Flip creator gets into the grilled cheese business, Sequoia invests  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/01/the-melt-flip-sequoia/

<comment><USER2> Well, I _do_ like grilled cheese, and I'm happy to have five more opening in the SF Bay Area (please be Berkeley, please be Berkeley) but... really? Sequoia Capital funds grilled cheese restaurants nowadays?

I mean, apart from anything else it's going to make 'em look especially silly if it fails. I can see the annual report now. "This year we made $50 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We also wrote off $10 million we invested in a grilled cheese chain."

<comment><USER3> "We also paid a trifling sum of money for an option on participation in whatever the next thing the Flip creator does after he gets the grilled cheese thing out of his system."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be even cooler if a quadcopter delivered your grilled cheese sandwich within minutes no matter where you were. Why doesn't that exist yet?

<comment><USER5> You know... that sounds doable.

Quadcopter are very fast and can go very far before they lose power. And a single sandwich is not a very heavy load.

If you are outdoors and can give it your GPS coordinates, a single restaurant/quadcopter port, could serve a very large area.

<comment><USER2> Given advances in ballistics I think a grilled cheese cannon would work just as well, and be cheaper.

<comment><USER6> I would be blowing $$$/week ordering grilled cheeses for unsuspecting friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was thinking of starting a company that sells pet supplies to retail customers by way of a website. Think I'll be able to secure VC funding?

<comment><USER8> Only if it involves QR codes, NFC technology, and group buying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminiscent of Starbucks' "Mobile Pour" joke ... which isn't that far from viable in a high-dollar high-traffic area.

[http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks- mobile-p...](http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-pour)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's an interesting angle here...

When someone wants to eat, they pay immediately by mobile in a quick and easy way (hopefully), and hence lock themselves into not being able to change their minds, or going somewhere else, or not going anywhere but home.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't mean to be dense... but why would I want to order food on my phone? I'm reminded of Paul Graham's office hours video on TC. He asked one of the founders if his product solved the biggest problem in his life. I don't think there's a single person on Earth whose biggest problem in life is, "I have to tell the cashier what I want to eat before I can get fast food."

<comment><USER12> I don't think _The Melt_ is doing this right, but it could be useful. Let's say you ordered it from an app that sends the restaurant your GPS coordinates at the time of the order. It then continues to send your coordinates as you travel to the restaurant.

On their end their software computes an estimated arrival time allowing them to precisely time cooking to be fresh and ready for you to eat when you arrive.

<comment><USER11> That makes a lot more sense. I still don't think I'd use it ("fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made), but at least I can understand why someone would.

<comment><USER2> _"fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made_

Really? I just went down to Cheeseboard Pizza to get a slice, but the line was too long, so I went somewhere else. If I could have ordered and paid while I walked and then just picked it up when I got there, that would have been sweet.

Mind you, I'm pretty impatient.

<comment><USER13> Just get their phone number and call ahead for takeout — it's pretty common here in Seattle even for places that don't deliver or even have a counter to order at.

There are some terrific sit-down restaurants that have tons of excess kitchen capacity.

<comment><USER2> Heh, that'd never work at Cheeseboard. They make great pizza, actually, but:

a) They only make one type of pizza per day,

b) You stand in a line which always goes out the door in order to order it

c) Same line for eat-in or take-away.

They have a constant stream of pizzas coming out of the ovens and getting cut up. When you're standing in line all you're waiting for is for the guy at the front to find out how many slices everyone wants and to take their money.

<comment><USER14> When they did their big remodel, they really should have added space for a second cashier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know restaurant names are often re-used, but I wanted point out there is already an awesome gourmet grilled cheese restaurant called "Melt".[1]

see <http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com>

[1] I guess he called his "The Melt"

edit: first hit in Google for "The Melt" as well.

<comment><USER2> Fun exercise: find a Mongolian Barbecue that isn't called "Genghis Khan".

<comment><USER16> <http://www.gomongo.com/>

What do I win?

<comment><USER2> You win a free meal at a delicious Mongolian Barbecue!

It's called the Genghis Khan. Just go there and tell 'em I sent you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, Chuck E Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell who before that founded Atari, so it might just work!

</comment><comment><USER18> I make a pretty mean sandwich, with oven-fresh bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, and prosciutto, with a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning. Anyone care to fund me?

I'll name my shop "Panini Veri" (non quelle schifezze spacciate per panini italiani!)

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I think I'd need to try a sample before I invested...

<comment><USER18> All you have to do is drop by Padova. Wine, as per the other comment below, is included.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He could at least deliver to arbitrary locations like "Ronnie" the underground cheese griller in NYC.

[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda_livin_CbUxrE7kGNTMUQch9afQlJ)

[http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am...](http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am- nycs-undreground-grilled-cheese/)

He was covered quite a bit last year for taking orders via text message and for being mildly subversive of the NYC health department.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article on one side and the serious comments on the other side have me really torn, please help me - this is satire right? Right???

</comment><comment><USER21> All the restaurant-related startups and announcements lately are an almost- daily reminder for me that when you have a good idea, jump on it.

Ah well. I didn't have the contacts to pull it off, and it was only half an idea. :)

<comment><USER2> If you ask me, screw the grilled cheese restaurant. A grilled cheese _van_ would be a licence to print money, second only to a cupcake van.

<comment><USER22> Will Y Combinator invest in my grilled cheese van? :)

<comment><USER2> Depends. Do you have a cofounder? Are you aged between 20 and 25? Are you a _technical_ founder who actually understands how to make a grilled cheese on your own, or are you just expecting to hire a grilled cheese expert?

edit: Actually I think the ideal would be two technical founders with complementary skills. One knows how to make a grilled cheese, and the other one knows how to drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if he was inspired by NYC's Underground Grilled Cheese: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815>

</comment><comment><USER24> there is no tech bubble.

</comment><comment><USER25> Any idea how much he paid for <http://melt.com> ? Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of high-profile domain name purchases lately? (though I say that, only color and melt come to mind immediately although I'm sure there are some others... I know Pizza.com sold for $2.5m, which is ridiculous considering what they are doing with that name)

</comment><comment><USER26> Best. Headline. Ever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Friend at D9 says they are damn delicious, too

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So when Sequoia is investing in a fast casual restaurant, can we say that the bubble is now officially in play? I understand wacky tech ideas no one understands, but a restaurant? Really?

<comment><USER28> Relax. They're not issuing stock yet.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Don't learn more than you need to know - <AUTHOR> The most important resource for anyone is time and no one disagrees with not wasting it!
But most people waste it, and waste it in ways they think is not wasting.
For example, most people don't consider learning more than you need to know a bad thing! Because learning is good, we don't consider over-learning bad!
I think over-learning is as bad as not knowing anything. Both is wasting time!
Information in this world is infinite and our time is finite so it makes most sense to only learn the most important things that we need to know right now -- not in the future but right now!
Now, someone might argue that learning more than we need to know gives us perspective to see what we need to know next, or gives us big picture or our next idea or some other crap to usually justify a 400 page textbook on world economy for someone with no interest.
Well, if you have no perspective or you think you need to know more in order to make a better decision you still don't know enough. In that case you need to learn more but not more than that because soon you have no time to learn anything!
Don't over-learn! <comment><USER2> Sounds like the sort of thinking that leads to apps that depend on a slew of "cloud" vendor services and 5 different saas api's (plus their collective cloud requirements) because the developer doesn't know how to hash a password or resize an image.

<comment><USER3> You can read about hashing passwords and resizing images in a textbook but the reading maybe less efficient compared to actually learning it while doing it. Knowledge and experience. E.g. Someone who's reading wikipedia about worms is wasting his time compared to someone who's joined a worm lab.

<comment><USER2> Oh that's fine then. This textbook says I can use md5 for my passwords so that's what I'll do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the "follow your bliss" meme is a decent heuristic.

So much of the weird useless stuff I spent lonely hours learning about have actually turned out to be crucial to my career opportunities and generally made me a better engineer.

I think taking some hours to just do cool weird crazy stuff will probably always pay off in one way or another, maybe ten years down the line even.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I value knowledge in life, your question is not relevant. I use my time in order get as much knowledge as I can. Over learning something means acquiring more knowledge.

What you should say instead is - I make use of my time by trying as many things as I can without understanding them. Pretty much like a newborn.

</comment><comment><USER6> If I enjoyed my time "over learnig" is it really wasting my time? I understand that not all learing is enjoyed, but if it's subject I enjoy learning more about it's not wasting my time.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a famous section in the Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet in which Homes talks about how he not only did not know that the Earth revolved around the sun, but that he'd do his best to forget that fact, as it had no bearing upon his life.

<comment><USER8> "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, the counter-argument is that you won't know what you need to know until you realize you don't know it.

How do you even know what you need to know?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting!

To me one of the most fascinating things is the way babies learn!

How does a brand new brain (that knows nothing) start learning?

Of course, I don't know! I just know that babies are cute and this topic is interesting.

But, I think as soon as you can ask a question, you know enough to ask the next one which will ultimately result in learning everything if you had infinite time.

