Ask HN: What podcast has been most influential on your life? - <AUTHOR> If you don't listen to podcasts, radio programs would work too. <comment><USER2> This American Life.

I've learned so much about how other people lives through years of listening to this podcast / radio show. I've literally been in tears during a few episodes, or busting out in laughter at others. One episode about kids who've lost their parents at a young age really helped me connect to my partner.

(Edit: My partner lost her father at a young age. This isn't a topic that most people feel comfortable discussing, even with someone close. The episode came on during a road trip and she broke into tears and turned off the radio because it was bringing back so much emotion. Later I asked her about if her experiences matched that of the people on the show, and she said yes.

So I went back and listened to it on my own and I felt like I learned a lot about her from listening to others share their experience.)

Plus, I think it taught me what it means to be a good, compelling story teller.

</comment><comment><USER3> The GiantBombcast.

It's a video game show, and I doubt anyone else will list it here. With respect to #SelfImprovement or #Productivity, it hasn't helped me at all.

But every week, GiantBomb offers me more than enough audio and video content on the latest video games. I don't get to play as much anymore because of life, but GiantBomb's general vibe reminds me of reading EGM and GamePro back in the 90s. And keeping up with their content makes me feel like I did when I wanted to read every magazine and GameFAQs page I could to keep up with the latest news.

And the cast is a group of generally great people. Who over time, feel like friends in a conversation you're just not able to speak up and participate in.

</comment><comment><USER4> EconTalk.

Early in my career, I was a regular listener to three tech podcasts: Java Posse, StackOverflow podcast, and Software Engineering Radio. All three were valuable to my career in different ways, but EconTalk has most affected the way I think.

For those who aren't familiar, the host of EconTalk is a professor of economics, so many of his conversations revolve around the world of economics, but since economics touches a lot of things, he ends up talking to a diverse group of people. He is very good at admitting his own bias on the one hand, and then argue against it on the other hand.

Also, I found History of Rome valuable - it's an interesting story, but it also helps cure the chronological snobbery of assuming that our times are vastly different from others.

<comment><USER5> I tried to get into EconTalk but I found most guests mindnumbingly oblivious to real world concerns. It felt to me that they were just sitting in their offices making up things about the world but never bothered to check their theories.

<comment><USER6> Not every episode is like that.

Take [0], where John Allison of BB&T discusses his business philosophy, and as an aside mentions that his bank doesn't issue negative amortization mortgages (a cause of the recession) in 2007.

Or [1], where Michael Lewis discusses _Moneyball_ and _The Blind Side_.

Or [2], where Christopher Hitchens discusses George Orwell.

Or [3], where Paul Graham talks about _Hackers and Painters_.

EconTalk has something for everyone.

[0] [http://www.econtalk.org/allison-on-strategy-profits-and- self...](http://www.econtalk.org/allison-on-strategy-profits-and-self- interest/)

[1] [http://www.econtalk.org/michael-lewis-on-the-hidden- economic...](http://www.econtalk.org/michael-lewis-on-the-hidden-economics-of- baseball-and-football/)

[2] [http://www.econtalk.org/hitchens-on- orwell/](http://www.econtalk.org/hitchens-on-orwell/)

[3] [http://www.econtalk.org/graham-on-start-ups-innovation- and-c...](http://www.econtalk.org/graham-on-start-ups-innovation-and- creativity/)

<comment><USER7> Also the Frito Lay executive talks about the snack food industry: [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.html)

Here's a list of one guy's ranked favorites: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TejVbFNWkAaqRYQ4UaZfwNDK...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TejVbFNWkAaqRYQ4UaZfwNDKaGGgbUNeGYKJLa7dQ5I/edit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://samharris.org/podcast/](https://samharris.org/podcast/)

Sam's podcast.

The goal of finding the _best_ answer, not _your_ answer changes the conversation completely.

If you want to see clear thinking in practice, this is where you should spend your time.

<comment><USER9> That's his brand, but I am not convinced that he lives up to that standard. Dude lacks intellectual humility big time, and seems to support scientific racism[0].

[0]: [https://samharris.org/ezra-klein-editor- chief/](https://samharris.org/ezra-klein-editor-chief/)

<comment><USER10> > Many readers also fail to see how asymmetrical any debate on this topic is. > Whatever I say at this point, no matter how scientifically careful, appears > to convey an interest in establishing the truth of racial differences (which > I do not have and have criticized in others). Does it matter that Stephen J. > Gould's The Mismeasure of Man was debunked long ago, or that James Flynn now > acknowledges that his eponymous effect cannot account for the race-IQ data? > No, it doesn't. This is a moral panic and a no-win situation (and Klein and > my other "critics" know that). I did not have Charles Murray on my podcast > because I was interested in intelligence differences across races. I had him > on in an attempt to correct what I perceived to be a terrible injustice done > to an honest scholar. Having attempted that, for better or worse, I will now > move on to other topics.

He later, at the request of his audience, did a 2 hour talk with Klein. This is all (the quote above, the links) included in the page linked in parent. You can draw your own conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't say I've listened to many podcasts that have been influential in the sense of improving my career or productivity, but I've listened to a few that I enjoyed a whole lot.

 _Startup_ by Gimlet Media is quite good. I _really_ enjoyed the first season.

 _Dan Carlin 's Hardcore History_ is a fun dramatic reading of all sorts of history. I've heard it called "pop history" as a jibe, but I think that's a pretty good description for it. History as action novel makes a little more sense than history as staid recollection.

 _Cocaine and Rhinestones_ is a personal favorite right now. I love country and folk music, and it's all about the formation of modern country music, and the people and influences that shaped it.

<comment><USER8> Hardcore History takes you for a ride. Even if it's "pop history" I feel like it gets me closer to the events then I've ever been before.

Blueprint for Armageddon does a fantastic job of convincing you that war is bad. Don't do war.

<comment><USER12> That's true. Dan Carlin makes unfounded conclusions from time to time, which you do need to take with a grain of salt. However, he is very upfront with his admission that he is not a professional historian.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Software Engineering Daily was the first software podcast which, for me, sparked my interest and delved into technicals but also explained the simple things. At the time I was feeling rather like a novice even though I had a BS in Computer Science, but this podcast really got me excited and made me feel like I was learning what was out there; what was possible to explore. While I still don't understand everything, the broad sweeping topics are great for sparking certain ideas or improving overall understanding of software engineering topics.

</comment><comment><USER14> Joe Rogan definately. Not even a competition. The long format with interesting people is hard to beat. I love how he doesn't try and smear people when he does the interviews. Of course, I don't listen to every episode but he releases them so often so there is always something interesting to hear about.

Joe Rogan is how journalists should be like.

<comment><USER15> His approach is very commendable. He listens, pulls people up when they say things that need further explination or sourcing and has a wide range of guests.

He takes a lot of flak about being "right-wing" or missing things every now and then but I think he honestly tries to do a good a job of getting objective, fact based interesting topics covered by experts or "famous faces"

<comment><USER12> Being about as left as you can get in the States without being a complete and utter nutjob, I agree with your assessment. He has such an honest way of approaching whatever it is he is talking about. I might disagree with some of his conclusions or premises, but I do enjoy listening to him for a solid alternate point of view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In no particular order:

The Fundamentalists (Two roommates in LA, a philosopher and a comedian.) Why? A little bit of Freudian outlook on life is super useful. Especially good if you too have Religion Issues.

The Ezra Klein Show (His recent one with Kate Manne was stellar.) Why? Several feel like they've really changed how I think about things.

Pete Holmes' You Made it Weird (You'll need to pick and choose. Try the recent Conner Habib one, or Penn Jillette. Or anyone you're interested in.) Why? On his podcast, Pete's schtick is that he dives right in and asks people about God, and beliefs, etc. It's enlightening to hear people's experiences and journeys.

