Show HN: Create and mail a free postcard - <AUTHOR> https://postcardmailer.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, for some reason when I click the link, it opens with the page scrolled halfway down. It might have sometime to do with my 1Password extension, as it has the "email" field focused.

[https://imgur.com/X3TkUSa](https://imgur.com/X3TkUSa)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, same on mine with 1Password -- I suspect it's that. Nonetheless, thanks for reporting the issue!

<comment><USER3> No, nothing to do with 1Password, I don't have it installed and I see the same thing. I'm also on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious-- without 1Password, I don't get a scroll. If you don't mind, which mobile platform and which browser?

<comment><USER3> Both Chrome and Firefox on Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome seeing this here! I hope this will get you the traction you need to keep it up and running! Happy New Year by the way!

I made a WhatsApp chatbot[1] a while back that helps you customize and send postcards from within WhatsApp.

1: [https://melonpost.com](https://melonpost.com)

<comment><USER5> This is a great idea , it all comes to privacy on the address that is shared. How are those preserved

<comment><USER4> It's definitely important! The addresses are stored for generating the postcard designs and shipping them to the recipient only.

The card is however printed by a third-party with whom we thus have to share the address details for shipping. From there on the is no additional privacy concernes compared to sending a postcard by hand.

<comment><USER6> Love the idea. I hope it sticks.

I think you should add a statement addressing the privacy issue. Will you or won't you sell data? Is the data encrypted? Will the vendor not sell the data?

I can see this product being a lot of fun. But not at the expense of loss of privacy.

<comment><USER4> There is a privacy statement on the bottom of the page that covers this. Let me know if you feel this is not thorough enough or not prominent enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would happily pay for this service and know others that would as well. Lots of people have kids and grandparents that would get a kick out something like this.

Good luck!

<comment><USER8> I went down this road — the economics don't work unless you can get your acquisition costs very very low. Good conversion rates and margins but we are talking small numbers, and large capex per user to print cards, esp if you give some away for free (which is a great acquisition channel)

<comment><USER9> Have you actually tried creating postcard sending service? Could you share what you have tried to acquire new users?

<comment><USER8> Yup, I spent 6 months or so trying to find product-market fit for two different postcard apps, one focused on creating memes and the other focused on sending baby/kid photos to grandparents and family. The latter had much more potential, but the economics were tough due to user acquisition costs. I suspect you could make it work if you had a better marketing strategy that I did. I was trying to get traction through display ads by doing highly targeted social networking campaigns, which seemed like it should be fruitful, and was getting low CPIs ($1-$2) -- however even at that level, and with significant viral loops, growth hacking, and a recurring revenue subscription based model, I just couldn't get the numbers to work.

Ultimately, users seemed to need to see the product before they spend money, so having a trial period of one or two cards seemed essential. Without it, conversions flatlined I suspect since you were asking people to pay for something they couldn't even see the quality of first. These one or two free cards greatly added to acquisition costs, and led to a long, complex acquisition funnel, and so you had to more than make up for sending a lot of free cards with your paying customers while the new leads converted. When you consider the free cards, you were now talking about $3-4 per _lead_ , and with a generous conversion rate of 3% that is approx a $100 cost per customer to acquire them. Surprisingly, over the course of a year or so of a subscription this could actually work if churn was low.

But it was very risky and cost intensive to subsidize the acquisition costs for me personally, so I stopped working on it after sending approx 9k postcards and getting approx 250 customers, who almost entirely churned out after a few months.

I learned a lot from this exercise, one thing was anytime you hear anyone doing this idea, especially if they are VC funded, it's a good idea to bet against them surviving unless you see they have some kind of cheap, high volume, high quality marketing channel.

<comment><USER9> Wow. Thank you for such long, detailed and insightful comment. I look at this now as marketing challenge as well and I am trying some alternatives ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> IDK. While this idea is as old as the Internet, does it make any sense? The key point of a postcard is _not_ to communicate (limited space, not secure, slow) but being a gesture. Buying a postcard, writing something on it and bringing it yourself to the post office is a huge gesture and signals many things--in contrast to postcard gateways like this one. Any receiver who will get this machine printed postcard will think, 'why didn't she/he just text me?' and throws it in the trash bin.

But maybe OP can give us a hint about the real use case or he is hand-writing the cards himself.

<comment><USER11> OP's reason for making this is mentioned in the "about" section of the page - sending physical photos to people who prefer those over something like Instagram.

<comment><USER10> Still doesn't make sense. Instagram and postcards have different use cases and latter is not about sending someone a physical photo or showing a any photo (hint again: it's a gesture).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Happens to the addresses that are entered ? Privacy ? Any info about that

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good question. As alluded to under "About", this is very much in side- project phase and absent ToS, Privacy Policy, payment, etc. I considered slapping a generic privacy policy up there before launch, but convinced myself I was coming up with excuses for not launching.

So that said: nothing will happen with addresses entered. If this project grows to the point of a ToS/Privacy Policy, those documents will reflect that. At this point you've got to trust me: I've been active in this community for a decade and have an easily-Googleable reputation. If that's not good enough for you, I completely understand, and this service is a little too alpha for you.

But seriously, it's a great question and thanks for asking it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Funnily enough, I had this exact idea ~6 months ago. Whether this becomes a paid service or not, people will always appreciate a little goodwill.

<comment><AUTHOR> Launching this as "free" is similar to another project I had a few years back:

[https://anotherphotoproject.herokuapp.com/](https://anotherphotoproject.herokuapp.com/)

Over the course of about a year, I gave away ~2500 photos at the coffee shop I used to work out of (and gave all the donations to the coffee shop staff as tips).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Swiss Post has an Android app that has the same idea, and they even let you send 1 free postcard per day to Switzerland and Liechtenstein: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.post.it.pcc](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.post.it.pcc)

<comment><USER9> Overall it is not new idea. Main players in the market currently are mypostcard (Germany) and touchnote (UK). One of them is in US as well (or maybe both). I personally identified at least 10 more.

Lastly, I have written my own service ([https://www.atvirukas.com](https://www.atvirukas.com)) as well despite knowing that there are a lot of players in the market.

Swiss Post basically prevented other players entering Swiss market :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If I click "Choose a Photo" before filling anything out, it says "Validation failed: Email can't be blank, Password can't be blank." Maybe I'm unusual, but I want to see the picture I'll be sending, before I commit! :)

<comment><USER15> That was the first thing I tried, also.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have been a big fan of [https://www.thesimplepostcard.com/](https://www.thesimplepostcard.com/) which lets you text photos to them.

</comment><comment><USER17> Very brave for you to offer 5 free cards (or any for that matter) -- when postcrossers find out you may run out of money quickly :) postcard exchange if a fairly popular hobby.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great start! Reminds me a bit of [https://nanagram.co/](https://nanagram.co/), the creator of which I believe posts here.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good time to have this but how is this different from services like Postable? We just used it to mail out 100 postcards for the holidays.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now, it's not much different than Postable or any number of similar services. Except they can send internationally and this service cannot :) Based on the number of similar services, this doesn't seem like a winner-take- all market. But I would be very interested to hear your thoughts: how you chose Postable from competitors, what you like about them, don't like, etc.

A little extra context: when I first built this, it used the Instagram API to automatically mail postcards to my mother when I uploaded a new photo. Shortly after building it, Instagram changed their API and I was unable to get high enough resolution photos for postcards, so I "pivoted" it to the current product.

How is it different in the future? I think I can win on price-- it looks like Postable is $2.49 low volume and $1.00 at volume. Based on my costs, I can do $1.00 or lower with low volume.

<comment><USER19> I think it would be nice to have an address book feature. This is what led us back to Postable, we had used them a couple years ago for mailing thank you cards which involved uploading our addresses to their address book. Overall, their post card design templates appealed most to us.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! If you'd be willing to chat a little more, I'd love to connect: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER19> Another nice to have may be the ability to track the card. When we purchased our order on Postable, the order status displayed as "Sent" which is kind of generic. We don't know which of our recipients actually received the card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Neat! It's like a free [https://sincerely.com/](https://sincerely.com/)

<comment><USER21> I just looked at sincerely, and that looks like it only prints 5x7 photos and mails them, not actual postcards. Maybe that's why it starts at $2 each.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Experience: clicked the above link with herokuapp.com; signed up (saved Chrome auto generated password in Chrome) & sent postcard. But the signup email sent the link with .us ending; & had to copy password again from herokuapp entry. Maybe the email should send herokuapp link; or herokuapp can be auto forwarded to .us?

</comment><comment><USER23> "We're sorry, but something went wrong.

If you are the application owner check the logs for more information."

<comment><USER24> I am also getting this error when clicking "Preview"

Another thing worth looking into is the "confirm my account" link in email leads to a non HTTPS link

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this with one recipient?

HN is definitely sending more traffic than the service is used to so I've temporarily increased the number of Heroku dynos-- hopefully trying again should yield better results!

<comment><USER24> Yes, one recipient, thanks and no worries, I may try back in a few days :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I created a similar (non-free) service for sending emojis via postcards [https://www.emojimailer.com/](https://www.emojimailer.com/)

What service do you use for sending postcards?

