PaperKarma - take a photo, eliminate junk mail - <AUTHOR> https://www.paperkarma.com/

<comment><USER4> The site could use a little more explanation. The app store page reveals that behind the scenes, there's a database of junk mail logos mapped to the unsubscribe page/contract details for each piece of mail, and taking a photo causes an unsubscribe request to be sent (with unrecognized junk mail added to a queue to be investigated). That's an awesome idea :)

It's also available for Android, which the site doesn't make clear (I left the site thinking "pity it's only on iOS", and only realised when i hit "get the app" to see if the app page had more detail).

Finally, neither the site nor the app page says whether this works outside the US - I'm assuming it's US-only?

<comment><USER5> Cofounder here...

camtarn - you're quite right & thanks for confirming our hunches. Will update the site during the next couple of days (UI & text). thx.

<comment><USER4> Sweet :) I'd been wondering if it was a mobile site issue (should probably have pointed out that I was browsing from my Android phone, oops.)

Have now read your blog post, and am really wishing it was available in the UK now - the mechanism of getting something through your door, taking a photo, and being assured that you won't get any more is amazing... like a 'flag as spam' link for physical items. Very nicely done!

<comment><USER6> In England you can stop anything addresses to you. You start by registering with the Mail Preference Service (while you're there register all phones with telephone preference service).

That takes a few weeks but should stop most things. Then you contact the Royal Mail and opt out for door to door. Which stops unaddressed mail delivered by Royal Mail.

One important difference between US and UK is that anyone can stuff things through a UK letterbox, but the US mailcan things are protected and only us postal service can put things in them.

I agree this service is really neat and would be very popular. Perhaps if they had a way of telling them that you've opted out and this particular bit of mail still came, and then they could handle the complaints?

([http://www.stopjunkmail.org.uk/guide/door_to_door_opt_out.ph...](http://www.stopjunkmail.org.uk/guide/door_to_door_opt_out.php))

<comment><USER4> Ah-hah! I need to go that then :) Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great idea, but I have some constructive criticism about your marketing site:

1) Basically, I think the slideshow is pretty ineffective.

a) Why is the first slide a picture of tree branches? It doesn't help me understand what the app does. b) It's not obvious at all that you can switch among slides by clicking the phone, and the slow timer compounds that fact. c) The copy is too far removed from the images, and also isn't highlighted in any meaningful way, hindering its effectiveness.

My solution to this would be to record a short, snappy video to place inside the phone "frame" (which I find to be effective). If you want to use photos, do so in a section below the video in more of a step-by-step format.

2) Your marketing message needs some distilling.

a) Don't mention saving the earth. I think it distracts from what the app actually does and why someone should download it. You have a great idea! Push that idea and push it hard. b) Overall, there are too many words. For instance, "PaperKarma helps you get rid of paper junk mail and save the Earth at the same time" could be shortened to "Get rid of junk mail" and would be more effective. The initial pitch needs to be boiled down to its essence.

3) I think the overall look of the site isn't very polished and belies the quality of the app.

<comment><USER5> Thanks atacrawl. Neither of us is designer and we've received the msg loud & clear from HN that we've got some work to do in that department! Will take all your feedback to heart. Updates coming soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great idea.

IMO the tagline on the HN post is far more effective than the one on the site. I'd explain this to a friend as "Take a picture of your junk mail, and this app automatically unsubscribes you from it". Things like "save the earth" confuse me.

A description of how you actually unsubscribe would be helpful too, for the curious and the skeptical. "We automatically contact the junk-mailer for you and have you removed from their subscriber list."

<comment><USER5> This is why I love HN. Great advice & to the point :). We actually experimented with various msgs & lots of people resonated with the Environmental angle. Here are some mind numbing stats:

1\. Over 100,000,000,000 pieces of junk mail per year sent in the US

2\. 18 pieces of junk mail for 1 that you actually care about

3\. Several -months- of your life spent processing junk mail (!)

4\. 100s of thousands of dollars spent by cities (ie, your tax money) on post processing, landfills, etc.

& Nevermind the carbon footprint from manufacturing, processing & delivery of junk mail...

re Description: check!

Cheers,

s

<comment><USER9> I had no clue what the app did untill I visited the "about" page. Normally I don't have the patience.

The snippet explained me the entire app. Perhaps some of it belongs on the home page.

      How does PaperKarma work?

      The PaperKarma app enables you simply snap a picture of
      your unwanted junk mail, press Send, and get
      unsubscribed. That's it! Just snap your junk mail away.
      (In about 24 hours you'll receive a notification that
      you've been unsubscribed. You can always use the app to
      check on the status of your unsubscribe requests.)

A video/animation showing the unsubscribe process could also help clarify the purpose of the app.

Those stats are great hooks, but I doubt your potential users would need convincing. You stop spam for yourself first and foremost, that it helps the environment is a nice add-on.

<comment><USER5> Dang. The general HN feedback seems to be: great idea, lousy initial messaging :). Back to the drawing board. Thanks for the feedback - will update.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Those bullets showing at which "frame" are you. You can't switch between them manually which makes them kind of pointless. I couldn't read what I want and it took me some time to read through all of it. Also, second and third bullet have the same text. When the photo changed it made me read it again.

After reading through I still knew nothing. Market description was much more informative.

PS: It should be geographically blocked on markets (is it possible?) as I guess it only works in USA

<comment><USER5> Feedback taken to heart rpint - changes coming. thx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the business upside?

Once you've got millions of people uploading photos of their junk mail along with their names and home addresses, how is this monetized?

EDIT: I ask, because this is where the privacy paranoia comes in.

<comment><USER12> It seems like building a database confirming which kinds of direct mail people don't like would be valuable. If nothing else, it would provide a way to update the names on direct marketing mailing lists (for direct mail that hasn't yet been stopped).

<comment><USER13> > It seems like building a database confirming which kinds of direct mail > people don't like would be valuable. If nothing else, it would provide a way > to update the names on direct marketing mailing lists (for direct mail that > hasn't yet been stopped).

That seems like the slimiest of all possible options.

<comment><USER12> If it were a free service without advertising, there aren't many other options. But from the replies below, it looks like they will charge for the service and show ads. Of course, that doesn't preclude the model I mentioned. Whether it's slimy or not is in the eye of the beholder. I'm ok with someone using this data to proactively eliminate ads I don't want. And if I'm getting junk mail at my house it doesn't really matter what name it's addressed to. It may as well be the right one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the process _reversible_? Watching the slideshow, I was going "what's this...ah...really?...hey, yeah, really, I get it! neat...whadayamean Victoria's Secret was stopped?!?! Bring it back! bring it back! undo! reverse!" and could then see myself in a frenzy of point-tap-unsubscribe then realizing I didn't mean to unsubscribe from something important (bills, magazine, fun catalog, whatever).

<comment><USER5> Actually in the next major update it will be able to do that for some things. ie, you can select what you receive in paper form, & what to receive in your email box. So you can revert & say 'bring back paper V.S.'! Essentially you'll get a dial to control what you get in what form. Will work best mags/cats/etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Personally, I found it blindingly obvious and look forward to trying it tomorrow. If it works I will give this company all my money (well not literally you understand, but I hate paper junk mail with a passion and I hate the USPS management for insisting that it's the mainstay of their economic planning...idiots). This is made of win as far as I am concerned - <USER2> probably means it's a smallish market, but hopefully large enough to make a profit from.

Which brings me to my question: I can see what the consumer benefit is immediately, but what's the business model if not large-scale group analytics? Will advertising/marketing firms pay to understand what sort of customers they do not connect with?

<comment><USER5> Thanks anigbrowl... your comment is very inspiring!

Re Biz model: priority one is getting enough of a user base so we have a ticket to the dance. After that there are several possibilities, some of which are implemented already, but not activated:

1\. N free scan per month, in app purchase for more for some $. or $/year. 2\. some non-obnoxious ads, esp for compliant companies that honor unsubscribe requests 3\. PK is really about mailbox management: get what you want & only what you want -- and push as much as possible toward digital versions. eg: I _love_ Costco. But i don't want receive their catalog & kill trees. I rather PK -- with my explicit permission/opt in -- sign me up to receive E-coupons or a digital version of the Cotsco Shopper. At the end of the month when I visit Costco I just grab my E-coupons or read their catalog on my iPad... In summary: we save Costco printing/delivery costs & provide them with an opt-in customer & charge Costco: win/win.

Ideally we'd like to push for #3 & keep the app free.

Hope this helps!

s

<comment><USER16> My first thoughts about monetization: 1) allow people to sign up for catalogs too. I know that sounds insane to you, but I think a lot of people woul like a place to go to get stuff from stores and categories they like. That's easily monetized with the vendors themselves as part of their customer acquisition cost.

