Ask HN: ever had problem with outgoing email? - <AUTHOR>

Question is about sharing hosting with spammers.
I just finished evaluating all the VPS providers based on price/resources/uptime for my closing launch... and when i thought i was done, a post on slashdot quoted my top option as "terrible reputation for hosting spammers and having a completely non-responsive abuse department" claiming it would impact mail out.
So, how realistic is that? Anyone ever had email blocked because of your hosting choice? I can think of reasons that would happen, but i'm curious about real anecdotes <comment><USER2> It's not beyond the realm of possibility. We usually have one of our clients impacted by this at least a couple of times a year, although those are all in shared hosting environments IIRC.

However, some RBLs are extra aggressive, and some ISPs use things like Barracuda spam firewalls which love to take advantage of the most aggressive RBLs. If you host with a network that's got a reputation for hosting spammers, you could find that your dedicated IP is included in a /24 on one of the RBLs.

Or, if your IP resolves to a hostname associated with the VPS provider, that might get you flagged for spam.

It's impossible to say for sure without knowing exactly which provider you're looking at.

I've been hosting a mail server on Linode for a couple of years now with not a single instance of ending up on an RBL. A handful of my clients are hosting with me now as well, including one who sends out a monthly newsletter to around 500 subscribers (customers who have given him their email address specifically to receive the newsletter). Linode's got a pretty good reputation and when one of their other nodes attempted some ssh abuse against one of mine, they responded quickly.

So don't host with sleazeballs and you should be fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> You raise a very good point i was taking for granted

Reverse lookup.

Will add that to my table. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd recommend using a dedicated email provider instead of using your VPS.

I currently host <http://bugmuncher.com> with Linode, but use MailGun for emails, on the strength of recommendations from HN users.

This way I don't have to be worried about the spam problem, as they take care of that. And they have a free tier that will keep you going through the early stages (200 emails per day)

<comment><AUTHOR> If the costs of hosting at a spam-infested provider beats the clean one by much, adding this layer would be a good idea. thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think you have to worry much when you use a VPS. Any decent VPS provider will give you a dedicated IP address, rDNS, and the ability to change your host name. I'm pretty new to VPS but from what I understand the spam problem is really only a problem with shared hosting, especially cheap shared hosting. Even if I'm wrong I'm willing to bet if you went with a reputable provider there shouldn't be any problems.</comment>


Association Between Cesarean Birth and Risk of Obesity - <AUTHOR> http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548440 <comment><USER2> Couldn't it be the other way round? Children that tend to obesity are more likely to require a cesarean section? One common reason to use a cesarean is with unusually large babies, for instance.

<comment><USER3> Cesarean birth in the US is something mothers push for because they don't want the cosmetic consequences of a natural birth. I think technically they need a medical reason for it, but I'm guessing it's not too tough to qualify for it.

I have a guess here, in that children who don't travel down the birth canal aren't inoculated with certain bacteria from the mother that may be important in digestive and possible immune function. Just a guess assuming causation, but the mother's birth canal bacteria may play a role in child development.

<comment><USER4> This is so factually incorrect and full of opinion that I felt no choice but to downvote.

No, mothers don't just push it because they are concerned about cosmetics. What an overreaching and insulting generalization.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any evidence for this claim? You seem to be making generalisations without any evidence at all.

As a personal anecdote, I have several girl friends of childbearing age, who have stated a preference for C-sections for cosmetic reasons, as well as all the (rightly or wrongly) associated pain/complications with a natural birth. (e.g. tearing down _there_ ). So I wouldn't say it's completely unheard of.

In contrast, my wife went with a natural birth. She's a vetinary surgeon though, and has done plenty of deliveries of both types, so I assumed she made that decision with some thought. She said the recovery period is much longer, and it'd be silly to risk surgery if you could possibly avoid it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) Cesarean birth is a risk factor for developing a less-than-optimal microbiome. ([http://jn.nutrition.org/content/138/9/1796S.full](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/138/9/1796S.full))

2) Prevalence of certain species in the microbiome is highly correlated with obesity. ([http://go.nature.com/1sksCA6](http://go.nature.com/1sksCA6)) "Our results indicate that the obese microbiome has an increased capacity to harvest energy from the diet."

<comment><USER7> Those two facts seem to stand in opposition, unless "optimal" is used in a tautological sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's so disappointing to see studies like these relied on when reported by news outlets. To start, we don't have the data or statistical code used to generate the results. Consider this a basic unit test. Of course we'd want to further scrutinize the code and methodology, but we're not even there. :-(

I'd suggest a marker for quantitative research posted to HN along the lines of: runnable?

<comment><USER9> You could make this complaint about pretty much every academic study ever. Rarely is the underlying data, statistical models, etc. shared publicly.

 _Should_ they be (for repeatability and peer review)? Sure, I buy that argument. But it's not a valid reason to criticize this particular study.

And at least it's the source journal article, not a media post!

<comment><USER8> I do make this argument for pretty much every quantitative study.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What options currently exist to improve a person's microbiome?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yogurt, probiotic supplements, dietary changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why would a person who had had a "Cesarean Birth" choose to eat more? This raises more questions than it answers.

<comment><USER12> It's speculated that cesarian births do not get exposure the the mother's vaginal flora and their microbiome does not get properly seeded.

I wonder if manually exposing the child to the mother's flora would be of any benefit.

<comment><USER13> Before my son was born, we tried to persuade our OB to allow us to do this, or at least to look at the research herself. She wouldn't budge.

As an aside, my son was born 12 lb 1 oz, he now weighs 31 lbs at 5 months. The same weight as my 3 1/2 year old daughter.

<comment><USER7> (31-12) _3500 / (5_30) = 440 calories per day, or 18 oz of baby formula per day.

That's approximately 100% efficiency converting dietary calories into body mass, or massive water retention.

You could cure starvation across the world if you good identify the source of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wild speculation: perhaps those that chose c-section are on average less able to tolerate pain, and therefore lacking in self control (to a degree) and therefore their progeny have a higher likelihood of overeating.

<comment><USER9> _Disclaimer:_ There's a really bad stigma about c-sections and mothers who have them being "less" or "worse" because of it. I'm careful to point this out before we dive into a discussion on making accusations of "poor self-control". That said...

If you remove those c-sections that are medically necessary or recommended ("known indicators for cesarean delivery" is the language used in the abstract), then you're left with that population that truly "chose" to have a c-section. The association is stronger in this population.

I'd want to tie this back to those demographics. What kind of people truly choose a c-section? Is there something about that demographic that correlates to obesity for other reasons? Are obese women more likely to be counseled towards c-sections? Again, why? It's unclear if they normalized for this.

Incidentally, I think your speculation is probably wrong. You assume that c-sections are (or are regarded as) the lower-pain option. You can have a painless "natural" birth with an epidural, and post-birth recovery is going to be "painful"\--in different ways--with either path. In other words, don't think people choose c-section for pain management in the first place, which invalidates the rest of your logic chain.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, and I think you may be right. I do think women choose c-sections because the are scared of natural birth for whatever reason.

It's probably true that there is some demographic component to this correlation, though I would assume the would control for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I do think women choose c-sections because the are scared of natural birth for whatever reason._

I think that is pretty rare.

From what I have seen, women are much more likely to genuinely choose a C-section because they have a career and need to have the baby on a set schedule so they can get back to work. Having a baby the natural way is a fairly messy organic process that does not readily fit into the highly scheduled lives of modern two-career couples.

IIRC, only about 5 percent of babies show up on their actual due date. Most are either early or late. I have read plenty of articles where career women scheduled a C-section so they could schedule the birth and also schedule time off from work. Waiting for a baby to show up when they feel like it is rather inconvenient not only for you, but for your employer if you are anyone of any importance. It can amount to being willing to leave the entire department in a lurch when you suddenly drop everything. Babies can be anywhere from several weeks early to two weeks late, from what I gather. That leaves a window of potentially two to three months in which baby might decide "now's the time." In fact, my understanding is that a baby three weeks early isn't even classified as a preemie. So there is potentially a five week window for a "normal" birth.

<comment><USER15> You are confusing induced labor with c-sections. Many natural births are scheduled and labor is medically induced...there are fewer babies born on weekends for this reason. Basically once you're within a week of the due date, doctor and mom have wide discretion to induce labor and begin the natural birth.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think so:

 _We know that the risks of C-sections are greater than risks of vaginal birth, at least with your first pregnancy. So why are women opting for C-sections, even for their first birth? Some theorize that the combination of improved C-section safety, along with increased maternal age, has lead to women being able to control when and how they are going to give birth. This type of control is attractive to women who are balancing family and career -- they can perfectly plan maternity leave, right down to the date of the last conference call. Another popular theory is that some women, fearing the pain of vaginal delivery and wanting to avoid urinary incontinence, jump at the chance to give birth via C-section._

[http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-and- parenting/preg...](http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-and- parenting/pregnancy/labor-delivery/c-section4.htm)

I do know of cases where women are genuinely terrified of giving birth, as the GP suggests, and will opt for a C-section for that reason. But I think a more common reason is that women increasingly have careers.

