Zacinlo adware affecting Windows 10 Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/rootkit-based-adware-wreaks-havoc-among-windows-10-users-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> "The adware components are silently installed by a downloader that is presented as a free and anonymous VPN service (s5Mark),"...

Err. Can we blame Windows if a user installs software?!

<comment><USER3> True, users actually installing software on their computers is extremely rare and well outside the scope of intended use for windows. It's surprising even that Microsoft made it possible at all to do such a poweruser task on a regular computer.

<comment><USER4> If you invited a stranger into your home, is it any surprise that they might steal and burgle?

The user has to have some level of technical knowledge and personal responsibility in keeping their machines clean. Downloading random VPN software that is free seems like such a dangerous thing to do. If the user doesn't understand this, they haven't really learnt how to computer properly.

<comment><USER5> Developers curl | bash all the time to install stuff without first checking that what they download is what they want. Why should we demand more care from less technical users?

<comment><USER6> curl | bash can't install something that persists across reinstalls (unless I've sudo'd recently, which I admit is possible).

The problem with the desktop security model is the controls are ridiculously course-grained.

<comment><USER5> Even if the script doesn't just contain a sudo (which they often do), you're still just one local exploit away from installing a rootkit. I don't think they're that hard to come by.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "... persistence across OS reinstalls [...] even effective against Windows 10 installations..."

Since Windows 8 I have always enabled safeboot in the UEFI settings before installing the OS. Machines with pre-installled Windows usually come with this setting enabled by default. I would expect this type of malware would not run on machines with safeboot, or cause a BSOD on the next startup.

The article doesn't say anything about this, does it require an unlocked bootloader, does it silently fallback when it detects safeboot, or does it have a by-pass?

<comment><USER8> I really found this part of the article lacking. How deep does the rootkit go to persist across OS reinstalls?

Does it simply hijack windows's restore functionality? Or does it write itself to firmware to essentially become baked into the hardware.

<comment><USER9> This seems to be source for the article: [https://labs.bitdefender.com/2018/06/six-years-and- counting-...](https://labs.bitdefender.com/2018/06/six-years-and-counting- inside-the-complex-zacinlo-ad-fraud-operation/) (there is a PDF linked), no mention of surviving a format or clean reinstall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure why they didn't point out what was this "free VPN" software that came loaded with the rootkit? Let's assume I did download a free VPN in the past (full disclosure: I DIDNT) how would I know if I am affected?

EDIT: They did - never mind the above, I totally missed it I need to upgrade my glasses - thanks for pointing it out!

<comment><USER11> Erm, they did?

>"The adware components are silently installed by a downloader that is presented as a free and anonymous VPN service (s5Mark)," Bitdefender experts wrote in a 104-page report detailing Zacinlo's modus operandi and all of its modules released today.

<comment><USER10> Thank you, I totally missed it!</comment></comment></comment>


Obama administration admits cyberattack on Iran - <AUTHOR> http://www.patexia.com/feed/obama-administration-admits-cyberattack-on-iran-20120604

<comment><USER2> Blogspam, orignal article is here [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama- or...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave- of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html) and was already submitted with discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4052330>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Last week, the world was abuzz with the news of a computer virus more complete and sophisticated than any the internet has seen before.</comment>


Man tunnels into GameStop, steals games - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/1/17/man-tunnels-gamestop-steals-games/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thought the tunneling from the title didn't refer to the actual digging of a tunnel, but some kind of an online attack aimed at a site called GameStop?

<comment><USER3> I assumed it was an SSH tunnel, and wondered if game stop had ISOs on a server and burn-on-demand business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The last time someone had that much in a combination of muscle, patience, and stupidity, he built Burj Dubai.

<comment><USER5> Out of lego blocks? Because, besides stupidity (or megalomania) you sort of need some cash (or credit) too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A genuine minecraft fan.

<comment><USER6> _...it's refreshing to see that some still long for a simpler time when a pickaxe and patience was all you needed._

Was thinking the exact same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not stealing, it's copyri... oh wait.

<comment><USER8> You wouldn't tunnel into a car dealersh...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd be interested to know what the "trail of evidence" was the guy left behind. Did he lose his driver's license? Did he rent the empty building in his own name?

<comment><USER10> breadcrumbs of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was actually a pre-release Duke Nukem Forever disk inside - worth 100K on the Hong Kong market... (j/k)

</comment><comment><USER11> What a douche.</comment>


Join our hacker house for new YC companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.founderflat.com/ <comment><USER2> I'll vouch hugely for Josh "thejash". Josh is ultra hardworking, super smart, and the least flakey dude that I know. He's also managed a shared housing situation for years, so he's really the ideal dude to be doing this.

Disclosure: Josh and I founded/sold a company together and overall have been good friends for many years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having just gone through the winter batch, the closer you are to YC, the easier it is going to be.

Between dinners and office hours you wind up going there frequently. Traffic is a big pain when trying to get to the dinners on anything other than surface streets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Other YC alumni that I spoke with felt the same way, which is a big part of why the final location will probably be in or near Mountain View.

<comment><USER4> It's not so bad if you are near any Caltrain or light rail stop, since both stop very close to YC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> List of potential craigslist houses I found, mostly in palo alto or within minutes from..

<http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2957756203.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2952933250.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2956453815.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2956341339.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2946849180.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2949748841.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2949736690.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2947663166.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2957990093.html> <http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/apa/2948364081.html> (has basement!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links!

It's tough to find huge places, so if you (or anyone) knows of suitable places (>=6br), especially those NOT listed on craigslist/etc, please comment or send me an email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a fantastic idea. I signed up for Ycombinator and since I'm moving from Ohio, wasn't sure where I would be able to find housing. This solves that problem. Im not sure how competitive it will be able to get into the "house", but hopefully not that competitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it ends up being really competitive (and we have more people than can fit comfortably in one house), then we can do two or more. I have a number of places that I'm looking at already, so I'm pretty sure we won't end up with a situation where people can't live in any of the available houses*

*excluding rounding (like if there are 8 people and only 7 slots in one house)

<comment><USER6> Awesome, well I plan on bringing a car if I'm accepted so whomever lives with me will have transportation when I'm available. Good idea on getting more than one, I think this can be profitable for you (if you are looking for that ) as well as being a good deal for the people moving there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not looking for profit in this--it's a horrible business idea :) I'll be happy if I get to meet some interesting people and don't lose all that much money.

<comment><USER6> The meeting people part makes up for any lost money anytime!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great idea. Might as well make the experience social since most YC alumni regret not getting to know the other companies during the 3 month period. Might be cool to have weekly pitch events/gatherings at the location.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "regret not getting to know each other" is definitely something that I've heard from recent YC alumni.

As for weekly gatherings--I think that might be a bit distracting for the teams there, but I can see occasional gatherings being valuable.

<comment><USER8> This. Thinking and problem solving is a social process, the human brain is designed to be fueled via lots of nuggets of social. Theres a huge amount of variability in what sorts of socialization different folks need and what form it needs to take, but it's absence creates a terrifying inability to think clearly and execute.

Foam earplugs plus around the ear headphones solve most hearing other people distractions. :)

Point being, if my group is in YC this summer, we're definitely looking for a social living space

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I signed up (we applied for YC). Having gone through the hassle of finding a place in a few places recently it is a huge pain in the ass. This is a great idea but I'm not sure we'd be able to commit to a 6 month contract.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think a 6 month contract isn't too bad, when you consider that it's basically:

1 month for moving in before YC starts

3 months for YC

2 months for wrapping things up and finding a new place and moving

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great idea.

