Open Source Warfare - <AUTHOR> http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/09/bazaar_dynamics.html

<comment><USER2> Cute, but without centralized command and control, or at least some sort of efficient communications, there's the potential to heightened vulnerability to deception.

What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary? Without a centralized command and control, there is no one with a global viewpoint to do the fact-checking and correlation that could reveal this.

Also, open source development depends on open and efficient communications. The adversaries can download your releases and and browse your code repository. It's an outside legal framework that protects OS from being co- opted by proprietary actors. Also, very often with Open Source, it _doesn't matter_ if the adversary knows everything you do. Their culture and their legacy code base prevent them from exploiting any advantage the information could give them. In the case of terrorism, these are not barriers. While mainstream culture of the enemy might object, the enemy intelligence services will have no compunctions. There is also no "operating system" for intelligence information.

Lastly, Divide and Conquer has always been one of the best strategies of the imperialists. Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (Who are the intellectual forebears of Al Quaeda.)

The one thing you don't want to do: be the "Big Bad Enemy" that everyone must unite to oppose. At least, don't do it too soon. Wear them down by playing one side against the other and take them down piecemeal, until they realize they must unite to win. (And by then, it's too late and you have them conveniently all in one place. Ref: Julius Caesar in Gaul.)

<comment><AUTHOR> >What if the successful attack opportunities are actually honeypots set up by the adversary?

How many examples of this have we seen in recent experience? (Post Troy ;))

>Distributed cells come pre-divided! Witness the internecine fighting of the various offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Good point - but I think we saw that they also have the ability to unite temporarily to fight off a common enemy.

I think it's not unlike what we see in software: projects fork, groups have internal conflicts, participants lose interest, but one in a hundred (or thousand) will manage to produce something very effective with little resources. It seems like Pakistan (nukes and all) is in danger of soon becoming a major "success" story for this methodology.</comment></comment>


Does Hacker News have a suggestion box? - <AUTHOR> If yes, where is it located? <comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to use this box as a suggestion box. My suggestion: put a "Submit" button/link on the Search page ([https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)) to make submitting a searched-for/not-found link easier.

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _Please don 't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Instead, please send > it to email@example.com._

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, got it.</comment></comment>


Watt time is left - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/watt-time-is-left <comment><USER2> Apple should have added a Amp or Watt usage number, not removed the estimate. Similarly, most new cars have fuel estimates on their dashboards. But its not just miles to empty, its also miles per gallon. So drivers can get feedback on usage rates versus total capacity.

I imagine the argument about this, is that most people don't have any handle on what a Watt or mAh is. But people don't have a good handle on how far 25 miles is, or how much a gallon is in comparison to their tank. Think about it, you rarely see the fuel you put into your car beyond a few drips at the pump. And while you may know that its 25 miles between your house in work, if I took a random point on a map and said find something 25 miles away, with no scale, most people couldn't do it. Gallons and MPG are just arbitrary numbers that consumers have learned how to compare. If you exposed those numbers, they would get a better handling on what their device consumes, and how their activities affect it.

<comment><USER3> They still have the percentage indicator, which is presumably directly proportional to mAh remaining, and people generally have a good understanding of what percentage is.

Using your analogy, your gas gauge doesn't show the number of gallons, it shows a relative level.

<comment><USER4> My car tells me how many miles I have left by basing its estimation on my consumption over the past 30 miles. It has been pretty accurate.

<comment><USER5> I think you can liken the situation with macOS to switching from a gas car to a Hybrid. Gas cars have relatively predictable MPG. Hybrids don't. Your Hybrid can go from 25MPG up to 100+MPG depending on the way you drive, and it can bounce back and forth between the two constantly during a trip. Now, I have to admit, I don't own a car at all and so I don't know if hybrid cars actually try to estimate mileage remaining, but if they do, then surely their estimate will change wildly as you change how you drive (e.g. smooth highway driving to traffic jam to city driving to aggressive driving to defensive driving, etc).

<comment><USER6> I own a Prius. Fuel efficiency doesn't seem to be any more variable than the conventional cars I've driven. The distance remaining estimate seems reasonably accurate in that it goes down ~50 miles after I've driven 50 miles.

<comment><USER5> Whenever I drive a Prius with ZipCar, the MPG numbers change wildly while I drive, and even the average MPG can change by 5–10 miles over the course of a decent drive. I assume the distance remaining estimate is based on that average MPG number, but since I have seen it change by significant amounts, that means the distance remaining estimate certainly is reasonably inaccurate.

If you always drive your car in the same manner then sure, you'll probably have a reasonable estimate. But similarly if all you do with your computer is browse the web, you'll also have a predictable battery remaining estimate. But while many people do drive fairly consistently, your usage of your computer probably has a lot more variety in terms of energy impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I started working on a little CLI battery status indicator even before I knew Apple was going to pull the time remaining feature. On macOS I like to hide the dock and menu bar but usually keep terminal open with tmux running so I decided to write something I could place in my tmux status line where I could keep an eye on my battery life.

[https://github.com/imwally/battstat](https://github.com/imwally/battstat)

<comment><USER8> I've had a python{2,3} script for, like, years, collecting advanced details using _ioreg_.

Sample output:

        ~> ~/Workspace/toolbelt/battery
        Temperature = 2967
        CycleCount = 384
        DesignCapacity = 6600
        MaxCapacity = 6362
        WearRatio = 96%
        CurrentCapacity = 5886
        ChargeRatio = 92%
        Voltage = 12162
        Amperage = -1061
        InstantAmperage = 64286
        InstantTimeToEmpty = 8:34
        TimeRemaining = 5:33
        AvgTimeToEmpty = 5:33
        FullToEmptyTime = 5:59

[https://github.com/lloeki/toolbelt/blob/master/battery](https://github.com/lloeki/toolbelt/blob/master/battery)

<comment><USER9> This is awesome. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I haven't upgraded to 10.12 yet, but this seems like a good time to remind people about coconutBattery [1].