I had both my children vaginally. I was a full-time wife and mom for many years. Two career couples have a much greater need to control the timing of things, including processes that, organically, cannot be relied upon to happen at a set time. The slack in my family was generally provided by the fact that I was a full-time wife and mom, so only my husband really needed to have a highly scheduled life. I was relatively free to be available as needed. Two career couples have no one in that position.

(Also:

 _According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, about 33 percent of American women who gave birth in 2011 had a cesarean delivery. (The c-section rate in the United States has risen nearly 60 percent since 1996.)_

[http://www.babycenter.com/0_c-sections-giving-birth-by- cesar...](http://www.babycenter.com/0_c-sections-giving-birth-by-cesarean- section_160.bc))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Subscribe with Google - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/topics/google-news-initiative/introducing-subscribe-google/ <comment><USER2> It's the opposite of what I'd want. I'd like to have a universal subscription and pay maybe x*$100 a year to read all the content I want. The manager of the universal system would then divy up my money in some pro rata system on to the sites I used. Unfortunately, either the economics won't work out or the publishers are too greedy... Too bad because Google would technically be on a good position to push such a system.</comment>


Show HN: Beautiful and responsive project landing page for everyday projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amitmerchant1990/responsive-project-landing-page <comment><USER2> looks nice.</comment>


Jaw bone created from stem cells - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8290138.stm

<comment><USER2> I always wonder why they need a scaffold. Isn't the programming for the shape of the bone programmed into the DNA?

If for some reason we can't access that programming, how do we tell the cells "divide anywhere you want until you fill up the scaffold"? It seems like that's something they wouldn't naturally do.

I guess long term, we should find the point in fetal development where the first jaw bone cell becomes differentiated. Then we want to to tell a single stem cell "that's you, you're that first differentiated fetal jaw cell, now do your thing".

What do you guys think? Is anyone working on that?

<comment><USER3> Cell growth isn't independent of the cells around them.

For example if you get cut the cells around a gap will send out external signals (send and pray) which might cause other cells to start growing. Once the gap is filled (i.e. the cells are adjacent to each other) the surrounding cells will again send out signals to tell them "Stop! Space is getting tight!".

Sometimes its also the other way (or a combination of both) and a cell will detect an empty area and grow.

Here's a link to a game to show how cell growth works: [http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/2001/cellcy...](http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/2001/cellcycle.html)

<comment><USER2> I guess we need to start with the first cell, and then simulate the existence of the correct cells around it. A machine that produces the right chemicals at the right times and places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One step closer to being able to grow spare parts for ourselves.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone looking for a "Ruby on Rails" developer? - <AUTHOR>

Experience: +2 years
Knowledge:
- Ruby on Rails
- HTML5, CSS, JAVASCRIPT
- Mysql, PostgreSQL, Redis
- GIT
I'm available only for remote working and paid-jobs. <comment><USER2> I could see people salivating when they saw that a RoR developer was looking for work, only to have their hopes dashed when you wrote remote.

BTW, GIT is not an acronym.

<comment><USER3> I've never understood the desire to work remotely, unless you are nomadic and travel the world.

<comment><USER4> I can see wanting to work remotely if you want either a flex schedule (though remote does not necessarily equate to that), or if you live somewhere where your desired profession is not. For RoR, you may want to remotely work for a Valley company if you live in flyover country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, because I live in Italy and I'd want for a Valley Company (or Uk-based)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sweden's Military Recruitment Problem - guard-of-terra https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2016-04-13/sweden-short-handed <comment> guard-of-terra I wonder how "being selected for mandatory service" works. You are rewarded for being fit and healthy by marching platzes without money without sex without life?

Why less fit and healthy hedonistically enjoy?</comment>


What are your most preferred programming languages? - <AUTHOR> Also, how would you order the following languages (most preferred to least): Rust, Go, Swift, Kotlin, Haskell, Python, and Nim? Why? <comment><USER2> C++, because it pays for my whole life. (Also, for embedded systems, there's still nothing better that is mature enough that I'd bet a product on it.)

Java for when I want a library that has everything, and I don't want to have to worry about memory.

Perl for when I want to rip apart text files.

</comment><comment><USER3> PHP because I know it very well and it has a lot of good libraries available for web stuff (yes I'm aware of it's detractors, no I don't care and maybe just maybe we can avoid the pointless language war, I chose it for good reasons so lets not waste each others time).

Python for everything that isn't web stuff (automation, deployment, testing all that good stuff).

Only one on your list I've really used is Python, I'm aware of the others but don't know enough to give you a competent opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> Lua: quick enough, simple, embeddable. Assembly: powerful. C: something needs to tie everything together and providing a statically linked executable is always the best way to distribute software.

Everything you listed should be thrown in the bin. Go and Python both have significant whitespace/indentation. I guess I don't know anything about the others.

</comment><comment><USER5> Java - pays well Racket - explore and research QT - cross platform Haskell - write less, think more Javascript/Python - can't avoid</comment>


Tell HN: Many thanks. - <AUTHOR>

I want to sincerely thank every single person who either replied to my previous posting (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2608804) or sent me an email.  In particular, to those who sent me email, I promise I will reply to you soon, even if it's just to say a personal thanks.  Because of the volume of mail I've received and my spotty internet access, it might be a few days before I get to everyone, but if you sent me email, I will reply as thoughtfully as possible within the next several days.
As of right now, well, I need to decide exactly what I'm going to do.  I'm definitely still looking for other employment in my area, but I don't think the job market for secretaries, cashiers, and janitors with Masters degrees is very good right now, unfortunately. :/
I'll be monitoring my first post for signs of activity until at least the end of the week.  If anyone has anything else they'd like to suggest, please also feel free to email firstname.lastname@example.com.
As for this account, I anticipate this being my final posting, except for a possible followup post after I get employed in which I acknowledge the power of a group of semi-anonymous good folks on the internet.
Thanks for reading. <comment><USER2> This post is repetitive, but you'll see this before email, and it might help others... As mentioned in the previous thread, on the first of every month, there are two important threads for those seeking either employment or employees.

"Who's Hiring (Aug 2011)"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2831646>

(NOTE: Three companies (at present) are listed in Michigan)

"Freelancer/Seeking Freelancer (Aug 2011)"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2831651>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you linked to the wrong post ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you meant this post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826493>

Peace and best of luck.</comment>


A Milk Startup Takes on 300M Cows - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-new-frontier-the-worlds-largest-dairy-herd-1530897704 <comment><USER2> A friend of mine, a chemistry teacher, taught in an Indian school for a number of years. He said a huge problem was buying milk for the students that wasn't cut with bad water and/or other chemicals. They tried paying above market price, equivalent to the price of pure milk, and it worked for a while, but he kept testing the milk and found the vendor eventually started diluting the milk. I guess the temptation was great.

This startup looks like it may solve that problem!

<comment><USER3> Apparently many people in China buy imported powdered milk for the same reason - the local stuff may be adulterated.

<comment><USER4> Not that the powder being imported stops adulteration from happening: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal)

There is a cottage industry in Australia and New Zealand of people sending back milk powder and infant formula to China, often with newspapers or other proof that the package originated in Australia or NZ. There's no guarantee that the "NZ milk powder" you buy in China is real, however a sealed package from NZ is fairly certainly going to be real. I used to have a colleague from China who would bring an extra suitcase filled with infant formula and multivitamins evert time he went back home to China for his relatives.

There are now limits on the amount of infant formula you can buy at supermarkets here, especially in areas with a high concentration of Asian immigrants. Supermarket shelves were getting cleared out by grey-market exporters.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised the response to grey market exporters is to limit sales.

Why not produce more? I don't believe there's a shortage of milk in Aus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a controversial issue, but I try to refrain from eating any type of dairy products (with mixed results) because of two main reasons:

\- It seems that science is supporting a vegan lifestyle for longevity/a longer health span [1]

\- Cows are so bad for the environment...

[1] [https://valterlongo.com/daily-longevity- diet/](https://valterlongo.com/daily-longevity-diet/)

<comment><USER7> I'd rather milk them than kill them for hamburger and shoes.

<comment><USER8> For milk to come the cow needs to deliver a calf. How long will you allow the calf to drink her mums milk, before you decide that calf hurts your bottom line?

Most commonly the calf is removed from the mom in a few hours, after which the mum is crying for her kid for several days.

Dairy is super cruel, besides it being very unhealthy for humans (especially humans after their weening phase).

<comment><USER9> > the mum is crying for her kid

Sounds awful. Do you have a reference where I can read/watch more about it?

<comment><USER10> This video sums up the dark side of the dairy industry pretty well:

[https://youtu.be/UcN7SGGoCNI](https://youtu.be/UcN7SGGoCNI)

<comment><USER11> I'd say that video shows the worst of the dairy industry.

I grew up spending time on a grandparents dairy over school holidays. It was nothing like this video. Yes you do have things like farms putting their arm up cows vigina and bobby calves being separated. But usually it's a clean and non-traumatic process. Things like the mastitis and blood in the milk is unusual.