We are all familiar with the age babies start asking questions that our answer only leads them to a new question, and then another, and another, until we say enough with the questions let's go eat an ice cream! :)

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate–distortion_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate–distortion_theory)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We can discuss your thoughts only because there where people who learned to much. Without them we would not have internet, computers, could not read/write and high probably would have been killed by an epidemic years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Learning a lot is not over-learning.

<comment><USER12> Ok - so how do you know if you're "over-learning" \- what are the signals for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Learning by problem solving.

I just try to solve problems one at a time. And usually break a hard problem into smaller easier ones.

When I can't solve a problem it's usually time to learn more until it's solved. And when it's solved I go to the next one.

I have created a programming language with this method without even knowing where to start.

I guess, the internet (accessibility of information) is the main reason that eliminates the need to learn stuff beforehand.

Maybe I should change the title to something like:

Learn as you go! :)

<comment><USER12> Aah that better explains what you mean!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I enjoy learning for the sake of learning. I dont watch tv or netflix. All subjective.

<comment><AUTHOR> Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

<comment><USER10> the paradox: do busybodies waste time telling others to stop wasting their time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is some truth in this, but determining what you need to know is the hard part. Learning something enjoyable (learning to surf, for example) is another category where I don't think it can be called a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER14> This happens often with coworkers who spend a lot of work time reading books that go way beyond the material needed for their task (which is usually covered by official documentation).

</comment><comment><USER15> not true</comment>


Show HN: An app for easily toggling the grayscale display filter on macOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brettferdosi/grayscale <comment><AUTHOR> I found the iPhone grayscale filter really useful in reducing the amount of time and attention I spend on my phone. The ability to easily toggle grayscale on and off with three home-button clicks was crucial for making it practical to keep the filter on by default. I wanted to try the same thing with my laptop, but couldn't find a simple enough solution. So, I built a macOS app that lets you toggle the grayscale filter with just a menu bar click or a configurable keyboard shortcut. I'd be interested to know whether people here find it useful or have any feedback. Thanks for taking a look.

</comment><comment><USER2> Or you could use Tranquility which still works throughout the ages even when 'macOS' was once called 'OS X':

[https://github.com/lswank/Tranquility](https://github.com/lswank/Tranquility)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a neat app I haven't heard of before, thanks for sharing. Mine is a little different under the hood. Instead of using CGDisplay functions, it uses newer, private frameworks to toggle the display filter that are the same ones used by the system's own settings pane. The CGDisplay grayscale function is a little bit darker, doesn't persist through sleep, and doesn't sync up with System Preferences.</comment></comment>


Inside the Tech Revolution That Could Be Rwanda's Future - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3770968/rwanda-technology-genocide/

<comment><USER2> Rwanda as well as several other countries in Africa are in a very interesting place right now. Their people are in need of better health services, education and social mobility which can all be enabled by better technology. Combine this fact with the state of tech: it's now easier than ever to launch and scale a service.

Additionally, since smart phones and IT infrastructure are still lagging, developers of all types have a real opportunity to 'softwarize' [1] these countries before they develop legacy, siloed infrastructure that's often seen in the US.

There's so much low hanging fruit that we can pick off to improve and I'd encourage anyone here to do so.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-41016](http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL- DGB-41016)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had the chance to briefly see the transformation going on in Rwanda last year first hand. It genuinely blew me away. If they can manage to keep the political / security situation in check over the next few years (which according to those I spoke with living there full time is far from a given) then they are on track to be one of the most amazing stories to come out of Africa I think.</comment>


Uber's Manhattan Invasion Is Killing the Loan Market for Taxis - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-15/uber-s-manhattan-invasion-is-killing-the-loan-market-for-taxis

<comment><USER2> Medallion prices are a function of demand. As prices soared, the taxi commission should have been releasing more medallions as it meant that demand for taxi's had soared. Instead, the actual mafia-like taxi oligarchs pushed to limit medallions and thus drive up the price higher. This was an artificial market, not a demand-based market.

When an externality came in that reduced demand, they were caught off guard, but they should never have been in this place to begin with.

To blame Uber here is obvious, but far from fair. Sorry guys, you ran an artificial market, took out loans against that artificial market, and an externality came and popped your bubble. You had great times for a long time – now it's over.

And it's not just Uber that people are picking over taxis. They are picking their time over taxis. If you read the last two paragraphs of this (terrific) article, the 'time' concept will make more sense: [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-long-history- of-t...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-long-history-of-the-fight- against-uber)

<comment><USER3> The taxi commission and banks at least are not trying to hide their real intentions. They think it's unfair that they have to compete. Maybe I live in a bubble but everyone I talk to sees right through this. But for some reason I feel the media is more apologetic and gives the TLC way too much benefit of the doubt.

As a New Yorker, I love Uber and find it absurd that the mayor basically makes decisions about the cabs. Over the last several years, the "improvements" such as adding TVs to the cab seem completely unnecessary and not based on actual customer demands or preferences. Not to mention pricing by government decree leads to shortages during rush times and every cab honking at you looking for a pick-up during the off-hours. Oh, and if you're going somewhere the cab can't pick up a return, you'll be sure to hear about it.

The other thing is that this objection seems way too premature:

> By his count, only about 500 of the city's medallions, or about 3.7 percent, > are trading below their purchase price. That means that if banks foreclose, > losses would be "insignificant," he said.

Surely the lending institution has to take some risk in regards to the value of the collateral. Unfortunately, the US has a precedent for bailing out financial institutions

<comment><USER4> > Over the last several years, the "improvements" such as adding TVs to the > cab seem completely unnecessary and not based on actual customer demands or > preferences.

Ah, but in fact you're mistaken. Actual customers did demand that they be added to the taxi fleets. Only the customers in this case are tangentially associated marketers who wanted to serve their products to a captive audience. :P

<comment><USER3> Fair point.

> Mr. Yassky (taxi commissioner) said that in lieu of demanding advertising > revenue, the city hoped that the additional income for vendors might > encourage them to lower the fees they charge to cab owners, which could in > turn reduce the pressure to increase fares. "I don't think advertising is so > much an opportunity for city revenue," he said, "so much as an opportunity > to keep fares down."

Looks like NYC government isn't really benefiting but (presumably) bearing the cost of fitting these TVs. Government officials always associate price with cost rather than price with demand.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/nyregion/13taxitv.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/nyregion/13taxitv.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _and credit unions with a combined $2.5 billion in medallion loans are suing > the city for failing to stop Uber from stealing customers._

As an occasional customer of NYC transportation services, I'd just like to throw this out there: I AM NOT YOUR PROPERTY! YOU DO NOT OWN ME! I CANNOT BE "STOLEN"!

<comment><USER5> Postscript: If you're willing to listen to the likes of the New York Times, perhaps you'd believe the fall in medallion prices is a good thing: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/nyregion/1-million- medalli...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/nyregion/1-million-medallions- stifling-the-dreams-of-cabdrivers.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uber is such a good experience in comparison to Taxis.

Here in Perth Uber provides a clean, calm experience where you don't have to worry about being scammed. Almost every time I've taken a taxi they have pulled the "No change for your fifty" trick, driven the long way which devolves into you having to tell the driver the directions which save you $15 off of the fare or even the times that my Taxi driver has pulled over mid-trip to purchase themselves some energy drinks (without asking me if that's ok).

I can't wait until the taxis and their Government issued monopoly are over. All that matters is that their business model built upon bad experiences, arrogance and scamming is finally being challenged and they deserve to lose these artificially inflated "assets".

<comment><USER7> The irony or Russian tycoon, owner of "Vodka taxi", talking about mafia, is almost palpable. (I am Russian, so I am allowed to make this kind of non-pc joke /s)

On a serious side, the experience is similar in other cities as well. My friend had to do an early AM ride from Harlem to EWR. No taxis on the street, companies she called flat out refused (and she hates to make calls). Compare it to Uber who showed up on time, was very polite, she did not have to pull out cash or credit card, did NOT charge her the full cash fare tunnel toll charge, and cost 30% less overall.

Even in Toronto where taxi drivers are generally a nicer bunch, I am regularly told that "my card machine is broken/not charged".

If taxis want to compete with Uber, at the bare minimum they should "embrace and extend" what Uber is already doing: smartphone apps, rating system, card- less and cash-less billing.

<comment><USER8> Have you tried the trick where you ask the driver before entering the cab if they take cards? A friend of mine says the prospect of losing the fare somehow fixes most card machines. ('tis Toronto)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "New York must stand up to the hostile takeover being attempted by a Mafia- like Silicon Valley"

That is so rich, the people who want to force competitors out are calling their competition Mafia like. This article is so bizarrely worded ... Uber is "invading" "stealing" customers. Nope, no bias there. (/sarcasm)

</comment><comment><USER10> "New York must stand up to the hostile takeover being attempted by a Mafia- like Silicon Valley, in conjunction with predator banks," Freidman said.

I understand someone is lashing out at losing their cash cow but I don't think I've heard Silicon Valley described as a Mafia before.

Can anybody explain how this is even a remotely comparable thing to say?

<comment><USER11> > I don't think I've heard Silicon Valley described as a Mafia before

You haven't ?