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice work. How are you printing them? What kind of printer / paper? Is it automatic or do you have to do some work for every order?

</comment><comment><USER9> As I have created similar service (EU based) I wish you good luck with it. Is there a way to track your progress? Do you share your findings anywhere?

I hope you are aware that competition in quite serious in the market. E.g. mypostcard in 2016 claimed that they print 10000 postcards per day. What's your plan about that?

<comment><USER17> > mypostcard in 2016 claimed that they print 10000 postcards per day

I wanna call bs of this claim. Postcrossing -- largest postcard exchange community, almost 800k registered users worldwide, not all active of course, but a large portion of them sending daily and are really hooked on the hobby.. The hottest month in 2016 was March, 17k/day. These are people who love sending cards. Just hard to believe another single service not oriented on hardcore regular senders would be doing even half that. I can be wrong, of course, but just hard to believe.

<comment><USER9> Let me give you another number: Germany's most widely-used postal service, Deutsche Post, delivers more than 61 million letters every day! (source: [https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/communication/post- mail-g...](https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/communication/post-mail- germany))

10000 postcards in Germany alone would be 0.01% of that and mypostcard works in multiple EU countries.

<comment><USER17> how many of those "letters" are postcards? thing is postcards are not cool anymore (sad), and I think postcards share of the whole volume is pretty small.

<comment><USER9> I have no idea how many of these are postcards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Are you selling the addresses?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. More details in another thread on this post, but tl;dr: 1\. This is a side project and I'm eating all the sending costs while iterating on the product 2\. Selling addresses is shitty and if I monetize, it will just be mark-up on the selling costs 3\. If this project continues to grow, I will make the ToS/Privacy Policy clearly state that we will never sell addresses

<comment><USER28> Who would you even sell them to? Sharper Image?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Looks pretty neat, what are your costs?</comment>


Never Solve the Same Problem from Scratch Twice - <AUTHOR> http://scottndecker.com/blog/2014/04/25/Never-Solve-the-Same-Problem-from-Scratch-Twice/

<comment><USER2> I have one notebook on Evernote called Knowledge Base, but the problem maintain it. I mean, everytime I have a problem first I go directly to Stackoverflow and almost always there the first result gime the answer, so I don't put it on notebook.

But this notebook became useful to store not common errors that I couldn't fine solution on web. Normally it is related to some new tech or very specific scenario.

<comment><USER3> I don't see a problem with this. If Google can easily show you the answer to a problem, use it! The Evernote notebook is a good last-line-of-defense that captures things you really struggle with - or issues that require a solution with multiple parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _When I first became a developer fourteen months ago..._

I remember having the same ah-ha in my first year or 2 programming professionally ten years ago.

I started a wiki on a stick or something like that. Lasted all of 6 months.

The same problems don't recur because you get better at stopping them recurring. You become better at root cause, making sure that someone getting the project from version control doesn't have to remember to press button y slowly with their left forefinger, do a backwards roll, shout 'all hail torvalds' 3 times backwards before the build runs.

You also get better at debugging generally, so simply reading the stack trace/error message/error event lets you predict the cause without having to consult your list.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sort of falls under the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle.</comment>


Show HN: Picknotebook – a better way to choose your next laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.picknotebook.com

<comment><USER2> I wish I had this when I was buying my last laptop! I ended up with a ThinkPad x131e which is a bit on the heavy side but satisfied most of my other needs.

Some minor suggestions:

* Allow selection of operating system/platform. This will let people weed out, for example, Chromebooks if they know that ChromeOS is unsuitable for them. For Mac/Windows, the manufacturer filter already does this.

* Show Linux compatibility. Ubuntu has a compatibility list and the other big distros probably do as well. This would have to be advisory only though since one model might come in a few different configurations.

* Other filters: Touch/non-touch, convertible to tablet, detachable keyboard, etc.

I'm also surprised to not see Microsoft in the manufacturer dropdown. The Surface tablets (with keyboard cover) look like a very interesting laptop-like option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft is not the only one... I didn't spent too much time on manufacturer list - wanted to get public asap. I'll add Microsoft Surface in coming few days.

The problem with filters is that there is a very wide array of opinions on what should be added and it's common for Amazon to not specify many non- primary specs/write contradictory specs or simply plain wrong data. Therefore I won't be able to just throw in more filters, just a few at a time. Thanks for suggestions, gonna add them to my spreadsheet heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clever, and I'd definitely refer friends to this when they ask me what computer to get. A couple suggestions:

Re: OS choices -- iOS is for mobile devices (phones and tablets). Laptops run Mac OS X.

I find the display of the suggestions unhelpful. I care a lot more about how much actual drive space the computer has than what percentile it falls into. Also, for most people price is a huge factor, so displaying the price of each laptop would help a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed OS option. Price should be displayed in blue near "View on Amazon". Drive type/space is also displayed with every item when clicked on "Specifications". Hmm... I think I'll have to make that a bit more noticeable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like it. The vagueness of the options works better in some areas than others though: suppose I'm looking for exactly a 13,3" laptop: I'm picky on the size, but don't care so much for accurate results in others areas

<comment><AUTHOR> True. It's quite a challenge satisfying both sides of the spectrum, especially when it has to be wrapped in a consistent UI. Thanks for that thought though. I'll look into that.</comment></comment>


meme2txt: A shell script to make memes right in your terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dmadisetti/meme2txt <comment><AUTHOR> ``` meme2txt distracted_boyfriend.png \ \--meme "the internet" 9 68 black \ \--meme "classic memes" 16 80 black \ \--meme "$(toilet "meme2txt" -fsmblock)" 30 40 white ```

Sure, it seems a little frivolous- but I threw together the script as a way to get one of my friends more interested in hacking. On that front, I succeeded.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone Familiar with Building Analytic Dashboards? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I'm running into a half-wall with building a dashboard to incorporate social media and google analytics of the user's website.<p>Anyone interested or could point me in the right direction to get started? Thanks all! <comment><USER2> I would suggest a few things. There are 3 presentations / blog posts that are must reads for this sort of thing... Measure Anything, Measure Everything[1] Metrics Driven Engineering[2] Metrics, Metrics, Everywhere[3]

The most common tool used for this is graphite[4]. Yelp also wrote their own which is nice called Firefly[5]. If you go with graphite like most big companies do, I would strongly suggest looking at graphene[6], gdash[7], giraffe[8], tasseo[9], or cubism[10] dashboard frontends. Graphite has a lot of "devops" community around it.

This should be enough to get you started :)

[1] [http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/02/15/measure-anything- meas...](http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/02/15/measure-anything-measure- everything/) [2] [http://www.slideshare.net/mikebrittain/metricsdriven- enginee...](http://www.slideshare.net/mikebrittain/metricsdriven-engineering) [3] <http://pivotallabs.com/139-metrics-metrics-everywhere/> [4] <http://graphite.wikidot.com/> [5] <https://github.com/Yelp/Firefly> [6] <http://jondot.github.com/graphene/> [7] [http://www.devco.net/archives/2011/10/08/gdash-graphite- dash...](http://www.devco.net/archives/2011/10/08/gdash-graphite- dashboard.php) [8] <https://github.com/kenhub/giraffe> [9] <https://github.com/obfuscurity/tasseo> [10] <http://square.github.com/cubism/>

<comment><USER3> +1 and thanks for the mention (I am the creator of Giraffe).

However, despite my support for open-source tools, and my deep love for graphite, it might in some cases make more sense to use a commercial product. There are many pretty neat commercial dashboards out there which could make the setup and any learning-curve much easier.

Just to name a few I've heard of (never used, and in no particular order): Librato metrics, ducksboard, geckoboard ... and probably many others I missed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where are you getting hung up?

I have built a fair number of analytic dashboards for a variety of clients. Google Analytics is pretty easy to export data from and integrate to overall. Social is a little more of a pain depending on the source and what you are trying to measure.

Overall I find the hardest part is selecting the metrics to communicate to the client/user so you are providing the most value without noise. Creating the dashboard(s) is usually the easy part, definition and analysis are where you show the clients/users why you are special.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm being overwhelmed by where to began. I'm a solo founder and I'm building a platform from the ground up but now - this part of the analytics is just so fuzzy to me. Interested in talking via email?

My email is in my profile if you are? I can share some links - I can't post it here because I don't know if the server can take the traffic.

<comment><USER4> Sure, I'll shoot you an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dropped you a line. I'll edit my profile.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


More Emacs - a better eshell  - <AUTHOR> http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/more-emacs-a-better-eshell

<comment><USER2> Or you could just C-u M-x eshell.</comment>


The Saga Of The One Guy Kanye West Is Following On Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2010/08/03/exclusive-student-shocked-by-fame-over-twitter-link-to-kanye-west-92746-26985861/2/

<comment><USER2> So is this Kanye "sampling" Conan?

</comment><comment><USER3> not much of a saga</comment>


The Year We Started Buying Phones Like We Buy Cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/12/the-year-we-started-buying-phones-like-cars/ <comment><USER2> > You paid $200 for a flagship, or nothing for a clunker,

Nope. I paid $170 for a Moto G a few years back and it was a great choice. I got a fairly modern phone. Not too big, I don't like big phones. I got updates at a pretty good rate. And the best thing, I don't have a contract. And if I sit on the phone and break it, I'll go and try to buy another one. If I bought a $600 and sat on it and broke it, I would be rather upset.