While I dont doubt there are some highly cruel and unethical operations running, on the dairy farms I used to spend time on those farmers love their animals. That's what these video rarely show, the care and love farmers have for their animals. And 99% of the time that animal is happy and well looked after. But grab clips of the worst farmers at their worst moments and this is what you get.

<comment><USER10> The vast majority of milk on supermarket shelves comes from factory farms operating exactly as described in the video. But even the best run boutique family dairy farms are going to have to figure out what to do with their male calves.

Watch this recent German documentary to see the reaction when a Bavarian dairy farmer that takes pride in treating her animals well sees the ultimate horrific fate of one of her male calves:

[https://youtu.be/295wKcuDGQk](https://youtu.be/295wKcuDGQk)

<comment><USER11> 1) My grandparents operation and a few others I have spent time with were from boutique operations. At least in the regions I have seen the majority of the market is not based on suppliers as you say. Perhaps there is data to the contrary as my experience is within 2 regional bubbles only, but your statement is not true in these regions.

2) I speed watch through a good part of the documentary. 100% there is some horrifyingly bad footage there. I feel its fair to note what I saw in Germany / France the animals are treated well. The horrifying footage was largely shot in developing countries in the middle east. This supports what my original comment was about, the information being provided shows a skewed view. And I haven't seen anything to change my mind that in some regions animals are treated well and looked after. And in others, they are not.

<comment><USER10> The point of the video is that dairy farms generate surplus male calves, which have to be disposed of somehow. The male calves may be treated well when they're being raised but it's those very same male calves that are often shipped abroad from countries like Germany to meet the fate you see there. This is an intrinsic part of the dairy business because cows must be kept pregnant to produce milk. I think you should watch the whole thing because you missed the point.

At least in the US, 80% of the milk sold is from factory farms, where cows are certainly _not_ treated well.

[https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-boycott-milk- fac...](https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-boycott-milk-factory- farms)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://archive.is/xeCxt](http://archive.is/xeCxt)

<comment><USER13> I came to ask for a non-paywall link, thank you for posting this.

Not all heroes wear capes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love this picture:

[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-BA230_0704MI_M...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-BA230_0704MI_M_20180704165807.jpg)

Something about the woman in the lab coat, with a generation of men standing around her while the older generation looks on, calf and all. It's very reminiscent of early 20th century paintings from the US.

<comment><USER15> There truly is a stock photo for everything.

Business woman with headset and laptop milking cow:

[https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/woman-milking-cow- business-f...](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/woman-milking-cow-business- farm-32612992.jpg)

[https://st2.depositphotos.com/4319567/7421/i/950/depositphot...](https://st2.depositphotos.com/4319567/7421/i/950/depositphotos_74215425-stock- photo-businesswoman-milking-cow-on-farm.jpg)

<comment><USER16> Wow. I'd love to know the backstory on that.

<comment><USER17> Powerful drugs and paying by the hour seems like they have to be included in the necessary Venn diagram.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Huh... the last thing you want is a company that tries to "invent" some nonsense to improve the "cows".

</comment><comment><USER19> Mexican Lala goes to india I guess?

<comment><USER20> Not sure what you imply, but chlorinated chicken</comment></comment>


Did a Brooklyn Home's Tunnel Provide Passage to Escaped Slaves? - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/duffield-st-brooklyn-underground-railroad-history-abolition/596737/ <comment><USER2> The woman on the video in the story states several facts very authoritatively however there is nothing that she points to to substantiate what she is saying. It's close to pure speculation (at least as presented). An example is stating the age of some wood on the wall. Another is saying that where a very common basement steps are located is where the tunnel used to be. Unclear how that can be stated as certain without any supporting evidence. (I have owned buildings with similar steps. The existence of old artifacts such as the corn husker (or whatever it was) is not support for what is being claimed in any way.

I grew up in and around old buildings like this. There were always rumors as far as the buildings being used for slaves.

</comment><comment><USER3> The house is literally falling apart, I had thought it was abandoned until I happened to see the sign the city installed. If it's history, it's already well past being preserved.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep track of your experiment scripts? - <AUTHOR> When doing research I often write a single script and then run it multiple times, each time tweaking some part of the script or adjusting constants. I need to keep track of all of these versions to be able to reproduce the results.
Currently I am making sure that before each experiment, the current state of the code is commited to git and I tag it with experiment's name. If I need to expand on past experiment I branch out from a commit in history.
I would appreciate some insights from other people on how they handle this. <comment><USER2> I was thinking about the same problem, would appreciate input.

I am unhappy to run experiments without forming some kind of map to help me navigate the various choices. Most runs end up forgotten, and that's very inefficient.</comment>


10 Resume Blunders You Didn't Even Know You Were Making - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140708162814-49701520-10-resume-blunders-you-don-t-even-know-you-re-making?trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_ARTICLE_POST

<comment><USER2> _Two Pagers - One. Seriously, only send in one page. Sending in two pages does not make you more impressive, it means that I have to spend that much longer wading through your text_

Wading through my text?

I personally only accept CVs that can fit in a tweet.

<comment><USER3> I agree, I stopped reading when I read that item. Instead, I proceeded to read the comments, however those comments made me read the rest of the article.

For someone in the science profession, it's almost impossible to keep your CV at one page without removing white spacing and detail.

By the time you've written your name and two places of employment, you're already over half a page. And you still need to include education (Both PhD, masters) and references. On top of that, he also wants to see skill set.</comment></comment>


Munchery Shuts Down Operations in LA, New York and Seattle - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/11/munchery-shuts-down-operations-in-la-new-york-and-seattle/ <comment><USER3> You make food (a competitive, capital intensive, low margin endeavor - <USER2> with rotting inventory) then you deliver it (a man hour intensive, operational & insurance nightmare). AND after you do all this, the person looks at their meal and shrugs their shoulders wondering if it was worth the $10. I am not saying Munchery was _bad_ it was just swimming upstream.

<comment><USER4> YMMV, but my family relies heavily on Munchery and it's one of those "Silicon Valley" inventions that has made our life better. Generally the food is good and _healthy_ and avoids a lot of waste (time and material). It's all about logistics and I hope they come through the difficult time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not surprised -- I bet more will fall. Blue Apron dominates the ad space (I struggle to understand how the unit economics work out with their podcast ad spend..), but I'm a fan of their service and started it a few weeks back. I know not all meal kit services or pre-prepared services are identical in structure, but just acquiring customers that can be very fickle must be insanely difficult with a low margin business like food delivery.

<comment><USER6> Blue Apron is burning money like crazy, investors are just propping it up.

<comment><USER7> Plus they have no moat. If Amazon decided to compete in that space, they could have a service up and running in less than a year that would destroy Blue Apron and similar companies.

<comment><USER8> Amazon already offers subscription-less premium mealkits via a partnership with Martha Stewart/Marley Spoon [1] and more affordable options via their Tyson Tastemakers partnership [2].

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14828691011](https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14828691011)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16207550011](https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16207550011)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems like Silicon Valley is learning that "restaurants" are hard, and thinking of things in terms of "software" and "optimization" doesn't allow VC money to magically solve the fundamental problems. All are struggling except postmates which doesn't carry any of the real burden themselves. They just need to make logistics and delivery cheap enough, often enough.

</comment><comment><USER10> A great in-depth look at the shaky unit economics of the food delivery business model:

The Food Delivery Death Star [https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery- death-star-85f9...](https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death- star-85f9a121313)

</comment><comment><USER11> Pizza delivery seems to be doing fine, and has been doing fine for a long time, from the largest cities all the way down to small towns.

What is it about the pizza business that lets it thrive with delivery, while so many of these food delivery startups struggle?

<comment><USER12> What I've heard from friends who've worked in pizza delivery places, as well as making it from scratch myself on occasion, the margins are insanely high. Which makes sense considering it was originally a peasant food.

Pizza dough is just flour. yeast and water. All of which cost pennies. Sauce is slightly more expensive, but you can make something which tastes pretty close to fresh with some canned tomatoes and spices which also cost pennies. Cheese is cheap, there's no need to use fresh expensive mozzarella when you're blasting it in the oven anyway, the low quality pre-grated stuff will turn out pretty good too. Toppings are usually fairly low quality, which again doesn't really matter when they're scattered on a pizza.

When I make it at home it usually costs me about £3, and that's indulging myself with better quality ingredients like fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. Delivery places can get it down to £1, including toppings, and sell it on for £10. The staff are all on minimum wage, you don't need much space if you don't have seating, and at least where I live in London 9/10 delivery drivers use mopeds which are cheap to run.

Compare that to Munchery, where looking at the site they're offering fresh vegetables and cuts of meat for probably similar prices to pizza and you can see where the problem lies. That and being based in SF I have no doubt they've gone full Silicon Valley with their offices (communal spaces, very high sq/ft per employee, high wages etc) and it becomes clear why their business model is probably not sustainable.

