>)

With Tonido you can right click any file or folder and it will create an URL for the resource. You can share the URL with anybody for download. There is no limit on file size, no uploading - completely private and secure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't find their send file immediately from the browser button? I don't think my dad's gonna be able to use it without that.

<comment><USER37> :). I guess your father can right click the files and folder get the link.

<comment><USER38> I think his point is that browsing to their website, it's not entirely obvious how to quickly share a file. When you initially go to sendoid.com, their link to share a file is the most prominent element on the page.

Having the native hook into context menus is great in the file system, but if your users can't even install the app, what's the point? Having a dead simple browser experience is easier for users because it's one less step to do what they want to do - share files.</comment></comment></comment></comment>