That's happened with a previous phone. And a family member said, "Well why don't you buy insurance for it". I noped on that and set a new benchmark for my mobile phone -- if I am too upset if it gets destroyed or broken then I need to buy a cheaper model, I can't afford the expensive model. $200 is about that price point currently.

<comment><USER3> Man, I love the MotoG - it's the first generation model - it's small, just the right feel, been dropped a few times.. everything works wonderfully. Really wish that we keep getting small reasonably priced and reasonably featured smart phones. My MotoG's getting old but there isn't something on the market to upgrade to :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now I want to buy cars like I buy phones: Research it over the internet, click a button, enter my credit card number, wait for the car to show up at my doorstep.

<comment><USER5> I assume if you're spending 30K+ you'd at least want to test drive it. Also I'm sure if you got in touch with any car dealership near you, they'd arrange the above for you.

<comment><USER6> Used to think that about just about anything. Shoes, clothing, electronics, and more. You can get car accessories and parts online too, depending on the automaker. It may not get delivered to your home, but it'll at least get delivered to the dealer, if not your home. Some automakers have sites where you can customize your car online, like mini.com.

If the trend continues, why just buy whole cars online too, especially if they're well-reviewed? What was unthinkable before surprisingly changes. I would not be surprised if buying cars became as easy as an Amazon Prime one- click in the future. Probably not for at least a decade though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In most markets outside the US, the carrier contract model hasn't been dominant. Some people choose to get a flagship for "free", others choose a mid-tier phone in exchange for lower monthly fees, still others use budget phones on a prepaid tariff or a cheap monthly deal.

I think it's notable that T-Mobile introduced diversity into the US cell service market - they're the only truly global carrier operating in the US.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not exactly...

Cars require maintenance the expectation of which greatly influences our purchasing decisions (e.g. "Toyota tax").

People generally don't buy used phones.

Phones don't come in mutually exclusive form factors (2dr coupe, airport van, cab and chassis, everything in-between). They're all touchscreen slabs with one or more buttons at the bottom.

You also won't get fired from your job if you break your phone and your bosses call goes to voicemail. If you don't show up for work because your car is broken you'll probably be fired.

<comment><USER9> >Cars require maintenance the expectation of which greatly influences our purchasing decisions (e.g. "Toyota tax").

There is a thriving phone repair industry patronized by people that can't afford to throw away expensive electronics every few years. When the most common "failures" are cracked screens and dead batteries, both of which are fairly easily replaced, it makes sense if you don't "need" the absolute latest and greatest to signal.

>People generally don't buy used phones.

Used iPhones retain their value pretty well.

>Phones don't come in mutually exclusive form factors (2dr coupe, airport van, cab and chassis, everything in-between). They're all touchscreen slabs with one or more buttons at the bottom.

I dunno, the difference between a regular smartphone and a "phablet" is pretty striking to me.

>You also won't get fired from your job if you break your phone and your bosses call goes to voicemail. If you don't show up for work because your car is broken you'll probably be fired.

Where the heck do you work?

<comment><USER10> > dead batteries

Anyone who designs battery-powered consumer electronics and doesn't make it trivial to replace a dead battery should be slapped with a cold herring.

One nice feature of the Samsung Galaxy line (at least up to the 4S I have now) is that it takes all of ten seconds to swap batteries.

<comment><USER11> The mechanisms necessary for a removable battery that doesn't fall out accidentally cost extra weight and bulk. It's an engineering tradeoff, and swappable batteries aren't worth it for many users. This is also why many laptops have fewer interchangeable parts- for many people, being lighter and thinner is better, and a 3-5 year lifespan is plenty.

<comment><USER12> > excuses

let's just remove all features that add weight!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why all the fuzz about MS Paint – Just use Paint Dot NET - <AUTHOR> http://www.getpaint.net/ <comment><USER2> MS Paint is my favourite Microsoft program ever. Even on GNU/Linux I can't do without it (just using Wine). The SHIFT + [drag] feature of MS Paint (kind of like on-the-fly brushes with transparency) is _the_ killer feature I haven't seen in any other program.

[http://pradiiphira.hubpages.com/hub/Microsoft-Paint- Features...](http://pradiiphira.hubpages.com/hub/Microsoft-Paint-Features-I- Like-Most)

<comment><USER3> That feature was in MacPaint, released in 1984. It used command-option instead of shift, though.

Page 19 of this manual:

[http://classiccomputers.info/down/Apple/MacPaint_Manual_-_19...](http://classiccomputers.info/down/Apple/MacPaint_Manual_-_1983.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Exactly that feature on p19! And what a nice manual. Those B/W pixel patterns are so pretty.

I wish there was a way to run those old programs. I once managed to get KidPix in B/W to run on an emulator but somehow it stopped working. I always felt that MSPaint was to pixels what Vi is to text. (Photoshop/Paint.NET/Gimp are more like Word)

Why has noone made clones of those old paint programs? (Maybe I ought to stop whining, and just do it myself. That manual is a great reference, though.)

<comment><USER3> Mini vMac is an excellent emulator for the Mac Plus. I have quite a collection of old mac software that I backed up from my original floppies, and I'm glad I did. Who knows how much longer those would have survived before they all had errors.

Check out mac garden if you are interested in old mac stuff, it's great.

If you ever make a clone of an old paint program (maybe in a web browser? should be possible nowadays) let me know :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently switched from Windows to Mac for my main work computer. Paint.NET is the program I miss the most on a day-to-day basis. Does anyone have a recommendation for a similar program for common uses like e.g. screengrab a web page then put a 50% transparency yellow highlight on a portion I want to call out? I'm happy to pay, but know next to nothing about the Mac ecosystem.

<comment><USER5> I like Pixelmator for Mac ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12)). It is in between Paint.NET and Photoshop.

I also use Captur ([http://cambhlumbulunk.blogspot.com/p/captur.html](http://cambhlumbulunk.blogspot.com/p/captur.html)) for taking screenshots since I can never remember the obscure OS X shortcuts.

<comment><USER6> Before anyone runs off and grabs Pixelmator, see if Preview.app can do what you need. If you just need to highlight something in an image or add a note, it can do that.

If you need more, grab Pixelmator. It's an excellent program for basic image manipulation and drawing. If you need professional level tools, grab Paint Tool SAI, Photoshop, or GIMP as you need. Pixelmator will not be a good replacement for this programs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great program. Absolutely terrible website. Where's the download link? I can't find it amidst the giant "download this crapware!" graphics all over the place.

<comment><USER8> It's quite obvious, the site is all static content so even if you can't tell the ads from the contents by their visual appearance, just press F5. It also quite literally says "download" right at the top:

[http://drp.io/geKo](http://drp.io/geKo)

On the second page, scroll down if you don't see the buttons. Notice that the advertisement has an AdChoices button (and it also changes on reload). Also, the instructions are right there underneath the ad:

[http://drp.io/geKp](http://drp.io/geKp)

On the final download page, there are obvious signs to tell where you should click. The download button is surrounded by a huge click target in a box that features an AdChoices button and if you look closely you'll see it quite literally says "Advertisement" (FFS). Most importantly, the page tells you to click the link labelled "Free Download Now" to the _right_ , where the ad sits _below_.

[http://drp.io/geKq](http://drp.io/geKq)

I feel dumber having explained this.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't say it is obvious. The ads you got when you took your screenshots weren't the most confusing that show up. Here is what I got on the site: [http://imgur.com/a/WvFd6](http://imgur.com/a/WvFd6)

First impression for me of the page is that the content is on the left, and the ads are on the right. That's because the part I have circled in red looks like Google-style text ads. My mental ad blocker filters them out.

The download button I have circled in yellow then sets off alarms. It's in what I have decided is an ad column, and the color reminds me a bit of the deceptive download ads CNET's download.com likes to use on their site to trick people into downloading the wrong thing.

I return to the left column, which I have identified as the content column. The download button there, which I have circled in green, is in a place where a download button would not be unexpected. This is the one I will probably click, unless the small, greyed out, notice that it is an add for "Free Zip" somehow catches my attention.

If instead of trying to download from the front page, I click the download link at the top, we get to the second page. What I'd do there depends on how tall my browser window is. If it is tall enough to show the real download section at the bottom, my attention would be drawn to that, because it looks enough like download sections at other places (because of the layout, and because it lists versions, sizes, and mirrors).

However, if that ends up not visible, then I'd probably click the ad I have circled in green. This ad fits right into the flow of the content and is a place where a download link for paint.net would make sense.

I think pages can be classified into "consumption" pages and "activity" pages. A consumption page is a page where the reader is there to consume the content of the page. For example, a product page at an online store would be a consumption page. The reader is there to read the information about the product. The front page of the paint.net site is a consumption page.

An activity page is a page where you are there to perform some activity. At an online store, the checkout page would be an activity page. At the paint.net site, the download page would be an activity page.