<comment><USER13> You don't have to work out COGS for a restaurant from first principles. Food costs are one of the most discussed and reported topics in the restaurant business, and all major food businesses optimize them.

Which means this isn't a persuasive answer to the question 'tzs asked. Lots of restaurants have low food cost. And pizza restaurants aren't the most efficient category of restaurant. Why don't the even-more-efficient kinds of restaurants deliver too, if pizza's food cost sets some kind of frontier for viable delivery?

I think factors other than food cost are at play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to use it quite a bit when they launched in Seattle, but we stopped as the menu started to feel very repetitive, and with the price increases we could order form a variety of other places for the same price.

Oddly enough, there is a farewell item available for delivery Monday for $100. Wonder if it's an actual item.

</comment><comment><USER15> Amazing concept: where you allow the general public to benefit from investor money.

Let's enjoy these dirt cheap services while they burn through investor money. It certainly won't last long. But it's great while it lasts. I enjoy my share of door dash delivery that's funded by some nice investors. /s I almost certainly won't use it when they start charging any sort of real money.

Now scale this thinking to millions of people and you have a nice little disaster.

<comment><USER16> I went to make an order from a restaurant that was about a ten minute drive from my house. On a $45 cart, I was hit with:

~$8 "service fee"

$8 "delivery fee"

And a variable tip percentage that defaulted to ~$9

Add tax to the matter and this "$45" order quickly ballooned into almost $75.

I don't mind tipping -- I've come to accept that American society refuses to let that one go -- but at these rates I decided to just place the order myself on the phone with the place, drive over, pick it up, and tip the restaurant directly.

<comment><USER17> And there's often also the hidden upcharge on menu prices.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. Some services will add a variable percentage increase to all menu prices.

It also turns out the quoted cart that Doordash gave me was $10 below actual cost at the restaurant, and from past experiences on other platforms I'm under the impression that Doordash would not have been willing to eat the miscalculation either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That sucks, I liked Munchery quite a bit. Their ready to heat meals were pretty tasty, especially for something you could just pull out of the fridge and have ready in 15 minutes.

<comment><USER19> We liked it, too, especially because we're working parents. Their delivery was excellent, timely, and let you know if they were late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Kroger is offering these meal kits now. The bonus is no subscription. You go to the nearest one and buy what you like.

I'm sure other large grocery chains are doing the same thing.

<comment><USER21> Publix is as well. My 75 year old mother saw them in the store by mere chance and now she's a steady customer.

<comment><USER22> Publix is a Floridian treasure.

<comment><USER23> Publix is a national treasure only available in Florida (and a few other states) :)

<comment><USER21> South Carolina! :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Their CEO did an interesting interview a while back on This Week In Startups. As I recall he seemed to reflect this serene confidence in their ability to scale and had a keen eye for the unit economics... but that being said the service just didn't make a lot of sense. I feel like the target demographic is what actually didn't scale, and the brute force of the sanity check of people getting ready made food delivered for 12-15 bucks a meal was something that didn't resonate outside an minority of the upper middle class.

<comment><USER25> Munchery costs a $10-ish monthly subscription and then 2 meals costs you about $35-$38 delivered.

We're nothing like upper middle class, and we eat munchery twice a week. It's only a bit more expensive than pizza around here, and way way better. And much healthier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This entire space will eventually be dominated by Costco for pickup and Amazon for delivered.

<comment><USER27> Why do you think Costco won't start doing deliveries? Amazon can target urban, suburban and rural customers. Costco -- with their current model -- only really gets suburban customers.

<comment><USER26> I think Amazon's investment in delivery infrastructure will eventually outcompete everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article mentions "on-demand food delivery" at least twice. What other kind of food delivery is there? Is there a startup that will bring you food while you're asleep, or after you just finished eating?

<comment><USER29> Scheduled food delivery, at a specific time weekly, usually you get multiple days' worth of food at a time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sad to say but that is what happens when you're in the Silicon Valley bubble solving nothing but SF/SV problems.

It would be great if more startups start across the US and the globe trying to solve problem the majority of people face rather than a small group of locals.

</comment><comment><USER31> Munchery was not a good company. Check out Sunbasket and green chef if you were using Munchery. (just a fan... no affiliation)

<comment><USER32> Can you explain why Munchery is "a bad company," And why those other 2 are better?

<comment><USER31> Here's some stuff from a google search to substantiate claims on my preferred food services:

[Buzzfeed]([https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahloewentheil/meal-kit- subcript...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahloewentheil/meal-kit-subcription- boxes-review))

[pcmag.com]([https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/353192/the-best-meal-kit- deliv...](https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/353192/the-best-meal-kit-delivery- services))

[reviewed.com]([http://cooking.reviewed.com/best-right-now/the-best-meal- kit...](http://cooking.reviewed.com/best-right-now/the-best-meal-kit-delivery- services))

[time.com]([http://time.com/money/4856342/best-meal-kits- value/](http://time.com/money/4856342/best-meal-kits-value/))

Regarding opinions about Muchery... it's an opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


Meet the Man Google Hired to Make AI a Reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/geoffrey-hinton-deep-learning <comment><USER2> _In 2011, an NCAP researcher and Stanford processor named Andrew Ng founded a deep learning project at Google..._

AI agents are busy improving themselves.</comment>


I told my girlfriend about my startup product, here is what happened - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gopcruise/i-told-my-girlfriend-about-my-startup-product-here-is-what-happened-2305c0eeea84

<comment><USER2> Horrible title, sounds like clickbait.

<comment><USER3> But not a clickbait, it exactly describes the blog post.</comment></comment>


Human-Powered Helicopter Team May Have Won Sikorsky Prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/06/human-powered-helicopter-won/

<comment><USER3> There is not a video included in the article, but one can be found here: [http://vimeo.com/51320244](http://vimeo.com/51320244)

</comment><comment><USER4> From the latest pic[0], it looks like the AeroVelo Atlas[1]. Some details on their design can be found on their site[2], although the info looks to be from 2012.

[0] [https://twitter.com/AeroVelo/status/345219802262036481/photo...](https://twitter.com/AeroVelo/status/345219802262036481/photo/1)

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFyor9Gl0Q](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFyor9Gl0Q)

[2] [http://www.aerovelo.com/projects/helicopter/tech- info/](http://www.aerovelo.com/projects/helicopter/tech-info/)

</comment><comment><USER5> So there doesn't seem to be a video of the helicopter, but I found this, apparently by the same team: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eW9Xs...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eW9XsjllM6A)

I didn't know what an "Ornithopter" was, so at first I thought it was just some form of glider. That is, until it started flapping its wings - <USER2> cool! :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Heres a short post from them: [http://www.aerovelo.com/2013/06/14/take-a-deep- breath-and-ho...](http://www.aerovelo.com/2013/06/14/take-a-deep-breath-and- hold-on-2/)</comment>


Programming for the Extremely Intimidated  - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/learn-to-code/10fcde37aae1

<comment><USER2> Good article! Especially this advice:

> If you are in high school or college, I would highly recommend using > free/cheap online resources to get comfortable with programming languages > and concepts, and then take some Computer Science courses to learn > fundamentals and formalize your knowledge

However

> For all of the hardcore Web 1.0 programmers who say "Don't Learn to > Code"[...]

I'll leave aside the weird "Web 1.0" "hardcore" qualifiers (seriously, what's up with that?), but note that it links to Norvig's "Teach yourself programming in 10 years" piece. Why, may I ask? Is Norvig discouraging the reader from attempting to become a programmer? Of course not. All he's saying is that if you want to get good at it, you have to put in lots of effort for a long time. That's how you get good at anything. I mean, take the guitar for example. Nobody's going to question that it takes daily hours of practice, sweat and blood (literally, you'll bleed from your fingers) to become a guitarist. So why does programming have to be any different?

<comment><AUTHOR> haha I didn't really know how to qualify them, I just was making the distinction that people who were programmers before the 2001 bubble, or basically "programmers before it was cool", have a different perspective than startup kids because their work has been on enterprise software. Very different than making a iOS game or personal resume site (which is what a lot of people want to do).

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Only a little better than most of the fluff that has been posted on this topic. This one in particular seems to have a bias towards web development. Not that web development is wrong, but the article presents a very narrow path.

Then I found the notion of Java and C++ being "hardcore" to be quite odd. Is manifest typing considered hardcore these days? C++ is complex, but Java is the definitive dull enterprise language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't you think the "fluff" is helpful to people who have no experience?

I purposely presented a narrow path so that readers are not overwhelmed by options. It's hard to know where to start with no guidance, so I directed beginners to the easiest entry point. When I tried taking a class in C++ it was intimidating to start with something so opaque.

I eliminated "hardcore" haha clearly the word didn't go over well.</comment></comment>


Sometimes it is amazing how many images are required for even a small video-game - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.knolif.com/Image-Overload/

<comment><USER2> Proper planning is key, both to ensure that you don't find yourself suddenly and unexpectedly needing 500 new images, and to find areas for optimization.

