Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants - <AUTHOR> http://www.chompstack.com

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.chompstack.com>

We all know how mobile unfriendly restaurant websites tend to be. Many of them are done in Flash, and don't work at all on most phones. Others force you to download PDF menus which take forever to load and have an annoying tendency to lock up my phone.

The irony, of course, is that I'm _most_ likely to be looking at restaurant websites on my phone, when I'm around town looking for an interesting place to eat. There's nothing more frustrating than pulling up a restaurant website, only to see a Flash page that doesn't work, or a desktop website that you have to pinch, zoom, and scroll your way around.

I built ChompStack to make it easier for restaurants to create mobile friendly versions of their websites.

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I feel like our biggest challenge with this service is getting in touch with restaurant owners and convincing them of the value of having a mobile website, most of them don't seem to be particularly interested in technology.

<comment><USER2> Instead of charging a flat setup or monthly fee, have you thought about pivoting your business model so that customers can order through your app, and you charge a percentage fee to the restaurant owner?

I think skeptical restaurant owners would choose that no-risk option, and you'd probably make more money. Restaurant owners who think it'll be successful in making sales would probably be willing to pay a decent sum per month.

I agree with the other commenter that you are probably not charging enough. I think this kind of service has high value if it can demonstrably increase sales.

<comment><USER3> Forget online ordering, just sell lead generation. I could sell your service to my local clients but not easily for 15/month. If you tracked leads you could easily sell your service on commissions alone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean lead generation to potential restaurants, like an affiliate setup?

Or lead generation for restaurant customers?

<comment><USER4> In this context it almost certainly means "We filled 68 tables for you this month. That has obvious monetary value to you. Pay us and we will continue delighting you."

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I'm not sure how we could directly correlate mobile website hits with actual customer visits. Although being able to record those metrics would be a great selling point.

OpenTable/Groupon has an advantage there since they have a very direct method of measurement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bummer, your demo requires Flash which means I can't view it on my iPad. Shouldn't your site be mobile friendly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Touché. :)

We'll put up a HTML5 video version too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, the demo now loads HTML5 video for you iPad folks. The styling is a bit weird and the video doesn't autoplay, but whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks really well executed. I would definitely do some legwork on the operator front. I tackled this same problem about 2 years ago and found that operators simply aren't able to understand the need for this type of service (maybe it was the timing). Keep in mind that many don't have a website and some don't even use email, so explaining why they need a "mobile" website makes for a potentially hard sale.

Someone discussed online ordering as a possible revenue model, from my experiences with operators they weren't interested in this approach. Most orders they received over the phone would involve customization and the cost of handling order problems simply outweighed the benefit of not requiring their bartender to take an order over the phone. However, I could see this being big for chinese restaurants. Most customers order by number, and many chinese restaurants are carry out exclusively. Remove potential language barriers during order taking, increase total ordering, win-win.

Anyway, best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

I agree, the biggest challenge is with operator awareness. Most restaurant owner's priorities look something like this:

1) Food 2) Service ... 9544) Website

My hope is that with the mobile internet growing as it is, more restaurant folks will begin to understand that their customers are using their phones to look up restaurants, and showing them an empty Flash page or making them download huge menu PDFs is immensely frustrating and delivers a poor customer experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Strong idea and well executed so far. I know the pain point well.

Not so sure you're appealing to the right target market. It's hard to see this within the HN echo chamber but your site still comes across as _very_ techie. It's clear how your service will help people like us, smartphone-wielding techies, but we don't run restaurants.

You should be targeting restaurant owners, executive chefs and general managers. These people are super busy and extremely tech-averse. They will shut off their brains instead of trying to understand anything even slightly technical about phones, Flash, web, etc. So get rid of that stuff. Instead show how they can get more customers by presenting their food and experience to people who are out in their neighborhood and hungry right now. And show how they can do this with near-zero hassle.

Messages like these might work: You're losing customers! X% of people are already out and about when they decide to eat. Y% of restaurant websites are broken on phones (use this instead of "Top 4 problems..."). Fancy phone = the income and connections to be prime customers.

Get rid of everything that doesn't clearly and directly support your main value proposition within the domain of your target market. For example the "Did you know?" section has only one relevant point ("14% of smartphone users look for restaurants...") and it hurts you because the number is small.

Test everything, including our comments. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Our thought with the sidebars was to help educate restaurants about the growth of the mobile internet, and potential problems they might not know about on their own website that might be frustrating their customers.

I agree that framing the problem more in terms of 'you're losing customers' could work better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Imagining myself as a restaurant owner, I'm confused as to how this would integrate with my existing website. Does it replace it? How do people get to the mobile version?

I suspect you have plans to move to the desktop web, too -- seems like it'd be great for restaurant owners to have a one-stop shop for all of their website needs.

Restaurant websites are definitely all over the place in terms of quality and accessibility -- seems like a solid market. Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think we need to make this more clear on our features page. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting idea. I made an attempt to vet a similar idea in the spring of 2009, so maybe my experience can help you out:

In order to prove or disprove the concept without actually building out any kind of CMS or infrastructure, I set up a marketing site and some demo restaurant mobile sites (really good looking stuff built on jQTouch). Next step was to build prospect lists with every OpenTable restaurant in a handful of Ohio cities (I live in SF now, but was in Cincinnati at the time) and do a ton of cold calling.

After hundreds of pitches at different price points, I only managed to sell a few at $49/year and decided not to pursue any further. Having little prior sales experience (sold CUTCO as a high schooler) was a problem for me. Timing is crucial and being too early was another likely inhibitor. Figuring out the best sales channel is may be your biggest challenge. Along with how best to pitch the restaurants, who are not traditional early adopters.

I'll be keeping an eye on you guys. Best of luck!!

<comment><USER9> Thanks for your feedback! This sounds precisely like what we're encountering right now: restaurants are uncertain why people would want to see their site on a phone and how it increases their bottom line. We'd like to educate them and show them that customer discovery = ROI, but we're not sure how to evaluate that in our context. Some people here have suggested success stories, which we think is fantastic.

<comment><USER10> It should be possible to log when a customer calls through the (app-provided) phone number to the restaurant.

You could also offer to store a contact for the restaurant.

Google voice is free, each restaurant could use a call to GV as a way to track leads generated by your app.

<comment><USER9> Ah that's brilliant! Love it. We could definitely track calls and maybe directions as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea. Execution looks solid, feature set is solid. Now go sell, sell, sell.

My thought: your target market likely maintains both a nice printed menu and potentially a leaner "take-out" menu. The reason for the PDF menu is (I'm guessing) that's what they got back from their designer for the printer, and it's going onto good stock, getting laminated, etc.

One stumbling block might be that it's yet another place to have to maintain their menu/prices. If ChompStack could spit out a simplified take-out menu (or the daily special insert in the menu) they could print, that might reduce some of that effort. Or maybe a "patchfile" they can send off when they update their prices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting idea... my initial thought is that restaurants generally like to have nice customized menu designs. But then again, maybe not, maybe they'd rather just be able to input all of their data and get back a simple, usable design without much effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very nice implementation, and clear market.

A friend has been talking about doing this for along time, as it is consistently felt that most restaurants do a horrible job with websites.

However, I wonder if focusing only on the mobile side of things is the right way to go.

I agree you've got yourself a market, but should a restaurant need to be updating two websites? If the same info is valid on both, why not provide a different css for non-mobile and be a one stop shop for restuarants.

You may also be able to provide some other related services which may provide a network effect and possibly a slight barrier to entry for competitors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great observation. That is definitely on our roadmap.

Of course most restaurants already do have websites, so getting them to add a simple redirect to a mobile version might be an easier task than asking them to dump their entire existing website.