I was thinking about creating my own post for a YC hacker house, but I'd rather not deal with organizing and getting a landlord on board with something like this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cost: $500 + $600 * numBedrooms) <= cost <= ($1000 + $1200 * numBedrooms)

 _You decide numBedrooms for your team. The fixed cost is to cover shared rooms (kitchen, conference room, living room, etc)._

Larger teams will incur a larger utilization of shared resources, and hence should pay more for shared resources. It more fair simply to divide the overall cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true. But on the other hand, imagine this situation:

3 teams with 3 people. The house has 7 br. 2 teams each buy 3 br (for a total of 6 of the 7 being used), then the other team buys 1 br, and they all always work from and hang out at the house. It would be lame that that 3rd team was paying 1/3rd the cost of each of the other teams. So this formulation was an attempt to account for that.

Basically, my theory is--be reasonable. If you're using 42% of the house, you should pay 42% of the costs. I'm happy to adjust the costs to make it work out in a reasonable way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wondering what the reaction would be if a few well known and loved VC firms (that have funded YC companies before) got involved and subsidized part of the rent for something like this or even something on a larger scale. Thoughts on that idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how subsidizing the rent would help the companies, especially if they've already gotten into YC (and thus just got a bunch of investment, with other investment pretty readily available).

Seems like it would be better to just keep the investing as direct dollars for equity, like it is now. Unless I'm missing something? I'd be happy to be wrong here. :)

<comment><USER11> I'm thinking of it similar to how corporations want their names on rooms and/or buildings at colleges. Showing a level of support which, while not a quid pro quo, shows support in a way that isn't directly linked to a benefit.

The support could come as monetary support and maybe doing the thing that PG doesn't have the time for as mentioned here (coordinating housing):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3650877>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just signed up. I've been sequestered in my fortress of solitude for too long!!...Now if only I could get accepted to YC and cash in on this deal...

</comment><comment><USER13> Where is that Zencoder house? (<http://yfrog.com/09x7fsj>)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have an exact address. I spoke with Jon (of Zencoder), he said it was somewhere in the Santa Cruz mountains. Such a place is probably a little too remote for most people (it was a 30 minute or more drive to YC)

<comment><USER5> I don't mind, I have a car and don't mind sharing. I kind of like the idea of living in a remote fortress, like a mad-scientist. But yeah, probably not practical for enough people, unfortunately.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with everything you said.

Hopefully you signed up and made a note about your preference for a remote area?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I did, though I'll only know today whether yc has a chance of happening (interview invites go out this evening I believe).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> curious, will you be funding this out of pocket with the rent from the people living there used to reimburse yourself, or will you be using the rent paid by the people living there to pay the rent? I assume the former but I thought it might be worth you clarifying. Great idea, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't fully decided--it's not going to be free, for sure. Probably, people will pay me and I will pay the landlord, since that seems more convenient, but I could easily be convinced to just have people pay directly instead.

As I said on the page, the goal is not to make money, so any payment will just be to cover costs. I'm not quite wealthy enough to just give away the space for free yet :)

<comment><USER14> My point was more that if one person flakes for whatever reason or a startup drops out and you're financing the entire thing directly with the rent paid by the rentees you're in for a world of hurt unless someone comes up to cover it... I assume if you pay for it and then the rentees reimburse you the worst case is you lose money; not that people end up homeless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great! A great idea for any incubator area.

</comment><comment><USER16> Are pets allowed?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't see anyone objecting to a fish or something. As for cats and dogs... my guess is probably not, either because other people would object, they would be bothersome, or the lease would not allow for it. So it's possible, but unlikely.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the reply. Great idea to get like minded people together. We hope you plan to share the stories and results from the house. Will make interesting reading if all house mates end up making it big.</comment></comment></comment>


Hello, Goodbye: Offsite Redirect Upgrade - <AUTHOR> http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/offsite-redirect/ <comment><USER2> This is quite impressive and encourages me to use word press.com for some smaller blogs I have knowing that I cam move at a later date without losing the value attached to the site

<comment><USER3> I urge you to reconsider. The WordPress code is infamous for seemingly endless security vulnerabilities (including frequent SQL injection attacks, which should have been a solved problem on day one) and its popularity means each one found is heavily exploited.</comment></comment>


Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Stop. Just stop. - <AUTHOR> http://melanie.io/?p=139

<comment><USER2> > My guess is that the "back-end" supply chain / software / inventory > management problems are just not as sexy as the "front-end" consumer-facing > problems, or maybe the consumer-facing problems are just more intuitive.

Absolutely! I wrote MRP systems for a pharma manufacturing in Florida and the kind of stuff I had to do on a daily basis far surpassed the complexity of your breathtakingly-beautiful but typical project-management webapp or customized T-shirt webstore. Let me be clear, complexity has absolutely nothing to do with the merit of one product vs. another. KhanAcademy code could be simple as 2nd grade math but nothing I ever write will ever be as beneficial to the world. However, complexity is expensive, takes time and dedication, and rarely pays off in the short-term.

There is a reason most supply chain software installations run in the millions to tens of millions. Here's an example of something I wrote while ago: A drag & drop scheduler in JS, kinda like Google Calendar that lets you schedule production jobs on different equipment, across different labor teams. When you change a single job on the schedule, it auto-calculates the entire requirement for the entire company. Moving one production job up (say shampoo for customer A) could end up in the company losing $500k because one of the ingredients that went into shampoo for A also goes into conditioner for customer B. This particular item has a lead time of 3m from China. And since order for B is significantly larger in amount, every single day of delay is money actually lost because you bought all the other raw materials for B on credit from the bank and now have to pay interest on it, while it just sits in the warehouse waiting for the raw material to be flown in from China.

Of course, this is something you want to avoid in the planning stage itself. And that's what the software does and warns the user within seconds of making any changes. One tiny bug in the code, say it doesn't correctly factor in the internal lead time from QC (this particular chemical needs to be sampled for microbiological contamination) and you just delay the project by a week. Putting up a pretty website is hard work but it is nothing compared to hiring 20 people to spend 3 months mapping out the multi-stage routings for 500 different SKUs. No tech-VC wants to invest in businesses that require a tremendous amount of operational labor. That's what banks are for.

<comment><USER3> Working on a project like that sounds like a lot of fun. I guess there must not be very much money in it though because every company requires custom software, eh?

<comment><USER4> There is actually a _huge_ amount of money in that space - think Oracle, SAP and many others.

<comment><USER5> *If you're good at direct enterprise sales... Most startup guys I know prefer PR, metrics, A/B testing, etc. over this type of meat and potatoes type of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "In fashion, trust me, that are MANY problems that need to be solved: a highly antiquated supply chain, non-standard, un-linked computer systems, non- standard sizing that varies even within the same line, inefficient pricing methods."

I don't see why internet fashion companies couldn't take a crack at solving / mitigating at least some of these. For example, there are some sites (like zafu.com - no affiliation) that help women find jeans that fit. They can't change the sizes on the jeans, but I'm not holding my breath for the fashion industry to make sizing any easier any time soon.

I also disagree with her claim that discoverability is not a problem. A lot of people are trying to solve it, but I don't consider it solved for myself (or other women I know). I find the choices in women's fashion to be overwhelming (to say the least), and I'm still looking for the more efficient ways to find clothes I like.

I agree with her overall point that the number of trendy affiliate fashion sites is getting tiresome, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't be developed in interesting ways. It may be true that affiliate sites need to sell a ton more in order to compete with "click-and-mortar" fashion companies, but I'd argue that affiliate sites can also be more innovative, flexible, and forward thinking. If you're not shipping or manufacturing, you can iterate more quickly.

<comment><USER7> I was actually discussing this very point with a good friend of mine who also runs a fashion startup the other day.

To refine what I said: it's not that discoverability is not a problem, it's that all of the new fashion apps (from Lyst to Fashism to Inporia to Svpply to Google Boutiques) seem to have only increased the "noise" versus decrease it. In fashion, customers pay for the edit: a small, curated collection of products that an editor has determined best fits her customer's profile. To argue that we can somehow replace this very right-brained activity with crowdsourcing or algorithms is untenable.