What's the value in having enemies have slight differences in appearance as they get close to death? Will players actually notice or care about this? In a 2D games, it probably makes a lot more economical sense to add some kind of procedural effect to show this, such as tinting them red, making them flash, or showing a bright red outline.

<comment><AUTHOR> That can work (as I'll dot that for frozen aka slow characters or rage aka fast characters) However certain things just can't be replaced, like a big bite out of a plant or a black eye on another character with blood on the corner of their mouth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is why video game companies hire more artists than programmers.

Counting frames is often not productive though, cut-out animations (which PvZ appears to be using) allow artists to render many frames from one base illustration and some extra work. They're not necessarily easy but they're often a large time savings over frame by frame.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, my idea behind it is generally draw a sprite, copy it into a new frame, move some parts of it, then reconnect and clean up the ugliness that results from an arm being completely disconnected from a shift in the rest of the image.

<comment><USER4> According to a pixel artist friend of mine, all the companies he's worked for using those types of anims will build a proprietary tool that essentially works like Flash in a pure-bitmap context; tweening, scaling, rotation, and bitmap cutouts(e.g. parts that bulge and bounce, like the belly of a fat character, simply reuse an area of the sprite and layer it on top). These tools are used for menu layouts and level design as well as sprites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is incredibly true. I've been making a flash game recently, and it's my first, but I've just been overwhelmed with how many images are required. At every step I'm realizing, "Oh damn, I need images for this. _Finds my graphics buddy_ "

<comment><AUTHOR> It really is a labor of love, best advice really is do as little organic / moving items as possible. They can be added later without feeling the need of "Oh my god not another batch!"

<comment><USER6> truly a work that never ends.

I started my indie game 4 months ago, and i'm still adding a few touches here and there. Guess it's a creator's bane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There have been some approaches to client-side image generation in computer games [1][2], but they're not very successful commercially.

1\. <http://ifarchive.jmac.org/> 2\. <http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/></comment>


Americans Are Not Prepared for the Coming Mother of All Stock Market Crashes - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/05/30/40347971/americans-are-not-prepared-for-the-coming-mother-of-all-stock-market-crashes <comment><USER2> You cannot predict the market. Here is a Forbes article citing the same issue in December and speculating that the stock market would not rise in 2019. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2018/12/31/when- th...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2018/12/31/when-the-stock- buybacks-go-bye-bye/#2c3a9bdadedf)

If you had pulled out of the market at the end of 2018 expecting a bigger drop, guess what, you would have missed one of the fastest market comebacks.

The scenario being discussed is just one possible outcome. There are numerous other outcomes as well. You can off course bet on this scenario and pull your money out of the market, and if the crash occurs, you can tell everyone about how to timed the market. Or you might be the person who lost big time.

As with all speculation...only time will tell

<comment><USER3> "Lost big time" is relative. At most you "didn't gain", and it's easy to get swept up in FOMO when you don't always remind yourself of that.

That said if the market shoots up and you hold on, you didn't gain anything either. No gains or losses until they are realized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking at the author's bio, I'm not sure how he is any more qualified to make a statement on this than any other random person on the street.

> Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in > Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a > steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory of this birth, but he > does remember noticing himself in the mirror for this first time—it happened > on May 3, 1972. Mudede is also a filmmaker: Two of his films, Police Beat > and Zoo, premiered at Sundance, and Zoo was screened at Cannes. Mudede has > written for the New York Times, Cinema Scope, Ars Electronica, C Theory, and > academic journals. He also wrote the liner notes for Best of Del Tha Funkee > Homosapien: Elektra Years. Mudede has lived in Seattle since 1989.

<comment><USER5> Agree, I thought i was reading the wrong bio.

A little out of his league i would say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What bugs me about these doomsday articles about how Americans are unprepared is that they never mention what Americans ought to be doing. Saving more money? Sure. But what exactly am I supposed to be investing in / divesting from / etc?

<comment><USER7> Until you are old, basically investing is better than not. When you are old short term dips start to matter. Prior to that, the market eventually goes up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Danger ahead! Pivots quite strongly from somewhat reasonable market discussion to advocating communism/socialism. Reminds me of college...

<comment><USER9> Whenever someone tells you "the only solution is..." You can just write them off. There's never only one solution to any problem, let alone one where the problem is purely speculative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A good read on QE is Currency Wars by James Rickards. It isn't written as a dry traditional economic book while covering the monetary history of last 2 centuries. I suspect the book is not mentioned often being published in 2012 it predicted the destruction of the dollar by the QE policies. The predictions of the book can still become reality because QE is a monetary experiment which increases the supply of money at unprecedented level. Creating money out of thin air and holding more than 4 trillion dollar [0] on assets is not a healthy situation for the FED. [0] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=lFm1](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=lFm1)

<comment><USER11> Define and defend "unhealthy."

Money is created out of thin air every day. That's how banking works.

There are hundreds of T of undervalued assets around the world. You can buy a beautiful castle in Sicily for $100. The Fed's holdings are nothing.

The assets on the Fed balance sheet are also largely inert. Like the archeological underpinnings of a skyscraper. Dig and you will find interesting things, could put them into museums. But they do little from a structural perspective.

The translation of capital into productive work and actual value worldwide is still extremely inefficient. This inefficiency is the guard against inflation.

Pay more attention, as always, to actual businesses, their P&Ls, projections of future cash flows.</comment></comment>


Business error leads owner in new direction and success - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gala-software-restaurant-2431286-says-altametrics <comment><USER2> I almost didn't click on it because there are so many useless blog posts with this kind of title. But this is a great story! A fast-food restaurant owner ends up creating a valuable software company. _And_ the programmer gets rich. Most people here would enjoy it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "We didn't have money. No venture capital. No outside investors. Just two guys with an idea. Without money there was a great discipline about how we spent money." right, except the 40k to dev it and 10 franchise outlets to keep it running =)

<comment><USER4> Actually, it says he spent $600K to develop the software.

 _Gala put more than $600,000 into the project, money earned at the restaurants, before the official launch of the company, Altametrics in Los Alamitos, or the inventory control product, eRestaurant, at a Long Beach trade show in October, 2000._

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A truly inspirational and sensational story.

When I was at the "trade show" part, I simply can't help thinking if things could have been easier for them had they read Steve Blank's (recent) Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters (<http://steveblank.com/2009/05/21/trade-shows/>).

Of course, I have to agree with rrival on the capital part.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was impressed by the part where the programmer called the potential customer's bluff and told him to bugger off, especially since they didn't _have_ any other customers.</comment>


Escher – The world's first cloud-controlled Etch-a-Sketch - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mdwdotla/escher-the-worlds-first-cloud-controlled-etch-a-sketch-f2d5b7f1bd44 <comment><USER2> Cool, but highly doubt it's the first. The first stepper motor telop I saw was in 1994 from some MIT guys. I often wonder why this does not take off.</comment>


Google's patent on related entities and what it means for SEO - <AUTHOR> https://searchengineland.com/google-patent-on-related-entities-and-what-it-means-for-seo-295727 <comment><USER2> Isn't that how you would store a word vector graph in SQL?</comment>


Tesla Declines as CEO Musk Says Sales Have Dropped in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-13/tesla-shares-slump-as-ceo-musk-says-sales-have-dropped-in-china.html <comment><USER2> I think now would be a good time to buy.</comment>


PostFrenzy.com: The tool you really want to use for project collaboration - <AUTHOR>

Check out PostFrenzy.com, a web-based application for organizing, tracking, and collaborating on projects, events, or just daily life. Instead of the usual way project management is done by keeping a list of tasks, files, messages, etc. separately, everything is kept organized within the same Post so that when you are ready to undertake a task, or a small group of tasks, all the necessary and relevant material is right there. It is the evolution of the Post-it® note :).
Sneak peak: A new way to view post updates when viewing a workspace as well as the ability to quickly jump between active workspaces is just around the corner.
Please feel free to try it out and send us your feedback. <comment><USER2> Another interesting take. I especially like the way you can visualize the priority and status of posts at a high level.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you view as the advantages of PostFrenzy vs. FogBugz's Trello?

<comment><AUTHOR> The main advantage would be that in PostFrenzy the emphasis is on getting you point where you have a single post in front of you so that you can zone in on the work at hand, versus being subjected to the endless distractions that are bound to occur on very active teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> clicky - <http://PostFrenzy.com></comment>


We stopped advertising on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://vpj.svbtle.com/we-stopped-advertising-on-facebook <comment><USER2> I think Facebook is making mistakes.

Adwords grew explosively, but relative to the expectations of Facebook, Google looks patient. Adwords didn't start off with ten million customers with endless budgets. They started off letting people buy $20 worth of ads at 5¢-50¢ per click. Some people figured out ways of selling ebooks or whatnot at a profit and figured out things like split testing, conversion tracking and such. They were then qualified to be consultants and go door to door to electricians or removalists who got a good ROI and eventually allowed the consultants to spend an extra $350 per month. Then they hired an in house 'PPC Specialist' who spend their week figuring out new ways to profitably send Google more money. A lot of the campaigns set up 5 years ago are still active. I worked as a consultant back in 2007 and most of the campaigns I set up are still running.