You can't see a prediction in minutes yet (maybe they'll add one with Apple removing it), but the battery metrics have always been more useful than for me than what's built-in. You can see the discharge rate, current charge, full capacity, and original capacity though.

[1]: [http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/](http://www.coconut- flavour.com/coconutbattery/)

<comment><USER11> Thank you! It has "time until empty" indicator (%r) [http://imgur.com/a/74qLJ](http://imgur.com/a/74qLJ)

<comment><USER10> Oh, cool. I hadn't seen the menu bar option before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If the core problem is supposed to be that power usage is now more erratic, how about this small refinement:

\- Compute discharge rates for one minute segments, like Ted did in this post

\- Store the last 10 discharge rates

\- Report a time estimate based on the minimum/median/maximum of those 10 rates.

That gives fairly quick feedback after you start doing something expensive, but isolates the effect of short-lived and infrequent bursts.

<comment><USER13> It's not as if erratic power usage is a new thing, anyway. My 2013 MPB's battery life can easily vary by an order of magnitude. It'll last 10+ hours if it's sitting there not doing much, or maybe an hour with an intense 3D game. The estimate they provided up to 10.12.1 was still quite good if I was doing the same thing for a while, which I usually am.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wrote a battery meter (BatteryBar) 8 years ago that uses a more complex algorithm to calculate an "average time remaining" rather than instantaneous. Basically, my software keeps track of how long the battery has lasted in the past and uses that to inform the current time remaining (with adjustments based on current discharge rates, etc).

I'm not sure why Microsoft/Apple haven't done something similar. I've even sold licenses to Surface Pro sales reps that they use to show off the battery life of the Surface to potential enterprise clients.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there a background for this? I don't understand the article.

<comment><USER16> Apple removes the 'time remaining' battery estimate in new macOS update

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/13/13939278/apple-macos- sier...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/13/13939278/apple-macos-sierra-new- macbook-pros-battery-life)

<comment><USER17> Well that's simply the silliest way to try and solve the battery-life issues of the new laptops.

<comment><USER18> That's not what they're doing. They're recognizing that the estimate has always been misleading.

<comment><USER13> Quite an amazing coincidence that they recognized this _right_ after they released a new line of computers whose battery life failed to live up to expectations.

And quite annoying that they're "recognizing" this, when it's often quite useful and not at all misleading. I made good use of that display before, and now they've taken it away.

<comment><USER19> > _Quite an amazing coincidence that they recognized this right after they > released a new line of computers whose battery life failed to live up to > expectations._

Or was reported to have "failed to live up to expectations", by idiots who merely assumed the estimate and didn't bother to do an actual clock wall check.

<comment><USER13> So I'm being punished for the actions of some idiots I never met? That's not better.

<comment><USER19> No, I doubt they changed it to punish Mike Ash specifically.

Rather they decided to cut the fake precision (X hours YY minutes) and stick to the segmented-battery icon display.

It's like some statistics were saying there's a 45.32% chance of something, just because that's what their simplistic division of the samples gives them, despite the confidence margin being plus/minus 5 percentage points.

Instead, they now tell you it's "between 40% and 50%".

The target audience of the statistics is not "punished because some idiots took 45.32% literally". They are just shown a better value.

<comment><USER20> More correct but less useful isn't actually better. An estimate of time remaining is more meaningful than a percentage of battery capacity remaining, even if the latter can be provided with more accuracy.

<comment><USER19> > _More correct but less useful isn 't actually better._

I'd argue that more correct is by definition more useful.

<comment><USER20> Correct but inactionable is useless. It's basically undeniably correct that our universe will eventually die of entropic heat death. This isn't useful, though.

Projections about Earth's global warming are undoubtedly less correct but far more useful because they are actionable.

Correctness is _not_ synonymous with usefulness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So is there any good (hopefully free/open) third-party solution to bring it back to the menu bar on the mac?

<comment><USER22> Sure, iStat Menus is great.

<comment><USER23> Seconded on iStat Menus. Despite its cost, it shows a _ton_ of useful statistics, including moving graphs of CPU activity, network IO, storage IO, etc.. It's easy to customize the display so you see just what you care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Years ago (probably 2009) I wrote a small utility which polls the SMC to get current and voltage readings and from hardware. Wrapped it up in a simple app which shows realtime power consumption in my menu bar.

Didn't do much with it since the SMC keys differ for pretty much every piece of hardware Apple create and there is practically no information so it requires some investigation for each.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone on the latest update of macOS confirm whether the time prediction is also gone from Activity Monitor > Energy at the bottom?

<comment> yoz-y The estimate is still there, you can also get if by running `pmset -g batt`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't think it's fair to suggest Apple removed the battery life indicator because they don't know how to make one.

<comment><USER13> It's a joke. Of course they know how to make one. They had one in 10.12.1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > sysctl -A | ag watt

Gives nothing. Why it's not shown? rMBP late 2013, macOS 10.12.2.

<comment><USER27> The author is using a Thinkpad running OpenBSD. I don't think macos or linux kernels expose battery info as kernel state.

Also, thanks for using ag. :)

<comment><USER26> > I don't think macos or linux kernels expose battery info as kernel state.

Bummer.

> Also, thanks for using ag. :)

Thank you for making it ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They removed it to cut down on complaints. Most people wont get the advertised 10 hours, and now most people wont notice.

<comment><USER29> Or:

Most people will get the advertised 10 hours, and now people won't think they're not because of an inaccurate estimate.

<comment><USER28> I guess it depends. Seems like people are getting more that 10 hours out of it when used for light tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 197.45836985100788781720 is grossly superfluous precision is it not?

</comment><comment><USER31> The point is that those estimates aren't actually accurate. That they mislead the end user so they don't belong in primary UI.

This article is nice to show that you can get the data from the command line (you can still get it elsewhere in macOS too) but the snark at Apple for saying they _can 't_ do it when it's in fact a deliberate design choice just makes the author look uninformed & petty.