<comment><USER2> > To argue that we can somehow replace this very right-brained activity with > crowd-sourcing or algorithms is untenable.

For now maybe. Ten years ago if you asked me if I'd spend 2 hours watching a movie because a computer said so, I'd laugh. Netflix recommendations, while not perfect, are still very good. Had I not told Netflix that I loved District 9, it would not have suggested Torchwood: Children of Earth to me. Had it not suggested Torchwood, I wouldn't have discovered that Doctor Who was back on air. Right now I get about 50% of my entertainment discovery done via algorithms. Sure, fashion is difficult and subjective but I don't see it as being any different from music or entertainment in the big picture sense.

Btw, that was a very well-written article. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER8> It is different. When buying clothes people ask questions like "Will my girlfriend think I'm sexier?" or "Will the kids at school think I'm cooler?"

Fashion is a kind of performance -- people see what you wear, after all -- so there's an inherent social dimension that isn't obviously present like it is with movies on Netflix, which you watch in the privacy of your own home.

People, not robots, will win the day when it comes to shopping online.

<comment><USER9> The core of these recommendation algorithms is often a flavor of nearest neighbor analysis. In this case, the computer is using attributes to find people who are similar to you, and then suggest to you things that they liked.

All the "robots" do is find people who it thinks you would like to emulate. That sounds like the same thing the fashion industry has been doing for decades.

<comment><USER8> Robots don't merchandise, that's the problem. For many people decisions about what to wear is very intimate, but algorithms are bloodless.

The who, where, and how matter much more in fashion. Algorithms miss that.

<comment><USER10> I think a strong algorithm may surprise you.

I remember reading about the Netflix contest and how one of the algorithms categorizes movies into it's own statistically relevant categories*.

Once a comparative algorithm is used and the dataset gets large enough, I have no doubt the recommendations will start to get real good real fast.

[http://devlicio.us/blogs/billy_mccafferty/archive/2007/01/02...](http://devlicio.us/blogs/billy_mccafferty/archive/2007/01/02/netflix- memoirs-top-contender-divulges-algorithm.aspx)

<comment><USER8> What I'm trying to say is this: it's not about a "match" between the product and the potential consumer.

The who, what, and how of the recommendation matter almost as much as the product itself. Just the fact that I know this recommendation came from a human counts for something, especially if it's a human I trust or respect when it comes to fashion (not necessarily a friend).

e.g., a celebrity wearing a shirt and having it sell out the next day.

Movies are different because their consumption isn't inherently conspicuous. I do it alone and talk about it with friends if I choose, but everyone sees the clothes I wear no matter what.

For example, I can choose to hide the fact that I love Katy Perry, but I can't hide the fact that LVMH made my handbag.

How you dress is a performance, and so the decision to wear something is filtered more rigorously through a social dimension than watching a movie or listening to a song is.

<comment><USER9> In the context of my most previous reply above -- how would you feel about reccomendation algorithms that pull more visibly from your own social graph -- Friends, yes, but also people you follow on Twitter and Like on facebook.

That seems almost a perfect marriage of my comments on the innate human quality behind a nearest-neighbor algorithm your comments here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Take, for example, a traditional retailer such as Opening Ceremony. After shipping, merchant fees, packaging, and COGS, they produce an average gross margin around 40% (the industry standard) – after accounting for photography expenses (which most affiliate sites do not have), let's say the margin is around 30%. Whereas a fashion site that generates revenue mainly from affiliate fees will collect only 3-8% of the revenue on each sale. That means that the new, lightweight fashion site must sell 4x-10x more inventory than Opening Ceremony in order to produce similar profit margins. On the hierarchy of risk, figuring out a way to sell 10x more than your competitor in order to just stay in the game is a much larger risk than the inventory management issues of a traditional retailer._

We're seriously comparing B+M company with gross margins of 30% to a lean startup receiving affiliate fees of (let's take the worst case, even) 3% on a product and suggesting that the affiliate has to sell 10x as much "in order to stay in the game"?

Plain and simple, _you cannot compare these numbers_ , they have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

That 3% affiliate fee is as close to pure, unadulterated gravy as you can get in business - it's profit practically from day one, regardless of volume. It's probably being chopped up between three dudes working out of a garage somewhere, whose entire set of business expenses comes down to some electricity, a few meals a day, and a $0.34 / hour large EC2 instance. If their volume went up by a factor of 10, then maybe they'd need to add another few servers (each of which is probably making them thousands of dollars per hour, if it's pegged).

With affiliate marketing, if you've got high volume, your margin approaches 100%, since your expenses are pretty much independent of your sales (unless you're reliant on advertising, which to be fair is another matter altogether) - would it then make sense to say that traditional retailers need to sell 3x as much product to stay above water? No, because it's an apples to oranges comparison.

Now, if you wanted to claim that in order to have similar _total_ profits to the traditional retailer the startup would have to move 10x as much product, we can start talking. But the point is, they don't _need_ as much profit to compensate everyone involved at the same level - that traditional retailer probably has at least 10x as many people employed per unit sold as the startup does, and the startup's advantage there scales much better with increasing volume.

It certainly may be the case that pure-online fashion sites are fundamentally doomed to fail for some reason, but if so, the article offers no real evidence. All we've seen is an argument that would also imply that Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, and most other online product sales businesses should fail, because they all have much smaller profit-per-unit figures than traditional brick and mortars.

</comment><comment><USER8> So, I'm going to toot my own horn here, because this article is extremely well timed.

(Note: her site is down now, thanks HN! :P)

This line of reasoning is exactly why we decided at Everlane to start manufacturing our own apparel. You just don't capture enough of the value if you exist as a pure discovery layer unless you (somehow) get everyone and their uncle visiting you, looking to purchase, i.e., Google.

The internet does afford you the opportunity to redefine how people shop, but sorry: you're probably going to have to really sell things.

If that sounds rad, come join us and send me an email at email@example.com

 _Edit_ : Just noticed the article is about a month old. So, well-timed, but not timely.

<comment><USER12> PS - if your site demands this:

Access my basic information: name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone. Send me email Post status messages, notes, photos, and videos to my Wall Access my data any time Everlane may access my data when I'm not using the application [and more....]

I instantly discard the possibility of ever signing up for an account.

<comment><USER8> We've tested the page, and this converts no worse than the alternatives.

<comment><USER13> What were the alternatives? Requests like that are a huge turn-off for me. Ask me for my email, sure. Ask for the ability to post spam on my wall and I've just closed the tab. It may convert alright, but it also drives away potential customers. Why not give me the option to subscribe by email?

<comment><USER14> I'm guessing it's because you're likely not their target audience. A lot of people are more than happy to let whoever asks have permission to spam their Facebook feed with free advertising.

<comment><USER8> We don't spam anyone's Facebook feed, for the record. We will post something if and only if you click "post to Facebook."

<comment><USER14> Why don't you wait until the first time that they user wants to post something before asking for Facebook details. I'm sure you are completely honest, and wouldn't abuse the permissions you've been granted. But I don't like giving out any more personal details (phone #/email address/Facebook profile) than I absolutely have to.

But then I guess I'm not really your target audience either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not really a well thought out article. Here's why -

1) Why should anyone care about solving the problems that the writer of this article wants to see solved?

2) She fixates on the 3-8% that affiliate sites make without considering a few things:

a) Sites make that regardless of where the user actually buys. So if someone comes to your site and decides to buy a jacket you make money whether they buy it from Retailer A or Retailer B.

b) It's usually 10% for fashion sites and once you are driving larger volume you can cut deals for 15%.

c) If you become the decision engine (something Google and Bing are trying to do with their Flight Search and other initiatives in various verticals), then you can easily take over the entire business.

If people are coming to you and you help them decide what to buy - then you can start selling them that stuff.