Just for fun:

The Adventure Zone (start from the beginning, and give them a couple of episodes to stop being juvenile idiots). Why? It's inspiring to see people going all-in on creativity and have it pay off, and their family dynamic is so kind yet hilarious.

Eaten by a Grue (just kidding, but you should listen to it :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> Radiolab, specifically "The Rhino Hunter" ([https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/rhino- hunter](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/rhino-hunter))

Made me realise that I'm not qualified to hold an opinion on... well, almost anything. This completely changed the way I think.

<comment><USER18> that was a great episode

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reply all by Gimlet (just acquired by Spotify).

Amazing in-depth journalism that's entertaining and informative and some times mind blowing.

</comment><comment><USER20> My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

No other podcast has helped shape my humor and general positive outlook on life. I know that a lot of the fans of the podcasts fall into the trap of just repeating the jokes and phrases from the podcast over and over, but if you avoid doing that you'll hopefully find you humor being more cheery and light- hearted than it was before. The brothers all seem like genuinely good dudes who try their best to be as good as they can be. Their related podcasts are good too. The Adventure Zone is a great (comedy) DnD podcast (now on other TTRPGs) that they play with their dad. Despite the controversy around the other host, Cool Games Inc. was a surrealist humor podcasts about riffing on game ideas submitted by listeners. There are many more, and most of them are solid.

<comment><USER7> If you are into RPGs, I highly recommend the 3Ts[0]. Exuberant and (very) irreverent, their "dramatic actual play" is a great Saturday afternoon chore- cast (I also enjoy their regular show episodes).

Also The Grognard Files[1]

Also Fear of a Black Dragon[2]

[0] [https://www.patreon.com/TableTopTwats](https://www.patreon.com/TableTopTwats)

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

[2] [https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black- dragon](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black-dragon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> \- The Dave Ramsey Show: Dave is not for everyone, for one he is an absolutist and is very religious and politically conservative, but his advice is very simple when it comes to personal finance and provided a solid base for me to learn more about the fundamentals of personal finance. Plus his callers are a great deterrent from doing stupid things with money.

\- Marketplace w/ Kai Rysdall: Pound for pound the best economics podcast out there, does a really good job with balancing micro and macro economic trends.

\- The Weeds by Vox: Fantastic job of getting into policy details, the hosts are pretty liberal (especially Matt Yglesias) but if you can stomach it you'll learn a lot about the details of policy, especially healthcare.

<comment><USER22> I really liked your description of The Dave Ramsey Show. That's exactly why he's not for me.

Totally agree with you on Marketplace though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The a16z podcast tends to provide a ludicrous amount of information and insight on many topics. While many podcasts have interesting hosts, a16z is the least produced, and the most information-dense. They ask the right questions, as you'd expect from those at a solid VC.

For example, the latest episode with Novartis' CEO was an hour of really detailed info on the future of medicine, and the hosts (as always) did a great job of tying technology into the conversation.

It usually makes my head hurt after like 20 minutes, but in the best possible way. :)

</comment><comment><USER24> No Agenda. I was looking for something different after starting to get burned out from Tech news stuff a few years back. I enjoy the deconstruction of media coverage and events that they do especially when its stuff that the media isn't covering because they are too busy with "Trump did/said today" sensationalism that has taken over the media as of late.

<comment><USER25> I am shocked I didn't see more love for the greatest podcast in the universe. This show has been extremely important to me for years as well.

In the morning.

<comment><USER26> Thanks, going to try this on my walk to work today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> EconTalk.

It covers everything. It has helped me sharpen my decision making.

It exposed me to Paul Graham, which eventually led me here [0].

It is a collection of conversations, the quality of which is unmatched by anything else I've come across.

[0] [http://www.econtalk.org/graham-on-start-ups-innovation- and-c...](http://www.econtalk.org/graham-on-start-ups-innovation-and- creativity/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Easily the How I Built This podcast. Entrepreneurial without the Silicon Valley kool-aid or being too mainstream. Guy is an excellent interviewer and a very entertaining host. And I love how it focuses on a variety of different startups, from Cisco to Starbucks. You definitely have to catch one of his live shows.

Runner-ups: radiolab, TIA, a16z, recode, knowledge project.

</comment><comment><USER28> I love Hidden Brain, but I find NYT's The Daily to be a great deeper dive on a current issue for my morning commute.

<comment><USER29> Probably a controversial opinion, but I find the NYT Daily to be too left leaning. I find NPR's politics podcast a little more balanced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This year definitely jockopodcast. Really helps to put a lot of stuff in perspective.

If you are interested in rock climbing and enjoy british/ Irish humour jamcrack podcast is entertaining.

Also desert islands discs, not a podcast but episodes going back decades with everyone who's anyone on the BBC website

</comment><comment><USER31> The Joe Rogan Podcast.

<comment><USER8> I think Joe is pretty great, but is very dependent on who his guest is. I only ever listen when someone I know or trust has recommended an episode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Cortex and Hello Internet: cortex has very much shaped the way I physically operate (work ethic/process etc.), HI has shaped the way I mentally operate (although that mostly came from a select few episodes, most of them were just entertainment).

</comment><comment><USER33> Chapo Trap House

<comment><USER34> Just came to say that and it was already taken.

Ok, Citations Needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I mostly listen to podcasts just for fun, but weirdly enough, Mac Power Users. It's a long running podcast about using Apple products and their native software productively.

I like that it's run by non-engineers - seeing people that don't program be more productive than me using just apps and their own smarts is very cool. I've learned a lot of tips and found very good native software through it.

Of course, if you're not invested in the Apple ecosystem, it's probably not for you. Same with The Talk Show, Accidental Tech, Connected, and AppStories.

</comment><comment><USER36> Indie Hackers. I've learnt SO MUCH from those interviews.

<comment><USER37> Indie Hackers is very good for giving solid, actionable advice.

Startups for the Rest of Us also does a great job.

To a slightly lesser extent, Tropical MBA is another good one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The Weeds, by Vox, and Why is This Happening, by MSNBC. Both of them take an hour to explore one topic, usually related to politics or a cultural moment. But it's not just a summary of recent news; they go back into history and provide context from different sides of an issue.

They're staffed by people who are well read and bring much needed nuance to a lot of discussions. I learn something fascinating every time

</comment><comment><USER39> Stoic Meditations (Massimo Pigliucci): [https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations](https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations)

Partially Examined Life: [https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/](https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/)

Freakonomics: [http://freakonomics.com/](http://freakonomics.com/)

</comment><comment><USER40> _The Enormocast._ interview format with the who's who of rock climbing.

the craig demartino "and then i amputated my leg" episode is harrowing, the two-part hayden kennedy episode about cerro torre and the kompressor route is amazing, the lynn hill interview is wonderful, and he got honnold too.

 _On Being_ is hit or miss but the interviews with rep john louis, bishop tutu, eugene peterson, nadia bolz-weber have all stuck with me.

</comment><comment><USER41> Go Time. For real; I've been able to get my dream job because of the conversations these folks have. I'm bummed they're on hiatus, but.

</comment><comment><USER42> I really enjoy Sam Harris's 'Making Sense' (formerly 'Waking Up' podcast).

He invites experts on various topics and has informative conversations with them. Some are about scientific topics such as climate change and others are more about personal stories and explorations of thoughts such as recently with Stephen Fry.

Sam's business model is also very exemplary: no ads and the podcasts are free. He has the luxury of having many supporters who donate so that he can keep doing what he is doing and some side businesses like meditation app. What this means is that he doesn't need to shy away from difficult topics and can have more honest conversations on those without some advertiser getting cold feet.

<comment><USER43> I do wish more podcasts had alternative support methods other than advertising.

Unless the podcast doesn't have ads and is done mostly out of passion and the host's own growth (The Collective) or I can pay to receive an ad-free feed (CANADALAND) I'm not going to subscribe to the audio-equivalent of a TV talk show.