<comment><USER32> It doesn't matter if they aren't perfectly accurate. Neither is the battery "percentage"; it's a constructed number that usually has an unintuitive relationship with the actual physical state of the battery. The point is that it's a useful number, as it answers the question "approximately how much longer can I keep doing what I'm doing right now?".

<comment><USER31> Percentage is pretty darn accurate actually. Mostly because it's based on remaining charge not fluctuations in load like time.

You can measure this yourself with any lipoly batteries you have at home. It's quite reliable

<comment><USER33> Percentage is a dynamically constructed estimate too. It's more accurate because the underlying variables tend to change more slowly and predictably, but the actual charge levels corresponding to "0%" and "100%" aren't fixed, and the calculations do sometimes drift noticeably from reality.

<comment><USER13> Incidentally, this is why you'll sometimes see an improvement in battery life if you do a full discharge. It's not that it's good for the battery itself (quite the opposite, in fact), but it gives the estimator a better view of how the battery is behaving, so it can better estimate the charge level at any given point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Get a Real Education - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704101604576247143383496656-lMyQjAxMTAxMDIwMDEyNDAyWj.html

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2426459>

</comment><comment><USER3> Some false premises:

That a B student shouldn't learn physics, mathematics and can't be an engineer (whether software or even electrical or mechanical engineering).

That it isn't worth it for a B student to study the classics.

That entrepreneurship is easier than hard sciences or engineering: from what I've seen, the skill-sets involved are orthogonal, and such a blanket statement can't be made.

</comment><comment><USER4> Re-reading this after his sockpuppet outing, it reads even more smug, self- congratulatory & non-ethical.

</comment><comment><USER5> The argument for teaching physics (or any subject) to everyone is that with a basic understanding of the subject, one can make better decisions regarding things like global warming, standing on a spinning chair with wheels to change a light bulb, being deathly afraid of nuclear power, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> A bit smug. Is there no use for a renaissance man any more?

<comment><USER7> I think there's a place for a Renaissance man; I fancy myself a fledgling. But the Renaissance man of yore was independently wealthy, or engaged in a profitable enterprise not accessible to the mundanes: the combination of useful breadth and interesting depth requires resources both temporal and monetary.

So to focus on a largely dull, specialized and marketable education in one's youth is no sin. It allows the development of that depth later on.

There is room for abstract math and creative writing and painting and essay writing, but they should be a side dish to the main course of "Getting Shit Done."

<comment><USER8> I've always said that becoming a generalist is a two-step process:

1\. Become a specialist

2\. Become a generalist

Step one is important because it gives you a useful and marketable skill to support yourself while you're working on step two, but also because it means you understand what it _really_ means to be an expert on something. This gives you some humility and perspective when you start attacking all the other domains of human knowledge.</comment></comment></comment>


Why is no one competing with airbnb? - <AUTHOR> https://amanthinketh.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/why-is-no-one-competing-with-airbnb/

<comment><USER2> There are other services already, as mentioned by some other posters.

But why don't you see a lot of new entries into the market and more competition happening right now. Totally speculating, but it could be because AirBnB has brought so much attention that a number of states in the US are creating new barriers to entry for other companies and are preventing some of the innovation. States are trying to prevent revenue loss on bed and sales tax etc so they want to make sure they legislate the hell out of short term rentals.

In Florida where I am, if you rent your property for short terms (generally < 6 months at a time I believe) you are treated more like a motel operator than a property owner. So you are subject to a host of taxes and potentially license requirements that you wouldn't be otherwise. There are entire companies down here that manage these types of properties for the large number of absentee owners. From what I understand those companies require a licensed real estate agent if they are going to market the home for rent because the home owner isn't doing it themselves. Not sure how that plays with AirBnB, but I'd think you escape it if you posted your own home up there. But I know last year Florida was trying to change state laws to make it more difficult for these sharing type services.

I think AirBnB used the oops, sorry we didn't know excuse a lot. And then they have had a war chest of cash to work with the states to come to some reasonable agreements, or lobby for changes. But I don't think it is over by any means, and so new startups have more hurdles to overcome in some of the states most prone to use a service like this. I think once it shakes out and the rules are better known and understood, then you might get some startups that popup. This is after the initial cash outlay from AirBnB to lobby for reasonable rules etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I deliberately chose to use vrbo.com over airbnb.com for my last rental. Interestingly the condo was available on both and the rental terms were more favorable on vrbo.com for security deposit and the like.

I do not know how big a competitor vrbo.com is, but they exist.

<comment><USER4> I see a lot more press -- and particularly in Silicon Valley/startup/texh- oriented outlets -- about AirBnB, but I have heard a lot more (in person) about people using VRBO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> VRBO and HomeAway are both competing, and were earlier to market by many years over AirBNB. AirBnb actually pivoted to this space.</comment>


Ask HN: What are great resourcing to learn bash? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I made a one-page bash guide a few years ago, which is what I consult when I forget things (like string variable operators). Near the bottom of the page is a short list of the best books and websites I've found on the subject.

[http://www.adamponting.com/mac-terminal/](http://www.adamponting.com/mac- terminal/)

</comment><comment><USER3> My goto: [https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html)

Create a script for something you're currently typing out by hand.. Then use those commands for a script.. Expand from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The small 1984 book, The Unix Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike. Still the best written tutorial of shell programming I've found.</comment>


Show HN: TrafficCop.html – A Mobile Friendly HTML5 Micro-Framework - <AUTHOR> TrafficCop.html - A Mobile Friendly HTML5 Micro-Framework
Tired of "Responsive Web Design"? Check out TrafficCop! Simply create a mobile version of your website and place it between the <div class="mobile"> </div> tags, and then create a desktop version to be placed between the <div class="desktop"> </div> tags and you're done! You can check it out here:

    http://personalhomepage.xyz/TrafficCop-0.1.html
 Right click and view source. Enjoy :) <comment><USER2> This creates unlabeled duplicate content. It's a bad idea. Just change the CSS under the media queries as you're already doing.

Or if you're going to be creating two pieces of contents, do a subdomain (m.personalhomepage.xyz) and place a canonical tag.

