Chinese Develop "Kill Weapon" targetting Aircraft Carriers - <AUTHOR> https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp <comment><USER2> It's the Too Big to Fail principle in military terms. The projection of force is greatly reduced when the fear of losing an asset determines its domain.

A carrier that has to stay 2000 km from the action puts a tremendous strain every aspect of operations.

<comment><USER3> A carrier that has to stay 2000 km away from the action is completely useless. Carriers are designed for one thing: tactical air support. Can't do that from 2000km.

<comment><USER4> Carriers were designed for many things, but never for action against a serious opponent like China or even Iran.

Like much of the US military, the carriers were meant to bully weak Soviet satellite states. Today they are used to bully weak states of all persuasions.

<comment><USER5> That must be why it took four years to defeat the Japanese. If the US Navy had been really serious, instead of mucking around with fleets of aircraft carriers...

<comment><USER4> It is probably a mistake to plan for future wars in the model of a war 70 years in the past. Surface fleets were rendered obsolete around the 1960s when anti-ship missiles matured.

Things change, 70 years before the aircraft carrier, warships were made of wood and powered by the wind.

<comment><USER5> It's silly to rely on anecdotes like this. For example, the AK-47 is as old today as the sailing ships you mention at the time of the first aircraft carriers, but some American combat units are willing to ditch their M4s for it. The odds it will be improved much in the near future are pretty slim.

I think the flaw in your argument is the word "obsolete" -- it connotes "replaced" or "no longer in use." What else, besides the carrier battle group, do you use to project power?

<comment><USER4> You are missing the point entirely.

Anti-ship missiles are no joke. No one really believes the US surface fleet can survive against an enemy equipped with a large number of these weapons.

Of course, the Navy has defenses. But it only takes one missile to incapacitate a ship. Would you really feel safe on a carrier off the coast of China during a war?

I read in one Navy report that a supercarrier would not be expected to last the first few hours of a conflict with Iran or the first few minutes of a conflict with China.

 _Unlike the ground-combatant, who has the advantage of concealment, terrain, and, fundamentally, ground beneath his feet, the naval surface combatant is alone, aboard a warm boat, easily distinguishable from the cold water that surrounds her, said boat being packed to the gills with men, weaponry, and explosives, sailing on a flat, relatively featureless expanse of ocean, which offers concealment and shelter to none, and is (eventually) naturally deadly to human life. As this is the case, threats that would merely slow down the ground combatant--such as guided missiles--are a much greater threat to the naval combatant. Possessing a speed and an agility that naval platforms cannot forseeably match, as well as computerized "smart" guidance systems and a heavy payload of high-explosive, the modern anti-ship missile, once it has acquired its target, is an enemy that the target ship cannot usually run from, hide from, physically avoid, or absorb._

wikipedia.com: anti ship missiles

<comment><USER6> Nyah. You're selling, but I'm not buying.

Couple of points.

First, warfare is no longer all-or-nothing. Carrier forces can and do sit offshore from nation states that have anti-ship missiles and have their way. War is mostly incremental any more. That might change, but that's current state. Taking pot shots at a carrier fleet in interational waters because its doing something you don't like (like protecting Japan or Taiwan) is starting to play for real money. Might happen, but it's not the most common scenario.

Second, got any evidence of anti-ship missiles taking out a modern warship in the last 30 years or so? Last I remember it happening, I think, was during the Falkland Islands conflict.

I think A/S technology poses an immediate and extremely dangerous threat to a surface naval fleet -- no doubt about it. But it's not a new threat. This threat goes back at least 50 years. A _lot_ of work has been done on both sides to increase the threat and make it go away. Most of these weapon systems have not been tested in integrated battle. That's a wild card that could either help or hurt a carrier, but the assumption was that carriers were sitting ducks, so the onus is on you to demonstrate this is the case.

Finally, a carrier fleet is a large assembly of surface ships, not just a single target. These other ships do all sorts of neat and interesting things. Electronic CounterMeasures _are not going to be completely known to either combatant ahead of time_.

So right now it's a total crap shoot, in my opinion, to take shots at a carrier group. And it's not a gamble that has any reasonable payoff -- unless you're in a total war situation. In which case carriers are the least of your worries. You'll be ducking submarine-launched nukes. And that's not so much fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know a ton about China, but unless it's just the tone of the article this missile seems very highly targeted at the US Navy (I think we're much more carrier-heavy than other navies; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Does the Chinese government/military have the mindset that they are likely to go to war with the US? Seems kind of unrealistic to me. Maybe they are thinking about how to keep the US out of the picture if they were to invade Taiwan? Not that I think the US would intervene anyway...

I'm sure someone here knows much more about China than I do - what am I missing?

<comment><USER8> The US is a perceived military adversary as far as Taiwan, and to a lesser extent, southeast Asia is concerned.

I really do think (hope) that the chance of all-out war is unlikely, but military orgs prepare for all circumstances. There may be a perception gap on the part of Chinese military hawks as to what the US aim is - they feel pent- in/threatened, and they're responding. This is a great country who has had a recent history of being a whipping boy (Europe in the 19th century, Japan in the early 20th) - only in recent years is China starting to regain its 'rightful' place in the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> "a recent history of being a whipping boy"

This is really what Taiwan is about, a constant reminder of China's past humiliation; it's a big emotional issue for the Chinese. I feel that this is the driving force for everything that China has done recently

yeah I agree though that war for Taiwan is unlikely, since China's real invasion of Taiwan already started years ago. It's just too lucrative for Taiwanese manufacturing businesses to set up shop in China, and they've already been migrating to China en-mass years ago. Add to that Chinese laws forcing many of these Taiwanese businesses to have a cap as to how much money they can transfer outside of China (specifically back to Taiwan) and then you can see the long term problem for Taiwan...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A "kill" weapon? What, as opposed to a "happy" weapon?

<comment><USER8> I believe it's military lingo for a device (missile) that can completely take out some hardware (in this case a massive ship) and 'kill' it.

This is a game-changer for the US Navy, and likely other military organisations too.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> this is actually better commentary (somewhat reminds me of raganwald though): [http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the- carrier...](http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers- will-die/all/1/)

<comment><USER10> Sure, except the author keeps on trying to sound like he has spotted a flaw that the top US brass haven't even thought of yet: "Ships have no defence against ballistic missiles!"

Except of course, AEGIS has been under development for years, and is now actually deployed in the field. What's the full name for AEGIS? Oh, that's right, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. It's deployed on what platform? Cruisers... In other words, the author's central point is a load of bollocks, ships do indeed now have a defence against ballistic missiles.

Getting back to the main topic, well done to the Chinese if they have indeed managed to implement a high-velocity, low-trajectory heavy missile capable of taking out a carrier. Now the arms race begins. Can the US make an incremental improvement to AEGIS to defend against this new threat?

This ties in nicely to yesterday's discussion on HN, kicked off by Gruber's comments on complexity. If the US military had to design a defence system against ballistic missiles from scratch today, there is every reason to think that they'd stuff it up. But instead, they have gradually built up the missile-intercept capability, starting with the relatively simple Nike-Zeus, moving up to systems such as Patriot, and then building on that success to create AEGIS and Ground-based Midcourse Defense systems. Each step is simply an evolution on what has come before, and a defence against this new attack will also just be an evolution on what has come before...

<comment><AUTHOR> "In other words, the author's central point is a load of bollocks, ships do indeed now have a defence against ballistic missiles."

I may have read the article differently... I feel that the author has put the emphasis on aircraft carriers being obsolete, and his main point is that the US Navy has a flawed focus of fewer and larger units; instead of building a larger fleet consisting of smaller ships like AEGIS, stealth ships, or other smaller boats.

Cruisers != Aircraft Carriers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is all this non sense about a war. The US and China are about as far from war as Siamese twins are from schizophrenia!

\-- I know, it doesn't make any sense at all!!

Besides, the strongest weapon China has against the US is economic leverage. If they want, they can almost turn the US in a third-world nation by dumping their dollars.

</comment><comment><USER12> Old news.

[http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&...](http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&IBLOCK_ID=35)

<comment><USER8> You might have wanted this article from Exiled Online which includes details wrt to the new Chinese ASBM: [http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is- how-the-carrier...](http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the- carriers-will-die/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Surface ships are just floating targets anyway. Nations like the U.S. and China will go to war with nuclear submarines shooting thermonuclear tipped ICBMs at each other's cities or not at all.

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't that be a bit too dramatic?!?

Once you've played the "nuclear card", you have committed suicide, basically. Given that a nuclear war would ensure mutual destruction, wouldn't China and the U.S. be better off fighting with conventional weapons only?

<comment><USER15> Interesting game. The only winning move is not to play.