But I definitely agree, for new restaurants that don't already have a website, being able to build a desktop + mobile version with the same tool is very compelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is well-done.

I'm working on a similar project, and one thing I'd like to point out is that menus are not _always_ simple databases. There are several menus that have paragraphs of information that relates to several menu items rather than just one. How are you planning on translating that information to a mobile application, if at all? I'm trying to find a good example of this "paragraph of extraneous info" from menus in a Google Search - I'll get back to you when I can.

<comment><USER14> I know what you're talking about, but do you think mobile sites could possibly get away with not displaying that 'extra' information? Especially considering screen real estate on mobile devices is fairly limited.

If it is absolutely necessary, it seems like it would be fairly easy to have that show up when you select a section. That could get complicated if there are multiple paragraphs within a section (i.e. one for burgers and one for chicken sandwiches, but both of those are under "sandwiches"). You could just limit it to one description per category, though.

<comment><USER13> <http://www.itservices.ws/websites/portales/menu2.htm>

This is one menu that presents the type of problem I'm talking about. The line that worries me is "All entrees come with salad bar," which reflects on every entree. From my perspective, the easiest way to incorporate data like this would be to include it underneath the extended explanation of the menu item.

PS Steven - I want to set up a phone call with you or something. I'm working on something that is literally one step away from what you are. follow me on Twitter (@nate) or e-mail me at nchastain at gmail.com and let me know if you've got some time free some time next week. I'm still in the development stage and won't have a product out for at least a month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice idea, execution, and such. Congratulations and good luck!

Two things, though: if I were a restaurant owner, the burger in your logo would probably irritate me. After all, few restaurant owners see themselves in the fast food business, I assume.

Second, if you want to go international, ChompStack is probably a bad name. The "Globish dictionary" doesn't contain the words chomp and stack.

<comment><USER16> I second your first point! Something like a fork and a phone would be great as a logo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great idea. Like everyone else, I am all for better restaurant websites and no more PDF menus.

I was slightly confused whether this was _only_ mobile or if there was a possibility of building a full website + mobile version. It might help you convince restaurants to use this service if it can handle all of their restaurants website needs in one place.

<comment><USER9> We're very interested in expanding the product to include a desktop website version as well for a nominal monthly upgrade. The reason we didn't start out there is because we felt the mobile lure was a little stronger, due to the fact that many restaurants already have websites. Do you think the product would be more compelling if it offered both from the outset?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A problem with this service's model just occurred to me: The way that you get users onto your "new mobile" version of the restaurant is by re-directing them when they go to the restaurant's home page from a phone browser.

What if the users are like me, though, and just avoid going to the restaurant Web site from the phone because we are aware how bad the "usual" experience is.

I'm not expressing this clearly, but consider this analogy: If for ten years a neighborhood in town is "bad", has a high crime rate, routinely plays host to gang wars, et cetera, building a state-of-the-art gated community and community playground in that area won't attract new visitors for a LONG time until that old reputation runs its course.

One of your selling points is that there's "no marketing required." I don't know how you feel about this, but I think that's a losing strategy for a project like this.

<comment><USER9> I think the key word here is "required". Most of the restaurants we've spoken to are averse to the idea of having to promote a new piece of technology because of the time and effort that involves. This gives them the opportunity to make the decision about promoting it--restaurant websites deemed "bad neighborhoods" might choose otherwise :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Love the idea. Instead of simply targeting restaurant owners, I would also suggest talking to urbanspoon, yelp and other restaurant aggregators. By offering a simple solution for their now shitty menus, you would bring a lot of value and would enable you to target a much broader market than one restaurant at a time.

</comment><comment><USER19> Lots of discussion (especially about entrenched players) in this previous News.YC thread "The hell that is a restaurant website"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130419>

<comment><AUTHOR> That thread was very much part of the inspiration for this project! Plus many others around the interwebs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Steven,

Looks fantastic. I really like your UI -- very informative, yet clean.

I think that your prices seem pretty low, I am not sure how much feedback you have gotten from restaurants, this seems like a no-brainer for them...

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm not sure about the pricing, but we're definitely open to adjusting it based on feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All in all - really happy someone is going after this market. Restauranteurs have no idea where to look for a website. They just ask for the coolest possible website without wanting to pay too much so they end up with all the bells and whistles but done really quickly and badly.

You should wonder why restaurants think they should have a "fancy" website, as opposed to a Facebook business listing with a menu and some pics. A fancy restaurant will want something dark and elegant to communicate that they're not a diner or a fast food joint. Think about this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Strangely enough my friend was pitching me on this idea about 6 months ago. It just goes to shows, ideas truly are a commodity, and execution is everything.

So many websites I goto have menus that are PDFs of their actual menus.

It seems like the biggest hurdle to face is getting all the information in initially(those menus can get pretty long) and then having the getting the restaurant owners keeping them updated in terms of pricing/selection. To me, $15 a month is nothing, as long as there is minimal effort in maintaining the mobile sites.

</comment><comment><USER23> You have definitely built something that I would want, if only my favorite restaurants would be willing to sign on.

Also, as a Nokia employee, I hope that your pages are compatible with our phones....

<comment><USER24> Lets hope your phones follow standards ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like it, but I hate your logo. Who takes a bite out of just the bun? Also, by showing a hamburger, you made me think of fast food and I could see conventional restaurants balking at that.

<comment><USER9> I created that logo and I hate it too. Any other ideas? I'm a horrendous graphic designer but I'm down to try again, and I agree with your points entirely. We were sort of pushing to get it done at the time. We could consider 99designs.com at this point I suppose.

<comment><USER26> Check out Duck Duck Go's founder's lessons learned re:icons/logos: [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/06/things-about- web...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/06/things-about-web-images-i- just-learned.html)

<comment><USER9> Holy crap icons are apparently affordable from iconshock, as are logos! I was imagining like $1000+ for a logo, never having commissioned one myself. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love the design of your landing page.

In particular, the graphic of the two iPhones on the right side made it _immediately_ and _compellingly_ clear what you're selling. Nice work.

<comment><USER28> I agree. I'd remove the drop shadow from the phones, though. It clutters up the design.

The simple shadow immediately beneath the phones is plenty.

<comment><USER9> Hmmm, good idea, maybe I'll change that.

<comment><USER29> It'd be neat (if feasible) to have a demo of the mobile site ensconced in an iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is a winner for sure. Everybody's been talking about this lately and I think you won the race in terms of execution. I hope to god most restaurant owners buy into this

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a very interesting market, and I think your prices could work (restaurants are known to have almost no money)

Regarding this line: "14% of smartphone users look for restaurants on their phones." I don't know about you, but 14% seems not worth it from a restaurants perspective. If I were you I'd say "One in seven smartphone users look for restaurants in their phone, and that number is only increasing!"

Best of luck, your features page looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent idea, thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great site. I think you should limit your first plan a litte more. No custom stuff on the cheapest plan. And maybe a free version with one menu, just to test it out.

What you could do for restaurants that are not interested, is built something quickly for them so that you can actually show them "look this is what you could do!" - actions move people more than words, in your case your product will convince the customers more directly!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. Certainly showing potential restaurants what their mobile website would look like is a lot more convincing than trying to explain the benefit to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Instead of creating mobile friendly resto sites, why not create a weebly for restaurants, perhaps removing flash as an option making it at least readable on mobile. Perhaps use html5.

I suspect that the majority of restos don't even have a site and making it super easy for them to customize, upload menus, sell unique resto themes, etc., provides great value. Perhaps even tie into reviews around the web and pics via apis.

</comment><comment><USER33> It might be nice to allow the customers to mark the foods that interest them so they can remember what they want to order when they get to the restaurant.