<comment><USER44> Why though? Most podcasts with ads also come in an app where you can just skip past the ads with a couple clicks. Is it really not worth doing that to keep a show you like alive?

<comment><USER43> The few podcasts I listened to with obnoxious ads won't lose much with my lack of listenership (Tim Ferriss podcast)

They usually require more than just a few skips also (last I listened the Tim Ferriss podcast had 4-6 minutes of ads at the beginning and due to the variable length I couldn't just set an auto-start to when the actual show starts).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hello Internet :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just curious - what made it influential for you?

<comment><USER45> Not so much at all, but it's the only one podcast i'm always looking forward to. So it influence my live some how :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Akimbo, by Seth Godin ([https://www.akimbo.me/](https://www.akimbo.me/))

What I find amazing about this podcast is how it makes you think culture as a fundamental piece of bringing the change to the world.

</comment><comment><USER47> I have three to recommend:

1\. Filkcast. A relatively new podcast by a friend of mine, diving into the world of "filk" music. As a filk musician myself, I think it's wonderful, and it's introduced me to a lot of new music. If you already know/love filk, it's terrific. If you don't know it but like science fiction/fantasy and folk music, you might find something new to love!

2\. Hardcore History. Long-form history studies (4-5 hour episodes, with multi-episode series often stretching over 20 hours). The one-off "Celtic Holocaust", about Ceasar's invasion of Gaul, is a good start to get a feel for how it works. The epic "Blueprint for Armageddon", about WWI, is my favorite (and the most bleak). Very much enjoying the current series, "Supernova in the East" (the rise of Imperial Japan, culminating in WWII).

3\. Philosophize This! Hour-ish long episodes of the history of philosophy, each episode centered on a particular philosopher or related school of them (sometimes a few episodes for particularly important figures). Starts with the earliest ancient Greeks, and builds forward to almost the present day (recent episodes have covered recent concepts like semiotics, and thinkers like Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault.

</comment><comment><USER48> I was a (somewhat) early adopter of listening by way of this American life.

I love a bunch posted here already.

Around 2 years ago I subscribed to the audio edition of the economist. Now, I have no time for podcasts but absolutely LOVE the economist and cannot recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER49> History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson. Told chronologically for the layperson, with consistent tone and running jokes about Buster Keaton. An ambitious project, valuable resource, relaxing, illuminatung, and logical.

</comment><comment> pappy-0511 Build & Analyze with Marco Arment & Dan Benjamin

Not because it was insightful and entertaining (though it was) but because it was the first tech-related podcast I listened to and inspired me to create my first iPhone app which got me a job.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is a hard question to answer because there are two possible interpretations to this question. The first is that is asking only for podcasts that have made a significant impact on your life. The second is to simply go through your podcasts and pick the one that has impacted your life the most, however small.

I'll answer according to the latter.

\--Astonishing Legends has stretched my mind with the unexplained and opened me to the possibility of greater realities beyond what I immediately see.

\--The Lawfare podcast (and Renato Mariotti's On Topic) has given me a (mostly) level headed and legal on-going discussion of the Trump/Russia affair. It has educated me a lot about our legal system and the value of the norms we keep in government.

\--Hardcore History's series (basically audiobook length) on World War I has given me a sense about the tragedies and sufferings a previous generation experienced en mass that nobody has experienced today. Gives some perspective on life.

\--Hello Internet is a podcast of pure fun that has expanded my hobbies and interests.

\--Brain Software has help give me a better understanding of human psychology in the context of hypnosis and NLP.

<comment><USER51> I really enjoy Hello Internet as well, but in what way has it expanded your hobbies?

<comment><USER50> Well, I'm more interested in design than I used to be. For instance, my interest in flags is greater. I've entertained the idea of designing my own flag. A lot of the books Grey recommends I like to look into as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Late Night Live, Phillip Adams. The smartest people in the world, all of them, 3 a night, 4 nights a week for 20 years, with humour. This is the most remarkable lifetime achievement in radio anywhere - better than Studs Terkel.

<comment><USER53> I completely agree. It deserves to be better known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Choose FI. Being exposed to the concept of financial independence, retiring early and providing a framework and mindset for achieving them has completely transformed my life from aimless working for money to working for a goal.

</comment><comment><USER55> No Dumb Questions - Destin (From SmarterEveryDay) and his friend just talk about different topics. I find they have challenged me to be a better person and father.

Criminal - A show about those who broke the law

</comment><comment><USER56> Cortex. Introduced me to GTD methodology, and omnifocus. Helped me get my email under control. Made me think about investing in what I'm good at, not trying to improve at what I'm bad at.

</comment><comment><USER57> Nerdist / ID10T, Conan needs a friend, Here's the thing with Alec Baldwin...

Mostly because I do a lot of UX work, and good interviewing skills are essential for understanding what someone is trying to say.

</comment><comment><USER58> Making Sense (formerly Waking Up) by Sam Harris and Joe Rogan podcast have been most influential but Mindscape by Sean Carrol has risen to very top of my current favourites.

</comment><comment><USER59> Despite the backlash it received I found S-Town to be absolutely amazing. It really blew me away and I still think about it a lot.

Radiolab is also very good. Some really memorable episodes.

</comment><comment><USER60> Skeptoid ([https://skeptoid.com/episode_guide.php](https://skeptoid.com/episode_guide.php))

No question

</comment><comment><USER61> Human Performance Outliers and Peak Human podcasts. Really changed the way I looked a nutrition and ate, so far with excellent results.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure about most influential but Omega Tau gave me a lot of insight into things that are usually closed of from knowing about.

</comment><comment><USER62> So I'm a bit late to the party, but I do habe some recomendations.

The podcast that recently has been important to me is: Conversations with Tyler. Some people may have issues with hjs background, being a libertarian. But he has the best interview style I have ever heard. He asks the most thoughtful questions on so many different topics. I always come away learning something new.

One that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is The Moth. It's very liberal, but helps with keeping me compassionate. The way people tell their stories often makes me emotional.

Hello internet is fun, for some reason. Somebody else said. It's like hanging out with friends. With all of the in jokes, it might take a whike to get into.

Radiolab's More Perfect. The first teo seasons are fantastic. It's all about the US supreme court. I don't live in the US but it still grips me.

The Ezra Klein show. Some times hit or miss. But still worth for some of his guests with which Ezra manages to gell with.

The numberphile podcast. A more slow interviewing style, mostly about the personalities behind the world of mathematics.

</comment><comment><USER63> Radiolab. I've learned quite a bit from it and it has changed the way I look at the world.

</comment><comment><USER64> Rich Roll. Absolute fave. Not even vegan.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sam Harris's - Waking Up. I have gotten the most amazing book recommendations from his guests!

Joe Rogan - he generates a lot of content I do not care about but his interviews like Billy Corgan, Elon Musk, Sam Harris, etc are some of the best on the internet. (Bonus - you can watch them on youtube also)

I dont like Ezra Klein's podcast (I think he comes off as a pretentious know- it-all), but I do like that he asks every guest for 3 book recommendations, so I almost always skip to the end to write those down too.

</comment><comment><USER65> Intercepted

</comment><comment><USER66> 99 percent invisible

</comment><comment><USER67> Radiolab

</comment><comment><USER68> cum town</comment>


ISIS Has Its Own Secure Messaging App - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/01/13/isis-has-its-own-secure-messaging-app/ <comment><USER2> Another piece in the war on general computation sliding into place. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, especially after the State of the Union speech last night.

I can't find the article, but there was one - I think about the Silicon Valley meeting last week where they quoted Whitehouse lawyers saying they'd take another push at the encryption debate if it could clearly be associated in some way with an attack.