3) The costs and barrier to entry is much lower if you are trying to fix the discoverability problem.

4) The real problem, and the most important thing, is the role of fashion. What fashion really does. That can be tackled completely in the online world through a website.

5) Fashion is a market that is going to make a lot of startups a lot of money.

Things that signal status (such as special electronic brands and designer bags and Grey Goose vodka) are never going to go out of style.

Instead of listening to this writer's advice, any company going into fashion should look at how backward thinking most people in the industry are, how little they understand technology, and how they are unwilling to admit the core purpose of fashion.

The easiest entry is discoverability and influence and that's also the most powerful element of the fashion ecosystem.

If you become the discovery engine and the decision engine then it's game over for everyone else.

All those VCs funding fashion startups are not idiots.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may want to give her more credit. She did a fashion startup for a few years.

About the 3-8% affiliate fees, that's not a viable business model. You would have to deliver north of 15M dollars to get 1M dollars. Assuming the average ticket is $150, you need 100,000 conversion. The average internet conversion rate is 3%. So you need 3M uniques. That is not very easy to get. Even if you are buying it.

<comment><USER15> Give her more credit for what?

She did a fashion startup for a few years and she never figured out that nearly every luxury company gives 10% to 15% commissions?

If she really thinks it's 3 to 8% then she's blissfuly ignorant.

She doesn't get the fundamental concept of capturing the starting point. If a site becomes the destination for fashion i.e. where people go to search for the next thing they buy.

Then that site can very easily expand into selling that very thing.

At some point we say - Instead of getting 15% from this luxury watch maker, we ask for 25%. Then we say - Let's make stuff ourselves and see if we can get more than 25%.

What Google is doing and what Facebook is trying to do is very similar. Expand and take over all the profits. But first you need to be the starting point or decision point for something (search, social interactions, dating, buying clothes).

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have an example of a site that started as an affiliate and ended up creating its own products? I think this is would be very very difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article misses a huge point, it assumes <10% affiliate fees are the end game for these startups. If one of these startups manages to get significant market share, what stopping them from building a supply chain down the line (or acquiring someone who has a good one) and using that to tripple profit margins.

It sounds to me that these startups are thinking "lets not waste a lot of money investing in a supply chain (ala webvan)". The quality of your supply chain might help you drive down costs, but it's going to do little to increase your market share.

The marketing and shop-front are the biggest factors that are going to impact market share, so it makes much more sense to focus the investment in those areas and outsource everything else until you're ready to expand. VC's aren't stupid, they're looking at the bigger picture.

</comment><comment><USER17> The best example of a fashion startup I've seen is Indochino (www.indochino.com). They were faced with many of these issues and have gone and taken full control of their end to end supply chain. They are selling "physical fucking product" but they are making it more personalized and custom tailored (pardon the pun), direct to the customer. I don't have much need for wearing a suit these days, but the moment I do, they will be the first and only place I go.

In the beginning they even offered education to their customers around things like 1) selecting the right suit for the occasion 2) various types of ties/ways to tie a tie 3) type of cuffs, etc. They seem to have gotten rid of the education aspect of the business but I found it really helpful as someone who like fashion but doesn't know much about it.

<comment><USER18> I actually think Indochino is an example of someone focusing too much on the "physical fucking product" and missing some chances to do some real innovative stuff. They could potentially offer some really neat customizations, possibly even a full "internet bespoke tailor experience" kind of thing, but they avoid that in favor of more dumbed down aspirational product that tries to sell itself as something it isn't.

As for wanting to learn more, I'm currently teaching a university of reddit course on menswear customs, history, and how tos. Its under menswear 101. Go check it out.

<comment><USER19> I don't really agree. Maybe it's "dumbed down" experience comparing to a private tailor. But at that price range just getting out of the "standardised sizes" and getting details you want is worth it. Kind of like what <http://www.tailorstore.co.uk> provides. Barely anyone has actually heard about online stores like that. Amazon is the default. Why offer more customisations when people are not really ready for the basic customised experience?

<comment><USER18> I think Indochino would benefit from pushing the customization angle though. As it stands now they are simply offering a product not unlike Banana Republic with a bit more customization in the lining and a bit in the sizing. I think the number of people who want custom suits is a lot higher than you think (not to mention, Indochino's business model is highly dependent on return customers) and aiming more for the market currently only filled by traveling Hong Kong tailors might be in their better interest. I do think they are going in that direction though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I run a fashion startup involving sampling, serial production and fulfillment. I couldn't agree more with Melanie.

The risk aspect sizing and inventory management is a bit downplayed imho. Stocking breaks necks. Good merchandising is more important than breathing oxygen.

Btw i would also appreciate HNs feedback on my company: <http://www.lookk.com> \- if there is interest i could do a "show hn" post.

<comment><USER18> You really would benefit from sorting the items you have for sale. At the least Man and Woman.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for the feedback. The shop is yet very MVP-like. We are currently working on it.

<comment><USER21> Interesting. Why did you decide to re-brand as Lookk from Garmz may I ask? (I took about 12 months to find the Lifemall name for my site)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "In the end, Fashion 2.0 is really not that much different than Fashion 1.0, in order to win, one must focus intently on building a better product that solves a real problem – you know, just like every other successful business in the world…."

So true. People are so focused on 'social' that they are ignoring the real problems.

</comment><comment><USER23> What companies is she even talking about?

Because the best fashion-related startups that I am aware of are super revenue and retail focused. I am talking about renttherunway, or this other startup that sells subscriptions to product trials etc.

<comment><USER8> She's talking about sites like Pinterest, Svpply, TheFancy, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The start-up I am contracting for is in a similar business (homeware and interior design) and has recently made the same decision to shift focus from a low margin, high volume affiliate model to a low volume, high margin "boutique" model. Curious to see how it pans out.

<comment><USER25> The low volume & high margin fashion site probably has a good chance of being successful as long as it carries recognizable and fashionable brands. The reason I say that is that sites like Net-a-Porter and MrPorter (which probably are mid volume) seem to be doing quite well based on the few articles I've read. Below is just one in case anyone is curious.

[http://www.nypost.com/alexa/p/the_top_shop_2HqqVcU4pRZJisg0N...](http://www.nypost.com/alexa/p/the_top_shop_2HqqVcU4pRZJisg0NinioK)

<comment><USER24> Recognizable fashionable brands such as John Lewis do fine on their own and are not going to give up a large chunk of their margin to a middleman. The biggest challenge for the new business model is try to discover and push less known brands or brands with little/no online presence with high quality products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the three cited examples of success in the article - One King's Lane - isn't a fashion/apparel retailer at all. It's a home decor and furniture flash sales site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't you want to solve the customer acquisition process 1st and then re- factor your supply chain once your customer base is large enough to warrant the effort?

<comment><USER8> Now you have to build two successful products: one to acquire customers, and one to sell to them.

<comment><USER3> You mean one to acquire customers and one to do customer fulfillment. And customer fulfillment is useless if you don't have any customers. This seems obvious.

<comment><USER8> No, I meant what I said. Why spend time and energy building a huge consumer success if your goal is to sell things?

Name some successful online commerce companies that started that way. Most (I won't say all) started as pure commerce, e.g., Gilt.

If you're ShoeDazzle selling shoes for $40/month, your customer acquisition problem is fundamentally different than a site like Svpply.

If you want to sell things, sell things. Don't try to play 3d chess.

<comment><USER3> Could you provide support for your assertion that the customer acquisition problem is fundamentally different?

<comment><USER8> 1\. ShoeDazzle can afford to pay for customers

2\. ShoeDazzle needs far fewer customers to generate significant revenue

3\. ShoeDazzle's value proposition is much clearer -- either you want shoes to buy Kim Kardashian shoes, or you don't

4\. Users join a site like Svpply vs. a site like ShoeDazzle for very different reasons.