There are many options, this isn't good standard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would you be tired of responsive web design?</comment>


Show HN: Sourcevoid – An application-focused cloud platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.sourcevoid.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello Hacker News readers, my name is Robert and I'm the founder of Sourcevoid.

If you wonder what this post is all about, I'll tell you. I'm been working on Sourcevoid for years now trying to built a great developer experience from the ground up. A short time ago we released our service into the world and while we do have some visitors and signups we have not gotten much feedback, and especially from Nodejs developers.

So if you are a Nodejs developer, what do you think of Sourcevoid? Does it look like a service you would consider for your next project? If not, please share why your alternative is a better pick for you.

I'm open to answer any questions you might have right here in public or in private if that better suits your needs.

Ps. Of course I'm happy to hear feedback from any developer, not just Nodejs developers. Ds.</comment>


A brief walk-through of the ng-options in AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.undefinednull.com/2014/08/11/a-brief-walk-through-of-the-ng-options-in-angularjs/ <comment><USER2> dsfff

</comment><comment><USER2> ssd</comment>


Ranger - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ranger/ranger/ <comment><USER2> From the link:

ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. It ships with rifle, a file launcher that is good at automatically finding out which program to use for what file type.</comment>


Defining A Growth Hacker: How  Growth Hackers Changed Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/07/defining-a-growth-hacker-5-ways-growth-hackers-changed-marketing/ <comment><USER2> This term is another new marketing jargon in lines of Social Media Guru, Analytics Ninja, Blogger Outreach program Specialist .. and so on...

This guys does which every bootstrapped founder or a good marketer do.</comment>


Facebook's shifting Russian ads stories have damaged its credibility - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/8/16277144/facebook-russian-ads-political-explainer-credibility <comment><USER2> Facebook has credibility?</comment>


Ask HN: Those of you who who have had PRK, how was the recovery? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Everyone,<p>I'm curious how long it took those who had PRK or LASEK to recover and be back to work e.g. coding and looking at a monitor for many hours a day.  My insurance company is offering to reimburse 40-50% of PRK costs, so I'm thinking of getting it done sooner than later.  Anyway how did it go for you guys/girls? <comment><USER2> I had PRK when I was 19 (almost 10 years ago) so I can say with confidence you'll want to go the LASIK route if you can. With PRK, they scrape away the outer layer of your cornea so a laser can reshape its surface. With LASIK, they cut open your cornea and operate on the lens itself.

While cutting may sound traumatic, it doesn't affect your vision (they put a protective contact lens over it afterwards, it heals very quickly) and you come out of the operation seeing 20/20\. With PRK, your cornea has to re-grow the cells that were scraped away during the operation which causes your vision to be cloudy for around a week. During this time your eyes will be painfully sensitive to light and you likely wouldn't be able to use a computer for 4-7 days. Another downside to PRK - you don't know how well the operation went until your eyes have fully recovered 2-3 weeks after surgery.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just had LASIK a few weeks ago and the experience was great. I was told I could go back to work the next day. After surgery (4pm), I was asked to keep my eyes closed as much as possible for the rest of the night. At my 9am appointment the next morning, they already tested me as having 20/15 vision. I didn't experience any discomfort looking at my screen (for probably about 7-8 total hours over the day).

As far as I understand, PRK has little bit longer recovery, maybe 3-5 days, as it's a slightly different procedure (carving your cornea directly instead of cutting a flap, doing the work and putting it back). I'm not a doctor so I can't speak to exactly what's recommended with both or what to expect but my LASIK experience was great and I was told I could go back to work the next day.</comment>


Canon DSLR Camera Infected with Ransomware over the Air - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/canon-dslr-camera-infected-with-ransomware-over-the-air/ <comment><USER2> I'll stick to my film cameras for a bit longer.

<comment><USER3> Have fun at the ATM taking cash out to buy film.

<comment><USER2> Can't trust ATM machines. I make my own film.

<comment><USER3> How do you buy the film chemicals? Online?

Interesting that you can make your own film. How well does homemade film work?

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry. I wasn't being serious.

I do shoot film exclusively though. At the lab I buy my film and get it developed, they do sell homemade film. I've seen some fantastic results from the B&W film community members make.

I'm also in the middle of building a dark room in my basement.

FYI I use either Android pay or debit to buy my film</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Using Creative Cold Emails to Acquire Customers - <AUTHOR> https://www.starterstory.com/blog/how-we-got-hundreds-of-customers-through-creative-cold-emailing <comment><USER2> I'm so tired of all this automated cold email/calling bullshit. It's way out of hand and well beyond levels that led to the Do Not Call Registry. If your business relies on buying emails lists from shady 3rd-party data partners and blasting them, I do not want to do business with you. Ever.

If I did not give you my email address, I do not want your emails. If I did not give you my phone number, I do not want to talk to you. Stop wasting my incredibly valuable time.

Want my business? Do the work to earn it rather than sending templated crap from a CRM.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd just like to note this does not pass the golden rule. If every company spent hours to make "relevant" emails that got past spam filters and into all of our inboxes, then our inboxes would be full of "relevant" emails that we generally are not interested in and would be crowding out our actually important ones. We'd all be wasting much more of our precious time wading through marketing pitches to use our email.

To me this is the worst part about "growth hacking". If you are going to grow your business by being a higher scale spammer, ok, but just don't go bragging about it. You are stealing tons of people's attention and time for a very small percentage of them that will go on to be a customer. What percentage of people unsubscribe from the emails? What percent report it as spam? What percent send you angry responses because your sales tactic made their day a little worse? Those metrics seem to be missing from the story.

At least the person who knocks on my door to sell me something is wasting more of their own time than my time. By doing sales in this automated way, you are making a way to steal much more of their time than your time. The fact that you went slightly above the lowest common denominator doesn't make it right.

And again, sales is a dirty business and this is certainly not out of the ordinary. But have the decency not to brag about it. Nor brag about it so much that another "growth hacking" website re-publishes the story as a way to do their own growth hacking.