EDIT: This one, actually. [https://theintercept.com/2016/01/12/apples-tim- cook-lashes-o...](https://theintercept.com/2016/01/12/apples-tim-cook-lashes- out-at-white-house-officials-for-being-wishy-washy-on-encryption/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Startup Fighter - <AUTHOR> https://startupfighter.com <comment><USER2> Please stop stealing my back button - if I press back it means I want to go back to where I was.

This pattern is really annoying in new sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're playing a game in this case. Similar to scrolling to the right in a side-scroller. The game doesn't want to let you go back to the left - or in this case to re-answer the previous question.

However that doesn't mean that the back-button is broken. It behaves like it would behave on other websites as well - and actually doesn't register multiple guesses separately.

If you'd elaborate more clearly where this behaviour is broken - as generally it's not - I'd be happy to look into fixing it for your comfort...

<comment><USER3> He means that, if you play through the game, you shouldn't have to click back 20 times to return to hacker news. : )

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't have to - I just played through a game of 10 guesses, and HN is still 2-3 back clicks away

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a live feed of the current guesses : [https://startupfighter.com/#/guesses](https://startupfighter.com/#/guesses)

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't get enough of the dancing Carlton loading images.

<comment><USER5> long live the Fresh Prince

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea, clever roll out. How did you collect the pitches? I was surprised and flattered to see my company (Common Form) included.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your company is in the top 5! Congrats!

We added all Startups exclusively through the AngelList API - it exposes Startups currently marked as fund raising. Also people can submit their suggestions as long as the Startup is listed on AngelList itself and matches a certain quality score.

And then we also went ahead and added promising startups manually ourselves :)

<comment><USER6> Thanks and nice work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The /#/guesses page made Chrome eat 100% CPU on one core :) Might want to truncate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will look into it :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As part of a 7 days product challenge we got this small idea about a startup game, which pivoted itself into 2 games... :)

An experiment with Firebase + AngelList API and too many childhood memories on the SNES

<comment><USER8> what's your twitter id? This is trending on Product Hunt

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the same, I commented there too :) Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is the game broken for anyone else? Playing the elevator pitch gives me two text balloons with pitches, clicking on one of them changes the text and the one I didn't click on always says "...". The LinkedIn profile pictures stay distorted and the only thing I can do is click "NEXT". Score is not showing up et cetera.

Any minimum browser requirement? I am on Chromium 39.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's 2 games :

a) Which pitch is better - no player scoring there, only scoring for the startups b) Guess the startup - One slogan, 3 choices

You can switch between the games in the top navigation

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Running incredibly slowly for me. I guess its the HN/PH effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes in the beginning we were loading in the whole data from firebase, of course it got a bit big with 250-300 people playing non-stop for the past hours :)

we have optimised it now and it should be much better - remember to ctrl+refresh to clear your browser cache

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of these pitches are, well...there's a reason a lot of people like to make fun of sanfranistan and the global startup ecosystem, right?

</comment><comment><USER12> This game helped me find out about Moltin, which is kinda what I was looking for. Basically, I was looking for shopify alternative.

<comment><USER13> I'm waiting for a JS alternative. This one is based on Meteor. I hope it gets traction.[1]

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's something so endearing about the pixelation. Reminds me of Sierra games!

</comment><comment><USER15> Is the elevator pitch game actually scored? Are there right and wrong answers?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's only scored for the startups themselves ( hi-score list on frontpage )

<comment><USER16> Ya, this confused the hell out of me. I was trying to figure out if "I" was right or not. So I just started spamming left answers trying to figure out what those result messages actually meant.

Maybe you could add a message clarifying that there are no official right or wrong answers and that this is a community driven game, like a poll.

Displaying polling results would also be a plus.

Regardless, great idea, smart use of an api.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

So there's 2 games - one is just picking which pitch you like, and the other one is matching startup names to a slogan. You can switch between both games on the front page or in the header

Added now a 'guess game' top ranking list to the front page as well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Your UI is err, pixelated ;)

</comment><comment><USER18> Helped me find tindie, a DIY hardware store.

</comment><comment><USER19> Crashes latest mobile chrome on iOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> you could try ctrl+refreshing for latest version

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> good job, some good product discoveries

</comment><comment><USER21> sometimes both pitches are horrible.

<comment><AUTHOR> pick the lesser evil</comment></comment>


Link: A fast and simple PHP Router - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/apsdehal/Link Link supports RESTful routes and helps you create clean Web apps and APIs through its various features like Named Routes. Its an effort to combine good parts of various php router, like toro's method of parsing routes, laravel's named routes, others middleware etc. so much. <comment><USER2> The claim of "fast" definitely looks inaccurate in comparison to nikic's router[0]. I'd recommend reading through his blog[1] on the matter.

[0]: [https://github.com/nikic/FastRoute](https://github.com/nikic/FastRoute)

[1]: [http://nikic.github.io/2014/02/18/Fast-request-routing- using...](http://nikic.github.io/2014/02/18/Fast-request-routing-using- regular-expressions.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your concern, this router is a result out of a effort to learn about routing. I will try to add benchmarks soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> there are so many php routers these days that any "fast" claims should probably be accompanied by benchmarks.

routing is a fairly uncomplicated task and the speed difference will only become apparent at really high loads.

[http://c9s.github.io/Pux/](http://c9s.github.io/Pux/)

[http://auraphp.com/packages/Aura.Router/](http://auraphp.com/packages/Aura.Router/)

[http://zaphpa.org/](http://zaphpa.org/)

[http://toroweb.org/](http://toroweb.org/)

[https://github.com/dannyvankooten/PHP- Router](https://github.com/dannyvankooten/PHP-Router)

[https://github.com/symfony/Routing](https://github.com/symfony/Routing)

[http://docs.phalconphp.com/en/latest/api/Phalcon_Mvc_Router....](http://docs.phalconphp.com/en/latest/api/Phalcon_Mvc_Router.html)

<comment><USER2> This list is missing [https://github.com/nikic/FastRoute](https://github.com/nikic/FastRoute) which is definitely worth looking at.

<comment><USER4> Dont forget µ which is totally a legit router

[https://github.com/lastguest/mu](https://github.com/lastguest/mu)

<comment><USER5> Which begs the question, how on earth do you choose one?

Edit: as in, which router do you pick and how do you pick one? Choice can lead to decision paralysis.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check whats your need, if you are building up much bigger apps go for a fully fledged framework, rest for small apps you can use microrouters , according to your need, each has its own unique features.

<comment><USER6> For small apps, you don't need a "router", period. Routing is done by the file system and placing .php files in directories!

<comment><USER7> One of the benefits of using a url router is access control - you could have a problem with just letting every file be executable by url, especially if you happen to have a remote file inclusion issue anywhere. With a router you know explicitly what can get invoked and what can't.

Although, doing it without a router is probably always going to be faster.

<comment><USER5> A late trick I discovered, was that you can configure your php instance to inclued a file with every script. For example the following can be added to .htaccess:

      php_value auto_prepend_file 'before.php'

You can then use that for bootstrapping, front controller and to limit access. Can be a bit clumsy, but it's nicely divorced from simple page controllers.

<comment><USER6> neat! this beats putting an include at the top of each file...

<comment><USER7> It certainly does.

I personally would still prefer a router but I know of a project which was written almost entirely in sprawling, procedural PHP that might benefit from this. Although I do wonder what the performance hit would be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> FWIW at Etsy I built and subsequently helped completely dismantle a minimal PHP routing framework. We just used .htaccess and php files.

PHP/Apache affords you a fast, simple alternative, and what you gain with a framework (route lookup for an object) just isn't compelling enough IMO to justify the added overhead and complexity.

I think the endless proliferation of PHP microrouters (including mine, RIP) is people porting Django and Rails features to PHP without applying critical thinking first. (Myself included.)

<comment><USER9> How _complicated_ were the Etsy routes? And were the added overhead and complexity?