There's just so much evidence that you can build a successful online retail presence without going through the first stage that it honestly seems stupid to me.

Warby Parker, Bonobos, Gilt, One King's Lane, Jack Threads, BeachMint, ShoeDazzle, BirchBox, Rent the Runway, etc., etc., etc. just opened a f(*&ing store.

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I agree with her ideas for the most part. You need tremendous scale to make something like ShopStyle profitable. But even if you sell stuff, it's hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd as well.. and if you do software for the back-end.. ugh.. maybe it's because I'm into consumer web, but I can't imagine how to market to those type of companies who have age-old processes that are incredibly hard to overthrow.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is a good read, and the author hits on some solid observations about the online apparel industry.

That said, I am shocked about the claim that a single VC has funded an apparel retailer recently. I am in this industry, and I can assure you that it is about as unsexy as one could get from a VC perspective.

I would love to know who all these recently funded apparel businesses are.

<comment><USER8> Uhhh, what? Not all apparel, but:

ShoeDazzle, BeachMint (StyleMint/JewelMint), Rent the Runway, Warby Parker, Gilt, One King's Lane, Send the Trend

Anyhow, the list goes on, and it includes us at Everlane (<http://www.everlane.com>). Some of these (including us) are vertically integrated.

<comment><USER28> It seems I'm completely out of the loop, having heard of none of these except for Gilt. Thank you.

<comment><USER8> I forgot Trunk Club

[http://allthingsd.com/20110908/trunk-club- raises-11-million-...](http://allthingsd.com/20110908/trunk-club- raises-11-million-to-shop-for-men-who-hate-the-mall/)

<comment><USER28> That article is just incredible. $11MM raised, assuming 25% dilution, giving them a ~$44MM valuation on only $1MM in revenue?

I had not the faintest idea there was a huge valuation bubble in my own industry. I am a little bit shocked.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rust as a new C++ - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Rust can be the future tool for os kernels, AAA game engines, browser engines, and large system software as noted by Sankrant. sankranthaven.wordpress.com/tag/game-programming/ .</comment>


Ask HN: What would a site with threaded bump-order ranking look like? - <AUTHOR> There's a lot of forums, like this one and Reddit, which have threaded discussion and voting. Classic blogs often have threaded comments, but just sorted on date posted.
Classic forums move the thread to the top each time someone responds, but they don't thread the comments.
This seems like a much simpler solution, which is much harder to game. Yet I've never seen a site actually use it in the wild. How come? <comment><USER2> I imagine for popular posts, you'd get way too many low-value bumps: lots of leaves in the comment tree would be low-effort back and forth replies of uninteresting content (e.g. Reddit). If there's a voting system, the top-level thread would get bumped a lot but it'd be difficult to find that low-value content. The signal that the bump is trying to convey (there's new and good stuff here!) wouldn't match the value of the information that the user gets (the scattered dregs of many conversations). If there isn't voting and you sort by newest content, the experience would probably be like 4chan in slow motion: bump ordered blasts of low-value replies.

In a classic forum, since posting something not only moves the thread to the top, but puts your post in a highly visible place (the end of the thread), it's a lot harder to have too many deeply branching side conversations with low value replies: there's a social norm against polluting threads.

For something like HN where comment trees don't get too deep and the replies are always meaningful, I think threaded bump ordered ranking could work.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, posting somewhere moves the whole subthread to the top.

Before:

      ├── a
      │   ├── b
      │   │   ├── c
      │   │   └── d
      │   └── e
      └── f
          ├── g
          │   ├── h
          │   └── *i* <- this is new
          └── j

After:

      ├── f
      │   ├── g
      │   │   ├── i <- moved to top of its thread and its thread moved to the top
      │   │   └── h
      │   └── j
      └── a
          ├── b
          │   ├── c
          │   └── d
          └── e

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've seen classic forum software that supports comment threading.</comment>


Skype calls to feature ads big enough to interrupt any conversation - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/skype-calls-to-feature-ads-big-enough-to-interrupt-any-conversation/

<comment><USER2> Is this really a serious business tactic?</comment>


Want to write more? Think less - <AUTHOR> https://adolos.substack.com/p/how-to-be-lazy-but-still-productive <comment><USER2> Some programmers apply this approach to writing code for a long time.</comment>


Show HN: Curated Stock Photos in your Inbox every week (royalty free) - <AUTHOR> http://weeklysnaps.com/

<comment><USER2> This looks useful - I'm inclined to sign up. Two things:

1\. You may want to look at the CSS on your T&C page: [http://weeklysnaps.com/terms](http://weeklysnaps.com/terms). I'm seeing very light text on a light background, and it's difficult to read.

2\. Are you capturing and keeping track of the original license for each photo in a way that's visible to your customers?

Your T&C says "[Photos have] been curated from other sites which claim CC0 or Public Domain status of the photo files."

Photo licensing is very important for commercial projects, and if the status of a photo changes later, it's important to have timestamped documentation of the license status.

Since there's no mention that you're indemnifying your clients against future claims the photos are licensed, it's probably in your best interest to include documentation of the photo's stated license (screenshots, source links, etc) with each download pack in case any disputes arise.

That'd protect both you and your clients in the event a big photo licensor (Getty, etc) starts sending nastygrams claiming the photos are licensed. Based on past experience, the probability of an issue like this is high, so it's best to cover your bases from the beginning.

Hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback josh 1) Will increase the contrast between the text and background colours 2) Great insights here. We plan on including documentation with each download pack to make clear where the licensing documentation can be found that establishes the CC0/Public Domain details. Will look into cataloging screenshots of photo licenses and date/times

<comment><USER2> Great - you have a new customer. Thanks for putting this together!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear josh. Saw the register. Hope you enjoyed the first pack :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting! As an avid photographer and advisor to a stock photo company, this is a great concept.

Where are you sourcing the photos from? And what do you believe your target audience would be?

Getting emails from CreativeMarket, for example, is not only a source of inspiration every day but also makes me think about redesigning the blog for the site, or maybe even swapping out icons or fonts.

I don't pay for the newsletter, but I can pay for the creative assets if I'm interested.

Have you thought of sending just teasers for free on a regular basis? Then if the user wants the photos they can pay the fee? I'd use it if it was like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback kineticac If you scroll to the bottom of [http://weeklysnaps.com/](http://weeklysnaps.com/) you'll see some of our sources (little visuals, unsplash, pixabay, new old stock, etc) That's a great idea around sending just teasers and then creating a marketplace if the receiver is interested in the photo. Will add it to our list :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> i already follow the places that you get these photos from ( unsplash and the others you have listed on your site ). Of course they provide them absolutely free without any restrictions.

It would be cool if you can add more value as the middleman to compel me to subscribe. not sure what that might be of course seeing as the images are essentially already curated by others on their sites.

Perhaps some original content as well would make a difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback Anton We're actually working with some photographers directly to release their photos under the same CC0 license Our goal is to have the process be as easy as possible: every week, you get emailed 20 high quality, royalty free photos, so that you don't need to surf around to all the different sites

In the first year, this will result in just over 1,000 photos delivered right to you (zip file each week)

If you have any other thoughts on giving more value, would love to hear them: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks good. How do you get the photos in the first place? Do you buy them with a reseller's licence?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi sasalek. We curate from a pool of about 10,000+ the best ones we can that have a flexible license that are royalty free, and permit usage of any kind (also called a CC0 license)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How long did the design take?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey will; took about 2 days to get the site designed

<comment><USER6> Ah, is it a pre designed theme?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's one we'd used before that needed some updates

<comment><USER6> Okay, but is it designed by you and your team or did you buy it off Themeforest/Wrapboostrap?

<comment><USER7> It was from a little while back, probably Themeforest or Creative Market</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The "Clockwise/Spiral Rule" in C - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html <comment><USER2> In practice, nobody uses a "clockwise/spiral rule" to read C declarations; they typedef complex declarations into bite-sized components.