</comment><comment><USER4> The quality of the spam does not affect its status as spam. These people make the internet worse.

<comment><USER5> Any unsolicited email is automatically spam, even if the end recipient found value in it and did end up buying the product?

<comment><USER3> I'm sure one person out of a billion has bought viagra from a spam email, it doesn't mean all of those were fine.

There is no cut and dry rule, but here is a simple heuristic that will apply to most emails you write and receive: If it takes longer to write it than it does to read it, it isn't spam. This metric also generally applies to cold emails as well. However, once you start automating emails then it is a slippery slope and you'll very quickly end up in the spam range.

<comment><USER6> The rule is "is it bulk? is it unsolicited?" this is long established.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "finding email addresses"... unless they're on the company's website and are supposed to be contacted for possible sales, this is called spamming.

I get lots of 'creative spam' daily. Drip campaigns. Wanting to 'set up a call' and 'how about Thursday at 2pm'. When you ask where they got your email, it's always 'LinkedIn', 'from a mutual contact', or 'I just guessed it'. No, you didn't. You bought it from a shady list reseller who hacked and scraped it together.

For most folks, mark them as spam and forget about it. If you want to get more involved, report them to their upstream web host for spamming (which will be against the terms of service). Maybe call them out on social media for being an unethical company others should avoid.

</comment><comment><USER8> Most companies generally protect their logo with very strict intellectual property devices. I suspect that a very small number of recipients would have a very big problem with someone else incorporating their logo into third party marketing material. More specifically, they might get the impression that these shirts are already produced somewhere laying in a warehouse to be sold to anyone who wants them without their permission. They might not like that.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the the most creative spam I have ever seen.</comment>


Tell HN: Hacker Newsletter - <AUTHOR>

Timing is everything and two days ago there was a great post by Jason about Email Newsletters Are Still A Serious Business: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488170
Jason's first article about newsletters almost a year ago is what first got me thinking about this idea. The front page of HN always has great reads that provide value to me. However, there are times when I can't get on for a week or when I know if I open HN I will end up on there for an hour or more. I have heard others share the same situation, and at the time thought some sort of newsletter would be a great fit with the content on HN. I didn't have time to pursue that idea at the time, but recently I found some notes that stirred my memory and along with the new Hacker Monthly (which I didn't think would work when Lim first talked about it, but after seeing the first edition and how he pulled it off - I stand corrected), I am moving forward with it.
The Hacker Newsletter will be a weekly collection of the top items on Hacker News. I will link to articles (and comments) based on votes/comments, and there will be an editorial side to it where I might add/remove things based on what I think is most useful for a weekly digest. I will also feature the best "Ask HN" posts, job threads, and a look back at some past articles that would still be useful today. Lastly, I want to do some original content as well and have some different ideas that I am working on, but one will be highlighting projects that HN members have release (both small and large).
Depending on how large the list gets and my time spent on it, I probably will include an ad (hopefully from HN startups) and/or job postings to help pay for it later on.
I want to build something that will serve the HN crowd well, so any feedback is very welcome. The first email will go out this Saturday and you can opt-in at: http://www.hackernewsletter.com/
Thanks, Kale <comment><USER2> How will this compare to <http://hackermonthly.com> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think both ideas help us consume the best items on HN and complement each other. My newsletter won't contain the actual article, but it will be more timely in some cases and cover more items (both since it is weekly).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link: <http://www.hackernewsletter.com/>

<comment><USER3> Awesome idea. I signed up.

<comment><USER4> Sounds interesting and I've signed up too.

After I entered my mail and hit enter, it reloaded the exact same frontpage without any notification. Therefore I didn't immediately know whether it worked or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I didn't spend much time on the design of the site yet (which was really hard for me) because I wanted to get it launched quickly, but there is some text that shows up under the submit button after you click on it - _Almost finished. We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you._.

I will work on making that easier to see by maybe jumping to another page or something. It is a double opt-in list meaning you will get an email that you will have to click on to confirm. Let me know if you don't and I can look into it more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are we at the beginning of a marketplace over hackernews ? (not that this is a bad thing )

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome, have signed up. Wait to get the first issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> Please let us know about how many signups you got (in a couple of days)! Thanks :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It hit 200 today, which is a little lower than I had hoped... but I think once the first couple newsletters go out people will have a better idea if it fits their needs or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.instapaper.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> not directly related to the newsletter but what do you use for to collect te emails and send the newsletter?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mail Chimp - <http://www.mailchimp.com>

I've used them before when clients had needed a newsletter and it seemed to be a good fit. I haven't spent much time on customizing everything this time around though, but I will work on that.

<comment><USER8> Ok thanks, will tke a closer look.</comment></comment></comment>


Startup company says it is one step closer to creating nuclear fusion - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/startup-lpp-fusion-s-device-exploits-instabilities-to-fuse-atoms/article/503354 <comment><USER2> Lerner has been beating this drum for years, and presented at many conferences. And yet no one has invested. I'd love to know why. Either there's a catch to the technology that he's not disclosing (and the smart money doesn't have a motivation to disclose), or he's asking for unreasonable business terms.

The only thing I know for sure is there's no lack of capital available for good fusion research. Not if the money raised by Tri-Alpha, General Fusion, and others is an indicator.

<comment><USER3> My dad was a navy nuke and said that the cost v safety v portability of fission was far superior to that of fusion. That was back in the 90s, so I wonder if it's still relevant, but a quick search [1] seemed to confirm the general idea.

[1] diffen.com/difference/Nuclear_Fission_vs_Nuclear_Fusion

<comment><USER4> I think you should listen to him.

Fusion is still vapourware. For it to ever be viable outside a few niches, it will have to beat fission in price, because it will probably share many characteristics with fission plants (high capital costs, low cost of fuel, radioactive waste, huge plants).

Fusion somehow ended up being branded as the future of energy. But the prospects aren't looking good so far. Fission plants are probably already too expensive to have much of a future.