<comment><USER16> That's BS. Nuclear War is a great game to play, for all ages (seriously, check it out, it's a fun waste of 30 minutes)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: IT startup - <AUTHOR>

So, I'm at a point in my life I want to do a tech startup. I had coffee with two friends this morning and we talked about startups, currently issues, and explore ideas.
At the end of the coffee meeting, it was agreed upon that I had wanted to start a small IT service company doing data backup and recovery. Software for data transfer and recovery are affordable to get started on.
But, has IT become an inflated field where it's practically impossible to survive? I got only so much to work with. I see companies offering the same services (mainly online backup) for such low premiums.
Please let me know!
Thanks! <comment><USER2> If you don't figure out how to create a differentiated service, product or software (!) then you will have a hard time no matter what you do.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, and I think this applies too all innovators and startups who goes into the field.

Massess for the crowd no?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let's bump this!

Thanks HN community!

</comment><comment><USER3> I am sure there is room for innovation in IT space. I think it's an area that needs change and if you think that you can do something special in this area, that's great. Go for it.

However, I think 2 things will be a big challenge to you, if you get into this area.

1\. Differentiation. How are you going to differentiate yourself from dozens of other IT firms in your area?

2\. Are you ready to face up against work with possibly low profit margin? The profit IT firms make is pretty low already.

<comment><AUTHOR> I come from a background of the lower-class/near poverty area (lived and grew up in the ghetto). For most of the folks I had helped out previously in the past, it was simply being able to get by day by day. Majority of people I know are just like me, making ends meet monthly.

I mean, what's the current state of IT? Massive storage competitors? Massive tech support companies? PM companies by the masses? Not to mention these companies (doesn't matter what field of IT it is), they undercut or de-inflat the GDP value of IT alone.

1\. I have a few ideas I want to try out. People and companies seem to really enjoy the "face" value of being able to interact with their IT guru in person.

2\. I think this goes with any other field people get into. Low profit margins are always expected since the initial investment is to literally break even first then make gain in profits.

Please keep 'em coming!</comment></comment>


Physicists have broken the record for the most accurate clock - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-have-broken-the-record-for-the-most-accurate-clock-ever-built <comment><USER2> Journal article (paywall): [http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116...](http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.063001)

There's a team working at JILA in colorado who've achieved something similar with Strontium: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.8261](http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.8261)

Edit: One of the reasons to build these clocks is to find out if the fundamental constants really are unchanging. So they build two clocks that rely on different relations of fundamental constants, and see if the "ticking" of the clocks changes with respect to each other. See: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1407.4408.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1407.4408.pdf) for info on that.

<comment><USER3> > and see if the "ticking" of the clocks changes with respect to each other

Maybe a stupid question. These clocks are so accurate wouldn't the time they measure vary by changes in the earth's mass and/or rotation speed?</comment></comment>


Can you get coronovirus from pets? - <AUTHOR> https://wildearth.com/blogs/news/dr-ernie-ward-coronavirus-and-you-pet-whats-important-to-know <comment></comment>


Inspired by a HN comment, four half-star characters accepted by Unicode - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2016/10/inspired-by-hn-comment-four-half-star.html <comment><USER2> Great work!

Next it would be great to revisit the conlang space proposal (for Klingon, Tengwar/Tolkien Elvish, et al) for the Astral Plane. (There was a previous proposal before the Astral Plane opened up.)

<comment><USER3> I think I'll stay away from that controversial area :-) Klingon got severely rejected by Unicode in 2001, so it's going to be difficult to turn things around.

[1] Unicode's reasons for rejecting Klingon: [http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01212-RejectKlingon.html](http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01212-RejectKlingon.html) and the official rejection notice: [http://www.unicode.org/alloc/nonapprovals.html](http://www.unicode.org/alloc/nonapprovals.html)

<comment><USER2> Many of those criticisms are quite fair, and most are still applicable, but I am curious with a decade and a half difference in time (and a larger encoding space) if the criticisms are as severe today as they were then.

Of course we definitely have to wait for the Axanar lawsuit to be settled first. :)

<comment><USER2> Ruminating a bit further: the complaints that there isn't a standard orthography for writing the language in the symbols, is a bit out of the jurisdiction of Unicode. Certainly there are symbols encoded in Unicode such as the academic interest Linear-A and Linear-B where the orthography is an active area of academic research. It wouldn't be Unicode's job to standardize the orthography, just the encoding of the "Okudagram" symbols, and let the academics continue to debate the proper orthography of the Klingon language.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ori: A Secure Distributed File System - <AUTHOR> http://ori.scs.stanford.edu/

<comment><USER2> I really wonder how this compares to the Tahoe LAFS (least authority file system) which was built for similar reasons and has been around a lot longer:

[https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs](https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe- lafs)

And in specific:

[https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe- lafs/browser/trunk/docs/ab...](https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe- lafs/browser/trunk/docs/about.rst)

Or the Redhat sponsored HekaFS:

[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/HekaFS?rd=Features/C...](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/HekaFS?rd=Features/CloudFS)

<comment><USER3> I think Ori is more similar to Dropbox or BitTorrent Sync in the sense that it focuses on creating (nearly) full replicas on a fairly small number of machines with P2P sync between them. The Ori paper explicitly says disk space is cheap, which motivates their decision to store full replicas and history. It's really a quite different design than client-server cluster filesystems like Tahoe, Gluster/HekaFS, Ceph, HDFS, pNFS, etc.

I think Ori is confusing people by calling itself a file system instead of a sync/backup system. Sure, it's implemented using FUSE, but it doesn't behave like a traditional network file system.

<comment><USER4> I think it's OK being a file system.

All a fs is really is a specialized key-value store. Redis is a file system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It isn't clear to me how this system is secure. Very little is actually said on the website beyond using the word "secure" and the usage of the tool "ssh" (which could have been maliciously tampered with or man-in-the-middled).

How exactly is data stored? Is the data stored encrypted should a device be stolen? Is it easy to "revoke" trust from devices storing parts of one's data?

Again, very little on the security of the overall system is actually described.

I hope the authors posted this or are here?

<comment><USER5> If you read the paper, the security they are referring to is most likely that their data model is similar to git, using Merkle trees to ensure the integrity of files and their histories:

> Our data model, like that of Git, forms a Merkle tree in which the Commit > forms the root of the tree pointing to the root Tree object and previous > Commit object(s). The root Tree object points to Blobs and other Tree ob- > jects that are recursively encapsulated by a single hash. Ori supports > signed commit objects, by signing the seri- alized Commit object with a > public key. The Commit ob- ject is then serialized again with the key > embedded into it, thus forcing subsequent signatures to encapsulate the full > history with signatures. To verify the signature we recompute the hash of > the Commit object omitting the signature and then verify it against the > public key.

The filesystem they describe has a few other very interesting features that paint it as a possible replacement for something like Dropbox, or even a network filesystem like NFS. You should check it out.

<comment><USER4> Data integrity is just a small part of security. I wouldn't even call that security at all.

I mean, we technically shouldn't trust our HDDs and should do data integrity checking at every level.

I'm interested in what they mean here by security, and what things they support beyond the normal integrity features of most modern file systems (zfs, btrfs).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would be nice if this had iOS, Java/Android and Windows Phone clients.

</comment><comment><USER7> Link to the source paper: [http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2530000/2522721/p151-mashtiz...](http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2530000/2522721/p151-mashtizadeh.pdf?ip=126.96.36.199&id=2522721&acc=OA&key=24B49002E011608CF08962C63678233A&CFID=400502279&CFTOKEN=45623156&__acm__=1389946062_8327da9921418091985f699c8d9c105c)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm already struggling with a diversity of versioning solutions. I'm obviously going to be adding ori to the roster somewhere -- it looks AWESOME -- but I'm also increasingly frustrated with the fact that there is no meta-level tool to navigate all these sources of history:

1\. Git for code, obviously, just not binaries larger than 25mb. Profound network effects (Github, hi) will keep this true indefinitely.

2\. For versioning large binaries, I go back and forth between boar and git- annex, for the desultory reason that I can't really get down with either the symlink insanity of git-annex or the old-school server/client svnish model of boar.

2\. Couchdb, which I use for (1) couch apps, (2) a backup medium, and (3) the main document store for my company. Couch is great, but is emphatically _not_ a filesystem -- you get CRUD, but few of the niceties you'd get with a 'real' FS. That's okay -- the whole point of Couch is worse-is-better network-native data storage -- but I can only be pacified so many times by a recitation of the CAP theorem. At some point, you want a POSIX compliant filesystem, and you're willing to bite many bullets to get there, including those that Couch made a name for itself by dodging! In other words, you'll take a hit (probably on partition tolerance) in order to get, say, transactional atomicity, and so you'll toss Couch and go with a _SQL, at least for some use cases. (Don 't get me wrong -- you can pry couchdb from my cold dead paws -- but I also know when _not* to use it.)