And I know it is a pain to restart Apache each time there's a change to the configuration file, but does anyone know the time differences between a PHP router and Apache rewrites?

<comment><USER6> Put it in .htaccess. No restarts needed.

<comment><USER9> That's correct - I was thinking of using an Apache VirtualHost file. (Isn't using the .htaccess file slower(?) than using the VirtualHost file?)

<comment><USER6> It is slower, since .htaccess is parsed on every request. (However, it is probably faster than routing through PHP code.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why would you want to use _any_ PHP router instead of writing the rewrite rules within an Apache VirtualHost file or a .htaccess file?

<comment><USER10> Separation of concerns? Why would I ever _want_ to implement business logic in an http server configuration file?

<comment><USER11> Umm.. what do you think a _server_ is for?

<comment><USER10> The http server's job is to translate URLs into http requests for consumption by the application. The http server should generally be agnostic regarding the semantic meaning of your URLs, which take the form of business rules, the proper place for which is the application layer (whenever possible).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like everyone and their grandma has written their own PHP router.

Here's mine:

[https://github.com/erming/route](https://github.com/erming/route)

Code: [https://github.com/erming/route/blob/master/route.php](https://github.com/erming/route/blob/master/route.php)

~80 LOC

<comment><USER7> I did. It's not worth posting though.

I think writing a php router is one of those things everyone who works with php should learn to do. It teaches you a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does this compare with something like Slim?

+1 for being lightweight and readable.

<comment><USER13> Slim is a whole (micro)frameork that includes routing. This is just a request router.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Meh, another PHP library using lengthy static methods making it impossible to extend.

<comment><USER15> Yeah I don't understand the use of statics here. I'm going to guess it's just so they can use the "nicer" syntax without having to instantiate a new object, which would honestly make more sense to me. That way you can inject a Link instance into your controller/views and just call `$link->route('namedRoute')`.

<comment><USER5> It looks tidier with the global.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice work! A micro-micro-framework, makes Slim and Silex look big.

<comment><USER17> It is nice, but having implemented something like this myself at work recently, this looks eerily familiar and some things about it bug me.

For example, why is ReflectionClass not used (I'm guessing PHP 4 compatibility)? Particularly because class_exists can cause major headaches if you use the default autoloader, see [https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52339](https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52339)

There's also little information available from outside the router; an invalid class/method uses die without giving you an option to check for it and handle it some other way. I also don't immediately see any special handling for not allowing magical methods to be called

Definitely a good start for personal projects though, just needs some spit and polish

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your concern, I would try to implement features you have said, Its still under development mode and needs much polish.

<comment><USER17> Good luck! Another feature of my router is that the method name converts snake_case to camelCase, so that resource/list_actions calls ResourceController::listActions(), but some of the features I mention will most likely incur a performance hit, but it shouldn't be significant once opcache comes into play

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it a PHP thing to indent with tabs rather than 2 spaces? Genuinely curious.

<comment><USER11> Nope, it's a ruby thing I believe.

<comment><USER3> or maybe it's a javascript thing [http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.1.js](http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.1.js)

or maybe it's just a trolling thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No tests?

<comment><USER19> It's written in PHP.

<comment><USER20> Your nick should read prejudice.</comment></comment></comment>


What the U.S. Should Do with Edward Snowden - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/what-us-should-do-edward-snowden/ <comment><USER2> "Edward Snowden is a criminal"

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a horrid piece of legislation, and the outsourcing of US government operations to private business means that contractors like Snowden can't use the same whistleblower protections that nominally would cover a government employee doing exactly the same act.

"We can't have a deluge of people with privileged access thinking they can become the next super-patriot by leaking classified data."

Ha-ha-ha! Did you hear about how David Petraeus gave classified secrets to his mistress? Then lied to the FBI and others about it? But because he was a four star general, with the right contacts and money, he gets a misdemeanor charge.

So why not offer Snowden exactly the same deal as Petraeus - misdemeanor and two-year term of probation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's different for a decorated war hero to show a notebook to a mistress than for some random contractor to steal thousands of classified documents and release them on the Internet.

<comment><USER2> So it's okay for the ex-head of the CIA - someone who knows the laws regarding classified information and signed over a dozen NDAs to that effect - to commit felonies by disclosing national defense information and classified communications intelligence materials to non-authorized people, and to lie to the FBI, because in the past he was a decorated war hero?

What other felonies is Petraeus allowed to do because of his glorious past? Can he start shooting random people? Rob banks? Reveal the names of undercover CIA agents? Where in the law does it say there's a special exception for war heroes?

What's to prevent other decorated war heroes from being copycats, and using their special stay-out-of-jail status to commit felonies in order to get laid? Surely some future Mata Hari knows to target these sorts of people, so they need to be extra careful, and be under higher scrutiny, no?

It's also felony for a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient to sell the medal. What's the logic that says that being a war hero excuses someone for multiple felonies related to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, but not the felony of selling a piece of metal or ribbon with no national security impact?

(BTW, to be technically correct, Snowden did not release the documents to the Internet. He released them to journalists. The journalists were the ones to publish the documents on the Internet.)

<comment><AUTHOR> My point is that one was a lapse in judgement that resulted in very little damage, while the other was a calculated maneuver that changed the intelligence world forever.

That's why they're different.

<comment><USER2> It appears that you are no longer using "decorated war hero" as justification for why Petraeus shouldn't be charged for the felonies that he committed. Is that because you no longer believe that it should be a get-out-of-jail card that lets war heroes commit a felony?

Instead, it's okay to commit a felony so long as there's "very little damage"? (I suppose also that he needs to feel real sorry about it.)

That's very odd ethics. When it happens to lower ranked people they get sent to jail. Foreigners as well, as the case of Wen Ho Lee, where government misconduct and misrepresentations meant that Lee couldn't apply for bail and was put into solitary confinement, on charges of stealing secrets that in the end were false accusations.

For that matter, Martha Stewart "was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators". Certainly that also only caused "very little damage." Why is she a felon for (among other things) lying to investigators, when Petraeus lied to the FBI but will only get a misdemeanor charge for all of the crimes he committed?

The original commentary said that hard punishment is justified to prevent "copycats from recklessly harming national security". If that logic is correct, then I again ask why the same doesn't hold for ex-heads of CIA? What's to prevent future CIA heads from doing the same thing? Their future lover might be a Mata Hari instead of a fawning biographer.

I noticed, btw, that Petraeus caused "very little damage" while Snowden "changed the intelligence world forever". You didn't, however, say if that was good change or bad change. Did Snowden cause more damage than Petraeus? Can you quantify the damage?

And this brings me back to my first point. The Espionage Act of 1917 is a horrid piece of legislation. It doesn't consider any balancing of factors. If the change to the intelligent world turned it into a paragon of respect for the ideals of freedom, liberty, etc., then none of that would count in Snowden's favor. We know that from the Pentagon Papers, where, Daniel Ellsberg (who published the Papers) says (see [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel- ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act) ):

> But when I finally heard my lawyer ask the prearranged question in direct > examination – Why did you copy the Pentagon Papers? – I was silenced before > I could begin to answer. The government prosecutor objected – irrelevant – > and the judge sustained. My lawyer, exasperated, said he "had never heard of > a case where a defendant was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what > he did." The judge responded: well, you're hearing one now.

> And so it has been with every subsequent whistleblower under indictment, and > so it would be if Edward Snowden was on trial in an American courtroom now.

> Indeed, in recent years, the silencing effect of the Espionage Act has only > become worse. The other NSA whistleblower prosecuted, Thomas Drake, was > barred from uttering the words "whistleblowing" and "overclassification" in > his trial. (Thankfully, the Justice Department's case fell apart one day > before it was to begin). In the recent case of the State Department > contractor Stephen Kim, the presiding judge ruled the prosecution "need not > show that the information he allegedly leaked could damage US national > security or benefit a foreign power, even potentially."