</comment><comment><USER26> I really like this idea! I don't have a smartphone, but I would like to support you if I could. Do you have a page listing all of your customers, so I could go to them and tell them it was because of your site?

Speaking of which, how are normal people supposed to find these mobile sites? Maybe you could have restaurants pay you to list them in foursquare or equivalent.

<comment><USER3> I had a similar question about how the service connects with your site. Does it use a custom DNS record or does this mobile site sit on an island?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now we're doing a simple redirect to the mobile version if the user browses to the restaurant's normal website.

<comment><USER34> Do you provide the option to opt-out of the mobile version? I get really, really frustrated by mobile versions that are forced on me with no option to say "no thanks, give me the real thing".

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll definitely add that, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Great idea. A friend and I were talking about the need for this kind of product a few days ago. Your implementation looks very nice.

<comment><USER35> I also was discussing this with a friend the other day. I actually feel a bit relieved to know that someone is doing it better than I could have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Nice site but it has multiple HTML errors viewable at <http://validator.w3.org> \- especially the blog portion.

It's best to have 100% validated HTML especially when offering to build sites for other people. Some times restaurant owners can be technologically inclined and may check these things out.

<comment><USER37> huge waste of time, it doesn't have to be 100% valid, it has to work on popular handsets - that's all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Solid idea, great implemntation, beautiful landing page.

On your "Features" tab you do a great job actually focusing on "Benefits" (most people just list the features!).

I'd propose that you change that menu title to "Why Do I Need Chompstack?" or just "Why ChompStack?" and then retitle the headline to:

"ChompStack generates more customers by making your site accessible to mobile visitors."

Then rather than opening up with "Why go mobile?" - find some real data illustrating the "pain" for restaurant owners:

"72% of restaurant websites don't work on mobile phones . . ."

Or

"Your website is broken for up to 50% of your visitors!

Support those stats by doing a quick restaurant survey from your local listings and I bet the number is crazy!

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent feedback, and great ideas. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> if this means the end of restaurant web sites that are built entirely in flash or have PDF-only menus, I'm all for it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I like this idea a lot. In fact, I like the idea so much that I started toying around with a similar idea a few nights ago while contemplating whether or not I had time to go through with the project or not. I decided to hold off a bit as I've got another project I am trying to launch first.

Best of luck to you.

</comment><comment><USER41> Looks awesome. A quick glance at the demo showed that the site was hosted on your domain, even though custom domains are offered in all plans. It might work to offer a cheap/free plan that's hosted on your domain, and use that as a loss leader to gain adoption in the early stage.

</comment><comment><USER42> You have a lovely site and absolutely great graphic design, but the mobile sites you offers seems to use the dull uiuikit css. You could make the css for phones a bit fresher. Maybe it should look a bit more like your own site?

<comment><USER9> We'd like to eventually create a few templates to choose from that have more of our look and feel. Thanks for the advice, glad to know others feel the same way!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Kudos for a great idea. I had my head in the menu space several years ago (pre rich-mobile), and I can't believe this idea never occurred to me. Looks to be executed very well. Good luck. "WDITOT?"

</comment><comment><USER44> looks great. both the idea and the UI of the website and what is shown in the the demo.

some of the comments like creating a website, not just a mobile site, are great too.

but i wonder, what is your target for # of clients? I would think you would need at least 1000 clients at $15 a month. is that realistic?

according to some results from a google query there are hundred of thousands of restaurants. i also wonder, were these numbers on your mind when you created the service?

<comment><USER9> We've got a lot of numbers in our minds, that's for sure. We do believe that 1000 clients is a possibility in a landscape of potentially millions worldwide, but a lot of that depends on how much traction we can acquire in the restaurant community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Nice idea and design. Liked the website design too - pretty neat.

Did you guys use a template for ToS and Privacy. If you have, could you pls share the link?

thanks

<comment><USER28> You're welcome to use my standard privacy policy if you'd like. It's casually written and I think very clear. No need to give credit...

<http://agentpronto.com/privacy>

It's not vetted by a lawyer, but as far as I know privacy policies are for visitors and not for the courts.

<comment><USER45> thanks a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> There is a free version called www.MobileHunger.com

<comment><USER9> We've been wondering: what's the business model there? How are you dealing with development and hosting costs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Not very actionable feedback for your product, but I love the name ChompStack. I just want to say it over and over again.

</comment><comment><USER48> Very clever idea and very nice execution.

</comment><comment><USER13> letseat.at - are you worried about this competitor? pretty high-profile company, offering both a desktop and mobile site design for roughly the same monthly price point.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not the first company in this space...there have been quite a few over the years...we're worried about all of them :)

The challenge for us, I think, is not in the existence of competitors, but the ability to convince a meaningful amount of restaurants that their existing websites are difficult to use on phones, and that they need to do something about it. After all, there are still _tons_ of poorly designed restaurant websites out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I love this idea

</comment><comment><USER50> Ha. I gotta laugh. I've seen so many websites that look like this, I have a hard time differentiating some of these startups.

I know it's a proven navigational scheme and sound UI that studies show converts at a higher blah blah blah, but when is some one going to do something new with landing pages? Sheesh.

Okay, on the count of 3, everyone click the down arrow on my comment!

<comment><USER9> Well I've got to give you credit for saying it to our faces, considering I designed that site. Now on the count of 3, tell me how a software engineer with no design experience can figure out in under a month how to put together a full-featured web application with a frontend, user control panel and admin interface and still worry about the uniqueness of the landing page graphic design? My real concern was that it worked and it communicated our message.

Edit: I should mention that I totally agree with your comment. Can't wait to hire a graphic designer :)

<comment><USER28> Do you know who cares about "originality" in landing page design? People who design landing pages...

Your customers won't know that this layout is well-worn territory for paid web apps. They will just see a beautiful, easy to understand website. Which it is...

Nice work.

You can design something to impress the HN crowd once you get traction. In other words, pay for the fluff with profits.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Make Boring Ramen Into Awesome Ramen (JPG) - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/Ck8f5.jpg

<comment><AUTHOR> I recommend an egg, small carrots and scallions (fresh, baby onions).</comment>


Show HN: Code.xyz – an in-browser code editor for building serverless APIs - <AUTHOR> https://code.xyz/ <comment><USER2> Am trying this out as soon as I get a chance. Part of Stdlib serverless API intergrations. Target is a workflow for interns and junior devs to get up to speed and build quickly :0</comment>


Microsoft hikes U.K. prices by 22% - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/24/technology/microsoft-prices-brexit-uk/index.html <comment><USER2> There will be a lot of price hikes coming to the UK so they can expect some high inflation. Pound is weaker so need more of them to achieve same revenue in dollars.

I'm utterly fascinated by Brexit -- I'm here in Ireland and it's going to be part disaster part boom depending on how we handle it so it has very real consequences. I think the biggest damage will be that to young people in the UK who will likely be denied the ability to travel as freely to live and work across the EU and this sort of denial of opportunity won't manifest as obvious for many years.

We put up the price of our software in the UK once we heard the referendum result and May indicating hard Brexit. On both occasions Sterling dropped.

<comment><USER3> As I wrote in my other comment, inflation at current exchange rates is forecasted to go to ~3% over the next year. That's much higher than currently, but not dangerously high for the economy.

At the same time, the volatility of exchange rates are worrying businesses, but the absolute value is probably rather positive for the economy. People will buy more local and exports are cheaper. The economy seems to hold up well and will probably continue to do so until Brexit actually happens.

To be clear, I'm absolutely no fan of Brexit, but I don't think that it will have negative effects in the next 1-2 years. In the longer term this may look very different.

<comment><USER4> "inflation at current exchange rates is forecasted to go to ~3%"

I don't understand how they are calculating it to only be around 3%.