2) Even if you just stuck to removing from lists, you're actually providing value to the the direct mailers. They have one less printing and postage item cost that would have either been useless or pissed someone off. That could be over a dollar per household saved with each mailing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm sort of torn by this. I really love the idea but the site doesn't do a very good job explaining how it works or what is going on.

While it seems like you're attempting to tell a story of the process on the front page, you're getting the user lost.

Pardon me while I take the time to list a few gripes but please note that it's only because I really love this idea.

1) Your very first screen is a picture of buttons that appear to be pointed at a tree, with "Take a Photo" prominently displayed. When I see that, the most eye-popping thing on the page, I see nothing about what the app does. It looks like it's for taking pictures in nature.

2) The phone book. Really? For junk mail? Phone books + mobile apps have a very distinct connection. It's confusing, again, when I see you taking photos of a phone book. Does that mean I get to import phone numbers some how? I'd recommend starting with that original piece of junk mail.

3) Take us on the journey and let us step back and forth. As another user commented, let us move with the bullet points. They're useless otherwise.

4) Story that makes sense:

Picture of junk mail. "Take a picture of the junk mail you don't want to receive."

Show the logo highlighted -- "Our system identifies the logo associated with the junk mail."

A picture indicating a message. -- "We notify the organization on your behalf to stop sending junk mail."

Show the logo or the picture in the success screen -- "We will notify you upon the success of removing you from their mailing list."

Let us see the life of that single piece of junk mail all the way through, in every step of the story, so we have something to follow.

5) Since you've decided to go down the route of associating this service with a message of doing good for the world, why not make that a more prominent point? A big "Why?" link underneath your black bar with a popup that showed the information and numbers you gave us in your comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3570470> would be a nice addition.

Anywho, just a few ideas. I think you've got a good thing going here and for the right reasons, too. Hopefully you will take the ideas folks have here to heart.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks awesome; I'd love to use this service. Would you consider providing an API for image uploads, so that people could use the site without an Android or iOS phone? (For example, using a smartphone you don't support, or just sticking junk mail on a scanner.)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a great idea, but as a paranoid privacy nut I'm a little hesitant to fork over my info to a company I don't really know. The potential upside is so tempting, though.

Has anyone had experience with this app yet?

<comment><USER5> jazzychat we're both extremely privacy conscious individuals and from day one pledged our own version of Do No Evil. In fact, during sign up, we ask for minimal info to get the unsubscribes processed: ie name & address -- which by the way the junk mailers /already have/ since they're sending you stuff.

Beyond that, some companies require your email address. We don't give them out. We supply a proxied email to ensure they dont get anything beyond what they have already. Hope this helps...

Our blog has a bit more info: <http://www.paperkarma.com/blog/>

edit: grammar - it's 2am & brain is running on one core in low power mode...

<comment><USER19> " _which by the way the junk mailers /already have/ since they're sending you stuff._ "

Not necessarily. A lot of times junk mail is directed to just the address, and not the resident. You can tell that by the "To" line, which will say "Current resident" or "resident". They pay the USPS to carpet bomb each and every mailbox with their catalog. This service won't be able to do much about that.

<comment><USER5> This is valid criticism & mostly true. Note that for most zip code or route delivered junk mail, they'll be marked as AutoFail internally & show up on your phone under the "Failed" tab. However, we'll provide you company info so you call/write the company yourself if you choose too.

I say mostly true, because many companies, such as Valpak, pseudo carpet bomb -- they many not have your name, but in order to remove you from their list (and they do!), they require full name & address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's a great idea, and I have it queued to be installed to my Android phone.

Q: how does this make money? Do large commercial mailers actually pay to have a streamlined unsubscribe mechanism, or is there another customer that I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks interesting, but yeah, going on previous comments:

1) How does it work? I can see how the app works, take a photo and magic happens, but what is that magic that stops me receiving junk mail?

2) Does it work outside the US?

<comment><USER5> Thx lucaspiller: some info in this thread + blog post at: <http://www.paperkarma.com/blog>

Sadly US only for now. Where do you live & is there a junk mail problem there if i may ask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can you make the "Available on the App Store" clickable? I kept pressing that with my finger till I saw the "Download App Here" link ...

Great idea. And if it works - you guys are awesome and I will let my facebook peeps know !

</comment><comment><USER23> This seems like a really cool idea that I'd like to try, except I have no idea how taking a picture will do anything for anyone.

Can you please elaborate or provide some explanation so I can understand? Thanks!

<comment><USER5> mvanveen, here's a link to our blog post which goes into a little more detail: <http://www.paperkarma.com/blog/>

In short, we don't do anything that you couldn't do yourself... we just make it a tad bit less painful.

The general pipeline is this: scans come in, they get processed (human/OCR), the company is looked up, request to unsubscribe is sent, your phone is updated. In 2 months we follow up with you to make sure they honored the request. If not, we'll follow up with them on your behalf (by our lawyer - <USER3> FTW).

The app basically provides convenience. We've just spent a year building up a database of who manages customer lists at what company, who the privacy officer is, whether they have customer suppression lists, etc. That's where rubber & asphalt really meet. As with each scan that comes in the DB improves.

*OCR is experimental: mixed results.

Hope this helps!

edit:formatting

<comment><USER24> I get junk mail to a PO Box and two street addresses. Most of our junk mail is my SO's name, some of it's in mine. When I subscribe to a magazine, I sometimes use a different middle initial, which tells me who sells my address. AFAIK, none of them have our phone numbers.

How does this work for varying names in the household and multiple addresses?

We receive 8 inches of junk mail every two weeks, mostly catalogs and CC offers, so can't wait to try this once I know how I can use it for our situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can you simply change the account information to, for example, help your parents stop junkmail to their address?

If so, make sure to advertise that you can help others do this in addition to your home address.

<comment><USER5> Yup! We've made the Name/Adrs field editable so you can temporarily change to grandma's name/adrs, zap her mail away & reset to yours. Next version will have multiple stored adrs support. thx & will make that more prominent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Have you checked out Catalog Choice? They have something similar called MailStop... <https://www.catalogchoice.org/mailstop>

<comment><USER5> Yup. We've been in open beta for a long time (contacted some of the same folks/ppl that they do)... wondering if we inspired them ;). Flattered if so. We like CC - they're good people.

<comment><USER27> Up here in Canada we use this: <http://www.reddotcampaign.ca/>

You put a red dot (i.e. a red sticker, any sticker) in your mailbox, and they will NOT put junk mail in.

<comment><USER28> So Canada has this option, and a commenter above said Germany does. Why does the US not have this?

What's even sadder is I cannot fathom how you guys have this option. The US has literally grown up with junk mail - it's always about 99% of mail and we cannot fathom what life is like on the other side!

<comment><USER29> Junk mailers are the postal system's main customers.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/the- junking-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/the-junking-of- the-postal-service.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER28> Which further proves why the Postal Service is not necessary and will not be missed when it's largely out of service 5 years from now.

<comment><USER30> Doesn't the Postal Service serve as the source-of-record for addresses? I think that'd be missed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is the removal process automated, or are you relying on something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk?

<comment><USER5> cpr some image recognition & company info gathering(url/adrs/phone/...) uses Mturk, the rest is automated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love this. I was an early adopter and have been using it since release. Keep at it!

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm assuming this is a US only service - you should probably make that clearer if so.

<comment><USER34> "This item cannot be installed in your device's country." :<

<comment><USER5> Sorry about this folks - we'll make it more explicit :(. Also would love to find out which countries you're from & how bad the junk mail problem is over there. thx.

<comment><USER35> here in germany you just put a little "Keine Werbung" (no advertisements) sticker on your mailbox and thats it. the bundesgerichtshof has a judgement dating back to 1988[1] stating that violation of this consitutes a violation of your basic rights. if a company disobeyes this you can basically send them a cease&desist and if they dont stop you can claim damages. (but beware IANAL ;))

[1]<http://www.trademarx.de/urteile/bgh_VIII_ZR_182_88.html></comment></comment></comment></comment>


We May Not Have to Age So Fast - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-may-not-have-to-age-so-fast-11572012999?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Author of the article, David Sinclair, did a podcast w/ Joe Rogan not long ago in case you want to learn more:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLL77wYxe8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLL77wYxe8)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://archive.is/Y4dnR](http://archive.is/Y4dnR)

</comment><comment><USER4> The most exciting thing about dramatic age increase, at least for me, would be how potentially transformative the wisdom and intellect of society could be. 140 year old Albert Einstein might have been writing an email, right this second to say, 161 year old Max Planck.