<comment><USER5> The project featured in the article, if successful, will produce no radioactive waste, fits inside a garage, and will likely be cheap overall. Unlike the well-funded laser and tokamak designs which get most media coverage and still don't work well and are unbelievably expensive.

<comment><USER6> In discussions of new nuclear technology, it's always a good idea to keep in mind the famous Paper Reactors Real Reactors document written by the architect of the worlds most successful nuclear power program.

[http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Rickover.pdf](http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Rickover.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Elon Musk addressed the idea of creating nuclear fusion on earth by saying something along the lines of, "why would we do that, there's a huge nuclear fusion generator in the sky that we can use to generate all the power we need"

<comment><USER8> Thats what I'd say if I was selling energy storage.

<comment><USER9> Or owned a solar company.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, it's exactly what I _wouldn't_ say if I was building an interplanetary colony ship.

Not if I thought it had any realistic chance of success, anyway.

<comment><USER2> The Sun shines on Mars too. Solar energy is a practical source of energy as far out as the asteroid belt. Nuclear energy isn't needed to accomplish anything that Musk wants to accomplish in life.

<comment><USER10> Nuclear _propulsion_ would make colonisation much more practical, much safer, and return trips much cheaper.

<comment><USER2> Maybe. I understand the physics says there's an ISP benefit. Standard rocket engines are well-understood though, work well, allow for retro-propulsion, and you can synthesize methane easily on Mars.

In the long term when the space transport infrastructure is as well developed as the terrestrial one, I can see the benefit of having different systems for different purposes, so you get the specialized benefits. But I'm not sure we are there yet.

To use an analogy from history, we aren't at the Golden Spike moment yet where California was sufficiently settled to warrant a continental rail road connecting the East and West Coasts. We're still in the exploration and settlement stage, and while trains may be more energy efficient, what we need is a Conestoga Wagon that can be operated and maintained by the settlers themselves while they live off the land and develop the first homesteads.

<comment><USER10> In the absence of a working fusion reactor, everything is necessarily speculative. That said, going from chemical to nuclear propulsion is estimated to reduce round-trip times from ~600 days (you have to wait at Mars for the orbits to realign), to 30 days.

This is roughly the difference between an 1881 steamliner from London to Syndey, and a 747.

<comment><USER2> NASA is working on it, but until there's a working engine available for private rockets it seems premature.

[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/201...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2017/nasa- contracts-with-bwxt-nuclear-energy-to-advance-nuclear-thermal-propulsion- technology.html)

<comment><USER10> Ordinarily I would agree. However, this is Musk, and both SpaceX and Tesla have made progress beyond what most commentors have thought reasonable when the first press releases went out.

I'd guess a 10%-30% chance SpaceX is already Skunkworks-ing some form of atomic rocket, either fusion or fission.

Edit: and yes, that estimate is _despite_ the public comments.

<comment><USER2> Well you and I are just speculating, so who knows. But I sort of doubt it. People would have noticed if SpaceX was hiring nuclear engineers. I think they have enough R&D on their plate getting to full reusability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How to judge the merits of different fusion concepts: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk)

</comment><comment><USER12> So the journey of a thousand miles has finally begun for them?

If I have learned anything about fusion articles in the tech news, it is that fusion research is always really expensive and everyone is always tantalizingly close to a breakthrough whenever they need more funding.

</comment><comment><USER13> So now we're 49 years away instead of the proverbial 50 years we've always been at?

<comment><USER14> Nah, it's one step closer, not a full year closer yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think its possible that a lot of people are waiting to see what ITER brings to the table.

</comment><comment><USER16> Didn't read the article yet, but this is relevant to the discussion.

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk)

</comment><comment><USER17> Url changed from [https://futurism.com/a-startup-claims-to-have-found-a- soluti...](https://futurism.com/a-startup-claims-to-have-found-a-solution-to- stabilize-nuclear-fusion/), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: Beginning freelance web developer: no clients - portfolio? - <AUTHOR> A short introduction: I'm a programmer with appr. 8 years of experience mainly in desktop C/C++ apps, currently trying to become freelance web developer. 3 months ago I started my intensive (at least to my standards) study of web development with the goal to become "free" and work from home, with my own schedule, etc...
Since I'm constantly reading that a freelance web developer without online portfolio of websites/apps developed for previous clients is a big No-No, I was wondering how to get away with this chicken-and-egg problem of having no clients <-> having no projects done for clients.
My plan so far is to deploy my websites/projects that I'm currently developing (and will develop) to my personal site and use them as a "fake" projects with the idea that they are actually "real-world". Let me explain a bit about what projects I'm planning to develop:
1. E-Commerce site
* Features: product catalog (departments, categories), product attributes and images, product reviews and recommendations, admin panel, shopping cart, customer/user accounts, ordering pipeline, credit card transactions (DataCash, Authorize.net), amazon.com web services
* Technologies: PHP (from scratch - in order to learn), MySQL (stored procedures),
Smarty templates, AJAX (shopping cart updates), keyword-rich URLs (from scratch).
2. Community site for people with shared interests (let's say books)
* PHP + Zend framework (mainly to learn how to develop an app from scratch with Zend), Unit testing (PHPUnit), JavaScipt (jQuery), Web services (amazon, google calendar, youtube)
3. Another E-Commerce site
* This time developed with Zend Framework for the learning experience
4. Custom CMS
* Zend Framework
5. Music mashup app
* Zend Framework, Web services (RSS, amazon, youtube)
6. Blogging app
* Zend Framework, JavaScript (prototype, scrip.aculo.us), Smarty templates, Image gallery, Google Maps
My plan: From these, the #1 (the e-commerce site from scratch) is 2/3 done, I'm learning a ton... With the help of a good friend (and beginner web designer), we'll beautify the site, but we're wondering what kind of e-shop (regarding the types of products) is most suited for a portfolio in order to impress future clients?
The million-dollar questions:
* What do you guys think of my plan for getting complete applications and experience in my portfolio?
* Which of the above projects that I've planned would you scrap, or which would you prefer?
* What about Drupal: does it worth it to create a couple of full-featured (a restaurant site, image gallery, job board, etc.) (but still "fake") sites with it in order to show that I have these skills. Or generally, developing with Zend+JS as a sort of "specialization" will be more viable for my goals?
It is essential to NOTE that I plan to start bidding for projects on the freelance site (elance, odesk, etc.) and use my "fake" portfolio of home made projects in order to get work. <comment><USER2> I've been freelancing and doing contract work my entire career - nigh on 13 years now. There's a mass of things I could tell you, but I'll try be succinct and tell you what I think will be most valuable.