We are already noticing things to be running at around 10% in imports, and sometimes more across various things.

We import a lot in the UK; energy, food, goods.

I personally think it will be way above 3% possibly reaching double figures.

<comment><USER3> As was said in another comment, not everything is imported and even for imported goods, not all prices will go up by 10%.Many imports are in the agriculture sector, and the current supermarket fight means that supermarkets will try to hold back price hikes as long as possible.

Measuring inflation is tricky as it affects everyone differently. The RPI is perhaps a better measure for consumers in the UK and could go a bit higher. Perceived inflation will certainly be even higher, as most people focus on prices for groceries and petrol to measure inflation, the most affected goods.

<comment><USER5> Local food prices are also dependant on the UK being in the EU since the EU provides huge farm subsidies.

UK food prices are already fairly high even tho they are already being subsidised to match cost, many items like milk are subsidised because the supermarkets are paying below cost prices to the farmers.

That said the EU losing the UK as a trading partner won't go well either, Germany will have to find another country to sell stuff too to cover the $50 bln. loss in trade deficit if the UK implodes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 2000s: It's expensive doing business in the UK: price hike

2007: Business needs to be protected from Pound fluctuation: we accepted the new norm that a $500 gadget cost £500

2016: Brexit hurt our company earnings : like I care, we are full stack OSS

<comment><USER7> These were my thoughts exactly. Companies can jump on Brexit and hike prices, that's fine, they will be selling less for more, which will bring them the same revenues.

We use full stack OSS too, not a penny spent on licences.

Have fun with your 22% M$.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a huge healthcare org with solid MS lock-in: ouch.

Brexy-fans can say it's "fluctuating not tanking"; we still have to pay more for software (and less for hospital beds, staff, and so on. In big orgs these costs are gibberring).

(personally I'm betting on EUR-GBP parity by xmas, because my Cassandra gland is firing overtime)

<comment><USER9> What's a Cassandra gland?

<comment><USER10> And how can costs be gibbering?

Staggering via autocorrect?

<comment><USER11> I think they mean that viewing the costs _induces_ gibbering in the viewer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really have no idea bout UK/British politics even though I worked/lived in Europe so...

Can someone explain this part of Brexit. Nigel Farage resigns in July 2016 after he wins the vote. Why? Says he did "his job" and didn't want to be a career politician (according to Wiki)

Then earlier this month he stepped back in as party leader of UKIP after his replacement was forced(?) out/unable to garner support? Did he just get bored and want his job back? Seems like he has ample time to fly over to the States to pump up Trump.

What I'm trying to get at is this whole Brexit triggered a huge depression in the value of the Pound. Yet the Conservatives and UKIP are still in power? Or can no one do anything until the next general elections?

<comment><USER3> Regarding your last point: A depreciation of the currency is generally positive for a country. Expensive imports give incentive to use local products (e.g. food), at the same time exports become more competitive. That is the reason why the US accused China of keeping it's currency weak for years. It's the volatility in the exchange rate which makes it harder for companies to plan reliably, but most will profit from the new level (except airlines).

So while there will be some inflation (estimated at 3% at the moment), the economy profits from the exchange rate movements. The underlying problem is that the GBP lost value because of the uncertainty, and this uncertainty is not good for the economy. However, people voted for Brexit and a lot of them are happy with the result. So this uncertainty won't necessarily lead to less consumption. Current economic data looks better than what was anticipated before.

So as long as people are happy with the current situation and the outlook, the economy could actually profit from the vote in the short term. The longer term is of course very dependent on the deal that the UK will get.

Regarding your other points: A lot of promises were made in the campaign that are completely unrealistic (£200mln a week for the NHS). Not being part of the government makes it easier to ignore those promises. Boris is probably one of the only ones who could face questions at some point, in case the deal isn't as great as he believes.

As Conservatives are already in favour of a hard Brexit, it's hard for UKIP to get many voters in that space and to gain more seats in the next election. Farage saw the chance to sell the vote as his win (although he wasn't even part of the official campaign) without having to implement any of the consequences. The party is an absolute mess. They don't seem to have a lot of competent people, so Farage basically had to take over again. I don't think he planned that. Especially as they'll have to find a motto now. Their purpose was to get the UK out of the EU. With that done, the question is why people should vote for them.

<comment><USER13> > So as long as people are happy with the current situation and the outlook, > the economy could actually profit from the vote in the short term.

We'll see over Christmas, as the Christmas shopping is now the first time that people will really feel the rising prices. Given that more Leave voters regret their vote than Remain voters already, it'll be interesting to see polls in Jan/Feb as well.

> (£200mln a week for the NHS). Not being part of the government makes it > easier to ignore those promises.

They're now faced with a letter from 40 MPs asking them to either honour the _350m /week_ (not 200) or explain why several Tory cabinet members misled the public during the campaign. Of course they'll do neither but that isn't the purpose either - the purpose is press. But given that a number of Leave campaigners are part of the goverment you can expect the next two years to consist of a constant stream of attempts to embarrass them over those claims...

> As Conservatives are already in favour of a hard Brexit

 _Some_ are. At least on the surface. May has a small enough majority that it is very possible she'd face rebellion over that. But then again, May presided over the Home Office for 6 years and talked up being tough on immigration and achieved pretty much nothing - quite possibly on purpose - so I'm not so convinced that she actually wants hard Brexit, but is using the same tactics of talking up how hardline she'll be to the public and pursue a softer line. Of course the problem with that this time is that her counterparts in Europe are hearing all of this too.

<comment><USER3> > They're now faced with a letter from 40 MPs asking them to either honour the > 350m/week (not 200) or explain why several Tory cabinet members misled the > public during the campaign.

You're right, the number was even higher. But I think it's clear to everyone that the NHS will never see that money. And most newspapers are still in favour of Brexit and won't remind politicians of that promise.

> Some are. At least on the surface. May has a small enough majority that it > is very possible she'd face rebellion over that. But then again, May > presided over the Home Office for 6 years and talked up being tough on > immigration and achieved pretty much nothing - quite possibly on purpose - > so I'm not so convinced that she actually wants hard Brexit, but is using > the same tactics of talking up how hardline she'll be to the public and > pursue a softer line. Of course the problem with that this time is that her > counterparts in Europe are hearing all of this too.

I agree, don't think either that May really wants a hard Brexit. But it makes her popular with the people. Don't think her strategy will pay off. In the end there will always be a parliament in the EU blocking any Brexit deal that would give sth away to the UK. Belgium has shown that nicely with CETA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Preaching to the converted here, but this is yet another incentive to switch to a Linux distro, thanks Microsoft.

Also worth remembering that Britain is still de facto in the EU for a few more years.

<comment><USER15> Yes but the pound is tanking _now_ ;)

<comment><USER16> Britain has basically a Communist running the country right now so it's not really a surprise.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/05/no-prime- mini...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/05/no-prime-minister-the- government-doesnt-always-know-whats-best/)

Theresa May could have done all kinds of things to force favourable Brexit terms for the UK.

For example she could continuously lower corporate taxes for foreign investment for while not activating Article 50 and simply wait until it really hurts the EU. If the EU doesn't give in the UK continues to wait and makes a lot of money in the process, if it does then the UK also wins.

I suspect that the UK's prime minister actually wants to tank the economy to do another Brexit vote. (the EU loves this, just repeat until you get the desired result - that's one of the reasons why the EU will fail)

She really wants to join her friends at the Soviet High Command in Brussels again.

<comment><USER17> > For example she could continuously lower corporate taxes for foreign > investment for while not activating Article 50 and simply wait until it > really hurts the EU. If the EU doesn't give in the UK continues to wait and > makes a lot of money in the process, if it does then the UK also wins.