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11106473/The-PayPal- Ma...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11106473/The-PayPal-Mafia-Who- are-they-and-where-are-Silicon-Valleys-richest-group-of-men-now.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm struggling to find a reason why I should care. Stuff like this makes me think it's a good thing:

* > [C]redit unions with a combined $2.5 billion in medallion loans are suing the city for failing to stop Uber from stealing customers.*

Um, what? It's not the government's job to stop competitors from stealing customers, it's up to businesses to stop their competitors from stealing customers.

</comment><comment><USER13> I posted this comment on another taxi medallion article, but figure it's hopefully more relevant here:

Just a little background on medallion finance:

A few summers ago, I worked in commercial credit and we did a financing for a "taxi mogul." He was replacing several cars in his fleet, and wanted to take out term loans for the full purchase price of the cars (approx. $30k each, IIRC).

The loans would be secured by cash flow, but the business also posted medallions as collateral. Each loan was attributed to the vehicle purchased with the proceeds and secured by that vehicle's medallion.

It's hard to value something like a taxi medallion. Medallions aren't liquid -- they are usually sold in very low volumes at auctions controlled by the TLC (in NYC). Additionally, the TLC limits the number of outstanding medallions. In practice, most of the medallions are concentrated in the hands of "taxi moguls" who started taxi businesses in the early 20th century when medallions were cheap (think $30k). The best approximation for value we had was the prices commanded by medallions at auction. When I was doing diligence on this deal a few years ago (before Uber), prices were accepted as $1.1mm per medallion. (In reality, that was at best the value of the "marginal" medallion sold; i.e. you could probably not put 10 medallions up for auction at $11mm.)

That means that a $30k term loan would have a loan-to-value of about 3% -- a dream for a bank, assuming the medallions can be seized and sold at market value upon default. That also meant that the loans would be approved almost regardless of the integrity of cash flow. Those characteristics allowed the more cunning taxi moguls to borrow a lot of money against their medallions, securing low rates due to the strength of their collateral posting, and lend the money out at higher rates to earn arbitrage.

There was a good amount of discussion about the medallion bubble -- all it would take is a significant increase in the number of medallions authorized by the TLC or a few failed auctions, and a medallion sold at a large haircut, for the value of all medallions to plummet. Granted, the drop in value might not trip loan covenants, but it would significantly erode the balance sheets of these businesses. At the time, we didn't expect that there would be an external force that would hurt medallion values.

Honestly, skyrocketing medallion prices made it clear that additional ride capacity was needed/demanded. The interesting fact is that the medallion market wasn't disrupted by the issuance of additional medallions, but rather a drop in the demand for yellow cab rides -- a scenario that taxi moguls likely hadn't planned for.

All in all, an interesting asset class that most people aren't aware of -- those 4-letter signs on taxis hold no meaning to riders, and almost nobody on the street would guess that they represent assets worth over one million dollars.

<comment><USER14> Ot of everything that surrounds uber, the interplay and economics of the taxi industry hitting the rocks is interesting to me in an economic case study.

Your example shows that a lot of businesses take advantage of credit to increase their returns but probably are never able to see where the problems are going to come from. Even ten years ago if you'd have said we would be in this situation it would have been unimaginable.

The angle most taxi sympathisers are going for is the 'poor taxi driver' angle. But in reality the taxi drivers can just switch. It's the people who are all-in on taxis who are in trouble, with their business model built around a constant amount of passenger miles which probably hasn't changed in years.

<comment><USER15> It's pretty disingenuous to say that taxi drivers can just switch. My gut says that most taxi drivers aren't in a position to easily invest in a capital resource like an automobile.

Though it makes me wonder if you could start a business that rents out cars to potential ride sharing drivers. You get $X per hour that they use it and at the end of their shift they drop it off with another rent. Basically reinventing the taxi cab model.

<comment><USER16> Some people have tried that. I think the issue right now is that UberX rates have dropped so much for drivers, that if you add an intermediate in the middle, there is either very little margin for the intermediate, or a very shitty salary (under minimum wage) for the driver.

<comment><USER14> So sounds like the taxi industry then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel less sorry for NYC taxis than in most cities -- they have had non- medallion competition for decades in the form of car services, which work much like Uber but you have to use the "phone" function of your smartphone.

Car services flourished because even today, cabs will refuse to go to Brooklyn. This was a form of "redlining" that profiled customers by race, even now that Brooklyn has added white hipsters to its ethnic and religious minorities.

So in NYC there is nothing new about this form of competition; it is only that Uber has made it more convenient.

<comment><USER18> I used to take cabs from Penn to Lorimer Street and back all the time through 2007-11 when I didnt feel like switching trains - no problems.

I don't want folks reading this to think cabs really don't go to BK.

<comment><USER19> It was definitely an issue. Not that "every" cab wouldn't, but I learned quickly to get in the cab before saying that I was going to Brooklyn - numerous drivers would drive off when they heard it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why doesn't the NY TLC add hailing via app / smartphone?

<comment><USER21> If it's anything like London, the price of the black cab is regulated.

So, even if there is hailing via an app (Which afaik exists for some black cabs), you're still paying the regulated and more expensive fare.

<comment><USER22> And in return, you're getting a properly regulated and insured service which you can pretty much rely on.

You get what you pay for.

<comment><USER23> I've had that regulated dependable service drive me around the block, take longer distances that were necessary; practically stealing money from me. I have never had that happen with Uber. Not once. More expensive doesn't make it better. That's a nonsensical statement especially when government regulation actually makes markets less efficient and more subject to market distortions.

The taxi business as we know it ought to die. Let these thieving, exploitive 'mogels' go bankrupt.

<comment><USER22> It'll come full circle. People will start getting murdered / seriously hurt in Uber cars, maybe they'll be filmed without their consent while in the car, probably a few rapes along the way.

Then customers will cry out for regulation, insurance, etc. And it'll put the prices up.

I don't understand why you'd put your life completely in someone elses hands without any sort of vetting, regulation, insurance etc. Just so you can save a few $

Maybe a startup should disrupt the medical industry. Just provide "doctors" to patients based on online feedback scores. After all, all that regulation and training just pushes prices up.

<comment><USER24> Regulation doesn't stop murder, theft nor rape. If it did we wouldn't have prisons.

There are numerous events of murder and rape in regulated taxi cabs. (Google is helpful). If you have any evidence that Uber is more dangerous than a cab is love to see it.

As for your final question, yes. Regulation has artificially held back the medical industry and ridiculously inflated prices. People aren't stupid, they can decide what's best for themselves. Choice and free competition is the foundation of progress.

<comment><USER22> Do you really believe that no regulation is the answer?

Look at airbnb and the detrimental effects it has on cities. Residential areas are residential for a reason. It must be horrible to wake up one day and find that your neighbour has decided to turn into an unregulated hotel.

<comment><USER24> I have yet to see any evidence in regards to your claims about Uber or Airbnb.

Secondly if the prior taxi system is evidence of regulation i think it's a safe assumption to make that regulations helped neither the consumer or the providers. Uber in SF is doing 3-4x what the entire taxi system was doing prior, that's evidence of demand not being met. Artificially restricting supply is never a good idea.

Uber is only doing so well because people prefer their service to the alternatives, people aren't stupid, they can do what is best for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Existing service has problems, many of which can be attributed to heavy regulation.

New service is introduced and is preferred by consumers.

Existing service wants more regulation to kill new service.

Sounds about right.

</comment><comment><USER26> The reason for the high cost of NYC Taxi Medallions is because of politically induced artificial scarcity of limiting Taxi Medallions (Microeconomics term is "rent seeking"). Rent seeking is a form of market inefficiency that causes people to pay more of their income for taxis which means less spending on other things.

I welcome anything that rids us of "rent seeking" and helps with market efficiencies.

</comment><comment><USER27> Would there be an overall economic net gain or loss if the Taxi industry was replaced entirely (or close to it) by Uber?

I can't help but think it's not a good idea to convert an entire industry to contract workers...

</comment><comment><USER28> How much does taxi ride have to cost to make place for a competitor such as Uber to pop up? I live in a city with 250'000 people and taxi ride within city limits are $3.

<comment><USER29> Where is this city? In africa, you can't take a taxi for less than 3$ in city limits.

<comment><USER28> Slovakia, Europe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Am I crazy or is the whole mobile phone industry dumb?</comment>


The CIA's New Black Bag Is Digital - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/16/the_cias_new_black_bag_is_digital_nsa_cooperation

<comment><AUTHOR> " … one of the men pulled out a disk and loaded some programs onto the resident's laptop computer while the other man kept watch at the window. The whole operation took less than two minutes, then the two trespassers fled the way they came, leaving no trace that they had ever been there.

It did not take long for the official to determine that the two men were, in fact, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives conducting what is known in the U.S. intelligence community as either a "black bag job" or a "surreptitious entry" operation."

I wonder how sophisticated that operation was (and how sophisticated today's equivalent is).