As topics become more sophisticated, the time to competency and insight increases.

Someone for instance, truly committed to studying the entire corpus of thoughts on political economy, from the Frankfurt school, Chicago school, Stockholm school, Austrian school, Keynsianism, Marxian, Monetarism, New Classical, Public Choice, Georgism, Bachuninism... Each of those are hard and complicated. A sincere dedicated study of all of them would likely take decades.

If you had 300 years then not only could you do that, but you could also make meaningful contributions to the field.

Imagine public policy by people who were able to dedicate 100 years to its study.

50 or 100 year studies which currently have to be chaperoned across multiple generations of researchers could be done by a single team.

The accumulated wisdom that manifests itself in the written word would be far more potent with centuries of accumulations. In a way, genius is a measure of speed and time, the quickness of ones assimilation of the topic. With enough time, the plane of genius might be accessible to nearly all.

Other, much longer efforts would be engaged with more frequently. For instance, The art of computer programming, started 51 years ago, would be one amongst a much larger number of works of similar breadth, if taking a century to complete something was feasible for all.

The differences this would manifest would be likely as stark as if someone from the 18th century descended upon a modern urban metropolis.

<comment><USER5> Social progress would change slower though. Actually even quoting Max Plank:

> A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and > making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, > and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it

Aka science advances one funeral at a time

<comment><USER6> I suspect that, if a scientist in his fifties knew that his cognitive function would remain at the same level up to at least age 150, he would be a lot more willing to spend years rethinking things and familiarizing himself with new and better conceptual approaches. Something similar could probably be said about programmers that seem attached to old and allegedly inferior tools.

<comment><USER7> Not sure that's how biases work.

<comment><USER4> Biases are about the interplay of pressures to perform and reform where the comfort of the known is more persuasive than the enticement of the new.

There needs to be the luxury of time and the space to fail, two things we don't have.

The technology of longevity won't fix this problem of culture, sure. But it would make such a fix a lot more meaningful

<comment><USER8> Basically what you're describing is the tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. Depending on situation in life and age people tend to lean towards one or another.

<comment><USER4> In more concrete terms, I'm quite persuaded by what I read and see about emacs, but 20 years of vim keeps bringing me back.

I mean seriously, emacs lisp looks so much more sane than vimscript, I've been telling myself to switch for 10 years now...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As it's related to the topic: Mandatory reminder that SENS[0] exists.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence)

</comment><comment><USER10> How are people reading this article? I only read a paragraph before the site asked me to subscribe and pay them money. Surely everyone else isn't doing that?

<comment><USER11> Try this [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/we- may...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/we-may-not-have- to-age-so-fast-11572012999)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Death is a huge waste of resources.

If we stopped ageing, how long would we live? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19937047)

<comment><USER13> Living is a huge waste of resources. Dead people don't use any resources.

<comment><USER14> You are both correct. Obviously a factor is specific to each individual, as to the cost benefit ratio of that person.

Oh, come to think of it, that could be a concern in some countries. Maybe in say, China, if your social score is not high enough, it might be illegal for you to extend your life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> DNA has a half life of 521 years. Even if a human could be maintained at a biological age of ~30 indefinitely, would the natural decay of his DNA not kill him in the long term?

<comment><USER16> On a long enough timescale, you'd either die in an accident or get depressed and kill yourself just randomly within a few hundred years.

The oldest wooden houses are only one thousand years old. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkjub%C3%B8argar%C3%B0ur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkjub%C3%B8argar%C3%B0ur) The human body is way more delicate and less likely to survive.

Even with extreme motivation, no human will see the death of our Sun, let alone the heat death of the universe.

<comment><USER17> I can buy the accident thing on a long enough time scale, even though I would imagine that emergency medicine would improve over time so it would have to be increasingly more severe of a problem. However, the "get depressed and kill yourself" argument holds no weight to me. Depression is a common thing, but such severe depression that you have suicidal tendencies is not in the cards for most humans.

Humans are extremely flexible, and it really seems like some people don't have naturally severe depressive episodes even with strong external tendencies. Beyond that, I can say that depression is often combated, in some of the less extreme cases, by recognizing it incoming and developing tools to keep yourself from spiraling.

I've dealt with depression, and have had plenty of external things start a spiral. After many years of dealing with it, I have learned how to prevent it from getting overwhelming. I really don't see the end of an indefinitely life occurring via suicide, assuming you're not in isolation or alienated, or some crazy circumstance.

<comment><USER18> This argument doesn't hold water. This assumes that depression is purely something you must be born with, and you can't get it from environmental factors.

The thing is, if you really lived for hundreds of years, society would be radically different. Imagine... You can't get promoted because no one above you ever retires. You can't get an entry level job, because everyone has 200+ years experience!

People struggle to work the grind until they are 65 already. But you can't retire, because your death is so far away. You need to keep grinding another 500+ years...

That kind of world would likely have a lot of systemic issues with depression.

<comment><USER19> I think this misses the bigger picture a little. Given infinite time, everything that can possibly happen will eventually happen. Presuming that there are in fact some circumstances under which you would kill yourself, you only need to consider the likelihood of them occurring. If most other causes of death have been eliminated, then the only thing that could stop you from eventually killing yourself would be if you died by some other means before that happened.

<comment><USER16> Bingo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Even if you manage to digitise yourself (which seems to be the fantasy of many posters here) you're still limited by the ultimate end of the universe.

<comment><USER21> Somehow I expect my life to be plenty valuable with its ending around age ~80, despite the inevitable heat-death of the universe. Existential and emotional issues are quite different from medical/public health ones, so trying to substitute the former for the latter comes across as, in a way, _snobby_.

Imagine telling a pair of newlyweds, "oh, may you have long life, good fortune, and good health, but also some day the sun will burn to cinders and everything will decay into fundamental particles as entropy overtakes all." The latter is only even _relevant_ to the former as a way of showing that you think inhuman universal things are somehow more important than human things.

<comment><USER20> I was addressing a few posters on this article who were specifically taking about 'uploading' themselves into some kind of digital repository as a means of finally overcoming biological shortcomings of easy mortality. I'm not saying anything on the value of slowing the ageing process to buy a few more decades or centuries. That's a different matter. Plus in the ultimate analysis human beings are no more or less valuable than anything. Yes, that's my personal view so I don't speak for anyone else.

<comment><USER21> I think whether it's a "different matter" is up to, well, those guys who are gonna do that stuff. To me at least, there's a pretty firm separation between lifestyle choices, almost no matter how radical and just plain _fucking weird_ , and universal existential theorizing about the cosmos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Slowing down aging so that we can live 500 years or so would be fantastic for long term investments.

</comment><comment><USER23> extending life too much could have detrimental effects in terms of evolution as the gene mutations will take longer meaning we can't adapt fast enough.

<comment><USER24> That is absolutely not how evolution works at all. Mutation, such as it is, occurs at the moment of conception. It's not a very helpful word - "random and imperfect mix of two data sets" is a better way of thinking about it.

Anyway, evolution is a very confused concept in modern society. None of the old factors apply any more.

<comment><USER23> yes people with longer lifetimes will put off having children which means conception events for each generation will have longer time intervals in between

<comment><USER24> Ah, fair enough, I didn't think of that.

It's still a moot point however. There is no meaningful human evolution anymore in terms of adaptation to anything in nature. Human biological fitness these days, outside hunter gather societies I suppose, is about beauty or intelligence and not a whole lot else.

<comment> radford-neal So, war has now been abolished, so there's no advantage to being healthy enough to run away from the fighting and survive to reproduce?

And famine is no longer possible? Being small enough to survive on limited food is no longer of any use? (Or alternatively, being big enough to take other people's food...)

And a deadly pandemic is now impossible? So a good immune system doesn't give you any advantage? And an innate tendency to behaviours that reduce the chance of infection won't help you?

And the big one... Do all the beautiful and intelligent people now have the same number of children? Or do some have none, and some have ten, for reasons that may well be genetically influenced?

<comment><USER24> Your first three examples are speculative edge cases, to say the least.

But your last is interesting - and touches on something I was going to type but didn't. Yeah, evolution might be happening there, and not in a good way. There's evidence that smart couples have less children, because they're busy with careers. There's evidence that religious people have more children than non-religious. So yeah, to the extent that evolution is still in play in modern society - we're probably going backwards.