As the irish figured out, arbitrarily low corporate taxes are just not possible in the EU. This approach would also alienate all partners that she needs to work with later in the process, so that's probably a pretty bad idea. Additionally, it would put her under massive pressure from the brexit fraction that wants migration control yesterday, no matter the costs. Last but not least, the EU could just take the stance that the continued announcements of the legal government to invoke article 50 constitute sufficient grounds to start the proceedings. The UK could certainly fight this, but well, there's sufficient ways for the EU to make the UK sufficiently miserable in turn. All in all, negotiation tactics that alienate the people on the other side are not a good idea if you're an island and the economy right across the channel is bigger than yours.

<comment><USER16> > As the irish figured out, arbitrarily low corporate taxes are just not > possible in the EU.

Well but sorry, you are wrong here. The Irish selectively made deals with companies, that was ruled illegal. Not having low taxes, which works great in case of Malta. (5% tax for foreign investors)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2016/09/05/the-eu- ca...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2016/09/05/the-eu-case-against- apples-irish-tax-deal/#6a2e7b0d7e2b)

> Last but not least, the EU could just take the stance that the continued > announcements of the legal government to invoke article 50 constitute > sufficient grounds to start the proceedings.

I suspect more countries would leave the EU if it did something highly illegal like that, but can't be ruled out. The EU is like the Soviet Union so criminality is part of its nature.

<comment><USER18> So sad. If you had left out your last sentence, you could have actually made a valuable contribution to this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meanwhile, in Switzerland, businesses are suffering because the Swiss Franc is too strong.

There are always two sides to a rising or falling currency. In the case of the weak Pound, it is good for exporting British companies and for tourism.

<comment><USER20> I've been on a 10-day vacation this summer in Switzerland and while I was there I was always asking myself how do the Swiss export-oriented companies manage to stay afloat.

<comment><USER21> Exporting goods where price is less important once you have people convinced that they want your product: luxury goods, weapons, specialized high-tech devices, medicine (bunch pharma companies are swiss, I don't know how much they produce locally)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Every excuse is good to make some more money. Maybe this will make companies look for OSS alternatives. I doubt it will make any impact for government agencies, as they are not spending their own money ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> Who knows the truth about Brexit just yet... Trade deals will come in and we will probably get back to where we were - in the long term.

... If/when we get there, any bets Microsoft will not lower pricing?</comment>


(Why) Listening to Customers is Hard, Hard, Hard - <AUTHOR> http://continuations.wenger.us/post/33429835

<comment><USER2> It may be hard, hard, hard, but it doesn't have to be perfect.

The difference between listening imperfectly and not listening at all is astronomical.

The bottom line is listen; even if you don't do exactly the right thing, odds are you'll be turned in the right direction. And _someone_ will be glad you're listening.

<comment><AUTHOR> True.

Alas, there seems to be a fair number of people in the valley that fret (nee obsess) about every single bit of feedback from any source and end up constantly changing directions because of that. Talk about the road to schizophrenia.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Eiten – open-source tool for portfolio optimization - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tradytics/eiten <comment><USER3> Is it possible to factor (e.g. GRI) sustainability criteria into the portfolio fitness function? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21922558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21922558)

My concern is that - like any other portfolio optimization algorithm - <USER2> optimizing on fundamentals and short term returns will lead to investing in firms who just dump external costs onto people in the present and future; so, screening with sustainability criteria is important to me.

From [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19111911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19111911) :

> _awesome-quant lists a bunch of other tools for algos and > superalgos:[https://github.com/wilsonfreitas/awesome- > quant](https://github.com/wilsonfreitas/awesome-quant) _

<comment><AUTHOR> This is perfect. Thank you for sharing this.

I might start implementing some of these but would love for someone else to add a few PRs as well. The code is pretty modular especially if we want to add new strategies.

<comment><USER4> Does the code have any factor investing features at all right now? I was just reading about alpha lens, another project focused on performance attribution of factors. To avoid reinventing the wheel, are there any other libraries that can be leveraged to add factors - so portfolios are constructed to go long and/or short a certain factor like sustainability or etc.

[1] [https://github.com/quantopian/alphalens](https://github.com/quantopian/alphalens)

<comment><AUTHOR> I will try to modify it such that it's easy to add factors. Thanks for sharing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, developer of the tool here. Have been dabbling in trading for about two years and have plenty of data science experience. Trying to merge the two by working on a lot of tools right now. This one was inspired from a few lectures at the MIT's 18.S096 (Topics in Mathematics with Applications in Finance) course that I am taking right now on the OCW.

If you have any questions or comments, happy to discuss.

<comment><USER5> Can you please give us a TLDR of MIT's 18.S096 and the strategies from the course you tried to adapt into this package?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh sure.

I am at lecture 11 right now (volatility modeling). I guess the best thing I learned was value at risk models and how companies like Morgan Stanley use historical returns, covariance matrices, and monte carlo to estimate their maximum risk. That was fascinating.

Other than that, I dived here and there and found the portfolio optimization lectures to be good. To be honest, all lecture taught by people from the industry are damn good.

As for the strategies, eigen portfolio would be one. I started reading about it and digressed to another blog ([https://srome.github.io](https://srome.github.io)) that had some excellent resources. From there, I had to read a few more papers to get to MSR. That makes three strategies -> Eigen portfolios, Minimum Variance, and Maximum Sharpe.

The last strategy is using a genetic algo to maximize sharpe ratio. That is a custom implementation as I've quite some experience with GAs.

Happy to talk more about the course and the strategies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understand none of these concepts. If you're like me, make sure you take the time to learn these things before you trust any tool to help you invest.

This is not to say I disagree with this or think it's bad, it's probably great. Just please don't invest with until you understand. Then go for it.

<comment><USER7> That's my line of thinking. I don't have the interest to be micro managing my investments. I put some of my money into the stock market some years ago (with good results, probably doubled my money if I sell now) but a big part is in a managed fund (a product sold by my bank) and another part is in just hobby / meme things, amateur "I think this company will do good".

I try not to think too hard about things like "I should've held onto those TSLA stocks" because I can't predict the future and the company could easily have crashed instead.

I had one left in TSLA (now 5 because split), I've bought Take Two because I'm confident GTA VI will be ridiculous (again), and I think most right now is in S&P 500 indices because it's a solid long term investment.

<comment><USER6> I almost worked on Bitcoin mining hardware as an honours project back when Bitcoin had no value, less than a cent per coin. I would have made so much money just by mining back then. But I don't regret it. I worked on automated tests instead but I think it was the wiser choice just not the lucky choice.

<comment><USER8> Definitely not the wise choice. You will eventually realize there's plenty of time to learn about automated tests, but only few opportunities to make truly massive amounts of money. If you had mined $100 of bitcoin back then, you'd be a 9-figure developer today.

<comment><USER9> How were they to know this at the time, that's the point they are making. Obviously knowing how things shook out if OP went back in time, yeah no shit they are going to mine that bitcoin.

<comment><USER8> _True_ believers always knew this. I remember going to a presentation about Bitcoin where a speaker had boasted about how he had invested all his life savings into bitcoin, back when it was still worth less than $100. He gave his justifications, about how it was the future of money and the end of fiat.

I laughed, and couldn't wait to hear the sob story about how he lost it all years later when the price went to 0. But the day never came, and I never forgot.

The guy must have cashed out sometime shortly after Bitcoin hit his peak, and now posts about his "riches and bitches", I'm talking fast cars, big houses with long hallways, vacations around the world with exotic women under his arm and watches as big as your fist. Scroll through his feed long enough and your bound to catch a selfie with a middle finger aimed straight at the camera. He still gives seminars about investing in cryptocurrencies and did a few angel investments in some startups that went who knows where.