3\. There are many ways of implementing file versioning in an RDBMS, and between Concrete5, Owncloud, and the innumerable sqlite databases scattered throughout my system, I'm sure all are in use, somewhere.

4\. My main file server runs btrfs, and sometimes zfs, and the excellent 'snapper' tool that comes with OpenSUSE helps me maintain and access fs-layer diffs. My home directory is regularly snapshotted in this manner.

5\. For backing up the linux machines on my network, I use rsnapshot, which uses non-symbolic links for creating differential backups. It's one of those old-school solutions that just happens to work great.

6\. Google Drive and Dropbox both offer versioning, so at least when I have these installed (not at the moment) I arguably have a sixth source of version history.

7\. My vms are all getting snapshotted on the daily too, and I use bedup to manage the btrfs partition where they are stored. The net effect is storage- equivalent to differential backups, although admittedly less efficient to create, at least on btrfs (deduplication occurs offline). But then again, having an image is the gold standard for backups for good reason.

8\. And then there were eight. Welcome, ori. But you wouldn't happen to speak git, couch, btrfs, zfs, vmdk, and sql, would you? Because that would make my life a _lot_ easier.

<comment><USER9> Yikes. It sounds like you are in a constant state of trying new file systems and backup solutions. Why not simplify and go with a good enough solution?

Personally, I like zfs and rsnapshot. That is what I use on my NAS and it seems to work without me spending time one maintaining it after the initial setup. Why rsnapshot and not snapshots of the zfs volumes? Because I want to keep lots of backups and my understanding is that zfs loses performance after you cross into a few dozen snapshots on the type of hardware I have.

Now, I never understood backing up your home for. Why? I keep any documents on the NAS (thanks VPN and ssh for making life easy here), dot files on GitHub, and source code in git with origin on either GitHub or the NAS depending on if it is private or not. Chat logs are going to be my one exception, but perhaps the servers will back them up for me instead a la GChat.

<comment><USER8> You're right, there's a lot going on, but -- and you are just going to have to believe me on this -- each method gives me something the others don't. As will ori. And honestly, I don't mind the extra moving parts: having recently suffered a catastrophic drive failure that set my business back a quarter, I am okay with a never-too-much-overkill approach to backups.

My problems number two: On the first hand, there are often bizarre interactions between versioning systems when they are hosted atop of one another, breaking encapsulation in unexpected ways. You can't use .vmdk snapshotting on btrfs, for example, because the performance is whatever the opposite of 'breathtaking' is. (Sighgiving?) Meanwhile, a git repo on a Dropbox share is going to chew itself to pieces the first time there's an fs- level merge conflict in .git. I could go on.

The second problem is the flip side of the first -- there is no way of importing and exporting history between versioning systems. I shouldn't _worry_ about git and dropbox: dropbox should offer itself as UI for git.</comment></comment></comment>


Bit Manipulation Brain Teaser - <AUTHOR> http://softwaresimply.blogspot.com/2009/05/bit-manipulation-problem.html

<comment><USER2> My attempt (it works when I run it in my head :-):

      const uint numBits = 3*numPieces;
      const u64 lowBits = ((1ULL << numBits)-1);
      const u64 highBits = lowBits << numBits;

      // Flip around horizontal axis
      flippedIndex = index ^ 4;

      // Flip around vertical axis
      flippedIndex = index ^ 2;

      // Flip around diagonal axis
      flippedIndex = (index & highBits) | ((index & lowBits) ^ lowBits) ^ ((index & highBits) >> numBits))

Edit: my last one ain't right

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the diagonal flip is really the whole point of the problem. Horizontal and vertical are just warm-ups.

<comment><USER2>
      const uint numBits = 3*numPieces;
      const u64 lowBits  = ((1ULL << numBits)-1);
      const u64 highBits = lowBits << numBits;
      const u64 allFours = 04040404040404040404;
      const u64 allTwos  = 02020202020202020202;

      // Flip around horizontal axis
      flippedIndex = index ^ (allFours & lowBits);

      // Flip around vertical axis
      flippedIndex = index ^ (allTwos & lowBits);

Is my fix for the first two, but, as you point out, they're significantly easier.

The patterns are pretty neat, but I can't figure out how they result in any sort of rule for diagonal flipping.

<comment><AUTHOR> The spirit of your answer is correct, but the code won't quite work the way the problem was stated. allFours should actually be 4444... and the same for allTwos. This way, it doesn't matter whether you keep the high and low bits together as I described or just concatenate the piece indices. Correct choices of the lowBits and highBits masks will handle the difference.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Node.JS v0.4.8 released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/05/21/node-v0-4-8/ <comment><USER2> Great to see this one: * Disable compression with OpenSSL. Improves memory perf.

Guess/hope it means the issue described here is fixed automatically for everyone now: [http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2011/04/05/openssl-m...](http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2011/04/05/openssl- memory-use/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been struggling with 0.4.7 debugger problems in the last few days and now they fixed them. Thank you!</comment>


The killer combination for programming languages or why I like F# - <AUTHOR> http://spotless-spots.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-i-like-f.html

<comment><USER2> "I used to be content programming an esoteric Scheme system in Emacs. Now, I am convinced by the killer combination of (1) a fun functional language (2) a widely-used platform with a rich library (3) a professional IDE with a good debugger. With (1) ML-like, (2) CLR, (3) Visual Studio, you get F#. With (1) Lisp, (2) JVM, (3) Eclipse, I guess you get Clojure."

The irony is that, for Clojure, Emacs remains a pretty good IDE, while still allowing for the widely used platform and rich library. Will be hard for Eclipse to catch up given all the years spent making Emacs a good environment for Lisp style development, and the fact a Lisp is the Emacs extension language.

<comment><AUTHOR> True :) The only thing I would miss in Emacs is a visual debugger. I used to write Scheme in a "code carefully so it works the first time around" mode. It worked out because I worked on small systems and Scheme has extremely clear semantics. But imagine having to dive into a framework-based project, big enough that you can't understand it all at once by reading the code. Then, I find that using a debugger and stepping through the code is a really good way to get a grasp of the system. Perhaps, slime provides a good debugging interface -- I just got hooked into visual debuggers before I could find out.

<comment><USER3> TRACE and BREAK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Plus if you're a functional noob like I am, you can pop out and do traditional OO/Procedural code.

It slices, it dices. Heck -- probably even makes Julianne fries.

Tying type inference to IntelliSense is a huge win for the programmer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Before you fall in love, make sure to hear some opposite opinion, like this one:

[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757e...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757ec5150c)

<comment><USER4> Was there a case made against F# in the cited text?

Sounded more like a rant.

I read it twice. I'm unable to discern what reasons the author puts forward against F#. Seems like most of his criticism is against that certain book.

<comment><USER6> It looks like a response to a known troll in comp.lang.lisp to me. I don't think that the linked group message is really a good argument against F# as much as it is an acknowledgment that people really dislike Jon Harrop.</comment></comment></comment>


Singaporeans get hard token baked into credit card - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/hard_token_in_credit_card/ <comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty cool. I have had two old-style fobs and two new ones from my HSBC bank. Clearly it would be far more convenient to have the TFA baked into the credit card, though one more security risk I suppose (or nuisance if lost).

I travel frequently to SG and their overall banking IT infrastructure seems a generation ahead of that in the US. (Not to mention much better and more courteous service!)</comment>


Mac Terminal Shortcuts for Hackers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yangshun/mac-terminal-shortcuts <comment><USER2> I don't have the patience to go through the whole `$ man readline`, but I'm almost certain _none_ of those shortcuts are specific to MacOS or even MacOS terminal emulators.

These ones are, though:

        Cmd-`    cycle windows
        Cmd-Up   previous mark
        Cmd-Down next mark

</comment><comment><USER3> Or... if you prefer Vim keybindings just add

set -o vi

to your ~/.bashrc or

bindkey -v

to your ~/.zshrc</comment>


The Chalk Market: Where Mathematicians Go to Get the Good Stuf - <AUTHOR> https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2019-06-14/chalk-market-where-mathematicians-go-get-good-stuff <comment><USER2> The Japanese seem to make really good writing instruments in general.

My daily driver for writing is a Mitsubishi uni-ball eye. Only costs a few bucks and it's miles better than a 10 cent Bic.

I'm not some kind of pen snob who knows all about different pens, but I know a good pen when I use one. I've found that it makes my (usually unintelligible) handwriting a lot better too.

I guess it's maybe a cultural thing, I've heard that the Japanese still place a lot of emphasis on handwriting letters and notes. Meanwhile there's people in my office who haven't touched a pen in weeks.

<comment><USER3> Yea, what's up with that, actually? Why are they so good at making pretty much _anything_ over there?

Writing utensils:

毛笔 - "maobi," the brush one uses to write calligraphy. Brought to Japan by the Chinese thousand years ago or so, now they make the best

Paper. Midori and Mio. Nigh untouchable. The only people that come close are Leuchtturm, IMO. And it's _cheap_!