<comment><USER23> Religions seem to be ideas that know how to propagate well and ensure their hosts multiply faster too</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I Gave Up a Profitable Business Making $3,000 a Month - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/@nyuman/why-i-gave-up-a-profitable-business-making-3-000-a-month-6eaea845c8 <comment><USER2> Dude, you need to adopt the mantra "It's business". That cuts out all personal and emotional issues. Don't forget, all entrepreneurs who make it have a string of failures in their wake. It's up to you if you're going to dust yourself off and try it again. It's also OK to decide a regular job is the right fit for you. There's a fine line between being an entrepreneur and being addicted to gambling.</comment>


Here's to more HTTPS on the web - <AUTHOR> https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/11/heres-to-more-https-on-the-web.html <comment><USER2> As much as I herald the ongoing march toward mass HTTPS adoption, I'm not sure Google should be taking the credit.

It seems to me that they are now walking a very fine line between improving the web, and taking over the web.

For many people Google IS the Internet - it's the provider of the search results they always see. Chrome badgers you to sign up for a Google account, and with it the associated services such as GMail.

9 out of 10 smartphones now run Android, and almost all of those are Google controlled (AOSP[1] is hardly a thing any lay-user knows about). Therefore for 90% of internet users, Google is their gateway.

 _If Google don 't want to you know about something on the internet they have many routes to ensure you never find out about it._

If this was Microsoft doing this - the world would be in uproar, but apparently Google are allowed to get away with it? Where's the Antitrust lawsuits against Google? There's a one smoldering on in Germany[2], but it's getting almost no press - most probably because Google are suppressing any mention of it in their results or in Google News (Crazy? Maybe, but you can't disprove this either).

There are no web standards anymore - if Google want to add a feature to Chrome, they just go ahead and do it, forcing the other browser makers to adopt that feature lest they be left behind in the browser market.

Almost all big sites use some form of Google Analytics, along with advert providers such as DoubleClick[3] (also a Google company). You simply cannot do anything on the web without Google seeing in one way or another.

Put simply, the Internet is dead; All we have now is the Googlenet.

\--

[1] [https://source.android.com/](https://source.android.com/)

[2] [http://www.ibtimes.com/android-antitrust-googles-big- problem...](http://www.ibtimes.com/android-antitrust-googles-big-problem- europe-could-result-75b-fine-2355465)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleClick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleClick)

<comment><USER3> > There are no web standards anymore - if Google want to add a feature to > Chrome, they just go ahead and do it, forcing the other browser makers to > adopt that feature lest they be left behind in the browser market.

Isn't that normal? First you add the feature to your browser, then if people start using it you think about standardizing it. The alternative is to spend a bunch of effort standardizing things nobody wants.

If anything, I'd like to see more standards that first require a concrete implementation. I think everyone's been handed a spec that has loads of problems when you actually try to implement it. Look at the 'export' keyword in C++.

<comment><USER4> > If anything, I'd like to see more standards that first require a concrete > implementation.

This is how the standards process has always worked! Per RFC6410, a proposed standard can't advance to an "Internet Standard" until there are at least two independent working implementations.

The W3C has a bad habit of writing "standards" before any code has been written; sometimes even before it's clear that any code _should_ be written. (EmotionML, for example.)

<comment><USER5> Never heard of EmotionML before. OMG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I asked this earlier today on its own thread:

Why don't browsers default to trying HTTPS if there is a DNS record but no response on port 80? Or better yet, default to just trying HTTPS first. I understand I can add my site to browser based HSTS lists, but this doesn't really help people developing command line applications or API client libraries where a 302 could be followed without the developer even noticing and if I want to develop a MITM proof application I currently have a usability problem.

Is there a reason to support HTTP at all, other than current user experience in the browser?

<comment><USER7> That was discussed here, starting with [1]. tl;dr: Too many broken sites out there, and this kind of opportunistic encryption doesn't hold up in any adversarial threat model (MitM blocks :443 and forces downgrade to :80).

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872100)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great news. Furthering HTTPS adoption is the best way we have to combat pervasive surveillance, and we're making steps in the right direction before HTTP2's opportunistic encryption [1] will improve things on an even wider scale.

We'll also face some new challenges. Over the years, many users have learned to "look for the padlock" before entering their passwords. More sites moving to HTTPS will also increase the percentage of phishing/attack sites served over encrypted connections -- with the padlock to match. We'll need to renew our focus on training users to check for the correct domain name (and possibly an EV cert), or phishing sites with a cert from Let's Encrypt will become a real threat. Browsers are moving in the right direction, displaying https less conspicuously than before, and emphasizing connections with EV certs.

[1] [http://httpwg.org/http-extensions/draft-ietf-httpbis- http2-e...](http://httpwg.org/http-extensions/draft-ietf-httpbis- http2-encryption.html)

<comment><USER9> Pervasive surveillance is also helped with browser fingerprinting, and Google, Facebook and so on are doing nothing to prevent that.

I'd like to see the default User-Agent header for HTTP2 be as short as "Chrome". Remove cookies, find ways to keep the identity of a user private.

<comment><USER8> Good idea. I wonder why the privacy-protecting Add-Ons (ABP, uBlock Origin) don't mask the UA by default.

On the other hand, trackers will probably just switch to detecting the capabilities of the browser using JS and then map each distinct set of capabilities to the matching browser version. In that scenario, an Add-On replacing your UA will actually increase trackability, as long as the majority of people aren't using it.

<comment><USER10> Because many sites (including most of Google's) won't work then ;)

Also it would be _very_ easy to detect if a user is running an adblocker then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is https is promoted as a way to fight surveillance when the typical HN user knows https does no such thing.

How does https stop NSA or any resourced state actor? Even ordinary run of mill organizations routinely mitm https.

And to add insult to injury this naive https protects against surveillance is promoted aggressively by people and entities who are known to be in bed with state entities, leading purveyors of spyware and are aggressively building profiles of individuals every second.

<comment><USER12> I guess maybe you're being downvoted for the tone of your comment, but I came here wondering the same thing. Usually we think of communication as secure when messages can be read only by their intended recipients. We don't really get that when we're using the public key infrastructure in modern browsers. I'm not sure how much it matters (I don't mind if the government knows my credit card number), but I don't like the way PKI makes "private communication" sort of ambiguous...

<comment><USER7> The public key infrastructure in modern browsers allows you to use HPKP, which gives you all you need in order to fully control that a message can only be read by its intended recipient, if you need that level of assurance. (Yes, it's TOFU, but is there any large-scale protocol that isn't either TOFU or requires out-of-band verification?)

The public key infrastructure in modern browsers is also about to require that CAs use Certificate Transparency (a year from now), which is definitely an obstacle even for nation-state adversaries if they want to stay under the radar (once it's fully rolled out and backdating in order to bypass the requirement isn't possible anymore).

Finally, if you're the target of a nation-state adversary, there are probably things you'd have to worry about other than the Web PKI. It's unlikely to be the most effective way to own you. The Web PKI isn't the weakest link by far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's to static text blog posts that don't display without JavaScript.

That surely doesn't make the web any safer ;P

<comment><USER14> Works fine without JS for me, except the Google+ comment box and some Youtube channel link widget thing.

<comment><USER15> Looking at the page source, the whole content can be found both within a <script type='text/template'> tag and within a <noscript> tag (yes, there are two copies of the whole content). The problem is that some Javascript blockers like uBlock Origin ignore the <noscript> tag; see [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/308](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/308).

<comment> angry-hacker I can't think what we're the engineers that implemented that stuff were thinking.

Blogger sort of worked fine until they hugged it with js and their latest super cool network and view engine. Let's see if they rewrite the whole blogger thing in webgl soon. I wouldn't be surprised.

Also I'm sick and tired if closing those cookie notifications.

PS. I browse the web with js enabled like the majority but there is no need to use js to render 50kb of text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It is still expensive and cumbersome to implement HTTPS. Everybody seems to be neglecting the small websites deployed by hand, which are probably 99% of all the internet websites.

<comment><USER17> Cumbersome? For most non-professionals running a small site, absolutely. That's where hosting providers need to step up to make it as easy as possible.

Expensive? How?

Thanks to Let's encrypt and others, certificates are now free.

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry but I wouldn't call certificates with a lifetime of 90 days practical and I'm a developer.

Let's Encrypt is still far from being convenient and usable for small companies or individuals that don't want to manage infrastructures and administration like writing a cron job that refreshes your certificate.

<comment><USER19> Yes that one liner takes so much effort to write [EDIT: copy from one of the bazillion articles that have already done it for you]. That's why we can't have security. It takes too much effort.

<comment><USER2> For fun, next time you are on public transport, or sitting in an airport lounge, stand up and ask loudly 'Does anyone know what cron is?"

The lack of raised hands, should answer for you why LetsEncrypt is not ready for mainstream use.

Until Cert renewal is baked into all the hosting apps/platforms - HTTPs will never be ubiquitous.

<comment><USER20> Most of those people don't host their own websites, either.