C declarations are hardest to understand when they involve (1) "arrays"† of "arrays" of "arrays", (2) function pointers, and (3) multiple layers of indirection.

In systems and networking code and in most application code, (1) "multi-level arrays" are uncommon, and they're uncommon in roughly the same way tuples of tuples of tuples are uncommon in Python: they're a symptom that you're missing a level of abstraction.

Function pointer declarations (2) are common and annoying to read. However, in virtually all cases, the core of what you're trying to express with a function pointer declaration is "what arguments does this function take" and "what does it return". More importantly, most idiomatic C code typedefs function pointers, so you're not looking at prototype decls with nested complex function pointer decls inside of them.

So instead of

        void (*signal(int sig, void (*func)(int)))(int);

a modern C programmer would expect

         typedef void (*sig_t) (int);

         sig_t signal(int sig, sig_t func);

The qsort(3) man page is another example of an archaic declaration (its authors presumably think this is the clearest way to convey qsort to an experienced programmer); check out the man page for pcap_loop(3) for a better example.

In most C code, multiple layers of indirection (3) are one-step pointers-to- pointers used to work around call-by-value in C. If you store in your head the notion that a pointer to a pointer is just there to provide a return-value argument, that's probably all you'd need to remember about it. Pointers to pointers to pointers are rare.

† _C pedants: I'm using "array" in an intentionally vague sense._

<comment><USER3> I like types. I do have a question though: Why do you call it "sig_t" as opposed to "sig_h" or something. Based on its positional appearance, it's pretty clear that it's a type. Or does t stand for something else?

<comment><USER4> It's a POSIX convention to indicate that it's a typedef.

<comment><USER5> User code built against POSIX should _never_ use the _t suffix; POSIX explicitly puts *_t into the reserved namespace ([http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/xsh...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/xsh_chap02_02.html)), meaning that future revisions may add arbitrary type names of that form, which will break your code if you use the same name and include POSIX headers.

<comment><USER2> Thbthbthbthbthbththbthtbhtbhthbt! I say to POSIX. This convention is practically universal.

<comment><USER5> Just so long as I don't see you filing any bug reports when POSIX changes a header and your code stops compiling. =)

<comment><USER6> That's why I use *__t (two underscores).

<comment><USER7> That's not ideal either.

<http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/lab/cplus/c++.rules/chap5.html>

"The use of two underscores (`__') in identifiers is reserved for the compiler's internal use according to the ANSI-C standard."

<comment><USER8> Are you sure that statement is correct? In my memory, it's only double underscores at the start of identifiers. My final draft of ISO C 11 seems to confirm that:

 _"7.1.3 Reserved identifiers 1 Each header declares or defines all identifiers listed in its associated subclause, and optionally declares or defines identifiers listed in its associated future library directions subclause and identifiers which are always reserved either for any use or for use as file scope identifiers. — All identifiers that begin with an underscore and either an uppercase letter or another underscore are always reserved for any use. — All identifiers that begin with an underscore are always reserved for use as identifiers with file scope in both the ordinary and tag name spaces. — Each macro name in any of the following subclauses (including the future library directions) is reserved for use as specified if any of its associated headers is included; unless explicitly stated otherwise (see 7.1.4). — All identifiers with external linkage in any of the following subclauses (including the future library directions) and errno are always reserved for use as identifiers with external linkage.184) — Each identifier with file scope listed in any of the following subclauses (including the future library directions) is reserved for use as a macro name and as an identifier with file scope in the same name space if any of its associated headers is included. 2 No other identifiers are reserved. If the program declares or defines an identifier in a context in which it is reserved (other than as allowed by 7.1.4), or defines a reserved identifier as a macro name, the behavior is undefined."_

<comment><USER7> You are right, it appears to be C++-specific and looks like a typo in the link.

C++98, 22.214.171.124.2 Global names

\- Each name that contains a double underscore (__) [...] is reserved to the implementation for any use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "spiral rule" makes for pretty pictures, but unfortunately it isn't correct. One simple example:

        int *foo[3][4];

The spiral rule would have us read this as "foo is an array [3] of pointers to array [4] of int". What it actually is is "foo is an array [3] of arrays [4] of pointers to int".

The correct rule* for parsing declarations is "Start from the thing being declared, and read right until you hit a closing parenthesis, then read left until you reach the matching paren, then go back to reading right, and always skip over any tokens you've already read." This is sometimes called the "right-left rule"; it's not as pretty as "spiral", but it actually works.

(*) the really correct rule is "follow the syntax and semantics specified in the language standard", but for some reason that confuses people.

<comment><USER9> I think it works if you treat all the [] as a single token. foo is a 3x4 two dimensional array of pointers to int.

<comment><USER10> But its not, there are no two dimensional arrays. There are arrays of arrays.

<comment><USER9> The sizeof operator begs to differ.

<comment><USER11> How does it differ? It just gives the size of the whole object -- that doesn't mean it's not an array of arrays...

<comment><USER9> Hmm, I'm not sure what to say. A two dimensional array is an array of arrays. I'm objecting to the idea that two dimensional arrays are some mythical construction.

For instance, the only way to construct a ragged array is with pointers, and then sizeof doesn't "work" to give the complete size. Also, the [][] syntax is one of the places where pointers and arrays are less equivalent than usual. You can't pass a [][] array via star star.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://cdecl.org/>

<comment><USER13> Cool, but it doesn't handle the last example:

      void (*signal(int, void (*fp)(int)))(int)

...claims there's a syntax error, and there might be, but I don't know off- hand.

<comment><USER14> It's confused by the parameter name fp.

        cdecl> explain void (*signal(int, void (*)(int)))(int) ;

        declare signal as function (int, pointer to function (int) returning void) returning pointer to function (int) returning void

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't imagine using this for real. Perception is so much more parallel than that. If I see

      char *(*fp)(int)

I see that it matches the pattern

      returntype *(*function)(args)

It's the "* (* )()" that one sees all at once, and that signifies "this is a function pointer".

This actually reminds me of some research where kids are asked to trace the direction of interlocked gears. They start by looking at each one, but soon they move to more general strategies. Edit - this is the one, in case anyone is curious: Dixon, J. A., & Bangert, A. S. (2002). The prehistory of discovery: precursors of representational change in solving gear system problems. Developmental Psychology, 38(6), 918.

<comment><USER16> But before the kids could use general strategies, they had to work out the details.

You're right, the spiral rule is probably unwieldy in practice. But until a programmer can recognize the patterns, the rule can be used as a learning aid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is why most programmers are more productive with newer languages. Syntax and readability matter.

<comment><USER2> "Readability" has virtually nothing to do with why people are more productive in higher level languages. Pointer declarations address a problem most high level languages don't even allow developers to engage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great. Functions like _signal_ are rare, so I just memorize what they do without reading the decl every time. Also, typedefs for function pointers go a LONG way towards readability.

The point at the end about const is good too. I see a lot of people screwing that up and consting the wrong piece.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great post. But it's lack of explanations in type qualifiers and storage specifiers. C declaration is not easy for beginners but surely is one of the most important subjects towards optimisations. Correct usage of const and restrict keywords let compiler optimise your code super fast for free. Check my post for example usage of type qualifiers and how the syntax is structured in C: <http://www.idryman.org/blog/2012/10/29/type-qualifiers/>

</comment><comment><USER19> "signal"... pfft... entry level kindergarten stuff. Try parsing array of pointers to array of function pointers taking pointer array of arrays _with some const and __restrict sprinkled on_. And that'd be a warm up. Then name some of the function pointer arguments _const, _restrict and _ - and now we are talking. Spiral out of that!