Third party ads on consumption pages can be fine. People on consumption pages are often just looking, and ads give a chance to get some money from such visits. When people get to activity pages, they have usually gone beyond the just looking stage. You've got them on the hook, and now you want to reel them in. There should be no outside temptations or distractions put up at that point.

<comment><USER8> But those ads have 2 AdChoice icons on them, are huge click targets, have a border AND say "This advertisement will...".

If you can't figure this out, you won't be able to use paint.net anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paint.NET is, by the way, the only donationware which I'm aware of which makes the founder(s) a full-time income. Well-earned, too -- I've found it indispensable over the years.

<comment><USER10> Adblock ([https://getadblock.com/pay/](https://getadblock.com/pay/)) is another such case I believe.

Wholeheartedly agreed about Paint.NET's usefulness!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What "fuzz" is this referring to? I have for a long time preferred GIMP to paint.net for its portability and versatility, but neither of these compete with MSPaint in any way-- they fill a completely different role.

<comment><USER12> GIMP is great for editing photos, but a poor choice for creating bitmap (non vector) graphics. It's a big hassle even just to draw a straight line in GIMP. MS Paint is the reverse - easy for graphics, ill-suited for photos.

As I noted elsewhere on this page, Kolourpaint4 is the Linux equivalent of MS Paint. There are others which aim for the same niche, one called (MTPaint? or similar?) for example, but I found them harder to use.

<comment><USER13> > GIMP is great for editing photos, but a poor choice for creating bitmap (non > vector) graphics. It's a big hassle even just to draw a straight line in > GIMP. MS Paint is the reverse - easy for graphics, ill-suited for photos.

What? Photos are bitmap graphics and Gimp has nothing to do with vector graphics. You're really confusing a lot.

To draw a straight line in Gimp you just hold shift.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think MS Paint was just the standard shitty software that everyone was comfortable and used when they were kids or whenever. Also the fact that it wasn't updated until Windows Vista says something.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well coz its readily available unlike Paint(.)Net and its simple and quick like notepad. Actually the lack of features is what most people love the most about ms paint.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a shame Paint.NET is no longer open source. I tried out Pinta on GNU/Linux, but it's very buggy and not quite as nice. I just use Gimp these days.

</comment><comment><USER17> I used to love Paint.NET back in my (dark) Windows days. Could anyone suggest a good web-based alternative that would be OS agnostic today?

<comment><USER18> There are lots of online image editors, Adobe have a photoshop inspired one ([http://www.photoshop.com/tools?wf=editor](http://www.photoshop.com/tools?wf=editor)), there's Aviary, Sumopaint, Pixlr, ... I looked at a few a while back [http://alicious.com/online-image-editing-update/](http://alicious.com/online- image-editing-update/) and settled on Pixlr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> is it a trolling thread ?

</comment><comment><USER20> While their website is an anti-pattern, I do have to applaud one pattern that paint.net was early (if not first) to adopt: Asking you about updates when you _exit_ the program rather than when you first open it.

Contrast this with Notepad++. Every single time I open that app -- which I only do when I have pressing, immediate work to do -- it imperiously demands that it and its plugins be updated for various trivial, if not irrelevant things. I'm sure there is an option I can find someone in the hierarchies of options, but as a default interface behavior that is atrocious.

The only time you should interrupt work -- and app start is a primary indicator that work is afoot -- is if it's a critical security update. Otherwise do something less obnoxious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh my god, you are so right!

I absolutely hate this about Notepad++! (didn't think about it actually, untill you mentioned it now)</comment></comment>


Ask News.YC: Should You Implement Your Business Model at Launch? Joe Kraus vs Paul Graham - <AUTHOR>

Any time two people who know a ton about startups seem to differ there's something interesting to think about.
Joe Kraus> Put your business model into beta when you put your product into beta.
Paul Graham> The reason we tell founders not to worry about the business model initially is that making something people want is so much harder.
I've run into this myself. With my new project advertising is a hassle to manage, so much so that I've considered not having ads at all at first. I'm concerned that not having ads initially and then adding them later would result in users feeling as though I used bait and switch to trick them.
It seems to me that if your business model impacts the product directly it may be necessary to implement it at launch. I think that's what I have to do at least.

<comment><USER2> I think you're misinterpreting Joe Kraus. I've seen him do his "Startup Addict" presentation twice now, once at Startup School and once at a YC dinner, and in neither instance did I come away with the impression that he meant you have to start making money immediately.

The meaning I took from this "business model in beta" statement was, "you have to be willing to admit you don't understand how you're going to make money; be willing to evolve the business model based on what you learn after launch". Which seems entirely consonant with what pg has said.

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite possibly I am. I thought he was saying this after not releasing his premium account types for JotSpot initially and getting different feedback than he would from people actually willing to pay.

<comment><USER2> I'll buy that, too.

Anyway, I think the "beta" aspect of that statement is "try it and see, and change it if it's wrong". If your business model is "everything is free and I hate ads", then you'll soon find out that it's wrong. ;-)

It also ties into Kraus' favorite saying: You make what you measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Time to bring in some reid hoffman logic:

The order at which you deploy features should prioritised as follows:

a) User acquisition b) User retention c) Monetisation

pg states makes something people want first, which covers a and b then figure out c. If you plan to charge for your product you have to consider which features people would pay for and not give them away for free initially as you will not be able to charge for them later.

If you don't want to charge directly - then focus on building the user base and you'll have an audience which you can figure out from what would keep them and let you monetise through advertising. Generally in consumer ad plays focus on reaching and keeping users first, as you'll be able to sell advertisers on that.

</comment><comment><USER4> We are doing our business plan in beta during our product launch, for a few reasons.

1\. its defining our feature set 2\. as software folk, we are still learning about business, and its easier to walk first, and then run 3\. we need the money now, we don't have valley funders to give us gobs of money in Milwaukee, WI. I think the state tracked 3-5 million here last year in angel funding. 4\. our evaluation will be higher with revenue and on the ground business knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER5> You already posted about this once before. My strategy has been to start with small, unobtrusive ads, just to get people used to the fact that, yes, there are ads. You can also get some idea of how much money a few small ads will generate.

</comment><comment><USER6> Decisions...</comment>


Show HN: Pogo 2.0.0 – Easily host audio feeds - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gmemstr/pogo <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

Pogo v2.0.0 is a huge overhaul when it comes to the frontend, setup and general usability of Pogo, and has been months in the making. I've posted here before but it's been in a fairly "beta" state, but with v2 I feel confident in the stability and long term usability of the application. Hopefully it stands the test of time!</comment>


Apple patent case 'could affect all android phones' - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8547230.stm <comment><AUTHOR> If that is the case then i'm going to get my Nexus One sooner than I had planned (stupid exchange rate)</comment>


Ask HN: Social commerce with a hyper-local spin. www.reppio.com - <AUTHOR>

It's my first startup to launch. Would love to get HN's feedback.<p>www.reppio.com <comment><USER2> love this idea- it is a hard one to execute. i like the direction that you took with this though- giving each of the cities a way to be distinct from each other. are you planning to expand past these cities? going abroad for like london or toyko? going through (a great great design)it sticks out from others in the local space because of the focus on the individual store and how it fits in wit he the larger community. i think these are key to being able to create a marketplace in the local. will there be a way to directly message or keep up to date with the shops that i like?

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you have a demo account we can use to login, or is sign up necessary?

<comment><AUTHOR> if you really want... i made it just for today and rest of weekend - you can put in an email address (you don't have to actually confirm) to reduce friction to get feedback from you guys. would be great if you could actually sign up because you like the platform but if that's a hassle for you then there's your answer : )

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> like the local angel. def lots of players trying for it, you guys seem to have captured it. nice design too

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback! i designed it using microsoft powerpoint. haha. (i have no design background so getting feedback on ui/ux would be super helpful).</comment></comment>


The Theory of Relativity in words of four letters or less - <AUTHOR> http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/al.html

<comment><USER2> Not bad. Now do it without the letter "e" and I'll really be impressed.

<http://www.spinelessbooks.com/gadsby/></comment>


After Stumbling, Facebook Finds a Working Eraser - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/business/18facebook.html?ex=1360990800&en=7a369b18dd5f522d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I think facebook's inability to get this stuff right the first time is what makes so many people uneasy. It makes you think that the culture inside the company is maybe not as user friendly as they try to portray. Google got big just as quickly and had access to as much sensitive data, but avoided any major privacy missteps.</comment>


Life of an Airline Flight [video] - <AUTHOR> https://systemswe.love/videos/life-of-an-airline-flight <comment><USER2> This was really well explained.

Here's that article on ITA: [http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA- software-travel-com...](http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software- travel-complexity/ITA-software-travel-complexity.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I bought the book "Hard Landings" after seeing this talk last year. That book well worth the read if you are at all interested in the history of the airline industry.

</comment><comment><USER4> Link to video in Vimeo: [https://vimeo.com/195694156](https://vimeo.com/195694156)

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a great introduction to this world. As someone who extensively researches fares, I always find the routing codes and availability a bit overwhelming.

I also agree with his closing arguments - always book directly from the airline.

</comment><comment><USER6> Any idea how Airport by Arthur Hailey is relevant today?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_\(novel\))

<comment><USER7> Relevant in what way? It's a work of fiction.