It took some time to figure out that Adwords works for dentists but not for burgers or detergents. That wasn't immediately obvious. Burgers and detergents were the big spenders of the advertising world and a platform that didn't work for them was a toy.

There were a lot of ultimately stupid campaigns started. Half the initial customers tried to get a better CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) by optimizing for a low click through rate, benefiting no one. Google killed this off by creating adrank. The other stupid advertisers were eventually outcompeted by those who could turn their click into revenue more efficiently.

My point here is that Google put a tool out there. It took time before users (advertisers) were good enough at using it to put pressure on the bids and bring up prices. Someone figured out how to sell car insurance. Comparison sites were created. They signed deals with insurance companies. Ecosystems developed.

Facebook ads aren't useless. They just work for some stuff. The advertisers just need time to figure out what works. If you are having a town fete and want parents with small children to know you have a petting zoo, Facebook ads _will_ get you customers physically driving to you for cents. Incredible value.

Facebook is just impatient. They keep moving the posts in an attempt to find a formula rather than making good tools, leaving them out there and letting advertisers find the formulas.

<comment><USER3> Overall, it's a sinking ship. People don't go checking out someone's profile looking to buy car insurance, people don't check the news status looking to read more about plumbing in the local hood. Hardly on Google's level imho. Facebook is used like a yearbook you check everyday but only a couple of pages in your interest. Unless they start watermarking profiles with ads it's hardly going to even get most people's attention even if it was plastered all over the page.

It's only a matter of time before they realize they can't beat google and the sad reality hits, they can't monetize. There's no way to monetize hundred millions of people around the world who don't have wallet or credit card. Likes is a good example of this. Even if people who use facebook have a credit card they are probably not in the buying mood. Friend tells me a product is good, one still uses Google to verify, unless he's a real bro and I trust his tastes. Likes is a good example of people 'paying' their useless attention which has no price. It's free anyone can give out 'likes' as many or as senselessly as they want. Instead of credit card, you get people's clicking action that supposedly builds you street cred but like this article highlights, it's mostly comprised of no significant value to the advertiser.

<comment><USER4> People don't watch television to watch commercials.

People don't drive on the freeway to see billboards.

This argument that advertising must be like google "advertise people looking for things" is not the value Facebook is offering advertisers. It's offering something significantly different and in many ways bigger. "Advertise people when not looking for things"

<comment><USER2> I've discussed this a few times with people and I think I disagree, sort of. People don't watch television to watch commercials but strange as it seems that ad for fairy dishwashing liquid is very natural to what TV does. TV makes culture, especially low brow culture. It decides what is popular, trend, famous, etc.

The laundry detergent on TV is the famous laundry detergent, just like the actor on TV is the famous one. Branding is really trying to turn the thing you're selling into a cultural icon.

<comment><USER4> The examples to counter this are beyond just television.. people don't goto airports to get advertised with IBM or barracuda advertising.

People don't goto football games to watch the Goodyear blimp.

People never ask to be advertised to but..,

Where people go in mass, advertisers want to reach them.

There is no place people go consistently more than Facebook and they have the best mechanism for targeting so many niche sets of users.

And to argue facebook isn't culturally relevant vs TV. I'm a little bit lost with that one. Memes and videos everyone must watch are a cultural phenomenon heavily driven by Facebook.

The fact that Facebook advertising targets you so well (or not) is something that is a common conversation just like talking about the annoying (or not) commercials that exist on TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've spend quite a bit of money on facebook ads for various of my own businesses & clients & I've basically stopped everything for a few reasons.

I can't rationalize playing FB's game anymore. With the recent decrease in page reach, you're basically paying double time for FB. Once to "get" the fans and then again to "reach" them.

Sure, we saw an increase in site activity, but it was debatable whether or not that actually increased revenue. I'd rather put my money towards users who are searching for our products explicitly or building up our own email list that we can "reach" anytime we want.

The best results we got for FB were through adroll or perfect audience that were utilizing facebook retargeting.

[1] [http://www.adroll.com/](http://www.adroll.com/) [2] [https://www.perfectaudience.com/](https://www.perfectaudience.com/)

<comment><USER6> How can it be debatable? Either your sales increased, or they did not increase.

If your page views went up but your conversion rate dropped by the same amount, that would be worthless traffic.

This is an honest question as why should we believe anything you say if you're not even doing the basic maths? Did you measure anything?

<comment><USER5> I should clarify:

It was debatable whether or not it increased revenue enough to justify the costs (both time & monetary) involved. What it came down to was that it wasn't profitable enough to justify the opportunity costs of executing FB instead of other avenues.

<comment><USER6> Good answer, you obviously do measure well, fair enough!

I now just challenge anything without numbers, it's frustrating to read wooly posts about SEO or online advertising that aren't explicit. You always wonder if they actually know what they're talking about or just one of those useless 'theory' guys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Facebook may be targeting more traditional big brand advertisers than it is small business advertisers (who need ads to convert to sales in a much tighter window). e.g., the Coca-Cola commercial you see on TV probably doesn't make a single person get up out of his chair, go grab his car keys, and drive to the store and buy a Coke. Yet, over time, get exposed to enough of those ads, and when it's time to buy, your hand instinctively goes for the one your brain is bombarded with ads for all day.

Then again, Facebook ads give advertisers much less of an "in your face, brainwashing you against your will" impact than TV commercials do.

This might just be a case of a revenue model that simply doesn't fit the platform. It may be that Facebook is going to have to figure out another way to justify its high P/E ratio.

<comment><USER8> >> the Coca-Cola commercial you see on TV probably doesn't make a single person get up out of his chair, go grab his car keys, and drive to the store and buy a Coke.

>> Yet, over time, get exposed to enough of those ads, and when it's time to buy, your hand instinctively goes for the one your brain is bombarded with ads for all day.

I don't really think that has anything to do with it. At work we having both Coke and Pepsi vending machines. Most people prefer the taste of one or the other, to the point where if a place only serves Coke and they prefer Pepsi, they won't order it. Not unlike beer in America (Bud Light vs Miller Lite, etc)

Soft drink choices come down to availability most of the time. Chances are if you are at an event such as a sports game or concert, they've already made the choice for you. Same goes for a restaurant, McDonald's has Coke and Taco Bell has Pepsi.

<comment><USER9> > I don't really think [brand advertising] has anything to do with it. [...] > Soft drink choices come down to availability most of the time.

Coca Coca spends about $3 billion a year on advertising. [1] I couldn't find a breakdown for how much is brand-building versus other goals, but I think we can agree it's a lot.

That suggests two hypotheses: A) People in charge of a $3 billion budget for an incredibly profitable and long-lived company know what they're doing, or B) An anonymous non-expert on the Internet has correctly realized that advertisers are just fooling themselves, and he (and everybody else) is above being manipulated by brand advertising.

No offense, but I'm going with A.

[1] [http://www.ajc.com/news/business/coca-cola-spent-more- than-2...](http://www.ajc.com/news/business/coca-cola-spent-more- than-29-billion-on-advertisin/nQq6X/)

<comment><USER10> I'm going to go with B. Just because "everyone is doing it" doesn't mean they know what they're doing. Coke spends a ton of money on advertising because they want more sales and common wisdom says the way to get more sales is to spend a ton of money on advertising. It might work, it might not, but it isn't a simple 1 to 1 thing and it works differently on different people.

On a personal note, I grew up drinking Coke (because my dad preferred it), and I generally prefer the taste of Coke most likely because it's what I grew up drinking. I've seen Coke ads, and I've seen Pepsi ads, and neither one makes me want to drink one or the other or go buy one or the other. About the only thing it might do is influence me to go get a Coke if I was already feeling a bit thirsty although even if it was a Pepsi ad it would probably still make me want to get a Coke. In this case it would be a win for Soda vs. some other kind of drink like say a Starbucks coffee, not specifically Coke vs. Pepsi.

<comment><USER11> There was a really great discussion on Reddit (of all places) about the purposes and results of advertising. One of the things someone brought up was that a lot of times, ads are there to reinforce your existing preferences and purchasing decisions, and not to influence your making of them.

Post: [http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14y695/el...](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14y695/eli5_why_does_cocacola_still_advertise/)

See the first reply to the first post:

> Holy fuck. You're right. I bought a car recently, and while the TV spots had > nothing to do with my decision, now when I see them, I sing along with the > song and cheer at the TV and shit.

It turns people who bought your product in to people who are _fans_ of your product, which makes them more likely to become repeat purchasers (and less likely to seriously consider other brands when it's time to purchase).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When launching something new about mid-last year, I went back on my long- standing feeling that FB was esentially worthless for companies (I generally don't believe that people really care about busineses on FB).

So, I went ahead and created a page, whereupon FB immediately began pushing me to buy likes (as I call it) or promote my page (as they call it). It felt extraordinarily scammy, especially given that I would then have to pay even more to reach those same people later.