For whistle blowers, the government prosecutors don't need to show any damage at all. Not even a little. Why wasn't Petraeus charged under the same interpretation of the same laws? Are we not all equal under the law?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://danielmiessler.com/blog/conflating-petraeus- snowden/](https://danielmiessler.com/blog/conflating-petraeus-snowden/)

<comment><USER2> If you think that's connected to what I wrote then I haven't explained the issue well enough. I haven't stated that narrative you wrote.

Point #1: The Espionage Act of 1917 is a horrid piece of legislation. The defendant can offer no defense to justify it, as Ellsberg found out. The prosecution doesn't need to show that there's even the potential to cause harm. What you wrote, saying Snowden should be considered a patriot deserves at most 10 years in federal prison, is completely ignored by the law. There no legal defense for "Snowden based on his intentions".

Simply put, nothing you wrote in defense of Snowden is relevant to his prosecution.

Point #2: I brought up Petraeus in response to your statement that:

"This is the balanced response that is needed to keep copycats from recklessly harming national security while at the same time strengthening our collective priority on government transparency."

We also need a way to keep copycat ex-CIA heads and generals from sharing secrets with unauthorized people and from lying to FBI agents. We have laws which define the rules. They make no exception for generals, and Petraeus signed over a dozen NDAs where he agreed that he would not reveal any secrets. These are the rules he's subject to, but the "balancing" here is being done completely pre-trial, with no transparency, in order to avoid prosecution under the laws that clearly say that Petraeus committed several felonies.

It seems that if you're friends with people in high places, you get special favors. If they don't like you, you get treated like Wen Ho Lee or worse. This is not justice under the law. If Petraeus, or Scotter Libby, or others with high position get little more than a handslap, while Lee gets solitary confinement, then I have little faith that we have a "balanced response".

Point #3: As I pointed out, It's not simply a matter of Petraeus sharing secrets that went no further than his biographer. He also made false statements to the FBI. This is a felony under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001. It's the law that made Martha Stewart a convicted felon.

I mentioned this earlier. Do you ignore it because it doesn't fit the narrative you want to impose upon those you disagree with? This speaks ill of you.

Point #4: Being a decorated war veteran is irrelevant. There is no special get-out-of-felony card written in the law for being a veteran, decorated or otherwise. Or put it this way, if Snowden had been a decorated war veteran - say, a Purple Heart - how would that change things for you? What if he had a Congressional Medal of Honor? Two Medals of Honor? What if Petraeus had been the one to leak the information, rather than Snowden? What if Petraeus' biographer had been the one to the leak the information?

If being a war hero is relevant, then surely all of those cases would make you want to be more lenient, yes? How much lenient?

If you can't give a good answer - and I really don't see how that's possible - then I'll assume that your reference to war hero status is a post hoc justification that has no actual bearing on the matter but exists mostly for the rhetorical sympathy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The decade of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple  - <AUTHOR> http://cnnmoney.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=The+decade+of+Steve+Jobs%2C+CEO+of+Apple+-+Nov.+5%2C+2009&expire=-1&urlID=414157027&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2009%2F11%2F04%2Ftechnology%2Fsteve_jobs_ceo_decade.fortune%2Findex.htm&partnerID=2200 <comment><USER2> "The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple's groundbreaking "digital lifestyle" strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google"

The author probably forgot to consider that google was a 2 year old startup in 2000. The kudos really should go to google.

<comment><USER3> Turning an internet startup into a $170 billion company in 9 years is a rare feat. Turning a $5 billion, 25 year old computer company into a $170 billion company in 9 years is far rarer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _hagiographic_

<comment><USER5> Hagiographic is Greek, from "hagios" = saint + "graph" = writing, meaning "writing about someone as if they were a saint".

DH0. Name-calling.

This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We've all seen comments like this:

u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!

But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like

The author is a self-important dilettante.

is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."

<comment><USER4> > DH0. Name-calling.

I disagree. I said nothing about the author, I said something about the tone of the story. Read the definition of the word you supplied:

> writing about someone as if they were a saint

What name does this call the author? For that matter, is it even derogatory about the story? I think it's a factual description of the post. If you choose to take it as a negative statement about the author by way of being a criticism of the story, I think your argument reflects biases I do not share.</comment></comment></comment>


Aggregations in MongoDB by Example - <AUTHOR> https://www.compose.com/articles/aggregations-in-mongodb-by-example/ <comment><USER2> Well written article which helped me grok something I'd put off for a bit. Thanks.

Though I'll still prefer an RDBMS if but to use windowing functions in SQL.</comment>


Motion UI: A Sass library for creating flexible CSS transitions and animations - <AUTHOR> https://zurb.com/playground/motion-ui <comment><USER2> Cool!</comment>


Review My First iPhone Game - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker-free/id473306271?mt=8

<comment><USER2> I played the free version, and here are my initial honest opinions:

First the good IMO:

1) The graphics are very nice.

2) It's simple in that you can just press Play and play. I like that a lot.

3) It's very smooth and feels polished.

4) The game idea itself is very interesting and made me want to play.

Here are the things I had a problem with:

1) I didn't know how to control my cards by dragging when I first started out. I tried tilting and touching in different spots. But got it figured.

2) It felt like it started super slow until I learned to drag the cards down into place.

3) The first time the dynamite showed, I was a little upset. I was playing a fun game, now there are these strange things happening. It would be nice to be able to turn this off.

4) It got super hard really fast. I started playing strictly based on symbols. Hearts, Spades, Clubs, Diamonds. I couldn't mentally chase down other poker hand possibilities once it stacked up a little.

5) The controls got tough because it was as if I could sometimes drag cards upwards, sometimes I could not.

6) I'm on a iPhone 3GS, and it crashed every time I tried to play the "Levels" mode. I would touch 1, and it would boot me out to my home screen.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===

In the end, number 4 above is what stopped me from buying the game. It just got so hard so fast that I couldn't find a way to get any form of long-term enjoyment out of the game. The Levels didn't work, so I didn't get an opportunity to try them, but hopefully I will someday.

I wish you the best of luck, I'm just one opinion, and the big thing to remember with these mobile games is not to jump to the code and graphics every time someone says something bad. I used to do that and it turned out that the loudest people were the biggest complainers and all the people that liked the game quietly like it. I now prefer to keep my happy customers happy because the unhappy people aren't coming back anyway - for me anyway.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

My friend and I recently released our first iPhone game called Outlaw Poker. It's basically Tetris meets Poker. We would love your feedback and see what people like and don't like about the app.

The free version is linked here: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker- free/id473306271...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker- free/id473306271?mt=8)

If you happen to like the game, there's a paid version here: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outlaw-poker/id473289162?mt=8>

The difference being the free one is ad supported AND the ad takes up a row which means less playing area.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a good first go but gameplay could be better. It's hard to make five card hands and a bit slow moving. Maybe any hand over two cards should disapear. Also dragging cards down from the top I often hit the pulldown screen in iOS5.

The important feedback is about your launch. You are going to be better off not having a pro and free version. Ship one free version. Do in app purchases to remove ads and try and get some kind of other in app purchase in the game (levels, other/card games). Preferably try and get consumable in app purchases in there too. If people want to pay give them that opportunity.

Finally, you are leaving SEO juice on the table by not implementing game center and iPad view controllers. Both of those things get you in categories on the app store that are smaller overall than the general listing. Also, entertainment is usually the best category to publish in for these types of games. Always, always release on a friday - having the app in the new releases list over the weekend helps and it's hard out there for a pimp.

Order of things I would fix:

1) Add game center (very easy)

2) Make it a universal app (iPad view controllers) it's not as much work as you think.

3) In app purchase and dump the paid version. No one is going to download that in significant numbers anyway - when you have a large install base you can maybe promote a paid version but it's just not worth it most of the time.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool. I'm downloading now, but is there any chance of an ipad version? The art looks like it could be great with a big screen.