Would _you_ know if someone had loaded some new software onto your laptop? How would you protect against that? I wonder if running Tripwire on my OS X and Linux laptops as well as on servers might be smart? WOuld Tripwire be likely to be of any use against modern CIA-style "black bagging"?</comment>


Not So Fast Public Cloud: Big Players Still Run Privately - <AUTHOR> http://siliconangle.com/ver2/2009/08/17/not-so-fast-public-cloud-big-players-still-run-privately/?utm_campaign=BackType&utm_medium=bt.io-twitter&utm_source=direct-bt.io&utm_content=backtype-tweetcount

<comment><USER2> "The real success of the cloud like compute services so far has been in bringing small and midsize companies to market incredibly fast." Totally agreed here, and I think this is why hackers and entrepreneurs are so excited about the cloud - it does away with traditional concerns of infrastructure, allowing more focus on ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great line to pull out, and most relevant to the Y crowd for sure. What's interesting is that all of that hacker success has really made enterprises take notice and they are trying to figure out the magic too. Problem is they aren't nearly as nimble at writing new apps for this paradigm.</comment></comment>


Easy Trick to Reduce APK Size on Android - <AUTHOR> https://snapsearch.online/tutorial/easy-trick-to-reduce-apk-size-on-android/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just sharing a small trick I use. Helped me keep the app size reeeally small. 300+ images and so many features into a ~6mb download thanks to this trick =)</comment>


Key compromise and root cert with exposed key in German lawyer software (beA) - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/Cxw7YObzZEg <comment><USER2> Importing the self-signed certificate itself into the root certificate store is actually an okay solution for this, assuming it's done properly (no CA bit set).

(obviously, that's not what they did)

<comment><USER3> No, not if you still use a shared key.

<comment><USER4> +1

Had the same story 3 days ago on the front page for a different software: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15982161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15982161)

<comment><USER3> Actually the battle.net story has been distorted quite a bit. What they do now is more or less the right thing: They create new keys for every system.

The problem was what they did before: They had a publicly trusted cert for their local webserver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They also asked users to import it into the Mozilla store, which (for mostly historically reasons) is separate. Feels like Mozilla should be revoking that specifically.

Ultimately, I have no idea what they are even trying to achieve here. If this is all localhost communication, HTTPS isn't doing anything.

<comment><USER6> Probably they're trying to avoid "not secure" warnings from browser which are displayed if http-served web page contains password input fields (Chrome 56+, since October 2017).

<comment><USER7> These don't appear for localhost, though.

<comment><USER8> It's not localhost as domain, it's a real registered domain that points to the loopback address.

<comment><USER5> It should still not show the warning then, right? Because you're still talking to localhost, and that is ultimately what matters.

And what is the motivation behind having a domain you need internet for to resolve to point towards localhost to use with a certificate only localhost is meant to have? This is all sorts of effed up.

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing it's so the end-users can just say "go to www.[bla].de", similar to going to gmail.com...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "be a localhost .de"

Why cant they just use a HOSTS file entry? What is the need for DNS?

If there is no need for DNS then why use the public, commercial CA system? That system relies on domainname registration credentials as "authentication".

Not sure I understand the design of this software. What is the purpose of the web server?

<comment> md- the whole thing is basically a webmail service, but the client provides crypto-functions to encrypt and decrypt messages locally using a smart card reader. The client software has an API which is provided as a webservice on localhost:9998 (FQDN: bealocalhost.de). At first they ran this service with a certificate that was signed by a trusted CA. I reported them for disclosing the private key of that cert. Communication between the client (java- application) and the webmail service (website) is done via javascript in the browser, which connects to services on localhost using websockets.

md

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is a server on localhost using HTTPS instead of HTTP? Oh, I know, because "no one should be using unencrypted HTTP in 2017". This is the fruit the SSL security theater mania has borne.</comment>


Ask HN: What phone carrier do you use? - <AUTHOR> I'm using Google Fi but I haven't been happy with the quality of reception in my area (Albuquerque, NM). As of yesterday I suddenly can't connect to their networks on my iPhone 7 anymore after briefly using airplane mode even after getting a new Google Fi SIM card, which I think is the last straw for me.<p>What carrier do you currently use? What do you like about it? Also curious if anyone knows of any options that are privacy focused <comment><USER2> Wi-Fi only.

In emergencies, people are always happy or at least willing to let me borrow their phone to make a call.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use T-mobile. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and the coverage here is excellent.</comment>


In Search of a Good Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/In%20Search%20of%20a%20Good%20Idea

<comment><USER2> Are you familiar with the product life cycle concept? (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management>)

(Unfortunately the article doesn't include a diagram, so I'll point you to one: <http://www.ccfplus.com/wp-content/uploads/plc.png>)

The cycle can be applied to products, industries, and even individual companies. It seems like you're at just about the maturity stage of the cycle, meaning that growth has slowed and new customers won't be coming as quickly.

I'm not sure I can help specifically, but many product life cycle graphs also include an 'innovation' stage, which occurs either at maturity or decline, and essentially restarts the growth stage. ([http://blog.cestudios.ca/images/innovation-product-life- cyc....](http://blog.cestudios.ca/images/innovation-product-life-cyc.gif))

If you think that this cycle applies in your situation, then it's time to innovate. I think moving to Europe is a good idea. It's basically the same product to a new branch of customers. Eventually the new geographic segment well will dry up, and you'll have to look at other ways to innovate. What new products does your existing market base want? Do you have a decent grasp of who your typical customers are? Would they be willing to use a subscription- based app (good source of recurring revenue)?

Another angle to investigate is sponsorship by certain parks and trails. Would the local parks and rec office be willing to promote community hikes through your website and iPhone app? A great thing you have going for you is location- awareness. You know that users who are searching for trails in a specific area either are or plan to be there sometime soon. As they are searching, future events could show up on the maps. Where is most of your web traffic coming from? You could even promote hiking safety or kids hiking events, depending on your audience.

I congratulate you on your success so far - In fact, I envy you. You've found a way to combine two things that you enjoy and turn it in to a business. Keep up the good work. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I am about to make a series of assertions without doing any research to back them up. I know that's frowned upon around here. However, this seems like a request for brainstorming rather than a request for well researched business advice. So, apologies in advance.

1) The psychographics for hikers and environmentalists have a bit of overlap. I think if you could provide some kind of geographically aware donation platform through the phone and the site you could do well, or at least good. Maps and location are compelling ways to get disparate related pieces of information into one view. In this case it would be threats to a given piece of land, and organizations working to protect that same land. I would imagine folks might be feeling a bit more charitable after experiencing nature's majesty first hand.

2) Good country walks, not quite hikes more like a couple hours in the woods with the dogs, are hard to find without a good deal of local knowledge. This would mean a lot of research into small land trusts.

3) Based on the massive number of catalogues I get from companies catering to, uh, "sportsmen" there are a huge number of gadget obsessed hunters and fishermen out there (or at least aspirational hunters and fishermen) with money to spend. Find a way to reach them.

Godspeed sir.

<comment><USER4> I like the "hunters and fishermen" approach. It's easy for me to totally forget about that market living in San Francisco but a lot of people do that stuff. And they're probably underserved by iPhone apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like you already have a great product. Rather than thinking about the next technical project, focus on revenue and income and let that drive your technical direction.

Seems like your product might be in a good position to get some local advertising revenue. There are probably lots of smaller independent businesses that cater to hikers and would love to boost their traffic. Spend some time talking with them.

UPDATE: Perhaps collect some information regarding the most frequently accessed locations on your maps and target businesses in that area.

</comment><comment><USER6> First of all, congratulations on reaching ramen profitability. That's not an easy task on the web and mobile markets.

Now about going beyond ramen... I agree with dkokelley, you may already have squeezed all the money there is to be squeezed from hiking Internet and mobile applications.

Some ideas:

1) Do you have a "Everything Else" section in your hiking forum? What non- hiking activities do people talk about most often in the forum? There may be some leads there.

2) You are located in Truckee, near Lake Tahoe (lucky!). Can you branch out with some app/forum/whatever for skiers or snowboarders?

Finally, I have to say that the "making money from the thing I love" bit set off some alarms. My gut feeling is that there may not be enough "muck" in the hiking market. It looks a lot like the music-making apps market.

I used to read the Kvraudio website and there were always these horror stories of developers crashing and burning -- guys that start out with a love of music and computers and get the idea of "turning their hobby into a business." Then they spend untold hours creating their programs, but the buying market is just not there. So, they get almost no sales, get their software cracked, etc etc.

So, my recomendation number 3 would be:

3) Try to make money from something you hate.

Obligatory PG reference: <http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html>

Hope this helps... Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> What about selling mapping to trail management agencies (National Parks etc)?

They probably already pay to have paper maps produced - you could provide a web based interface for them to update & maintain their maps. Town, state & regional tourism authorities are other markets.

You might need a Lite version of your app which only includes the info they pay to include (and you could offer branded versions specific to each agency)

Anyway, I think that now you have consumer buy-in, you need to look to sell to businesses to increase your profits to the point you are looking for. The sales cycle to sell to businesses is a lot longer, but fortunately the fact that you already have consumer users will help with your sales.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I read the thread about these guys and it reminded me of this other post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881224>

So there's a wave out there, it's just a matter of figuring out how to catch it (even if it's "free and open," as in the above case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _I have discussed this heavily with my board and co-founders, but I'm still not sure what to do._

Start with some fresh blood on your board.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have no suggestions on directions or big changes. However, here are a couple of (smaller ideas) thoughts

You mention that you're selling individual features of Gaia GPS as standalone less-expensive apps. Have you considered selling just one Gaia GPS app (with in-app-purchases to support different feature/price configurations). This will make the app more discoverable to current users as well as new users (current users who want an upgrade can do an in-app purchase easily from within the app, new users will find it easier to discover your app because the combined sales will improve the app's ranking). This will also be convenient to users (who might need to buy two different Gaia GPS apps today)

Btw you may want to consider enabling blog comments on your website. You may get more comments from more people that way.