Fountain Pens. Actually the Taiwanese do well here as well, but nobody can take on the behemoth, Pilot.

Cars: Toyota. Honda. Well regarded as the most repairable, built-to-last cars in the world. Mitsubishi, Nissan, Mazda coming out with excellent sports cars.

Motorcycles: Suzuki tops the line when it comes to dependability, repairability, durability, and quality. Spend a week pulling apart and putting together an SV650, then do a Ducati Monster, you'll see what I mean (if you can even find the tools to start unbolting shit off the Ducati)

Construction equipment: Komatsu, Hitachi. Some prefer Caterpillar but not for me.

Extraterrestrial Equipment: Walk through the full-size model of the ISS in the Johnson Space Center, Houston. You've got the Russian model, carved out of solid blocks of aluminum. The American one, which feels like being inside of a tricked out Ford f150, cheap panels and all. Then you step in the Japanese one, an over-engineered masterpiece in interior design. Everything has a little cubby, space, place. So organized, so _perfect_.

How do they do it???

Edit: I'm genuinely trying to think of something I trust some other country to make better than the Japanese and having a hard time. Maybe bicycles - can't beat the Taiwanese with Giant... but then again everyone uses Shimano components.

Uh, phones? Samsung I guess?

Laptops, I generally go for Lenovo, so there. That's all I can think of.

<comment><USER4> My guess. Japanese have long valued mastery and specialization. Historically a cast society, people were expected to dedicate their entire lives to the line of work their biological or adopted family was known for.

The country also went to great pains to isolate themselves so this system continued for much longer than other parts of the world where sources of wealth were more diversified. In Japan wealth came from being known as the best at your craft, which fostered a culture of continuous improvement.

In much of Asia perfection of art was seen as a sign of sophistication for the wealthy. But the cultural revolution in China really dampened that for much of China's sphere of influence.

After WW-II Japan was forced to modernize. Western manufacturing and improvement processes came in. The manufacturing was new but the culture of continuous improvement and mastery was already well established in Japanese culture but didn't exist in the West where modernization was really a battle between the use of slave labor / child labor vs machines and the concept of continuous improvement was a new thing.

But I wonder, can we say the same about German engineering vs Russian engineering?

<comment><USER5> I love Japanese high quality items, but I think we worship them a bit due to the fact that they are foreign imports from a different culture. For some categories mentioned by the OP, some non-Japanese items are superior.

In the same way, the Japanese worship even more some Western goods and have gone out of their way to copy and sometimes improve them. For example, there is a whole subculture in Japan that adores old American tees and denim. They create exceptionally high quality reproductions using original equipment [1].

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204542404577157...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204542404577157290201608630)

<comment><USER4> There are plenty of areas where Japanese have lost to competitors. Their sweet is making things that are hard and expensive do well. The most important components of our iPhones can only be made in Japan because of their attention to detail. They still make pretty good swords and knives!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A well-made slate board completes the marriage.

It is pure joy to come to class with a fully prepared math lesson on yellow legal paper, take attendance, clear the board, and start, filling three, maybe four boards with precise alphanumeric characters, graphs or diagrams, and a confident cadence that allows for good questions, good notes, and a positive learning environment.

When good chalk hits good slate there is an immediate sense of responsibility with respect to what has been enabled.

<comment><USER7> I haven't had a good learning experience when the professor cleared the boards, and filled them with precise characters, graphs or diagrams. Good chalk can't fix ex-cathedra teaching.

<comment><USER8> Seems a bit miserly to leave out "good questions, good notes, and a positive learning environment" as ingredients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was first introduced to Hagoromo about four years ago when the word had just come out that they were closing shop. A colleague of mine was in love with it, and ordered several boxes. I managed to get two sticks of the stuff and used it sparingly for quite a long time. It really is way better than the majority of chalks. It's coated in a thin film so your hands don't get dirty and it's extremely fine making it smooth to write with.

The article is a little comical about the effects of using the chalk, but due to its scarcity, I've certainly heard that some use it only for the most important theorems.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love how every community has their 'thing' that is sought after. Looking up chalk leads down a very narrow rabbit hole.

Some say that Hagoromo sold two of their compression molds to Sejong Corp (who also took the name), while the other went to Uma-Jirushi.

If I had a use for chalk, it'd be fun to try to create the perfect stick. Compression molds aren't hard to find or even make, then its down the mix. I assume that Hagoromo was using more than water and a super fine plaster (e.g. Plaster of Paris) with white Tempura paint..

Has anybody tried making chalk before? I've made chalkboard paint for signage (just unsanded grout and paint), but I never thought to take it a step further.

<comment><USER10> there is a lot more to making chalk than I realized. [https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c3/19/ae/06e559e...](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c3/19/ae/06e559ead753d6/WO2011141936A1.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone here who likes "mechanical keyboards" it may interest you to know that for the next 7 days some Hagoromo-chalk color-matched kits are available in a "group buy" on Massdrop[0]. The kit is for the alpha (i.e., the "letter and number") keys on your US-ANSI layout keyboard. There is also another kit, which in addition to having the standard letters and numbers, adds APL sublegends. There are a couple smaller kits that add the color to the F-row, and more interestingly, a "Vim Kit" which has left, down, up, and right arrows as sublegends on the H, J, K, and L keys - all in a color of ABS plastic matches to Hagoromo chalk.

[0] [https://drop.com/buy/drop-oblotzky-gmk-oblivion-v2-custom- ke...](https://drop.com/buy/drop-oblotzky-gmk-oblivion-v2-custom-keycap- set?utm_source=linkshare&referer=DNQGJA)

<comment><USER10> You also can tack on `?mode=guest_open` to view any massdrop URL without a login.

[https://drop.com/buy/drop-oblotzky-gmk-oblivion-v2-custom- ke...](https://drop.com/buy/drop-oblotzky-gmk-oblivion-v2-custom-keycap- set?mode=guest_open) \-- keycap set is $125

<comment><USER12> Link doesn't seem to be working.. Do you think they've patched this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the new manufacturer of Hagoromo:

[http://www.sejongmall.co.kr](http://www.sejongmall.co.kr) (Korean only)

[http://www.kompass.kr/img/catalogue/20180719094839_1.pdf](http://www.kompass.kr/img/catalogue/20180719094839_1.pdf) (English brochure)

<comment><USER14> Background: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9770017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9770017)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a slight physiological twitch-like reaction to the feeling of chalk on my fingertips. It bothered me so much during my learning years that I did my best to avoid coming to a board at all. If anyone knows a correct term for this phenomenon, I'd be glad to read more about it.

<comment><USER16> I don't know if there's a name, but you're not alone. I f$%*ing hate chalk, so much that I started avoiding math classes at my school. Both the sound it makes and the feeling of it as you mention. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.

We're not crazy though. Just look at what chalk looks like under the microscope to see what your fingers are picking up on:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=chalk+microscope](https://www.google.com/search?q=chalk+microscope)

Edit: maybe it's a tactile version of trypophobia? (trigger warning if you image search the term...)

<comment><USER17> That's natural chalk, not blackboard or sidewalk chalk.

> maybe it's a tactile version of trypophobia?

You can't sense the individual chalk particles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I'd like to know is why, of all academics, only mathematicians care about chalk. Computer scientists? Nope. Statisticians? Nope. Physicists? Engineers? Nope, and nope. Only mathematicians.

And, don't forget about boards. Real slate, please. Black. Large. Yes.

<comment><USER19> because math classes are the only classes still taught on the board. everyone else uses powerpoint

<comment><USER18> Ok, but why? You're effectively saying they like it because they like it.

CS, stats, physics, engineering, etc. classes would all benefit from slowing down and explaining things the way mathematicians are forced to do using chalk.

<comment><USER16> Even chalk is inefficient though. One of the best math classes I had was taught on a projector with a wind-up transparent overlay. He'd use colored markers on the transparent sheet, and then wind up a little when he reached the bottom. If there was questions he could "rewind" to the point in question as nothing was ever erased. He then took the transparency roll to his office where it was available, in scroll-like form, during office hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The chalk sounds amazing, for those with a blackboard.

If anybody uses a whiteboard, here's a scientifically-methodical article reviewing the best whiteboard pens of each colour.

[https://medium.com/graphicfacilitation/all-you-need-to- know-...](https://medium.com/graphicfacilitation/all-you-need-to-know-about- whiteboard-markers-2a25d1249911)

</comment><comment><USER21> Recently saw a good video about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8)

Pretty amusing they were stockpiling it and some were chalk dealers on the side.