But, I pushed through and tried it. The results were abysmal. Less than 100 likes, very little engagement, and a couple of conversions. Probably cost me about $1K.

Now, it can be argued that it was our message, service, etc. But, this story repeats itself all too often. I think the value of an FB like is highly overrated, even for "validation" purposes. People are increasingly turning a deaf ear to what their friends like and/or what shows up in their feeds. In fact, the very proliferation of like activity that FB and other companies push has diminished the value of likes over time until they are now completely meaningless or nearly so.

<comment><USER13> I think the issue is more that facebook inflated likes by interfacing with companies, killing the "organic" likes at the same time. I no longer see most likes from my friends -- not because they've stopped like-ing things -- but because facebook is unreasonably throttling the activity stream for some reason. Why would I be friends with these people on facebook if I didn't want to see some of their activities -- or want them to see some of my activities? I don't get it.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, killing organic likes is part of it. When you promote the heck out of likes and what's like-able starts to be more dependent on who is willing to pay for them, then they naturally become less organic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The title is a bit "baity"/misleading. They were only advertising for Facebook "likes" \- not clickthrus etc.

It should probably read, "We stopped advertising for likes on Facebook". To which we'd probably just nod or shrug.

</comment><comment><USER15> Facebook has trained a lot of people to be afraid of Like-ing anything, installing any apps, associating anything with Facebook, etc. It's like they're searching for every possible gold-laying goose and killing it.

</comment><comment><USER16> PS: this is wrt to "likes" vs the facebook ad part of the post

Not to mention that Facebook has drastically throttled updates pushed from pages to a users timeline, making the whole concept pretty useless unless you pay them (I know, I know, capitalism at its finest).

About a year or two ago, each update that came from our page (auto update from an rss feed) would be seen by 100 - 300 people, now we're lucky if 30 people see an update, usually its more like 7 - 15.

Whats the point?

</comment><comment><USER17> Buying likes (beyond a certain point) anymore is largely an outdated methodology. Once you've got a significant number of likes for your Page on Facebook (which is kind of a case-by-case number, depending on your brand, business, demographic, etc) you don't need to focus as much as building an audience.

Facebook has released a wealth of tools via their advertising platform in the last 12 months that make serving ads to the users you want to reach a much easier prospect. You don't need a super-large 2 million user base Page in order to get the word about your product out. Granted, you do have to pay for distribution now, instead of a few years ago when it was free, but the tools that are available (ad units, targeting, etc) are vastly better than what was available 2-3 years ago.

So, the article is correct in it's denouncing the value of a "like" on FB, but that value was always due to drop. Having more fans early on in the days of Pages was the main indicator of the success that a brand was having on FB. Those days are long gone, and [FB] marketers have to be more intelligent and deliberate about their strategies, and they have to be willing to put their money where their mouth is.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nothing new to be honest — I figured out Facebook likes are useless when Facebook gave me 20€ or something like that for reaching first 100 likes; long story short — "likers" never actually did anything in my website, just liked it.

<comment><USER19> Exact same story here. Free £25 voucher for facebook advertising. Targeted a very specific niche in the London region. Got a few likes, the vast majority (more than 98%) were people way outside the demographic I targeted and it had zero impact on my click-throughs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's a pretty weak article, if they wanted to drive traffic to their site why were they focusing on getting likes rather than CTR ?

Doing internal FB advertising only really makes sense if you have a strong FB presence (i.e. Facebook game or if you push lots of sharable content via your FB page).

<comment><USER21> Exactly. They went about it backwards. They should have focused on driving traffic (website clicks). A successful traffic-driving campaign has a byproduct of likes. Even better, those likes tend to be people who used and actually liked your product, rather than those who just clicked like.

NOTE: If you have less than 1000 likes, you should pay for likes until you get up to that number, as it unlocks some advertiser features.

<comment><USER22> What features are unlocked? I only know of boost but that appears at 50 likes. I can't see anything different on my page with >1000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just checked out nearby.lk's Facebook page and it's no wonder that they weren't getting performance out of Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads are amazing. Nothing else has come close for us both for direct conversion and likes. Likes are far cheaper to acquire and can be extremely performant if used in the right ways.

Facebook has a huge learning curve though. As with all things, if your FB page doesn't have "page/audience fit" before the ad campaign, it won't after the ad campaign either.

</comment><comment><USER24> A few things to add, my background is in running direct response marketing campaigns for tech/web Co's. A few years back we did a small monthly ad spend via facebook, basically display ads with very cheap CPM's and even then pretty great demo targeting, but poor results. It was cheap and semi relevant so we continued on.

In the last 3-6 months many of the Co's I've been working with have greatly expanded their FB advertising with CPA's on par or better than Adwords Search. It's very important to separate branded and non branded search terms on Adwords when evaluating a campaign. Non branded is what matters for evaluating effectivess of Search campaigns.

FB has a huge advantage in demographic targeting. There are only so many relevant queries on Adwords and once you have covered your bases with relevant KW's, its hard to profitably scale past that stage. You can endlessly optimize but the gains are incremental.

I agree that buying likes on FB is not great, the exception is if your super targeted by demo and location, and then do friends of friends lead campaigns on top of the newly acquired likes, that can work, but it takes patience and a bit of budget.

FB's rising stock price is a direct result of their expanding share of advertising budgets.

</comment><comment><USER25> Back in the old days, businesses advertised in order to sell their product. Anyone still doing that?

<comment><USER26> Back in the old days, businesses sold a product. Anyone still doing that?

<comment><USER27> Yes, but its all made in China. (Nothing wrong with that.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think Facebook Ads to get likes are really good to get those first 100 or 1000 likes that make you look like a serious product. However, you should never expect that ad spend to generate any other value than that.

<comment><USER29> in that case you can just buy 10k chinese likes on ebay for a dime. They are worthless except increasing the counter.

<comment><USER28> I've tried that but they disappear after a while. The ones you get from Facebook Ads are real people who will also normally like your posts etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I found that using FB advertising to promote your website or product works:

[http://bigosaur.com/blog/28-facebook-ads-android- players](http://bigosaur.com/blog/28-facebook-ads-android-players)

I would use it as a sales funnel, but anything beyond that would belong into "Brand Recognition" which is really impossible to measure anyway and only the biggest brands who target general population should do it.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is just silly. Even Facebook discourages buying likes at this point and says they have no value. Of course, you aren't seeing performance.

<comment><USER32> How are they discouraging buying likes if they tell you the number of likes you will get when you want to promote your Facebook page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I use FB advertising to generate leads for my retail education business. We use Adwords too.

CPL via FB is about $1 (we're in India) and the CPL via Adwords is about 80 cents. Conversions: FB is basically garbage, less than .5%, while Adwords does way better and gives a positive ROI.

I have used Adwords retargeting but not FB retargeting, has it been beneficial to anyone?

</comment><comment><USER34> Likes for the sake of likes are meaningless. The value of the whole Like system is that it gives you some notion of brand reach and adoption. You undermine that with programs specifically designed to drive Likes.

Facebook encourages programs like this because they make money off of them. But they're a sucker's game; internet marketing is still internet marketing and people who are good at it know how to assess the value of an online marketing campaign with cold numerical efficiency.

Google's advertising system is still far superior to Facebook's because it's built in such a way that Google makes more money when their advertisers make more money. Facebook still has yet to find a way to show real ROI in the way that Google does. I think they will eventually, but right now their mantra is that social marketing is different than online marketing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Their overall monetization plan with pages seems terribly short sighted. I've been pitching how to limit reliance on FB to clients for a while now, as we turn to other sources for social acquisition. I think this could be damaging in the long term for FB as this will likely become the trend.

A bit unrelated but if Facebook wants to make truckloads of money... I am still trying to figure out what the holdup is for an Adsense competitor -- I'd definitely try it on some of my content sites.

Most people browse the web logged into FB, so it doesn't seem THAT problematic from a technical standpoint. It also wouldn't be that out of place for me to start expecting ads based off of profile data.

Could you imagine how targeted the offsite ads could be? The marketer in me is already salivating over the concept.

I feel like I'm missing something incredibly obvious here.

<comment><USER21> Facebook wants you on Facebook as often as possible. They are taking the opposite path to monetizing the same data. I'm noticing now that their FBX retargeting has gone beyond just sites I visit to sites similar to those that I have recently visited. I'm also noticing really improved cross-device consistency, as they are using my UID to link my devices when I am logged in to Facebook (across the web, as you said).