<comment><USER11> Or at least link to this page from the bottom of the post you want people to comment on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems to me (and I am a laymen to the whole hiking thing) that hiking and camping has to have some intersect. If it does and your interest is in generating more revenue then maybe a camping booking engine as well as planner may be a good way to generate additional revenue. As well maybe a guide referral service. Park admittance ticket sales?

</comment><comment><USER13> _...it gets about 300-400 visits a day..._

And what do they think you should do?

Current customers are often an excellent resource for your business planning. Have you found out what sets their hair of fire?

</comment><comment><USER14> Googling [iphone hiking] turns up a number of threads talking about desirable hiking apps, but _no_ app ads. (There may be lots of room for positive-ROI marketing of the apps you already offer, online and off.)</comment>


Study finds less corruption in countries where more women are in government - <AUTHOR> https://sciencebulletin.org/archives/25370.html <comment><USER2> >In a cross-country analysis of over 125 countries, this study finds that corruption is lower in countries where a greater share of parliamentarians are women.

Can people please use their critical thinking skills here? Why would countries like Saudi Arabia have more corruption than countries like Sweeden? If you seriously think it's because Sweeden allows women in government you need your head checked.

</comment><comment><USER3> A study finding that women cause less corruption isn't quite sufficient evidence that governments across the globe need more women, just as a study finding that men are better for a nation's economy is not sufficient evidence that governments need more men. When the sex ratio of government bodies or voters changes significantly, a lot of variables are affected, some which significantly benefit some political parties/viewpoints over others. I think it'd be best to stick with the paper's conclusion itself instead of overdrawing it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Standard correlation/causation disclaimer here, folks. Maybe lower corruption makes it more likely for women to seek or acquire positions in government. Or maybe a third factor causes both lower corruption and higher participation by women.

</comment><comment><USER5> > The authors speculate that women policymakers are able to have an impact on > corruption because they choose different policies from men. An extensive > body of prior research shows that women politicians choose policies that are > more closely related to the welfare of women, children, and family.

This one is interesting. Wasn't it the case that in boardroom women turned out to choose exactly the same policies the men did?

Also, why not link to any of that "extensive body of prior research"?</comment>


A shortage of scientists and techies? Think again - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-shortage-of-scientists-and-techies-think-again/

<comment><USER2> I do think we need to completely separate the need for immigration reform from the notion that there is, specifically, a shortage of scientists and engineers. I think the case for more liberal general skilled immigration is vastly stronger than the case for worker-sponsored visa programs designed to remedy an alleged shortage of STEM workers - however, the second is much more appealing to the short term interests of private corporations.

At my core, I am generally opposed to ever granting a private corporation the power to bestow US residency or a green card on a individual, and I'm actually suspicious of allowing universities to do this as well. I think a corporation should offer a job, and a university should offer a degree. This way, the markets will correct if the job or degree is not attractive to people with the freedom to choose (say, dentistry or pharmacy school over a master's degree in structural engineering, an MS in nursing rather than an MS in computer science). I also firmly believe that when non-government institutions acquire this power to bestow US residency, they use it as a crutch, and by delaying those market adjustments, delay the day of reckoning [1] to the point where high tech employers would be truly shocked by what it would take to draw highly talented people away from other fields.

One possible approach would be to abolish employer-sponsored work programs, but create a comparable number of spots for skilled immigrants. STEM background counts, but is not given special consideration over other types of skilled workers (in Australia's system, I believe a licensed plumber gets 60 points, an IT worker 40-60, depending on qualifications).

That said, controlling government is wildly profitable, and lobbying is one of the best returns on the dollar imaginable. If high tech can profit by controlling the immigration system through their own _very_ privately run HR departments, you can bet they'll make every effort to do that.

[1] as an example, congress recently considered legislation to solve the shortage of Americans getting grad degrees in STEM fields (they excluded certain life sciences). Think about what it takes to get a PhD from an elite program in engineering or physics. Top grades in an extremely difficult undergraduate program, high GRE scores perhaps including a subject test, and survival in a graduate program with attrition rates between 33%-50%, with an average completion around 7 years! Compare this to the process of becoming a dermatologist. You need to get good grades and do premed, which is rigorous, but not as rigorous as majoring in Physics or many other STEM majors. You need to score high on a standardized test (that does require specific preparation and subject knowledge). Graduation rates for UCSF medical school are above 99%, almost always in a predictable 4 years. Residency for dermatology is 3-4 years - it's completive,and you may not get it, but remember that we're comparing this to PhD attrition rates of 50% in many fields. Starting salaries are about 280,000 a year, and go way up as you gain experience, 45 isn't considered "old" at all, and the average dermatologist works a little more than a 40 hour work week. So, what would it take to get a student who is equally interested in both fields to want to do a PhD in Physics instead of becoming a dermatologist? This is the kind of sticker shock employers may be looking at.</comment>


Raise Your Hand If You're Still Using Google+ - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/15/raise-your-hand-if-youre-still-using-google/

<comment><USER2> I use Google+, but not as much as Facebook or Twitter, and the reason is the mobile app isn't that good.

I do my social networking on the go, and I use Tweetdeck to keep everything in one place. Until Tweetdeck gets Google+ integration, I can't be bothered to open up another app...

What I do use Google+ for is pictures. The background upload is great and I like that Google+ doesn't seem to compress pictures.

That said, Google+ needs to differentiate itself by integrating with more Google apps, most notably Google Docs...

</comment><comment><USER3> I do. And love it. I scripted my blog to import all my public posts on G+. My friends read my G+ posts, my family reads my blog. There was some service posted here on HN that I signed up for which auto-posts all my G+ public posts to my Twitter. So I only have to post in one place. Works out quite well. Also, I created a sorta popular G+ extension (Plus Minus) and people from all over the world have started to add me. At least to me, G+ doesn't seem to be dying and new features keep coming out on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER4> Liked it, put up a 'Moved to G+' image on FB and stopped reading there.

Then Google decided that they are in charge of the name policy and my account was blocked ever since. G+ as a concept was wounded.

Then Google thought it's a good idea to give me a popup saying 'You know what? Your account is blocked, you cannot read the content here anymore. Appeal and bend over or - hey - you can take your data with you when you go out of the door. We won't stop you'. Every link to a G+ post was inaccessible. It died in my world.

They fixed that now (so now I get a popup saying 'You're still not part of this community. Really, you can leave us if you want' - but I can close it and read the posts), but I don't care anymore. I didn't bother to delete my profile completely yet, but I haven't used it forever now and I'm missing nothing at all.

For my tiny micro cosmos (not representative, my own view) they failed hard to keep the enthusiasts. Opening my profile brings the cliche 'wait for the tumbling weed' feeling up in me.

</comment><comment><USER5> It may be a serious problem for Google+ that Google Apps users cannot sign up. They are alienating their most loyal customers.

I still check G+ every day, and there's a core of active users in my circles. But it would be more useful if I could connect with my colleagues who are Apps users.

</comment><comment><USER6> I still use it, because I like it better than FB. However, most of the people that signed up when I invited them don't appear to use it much. I feel like I'm yelling into the wind.

</comment><comment><USER7> G+ is becoming sort of the tech section of my social universe. Only my technology friends are really using it, but there are usually a couple of posts a week.

Which is actually fine for me, because my tech friends don't really post tech stuff to FB anyway, it's just family/photo stuff.

Plus, I can follow Linus on G+: <https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts>

</comment><comment><USER8> I was using Google+ within about a week of the open beta. I was excited to use it in a way similar to Twitter, the circles feature is definitely great there.

Then they shut down my account due to the full name policy. I never went back or attempted to reactivate my account. I am not going to use Google+ if the name policy is in effect. Twitter does not require a full name.

</comment><comment><USER9> Still using G+, no longer using Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER10> I do. And I haven't published even one post that wasn't targeted to a specific circle (non public).

I think maybe the author should wait for G+ to be visible to all users and integrated over all Google's products, have a search feature and not to mentioned easier to sign up to before he starts echoing unreliable and meaningless stats.

<comment><USER11> > I do, and haven't published even one post that wasn't targeted to a specific > circle.

Exactly. The article is measuring the number of G+ users who don't understand circles. Declining public posts isn't necessarily a bad thing.

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't call people who don't publish to specific circles "users who don't understand circles." I publish almost everything publicly because I honestly don't care who reads most of it. I only publish to specific circles when I actually care, which is rare.

<comment><USER11> Fair point, I was too hyperbolic.