Edit to add comments on the game itself: Overall nice look and feel. The motions are nice, and the movement is very responsive.

A few suggestions: -I wasn't sure of the rules when I started. How good a hand did I need to create? Any five cards is technically a poker hand. -I'd suggest using the four color playing card system--diamonds are blue and clubs are green. Much easier to identify flushes that way. -The text on the main menu sign looks a little funny, like something is off with the anti-aliasing. It could just be an artifact of playing on an ipad in iphone mode.

I did like how the instructions popped up the first time each new playing piece appeared. That helped get me started. One sentence of text with each pop-up wouldn't hurt.

Overall this looks fun! Best of luck to you guys.

</comment><comment><USER5> Congrats! How did you manage the graphics? Was it outsourced, did you hire someone? Can you give any details? I've built a few apps but I'm always lacking on the design side.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I was the design guy. My partner Ben did all the coding. For the graphics, I didn't necessarily start from scratch. A lot of it was stock, but heavily modified to the point that you probably wouldn't recognize some of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the concept a lot, kind of like dr Mario for poker, however one interaction issue made it very difficult for me to keep playing:

In ios 5, swiping down brings down the notifications window. Half the time I was trying to drag the cards down from the top I ended up bringing down notifications instead. I know a few friends who are dealing with similar issues in their games. Perhaps just moving the cards down a little would help?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this was made pre iOS5. I think we will need to tweak it a bit to handle that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Haven't had a chance to test it out, but how is it different than Poker Smash:

[http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Poker- Smash/66acd0...](http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Poker- Smash/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025841089c)

<comment><AUTHOR> I did see Poker Smash after I came up with this. So Poker Smash cards seem to rise up and you switch positions of cards to make hands. My game is definitely more along the lines of Tetris or Dr Mario where stuff falls down and you have to rotate that specific set. I hope that makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks good. I like that the paid version has additional playing space as well as removing the ads. Seems to help make it more valuable.

</comment><comment><USER9> i think my dreams came true. i love tetris and poker. now i get to play them both at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks cool, such a natural extension of the match-type games that I'm surprised this is the first time I've seen such a thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah this came out of my desire to play such a game but couldn't find one. Definitely one of those scratch your own itch type projects. Now I can play it.</comment></comment>


Entreprenurial Trade Show Tips - <AUTHOR> http://www.infochachkie.com/best-of-show/ Trade shows are not vacations, nor are the the right place to try to outspend your competitors.<p>Nice list of tips to maximize your trade show investment <comment><USER2> Cool answer to a question I just got last week "How come you never have a booth?" Walking the floor to sell is easy and if you need to present then infoChachkie's advice of booking a private room at a lesser cost for an "exclusive" presentation is much smarter.

<comment><USER3> Walking the floor to sell is not easy at all and a private room offsite is a very poor substitute for a booth on the show floor. A trade show is a stag hunt--a collection of firms that get more prospect interest together than individually--you have to join the hunt by either speaking at the conference or having a booth or both to get the full value.</comment></comment>


MitM Attack against KeePass 2's Update Check - <AUTHOR> https://bogner.sh/2016/03/mitm-attack-against-keepass-2s-update-check/ <comment><USER3> "Received response from Dominik Reichl: The vulnerability will not be fixed. The indirect costs of switching to HTTPS (like lost advertisement revenue) make it a inviable solution."

Well the indirect costs of not fixing it just got a lot bigger. Now a lot of people will realize that their passwords are not as safe as KeePass claims they are and will switch to a different product. So this way they loose both their money and their users' trust. Not a very good business decision.

<comment><USER4> That response is crazy. If he's so set at keeping the homepage http, then make a download.keypass.com site and keep the downloads on there, with https required.

<comment><USER5> Eh. Still vulnerable to HSTS attack. To me HTTPS without HSTS is only protection to programmers. To the public, HTTPS without HSTS protection is essentially useless against MITM attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's wild, I didn't expect any security-centric website in 2016 to be HTTP- only! The reasoning for not doing it is weird too, they could at the very least move the update logic over to a separate SSL endpoint.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure on the differences between them but I've been using KeePassX for years and recommend it thoroughly (as long as you're not looking for a easily synced or multi-user product): [https://www.keepassx.org/](https://www.keepassx.org/)

<comment><USER7> > That's wild, I didn't expect any security-centric website in 2016 to be > HTTP-only!

Both of the websites for PuTTY (www.putty.org and www.chiark.greenend.org.uk) are also non-encrypted. At least the downloads are hosted on a third server (the.earth.li) which does use HTTPS and 2048-bit GPG signatures are provided.

<comment><USER8> putty.org is not owned by the PuTTY developers; after some arguments the two parties came to an agreement about the use of the domain name, but you should not trust putty.org.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was always skeptical of KeePass which is why I've been using KeePassX. It is just a simple Qt app.

Unfortunately there is no KeePassHttp support yet, so you can't hook it up to your browser, but there is a fork available with full support.

[https://github.com/droidmonkey/keepassx_http/](https://github.com/droidmonkey/keepassx_http/)

<comment><USER10> I'd probably switch to KeePassX instead of running KeePass in wine if the password generator were as flexible.

<comment><USER11> Why are you running KeePass in wine?

<comment><USER10> I have very complex password generation requirements for some of the services I need to access and KeePassX does not:

        1) have nearly the same level of support for defining complex password generation rules
        2) have support for saving said custom password generation as a profile

So, KeePass + wine it is until I have a better alternative. :)

<comment><USER12> But why Wine?

[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/keepass2](http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/keepass2)

<comment><USER10> Inertia. I've been using KeePass for years and I'm still on v1 because at the time the v1 database format was more well supported across all the "keepass" compatible apps on iOS, OS X, Android, etc.

What I have works for me very well although I will admit that the v2 database format is supported well enough these days that I could migrate.

<comment><USER12> Oh right, I didn't realize that people were still hanging on the legacy version. Then I suppose Wine does actually make sense

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Many years ago I reported two bugs in KeePass, one related to the tray icon, and the other related to some bad rendering in the GUI.

Both were closed, with reasons like "this is a bug in .NET", "this is a bug in Windows". Maybe they were, but somehow other applications didn't expose them. The bugs were annoying, and if it were my software I would have fixed them somehow, even if they were not my fault.

Long story short, the author gave me a bad impression, the kind of "know it all, know it best" attitude. So his refusal to fix this MITM problem doesn't surprise me one bit.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why is there advertisement on the automated update server? Why can't he just split them apart? What with things like Let's Encrypt nowadays, there really shouldn't be any excuse not to use https. _Especially_ for a security related product!

<comment><USER15> There isn't an automated update server. KeePass can't auto-update. The web server has a text file on it that contains the version number of the latest release. KeePass (optionally) checks that file to see if a new version is available and displays a notification to the user. Downloads and installation of new versions has to be done manually by the user. The binaries are hosted on SourceForge and other mirror sites, and in my cursory checking those are serving the file over HTTPS. The binaries are digitally signed.

So any possible attack against KeePass would as most cause the notification dialog to appear saying there's a new version.

anyway, the author found a solution by signing the text file that the update checker looks at. IMO, that's a superior solution to HTTPS. He's posted a statement on the KeePass website. [http://keepass.info/help/kb/sec_issues.html#updsig](http://keepass.info/help/kb/sec_issues.html#updsig)

</comment></comment><comment> extropic-engine I've already been slowly migrating from KeePass to [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/) and this is just one more reason why.

</comment><comment><USER16>
      The indirect costs of switching to HTTPS (like lost
      advertisement revenue) make it a inviable solution.

How does HTTPS result in lost ad revenue?

<comment><USER17> The answers here are off the mark. You can obviously have the update channel use HTTPS and keep your website at HTTP (not recommended, but certainly possible).