* This is loosely based on an interview question I got few years ago. I did answer it, then asked similar clusterfuck of a question back. Needless to say it didn't go anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER20> <http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~cs30x/rt_lt.rule.html>

</comment><comment><USER21> This is why I like S-Expressions

<comment><USER22> S-expressions don't declare types, though. A sexp grammar for the same thing would be basically isomorphic to a fully-parenthesized C type expression.

C has some glitches: the fact that the pointer type decoration goes on the left while the array decoration goes on the right is one. The precedence rule that requires parentheses for function pointers is unfortunate. And the putting the decoration on the variable and not the type is just simply a bug IMHO.

But the complexity here is inherent. Complicated types require complicated expressions no matter what grammar you use.

<comment><USER21> I think the gist of your argument is this: both C languages and s-expression based languages are touring complete and thus isomorphic.

For any given C compiler I can write a lisp program that gives the same answers for input. Likewise for any Lisp program I can make input for a c compiler that yields the same behavior. I know this because both c and lisp are touring complete. Yay formal languages !!!

But touring completeness and isomorphism are not exactly the same thing. When you run into undefined behavior in your c/c++ program, there does not exist exactly one s-expression to cover the possible interpretations of every compiler. You may need to write several compiler specific s-expressions to cover all the behaviors from the same c expression.

These compiler specific difference break the mappings required for isomorphism.

Lisps also have two different ways of evaluating input. Lazy and strict. So one s-expression may require several c expressions to deal with edge cases. Nothing is perfect.

Sadly, either way you look at it, c expressions are not quite isomorphic to s-expressions.

I agree with you about left to right vs right to left precedence. That's actually why I prefer s-expressions to order of operations and infix notation.

Also some complexity is inherent, some is self imposed. Sometimes static typing is nice and catches errors. Sometimes dynamic typing can save a lot of keystrokes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is supposed to be a joke, right?</comment>


Löb and möb: strange loops in Haskell (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/quchen/articles/blob/master/loeb-moeb.md <comment><USER2> Loeb's theorem says that you can prove a statement S if you can prove that S is implied by its own provability. It's actually a generalization of Goedel's second incompleteness theorem (let S be a false statement like _0 = 1_ ). I can see something in the article that looks like Loeb's theorem ( _f (f a - > a) -> f a_, reading _f_ as _it can be proved that_ ), but I don't know Haskell, so I'm completely lost after that. Can someone explain in non-Haskell terms what's going on?

<comment><USER3> Probably not, but since no-one else is having a go, I will: f is "Functor", which means roughly the same thing as in category theory (but restricted to the domain of Haskell types). I'm guessing it's possible to construct a Provability functor.

-> in Haskell is just a function. I'll mention that types and propositions have a structure preserving isomorphism. So "a" is an arbitrary type but you can think of it as an arbitrary proposition.

But equally, this holds true for all Functors, so we can specialise the function to something like

(List (List Int -> Int) -> List Int

I hope this helps, it might not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wrote an article based on this one: [https://colourcoding.net/2018/03/29/marvellous- moeb/](https://colourcoding.net/2018/03/29/marvellous-moeb/)

I think one thing it's super good for is constructing cyclic graphs from flat representations: you don't need to do cycle detection. (The example in the code, sadly, does need cycle detection and doesn't have it. I keep meaning to write a follow-up.)

</comment><comment><USER4> When (from an engineering, not personal curiosity perspective) is it worthwhile to use loeb?

After reading the article for about 15 minutes, I finally understand loeb and it's pretty cool! It's an easy way to actually run a list of lazy-loading statements (functions) in a way that all of them resolve to their eventual values.

That being said, it feels like the function is both too abstract to understand, yet not effective as an abstraction that I can apply to other problems. For a few contrasting examples, reverse_string is not a very abstract function, as it operates on a very concrete operand and produces an effect that's intuitive outside of mathematical theory. On the other end, a hash table is very abstract, but we choose to learn it because it's such an useful solution.

As for loeb, I only understand how to use it to create a spreadsheet, yet it's clearly meant for more than that since it's given such an abstract name. It's also not called evaluate_lazy_functions_on_operands either so it must be more than that too! Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER5> Spreadsheets are basically a dependency resolution system, since you have to inspect all cells to decide the order in which to evaluate them. So perhaps loeb is just that, a sort of a SAT solver.

<comment><USER6> > since you have to inspect all cells to decide the order in which to evaluate > them

I don't think this is true; evaluation order of a cell with no dependencies or whose dependencies are already resolved shouldn't matter

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Feeling smart? Let's change that...

If I ever saw a description of Haskell in a nutshell, this is it. YMMV, of course.</comment>


Intel 80386, part 1: Introduction - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190121-00/?p=100745 <comment><USER2> Raymond Chen is such a joy to read. I'm old and jaded enough to have very mixed feelings about Microsoft but it's obvious they've had some very talented programmers over the years.

If I didn't get enough pleasure from using Microsoft software over the years as I did from other OS's I certainly made up for it reading stories from MS folk like Raymond.

As always a great and informative read!

</comment><comment><USER3> See also the second and third installment:

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190122-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190122-00/?p=100755)

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190123-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190123-00/?p=100765)

</comment><comment><USER4> _The 80386 is unusual in that it supports multiple calling conventions_

It's unusual to speak of a processor as "supporting" _any_ calling convention, given that they are simply a convention compilers may follow. The CPU doesn't care (and in the case of the 386 which has no return address prediction or special stack handling, it _really_ doesn't matter) about such things as functions or procedures either, as you'll quickly realise if you read good optimised handwritten Asm.

 _Instruction encoding is highly irregular._

It looks very regular in octal:

[http://www.dabo.de/ccc99/www.camp.ccc.de/radio/help.txt](http://www.dabo.de/ccc99/www.camp.ccc.de/radio/help.txt)

</comment><comment><USER5> For x86 information, I really enjoyed Xeno Kovah's OpenSecurityTraining courses for Intro and Intermediate x86. Recording quality is a bit spotty, but their whole YouTube channel is filled with great content.

<comment><USER6> Do not see the point of the microsoft one but these video are great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My first owned PC, a 386SX at 20 MHz, quite a departure from the PCW 1512 at school computer club or the Timex 2068 at home.

However I still kept a bit of envy from my friends having fun with their Amiga 500s.

<comment><USER8> I'm still envious of my friends with Amiga 500s. The Amiga just kind of does that to people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally I was looking forward to an intro to TSR programs :)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if when these processors were developed, from a hardware standpoint, did the engineering team contemplate Turing completeness and the theory of computation, or just try to satisfy a set of perceived customer needs.

<comment><USER11> They got Turing completeness in just the MMU. This was surely unintended, just like Turing completeness in C++ template expansion and Turing completeness in sendmail configuration files.

Here you go, computation via continuous MMU faults without actually completing any instructions:

[https://github.com/jbangert/trapcc](https://github.com/jbangert/trapcc)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSRcvrVs5ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSRcvrVs5ug)

<comment><USER12> > They got Turing completeness in just the MMU.

Since the amount of adressable memory on any CPU is finite, while a Turing machine needs in infinite band of memory, such claims of Turing-completeness of processors or in this case the MMU are clearly fraudulent.

Only an abstract mathematical model can be Turing-complete - there exists no physical realization of a Turing-complete system/Turing machine and there will never be.