I just wanted to emphasize that the 'public posts' metric is not necessarily ideal for a system where "easier private publication" was a showcased feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most google products are too beta to be really used. I really think and insist here that the "ship as soon as possible" is not a magic recipe, it's a good card which have to be played at the right moment for the right thing. Some product need a pretty good polishing (like video games) at the first public release. A facebook competitor has to be really polished as soon as possible and nothing else I would say. Google could have its social network, it's just organic. But they still can mess it up. Don't know if it's the case but... they can.</comment>


Offer HN:  Help on Incorporation - <AUTHOR> http://cameronkeng.com/podcast-ep-1-incorporation/

<comment><USER2> I found that the constant stream of "hell", "freaking", "dumbass", "crap" distracted from the content. I appreciate the sentiment behind them, but I'd hope you can find a way to make your points without such language.

(Side note: A lawyer once told me that he would "never use language on a website which he wouldn't use in court" -- I think this is probably a good guideline to follow.)

<comment><USER3> Also, as far as expressiveness goes, swear words are pretty inarticulate, blunt instruments. There is almost always more accurate, effective language to express you sentiments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Frankly, I found the snottiness in the podcast really obnoxious. If you could tone down the unnecessary insults to your listeners/most everyone who is not you, and drop most of the swearing, there was some good advice in here. (I particularly like the general advice that many situations don't require incorporation at all.)

I'd also be careful suggesting that people create S-Corps and book most of their personal income from the corp as 'distributions' - sure it's possible to save on payroll tax, but it's a risky proposition unless you book a reasonable (i.e. around what someone else would pay you for the work) amount as wages.

<comment><AUTHOR> I honestly didn't mean to sound snotty or obnoxious, I just strongly disagree with people suggesting to others to pay exorbitant fees for incorporations when the information is freely provided.

But, I will definitely take your advice into consideration and try my best to adjust the pdocast to fit the audience.

<comment><USER4> I hope the suggestion proves helpful. And nice to hear that you're looking out for people!

How are you picking this knowledge up yourself? Also, I may have missed this in the podcast but: when and why did you decide that incorporation was right for your business?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the technical knowledge comes from my years of experience as a professional tax accountant.

The decision making behind the business came from the fact that I wasn't willing to spend more than my business would generate. So, I was always re- evaluating expenses to make sure that they were directly contributing to the bottom line.

Incorporation is not a factor thats vital until you're generating significant revenues because it's always going to increase your costs.

As a personal note, I invested $500 dollars into a business initially and waited until I was making over $30,000 in net profits until I even considered incorporating because my profits would increase by incorporating with the proper tax planning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks a ton for this! I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how to incorporate, how much $ I'll need, which route to take, etc... Couldn't have come at a better time.

PS, I still plan on contacting you for advice per your offer on my submission about business filing (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1946503>). Just waiting until I'm actually ready to move my feet :)

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem, I'm glad that I was able to help. I'm going to expand the incorporation series to answer more complicated questions as well.

Also, my next series of podcasts is going to be on outsourcing and offshoring. I've spent over 6 months and tons of cash on contractors from india, eastern europe and asia. I'm about to leave for asia for a month to interview/hire developers in person. I think that everyone wonders what's the best way to hire great talent and leverage their resources.

If you have any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to help! I'm available on hn office hours as well if you need to find me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Phenomenally useful.

Contrary to one of the other posters here, I didn't find the tone obnoxious. I found it made for a more interesting podcast because the guy is obviously opinionated, but for a reason - he's knowledgable.

Keep it up, I say. You might even want to have a bit of fun branding the podcast - angrytaxaccountant.com could turn into something big!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks fookyong, haha I don't think that I've met an accountant that has been bitter and angry yet lol.

I'm definitely going to keep podcasting new content on a weekly basis as long as my schedule permits and I'm able to find content that's pertinent everyone here.

Hopefully, I can be of help to someone. Thanks, again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the offer mentioned in the item title. 'Offer HN'.

Sorry to be negative but I'm not sure a podcast counts as an offer.

Disclaimer: Haven't listened to the whole podcast. Not based in the US so not interested in US specific law knowledge.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm offering help on incorporations, the podcast is just a way for people to have an idea of what the process is like and an understanding of why to incorporate.

Most people feel obligated to incorporate to have a "real business" when it's usually unnecessary. If you still have questions after listening to the podcast, I'm offer my help to answer those questions and to provide further guidance in the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great info. What's you take on branding trademarks, such as my company name? Is this something I can do myself, or is a lawyer required? Is it even worth the time to trademark my company name? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know, I honestly didn't even consider trademarks as a question for some reason. But, I think that's an awesome point that I can't believe I overlooked, so thanks for pointing out a huge oversight on my part.

I think trademarks have their place, but it's something that's really only useful when you're a larger competitor in your industry.

Ex: The crocodile or american alligator is a keystone species that allows an entire ecology to survive and thrive. Twitter's "trademark" is a keystone because it has allowed numerous companies develop through it's trademark such as tweetdeck and etc. The term tweet has become a dictionary term at this point so their trademark is very valuable. But, it's only valuable now because they've reached critical mass.

The irony is that if you don't trademark your name early, then someone else will steal it before you do. I think that it's a decision that needs to be examined thoroughly because it is somewhat expensive. I will definitely start another podcast series on trademarks specifically to address this issue!

Thanks!

<comment><USER8> Makes sense. Any idea ballpark what a trademark of a company name would cost in California?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, off the top of my head I have no idea. I've registered a few trademarks but its been a while so I need to refresh my memory and do some due diligence before I give you any numbers or facts. Sorry, but I'll definitely write a post and record a podcast that will go over the highlights and specifics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome podcast. I actually liked your delivery style although I'm probably in the minority. Reminds me of the "You suck at photoshop" tutorials on youtube.

</comment><comment><USER10> Any chance for a transcript?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I'd have to hire a virtual assistant in order to provide a transcript. I'd like to keep the content free, so I won't be providing transcripts unless someone is willing to volunteer their time or cover that cost. Thanks!

<comment><USER11> You can use the one I posed above. It's not exactly a transcript, but you can post it on your website, edit it to suit you or just ignore it.

Edit: I just realized that I misspelled your name. I'd like to blame the spellchecker, but it might have been me. Sorry!</comment></comment></comment>


Julia looks pretty cool (scientific computing) - <AUTHOR> http://julialang.org/manual/

<comment><USER2> Former Julia-discussions on HN, with positive and negative comments abound:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3876579>

<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3784349>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821184>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3814421></comment>


A Tcl-based Kanban board  for Fossil tickets [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurotcl.tcl3d.org/presentations/EuroTcl2016-Landers-KanbanTcl.pdf <comment><USER2> If you use Fossil and use Kanban type pm tools, Steve Landers presentation is well worth watching:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqA98SNXGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqA98SNXGM)

Overall, this looks like a very promising addition to Fossil and hopefully will get into the core release eventually.</comment>


Kerckhoffs's principle - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle <comment><USER2> It's annoying that there's a similar sounding but totally unrelated Kirchhoff's circuit laws from ee; the really crazy thing would be using secure multiparty computation (circuit evaluation...) to show some kind of artificial relationship between the two laws (in that one special case), just to troll people more.

<comment><USER3> Not only that, there's also Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff%27s_law_of_thermal_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff%27s_law_of_thermal_radiation)

<comment><USER4> Boy that Kirchhoff guy's been a productive fellow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kerckhoffs' principle is common knowledge, but it very often violated. E. g. it is almost not possible to buy car alarm/immobiliser system with known cryptographic algorithms and protocols. As a result - most car security systems use weak crypto (or no crypto at all), rely on security by obscurity. And it is possible to steal car using wireless code grubbers (to sniff key when owner lock/unlock car).

</comment><comment><USER6> But obscurity isn't the enemy of secure crytpo; it's just not the solution to it. Assuming the enemy "already knows the system" is fine, but that doesn't mean obscurity itself somehow _reduces_ security...

I know that's not what the principal posits, but that's an attitude I frequently encounter, and I find it profoundly annoying, for some reason.

<comment><USER7> > but that doesn't mean obscurity itself somehow reduces security...

Banks have window facades for a reason... Transparency is also a way of _increasing_ security. It cuts both ways.

Consider a weakness in a hash algorithm. If found by a 3rd party, you want this information to be publicly announced as soon as possible (be you Alice or Chuck), but that's only possible if the algorithm is widely available in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is anyone elsed appalled at the fact that this Wikipedia article was amended to include a mention of Bruce Schneier?

 _Bruce Schneier ties it in with a belief that all security systems must be designed to fail as gracefully as possible:_

Is it _REALLY_ necessary to add that to the entry?

<comment><USER9> It's Wikipedia, so you're free to remove it if you think it doesn't belong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So why is this being posted? Kerckhoffs' principle is common knowledge, I thought

<comment><USER11> I'm not the OP so I can't speak for him but here is why I think it's cool he posted it now:

1\. not everyone is familiar with cryptology, actually the majority of people aren't.

2\. IMO it is extremely relevant to the NSA. If there was complete transparency but an elegant system, we can have a secure country.