</comment><comment><USER22> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19822164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19822164)

<comment><USER23> A few other earlier instances:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9723202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9723202) (2015) (re-posted a couple of months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19718287))

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9770017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9770017) (2015) on why the company closed

And unrelated but v. cool: chalk micrography: [https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1022534132415356928](https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1022534132415356928) , at HN; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17635247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17635247)

From that last, Thomas Huxley, "On a Piece of Chalk": [https://mathcs.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/Chalk.html](https://mathcs.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/Chalk.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe I'm just young, but I hate chalkboards. In college they were always way less legible than a whiteboard with a fresh marker—too little contrast.

<comment><USER25> The thing with chalk is: if you see a piece of chalk, you can use it. After you're done, put it down and forget it.

If you see a marker... 50% chance it's dead, 25% chance it's barely alive, 15% chance it's legible from the back row, 10% chance it's fresh and usable the way you describe it. It's impossible to tell before you try.

After you're done with it, you need to remember to close the cap, or find a trash can to chuck it into (and make a call if the marker kind-of-still-works- but-not-really). Seems like a small thing, but adds mental overhead. And it's a big enough overhead that a lot of people _don 't do it_. Otherwise, how would we end up with the distribution above in the first place?

Now teaching/explaining is a performance art. Doing the "wait, let me try another marker, is it better now?" dance ruins the show.

That's why mathematicians prefer chalk. The subject matter is already difficult enough, there's not enough bandwidth for all of that nonsense. Have chalk, will write. End of story.

<comment><USER3> Also the markers are shit from a sustainability standpoint - non refillable, take up space in a landfill, as far as I know unrecyclable, manufacturing chain involving at the very least plastic, ink, and whatever makes the tip, and gets tossed seemingly on a daily basis.

<comment><USER26> There are refillable markers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think chalk sucks as they are dirty, messy, dusty and probably not good for your health. I hope for the day they all disappeared and are replaced by digital whiteboard where you don't need to erase anything and can be collaborative with remote location in real time.

<comment><USER28> I was wondering about this as well. Isn't chalk dust super bad for your lungs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's amazing stuff. So smooth, so clean. I've resorted to keeping some in my backpack at all times. And anecdotally, I see more and more professors using it. Maybe good marketing at work?

Sidenote, I love the name MSRI, cause you can pronounce it "misery"

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting. I thought the stuff people generally wrote on blackboards with was actually gypsum, and not chalk at all. Although everyone calls it chalk.

</comment><comment><USER31> So what is the best blackboard then? Seems pointless to use really good chalk on an inferior board.

</comment><comment><USER32> Which one tastes best?

Only half joking. I used to nibble on chalk as a kid, was oddly satisfying.</comment>


An Inside Look At Facebook Questions: The Next "Killer App" Of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/23/facebook-questions/

<comment><USER2> > it "seems to be more intimate/fun/terse than intellectual/useful/detailed."

woo, FB invented user polls, one more thing to Hide</comment>


Free Open Source Statistics Cookbook - <AUTHOR> http://datascience101.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/free-open-source-statistics-cookbook/

<comment><USER2> The direct blog-free link is:

[http://matthias.vallentin.net/probability-and-statistics- coo...](http://matthias.vallentin.net/probability-and-statistics-cookbook/)

which was discussed in depth previously:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4527914>

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat for those with prior knowledge, but could anybody point out 'stats for dummies' resources online?

<comment><USER4> I think this should help you. [http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/31800/online- refere...](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/31800/online-reference- for-review-of-introductory-statistics-material)</comment></comment>


A thought experiment: serial vs parallel - <AUTHOR> http://clipperhouse.com/blog/post/A-thought-experiment-serial-vs-parallel.aspx

<comment><USER2> Just look to all of our modern operating systems to see what they try to do to provide "liquid" service. Even on a single processor, tasks are switched frequently to give pseudo parallelism, so that all the tasks can stay responsive (especially important for user interfaces).

</comment><comment><USER3> Welcome to the wonderful world of queueing theory (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory>).</comment>


Inside Twitter's Long, Slow Struggle to Police Bad Actors - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-twitters-long-slow-struggle-to-police-bad-actors-1535972402 <comment><USER2> > _On Aug. 14 the company did suspend Mr. Jones for seven days after CNN > flagged tweets to the company. Many staffers viewed that as a half measure > and complained that the firm hadn't acted decisively. Mr. Jones's account > has since been restored._

Wow, did not know it was _CNN_ that flagged the Jones post which got him suspended for 7 days.

<comment><USER3> That's the implication but I'm not sure that's technically what happened. I think CNN incited their readers to report the tweets they highlighted, which is more or less the same kind of thing but adds the plausible deniability of hiding behind an algorithm.

Someone at the hearing should ask did someone at Twitter make an editorial decision based on CNNs reporting?

<comment><USER4> > which is more or less the same kind of thing but adds the plausible > deniability of hiding behind an algorithm.

Bay of Pigs on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://archive.is/J3kIj](http://archive.is/J3kIj)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is it so hard to codify "Don't be a dick"?

I've seen some highly toxic accounts on Twitter promoting hate, rape and death, and despite being reported, they continue to spread their vitriol.

It's saddening to think of what could have been; if frequently-visited places with organic subcultures like YouTube or 4chan had implemented some basic, sane moderation from the beginning, they could have far exceeded any of the popular social networks of today.

<comment><USER7> It's not as easy as it seems. People assume we're in favor of the worst things that appear on HN, when in reality we don't see most of it and certainly aren't in favor. And HN is orders of magnitude smaller than Twitter.

<comment><USER8> Well, you do a fine job. It's one of the few places I can come and participate in interesting conversations with adults acting intelligently. Thanks for the great work!

<comment><USER7> Thanks! I can't imagine having to deal with the equivalent problems at Twitter's or Reddit's or Facebook's scale. To me it seems likely that no one knows how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Removing bots and accounts unconnected to an individual should be the priority. Police the mechanisms not the content.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _Twitter and rival Facebook are increasingly caught in a Catch-22 > situation—criticized by some users for allowing hateful posts, but blasted > by others for removing content because it curtails free speech._

I don't think this is an accurate framing of the problem. What people want is _consistency_. If you want to ban people for being fringe, obnoxious or worse, you need to do it regardless of who they are.

What happens is one side of the political spectrum gets their worst actors banned while caustic tweeters on the other side of the isle can often be found with blue verification checkmarks (and _unchecked_ aggressive tweets).

Imho Dorsey was correct in not wanting to ban Jones and Spencer because that's more consistent with how the far-left is treated.

<comment><USER11> Who would you consider a visible far-left figure that ought to be banned who hasn't been, and why?

<comment><USER12> We can begin here: [https://tinyurl.com/y8rk9yjn](https://tinyurl.com/y8rk9yjn)

I personally reported many accounts, including an antifa group that called for killing cops and white peoples to no avail. At the same time twitter bans people for sharing news about job growth. Go figure.

<comment><USER11> It's possible to find literally any opinion on twitter. What's the magnitude of this problem compared to Alex Jones' active disparagement of the parents of victims of mass shootings?

<comment><USER3> How would such magnitude even be measured? Subjectively, perhaps legally?

<comment><USER13> It's pretty straightforward. Twitter even offers it as a feature for your own tweets, something called Tweet Activity (the bar chart icon on every one of your own tweets).

The specific stats e.g. impressions, engagements, detail expands, clicks, replies, etc. are all measured. And that's just what's exposed to us. Twitter doubtless has more than that on hand.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Amazon's problem with cheap knockoffs got so bad - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bills/2016/12/how_amazon_s_problem_with_cheap_knockoffs_got_so_bad.html <comment><USER2> Amazon's problem? It's the trademark holders that have a problem with the surfeit of counterfeit stuff out there. Amazon is just fine, thanks to suitably written Safe Harbor laws.</comment>


China's destructive laser rifle has a half-mile range - <AUTHOR> https://www.popsci.com/china-laser-rifle-energy-weapon?src=SOC&dom=tw <comment><USER2> Things like this have been at the prototype stage at Sandia since the 1990s. When I started reading the article I started imagining how you would package a fiber laser and battery and when I saw the picture it looked like I'd imagined.

That weapon is fielded and it fires 2 second pulses. Prototype weapons in the U.S. fire much faster pulses that vaporize the first millimeter or so of your skin or clothing and produce an effect similar to a "flashbang"; once the air ionizes it absorbs the tail end of the pulse, the expanding gases create a physical impact that can knock you down.</comment>


Clojure Linear Algebra Refresher – Matrix Transformations - <AUTHOR> http://dragan.rocks/articles/17/Clojure-Linear-Algebra-Refresher-Matrix-Transformations <comment><USER2> 1 point by dragandj 7 hours ago | parent [-] | on: Clojure Linear Algebra Refresher (3) – Matrix Tran...

This is part 3 of a series.