<comment><USER13> This is completely pointless pedantry. Everybody knows that, and nobody bothers to type "Turing-complete (up to memory constraints)" all the time. Real mathematicians do this _all the time_ , taking shortcuts with the understanding that they _could_ phrase it completely rigorously if it were necessary.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Everything we believe about enterprise software is a well constructed lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/83186374-the-dirty-little-secret-traditional-enterprise-software-companies-dont-want-you-knowing?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plusdigest&etid=16071467 <comment><USER2> I don't know that I'd call them "well constructed"

<comment><AUTHOR> Well enough constructed to be effective. I've worked at two startups that thought they had to spring for Oracle/ATG to build a world class eCommerce website, and both ended up migrating to and being much more successful with Shopify.</comment></comment>


research.facebook.com redirects to Decipher Inc. - <AUTHOR> http://research.facebook.com

<comment><USER2> I'll jump in and head off random speculation- this was from a survey that we used Decipher Inc. for, a long time ago. Looking into whether this should be removed.</comment>


Show HN: Ymappr – a todo app using mapped lists instead of regular lists - <AUTHOR> Hello hackers,
I just launched a new MVP  It's a todo app using mapped todo lists instead of regular lists !
https://ymappr.com
It's bugged and very beta, but I released this complex MVP in only two weeks ! (+ made while relocating from Thaïland to Vietnam, and even while being sick). Needless to say, despite the raw interface, a lot of efforts was put into this.
Hope I can give you a feel of what the final product will look like, and I would appreciate some feedback
In the meantime, take care!
baz <comment><USER2> First off - congrats on shipping!

You need to provide more context to what your app _does_ on the front page. Personally, I don't want to sign up for something if I don't know what I am signing up for. These are the kinds of things I am expecting to see on the front page prior to signup:

* Images of what the app's UI looks like

* Is this free or does it have a cost?

* What makes this app unique (how is it different from the alternatives)? Tell me more about (or give me images showing) why mapped todo lists are so amazing!

I would check out the front page of asana.com or trello.com, which do all of these things.

<comment><AUTHOR> great feedback, thanks a lot !

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree with p0cc that a simple screenshot of a more advanced list on the front page would be great. Even better: an interactive, non permanent example on the front page, maybe you can even structure all your talking points within that.

For the app itself: why do lists branch off other lists and not items? Can I at least convert an item to a branched list? I'm not quite sure what the use- case is. An example again would help.

I have to admit to prefer nested lists instead of mind-maps. When mind-maps are purely tree-like the same kind of relationships can be depicted in both.

My nested lists fail when a child has two parents, with mind maps this is not a problem. Maybe you can lever on that advantage?

<comment><AUTHOR> \- "an interactive, non permanent example on the front page, maybe you can even structure all your talking points within that"

This is good, I like this idea

\- "why do lists branch off other lists and not items ?"

because I want to keep the UI minimal and this adds design complexity

\- "Can I at least convert an item to a branched list ?"

not now, but yes is on my public todo list (ironically on trello for now : [https://trello.com/b/mNeJCxNK/ymappr](https://trello.com/b/mNeJCxNK/ymappr))

\- "I have to admit to prefer nested lists instead of mind-maps"

it works for two or three levels of nesting :P after that, hard to visualize in a meaningful way in my opinion

\- "My nested lists fail when a child has two parents, with mind maps this is not a problem"

again, I think it adds too much complexity to have a k-tree structure instead of a pure graph. Ideally I'd like something as minimal and simple as a Trello board, but without the boards :P

Anyways, thanks for the feedback, you gave me a lot to think about and I will think about how to integrate that in a clean way :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would like to see a demo before I signup

<comment><AUTHOR> got it, thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Mind Maps. We already added a mind map view to our own project management software and it's awesome. So the idea is good but really need to show some examples and screenshots (as mentioned from various people). I'm curious how it will look in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know right ! :D I can't believe mind maps are still not so mainstream but they are great tools when used properly

<comment><USER5> True! You can do so many things with mind maps and few people know about it;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a cool concept. Still a bit buggy + slow, particularly when your list tree gets complex, but great stuff for a 2 week MVP.

To be more than a toy / become a daily driver, it would be nice if this worked with existing data sources (sync todo lists with Google, Outlook, etc.).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks :) I'm going to rework the engine with SVG and a front-end framework to optimize that !

alright I'm pushing your request to the public roadmap : [https://trello.com/c/vBnBcTPj/42-sync- feature](https://trello.com/c/vBnBcTPj/42-sync-feature)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know what a linked list is or a "regular" list. The site is broken mobile. There's no screenshot of how the app looks or works.

<comment><AUTHOR> got it, sorry about that :) I wanted to release something to get feedback and didn't have time to make it responsive. Thanks for the remark</comment></comment>


Full-text Search Workshop, 1/26 6:30pm at IndexTank (San Francisco) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.indextank.com/217/full-text-search-workshop-jan-26-630pm/

<comment><USER2> Interesting challenger to Atomz.com and the first wave of now dead search-as- a-service players like SearchButton.com. The ability to push content into the index on demand is a nice feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does atomz.com work? I tried it and it times out. Hadn't seen it, thanks for the tip!

<comment><USER2> I have not directly - they were the enemy as I was a search guy over at Searchbutton. Freefind is another very light SAAS site search solution. If you are interested in the space Searchblox is an open source search platform based on Lucene that can be had for free and deployed easily on EC2. Also take a look at the newcomer Constellio.</comment></comment></comment>


Ernest Hemingway: The Art of Talented Writing - <AUTHOR> https://betterhumans.coach.me/ernest-hemingway-the-art-of-talented-writing-f931b8074c13 <comment><USER2> Coincidentally I use the Hemingway App to de-complexify my academic writing. My work is in the top 1% of my cohort.

[http://www.hemingwayapp.com/](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/)

Orwell also has some great things to say on the subject.

[http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit...](http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/)

His six rules are :

* Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

* Never use a long word where a short one will do

* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

* Never use the passive where you can use the active.

* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

The only downside is now when I'm reading other people's academic papers I have to work harder to stop thinking about the writing style rather than the content.</comment>


Show HN: Buoy Boy, our first iOS game - <AUTHOR> http://buoyboygame.com/

<comment><USER2> Looks awesome! Great work, and great site!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Hope you're enjoying the game.</comment></comment>


O'Reilly Books: Day Against DRM Sale - <AUTHOR> http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/day-against-drm.do?code=DRM2016 <comment><USER2> Can anyone recommend a good python book for someone learning Data Analysis/Wrangling? I've listed a few options below.

Python for Data Analysis - [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023784.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023784.do) \- I'm working on this one now.

Data Wrangling with Python - [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032861.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032861.do)

Fluent Python - [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032519.do)

Learning Predictive Analytics with Python - [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781783983261.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781783983261.do)

Data Visualization with Python and JavaScript - [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920037057.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920037057.do)

Thanks for any comments!</comment>


CoffeeScript Web REPL - <AUTHOR> http://neumark.github.com/ducttape/#

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool, but I have to hit "return" twice to get a line to execute (but not "enter").</comment>


Ask HN: Y Combinator S20 and Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> Does Y Combinator plan to change approach for S20 batch amid CVOID-19? Like online interviews, as travel ban from Europe will make it hard for many founders to be on them. What about 3 month program? <comment><USER2> [https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo- day/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not an answer for what I asked for. Demo day is at the end of 3 month program...

But there's a hint in other blog post:

> We want to make sure founders know that the YC Summer 2020 batch will take > place. Our online application is open now and we will run our application > review process as we always do, with some modifications to how we run > interviews. Additionally, depending on the circumstances this summer, some > or all of the batch may take place remotely over video.

[https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-s20-batch- updates/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-s20-batch-updates/)

Yet, would love to get some official info after traveling ban.

<comment><USER3> You did not like my answer the first time judging by the downvote lol, but it is right, so, here it goes again...We will know in the future. No one can answer your question. Because no one here is from the future, sorry.

"depending on the circumstances this summer, some or all of the batch may take place remotely over video."

Seems like you have the answer to your question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ech, those conspiracy theorist... I can't even downvote. :)

> Seems like you have the answer to your question.

No, it's not an answer. So I will just wait for some official announcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude For W20 the interviews for European applicants were conducted in Paris.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't change anything, many will be blocked from traveling either way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Depends what happens. Come back and ask us when what ever happens has happened.</comment>