<comment><USER6> Just saw on the wiki:

"The book presents an overview of the operations of a major commercial airport, much of which is still applicable over 40 years later. Several major and minor characters appear, illustrating the vast complexity of the airport and its operations, including customs officers, lawyers, airport police, doctors, clerks, snow clearers, et al."

Seems like it's still relevant :)</comment></comment></comment>


Living Off Hackathons: The Possible Rise of the Pro-Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/24/living-off-hackathons-the-possible-rise-of-the-pro-hacker/ <comment><USER2> Cramming a web or mobile application in eight hours is hardly "hacking".</comment>


Mental Math - <AUTHOR> http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> These days we have become so much dependent on the mechanical devices that we have almost forgotten how to use our mind. We need calculators (if not computers) to add our shopping bills. Daily life tosses plenty of math problems our way. Of course, normal calculation can get boring. Here's the secret: Tricks & Shortcuts. Mental calculation comprises arithmetical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from calculators, computers, or even pen and paper.</comment>


Amazon seller lost $400K in sales after being attacked by 'virus of Amazon' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/amazon-seller-targeted-virus-of-amazon.html <comment><USER2> If what's claimed in this article is true (and obviously it's difficult to check as it's one person's word against another, although a lot of the evidence does point against Krasr), then it illustrates another time when something as large as Amazon - which clearly relies a great deal on automated systems - is totally incapable of handling the situations it finds itself in. If it was run solely on humans (and they took their job seriously), then it would have been resolved much quicker, in the same way the handling of cases on YouTube and so on will always lag behind the application of intelligence to the problem.

For 99% of situations, I'm sure the automated systems that have been set up work OK, but they can clearly be gamed when there are loopholes (and there have been loads of them - whether it's marking an item as 'fake' on eBay, and getting refunded for it and getting to keep it, or lying about your item's location, or spurious copyright claims at a crucial time on YouTube), but the problem is that 1% gamification can mean the ruin of people who've worked hard to create a business, and they have no way to recover the damage caused. There are no meaningful consequences for those who have gamed the system to destroy their competition; the worst case scenario is that they'll start up with another name.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to view those who are running marketplaces such as Amazon, YouTube and eBay with positivity because of these issues; the way that they are addressed is with a generic "We work to keep up with these situations" type response, but I don't think they really do, as it doesn't effect their bottom line in any significant way, so there's no reason for them to take it seriously or devote any worthwhile resources to solving the problem. I know it's a small fraction of their total business, but to me it's how unusual situations are dealt with that show the real sentiment behind any business.

<comment><USER3> well I think the article is fishy. especially because of the headline. It says: $400k lost, yeah thats a ton of money, but than it says: "built revenues in his skin care business to more than $10 million annually in seven years"

I mean if I have a REVENUE of $10 million annually I would have savings of more than $400k dollar?!

Also if the product did not have had a trademark its just fine that somebody could clone the product. what is not so fine are of course fake reviews and other stuff, but thats illegal and every sane person would actually use a lawyer. Also amazon actually suspended his account for infridgement cases and I highly doubt that their system is so bad that it does that automatically. Because that would be more than insane.

every story has his two sides and this story looks fishy on both ends.

<comment><USER4> > _I mean if I have a REVENUE of $10 million annually I would have savings of > more than $400k dollar?!_

You might perhaps google the difference between "revenue" and "net income".

> _Also amazon actually suspended his account for infridgement cases and I > highly doubt that their system is so bad that it does that automatically._

Have you missed the last several years of tech news?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's funny that he's angry at his competitor for copying his product, because his own product is a copycat of Panasonic's.

<comment><USER6> If you read the article it's not just copying the product. The krasr company is also accused of committing fraud and various probably illegal tactics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing that stands out in this story is that we don't have an authenticated email system that most people are willing to use, and this causes real problems.

<comment><USER8> The problem is the industry at large rather than "people". If the likes of Amazon and Google were willing to actually treat authenticated email with priority or higher trustfulness of some sort, people would use it. But they treat everything in the same way, so why should I bother?

If the largest players could agree on one standard for secure email, I bet lots of people would transition overnight.

<comment><USER9> I think the biggest problem is that "normal" people have no clue that email is as insecure as it is. They trust that if an email says it's from a specific address, it must be.

The issue has to be fixed on a system level so spoof emails are impossible, because thats how most users think it is already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.krasr.com/](https://www.krasr.com/) is now attacking this article by redirecting to an ad

<comment><USER11> The fuck did I just click on? That must have cycled through at least 30 scammy domains before rendering my iOS safari tab completely unusable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Facebook's vulnerabilities were exposed during the 2016 election when > Russian propagandists infiltrated the network and targeted people with fake > news

What's the source on this? Do they mean some people bought "advertising"?

<comment><USER12> Yes.

The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits foreign nationals from buying "advertising" that influences the campaign. I think the FEC would say that foreign nationals are prohibited from:

Making any disbursement for an electioneering communication.

([https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign- nationals/](https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/))

This is considered to be something sacred in US politics ( _cough_ even though we interfere with non-US elections all the time _cough_ ).

<comment><USER13> > This is considered to be something sacred in US politics ( _cough_ even > though we interfere with non-US elections all the time _cough_ ).

I never understood the uproar with Russia and the election. It just seems so hippocritical. Is there any valid reason to be upset when someone does it to us when we do it to others all the time?

<comment><USER14> If you're upset about us doing it because it's wrong, why wouldn't you also be upset when it's done to us? It doesn't magically not become wrong, just like if you murdered a murderer, it doesn't magically get you out of jail.

<comment><USER13> > If you're upset about us doing it because it's wrong, why wouldn't you also > be upset when it's done to us?

Because people _don't_ seem to get upset about it. Because "democracy is best"

<comment><USER14> > Because people don't seem to get upset about it.

Speak for yourself; the US history of regime change contains some of the biggest stains in our history.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IFTTT can now automate actions based on your iPhone's location - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/12/5203308/ifttt-adds-location-automation-triggers

<comment><USER2> wonderful example of how the best mobile app user interface experience is no ui. my mobile device should be my personal proxy for automatically interacting with devices and services.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay $30/month for EpiServer like CMS as a service - <AUTHOR> I'm about to start working on something like this. It is going to be a long journey, but I just want to know whether you are going to pay. This won't be a blog CMS, but enterprise CMS.<p>http://www.episerver.com/ <comment><USER2> For Enterprise level CMS? You'd never get the sale. To cheap. If you want to play in the Enterprise field, you need to do some research into pricing. For a good blog/cms platform, sure. I'd pay $30 a month if it had features I needed. But for enterprise, that's a whole different ball game.</comment>


Two things every Unix developer should know - <AUTHOR> http://factor-language.blogspot.com/2010/09/two-things-every-unix-developer-should.html

<comment><USER2> _The EINTR error can be raised at any time for any reason, so essentially every I/O operation on a Unix system must be prepared to handle this error properly. Surprisingly to some, this includes the C standard library functions such as fread(), fwrite(), and so on._

I think the editors of C99 and POSIX would be surprised by this too. Any non- buggy fread or fwrite should retry on EINTR.

<comment><USER3> I came here to ask, does anyone know what Unix means in this context?

<comment><USER4> I should say, Unix in this context means any Unix-like system that Factor runs on (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X)

<comment><USER3> There are several claims made in the article, and I'm skeptical that all of those things are completely true for all of those.

<comment><USER4> Each one is true for at least one of those platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe unrelated, but this made me think of "The Rise of 'Worse is Better'":

(NOTE: In this context, "PC" means "Program Counter".)

"... The PC loser-ing problem occurs when a user program invokes a system routine to perform a lengthy operation that might have significant state, such as IO buffers. If an interrupt occurs during the operation, the state of the user program must be saved. Because the invocation of the system routine is usually a single instruction, the PC of the user program does not adequately capture the state of the process. The system routine must either back out or press forward. The right thing is to back out and restore the user program PC to the instruction that invoked the system routine so that resumption of the user program after the interrupt, for example, re-enters the system routine. ..."

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> glibc: TEMP_FAILURE_RETRY()

<http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/glibc/libc_498.html></comment>


Dinesh D'Souza debates Daniel Dennett on the existence of God (part 1 of 15) - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=iw7J15TeDG4

<comment><USER2> Ow. That was painful.

Ignoring the topic at hand, D'Souza just yelled zingers about free will and the Big Bang and communist dictators. These are areas where science is just ignorant (which says nothing about whether theism has the answer) or tragedies where atheism did play a part (although that is irrelevant to the topic).