Technology doesn't pay the bills. Clean code, good architecture, solid frameworks - they count far, far less than you wish they did. As developers, we're systems oriented, looking for the ideal approach, the 'right' way. 90% of clients are more worried about the right shade of cornflower blue. Don't lose your idealism about making use of the right tech stack, and where pragmatic, don't miss an opportunity to explain why it's important.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that's what counts for clients. There will be exceptions, but generally the guy with the purse strings isn't technical, and is in no position to appraise your use of tech.

You need to practice _business_ as much as you plan to demonstrate technical competence. Negotiation, selling, conflict resolution (it'll happen), knowing when to walk away (that too) and probably the hardest thing - embracing risk. Many chant the 'fail fast' mantra, but I'd rather point out that our caveman brains are badly suited to accepting that risk is vital. Cold calling is terrifying, as is naming a price, telling a client they're wrong, and so many parts of simply staying alive.

Otherwise, go make some luck.

<comment><USER3> > Technology doesn't pay the bills. [...] Don't lose your idealism about > making use of the right tech stack, and where pragmatic, don't miss an > opportunity to explain why it's important. [...] generally the guy with the > purse strings isn't technical, and is in no position to appraise your use of > tech.

You know, I've never understood this line of argument. The way I see it, the client is either clever enough to see technology really is not important to the problem at hand or too dumb to realize it is. If the former, you'd be guilty of overengineering and missing your client's objective (by being too costly, too complicated, etc). If the latter, why would you care to explain and "do the right thing" (the client will not pay for things he doesn't know are important)?

There are many technical people who feel underappreciated by their clients or management peers. I think the only solution is to find out if the wizardry really is needed in the first place; if it's not, do the minimum (if you accept at all); if it is, then let the bozo fail and either compete (you know something they don't) or leave for a better client/customer/mgmt. Will pay better and you get to keep your sanity and pride.

<comment><USER2> > If the former, you'd be guilty of overengineering and missing your client's > objective (by being too costly, too complicated, etc). If the latter, why > would you care to explain and "do the right thing" (the client will not pay > for things he doesn't know are important)?

Too often developers do what we see as 'right' technically, which is not necessarily 'right' for the client / project. It's not something to be 'guilty' of, just something to be aware of. Although there is a balance - I've often fought for things and had them save the client's ass later.

And as for explaining why something is important - because the client should have an appreciation for why they hired _you_, not someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When we set up our agency, here's what worked:

* Work for cheap/free if you have to. You want to do this quickly, if you do a site for free the client will be more willing to go ahead straight away as it requires little decision making. We did a website for a primary school and a couple of photographers we knew to start off with. Charities might be good to approach for this.

* Fake sites sound like a good idea but why bother when you could actually help other businesses/charities and get 'real-world' experience of dealing with clients.

* You need to have low prices to start with. Small businesses are willing to give other small businesses a shot, but won't have as much budget as bigger companies. Over time you can decide where you want to take the business and start charging more as you build a reputation. Your aim at this point is to build a portfolio, so you can charge more later on. Our day rate has more than doubled since we started out.

* Classified ads on Gumtree or equivalent in your area. We met two of our biggest clients through classified ads (just be honest, link to your site and try and get across your ethos).

* Examine personal network, previous employers etc... they already trust you and may have work that can keep you going.

* Get involved with a co-working space, this is a great way to meet prospective clients and other small businesses.

* No one else ever seems to recommend this, but cold calling worked for us, though I admit it was painful. We got one of our biggest hedge fund clients via a cold call. We don't really use this any more as our business comes from word of mouth, but it's something you can do if there's a specific type of client you want and you know how to pitch them.

Remember this is one of the hardest bits, once you gain some momentum and build a portfolio it will get easier.

</comment><comment><USER5> Focus on what you don't know. With 8 years of C++ you don't need to be doing 50% of the things on that list. Web development isn't that hard :) For example, you don't mention anything about html, css or javascript. Or design.

If you think these things aren't important; think again. Most clients will be more happy with tight html/css that sticks to the design they agreed to than they will ever be with your server side code.

On that note: if you have professional designs and you get clients to sign off on them 100% at the start, you will have far fewer problems at the end. People tend to change their minds 500 times about what they want things to look like, and it will cost you money if you just let it drag on arbitrarily. First it's "can you please move that text over a bit", then it's "oh i really want to add a social sharing widget, if you don't mind", then "oooh yeah we really wanted a _gallery_ of pictures here.. and please could they connect to my flikr account, and umm.." etc. If you have a contract (an image) of every page then they sign off it, or pay more at the end for adjustments (at double the rate, of course ;))

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi.. Well.. maybe this will surprise you, but I am working as a Freelancer web developer, and it's really a rare thing to provide a portfolio to my client!

I am getting jobs through freelancer.. you can sign up here: <http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/ahmed613/>

Facebook apps are a valuable source of income for me.. as most of my work is related to Facebook apps.. you should be good in the Facebook graph API.

Also there are Twitter and AWS APIs jobs there..

You will make on average around $20 to $30 on that website... but I recommend you to make your bids the lowest, so you can build a good reviews for your profile.

Just to give you some tips on how to get a job.. Once you bid on a project, you should send a PM message to the employer, explaining to him how you can achieve the job, and make that in a very simple and clear way.

Give a clear deadline to the client/employer and be responsive.

Believe me.. you won't need a portfolio.. I am getting jobs on daily basis from this website.. and it really works perfect for me!

As you go working, you will get more reviews on projects you build.. and that will be better than any portfolio.