The first part can be found here: Clojure Linear Algebra Refresher (1) - Vector Spaces

[http://dragan.rocks/articles/17/Clojure-Linear-Algebra- Refre...](http://dragan.rocks/articles/17/Clojure-Linear-Algebra-Refresher- Vector-Spaces)

The second part is here:

[http://dragan.rocks/articles/17/Clojure-Linear-Algebra- Refre...](http://dragan.rocks/articles/17/Clojure-Linear-Algebra-Refresher- Eigenvalues-and-Eigenvectors)

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I missing something here or does the article open with a false statement:

       Consider a Clojure function (fn [x] (+ (* x x) 4)).
       The set of allowed values for x is called the domain
       of the function. For value 2, for example, the result
       is 16. We say that the image of 2 is 16.

As far as I can see the image of 2 is 8 for that function - and I don't even program in Clojure. A Clojure repl [1] agrees:

       >  (defn squaredplusfour[x] (+ (* x x) 4))
       #'sandbox11276/squaredplusfour
       > (squaredplusfour 2)
       8

     [1] http://www.tryclj.com/

<comment><USER4> Yep looks like a simple mistake.

> and I don't even program in Clojure

Congrats, you just did! :)</comment></comment>


Embedmd: embed code into markdown and keep everything in sync - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/campoy/embedmd <comment> chad-autry I had the exact requirement embedmd was made to solve several months ago and ended up creating my own ([https://github.com/chad-autry/relative-file- inliner](https://github.com/chad-autry/relative-file-inliner) if interested). However, after using it briefly I realized I prefer to edit everything directly in the markdwon so I really wanted the reverse. Ended up making

[https://github.com/chad-autry/markdown-code- extractor](https://github.com/chad-autry/markdown-code-extractor)

It extracts code blocks preceded by a relative link a file given by the relative link.</comment>


Show HN: I Made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius - <AUTHOR> https://quili.us <comment><AUTHOR> Reposting, as I think I messed up my timing yesterday.

Hi HN! This is a Thanksgiving holiday project I made, inspired by a Robin Sloan novel and the whole "X for Y" thing getting a bit silly :)

It's rough right now, because I wanted to launch something rather than obsess like I usually do.

I'd love to hear what you think!</comment>


How to stop a story from appearing on Reddit (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://corte.si/posts/socialmedia/reddit-story-dos.html

<comment><USER2> Submitting a story with a bad title would make for a similar, if weaker, exploit for Hacker News.

A key to this would be to make the title boring rather than offensive so that it doesn't get flagged but rather slips off "new" into oblivion. You can also use a handy chart [1] to pick the worst time to post. As a bonus you'll also get karma from all the people legitimately trying to submit the story.

A pertinent question: can you come up with a sufficiently boring title for any story?

[1] [http://nathanael.hevenet.com/the-best-time-to-post-on- hacker...](http://nathanael.hevenet.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-hacker-news- a-comprehensive-answer/)

<comment><USER3> HN's dupe detector is so weak that you can just add ?reposting or something to the URL and it will get another chance.

<comment><USER4> People (like me) notice this, and don't appreciate it.

<comment><USER5> When you think it through completely, you'll see there's good reason for the dupe detector to be lenient. In the early days of HN (or earlier, as "Startup News"), avoiding dupes was more important since the rate of submissions to the /newest queue was fairly slow. These days, the rate of submissions is very brisk, so a lot of really great stuff floats by basically unnoticed. Allowing for a second chance actually makes sense.

If you have "Show Dead" on, you'll see there are a lot of people submitting who have their submissions immediately marked [dead]. If you've studied how HN is built, you'll see pg (et al) tends to follow an "Enough Rope" design policy -- this is from the old expression "Give him enough rope to hang himself, and he will." It seems if you intentionally and repeatedly abuse the lenient dupe detector to promote something, you will be noticed, silently, and handled accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is very incorrect.

Things get stuck in the spam filter all the time for a variety of reasons independent of keywords in the title. Multiple accounts, new accounts, or something else can trigger it. In any event, most moderators are really swift to free up things that aren't spam and otherwise comply with that subreddit's rules.

This evil plan falls apart quite rapidly because when a story is freed from the spam filter it jumps to the top of the new queue regardless of its age. This is why you'll sometimes see something that's an hour old sandwiched between submissions that are minutes old.

TL;DR I need to get off reddit and do some work.

<comment><USER7> You do realise this post is from 2010, and it was on the front page of Reddit and HN back then, so it wouldn't be hard to think that someone may have fixed it since then!

<comment><USER6> No, I didn't realize it was from 2010.

My comment still stands though: this post is incorrect. It may have been correct way back in the day when I was a Digg user, but now it's wrong.

A lot of people, like me, won't read the date of the post and will assume that this is still how reddit works. My comment illustrates how reddit works today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can append something like ?foo=1 to submit a new URL.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if HN should permit duplicate URLs. Maybe with a message saying that the URL has already been posted and asking if you're sure you want to double post (I think that might be what Reddit does?).

</comment><comment><USER10> As long as people are smarter than the algorithms, this is a danger. It's like bizarro SEO in that way.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember when we used to just be able to append ?x to the url and it allowed duplicates.

<comment><USER12> I believe you still can - works on HN and reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mallory's a guy?

<comment><USER14> I had always thought Mallory was the female name and Mallet was the male name for the second attacker. I did a little digging and it seems that Mallory is primarily a girl's name it can also be a boy's name.</comment></comment>


I Listen to 35 Hours of Podcasts Every Week. Is That Bad? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/what-is-listening-to-podcasts-all-day-doing-to-my-brain.html <comment><USER2> I have definitely filled my commute time with more podcasts and audio books in an attempt to learn new skills. I do agree though that having the quiet time is nice to just think or unwind for the day.

I have a podcast with just nature sounds I use when I need to drown out the noise on the train.</comment>


Ask HN: Whats your digest/newsfeed like? What do you read? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Lots of technical papers. Pre print servers such as Bioarxiv and PeerJ are great. As are traditional journals such as Nature, Cell and Science Advances. And MIT Tech Review, Quanta Mag, NYT Science, etc for longform pieces.

The future of this sort of "feed" may lie in short form, digestible video bites. Which can be distributed via compact html5 video. Bloomberg's TicToc is a good example of this for financial and business news. In 5 minutes, you should be able to get caught up on all the stories of the day.

And there is certainly an opportunity to generate video summaries via machine learning ;)

[https://twitter.com/tictoc](https://twitter.com/tictoc)

</comment><comment><USER3> I read HN exclusively. Sometime the gist is in comments and sometimes I check the submission. I research anything of interest and new stuff I have a no clue about.

Edit)

PS: Unfortunately I have no one to share anything I find. 0 peers nor friends

<comment><USER4> If you ever find yourself in that situation you can share it with me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recently I set up a python script as an RSS feed for the sites I like:

The Outline: real good journalism for the 21st century

The Verge: good for tech updates, but kind of click baity. I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Polygon: sister site of Verge about video games, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, so I like it more.

Scientific American: makes scientific papers (mostly about philosophy and the mind) really accessible. They seem to try too hard to be trendy though (eg: recent articles on BTC).

Hacker News: less for actual news and more for well articulated opinions on the news. Favorite site to visit after an Apple keynote.

<comment><USER6> If this is real good journalism I guess it's time to just move to a cabin in the woods and call it quits for society.

The one thing I want is an outlet that knows to shut up if they don't have anything interesting to say. Having a class of people attempt to do this as a daily job seems pointless in this day and age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have recently stopped reading any kind of news. As a result I find that my mind is lot less cluttered. I have realized that once you give it up, you don't really miss it a lot.

<comment><USER8> How do you keep up with news related to your job?

I've stopped following news-news (political, world, etc.) but I still follow a number of tech sites and blogs so I don't miss anything important.

<comment><USER7> Checking HN now and then. Talking to folks at workplace. That seems to be enough for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I built a collection of feeds over the last few years, originally using Feedly; Nowadays I access my collection of RSS using Reeder on my Mac and my iPhone (because of the sync between devices - but any similar client would do).

The feeds are grouped by category, for instance:

\- Journals (various machine learning stuff)

\- Music (MetalSucks, etc.)

\- Politics (mostly think tanks and political publications)

\- Tech (Verge, Ars, Wired, HN, The Register...)

\- Web dev (Smashing mag, Google, Mozilla...)

\- Local News (Norwegian news)

Other categories include world news, privacy, NGOs, infosec, games, economics, popsci, compsci, etc.

<comment><USER10> This is interesting. Can I subscribe to your feed?

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry, but I don't know how I'd make it available for others; It's not _a_ feed, but just basically just a bunch of RSS feeds that I've categorized into my reader's equivalent of folders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's an organic mess that mostly works.

Lots and lots of art and comic strips through RSS (inherited from Google Reader <sadface.jpg> and read through Newsblur) and instagram, a few google alerts that are more often false-positives (which is fine, my search terms can't be any more precise), some IFTT recipes pulling from HN and twitter, personal blogs from authors I like.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use and recommend Inoreader.