Was it wisdom, or pure luck? There's some element of luck probably, but substantial gains don't tend to last that long if you only have luck without wisdom.

<comment><USER6> That was pure luck. Investing 100 percent of your life savings in one high risk thing is dumb. That is not to say some people won't win that way but the vast majority will loose. That guy lacks wisdom and got very lucky.

<comment><USER8> Is it though? At that point in his life, perhaps late twenties, how much accumulated life savings could he possibly have? If he lost it all, he would probably put himself maybe 10 years back, sucks, but not unrecoverable. How often does a moonshot come around? What other point in his life could he have taken such a risk? Maybe there's some wisdom here, it's not all luck.

<comment><USER10> Luck. There were a million other more promising moonshots at the time. He rolled the dice and lucked out. He also could have taken his life saving and taken it to Vegas and made even more money.

<comment><USER8> What other moonshots were there at the time?

And I doubt you would get the same success as investing in Bitcoin at Vegas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm curious how it differs from PyPortfolioOpt.

[https://github.com/robertmartin8/PyPortfolioOpt](https://github.com/robertmartin8/PyPortfolioOpt)

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say this is a subset of the above repo but with one major difference.

All you need is a single command to use Eiten while for most of the other repos, they require a user to code just a little bit. The goal of Eiten was to make it as easy as possible for newbies to develop portfolios, test them, and invest in them.

Hope this answers the question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure if this tool is any good, I'll be playing w/it tomorrow - but the company behind it just got $50 from me so I can check their whole thing out- seems neat.

<comment><AUTHOR> that wasn't the intention to be honest which is why the link of the company is at the very bottom.

<comment><USER13> Github also pops the link up to the top, above the license, at least on mobile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hi, very interesting tool. Thanks for sharing. While playing with it, I see some weights that are confusing. In some portfolios I see weights that are > 1 as well as some that are -ve (and I have long only portfolios) - so not sure how to interpret this (does >1 mean use leverage? I haven't read the blogs in detail yet, but are these portfolio weights static (ie equivalent to buy and hold in these ratios)? Is there anything like recomputing weights periodically and rebalancing the portfolio?

<comment><AUTHOR> So the negative weights are just ignored during the forward and back tests. They are there just to show you the raw portfolios without any filtering.

As for the other question, the weights are just proportions of your money that you should put in each stock. If a weight is negative, that means just short with that proportion. You can simply normalize the weights to sum up to one if it's harder to read them without them being normalized.

Let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can you load other datasets like these used by Elastic in Generating and visualizing alpha...? [https://www.elastic.co/blog/generating-and-visualizing- alpha...](https://www.elastic.co/blog/generating-and-visualizing-alpha-with- vectorspace-ai-datasets-and-canvas)

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, since the code is pretty modular. All the changes that one needs to make are in the data_manager.py file. There is a single function that loads the stocks data which can easily be changed.

Happy to talk more on this.

<comment><USER15> Great, I'll be touch. The datasets are NLP and NLU derived correlation matrices used to cluster stocks in different ways outside of standard time- series

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty awesome. Please keep in touch, let's see if we can apply the tool on the new data sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice! I tried building a way dumber version of this for myself, but based on ~realtime data. This looks better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to know that. How did it go?

As for realtime data, this can easily work with real time data as well with some small adjustments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool, thanks for sharing. Currently sitting in the early drawing board stage of a potential portfolio tool for a small pool of asset managers in my north-European country, so this was very interesting to look at.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How easy is it to customize? For example can I change the time frame of the backtest or have it backtest non consecutive days?

<comment><AUTHOR> That should be doable pretty easily. The code is easy to read and modify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does the optimization include rebalancing + trading costs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Trading costs are not included during the back test. Since the portfolios are buy and hold, there won't be a lot of trades. Therefore, it seemed like a reasonable assumption to ignore the trading costs especially with all the 0-commission brokerage firms out there.

<comment><USER20> In addition to trading fees, it would be good to track taxable events, (dividends and capital gains) and let the user specify tax rates on these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does this include reinvested dividends?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does not.

<comment><USER20> Are dividends at least included in the calculated return (even if not reinvested)? If not, how does that impact the example portfolios' outperformance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this also work for etf ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does, all you need is to change your stock list to etfs.</comment></comment>


President Trump plans to sever TikTok from its Chinese owner, Bloomberg reports - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21349841/trump-tiktok-bytedance-sell-ownership-china-us-order-ban <comment><USER2> For those who are unaware, India banned Tiktok recently: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/world/asia/tik-tok- banned...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/world/asia/tik-tok-banned-india- china.html)

I support this move - in addition to censorship, there are serious consequences of collecting facial features en-masse with no checks/balances, especially by the CCP who probably already has a massive database of non- Chinese nationals. This also applies to any company (Facebook/Apple/etc) but I am significantly more concerned about CCP having this data than any other government in the world.

People who are about to present with a counter US whataboutism, they need to first watch the Vice clip on how China tracks people: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y)</comment>


Indian government's plan for democratised, data-led discussion and analytics - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/niti-aayogs-avik-sarkar-aims-for-democratized-data-led-discussion-and-analytics-in-india/ <comment><AUTHOR> Indian government generates a ton of data but its just so difficult to access.</comment>


Show HN: Detect Adblock - <AUTHOR> http://www.detectadblock.com/ <comment><USER2> It's a valiant effort, but there's really no way they'll win this battle. The client simply has too much control.

I was toying with writing a chrome extension for sites/videos that behave differently when adblock is running. It shouldn't be too hard to make the site believe that the ad content is running, when it's not actually running.

Not a perfect approach, but if bandwidth / compute / memory is not an issue, it could be a novel way to respond to more sophisticated ad block detect mechanisms that come out.

<comment><AUTHOR> The purpose of our method is to detect the usage of ad blockers for informational purposes. For example, if you have a site that displays ads you'd probably like to know how many of your visitors are blocking them.

<comment><USER2> It's a good thing I pay attention to detail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I add a rule to allow the ads.js to be loaded for only that domain (an possibility adblockanalytics.com) it completely defeats the detection.

In my experience once you start blocking any content the ad blocking community will make a change to the EasyList to have that exclusion included.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could add a rule to allow ads.js for each site's domain that's using the method as we've described, but a site could easily dynamically cycle through the thousands of file name combinations contained within EasyList.

<comment><USER3> Then simply allow all scripts on the domain to load, only blocking 3rd party scripts.

It is a cat and mouse game.

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't agree more and it'll probably remain that way for awhile longer.

3rd party scripts can be included via a CNAME record at the root domain level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not about the ads, why don't you put this much effort into not using "free" online tools and quality checking the content your customers recieve.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right - it's about sites that display advertising gaining a better understanding of how their revenue is affected by ad blockers. Once they know that they can have an informed discussion on what, if any, changes are needed.

I'm not sure what tools and content you're referring to though. Can you send me an email with details? [https://www.adblockanalytics.com/contact/](https://www.adblockanalytics.com/contact/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the creator of Detect Adblock and will be around if anyone has any feedback or wants to discuss anything related to ad blocking.

<comment><USER2> Commented above, it's a cool project, but ultimately I wouldn't recommend spending too much time trying to fight a war against browser clients.

Unless sites/applications are running their own thick clients, there is ultimately no way that they'll ever be able to ensure ad content is displayed.</comment></comment>


A link to tell people when you are awake (get your handle with a pull-request) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nicola/isawake/blob/master/README.md

<comment><USER2> This is the easiest and nerdiest way of informing my girlfriend about my timezone when i'm abroad.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the first time ever I see github as a database

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't stream straight away from github. But yes, the idea is that the database is made directly by the people contributing to it

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> let it go viral! (add link below each page to create your own page)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good insight! Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Totally awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you dottorblaster. The aim is to be "The (eventually) biggest crowdsourced database of when people are awake"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love it!