Good luck, Ahmed.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you don't have any projects to show them, just don't talk about it unless they ask, instead talk about what you are going to build them. That has worked splendidly for me.

I honestly believe that most people don't at all care what you've done before if you just talk to them like you know what you are doing. When you see a job post asking for some feature, just tell them how you are planning on executing it.

Also always ask at least one question if you can. It means you've taken an interest and that you seem like you want to cover every base. (or so I choose to believe) That especially works on dating sites.

When I started out in August I had virtually nothing to show because while I had done plenty of programming before, I had never executed and polished a whole project. All my experience was stretched out across years of tinkering, school and reading.

Alternatively, if you want to build on real things you could send me an email as I get overloaded with work sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd recommend building a project for a friend (for free) to start your portfolio, they will appreciate it and you'll use it. Do this for a couple of projects. Most programmers I know think they're selling their soul when they do free work, but in this case theres no shame in doing it, its like doing an internship on your terms.

</comment><comment><USER9> The things you're making aren't fake, if they're functional, they're perfectly real. No one cares that you built it for yourself, you built it and that shows you know how. Dont call them fake, call them personal projects that demonstrate your ability.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why I've put <fake> in quotes ;) ... to emphasize that I believe (or hope) that these projects are perfectly real-world and relatively diverse in order to be able to start doing more similar real-world + real-money projects.

My question in regard was basically whether these "fake" personal projects can convince a prospective client that I'm for real. That is, if these personal projects are not on separate domains (like it will be if they were for _real_ clients), wouldn't they look superficial, and yes, fake?

<comment><USER10> You could, relatively easily, buy 'real' domains and host them there. It's not 'that' expensive. $9/year for a domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Build fake projects? Geez, I think you already have the wrong mindset for starting your own business. If you are going to put the time into building a site, try to monetize that thing (no fakes.) Who knows, down the road you might be making enough money off that site or collection of sites so that you can quit client work.

I also think that you are suffering from the classic symptom of trying to get everything just right before starting. When building a web app you want to get that thing up as fast as possible, even if it's ugly. Build a minimum viable product and connect with customers each step of the way. Test for interest, etc. You don't want to spend too much time getting everything correct just to find that you wasted your time because nobody cares for your idea.

Take a similar approach with web development. You could start out banging out sites in Drupal or Wordpress and each of these content management systems require more configuration than actual programming. You can learn these quickly and with minimal to no PHP. Your interest may be more in building web applications from scratch and there is a market for that, but you don't have to start out there. I know of plenty of people making a living strictly from building sites using already available content management systems.

Look through sites like Odesk and Elance for the types of jobs available. You might find the occasional gem in these places and even land a regular client. Don't feel bad for your lack of experience, you just need to be able to sell yourself and communicate well. Trust me, there are far worse people actually landing the jobs there.

Make sure to network through forums, Twitter and other locations where fellow developers and designers hang out. Twitter is especially good for getting a regular voice in the community and getting your name in front of people. Help out people in Twitter and forums and you will occasionally get someone hitting you up for doing some work.

As you are connecting with the community, look for ideas for building add-ons which might be in demand. This is a great way to give back and get your name out there. Offer some simple add-ons for free, but you might be able to make money by selling other add-ons.

As you beef up your freelance business and development chops, you can start moving more in the direction of building applications from scratch and perhaps working with other tools. There is a lot of exciting new things going on in the world of web development. I have been playing with Node.js a lot lately and it's a new community where you can more easily gain a good foothold as a pioneer as opposed to PHP. However, the market for this may not be as easy to get into at first.

There are also lots of methods I haven't mentioned or even thought about. Another big part of business is strategy and tactics. Figure out where you want to be and be creative in formulating a plan to get there. Do this and you might be able to leapfrog (greater income) people who have been doing this for a lot longer than you have.

<comment><USER12> Some fantastic advice in here, when I was reading the opening post I was having a lot of the same thoughts.

3 months for learning web dev is short, then there's all the nonsense like configuring servers you're going to have to learn too (which will be a much bigger time sink than you would guess). Might as well get paid while you learn it. Hell I've done an access DB for someone and I'd never touched it before, relied on my SQL skills to get going. They were the ones insisting on Access btw, not my recommendation :)

It's good to know what you don't know, but don't let it scare you out of getting going.

The only other thing I can add is local networking. Start going out to local business events. I got work the first one I went to. Obviously won't happen like that all the time, but I've come across 3 or 4 opportunities in the 12 months I've been doing that and I'm crap at networking, only costs me 2 nights a month and it's usually fun. Good ROI in my book.

Oh, and be careful of underestimating how long something will take.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a book about all the aspects of server administration and site deployment for web developers?

I've researched a bit about that but haven't found any.

I agree completely that the admin/deployment aspects are not covered in the books, and from my experience I extrapolate that it can be a big issue and time sink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you are planning on building something on your own, why not build it targetting a specific customer base & offer as service? (like any SAAS application). First of it, it won't be 'fake' as you are referencing it & you build valuable experience building a SAAS web app and will also learn a ton about taking it to customers. Think about it.

</comment><comment><USER14> One thing I wish I done while starting out as a freelance web developer is to Contribute to an Open Source project.

</comment><comment><USER15> What about approaching some charity? (1) You learn to listen to real customer (2) and should be a good networking

<comment><USER16> If not for charity there's also the possibility of doing something cheap for portfolio fodder. Then again, cheap seems to bring out the wrong type of person you want to work for.

You could also subcontract for someone you know that does web development. They get less work to do, you get experience, you probably still get paid.

<comment><USER9> I find its better to not work for cheap, either charge full price or work for free, demonstrate your value or donate time, dont undervalue yourself.</comment></comment></comment>


Hospitals mining credit card data to predict and control patient behavior - <AUTHOR> http://www.fiercebigdata.com/story/hospitals-mining-credit-card-data-predict-and-control-patient-behavior/2014-07-09

<comment><USER2> How incredibly, incredibly scummy.</comment>