I follow a few sites uncategorized longread sites like:

\- Aeon

\- Nautilus

\- Ribbonfarm

For tech news, I follow:

\- Ars Technica

\- TechCrunch

\- Recode

\- Hackaday

\- A tech multi-reddit subscribed to ~10 tech-related subreddits

I update my tech news feed every 6 months or so. I'm overdue for an update.

I also have a food feed, which follows various recipe sites and cooking blogs.

I try to read through Inoreader and reddit once per day.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anybody have a personal dashboard/consolidation of their newsfeeds?

</comment><comment><USER13> I built an aggregator that pulls links from my Twitter feed [https://thefeed.press](https://thefeed.press)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://virwire.com](https://virwire.com) for breaking news

</comment><comment><USER15> Redef is a great aggregator across tech, media, fashion and sports.

Otherwise, just HN</comment>


Ask HN: Can I have your feedback on the consulting website? - <AUTHOR>

I am starting out on consulting after working 5 years plus in fulltime job as software developer. I am positioning my personal website to be the face of my freelancer self.
I would love your feedback on the website (www.mohitranka.com), specifically on
Incorporate all the information (www.mohitranka.com/work)
I have done fulltime job projects, side projects on github/bitbucket and few freelance gigs. How can I incorporate all of the information in concise manner.
Workflow
Ideally, I'd like the potential client to land on the homepage, go through /work (and be impressed) and then move to /hire to see if there if synergy and contact me.
How do I make the webpages to follow this workflow?
Impression
Most importantly, does the website leaves you with positive impression about me? Would you like to hire someone who has this kind of website?
Listing my rates openly (www.mohitranka.com/hire#rate)
This is in effort to be transparent, as well as to avoid negotiation( I suck at it!). What do you think about this approach? One obvious downfall is that the client may have issues disclosing how much they are paying me. Do you think it is the right approach or should I remove rates from the page?
Thanks for your time and patience! :) <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [http://www.mohitranka.com/](http://www.mohitranka.com/)

[http://www.mohitranka.com/work/](http://www.mohitranka.com/work/)

[http://www.mohitranka.com/hire/](http://www.mohitranka.com/hire/)

</comment><comment><USER2> On [http://www.mohitranka.com/work/](http://www.mohitranka.com/work/) the 'Projects' could benefit from screenshots.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of the projects are backend scripts (and not website). I did couple of websites (now dead, unfortunately) in a freelance gig. I will add those screenshots.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would add some images. I would hire a designer. Make it look a little more polished. You might network with a designer and add a package. Might want to add some lead capture.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is a lead capture? (FWIW, I have put funnel tracking in Google analytics, if that is what you are implying).

Point taken about making the website look more polished.

Any feedback on the specific queries?

Thanks for your time and feedback. It really helps! :)

<comment><USER3> A form the capture a lead. in your case a person looking to request information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. I have my email address posted there, but I suppose it is not prominent enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You could add an incentive. like an ebook for your customers about things to look for in a consulting company.</comment>


IBM | Apple | Google | Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www79.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=IBM+Apple+Google+Microsoft

<comment><USER2> the growth of apple is insane. If an analyst had predicted in 2000 that apple would have a bigger market cap than microsoft some day, he would have been fired on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER3> As for me, I like Apple!</comment>


1 company, $1 billion+ of VC investment, 0 products, 0 revenue - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/2011/01/700-million-investment-turns-uk-invention-into-plasticski-logicski/

<comment><USER2> As far as I am aware Plastic Logic was never a product company, they were a technology company.

They had to produce the Que because no partners believed the technology worked at scale - they wanted to see an actual product created. This in itself was a huge culture shock for a technology company to have to suddenly sweat product details.

And so far the technology hasn't worked in a scalable manner, but this is a matter of time and capital.

eReaders were an interesting choice, when Plastic Logic decided on this the iPad was non-existent and the only eReaders were crappy Sony ones, by the time they managed to launch it the market was far more mature and expectations of what a product had to do to be good had sky rocketed.

You're probably wondering what other products their plastic technology can be used in, it is very diverse in reality - eventually plastic logic will have electronic paper for the same price as regular paper. Imagine if medicine labels updated on the fly with reminders, recommendations and guidelines. Posters on the wall changed over the air rather than needing to be reprinted, etc etc. Futuristic stuff _in theory_.

It is very easy to criticise a a company for raising so much capital and never launching anything - but what they are doing is ridiculously futuristic - literal hard technology that'll impact every persons life in the long run.

I wonder if the early investors like Hermann Hauser and Amadeus have made any money from this yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could argue that it was a technology company that had to become a product company and got very distracted in the process. From the evidence that we have so far OEMs were probably right to hold off to ensure that electronics could be produced at scale. This seems to have been a key issue for them in launching the Que where the company had to focus on manufacturing but also running a number of product driven startups as per my comment.

I would never criticise a company for raising too much money though I would be inclined to query the wisdom of an early stage investor who thought that they would get a return.

<comment><USER2> I think you are entirely correct, I think the Que could simply be described as a product desperately in search of a problem to solve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Rusnano - is state owned Russian corporation headed by a close friend of Putin and an oligarch Anatoly Chubais. This is basically a shell company created to steal taxpayers money. Everyone knows it and there is lots of jokes about these "nano technologies". So be sure that out of 1 billion ,big chunk of it was in kickbacks to company's execs and middle managers.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is less about kick backs, more about the phenomenal cost of setting up new fabs.

Creating a new manufacturing industry is very expensive.

<comment><USER4> >Creating a new manufacturing industry is very expensive.

:)))

man, you just don't get how Russian nanotechnology business works. It uses completely different technological process. Let me explain step-by-step:

step 1: i invest into your venture 1B of government money i manage

step 2: you transfer back to my personal Switzerland account (not to my government fund) 500M.

Repeat until there is government money available.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the clarification. Sounds a bit like being a VC in a large fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry if I ask a stupid question -- what the heck are plastic electronics? The article doesn't do much to explain what that means... Some specifics and examples would help a lot. Also, you mention iPad as a competitor, but it's not clear how and why.

<comment><USER6> "polymer transistors and electronics"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Logic>

<comment><USER5> If so, how does this make the iPad a competitor?

<comment><USER7> They were making an iPad like product and have announced it way before the iPad was announced. But now that looks sort of sunk. As a consumer product it doesn't look like they'll be able to pull it off. But their technology seems fantastic and can make them a successful company lower on the supply chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> just for clarification: their production plant is in _Dresden_ [1], not in _Munich_.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Saxony>

<comment><AUTHOR> You got me banged to rights! Apologies, I was looking into flying to Munich for the weekend just before I wrote this. Munich on my brain!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I am not mistaken, Plastic Logic is licensing their technology for the Barnes and Nobles Nook, right? If thats the case, then having an end product such as 'Que' doesn't seem as profitable as making money on just licensing the IP.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 69 points! Perfect score.

</comment><comment><USER10> it's companies like this that make it that much harder for the rest of us to raise capital. Not that I know a lot of VCs, but the ones I do know all require a working business model before investing. How were they planning on making money on this?

<comment><USER2> Their business model is straight forward, if they can pull their technology off they have just created an entire industry that could spawn a whole new generation of electronics companies.

The difficulty is making the technology work, and you're kidding yourself if you think investors in this kind of company look at deals any smaller than the kinds of Plastic Logic bets.</comment></comment>


Former Google engineer builds Turntable clone - <AUTHOR> http://evolver.fm/2011/08/02/former-google-engineer-builds-turntable-fm-clone-rolling-fm/

<comment><USER2> Ah, the "German Copy/Paste" move taken to perfection ([http://techcrunch.com/2007/05/14/web-2-in-germany-copy- paste...](http://techcrunch.com/2007/05/14/web-2-in-germany-copy-paste- innovation-or-more/)). IMHO, there is not shame in being inspired by other services or products and to copy features, but blatantly copying someone straight up feels dishonest.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting HTML comments from the source after you log in with Facebook:

        <!--25 people. 3 Google, 2 Columbia, 2 NYU, 10 New Yorkers ; tribe designation...? -->

        <!-- concept of the crowd : what the crowd looks like: 'oh a bunch of old people in this restaurant... fuck that'. oh mostly college-age kids who go to NYU -->

</comment><comment><USER4> Truly bizarre. A straight up clone of the entire service, no detail too small to be copied. Id hoped to find that the developers had tried something new with the format. I'd love to see a similar service where everyone in the room somehow collaborates on the playlist rather than requiring 5 people to take turns picking one song.

<comment><USER5> There's one noticeable difference for me: I can use it, living outside the US.

<comment><USER6> Oh, give it some weeks to flourish before RIAA will strike. And I bet they will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why build a clone instead of creating something original? Oh, it's a "social media advertising startup" ... $$$

Now the Grupon hype is over, people start copying other things. I think it's time for some more original concepts than just clones, copies and meetoos.