Foolishly, Dennett followed him to that territory. He should have pointed out that D'Souza left the main topic of the day unchallenged, that religion was a man-made creation.</comment>


Is this website intentionally bad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.noodleanddumpling.com.au/ <comment><USER2> Ya know. It's probably the best restaurant web site I have ever seen. It has the phone number, the address, the opening hours, and the menu all available on the first page. And it loaded in less than a second on my mobile. What an amazing restaurant website. I wish other restaurants would start emulating it.</comment>


Ask HN: Help Me Pick a Product Idea - <AUTHOR>

I've wasted countless time on searching for a decent product idea that might actually create some revenue.  I'm not searching for huge startup type ideas, but rather an attainable lifestyle business.
Rather than leave this in my notebook, I figured I would put them up for critique and feedback.  While there are competitors in these spaces already, the hope is that this proves there is a market and an opportunity.
Here goes:
- Resume Publisher and Submission Tool
Experts review and edit your resume for first part.  Once you're resume is deemed ready to launch, provide tools that help organize and track your submissions, follow-ups, etc.
- Location Based Bar Trivia
Check in to your local bar/venue and play trivia and compete to win discounts, prizes, etc.  Free for consumers, with venue owners paying monthly subscription.  I've seen some posts from people with experience in bars on HN before, so would love to hear their thoughts
- Mobile Table Camera Service Weddings
IMO, less creepy than color since only those who attend get an invite code.)  People take pics, they get posted, shared, and you charge a one time, tiered fee to bride, or maybe as a white-label offering for photographers
- Mobile Snack Shop App for Golf Courses
Monthly subscription service for course owners/management.  Players can request beverages, order food, etc. from anywhere on the course.  Transcribe their menu as part of the onboarding.  Could start simply with requests and add payment options in next phase.
- Presentation Analytics for Sales People
Send a PPT presentation out to leads, and see when the open, where they bounce, time on slide, etc.  Monthly service for sales people.
- 99Designs for Interior Design
Put up a design request for a room, specify preferred vendors, and let designers compete.  You pay a bounty for the winning design.
- Social Media ROI/Metrics
People are dumping money into FB campaigns but how are they measuring value.  What's a like worth?  This is a big nut to crack probably but could be worth something to marketing brand managers if it worked.
- Buy Local Delivery Service
Not your usual internet business... but build an offering of products across CSA's and farmer's markets and offer subscription type delivery service.  Start with a small delivery area targeting affluent consumers.
- VOIP Outbound Call Tool
Monthly tiered subscription type service that lets you upload a lead list and then start dialing outbound via Twilio or something similar.  Agents only talk to people who pick up.  Could also be used for surveys, political campaigns, etc.
Thanks!
* EDIT - also appreciate any derivative ideas or variants that you think might be more interesting than what I've started with. <comment><USER2> I put what I think are the top 3 in a list here:

1 - 99Designs for Interior Design

2 - VOIP Outbound Call Tool

3 - Presentation Analytics for Sales People

The interior design idea is a really great one in my opinion, especially if you can provide a room layout tool, and allow designers to specify exact pieces of furniture by model number, and maybe make a shopping cart; (if you want to take it a step further, you could partner with online furniture stores, and make a combined checkout). I was recently thinking about redecorating a bedroom, and have a theme idea, but no brand knowledge or colour co-ordination skills.

I have considered making a VOIP outbound call tool, as well as a separate inbound one, to perform mechanical turk-type tasks, but could never really figure out how to implement this well, and what the bounds of the project would be; but it is a great project.

The presentation analytics tool could be combined with a 99Designs type of idea to allow people to improve their presentations, either on a fee basis, or on a community help scheme. This idea has a lot of potential, but it might be more difficult than the other two to get up and running, especially when dealing with things like corporate secrecy.

Whatever your choice is, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for putting these ideas out here.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a tough question because your ideas fall into many industries and most of them sound interesting so all the answers you get will leave you back to square one... which to pick?!

I would suggest trying to narrow down your choices based on your strengths and weaknesses (and those of your co-founders if applicable) and which ones you believe in the most; which would you buy/use/subscribe to as a consumer? This should give you a short-list where you could then perform a SWOT analysis^^ on each to help you trim the short-list of ideas down further. Get it down to one idea you are passionate about! Bring that to HN for feedback and you'll definitely have a great start!

^^ You mentioned you have done countless hours of research for an idea... Sometimes 'searching' isn't enough. Put your energy into 'doing' instead. If you're technical, create a prototype and unleash it to some people in the industry you are targeting. If you aren't technical, go find your pilot customers you want to target this to and present them with some wireframes and your elevator pitch for the product. Both of these methods will ensure you only spend a few days max but you'll be able to receive invaluable feedback to determine if you need to adjust your idea or try another one completely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I was surprised a bit by the interior design concept being a top candidate. Granted, small sample size, but interesting all the same.

Here's some pros to that idea:

\- I've definitely have felt the need as my wife and I searched for some interior design advice in the past, even calling a local designer (who never returned our phone call.)

\- being able to discuss and bounce ideas around with my wife could be nice as well

\- would be interesting to get feedback from designers as well as prospective clients

I have no idea the market size, and I'm still unclear as to the best means of designing a room online, but putting together some wireframes or landing pages seems like a great way to start.

Thanks to everyone for feedback thus far!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done some work in photography in the wedding / party industry. I think the mobile / web app thing could be interesting, kind of like fanchatter (YC S09) for weddings or parties.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd definitely go with 99Designs for Interior Design.

Buy Local Delivery Service also seems marketable though, however it wouldn't be so much as a lifestyle business.</comment>


Harvard courses: final exams abolished - <AUTHOR> http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/09/harvard-courses-final-exams-abolished.html#more

<comment><USER2> A rather mild tone from Luboš Motl, but overall a good and detailed essay on why this, or especially what its major proponent say, is a really bad idea.

I'm not sure why Motl left Harvard, but after this I suspect he's glad he's no longer associated with it.

What I wonder is if this could do some serious damage to the Harvard brand. Will "dropping the H-bomb" become a futile act some years from now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Given what we know about the characteristics of Harvard and Luboš, I surmise leaving Harvard involved a non-disclosure agreement and a settlement. How else could he completely resist writing about the event all this time? And while his blog is popular enough to generate some cash from advertisements, his apparent lack of other employment suggests a behind the scenes benefactor.

The Harvard final exam issue reminds me of the Doonesbury sequence a couple of decades back in which the Ivy League slacker sued his professor for not giving him an A. I don't think the Harvard brand will suffer. It's been as much about who you know as about academic accomplishment for over a century.

<comment><USER2> One does wonder, but we do have to factor in that this part of Harvard generally doesn't do tenure track, so his separation could in part be related to his knowing he was never going get tenure or his time was simply up.

Hmmm, I'll bet Harvard's standard separation package for these professors includes a non-disclosure agreement to not publicize their "system" and includes a nice consideration in return.

Anyway, my point here is that except for his not returning to formal academia and _his_ silence over the separation there's absolutely nothing unusual here.</comment></comment></comment>


Why do people believe the moon landing hoax or other conspiracy theories? - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/07/20/why-do-people-believe-the-moon-landing-hoax-or-other-conspiracy-theories/ <comment><USER2> There isn't a single person here (including you, reader) who isn't absolutely and correctly a conspiracy theorist.

Try to explain with a straight face that Nixon did not conspire on Watergate (despite resigning over same), Snowden did not leak a mass surveillance conspiracy (despite thousands of pages of documents), Russia does not have any secret agents (despite all intelligence branches of the United States saying they do). Explain that Caesar was not assassinated by senators who formed a conspiracy against him and murdered him (to the chagrin of the common people, with whom he was very popular). And the emissions scandal (dieselgate) over which VW "spent $7.3B" in 2015 and CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned just didn't happen.

Congratulations: unless you can do the above, you're a conspiracy theorist. You believe people conspire.

It's really pretty much impossible not to be a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist in 2018. I mean go ahead and try, I'll read any replies.

<comment><USER3> Conspiracy theorists are not people who believe people conspire. They're people who believe conspiracies without any evidence. Or worse, evidence against their preferred conspiracy only serves to re-enforce their beliefs. AKA, irrational people.

<comment><USER2> (Edited).

>Conspiracy theorists are not people who believe people conspire.

I thought that by definition they were.

<comment><USER4> In that case it is called Fake News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really liked Joe Rogan's video on this topic, titled "Joe Rogan on Why he changed his stance on the Moon landing conspiracy". [1] The short, short version is that some training images got doctored and passed off as real space images, which gave people reason to doubt more substantial claims of having traveled to the moon. It was the first time a skeptics disbelief in our having visited the moon seemed like a rational stance to me.

[1] [https://youtu.be/7mmlmxamw_k](https://youtu.be/7mmlmxamw_k)

</comment><comment><USER6> I was just wondering the other day if anyone has ever tried to "fake" the moon landing with modern technology. Just see if you can pull it off. Hollywood can't do it as far as I can tell. Space movies aren't believable as real, even the best ones.

I think it would be an interesting mythbusters. I know they already did one on it, but that's not quite the same thing as what I'm saying.

<comment><USER7> It's been a few years ago now, but as I recall Apollo 18 did a pretty good job here.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_\(film\))

BTW, if I were one to believe that the moon missions were faked, then I might consider the fact that we haven't been back in almost 50 years to be the best evidence for that. As in, "The reason why we haven't gone back is because we never went there to begin with!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dave Jones / EEVblog made an interesting video comparing the LRO photos with Apollo 17 photos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYPmitSg268](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYPmitSg268)

Spoilers: they match, we really went to the moon :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I generally assume it's because those people want to feel high and mighty. That they are smarter than everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Conspiracy theories also supply a seductive ego boost. Believers often > consider themselves part of a select in-group that — unlike the deluded > masses — has figured out what's really going on.