<comment><USER12> It is the right of the people to overthrow a barbaric government. When a government makes it their main concern to prevent dissent, rather than to uphold the constitution of our nation, they have strayed from their rights and duties as governors. There is nothing elegant about the government having the twitch ability to single-out every dissenting "radical" and efficiently terminate their "threat." A sudden change in political wind, and you could see your neighbor disappear because he was a "communist" rebel. Take the current wiretaps and surveillance and channel them back 40 years, and imagine the consequence on the populace. We need to prevent our government from being able to destroy dissent, and that includes invasive invasion of privacy, regardless of its current use and form. It will always be a horrendous potential energy, a spring ready to swallow up the good will of the nation.

[http://www.sandiego6.com/story/cia-director-brennan- confirme...](http://www.sandiego6.com/story/cia-director-brennan-confirmed-as- reporter-michael-hastings-next-target-20130812)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Obscurity is underrated.</comment>


Why is it so hard to convince people to care about privacy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/02/why-is-it-so-hard-to-convince-people-to-care-about-privacy <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr: While those pushing for more surveillance can use the events of terrorist attacks to rubberstamp new surveillance powers, the privacy advocates of the future should use the events of hacks and data breaches to help the people come together to push legislation in the opposite direction.

</comment><comment><USER2> Sadly due to convenience and ignorance our privacy rights will slowly disappear

</comment><comment><USER3> Privacy is in direct conflict the desire of the masses to acquire their 15 minutes of fame. It's also in direct conflict to the voyeristic nature of many people. One of the reasons Facebook was started.</comment>


Unaware he had measles, a man traveled from NY to Michigan, infecting 39 people - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/04/16/how-patient-zero-spread-measles-across-state-lines-infected-people/ <comment><USER2> Its funny. It was always said here in the USA that the far-right christians were the 'idiot anti-vaxxers', but it seems the orthodox jews are having their 'hold my beer' moment.

It brings up a good discussion of where personal rights and group rights intersect. It is going to be a weird future.</comment>


Hackers Steal Michael Jackson's Unreleased Tracks - <AUTHOR> http://www.contactmusic.com/news/hackers-steal-michael-jacksons-unreleased-tracks_1300070

<comment><USER2> Finally, an actual case of music piracy/theft.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hard to feel much sympathy for Sony. Feels like two different kinds of vultures both picking at the carcass.

I always thought that when the author/artist dies, copyright should terminate. There is obviously no longer incentive to produce and what happens after is always so undignified.

<comment><USER4> What about co-writers, other musicians, producers and so on that create the work who live on after one of their cohort dies?

I've always felt that ten years was suitable for copyright fee recovery and then let it be in the public domain.

<comment><USER3> Limitation of terms to a sane time-frame is important as well but it seems like a different fight.

I just think its a shame that Jackson is going to get Mickey Moused for an entire human lifespan before having a chance at public domain. Buy it now before it goes back in the Neverland vault for good! (We mean it this time...)

<comment><USER4> "before it goes back in the Neverland vault for good!"

I sincerely wish that was an option I could choose!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Copied, not stolen.

<comment><USER6> That doesn't compute in the eyes of the "law".

<comment><USER7> in "the eyes of the law" the charge would not be theft either

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ha-ha

or, for full effect;

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq5ZSBa_PFk></comment>


Neuroscientists find brain system behind general intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news186071954.html <comment><USER2> Light on details - but interesting that only specific regions are needed to create "general intelligence" - "One of the main findings that really struck us was that there was a distributed system here. Several brain regions, and the connections between them, were what was most important to general intelligence,".

Anyone know how this relates to HTM? ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_temporal_memory> )

<comment><USER3> It doesn't really, except as a very gross analogy. These guys are correlating localized brain damage with IQ. They don't have anything causal or they wouldn't have had to publish in PNAS.</comment></comment>


The language of programming - <AUTHOR> https://temochka.com/blog/posts/2017/06/28/the-language-of-programming.html <comment><USER3> Back in the 80s, Infocom [1] created a database program named Cornerstone. Because it was an integrated environment, identifiers were abstracted. A line of code displayed on the screen as:

        xn = (A * y) * x * (1 - x)

was actually stored as:

        id17 = (id1 * id11) * id10 * (1 - id10)

and there was a mapping of internal IDs to visible names:

        id1  A
        id2  B
        ...
        id10 x
        id11 y
        ...
        id17 xn

The upshot---you could change the name of a variable anywhere in the editor and the code would still work because the "name" picked by the programmer was not the actual "name" used by the system. I often wonder if that can't even extend to keywords in a language as well, translating this [2]:

        medan not_done
        börja
          för x:= 1 till 5 gör
          börja
            om person^.age = 120 så
              too_old(person);
            om person^.age > 130 så
              gåtill person_should_be_dead;
          slut;
        slut;

into:

        while not_done
        begin
          for x := 1 to 5 do
          begin
            if person^.age = 120 then
              too_old(person);
            if person^.age > 130 then
              return person_should_be_dead;
          end
        end

Or heck, while we're at it:

        while(not_done)
        {
          for (x = 1 ; x <= 5 ; x++)
          {
            if (person->age = 120)
              too_old(person);
            if (person->age > 130)
              return person_should_be_dead;
          }
        }

But I'm not holding my breath on this.

[1] Yes, the company that made all the text adventure games.

[2] [http://boston.conman.org/2008/01/04.1](http://boston.conman.org/2008/01/04.1)

<comment><USER4> But this will solve the problem only for the languages which are similar to English, because they share the same grammatical structure differing mainly only in the keywords. This is trivial to fix with approach you mentioned, But for the rest of the family of languages this require more change, (Sometimes change in the whole programming model)

For example in Kannada language (or any other Dravidian language) sentence formation itself is different. In English you can read 'if' statement as a proper sentence ("If a equals to Zero") but in Kannada conjunction appear at the end, 'if' sentence is more like "a equals to zero 'then'", so these kind of changes requires non-trivial changes to programming languages. As an example I was trying to 'alias' basic functions (if, for, define... etc) to Kannada languages in Lisp (because its easy in lisp!), but these kind changes breaks "S-Expression" format due to change of the position of the function in the list.

And typing in these languages in typical US-en keyboard is whole new problem in itself!

But I believe that some problems can be expressed better in languages with different structure or at least better to its native speaker.

<comment><USER5> Regarding Lisp's ordering, this has come up in the article "What if Lisp was invented by the Japanese?"[1]. Note also that in the comments to that article[2], I mentioned that "Japanese Lisp" is something I find easier to read and would prefer to write, even as a native English speaker.

1\. [http://lispnyc.org/blog/euske/what-if-lisp-was-invented- by-t...](http://lispnyc.org/blog/euske/what-if-lisp-was-invented-by-the- japanese)

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2213012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2213012)

<comment><USER6> If Lisp had been invented in Japan, maybe the main connective of an expression would have ended up as the last item _visually_ : (1 1 +). Maybe.

However, it would still be the first element of the list in the abstract data structure: i.e. the equivalent of (car '(1 1 +)) -> +. (Or, rather, of course, ((1 1 +)' car) -> +. Let's use the fantasy read syntax.)

The main point is not that + is leftmost or rightmost, but that it's at a fixed position in the data structure, and that it is the first/most accessible position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > For better or worse, we must agree that English has won the world's common > tongue competition.

I too labor under the yoke of a foreign tongue not sung to me at my cradle.

But something to keep in mind about English is that she gives everyone a hard time. No-one gets a free pass. Absolutely no-one.

In a few months, POTUS Trump will visit the Queen of English. Fo' shizzle they too will have problems with the language. She'll have bigly problems, and he'll have all the rest.

So the thing I do is to have something worthy to say, find people who'll appreciate it, and improvise a shared tongue for that special moment.

People have always gladly met me halfway.

<comment><USER8> I know this comment is tongue in cheek, but honestly, it's something I've come to really enjoy about English. It's so pervasive that it changes constantly, and often times you can guess where someone is from by how they construct it. As an American, I only speak English fluently but have a passing knowledge of other languages. I wonder if any other language has similar phenomena, in a single country(excluding regional dialects, which also exist here of course).

<comment><USER9> Russian demonstrates this to some extent, and German, prominently.

<comment><USER10> I am currently in Moscow and I can tell anybody from Moscow just by their first sentence based on pronounciation - but almost only that. That is because Russian has a governing body that dictates what "real" russian is. English has no such body.

In English, words mean what people understand by them, not what they are suppose to mean.

<comment><USER11> French has a governing body (l'Académie française) but, at least in some parts of the world, spoken french is very different from what is prescribed by the Académie. Plus the accents are so diverse, here in Québec we are 7 million people (and not all of them french speakers) and we have as much difference in the way we speak depending on the region as you have in the U.S. for example. Funny thing, when we visit France, the french sometimes answer us in english, because our accent is so thick that they think french is not our native language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >functions with names like reify or transduce are commonplace.

Neither 'reify' nor 'transduce' are particular to english. They're both Latin.

I'm reminded of Feynman's experiences lecturing in Brazil. He got complimented on his rapid grasp of Portuguese, when in fact he was exploiting the fact that all the big fancy Portuguese technical words were either Latin or Greek. He was perfectly able to talk about Physics, but he was unable to order himself a sandwich.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but they are familiar - or at least, not entirely unfamiliar - to English speakers because English has inherited a lot of vocabulary from Latin. Other European languages have, too, so _maybe_ names like "reify" or "transduce" might be somewhat approachable to a Portuguese speaker (although I wouldn't bet on it); but are they approachable to a Mandarin speaker?