<comment><USER16> But there are some who do.

Not that they host it with their own computers, but they rent some space online and host it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how effective HTTPS is against MITM attacks. When I type www.somedomain.com into my browser, it goes to [http://www.somedomain.com](http://www.somedomain.com). If the page then redirects to [https://www.somedomain.com](https://www.somedomain.com) it is too late already.

A MITM attacker could intercept my initial request and then proxy everything afterwards. So he would get all the data in clear text.

Somebody could probably put an app onto a phone that offers a wifi hotspot and then MITMs everything. By walking around with that phone he would probably capture all kinds of "private" communication all the time. And none of us would know.

When I am in an airport and see a hotspot "Free Airport Wifi" I always suspect it is such an app in reality. I mean, everybody can call their hotspot "Free Airport Wifi".

<comment><USER7> That's why preloaded HSTS exists - basically a list of domains included in browser binaries that those browser will only ever visit via HTTPS.

<comment><USER21> Wouldn't it be easier to make the browser use https by default? And then if a domain does norespond to a https request ask the user "There seems to be no secure way to communicate with www.somedomain.com - want to switch to insecure?".

<comment><USER22> Probably won't sit well with website owners. If you attempt to connect over TLS when it isn't supported, there is a performance impact, basically you have to attempt one failed connection for every http request, do that for every request on a page and performance becomes a big problem.

You'll also be going against specs, HTTP should go to port 80( which typically isn't secure.), a browser unilaterally deciding to go against a legitimate user wish is bad form.

<comment><USER23> Hum... If I explicitly type "[http://example.com"](http://example.com"), then by all means, go to the plaintext site. But everybody just types "example.com" and expects the browser to go to the site - this one should favor the TLS version, not the plaintext one.

Besides, now that most sites run on https, making the http-only ones slower would be a good thing.

<comment><USER22> I think the current approach of allowing site owners to decide how they're going to support TLS is the right approach, browsers taking it upon themselves to enforce it is a bad idea. Some additional reasons why it is a bad idea have already been mentioned by other folks.

When it comes to security, TLS is crucial to the security infrastructure of the internet as a whole; however most of the current security problems on the internet don't actually involve TLS vulnerabilities, even though those tend to make a lot of news in the technology press.

The bar for exploiting TLS vulnerabilities generally requires setting up a legitimate seeming entity and injecting yourself into the internet traffic routing infrastructure, it is very much possibly (and indeed easy for state actors) but it is a much higher bar for common cyber criminals.

<comment><USER6> They can decide themselves by 301ing to http and setting some sort of "I'm a crappy website, just use insecure requests" header.

<comment><USER22> they can't 301 if they don't already support TLS. If you attempt to connect to a site over TLS that doesn't support it, for starters port 443 is not likely to be open. 301 is part of the HTTP protocol, TLS is transport layer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know why there are holes in the CromeOS chart?

At first I thought the fact that the percentage is higher is because by default they contact more google services (presumably all over https) than other os/browsers. If this hypothesis is correct, does it mean that the holes are periods where some of these services were failing to provide https?

<comment><USER25> i think it's more likely a temporary spike in popularity of some non-HTTPS site than a temporary failure to provide HTTPS by a site that normally does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there a need for IoT devices to serve HTTPS?

<comment><USER12> I'm curious how well that would work? I think it would be awkward to deploy a secret key to a (difficult-to-configure) home device and then keep that secret key secure. It worries me that your IoT device might claim to use HTTPS but actually depend on a private key that had been compromised.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Estimated Reading Time API - <AUTHOR> http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=https://medium.com/the-story/read-time-and-you-bc2048ab620c&utm_medium=hn&utm_source=showhn <comment><USER2> To those folks saying, "this is easy to code up in JavaScript" or "Pelican already does this for you" \-- does it do it for you for other people's content?

I like this because I can just plug in the URL of any old article I might want to read and see what I'm getting myself into, e.g. [http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.newyorker.com/ma...](http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/the- courthouse-ring). Now that I know it's a 15 minute read, I'll probably save it for later.

This would be great as a browser plugin.

<comment><USER3> I like your username...

You are right, and thanks for pointing that out. I can generally tell how long it will take to read an article with a little scroll and a glance at the scroll bar. If the scroll bar is small, reading is going to take a while and vice versa.

<comment><USER4> Unless you have sites full of Facebook comments and bullshit taboola content at the bottom

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this specially good? Does it use a better algorithm or something?

Just asking because there's no explanation, and it would be probably better to hack something in JS than to depend on this probably-soon-to-vanish-api. There's already [https://eager.io/app/reading- time](https://eager.io/app/reading-time), for example, which anyone can install in 2 minutes, and is based on a simple algorithm[1], it seems.

[1]: [https://github.com/TeffenEllis/reading- time/blob/master/app....](https://github.com/TeffenEllis/reading- time/blob/master/app.js)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do we need an API for this? A library seems easier, and even that is a stretch for doing `$wordcount / 200 = minutes required to read`. Does this make an estimate of the article's complexity and adjust how many words a person reads per minute?

(Source for 200 words per minute: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Reading_and_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Reading_and_comprehension) )

<comment><AUTHOR> We definitely don't _need_ an API. Then again, we basically don't _need_ most APIs. This doesn't estimate the article's complexity as of now, but its main point is not just getting the length of the entire site, but locating the most likely main content area and THEN doing the /250.

<comment><USER7> You can use something like:

[https://github.com/grangier/python-goose](https://github.com/grangier/python- goose)

[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/textstat/](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/textstat/)

\+ using word counts that adjust for reading ease

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remember that URLs don't always point to websites:

[http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/passwd](http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/passwd)

[http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/shadow](http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=file:///etc/shadow)

<comment><AUTHOR> Aaaaand now there are tens of IPs trying to access /etc/passwd. Tailing my "failed hack attempts" log is kinda fun now.

But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

<comment><USER8> > But if you wrote this to warn me, then thanks!

I did.

You're not the first person to make that kind of mistake, and I assumed it was an obvious enough "attack" that trying to communicate it privately wasn't required.

<comment><AUTHOR> Though I now have an extra if statement in my code to detect and log this type of 'hacking' attempts in addition to some others, the code was never vulnerable to this in the first place. No file contents are displayed at any time anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is a plugin[1] for people that blog with Pelican for this. It also will score your Flesch-kincaid[2] values. You can see it in action on my blog: [http://caffeineindustries.com/](http://caffeineindustries.com/)

I do think I should adjust the words per minute values...

[1] [https://github.com/getpelican/pelican- plugins/tree/master/po...](https://github.com/getpelican/pelican- plugins/tree/master/post_stats) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests)

</comment><comment><USER9> Curious as to why the reading time is estimated as 2 minutes and 96 seconds. Wondering if it isn't supposed to be 3 minutes and 36 seconds?

I plugged one of my own posts in and it read 3 minutes and 166 seconds (5 minutes and 46 seconds).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not showing x minutes AND y seconds, it's x minutes OR y seconds. Minutes is just there for someone who doesn't need precision and can let the API handle the rounding. Seconds is for people who want to do more advanced stuff.

</comment></comment><comment> tony-allan I like the idea however it is confused by messy HTML such as: [http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2016...](http://klopets.com/readtime/?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/arts/harper- lee-dies.html?_r=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm aware of it, thanks. The current approach isn't really that flexible. For example, I've seen the NY Times and The Atlantic not working. I've considered some different potential fixes but haven't implemented them yet. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice demo! Is this code for this available online? I'd love to see how this works.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just that - a demo right now. I'll most likely keep this as a pet project of mine, trying to make the underlying algorithm a bit more intelligent. I'll then probably release it on GitHub ([https://github.com/mklopets](https://github.com/mklopets)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> FYI: Made a similar npm module a while ago if you want this functionality locally: [https://github.com/hswolff/read- time](https://github.com/hswolff/read-time)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing! The point here isn't just calculating the reading time based on a WPM metric, it's fetching a remote page, analyzing it to find the main content and then doing the maths, among other stuff taking into account any images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A bit too simple for an API, reminds me of Fuck Off As A Service. [http://www.foaas.com/](http://www.foaas.com/)

<comment> tony-allan Simplicity is a good thing. A service that attempts to do one thing well.

<comment><USER5> Not when the HTTP request itself is more complicated to do than actually reimplementing the thing in Javascript.

NOTE: If you are using a library for easily doing HTTP requests, than you can probably use a library for estimating time to read.

<comment> tony-allan I like the notion that a service can continue to improve under the covers without me needing to do software updates to get a new version of library.

I know you can just include an external JavaScript library but I only do that for sources I trust.