<comment><USER35> Valid point -- I suppose the functions of Google and FB are different. But even then, still seems like a great revenue stream

<comment><USER21> I agree, I'm an online marketer too and I'd pay a fortune for a Facebook informed AdSense. Just don't think it's in their roadmap, as it fights against their world domination goal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Promoted Likes have always made me nervous on FB. One of the Pages I help manage ran a Like campaign. The page is very niche specific and appeals to people living in a certain area. Even though the campaign was targeted, an abnormal (around half) amount of new Likes came from Bangladesh (not targeted, not even close to a target market). We complained but it didn't help. That was 2 years ago and I've seen similar stories since then. Haven't trusted this sort of campaign since that experience and would advise anyone to stay clear of it. Unless of course you want to get Likes for vanity. In that sense, this campaign will help populate your Page, but expect low quality "fans", which could hurt your reach and engagement levels and screw you over with Edgerank.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've run millions of dollars worth of Facebook ad campaigns. "Like" campaigns are the equivalent of brand advertising, a world in which there are no directly measurable metrics, so advertisers judge their performance based on metrics like "Did your ad campaign increase awareness?". Also, surprisingly, the most effective way I found for actually acquiring likes cheaply was to run direct response campaigns focusing on clicks to website, offer claims, and website conversions. So we got the best of both worlds, cheap fan-getting, as well as DR conversions. Basically, what I found was that to get their desired result of "people who visit your website then like the page," it is much more effective and cheap to focus on driving them to your page.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm not surprised that the "get more likes" campaigns fail to generate positive ROI. If you goal is to get people to sign up on your site why not create ads that at least drive people to your site?

This is maybe the third or fourth post I've read along the same lines: a lot of people aren't seeing ROI and engagement. FB isn't right for everyone, but there ARE people making money on it. Aside from having the right product and service offerings that do work on FB, you need to make sure you have the right campaign with clear goals and smart targeting. Without auditing their targeting options I can't say whether they got any of this right, but their Facebook content and profile aren't really set up for a liking campaign's ROI either.

</comment><comment><USER38> The author has described, which is pretty obvious for any enterprise that have used facebook advertising to gain followers. They do not convert, and even worse, they don't help spread the word. Unless you post a photo of lolCatz. But how exactly a serious profession like I am in (logistics) can keep posting lolz cats photos. ;)

As for Facebook for advertising your products i.e links to your product pages or website, the ROI is worse. But I keep using it however, because in my market, using Adwords is no more affordable, I roughly pay $0.03 for a Facebook ad click, while the same costs me $0.25 on adwords. That's why I had to give up on Adwords.

</comment><comment><USER39> In the expense of time I'll keep this short: Facebook likes are more important than you may considered. After working with online marketing we found out that Facebook suggest your likes to people in your networks. That means if you like a certain page, your friends are most likely going to be shown that like, hence increasing the possibility of them liking your page.

I myself have discovered many pages, articles and even bought products online based on what Facebook suggests I should like. Like the shoes I'm wearing now. It really does work even though there isn't an easy way to track it. Don't underestimate what a Like can do.

</comment><comment><USER40> There is one use case where Facebook likes are useful, even critical: in online brand protection. Users that actively "like" your page to receive your news have been proven to "like" the page with your company's name that has the highest number of likes (in other words: the most liked page is perceived to be the official page). If there are other pages about your company created by third-parties, and that get enough likes to be mistaken for you, you definitely want to have more likes, to make sure to remain the page that is perceived as official, and keep using Facebook as an information channel.

</comment><comment><USER41> Whatever nice algorithm or perfect code facebook could uses for the advertising the problem will always remain, people go on facebook to connect with other people, or to peep on people they don't know - that's its market share, nothing more and I don't think they can change that. It's a flawed model and I don't think it'll survive for long. It could have become a great protocole if it had been open since the start, but it'll probably have the same ending as... what was it, myPlace?

</comment><comment><USER42> To me, the big WTF is that Facebook has recently effectively said "If you don't pay to promote your updates, they're going to be seen by a lot less people in the future - including those who already "Like" your page.

So the decision of whether to purchase "Likes" on Facebook is now much more of a no-brainer. You're not going to see the same ROI on ad spend as you once did (and even then, the ROI was tentative at best).

</comment><comment><USER43> There is a vast difference between number of likes and actual people talking about product(which matters) . In most cases followers on twitters and likes on facebook are some random user profile which can't correlate with your industry specific product and large number of such profiles look fake. I won't recommend concentrating on likes and followers but it's the engagement which actually matters .

</comment><comment><USER44> I would not read too much into this. Whether FB is good for business depends on your business. I know a company who is scaling back everything but Facebook because all their business is done through facebook, with clear analytics showing the discovery of their product is foremost on FB.

FB, for some industries, has great targeting. Tech business, probably not so much.

PS they target demographics, not getting likes

</comment><comment><USER45> "We stopped advertising on Facebook to get Facebook "likes", because we felt that it was a giant fruitless scheme of making Facebook rich. "

Yes, if your only objective is to get Facebook likes don't do that.

And by the way they don't seem to get Facebook. Or Social Media Advertising.

But I hand to them that 'like' has become a random thing.

<comment><USER46> Everyone I've ever seen who has talked about how much they 'get' Social Media Advertising has been a snake oil salesman.

<comment><USER45> Possible

However this is not about "getting" (and bragging) this is about "not getting"

But you're right, if the person is bragging this is usually a red flag.

It's like someone bragging about "How they know how to write stories with Word" or how they can totally "Do calculation with Excel"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't see why people are complaining...facebook's job is to get your product/services in front of your would-be customers. It's your duty or the duty of your marketing department to brainstorm winning strategies to engage your audience.

</comment><comment><USER48> From business point of view, we want to push our ads to the users. So forget about buying "likes", but use "Clicks to Website, Website Conversions". Anybody has any successful story on that kind of ads on FB?

The targeted users become victim, though.

</comment><comment><USER49> TLDR: We were paying for likes on Facebook, even though we had no idea what they were or why we wanted them. We also haven't done any research on other ways to advertise on facebook because we assume that's the only way.

</comment><comment><USER43> We did a study among likes and retweets , [http://www.beevolve.com/social- media-audience/](http://www.beevolve.com/social-media-audience/) just in case if you are interested

</comment><comment><USER50> From first hand experience I absolutely agree with this.

Using Facebook's own PPC channels we are getting fraudulent clicks and fake profiles come via Facebook as a legitimate cost.

'Fraudulent' being the most important word.

</comment><comment><USER51> Real likes == money spent

Unless the customer was duped into spending (free trials)

</comment><comment><USER52> facebook also ditching sponsored stories as of apr 9

[https://developers.facebook.com/roadmap/](https://developers.facebook.com/roadmap/)

</comment><comment><USER47> All this talk about facebook advertising not gener</comment>


Artists are done playing nice.  Your phones will now be locked up at their shows - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/alicia-keys-is-done-playing-nice-your-phone-is-getting-locked-up-at-her-shows-now/2016/06/16/366c15aa-33af-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html?tid=sm_fb <comment><USER2> I personally never take out my phone DURING concerts. It's usually off so that I can save battery to call for an Uber when I'm done. However, I do occasionally use it to text friends to find them when I'm in the venue but before the event starts. This would completely prohibit that. More importantly, I like to rock out at concerts (halestorm, the pretty reckless, etc.). This would potentially discourage me from doing that, because I would be worried about that bulky bag popping out of my pocket and subsequently getting stepped on. This directly hurts my appreciation of their music and the event. I dislike this so much that I will boycott any artist who does this.

</comment><comment><USER3> "For DJ Walton, the manager, the only real issue is that Keys planned to premiere songs from her planned follow-up to 2012's "Girl on Fire."

"We don't want the first time you ever hear a song to be some [lousy] MP3 somebody captured on their phone," said Walton."

That's why you're sending a free copy to everyone who attended the show, right? Not, y'know, for the money...

</comment><comment><USER4> As an (evidently) old school lover of live music, I couldn't agree with this more. To the guy complaining that his phone is "his memory": maybe that's a sign of a problem rather than justification for your behaviour.

Live music is ephemeral. That's its nature and part of what makes live art of any form special: no one will ever duplicate your experience. Trying to reproduce it with some crappy cell phone recording is hopeless, so why waste time, while squandering that experience, by trying?

Add to that the fact that you're interfering with the enjoyment of fellow concertgoers (yes your cellphone screen is, in fact, bright and blocking my view), and I'm all for this.

<comment><USER5> > As an (evidently) old school lover of live music

Bootlegs have existed for a long long time.

<comment><USER4> And will continue to exist as a minority.

But the tide really changed when everyone suddenly had a video recording device in their pockets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was just at a show and I used my phone for two things:

1\. finding where my friends were

2\. yeah a video - but not to post on social media. it's my favorite band and to see them come back after a 5 year hiatus is a video i will watch over and over again. i keep all of my momentos and actually will cherish this video. not going to apologize for wanting to hold onto that moment past the concert</comment>


Park It, Trucks: Here Come New York's Cargo Bikes - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/nyregion/nyc-cargo-bikes-delivery.html <comment><USER2> When I lived in a building, the number of boxes I saw in the recycling room made me kinda sad. Maybe it's just the minimalist in me, but we consume so much crap.

Sure cargo bikes are better for the environment than big trucks, but you know what's even better? Consuming less.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of interest: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/boycott-black- friday...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/boycott-black-friday-and- save-the-world/2019/11/28/3243fd2a-11b5-11ea-924c-b34d09bbc948_story.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://archive.is/VFSv5](http://archive.is/VFSv5)</comment>