<comment><USER14> I disagree that most native English speakers would be able to give you a reasonable definition of 'transduce', let alone 'educe'. I love Clojure, but I find the naming cult a bit absurd from time to time. I suspect that most Clojure programmers just learn them as abstract words, much as a non-native speaker would and as the OP describes.

<comment><USER15> I agree with you on the definition, but ...

It'd be easier for a native speaker to attach a somewhat correct meaning to transduce because of familiarity with words like translate, transfer, transform, induce, reduce and deduce.

So while most people couldn't define them, they are familiar with both parts of the word and that would make it easier to remember and to understand in when seen in its context.

<comment><USER12> at least part of what i was getting at is that this statement is true not only for English, but also for French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

while it's less true for Russian, it's true to some extent because Russian and greek share many roots, especially for technical language, and loan-words are prominent features of the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Every source code file is a story. A story with characters, relationships between them, and how the characters behave towards one another. Humans are hardwired to understand the world (and by extension computers) in terms of stories.

The way that programming languages allow us to write these stories is by giving us the opportunity to name things. Naming transforms code from a dumb sequence of instructions, to something that can be understood.

I don't believe non-textual names have any place in programming. I have used Haskell and it is an unmitigated disaster.

<comment><USER17> > _I don 't believe non-textual names have any place in programming. I have > used Haskell and it is an unmitigated disaster._

And yet millions of programmers use && and not and, || and not or, { } and not begin, end, down to things like => to mean bound-closure in JS, with no issue at all.

<comment><USER18> This is a bad example, these are symbols. Like +,-,*,/,e,π,µ, ... in maths. These symbols can represent a relation between the named things he referred to. They are widely used and have more or less the same meaning across different languages.

<comment><USER17> Not sure of the distinction.

If symbols "like in math" are OK, then math also use symbols x,y,z etc for the items in an equation/function etc, not just for the operators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not a native speaker either. But firstly, if you don't know english in computer science you can't follow any research, any documentation and worse you can't write code that is readable like a book. Basically you are stuck like Robinson Crusoe putting together yourself a roof and a bed from banana leaf, while the whole world is on an other civilisation level. I personally hate when people start using their language to code, it's just not how it evolved and how it should be done on a professional level. If you want to play music you need to learn reading the notes first. Call me a traditionalist.

<comment><USER19> Context matters. If its your in office code, use whatever language you want. But if it's going to be open source, english please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've found Princeton's WordNet extremely useful to name things with a fitting English word in programs. It let's you traverse the hierarchy while proposing hyponyms, holonyms and synonyms. Entry level speaker will find the example sentences useful. By avoiding invented fantasy names code becomes more readable and thus maintainable.

Just resist naming anything an 'entity'. ;)

[http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn](http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

<comment><USER21> > Just resist naming anything an 'entity'. ;)

Unless, of course, it has semantic meaning in your domain, such as when creating an Entity Component System.

<comment><USER20> Still, I'd advice using it because 'entity' is the top holonym in WordNet. I'd also argue if everything in a system is called an entity all meaning is lost and you should pick something from the lower levels of WordNet like 'thing' or 'stuff'. Never said WordNet helps to sell your product, that's an entirely different task.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What about a format for code localization for code repos? A bit like a `.pot` file for string translation, but instead it applies to names.

For reading code in another language, you apply the .pot file to the code base in a separate branch and it does search and replace in the source files so you have the same code base localized (assuming utf-8 everything).

When running code with localized identifiers, any single word, underscore_connected, and CamelCase identifier is "looked up" and "symlinked" to the correct identifier in the default locale (English). Think "search and replace" at the AST level of the language.

<comment><USER21> The topic of learning to program as a non-english speaker has come up a few times with friends and coworkers, despite all of us being native english speakers.

I've proposed that languages like Golang and Swift that support unicode should go a step further, and come with a translation file for their keywords, which is then fed into the lexer/parser.

It doesn't solve the problem of an international codebase, or let you switch languages as shown in the Excel example, but it would at least make it significantly easier to learn and write code in one's native tongue.

And it could be available today, without significant changes in tooling on either the compiler vendor's side (except the translation tooling of course) or the developer's side.

<comment><USER23> Translating the tens of keywords in a given typical language won't get you very far though - you need translations for all the terms in all the commonly used libraries, and documentation of how to use them.

<comment><USER21> That is true, bare minimum you'd need to translate the stdlib, and at that point you're translating identifiers, which means you might as well go for translating everything as shown in the Excel example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The author's command of English as a second language is very impressive.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely, I know plenty of native speakers who wouldn't be able to write anything as correct as that without serious effort, if at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Growing up (Generation Commodore 64, later having an Amiga) taught me enough computing lingo that I one day started to read English books. Because at some point the really interesting books didn't have German translations anymore.

So there I was struggling with my English, always being happy when there were enough technical terms which I understood. (And worst thing of all - <USER2> speaking authors dare to use puns and humour in technical books. Which I didn't understand, because of the vocabulary and because we Germans would never do anything like this, we're much too serious for that.)

</comment><comment><USER26> _" I won't lie, this looks outrageous even to me. But not to my Dad, who is a civil engineer and doesn't speak a word of English. He is dangerously fluent in Excel's formulas, which he uses extensively in those hundred-sheet documents bristling with filters, conditionals, and pivot tables. Then the roads and bridges are getting built based on those calculations."_

A cheer or two for the humble spreadsheet - the longest lasting and most widely used end-user 'programming' metaphor I've heard of, despite the estimated 5% error rate in formulas.

A git for spreadsheets would be _ace_!

<comment><USER27> I'd like to know more about those 5%, could you give more details?

<comment><USER26> [http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/Mypapers/whatknow.htm](http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/Mypapers/whatknow.htm)

References from 10 years ago but enough to start chasing more recent stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The idea of learning programming commands by rote with no concern as to their English meaning reminds me of how a lot of people working in science learn scientific terms as simple arbitrary identifiers rather than looking at the Latin and Greek roots of the term and understanding the term from those.

</comment><comment><USER29> Names should be automatically generated. Alpha-equivalence should be trivial. English shouldn't be required, but you're not going to get away from requiring _something_ of equivalent expressiveness at some level.

<comment><USER30> Ruby allowing utf-8 identifiers is successfully used with Japanese. Using symbols instead of a few english keywords would completely solve the problem, maybe using configurable automatic string replacement to get the symbols, comparable to IDEs like coq.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Given that the set of language keywords is typically small, learning them as opaque strings is hardly a raggedy. Nobody complains that they have to learn Italian terms like "Da Capo A la Fine" to play music.

With standard libraries becoming more important, non-keyword terms like 'vector' and 'set' are also important, but they tend to be common across languages. Good luck renaming them on the fly without a serious refactoring tool.

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe there should be a google translate like thingy for programming languages. Atleast the main keywords get translated. Would make lives easier. (Python would be a great language to have such a feature as it has more verbose identifiers than most other languages like C or C++)

</comment><comment><USER33> If I have to choose a language for programming, I would suggest Esperanto. An artificial language that is easy to learn, and more consistent than English.

</comment><comment><USER34> Amazing article. I wonder just how much ties to English have held computer science / software back?

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't stand the chromatic aberration theme of the site. Please stop giving me a headache! On my phone I had to copy and paste the contents into a note in order to read it.

<comment><USER36> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Our attempt at fixing Google Contacts - <AUTHOR> https://www.fullcontact.com/gmail/ <comment><USER2> I've been using FullContact for over a year and I've been disappointed since then. Very clunky UI, lots of manual work to do. History on contacts that I don't care about and cannot get rid of. The inability to unmerge if you merge by mistake (often due to the slow web UI). After all these years, there's still no good solution that merges and cleans up your contacts! I'm really disappointed! How can we expect great things like AI and be afraid of AI destroying the humanity, when we can't even make contact management work right!

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using fullcontact for about a year now -- awesome product. The only thing it's missing, IMO, is the ability to automatically pull in _all_ google contacts -- not just the ones in 'My Contacts'.

That would be a killer feature.

This new Chrome Extension looks super useful =)

<comment><AUTHOR> Stay tuned ;)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's a pretty exciting day for us, and we'd love to get your feedback.

<comment><USER4> It seems like a pretty cool product. But I have google talk on the side for instance. And It is showing under it [http://www.screencast.com/t/NaCn9ZYoj](http://www.screencast.com/t/NaCn9ZYoj)

<comment><AUTHOR> Out of curiosity, there's a Labs function that you can use to enable right side chat. Would you be using it by chance?

[http://d.pr/i/1lA4M](http://d.pr/i/1lA4M)

<comment><USER4> yeah.. that is exactly the case. I have the right side labs plugin enabled.

<comment><USER5> Update - we've updated the extension to support Gmail Right-Side Chat. To get the new version immediately, you'll need to force an update to the extension.

More info: [https://twitter.com/FullContactApp/status/545982407137329152](https://twitter.com/FullContactApp/status/545982407137329152)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow! A Xobni replacement for Gmail!

</comment><comment><USER7> excellent name.</comment>