> When such theories become entrenched in the public consciousness, however, > they erode people's trust in authorities and the status quo.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how our institutions run on faith. One of my favorite quotes from Sapiens:

> Sapiens have been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective > reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined > reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined > reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of > rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as > the United States and Google.

The thing is, we kinda need these imagined realities. We need them to continue being collectively imagined in a positive light. I am from the Soviet Union. If you think you have it bad, imagine not being about to drive for an hour without getting pulled over and having to bribe a cop. Why do Russian cops need bribes, while American cops will bust you if you try to bribe them? The difference is entirely based on the cops' respective ideas about what they're doing. The American cops believe that laws are important, that their jobs are to keep people safe. When we punish people who stray from the ideal, we re- enforce the ideal. Corrupt cops and politicians must be punished, if our institutions are going to remain free of corruption. If we're cynical about transgressions, and say stuff like "of course that politician took a bribe, all politicians take bribes" then we actively re-enforce the negative model. This is exactly what, e.g. Trump does when he says "you think our country is so innocent?" He wants to normalize corruption because he himself is corrupt, and if it's normalized he can get away with it.

Thus, this kind of thinking is a vicious cycle. If everyone is cynical about institutions, the actors in those institutions will be enabled to behave more badly, which justifies further cynicism. And cynicism is easy -- as TFA says, it gives you an ego boost. You're hip, nobody is pulling the wool over your eyes, you know what's really going on. The benefits are internalized, while the costs are externalized.

I think conspiracy theory thinking is a harmful meme. It's a collective disease of society that undermines our social institutions -- you know, the ones we depend on to keep us safe and free from tyrants and corruption. I treat friends who spread conspiracy thinking the same way I treat friends who sneeze on shared food or have unprotected sex with an STD. If you believe nonsense, that's your prerogative, but if you're going to spread it by talking about it, I'm going to shut you down. If you agree with me, join me.

Tl;dr: friends don't let friends spread conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER10> Are you essentially suggesting that because everyone depends on certain institutions to be ethical, that's a reason _not_ to challenge them?

And you write your friends off based on this, regardless of whether you can actually prove them wrong?

<comment><USER3> Thanks, great question.

It's one thing to challenge institutions to be better, and another to write them off as bad. For instance, I want NASA's missions to succeed, and I want them to be more bold and think bigger and be more effective advocates for their own funding. I _do not_ believe that they're plotting to conceal the truth of the moon landing, or are building and launching mind control satellites. I want the police to hold officers accountable for deadly mistakes -- I _do not_ think that all cops are racist assholes who cannot be trusted.

> prove them wrong?

You're actually a space lizard. Prove me wrong. You'll find it's harder than you think.

What you can do, though, is ignore people who accuse you of being a space lizard. Space lizardism is not a harmful meme. When my friends spread more harmful memes, like 'you can't trust the government so it's time to build a bomb shelter and stock up on ammo' \-- I don't write them off. I engage. At the very least, they should know that I strongly disapprove even of this strain of thinking/discourse. I don't want to hear it, much as I don't want them to come over to my house and rub their cold sores on my cutlery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Paywall :/

<comment><USER3> The secret to WaPo articles: google for the headline and follow the google link.

<comment><USER11> much appreciated

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yeah like those crazy conspiracy theorists who believe that if our government is capable of mass surveillance, they might actually do it.

Or those conspiracy theorists who think marijuana is improperly scheduled and there's been a decades-long campaign to lie to the public about its health effects.

Or those conspiracy theorists who think photographic evidence is sometimes widely misrepresented by the media.

Or those conspiracy theorists who think state actors sometimes astroturf social media.

Or the conspiracy theorists who thought we facilitated the the Iran-Contra weapons sales.

Or the conspiracy theorists who thought Iraq didn't have any WMDs.

Why on Earth would anyone distrust the government and Real News™?</comment>


Show HN: Search and Combine Brewfile Templates - dorian-graph https://brewfile.info/ <comment> dorian-graph The frontend is written in ClojureScript (re-frame and reagent) and the backend in Ruby.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this fine from Italy legit? - <AUTHOR>

I was sent a fine that states I did something wrong while in Italy last year. I was first sent a letter by Avis, and then I recieved the fine in the mail (it was even registered mail, I had to sign for it) The date and all information about the fine aligns with my trip, and while I was a little suspect, I wanted to pay it as I would hate for the Italians to not like me :-)
When i went to pay it redirects me to https://emo.nivi.it which appears not to be a real website. Can anyone in Italy tell me if this is a known scam or if this is just another incompetent government website?
Here is an image of what I was sent: http://imgur.com/GWH6a4s,o7iYF52#0
Update:
I believe it to be real. I've paid it :-) <comment><USER2> If they're scammers then they're working really hard for their money in a) getting accurate info about your trip from Avis, b) impersonating Avis, and then c) impersonating the Italian authorities. I'd presume legitimacy. If you're not sure, call either a) the authorities listed on the letter at a publicly verifiable number (one not listed in the letter) or b) Avis' Italian CS line, and ask if the letter you received in the mail is the usual procedure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're right. It turns out www.emo.nivi.it works, but im having issues with the payment processor. I would expect scammers to have a much better credit card processing method :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Incompetent website administration.

I have shame of this but it isn't rare in the italian public administration services. I'm italian and NIVI is actually a private company that has a division that provides services to the town councils (E.M.O. --> European Municipality Outsourcing): one of this services is the notification of the fines to foreign people.

These are pages of some cities that are using that service: (Florence, english page)

[http://www.comune.fi.it/export/sites/retecivica/comune_firen...](http://www.comune.fi.it/export/sites/retecivica/comune_firenze/sicurezza_emergenza/polizia_municipale) /servizi_on_line/fine_payment_abroad.htm

(Rome, pdf, italian doc. )

[https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CGQQFjAJ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.comune.roma.it%2FPCR%2Fresources%2Fcms%2Fdocuments%2Fverbresidestero.pdf&ei=RSyDVIHBC- HR7QafxIGIBQ&usg=AFQjCNEtIsuWmgcPkV9Ua4cagfDUt0lWbA&bvm=bv.80642063,d.ZGU)

(Storo, italian page)

[http://www.comune.storo.tn.it/delibere2007/d07_020.htm](http://www.comune.storo.tn.it/delibere2007/d07_020.htm)

etc.

I hope this info will be useful.

G.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've rented cars overseas and gotten a similar letter in the mail. Usually when I've been caught by a speed camera in Germany (don't need to explain much more there).

Yes, it was a real ticket issued to you and the government passed it on to the rental car agency after tracing down the license plate. (Or, in your case, Avis passed your contact info to the government)

In every incident I've received a physical letter from the rental agency telling me that I got busted and I should expect a ticket to be forwarded on to me once they get it. I've never seen an actual ticket in my mailbox or a supplemental charge on my card (like others have said). Apparently Italy is more on the stick about this and goes right to direct collection.

My colleagues overseas have said to just rip it up, there's no way they can collect from you short of an Interpol warrant. It won't appear as a collection on your credit report. I've returned and rented from the exact same companies and nobody ever said a thing about the previous tickets.

tldr: Yes it was most likely real (especially because of the pre-warning from Avis).

</comment><comment><USER5> Italian road signage has a reputation of being a tourist trap. They would have access restriction signs at the middle of a one way road, reserved lane signs hidden behind trees and all that sort of stuff.

You have no way of not paying it. They will charge Avis the fine. Avis will in turn charge it on your credit card with a processing fee. It's all in the fine print of your car rental agreement.

</comment><comment><USER6> You could always call the Italian embassy and ask them!</comment>


Ask HN: Who Is Funding? - <AUTHOR> I see lots of small, founder friendly, super-early funds coming up on twitter almost everyday, can we together create a super-list in the comments for new founders with links and short description?
My list until now -
1. https://hustlefund.vc 2. https://indie.vc 3. http://afore.vc/ 4. https://backstagecapital.com/ 5. https://precursorvc.com/ 6. https://645ventures.com/ 7. https://shrug.vc/ 8. https://earnestcapital.com/ 9. https://weekend.fund/ <comment><USER2> That's really interesting, Thank you! :)</comment>


MobX 4: Better, simpler, faster, smaller - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mweststrate/mobx-4-better-simpler-faster-smaller-c1fbc08008da <comment><USER2> I've always found MobX to be a joy to use, compared to other state management that needs a lot more boilerplate.

I see that there are schedulers for autoruns now, but will there be a parallel for computed properties? I implemented some that updated using requestIdleCallback myself (it's fantastic that MobX provides the building blocks to make that happen), but an idiomatic way would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love it. Been using and recommending MobX everywhere. I also cover MobX in my React Videos. [https://www.codemy.net](https://www.codemy.net)</comment>


Feature Creeper - <AUTHOR> http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7008799/

<comment><USER2> the 'getting a job on a farm' being directly ripped off of the mongodb is web scale really ruined this for me</comment>


Microsoft Band SDK Release and Band Studio Introduction - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Microsoft-Band-SDK-Release-and-Band-Studio-Introduction <comment><USER2> I've had the Microsoft Band for about two months now. For me, it's the perfect combination of pedometer, heart rate monitor, and GPS tracker. It's great for running and removes the need for an uncomfortable chest strap. Although I've found the heart rate monitoring to be inexact to say the least, I'm hopeful that that's something that can be improved via software update.