</comment><comment><USER7> The next step is to open-source it.</comment>


Japan Buries Our Most-Cherished Economic Ideas - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-03/japan-buries-our-most-cherished-economic-ideas <comment><USER2> i love stories like this.

economists. think you're so smart.</comment>


Automation has the potential to improve gender equality at work - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/automation-has-the-potential-to-improve-gender-equality-at-work-96807 <comment><USER2> 0 = 0

<comment><USER3> Who makes/fixes the robots?

<comment><USER2> The robots.</comment></comment></comment>


Idea: Custom On-Demand Clothing. How, or Why Not? - <AUTHOR> http://jabas-unblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/custom-on-demand-clothing.html <comment><USER2> Because most people can recognize when something looks good, but they cannot actually create something that looks good.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't matter. People always think that their own designs are good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There isn't a service that can do what you are asking for, yet. The big difficulties lie in the vast differences in body sizes, measuring systems, and other variables that fashion companies have to deal with that the LuLu's and Zazzle's of the world don't.

Some companies offer customization, but very few to the level you describe. www.Propercloth.com just recently launched and they allow you to have custom shirts made. They even provide a Rosetta stone to compare shirts sizes from various manufacturers, but no one will take specs like the ones you provided and create a garment. at least not in an automated, cost effective way.

If this is an area you are interested in check out my blog (www.replicatorinc.com) it is focused on mass customization and on demand manufacturing. When a company like the one you are interested in launches you'll read about it there.

</comment><comment><USER5> My friends and I have been looking into textiles lately to make our own designs for simple striped shirts. From what I've gathered, you need to first find a place that will make your fabric design, and then send the fabric to a place along with a pattern to have it turned into a shirt or whatever. I imagine the hardest part of clothing design is in finding cheap, quality suppliers and keeping a reliable relationship with them.

<comment><USER6> Our situations and goals may be totally different; nonehtless, here is another approach:

1\. find recycled clothes at dollar-a-pound thrift-esque stores or simply ask your friends for their old goods.

2\. reverse engineer existing clothes into patterns by de-stiching them, or make your own patterns through trial and error.

essentially: you can learn to sew if you want, it just takes time to get good (like any skill). it's quite fun. the biggest expense is the initial sewing machine, though reuse and craigslist and community centers can solve that, too.

My advice is to take the long view and keep your expectations reasonable.

Start small: add pockets to pants, patch knee holes, add a hood to a jacket, add dinosaur plates to a hood.

Hack clothes together: sew together squares of fabric to make pant legs or a shirt. recycle a pants top that already fits your waste so you don't have to muck with zippers and crotches yet. you can use pants tops to make the tops of shirts with. my last project was weaving together two pairs of jeans that I'd cut into horizontal and vertical strips.

Finally, make clothes from (recycled) scratch. my husband made my wedding dress from recycled jeans--it's the best formal wear I've ever had. I'm still working up to this level of skill, and he's still working to get to the next level. He's making a long winter coat now.

If I turn these into instructables soon I'll post back. Good luck and have fun expressing yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most of existing on-demand stores for books, shoes etc. offer you only few choices. You can't really decide every detail of the product. The process of designing in a restriction free system can't be done by checking boxes and insering measurements. It has to be either a dialog between the designer and the producer or a detailed sewing pattern, together with drawings etc.

I think this idea is only limited scaleable - I presume it is not much cheaper to produce one unique item or 1000.

On the other hand, I could see something like threadless emerge for designs in general: They'd partner with "real" designers and produce small series of each piece and sell it until it's gone. Something in between etsy and threadless.

<comment><USER6> yup. I was just about to suggest etsy. i particularly recommend <a href="<http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5400084>">stormcloudbringrainbows. i know the guy, and he meets with people regularly to take measurements. he'll work with you on the design if you're interested, but as far as i know not many people actually are other than vague ideas.

i started sewing my own clothing a year or two ago. i recently got past patching and hacking on recycled clothing, and i'm definitely still learning. it's a great way to express oneself, but you have to take the long view. at first it's crap.

i can see why someone would want an intimate process with a real designer and sewer to make quality clothes sooner. i applaud that instinct. consumerism is taking people's souls and craftmanship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've always wanted a service where I could submit my measurements and preferences and just have a whole wardrobe generated for me. In particular, I hate buying long sleeve shirts because if the sleeves are the right length, then the torso isn't! Medium? Large? What ever happened to centimeters?

I think if you took a Netflix sort of approach, you could actually have a wide selection of sizes and styles. Manufacturing a wide variety is expensive, but those processes are already accustom to changing (with the style trends). The real issue is retail space.

<comment><USER9> The service you're asking for is traditionally provided by tailors.

This is rather common for dress shirts and suits. There are also online stores for dress shirts where you can submit measurements and have you shirt send to you a few weeks later. Check out <http://www.tailorstore.com> for an example.

However, measurement is a tricky issue: It's sounds simple but, in fact, it takes some experience to get it right.

For a long sleeve shirts, you probably have to go to a local tailor. The core problem here is to find a good one.

You may like to check <http://www.styleforum.net> to find sources for these kind of services. The streetware section is probably your best bet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to see the rare but useful types of clothing become more available. Like long sleeved shirts that attach to your fingers to keep them in place but leave your hands free ( example [http://www.boxofmovies.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/prince...](http://www.boxofmovies.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/08/princess_mononoke_007.jpg) ) I don't know of any place to buy shirts that do that, nevermind having enough selection to get the other qualities I want, and custom clothing is way out of my budget.

</comment><comment><USER11> i thought this was mainly an issue of demand and economies of scale...

out of ignorance, how high is the demand for custom clothing?? and i have a feeling marketing efforts would be directed at keeping this demand low so that manufacturers can take advantage of their economies of scale to mass produce clothing..

</comment><comment><USER12> My husband works in the fashion industry so I think I can provide a reasonably good answer as to why on-demand clothing isn't particularly feasible.

The way the industry works is, there are a few (much fewer than you think) vertically integrated companies that makes all our clothing. Let me illustrate what I mean by vertically integrated by explaining what my husband's company does.

Basically, they make stuff such as men's shirts under every imaginable label from lower end such as private label at J.C. Penney to mid-market brands like Nautica to up-market brands like Thomas Pink. They own the process _completely_ , from growing the cotton to making the fabric to putting the shirts together in Asia to shipping into warehouses in the US to saying when the shirts go on sale. Other than labels providing a license (e.g. Calvin Klein granting the exclusive rights to make shirts under their label) and Macy's providing the floor space (Macy's being the same company as Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor, Filene's, Marchall Field's, etc), they do _everything_.

As you can imagine, when you have a few companies covering every fashion category sold at practically every store, you have almost perfect efficiency. The cost savings for vertically integrated, economies-of-scale companies like my husband's are enormous to the point where you could never get anywhere close to the low, low prices they are able to charge.

So what you are left with is selling your custom stuff at price points that put you in the same category as designer clothing (often accompanied by free alterations) and custom tailoring. And why would someone buy a slightly customized cheap shirt/jeans/whatever when for the same money, they can buy an upmarket designer item, or have it tailor-made?

I am not saying you can't have some niche categories where you do customization. Cafe Press does pretty good with t-shirts. I just don't think there is a positive answer to your question, "How can I give my designer friends the ability to do low-volume production cost-effectively".

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like he wants a dressing gown, or maybe a slanket.

The Left Foot Company have been doing a similar thing with shoes for a number of years, you get your feet scanned in one of their shops, and then choose styles on the website and they are made to fit your feet, robotically. Except, they got to try them. ( <https://shop.leftfootcompany.com/2007/Process.aspx> )

I don't know why it's impractical for an etailer to be an etailor, but I guess the current system of basing clothes sizes on a couple of measurements which vary between brands and styles would have to become much more specific before it would work well.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are many sites that already do this. Since custom is much more expensive and prices still need to be competitive, most sites don't very well. If you search google for "custom online __item__", you'll have thousands of hits.

Custom shirt maker - <http://www.adrienlemaux.com/>

Custom dress maker - <http://www.dressbydesign.com//>

</comment><comment><USER15> Sounds like he needs a sewing machine and a few lessons.</comment>


How to email journalists without wasting their time - <AUTHOR> http://www.promoterapp.com/blog/how-to-email-journalists

<comment><USER2> Apart from the points that you mentioned in your posts, that are commendable and actionable, one should try to get into radar of the journalist by following him on Twitter and replying to his latest tweets.

What I think is as App development takes time, therefore, meanwhile one is developing his app, he/she should make a list of potential journalist that he/she is going to send email later.

After making that list, consider following them on Twitter, reply to their tweets for quiet some time and then if you will send email to them, your odds of getting through increases.</comment>