</comment><comment><USER8> supercool!</comment>


OpenID: Now more powerful and easier to use - <AUTHOR> http://openid.net/2009/09/25/more-powerful-and-easier-to-use/

<comment><USER2> Please upvote to give the standards more exposure.

Yahoo, Google and MySpace are supporting the spanking new OpenID OAuth Extension protocol. I have this on my plate at this exact moment, I am not sure how long it will take them to support this, but for now, I found Yahoo's Contacts API to be the easiest, and Facebook's Registration/SSO to be the hardest.

This is what my todo list looks like:

1) Visit all these websites: <http://knowem.com/>

2) See which ones have authentication API

3) Implement them.

4) ???

<comment><USER3> Are you sure you want OpenID to get more exposure? It already failed once due to hideously poor execution and terrible usability problems. Attaching oauth doesn't seem to solve any of the big problems. It just masks them behind a protocol that works decently on it's own.

The OpenID promise sounds good in a geeky, technical sense, but judging from their past work, I do not trust the OpenID group to build anything remotely viable.

<comment><USER4> OpenID hasn't failed at all -- I've been noticing more and more sites allowing sign-ins using it, and even a few (primarily for tech audiences) which are OpenID-only.

Of course, there are a few sites which claim OpenID support but implement it poorly (such as news.yc), but that's not a reflection on the protocol.

<comment><USER3> I do not consider getting a tiny subset of the tech audience using OpenID a case for it being a success. In fact, it did that years ago and has gone nowhere since.

<comment><USER4> OpenID 2, which was the first version intended to be broadly useful outside of LiveJournal, was published less than two years ago. In that time, OpenID has gained support from every major identity provider and most major consumers. Anybody who uses LiveJournal, Wordpress, StackOverflow, or thousands of other sites can use OpenID instead of a traditional login.

<comment><USER5> Reality check: "most" major consumers is going too far

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg I know very little about OpenID and, lacking knowledge, I've been avoiding it as a user.

I've tried reading up on it but the sites/tutorials I looked at were excessively vague, wordy and I got an impression that I don't want to use OpenID for myself. HN audience, however, seems quite favourable to the standard though, so I'm willing to accept that my initial reaction was a wrong one.

Can you recommend a good reading on the current state of OpenID, with emphasis on security please?

Thanks.

<comment><USER6> As a user, I typically love encountering sites that are OpenID enabled (stackoverflow, gitorious, ...) since then I can use my livejournal account to login. This way I don't have to manage yet another username/random-password pair.

<comment><USER7> For many of these sites they might as well not have you login at all and allow you to do whatever they let you do with OpenID, since after logging in they only get a unique identifier (not even an email address, am I correct?).

<comment><USER6> I see where you're getting at, but I think it's more of an issue of keeping your digital identity intact rather than fragmented over multiple accounts. I can authenticate at a single place, and that server can vouch for me on other sites ("Yeah, he's good to go. He logged in with me. It's him and not some other user."). With some sites you could get away with no login (see 4chan where everyone is anonymous), but for discussion sites that rely on reputation (stackoverflow, reddit, hackernews, etc.) that's not really ideal.

Security-wise, you have the added advantage of not having to manage multiple passwords. You could use a single password for all your sites, but then your password exposure would be too high, since a breach in any of those N websites could potentially capture that one password of yours. With OpenID, those sites wouldn't even be getting my password.

<comment><USER7> But then a breach in your OpenID account would mean access to every other site right?

However I do agree it would make it a little more secure than using one password at every site. However for smaller sites that I care less about, I generally use a special password anyways, and it seems it's really smaller, less ambitious sites are the ones that will adopt OpenID anyways. I don't think Yahoo, Google, or Facebook will start taking OpenID logins any time soon right?

<comment><USER8> A breach in your OpenID account is the same security risk as a breach in your email account, if the sites do account recovery via email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Once WebFinger is widely supported (that is, using an email address as an OpenID instead of a URL), the OpenStack will be ready for the masses.

<comment><USER4> Using an email address for your OpenID is already possible, assuming your provider supports it. I haven't seen any great rush to support email OpenIDs, though, so it could be that most email providers just don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Has anyone seen a site claiming to use OpenID but actually phishing with a redirect to a similar-looking URL (e.g. typo-domains of google/yahoo/etc.) to grab your password?

I always check the URL before entering my credentials, but there's always the risk of similar looking glyphs at a different code point (is Unicode allowed in domain names yet?), or just typo-blindness.

</comment><comment><USER11> This feels to me like OpenID finally coming of age - the OpenID+OAuth hybrid protocol means you can one-click sign in to a site and simultaneously grant it access to an OAuth protected resource such as your address book. From what I've heard it usability tests extremely well too.

<comment><USER12> We've been using it for trendly.com and yes, it seems very usable. I didn't know about the popup option, though, I'll have to try that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sorry, I still don't see the advantage of OpenID. Can anyone explain why it's any more convenient than username/password? I still haven't bothered to sign up for StackOverflow because the signup seemed far more complicated than it is for just about any other Web 2.0 site.

<comment><USER14> Complicated?

When I signed up for StackOverflow, I typed in "<http://jrock.us/> as my OpenID, and was finished. No password, no email, no "click this link to confirm your email", etc. If SO gets hacked, they have no useful information of mine. If my OpenID provider gets hacked, I remove a few lines of HTML from my index.html page, and can use a different provider. There is only a tiny window where my accounts can be compromised. Either until I take down the redirect, or the provider itself is taken down.

(Compare this to the Perlmonks debacle, where my plaintext password is now known to the world, and I had to change the password on every website I've ever used. That is what I consider "complicated".)

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't know where to begin to set that up -- there's the complicated part. Honestly, this should all be built into the browser -- all this web-service stuff is entirely the wrong approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I do not use OpenID for privacy reasons. All accounts are using different names and I don't sites to know that "this person A" and "that person B" are in fact the same. It's no one's business.

<comment><USER11> If you're worried about sites conspiring behind your back to join your identities together, I take it you use a different e-mail address on every site you sign in to as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> OpenID needs to hurry up and die so efforts will not continue to be wasted either pushing for OpenID or trying to support it. That way, work can begin in earnest on the next standard protocol that will replace it.</comment>


How Does Submissive Sex Work in the Age of #MeToo? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/style/submissive-sex-me-too.html <comment><USER2> > The last thing a woman wants to be worrying about while in the heat of the > moment is whether her arousal is an expression of her own distinct eroticism > or a symptom of patriarchal oppression.

That statement is literally the definition of overthinking something.

<comment><USER3> It may be an example, but it's not the literal definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Men and women aren't supposed to have sex anymore without legally binding contracts witnessed by 3rd parties. Otherwise, men have nothing but undefinable downside.</comment>


Designing Machine Learning Models: A Tale of Precision and Recall - <AUTHOR> http://nerds.airbnb.com/designing-machine-learning-models/

<comment><USER2> How does one write an article which summarizes the process of building a machine learning model, and not discuss cross validation? Not a very good article, to be honest.

<comment><USER3> They hint at withholding data ("The same logic applies when it comes time to splitting our data into training and validation sets"), though they don't outright mention cross-validation. Seems like a bit of an oversight for an article about building ML models, I agree, but the article seems like it's mostly surface-level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I come from the world of biostatistics, where diagnostic tests are usually measured in terms of Sensitivity (probability of Predicting Evil, given actually Evil, same as Precision) and Specificity (probability of predicting Not Evil, given actually Not Evil). What is the reason for choosing to balance Precision/Recall, versus Sensitivity/Specificity? They are definitely similar, so why prefer one tradeoff versus the other?