<comment><USER5> The service can also be discontinued. And that is what mostly often happens. Big improvements like what you're imagining are rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We've officially reached Peak API. What's the algo?</comment>


Apple says color and hue shifting, OLED burn-in expected on iPhone X - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2017/11/03/iphone-x-oled-burn-in-color-shifting/ <comment><USER2> Welcome to the new normal: _expecting_ burn-in on your $1,000 smartphones.

I thought Apple cared about quality?

<comment><AUTHOR> €1,548 with AppleCare+ and 256 GB. Apple Germany.</comment></comment>


Grupeer Suspends Payments to Investors - <AUTHOR> https://www.grupeer.com/blog/statement-from-grupeer/ <comment><USER2> Reads like a typical Ponzi scheme that just collapsed.

If they were for real, they'd announce reduced revenue and show financial statements. Sure, they're experiencing some bad debt. But not 100%.

<comment><USER3> >a typical Ponzi scheme that just collapsed.

doesn't sound that way [https://www.grupeer.com/why- grupeer](https://www.grupeer.com/why-grupeer)

"Grupeer is different from other p2p investment platforms. We are creating a safe environment for our clients and offer three different investment types. Our primary objective is to bring high returns to our clients with minimal risk."

and on the same page below:

"Secondly, investments are secured with BuyBack Guarantee. This means that if the borrower goes bust, our partner- the loan originator is required to buyback the defaulted loan and insure the repayment of the principal and interest in full amount."

<comment><USER4> > high returns to our clients with minimal risk

That's classic ponzi language.

Upside and risk go hand in hand. You can't sustainably produce one without the other, else everyone would be infinitely wealthy.

<comment><USER3> man, it is the reason i posted it. Sometimes people completely miss sarcasm :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the first of many such organizations that are going to go through this. All these collective funding platforms LendingClub.com, Prosper.com, FundingCircle.com, YieldStreet.com, WunderCapital.com etc are going to be forced to suspend payments to their investors as their clients face ongoing economic hardships.

</comment><comment><USER6> They had me at: Register Now, Add Funds, Get Profit. I can't give them my money fast enough....

Sounds like loan repayments (ie principal + interest) are suspended indefinitely. This is the risk you take when you are expecting a 10+% return on property dev and payday loan investments.

<comment><USER7> Prosper and LendingClub loan marketplaces are of similar high risk profile in the US (the only borrowers on those platforms are those who couldn't borrow from banks or other traditional lenders). I expect those investors will end up with interest and principal losses as well, the cost of investing in consumer subprime debt.

<comment><USER8> Didn't that happen during the last recession? I don't understand why people still put money into these unsecured loan companies.

<comment><USER9> I believe both LendingClub & Prosper started after the last recession.

<comment><USER7> Prosper existed before the 2008 GFC/recession. I had thousands of dollars worth of notes that went bad during it.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for correcting me, I was under the wrong impression

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For an unsecured lender, this is basically the apocalypse. Let's do the math - numbers are US, but most of the major Western economies are going through some version of this.

\- 30% household unemployment

\- 90+ day shutdown of most retail / service businesses

\- Implicit Mortgage and Rent holidays (no enforcement)

\- Other household assets are tanking (stocks, real estate)

\- Small business restart will be brutal, since the personal balance sheets & credit of owners are getting devastated

So... payment on unsecured loans... bwhahahahah. Speaking as a former banker, I'm guessing what - a 40% delinquency rate during Q2 and part of Q3? We're not just talking about the unemployed people - others have hours cut, money lost on investments, business slowdowns, etc.

Not to mention most of the population probably won't give a damm about you trashing their credit score at this point. What's the point? It's all crap now...

Oh wait... I haven't gotten to the best part. If a loan is 60 days delinquent, these guys have to buy it back per the terms of their deal. That's why they froze this thing...

At this point, it is a race between their cash reserves (what % they held back to support buybacks) and the unknown peak of a massive wave of 60 day delinquencies....

<comment><AUTHOR> > That's why they froze this thing...

You're picturing it "too honest": there are allegations of misconduct which I am afraid (given the bad quality of the recent official posts) might be true, see for example:

[https://kristapsmors.substack.com/p/covid-19-first-p2p-victi...](https://kristapsmors.substack.com/p/covid-19-first-p2p-victims- monethera)

<comment><USER10> Hmm... I agree that looks sketchy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If I'm reading it right, their business model is "eBay/Amazon for purchasing secured loans", is that right?

Are they saying they're just suspending interest payments to investors, or have they actually disappeared their investors' capital indefinitely?

<comment><USER12> > The team of Grupeer has been working with legal experts on finding solutions > acceptable to all parties involved.

It looks ugly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like if this wasn't a Ponzi scheme, they would stop soliciting new investments on the homepage.</comment>


Show HN: Manage access to Basecamp, GitHub, Heroku, and more - <AUTHOR> http://onboarder.co

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I ran some Facebook ads and received some feedback from Reddit /r/startups. I decided it was enough validation to build it.

If you're like me, you've probably used Basecamp, GitHub, Heroku, HipChat, and many other apps on a daily basis. One of the things I found annoying was sending out invitations to all of these different apps. Onboarder solves this. When you need to invite someone new, type in their email (and GitHub username) and you're done. Onboarder handles the rest.

Better yet, when you need to remove access, you can do so with just one click.

I'm exploring opportunities to make this process even simpler. I definitely think it would be better with deeper integration. For a first version, I think it's pretty cool.

Thanks a lot for listening and I welcome any and all feedback.

<comment><USER2> I really don't mean to be a jerk, but this sounds like a terrible idea. Four places to send invites from? That's a first world problem, not a startup business opportunity.

<comment><USER3> It's a first-world problem that can take a lot of time. I'd much rather go to a single site and send out all of my invites than navigate to four individual sites and muck about in the settings to send an invite.

<comment><USER2> I can't see how inviting users to a handful of services could take longer than 5-10 minutes? Is that really a "lot of time"?

<comment><USER4> We have 100s of developers using Github, HipChat. This service would be quite useful. Especially the offboarding.

Another thing that would be awesome if your could get even finer grained control of some of the services. Like having the ability to maintain some additional Github permissions. A big pain point for us right now is you need to have admin to manage teams, webhooks, etc. Have some levels between admin and write would be great (and I don't blame GH for having these. It's a more enterprise need.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like a clone of [https://www.meldium.com/](https://www.meldium.com/), I think?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, looks like it. Thanks for posting this. I was focused on the big players in the space, and I missed this one. It's interesting that it never came up while I was talking about it with others.

<comment><USER5> You're welcome. I'm not sure how well-known Meldium is -- I think the only reason I'm aware of it is that they're a YC company and I work for a YC company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks like an interesting concept. How does it compare with LDAP/Active Directory/Google Apps integration?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still trying to learn more about Active Directory everyday. Companies like Okta and OneLogin offer user provisioning (what Onboarder is doing) and they integrate with Active Directory.

Onboarder is definitely not that complex yet, but I'm still learning about this space. My goal was to make it simple. Connect with OAuth or give us an API key, and we're good to go.

<comment> j-m-o If you plan on targeting mid-size companies and up to enterprise, you're going to need to have some sort of AD/LDAP integration.

The onboarding/offboarding process is generally initiated from there, and internal apps and services tend to use that as the canonical user store.

Good luck with your project, I hope it works out well for you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Derek, The design and control flow looks very smooth for first version of the site. I have registered and will look to use it, here is a small suggestion, you can probably add something on dashboard to show as initially it shows nothing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's a good idea. You'd need to include more systems than you mention however. Our company uses a few of the ones you mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice work! This needs a lot more services, I think, but the concept is smart.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yes, I definitely agree. For the first version, I picked the ones I felt could generate the most interest. I've had people mention Google Apps, the Atlassian suite, Campfire, and many more.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Platform to discuss movies and tv shows - <AUTHOR> https://www.goodshowsapp.com/download <comment><USER2> Looks great, any plans for an Android version?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Ya, Android is under development.</comment></comment>


Look, new cities will soon have WiMAX - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/08/02/look-new-cities-will-soon-have-wimax/

<comment><USER2> I'm on WiMAX right now with Clearwire, in Redmond WA. Works like a charm. The box could use a built-in 802.11 AP (or maybe it has one?) but that's easy enough to fix.

speedtest.net says 42ms ping, 1.19MB/sec download, 0.19MB/sec upload to their test server in Seattle: <http://www.speedtest.net/result/530971228.png></comment>


The Ultimate Question of Programming, Refactoring, and Everything - <AUTHOR> https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0391/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for this extremely useful article! Added to bookmarks.</comment>


Germany Acts to Tame Facebook, Learning from Its Own History of Hate - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/technology/facebook-deletion-center-germany.html <comment><USER2> I find it interesting that platforms are liable for hosting hate speech, but individual users are not liable for creating it.