Very exciting to be able to develop my own applications for it now!

<comment><USER3> Did you notice any difference with your dedicated "heart monitor", if you have one. Please share, i'm quit interested in that

<comment><USER4> I recently had a full heart work up at a place that had me hooked up to an EKG machine while on a treadmill. I had a Band on and compared the data over time and it was consistent the whole time within just a couple of bpm. I was extremely impressed by how accurate it was.

It was only one day, but I left pretty confident in the data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Okay, this is NOT what I expected when I clicked on the link. With all the crazy MS news lately, I honestly thought they were putting out a competitor to Logic Studio with a full SDK.

<comment><USER6> You're not the only one, sad to say.

<comment><USER7> I thought the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there any numbers out there on the user base? How many people are you developing for?

<comment><USER9> ??

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is exciting. Hopefully people will start to create apps that extend existing stuff. First thing I'm doing is working on 2fa. Tired of having to get my phone out for that nonsense.</comment>


Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke's thought on no-code, low-code movement - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1220818634911748098 <comment><USER2> Are we calling CMS's low/no code now? Call me back when you can implement reasonably complex, bespoke behavior with low/no code. Yet another shopping cart checkout flow hardly counts.</comment>


Show HN: Workcapsule – Track your wins and stay motivated - <AUTHOR> https://workcapsule.io <comment><AUTHOR> Started teaching myself web development 3 years ago and finally shipped my first product. Would love to get some feedback from everyone.</comment>


Computing Distance from a Reference Point with Script Fields and the Explain API - <AUTHOR> https://qbox.io/blog/computing-distance-from-a-reference-point-with-script-fields-and-the-explain-api <comment><USER2> I'm assuming there are lots of people here on HN whose work is affected to a greater or lesser extent by design, so let me comment on something: Gray on Gray.

[http://www.solipsys.co.uk/HackerNews/GrayOnGray.png](http://www.solipsys.co.uk/HackerNews/GrayOnGray.png)

This is effectively unreadable for me.

If you do this on web pages, don't expect people to hang about and take whatever actions are necessary to make it readable. It just isn't, and people will leave. It's said that small things matter in design - I'm not sure this is such a small thing.</comment>


The superstar effect - <AUTHOR> http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/the-superstar-effect/ <comment><USER2> Does this imply hiring a rock star programmer brings down the productivity of the team?</comment>


Tidal suspected for serious data fraud (Norwegian) - <AUTHOR> https://www.dn.no/etterbors/nye-rettsdokumenter-okokrim-har-gitt-tidal-status-som-mistenkt-for-grovt-databedrageri/2-1-822585 <comment><AUTHOR> English translation: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.no%2Fetterbors%2Fnye- rettsdokumenter-okokrim-har-gitt-tidal-status-som-mistenkt-for-grovt- databedrageri%2F2-1-822585)

tl;dr: Tidal has denied being suspected for anything, but the Norwegian Supreme Court just confirmed that the company has been under suspicion since June of last year.

The confirmation was part of a decision to allow the Norwegian police to seize documents relating to Tidal's power platform and business model, despite the fact that the documents contain business and operating secrets.</comment>


Show HN: Beer Review Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/beer-review-analysis/ <comment><USER2> Interesting.. but using a pie chart for score distribution makes me sad :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh sorry, yeah that's probably not a good way to depict that. What's a better way to show it?

<comment><USER3> Plain old (normalised) histogram would do, you're showing the frequency of a bunch of categories. You could also plot a 2D histogram of scores vs ABV which might be interesting.</comment></comment></comment>


How Stereotyping Yourself Contributes to Your Success (or Failure) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-stereotyping-yourself-contributes-to-success

<comment><USER2> Great find. This is part of what I was getting at in this comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144616>

Specifically, where I say that "Sometimes people manage to acquire the necessary values and thus the skills necessary to do well, despite starting off in adverse conditions. But they're the exceptions, and were psychologically and sociologically positioned to be that way." When some folks try to deny that there are any serious psychological and sociological barriers to success by pointing to those rare individuals who overcome socioeconomic adversity, they are ignoring the very phenomena these researchers are talking about. Some individuals are simply better positioned than their peers when it comes to dealing with the same conditions.

Thankfully, the research also has the effect of helping us to figure out how to overcome debilitating stereotypes, but one can hardly expect someone who grew up in the inner city to be reading SciAm.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stereotype threat is such an interesting concept. It's closely connected to the idea of malleability of intelligence as explained in e.g. this article:

[http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising- sm...](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids)

It raises interesting issues of what people actually mean when they want someone who "is smart and gets things done". Just the basic expression "smart people" seems to imply that you have rejected the idea of malleability of intelligence and think that people are either smart or not. I'm not really arguing that there is not an innate random quality to "aptitude", but if you believe that article you don't want someone who is smart, you want someone who has worked hard to acquire important skills, since people who just think of themselves as "smart" are more likely to cave when faced with difficulty.

</comment><comment><USER4> Stereotypes probably do reinforce themselves somewhat. But this doesn't change my opinion that they are almost always true. Or at least, they are always grounded in fact. They may be exaggerated, outdated or oversimplified, but even so I think they are usually correct.

<comment><USER5> If by "stereotypes are usually correct" you mean that if there is a stereotype that says "people of group G have property P" then people in group G are statistically more likely than average to have property P than the general population, then you may very well be right that stereotypes are correct more often than they're incorrect, but it kinda misses the point of why stereotyping is a bad idea.

<comment><USER4> What point am I missing? That we should ignore reality to avoid hurting people?

I object to the article's claim that

> the roots of many handicaps actually lie in the stereotypes.... women's > performance on spatial and mathematical tasks is created by ... the > stereotype of their spatial and mathematical inferiority

Stereotypes may contribute slightly to group differences, but they are not the primary cause of them.

<comment><USER6> I voted you up not because I necessarily agree with you, but because you make a good point. We do ignore the basis of stereotypes when we shouldn't. We need to realize there is such a thing as natural and good elitism. This is an important "thing that is not said."

That being said, while stereotypes do have some kind of basis in reality (something has to perpetuate them) the problem comes when we say certain people are inherently inferior and do not have a free, moral accountable will.

<comment> a-priori The problem is that people are notoriously bad at inductive reasoning. They routinely ignore cases that contradict their hypothesis.

If they see a woman who's bad at math, they think "aha! the stereotype is right!". If they see a woman who's good at math, they think, "oh well, there's bound to be exceptions" and promptly forget about her. They only remember the ones that fit the stereotype, so the stereotype is reinforced.

You need to repeatedly hammer irrefutable evidence into people's heads before they'll start to forget stereotypes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > To be selected to participate in Beilock and her colleagues' first study of > mathematical performance, for example, women had to perform baseline tasks > with greater than 75 percent accuracy, and they had to agree with the > statements "I am good at math" and "It is important to me that I am good at > math." Why do these things matter?

So people give up a little when others tell them that they are bad at what they've worked so hard to do well at, or do a little extra if superiority appears to be within reach. Seems like a whole lot of fluff for such a simple observation.

<comment><USER3> I think you missed the point. It's not that "people give up a little when others tell them that they are bad..." The effect is self-afflicted, you just have to _think_ that there is a negative stereotype that affects you, and your performance will suffer. Moreover, the effect is actually stronger if you think that you are pretty good at whatever the stereotype says you should be bad at.

The point is that, regardless of whether the stereotype is true or not, this is a scientifically established psychological reaction that causes people to perform below their capacity, and it only affects those that are from a stereotyped group. This means that, in your example above, women will constantly be at a disadvantage compared to men in math performance.

Does it matter? If you were a member of such a group, I'd wager you would think it unfair, and doubly so since you are already trying to break a negative stereotype.

<comment><USER7> Giving up is not self-afflicted?

No causality relationship was proven. Much less I have no idea what was actually established given a total lack of numbers. A 1% drop? A 15% drop? Big difference.

<comment><USER3> People afflicted by stereotype threat don't just give up. (If anything they try harder.) It's a _physiologically_ _measurable_ _effect_. Think of it as an added level of anxiety that non-afflicted people don't have to face. Studies have shown that it for examples results in lowered short-term memory capacity.

No-one is immune to this effect. A study was done on white male engineering students on a math test. The ones that were told that the purpose of the test was to figure out why "Asian students are better at math" systematically underperformed compared to those who were not.

Some people may want to brush this effect away and just claim that the disadvantaged groups don't "have it" or that everyone has advantages and disadvantages, but remember that this strikes disproportionately at members of some groups of people, through no fault of their own.

Regarding research results, it was a popular article. The numbers exist and are closer to 15% than 1%. If you want to learn more, check out <http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/>, it has an extensive bibliography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> my first thought (after reading the first page) for some reason was about athletics. needless to say, there are some pretty big stereotypes specifically regarding sports (in the US at least)</comment>