<comment><USER4> Really the entire ROC curve should just be generated and a fitness function applied to chose where along the ROC curve is the most profitable.

As an aside, I'm currently chilling in a AirBnb. Love their service. Half the price of a hotel and at least twice as good. Feels like a home away from home. Most of the hotels I've been to smell like chlorine and have an air conditioner that is so loud I just turn it off, even in the summer.</comment></comment>


Programming the ENIAC: an example of why computer history is hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/programming-the-eniac-an-example-of-why-computer-history-is-hard/ <comment><USER2> Great read.

> _no one challenged the status of the stored program as the defining feature > of the modern digital electronic computer", but "we struggle when required > to articulate its significance in simple terms "_

Are we? Then it's probably because we're being dishonest about using it to keep score of which machine was 'first'. Like the article says : 'first computer', 'first electronic computer', 'first electronic stored program computer'. Throw a handful of 'general purpose' in there and you've got a spectrum of candidates from the old astronomy tools through the difference engine through the Z3 to the Mark I. Honestly, the only time I ever hear or read anyone say 'first stored program...' is as a presage to claiming that the MkI was first so ra ra, we beat the yanks.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Even before ENIAC was finished, engineers realized that there was a much > better centralized way to control such a complex machine, using coded > instructions stored in memory and "executed" in sequence.

> For a discussion of how it was different from earlier ideas, see Tom Haigh's > recent article "Where Code Comes From".

This article links to "Where Code Comes From" at CACM, but beyond an excerpt it is members-only. Here's the full article on the author's web site (PDF):

[http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/WhereCodeComesFromCAC...](http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/WhereCodeComesFromCACM.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Wow, that looks great. I highly recommend that you submit it as an article in its own right, perhaps tomorrow, so as not to be too close to this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is such an interesting article to me because it describes a time when a fundamentally unique paradigm of computer science was in it's nascent form. It makes me wonder, were people aware of the watershed nature of their work at the time?

Are there new paradigms being worked on now, that we are aware of, which have a similar significance?

I suppose it may be hard to see such a thing in the moment, but it sure is fun to think about.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it's happening: [http://www.research.ibm.com/quantum/](http://www.research.ibm.com/quantum/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was an interesting read, but I thought the description of the Von Neuman's architectural decision to address program instructions and data in the same address space was a little hasty - perhaps introducing the Harvard architecture or another with separate spaces would help with the argument for ENIAC categorically being a computer.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's all about memory devices.

IBM had been doing arithmetic electromechanically for decades, and mechanical digital calculators go back centuries. It was clear by the 1940s that you could do arithmetic with vacuum tubes; IBM produced the IBM 603 Electronic Multiplier[1] as a product in 1946, and they'd been working on that before WWII. It was clear that you could have programmed sequence control of arithmetic, if you could figure out how to store and access the program. But nobody had a cheap random-access storage device yet.

There were lots of ideas, most of them marginal. IBM had been using plugboards for decades. Atanasoff used capacitors, but had to use a mechanical drum type rotary switch to connect to them. The ENIAC used tubes, plugboards, and rotary switches. The Manchester Baby used a Williams tube, a CRT-derived storage device, but they only got 32 words of 32 bits out of it. Bigger Williams tube machines were built later, but the size was huge for the data stored. EDVAC used mercury tank delay lines, as did UNIVAC I. Metal delay lines, long metal rods with transducers at each end, were tried. Some low-end computers with drum main memory were built. Of these, only the Williams tube was random access.

In 1951, MIT built Whirlwind, the first computer with magnetic core memory. This was the first good memory component. Good speed, true random access, more compact than the alternatives. But not cheap. Core memory was very expensive to manufacture (a million dolars for a megabyte) until IBM figured out how to build a machine to weave it automatically.[2] Core memory powered most of the machines of the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, until semiconductor RAM finally worked.

Building early computers wasn't a conceptual problem. Lots of people had workable ideas about how to do it. It wasn't a problem with electronic arithmetic; that had been done. But there were no good memory technologies yet.

It's been mostly forgotten, but in the late 1950s and 1960s, there were a whole range of special purpose machines built which were not general purpose digital computers, but did some specific function with digital electronics. Reservisor did airline reservations. Teleregister had special purpose systems for stockbrokers, airlines, railroad companies, and inventory control.[3] These were all hard-wired and stored most of their data on magnetic drums or plugboards. All this was a workaround for expensive memory. Once memory got cheap, those special purpose machines disappeared.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_603](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_603) [2] [http://ibm-1401.info/IBMCoreArraysIEEEMagnetics1969.pdf](http://ibm-1401.info/IBMCoreArraysIEEEMagnetics1969.pdf) [3] [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Teleregist...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Teleregister/Teleregister.SpecialPurposeSystems.1956.102646324.pdf)

<comment><USER9> To amplify how desperate people were for memory, back before the Whirlwind people came up with 3D core memory they were considering among other things a microwave version of mercury delay lines, running a signal out to western Massachusetts and back. All that and lots more in this gem of a book: [http://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer- Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer- Computer/dp/0932376096)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > We depend heavily on contemporary written documents; as the ancient Chinese > proverb says, "The palest ink is better than the best memory."

I wonder if that's the best possible approach :) . You see, those documents are written by those unreliable people too...

</comment><comment><USER11> Sounds more like the problem is a lack of definition of terms.

<comment><USER12> Well, that, and the definition of terms is necessarily being done by the same people who are trying to answer questions raised after-the-fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > "Who invented the computer?" A 20-year-old might say "Steve Jobs."

It may well be a complex question of who invented the computer. But I think it's safe to say that it was certainly not Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER14> It's also safe to say that no one would give that answer to that question. I mean, I'm sure there are tons of people on the Internet who complain about other people thinking that, I just don't necessarily think those other people actually exist in meaningful numbers.

I've come to a similar opinion about people who see "SJWs" all around them. I see people complain about SJWs all the time, but the complaining seems to be about imaginary people who mainly exist as caricatures in their heads. I live in the Bay Area and I don't think I've seen anything resembling an SJW in the wild, aside from some isolated individual posting angry rants to Tumblr.

<comment><USER15> In SF I've witnessed, first hand, people accusing others of "cultural appropriation" which is about as silly as you can get. I only visit now and then though, so I don't know if a lot of people are like this or I just had an unlucky experience. But look at Github and their racist and sexist policies disguised under "social justice" (their words). It's safe to assume those people live there and actually believe those things.

Sure though, it might not be "all around them", unless they're at college.

<comment><USER14> Oh I don't deny any of those incidents or that such people exist and have been responsible for some bad things, but in my experience for every actual SJW stereotype that exists in the world, there are hundreds or thousands of very vocal people who dedicate utterly tremendous amounts of time, energy, and vitriol to public hand-wringing about such people.

Oddly enough, the people who put the most time and energy into publicly venting about racism and sexism practiced in the name of social justice don't seem to spend much of their remaining time fighting against other forms racism and sexism. Oddly enough, by some strange coincidence, the more likely someone is to point their finger at a conspiracy of SJWs for being a meaningful source of racism and sexism in the world, the less that same person seems to be concerned about racism and sexism in other forms.

To me it often comes across as little more than one group of people taking pleasure in hating on another (possibly imaginary) group of people, sort of like football rivalries for people who aren't into sports. Unlike football rivalries, it actually influences how the general population thinks about real world issues, which sucks, because voters need to have as much clarity as possible. Otherwise we end up doing things like naming Donald Trump as one of two options for one of the most powerful and influential political offices in the world.

Sorry HN, I fully deserve and accept downvotes for offtopic political ranting. This has just been a peeve of mine lately.</comment></comment></comment></comment>