It's also interesting that Human Rights Watch has come out against the German law: [https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/14/germany-flawed-social- me...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/14/germany-flawed-social-media-law)

<comment><USER3> Hate speech laws aren't completely uncommon, so individual users would be liable for creating it. In NZ law, it's part of our Human Rights Act:

[http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/D...](http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304642.html)

"It shall be unlawful for any person to publish or distribute written matter which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, or to broadcast by means of radio or television or other electronic communication words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting"

<comment><USER4> Wow that's terribly vague. Insulting people publicly is illegal?

<comment><USER3> It's in the "Other forms of discrimination" => "Racial disharmony" section, so it's applied in the context of racism (there are other sections that dictate other acts such as sexual harassment etc). There is also another section on "131 - Inciting racial disharmony"

[http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/D...](http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM305478.html)

which references the previously mentioned section. But also followed up by

[http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/D...](http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM305482.html)

"No prosecution for an offence against section 131 shall be instituted without the consent of the Attorney-General."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What even is this article? There is nothing substantive here. Like many other mainstream tech articles these days, this reeks of mass-media narrative control. I just wonder if it's the clicks that drive these or if there are other actors behind the scenes encouraging the deluge of anti-FB, anti-Goog, anti-Twitter, etc articles. Maybe I'm viewing this too broadly, but I get an icky feeling of intentional furor construction.

<comment><USER6> > the deluge of anti-FB, anti-Goog, anti-Twitter, etc articles. Maybe I'm > viewing this too broadly, but I get an icky feeling of intentional furor > construction.

Those companies are enabling the criminals. German law defines the users as criminals and it is this pre-internet law that is being upgraded and enforced, because profiting from enabling illegal activity is clearly wrong.

FB employs 1200 people to deal with this... why is that? It isn't their fault that the world has so many fucktards in it, but is their problem when they give a platform to their illegality

furor over the failings of the "city state" that FB are trying to establish. Good

<comment><USER5> Ok...I mean you see it that way and I don't really agree, but that is unrelated to my comment. Mine is a general comment about the flow of "news" concerning large web companies. It feels like this article was just the next one on the weekend assembly line. I'm not really a fan of manipulation even if I agree w/ the manipulators. Granted, my observations are my own based on the news cycles and my limited empirical evidence leaves my suspicions in the realm of conspiracy theory. Just a comment on the patterns I see.

<comment><USER7> Could you be a bit more specific about your criticism of the article. I found it interesting. I don't really see how it is anti-FB. It seems to describe the current situation by anecdotes instead of statistics/scientific analysis. I can understand some not liking that style (especially considering information per time), but it seems highly effective at describing issues to most people (probably the thing you call media narrative control). I've got no problem with that.

But your "There is nothing substantive here" is worrying me, since it probably means you'd like more that a somewhat mundane description of the situation without judgment. Did you expect a strong position, probably in favor of US free speech values? It to be a hit piece for or against NetzDG? Strong policy recommendations with big impacts? I don't want that! I like our current society and want marginal fixes for its countless little flaws. But responding to the current hot issue (lets say school shootings) with extremist positions (arm everyone vs take all guns away) seems highly unproductive in improving our lives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Germany, home to a tough new online hate speech law", anybody have the definition of hate speech according to this law? This article has a lot of information but a cogent definition of hate speech is not given.

<comment><USER9> There's no new "hate speech law". There's only new law that punishes sites for failing to remove content that was already illegal. For this they have up to 24 hours, or a week if it is a more complex matter.

That article generally misrepresents German laws, making them seem more draconian than they actually are.

For instance displaying a Swastika is perfectly legal if you don't "objectively" use it to "promote (the) national socialism".

The German definition of Volksverhetzung, often translated as "hate speech", is also quite a bit a narrower than what your average native english speaker would understand as hate speech: basically, under that law, ONLY hate speech against a group or individual targeting them for belonging to a certain _ethnic group_ , _nationality_ , or _religion_ is illegal IF it is disseminated in a way that has the potential to disrupt public peace.

<comment><USER10> > displaying a Swastika is perfectly legal if you don't "objectively" use it > to "promote (the) national socialism".

It seems that only applies if your work falls clearly within a few categories of exceptions. For example, Wolfenstein, a game about a Jewish commando fighting against the Nazis, was censored in Germany to comply with the law.

> "In Germany, we've removed all Nazi symbols and references. Unlike films and > other works of art, video games in Germany are forbidden to use such symbols > and references as they are classified in Germany as toys and not media art." > The illegal display of Nazi imagery is punishable by three years in prison > in Germany. > ([http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27488254](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27488254))

Even "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" struggled to be published uncensored. They eventually succeeded in convincing the culture ministry to allow publication, but it's not enough to be anti-Nazi.

<comment><USER11> >For example, Wolfenstein, a game about a Jewish commando fighting against the Nazis, was censored in Germany to comply with the law.

Art, sciences and education are obviously exempt from these rules and while many pretty much assumed games to be art a recent court confirmed that games would be ruled as art.

The reason why Wolfenstein was censored is because of the USK, the board behind age ratings in germany, which has in the past been rather strict with nazi symbolism, regardless of context. They've softened up a lot and would wave through games with nazi symbolism like the newer Wolfenstein titles, however publishers don't want to take the chances of having to reapply for rating and simply already submit a censored version before it even hits their desks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And there you have it: the New York Times will side with censorship and against free speech as long as it's to the detriment of a tech company.

</comment><comment><USER13> I love my "Vaterland" :) but I'm not sure if that'll work. We are to small and Facebook to large and smart for regulation

<comment><USER14> Facebook will adapt to as many global regulatory approaches as it has to, and there will be dozens of them at a minimum that will be major markets and require compliance. The world is going to get very, very messy when it comes to complying with all the various approaches nations will implement (to speech broadly, politics, commerce, privacy, you name it). The compliance will act as a tax on its fat margins, basically.

It will become nearly impossible to form a new global social network as these rules come into being. No other entities will be capable of dealing with it, you'll have to have vast resources to do it. It won't be about paid vs ad supported approaches, that doesn't matter for that purpose: the localized compliance will go far beyond privacy (that is merely one issue on a long list of compliance requirements that will exist in the future, it'll be as complex and varied as cultures and government systems are).

<comment><USER15> The solution is to have local networks, then you care only about the local laws. Like on reddit each subreddit has it's rules, you have to respect the local rules , but you can participate in any subreddit

<comment><USER16> Pretty much, but its a tad complex.

Microsoft hosts for example in Ireland (part of the EU), but is an American company.

A subreddit has its own moderators and rules, but has to also adhere the global Reddit policy.

FOSS is developed by people all over the world.

One solution is to lay low and be low profile. For example, an invite-only system, or E2EE. Another is to host in a more liberal country. But if the website is in Russian, it is assumed that its being served for Russians (people in Russia).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They are NOT learning from their history. In fact (to quote from [https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen- speech-v...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech- violence)):

"I found that, contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public- relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews. In the words of a present-day civil-rights campaigner, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigor. As history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it."

<comment><USER18> The lesson to be learned is that they did not strike down the fascists hard enough, while they still could.

Fascism must be met at all time with hard, Swift and decisive opposition, violent if necessary. There must be no tolerance for ideologies built on intolerance.

<comment><USER19> And who will decide what is not to be tolerated?

<comment><USER18> Intolerance towards others will not be tolerated. Simple.

<comment><USER19> So while you are intolerant to Nazis (who you will define yourself) will you be making an exception for yourself, or will you not tolerate your own intolerance to wrongthink?

<comment><USER18> That discussion has been had so many times, it's not even funny. Of course you should not tolerate intolerance, that's not even up for discussion anymore.

And no, you obviously shouldn't attack people for "wrongthink". You have to attack them for _acts_ , not for thoughts. Standing up in public and calling for violence and persecution against people is an _act_ , not a thought.

<comment><USER17> "Standing up in public and calling for violence and persecution against people is an act, not a thought."

I don't understand why our reaction to that should be also violent, why cannot we, as you write, "swiftly and decisively", collectively ignore that act.

On one hand, you deny that society has moral agency, because you think that this is not an alternative. On the other hand, you want the society to act, as if it had a moral agency. So which is it?

<comment><USER18> Because such public speeches lead directly to violence against minorities. This has been shown again and again throughout human history.

If we do not act and do not speak out against them or even attack them, we are tacitly saying "well, they might have a point", and that leads to unacceptable acceptance of intolerant acts.

<comment><USER17> > Because such public speeches lead directly to violence against minorities.

What do you mean by "lead"? Do you consider the people who cause such violence as being not responsible for their own actions?

Let's take an example. A person A says that there should be violence against person C. Then, person B commits violence against person C.

I totally agree that society should persecute person B, but I don't see why persecute (with violence) the person A. Person B is morally responsible for their own action (we don't absolve people of murder even if someone suggests to them that they should murder someone). And I also agree that we should speak out against A's suggestion of violence.

So you can see, I am not advocating tacit tolerance of any intolerant acts, and yet disagree with your suggestion of persecution of person A (actually, not in all situations, but I disagree with it in general).

<comment><USER18> If person A can be determined (with a high degree of certainty) to have incited the actions of person B, preferably in a court of law, then yes they are also responsible, even more so if they directly commanded person B to commit acts of violence on person C.

Also, if a person directly calls to action against specific groups (eg. "we must throw out all immigrants right now! The police and courts are useless, we have to act!"), that should also be dealt with, rather harshly.

Like I've said before, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. You can say exactly what you want, and neither the government nor anyone else can legally stop you from doing so. But they _can_ very much hold you accountable for the consequences of what you say, and the manner in which you said it (eg. publicly, to a large crowd of angry people).

<comment><USER17> "then yes they are also responsible, even more so if they directly commanded person B to commit acts of violence on person C"

If person A commanded (or otherwise extorted) person B to act, then it's a different situation. And it's already covered in laws against threatening and extortion.

I am asking about situation where person B can, with reason, and on their own will, ignore the pleading of person A for violence. Or what if there is no person B? Should we punish person A regardless?

"Like I've said before, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences."

I strongly disagree, and I think it's misunderstanding of concept of free speech. The act of speech must be without consequence, if it's to be free.

People often give an example of somebody saying something to their employer and the employer firing them for that. This is a limitation of free speech.

Before making that argument, you should consider that in the communist regimes (such in Czech Republic), dissidents were often suppressed by being fired from their job. You're effectively saying that it was morally acceptable, and I disagree.

<comment><USER18> >"I am asking about situation where person B can, with reason, and on their own will, ignore the pleading of person A for violence. Or what if there is no person B? Should we punish person A regardless?"

That is ideally for the courts to decide, whether A's utterances and calls for action can reasonably be said to have incited B's actions. Obviously B bears the primary responsibility, but A can also be culpable, especially if they have knowledge that their words are very likely to spur people like B into action.

>"The act of speech must be without consequence, if it's to be free."

No. Even in the US ("LAND OF THE FREE RAH RAH RAH HOME OF THE BRAVE U S A U S A U S A"), freedom of speech is not absolute. There are laws against libel and slander, for good reason.

If you walk up to your employer and call them a fascist limp-dicked low-paying money-grubbing shitstain, what do you think will happen? Do you think you'll just keep your job, keep working as if nothing happened? Do you think they'll just ignore that and act as if nothing had happened?

What if you do the same thing by posting it publicly on the internet or in a newspaper? Do you expect there to be no consequences?

In other words, freedom of speech means that you are free to express yourself, with no threat of censorship. It does _not_ absolve you from responsibility for what you said. Stand by what you say, take responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder, out loud to all you HN lawyers, if not officially supporting an EU country gets you out of EU law. If a site offers no official language support, does it have to follow Germany's law simply because a German saw it?

<comment><USER21> They have to follow German law because they have German users, German customers (German companies buying ads), use German infrastructure, German marketing and German offices housing German employees.

If they would like to turn their back to an 80 million people market, sure. However, if this becomes the EU standard, it jumps up to a market of almost 500 million people. Hard to turn that down.

<comment><USER20> If they have users, but transact everything in Dollars and only host out of the US, does Germany have claim to dictate terms? For example if Germans come to America and buy things, the German government has little control to exert power.

<comment><USER21> You're correct, but that's not the case. They host all across the EU (and have special agreements with the local governments about power supply for example), have employees all across the EU, accept Euros as payment and wouldn't want it any other way. If they didn't, it would be much harder for them to stay competitive in the EU. If they stop they would negatively impact the experience for their users and customers in Germany, meaning losses of revenue from that market and the risk of being overtaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is hate never justifiable?

<comment><USER18> You can hate as much as you want, in private. Germans are very adamant about the protection of privacy.

The problem starts if you go around in public, making hateful speeches that incite violence.

<comment><USER22> That sounds like a great way to protect those who commit acts worthy of hate from any public remonstration.

<comment><USER18> You are absolutely and perfectly allowed to speak out in public against such people. But you must be prepared to take responsibility if your speech is worded to spur people into violent action and to incite hateful action.

The court of public opinion is notoriously fickle. Rousing hate in the masses is not a reliable tactic, and often backfires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And yet the hammer and sickle are regarded as symbols of freedom and Marxism is regarded as a movement to empower the oppressed. How revolting. Adherents to Communist ideology have killed many millions more than Nazis ever dreamed of and caused untold amounts of devastation over the past century.

<comment><USER24> Not only that, but communism is still an ongoing danger, unlike Nazism. Venezuela just experienced it. Zimbabwe a decade before, and now South Africa is slipping closer towards it. It's a real danger to human life but somehow people celebrate it.

<comment><USER25> lol, "nazism is not an ongoing danger"

This is amazing, it's like Charlottesville never happened and Bannon never had the president's ear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Germany acts to clamp down on free speach, learning from its own history of clamping down on free speech under both the communists and the nazis.

They are even hiring former stasi people to do it.

[http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/09/17/german-govt- hires...](http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/09/17/german-govt-hires-ex- stasi-agent-patrol-facebook-xenophobic-comments/)

<comment><USER24> The didn't have free speech to begin with. People forget Germany, France and the UK don't have the basic concept of freedom of speech that America does. You could already go to prison for insulting the wrong groups or supporting the wrong political party, and people have.

<comment><USER25> >People forget Germany, France and the UK don't have the basic concept of freedom of speech that America does

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_10_of_the_European_Con...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_10_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights)

<comment><USER24> If you read that, you see there are so many exceptions and they're so subjective (protection of morals?) that it's pretty much not a freedom at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the impact of Twitter's API Limit? - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday Twitter announced a cap on use of their API to 20,000 calls per hr per whitelisted app. This is a low number, and ultimately most of Twitters traffic comes from 3rd party apps.<p>If you run a twitter API based app, what impact does this have on you? Is the restriction specific to IPs of users of the app, or of the app as a whole? <comment><USER2> From the API docs:

"If authentication credentials are provided, the rate limit status for the authenticating user is returned. Otherwise, the rate limit status for the requester's IP address is returned."

[http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#ratelimits...](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#ratelimitstatus)

Remember that the 20,000 calls are for GET requests. POST requests don't count towards that number.

<comment><AUTHOR> So does that mean an authenticated user of an application can have up to 20,000 GET requests per hour?

<comment><USER2> I think it means that the 20,000 requests is for the user/IP that requested white-listing, rather than all the users of that app. I might be wrong though...

<comment><AUTHOR> which isn't alot really... if you had 2000 users :)

<comment><USER2> Very true.

I really wish Twitter had an API more similar to Facebook's FQL system. When I request information from Twitter, there's a lot of excess data that I don't need and don't use, causing unnecessary load on the Twitter servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is a problem of their own making. Returning data that ultimately, alot of developers don't need. For example, returning a specific users follower count requires you to GET a huge XML return.... more specific methods required me thinks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are a ton of apps out there riding essentially for free on the Twitter infrastructure. This kind of rate limiting is hopefully a step towards Twitter charging money for applications that need to go beyond 20k/hour. While they're at it, it would be nice if they allowed users to buy higher API limits as well. If I forget and leave Tweetdeck running on two machines (home and work) I go through my API limit really quick.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it's Twitter's first step to monetization of their API.

</comment><comment><USER5> 20,000 calls per hour = 5 calls per second. Remember this is either per IP address or per username. Is that really a low number?</comment>


What Is Zig's Comptime? - <AUTHOR> https://kristoff.it/blog/what-is-zig-comptime/ <comment><USER2> quite clever and pretty powerful, you can even use it to come up with generic constraints/concepts/contracts in userland without language support. Something along the lines of:

        // A generic Max function that only works for Float & Ints
        fn Max(comptime T: type, a: T, b: T) T {
            switch (@typeInfo(T)) {
                .Float => {}, // all floats are ok
                .Int => {}, // all ints are ok
                else => {
                    @compileError("Max not allowed for type: " ++ @typeName(T));
                },
            }

            return if (a > b) a else b;
        }</comment>