Or just sign the updates and version information.

<comment><USER18> The way the update system works (according to the article) is that it shows a pop-up with the new version, and that pop-up opens their site (via HTTP). It is conceivable that they'd rely on the impressions coming from update dialogs for their ad revenue, so the argument they used (which - just to clarify - <USER2> not _my_ argument) would apply here as well. Switching to HTTPS (or some other signing mechanism) for the update check would solve one of the problems described in the article (tricking the user into thinking there's a new version available), but it would not eliminate the MitM opportunity on the site itself.

<comment><USER19> The MitM on the automated update check is by far more dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Roboform has been my go to, but honestly I don't know how well the security is on it but by the track record it looks as though they have not had any issues by what short searching I have done.

I've seen several open source systems that share on GitHub such as PadLock but have yet to be able to test these to compare to Roboform. Considering how cheap I was able to pick up Roboform to (as a college student I got 4 years for 1) I really haven't seen the urge to switch considering on how universal Siber System's Roboform does on multiple systems.

Even though this can also be a downfall if the developer's slack on one system, I have been satisfied with these guys since I started using them so many years ago and really haven't found many complaints.

 _edit_ My entire reasoning for posting was that while I'm very familiar with Roboform my experience with KeePass was always lacking compared to others.

</comment><comment><USER21> Couldn't this be solved by signing the update file?

But the excuse of the dev is bogus in any case. In is trivial to have that single file transferred via HTTPS. His ad revenue excuse makes me thing something fishy is going on here.

<comment><USER22> That would help, but an attacker being able to deliver an arbitrary website by MITM is still something that should be avoided.

<comment><USER19> Signing the update file and having a separate page for the SHA256 hash of the binary would win back a lot of my confidence at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> See a more detailed (but still very wrong in my opinion) response from Dominik here: [https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/e...](https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/e430cc12/#f398)

</comment><comment><USER24> Disable the update via:

[https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/a...](https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/a7ea7b6c/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Well I'm glad I switched off of keepass awhile back.

Anyone know any good password managers that have web login and support U2F? Lastpass does not :(

<comment><USER26> I just use a gpg-encrypted org-mode file (I can transparently decrypt it with emacs). It's remarkably convenient, and I don't have to worry about software going out of support.

<comment><USER25> Yea I used to do something similar, but I'm really looking for something with web support...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The indirect costs of switching to HTTPS (like lost advertisement revenue) make it a inviable solution

This doesn't entirely make sense. I'm sure it's possible to serve adverts on a HTTPS page, and let's encrypt is hardly expensive

<comment><USER28> > I'm sure it's possible to serve adverts on a HTTPS page

Yes, you can, but you lose a tremendous amount of ad revenue and a number of ad providers _still_ don't support HTTPS.

<comment><USER29> Is this becuase all the third party assets and scripts would need to be HTTPS as well? If they weren't then you get that browser warning about mixed content?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's free software; You have no right to complain or dictate priorities when you aren't paying for it. You aren't the customer, KeePass 2 advertisers are.

Use 1password and pay $5 a month if you want the right to complain.

<comment><USER31> > It's free software;

It is not free software, it's proprietary. Please don't use the phrase "free software" in this context, as it confuses people. It has a very specific meaning in the context of software.

<comment><USER32> On the homepage it says: "KeePass is really free, and more than that: it is open source (OSI certified). You can have a look at its full source and check whether the encryption algorithms are implemented correctly.".

Why do you say it's proprietary?

<comment><USER31> Ah sorry, I was wrong. I thought that KeePass was proprietary and that KeePassX was a free software replacement. :P</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX Falcon First stage has landed on of Course I Still Love - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718542066041532416 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11457263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11457263)</comment>


Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets at Protestors - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-21/thousands-set-to-turn-out-for-anti-government-march-in-hong-kong <comment><USER3> Actually it is really bad right now, [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/just-chaos- bloodshed-h...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/just-chaos-bloodshed- hong-kong-district-hundreds-masked-men-assault-protesters-journalists- residents/)

Chaos and bloodshed in Hong Kong district as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists, residents

The group used bamboo sticks and other weapons to attack people in the area and in the West Rail Line station, injuring Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was seen bleeding from his mouth in a social media live stream.

<comment><USER4> For more photos and videos of the triad attack, check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/)

For another reporting of the triad attack, see BBC [1] and the Times [2].

It was leaked a few days ago that the government was planning to use triads to do the dirty work (See point 4 in [3] and [4] in Chinese). Using triads happened during the 2014 umbrella protest, but this time the attack on arbitrary citizens (not necessarily the protesters) is on a completely different scale: a terrorist attack.

And there are videos showing that the police "co-operated" with the triads (by turning a blind eye: arriving at the scene late [5] [6], chatting with the triad attackers [7], closing the police stations and not responding to cases during the events).

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- china-49066982](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982)

[2]: [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c35b094-abe5-11e9-b657-1...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c35b094-abe5-11e9-b657-11944f524f2a)

[3]: [https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/posts/2336638383089638](https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/posts/2336638383089638)

[4]: [https://nextplus.nextmedia.com/article/2_682569_0](https://nextplus.nextmedia.com/article/2_682569_0)

[5]: A video showing two policemen turning their back on the the subway station right before the attack: [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0hm2/hkpf_leavi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0hm2/hkpf_leaving_yuen_long_station_at_the_time_that/)

[6]: A video allegedly showed how the triad members (on the left) left the scene when the police (on the right) arrived at one scene: [https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/videos/477470036387268/](https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/videos/477470036387268/)

[7]: [https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144)

<comment><USER5> Funny, why you don't show the videos how those violent protesters beaten polices, cut some police's finger, destroy the government buildings, dirty Chinese national emblem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We know from first-hand experience here in France that although it is not visually spectacular, tear gas and rubber bullets are highly dangerous and potentially lethal weapons.

There's the more famous cases like that yellow vests self-proclaimed (and wrongly so) spokesperson who lost an eye to a rubber bullet. There's the old Zineb Redouane who was at home in Marseille when she was hit in the head by a tar gas can (thrown from a launcher, not by hand) and died accordingly.

But then, there's also the THOUSANDS of daily anonymous victims of state repression. Because those weapons, along with "sting-ball grenades", get deployed in day-to-day police operations (controlling popular neighborhoods, football matches, free parties).

In such hard times, all my thoughts go to the comrades in Hong Kong and their close ones who are going to face very hard times. Solidarity is stronger than any prison!

<comment><USER7> _We know from first-hand experience here in France that although it is not visually spectacular, tear gas and rubber bullets are highly dangerous and potentially lethal weapons._

We know that from the United States too when Oakland police shot rubber bullets at protestors' heads. Per the manufacturer you're supposed to bounce them off the ground at someone, not shoot them directly at someone's head.

<comment><USER8> Did you and the OP actually watch some of the videos posted in this thread? There are literally gangsters sponsored by the government using weapons to attack women and children in broad daylight, while the police is nowhere to be seen, and tells people to not be outside.

There is NO comparison to anything in a civilized western society

<comment><USER7> _There is NO comparison to anything in a civilized western society_

I'm not well versed in French police history, but there are plenty of examples of government brutality in the United States. This isn't whataboutism as, quite frankly, none of the violence justifies any of the other violence and what China is doing is an atrocious violation of basic human rights.

Off the top of my head:

Kent State — killing university students

MOVE bombing - bombing a residential neighborhood in Philly

Iran Contra Affair - CIA allegedly funded drug traffickers allegedly playing a large role in unleashing crack cocaine into American inner cities (wanna talk about violence against youth…)

1968 Democratic National Convention

Dakota Access Pipeline protests - protestors were tear gassed and sprayed with water in freezing temperatures

And of course Trump's concentration camps.

If your argument hinges on the government looking the other way while a private party perpetrates violence I'd start looking at the Homestead Strike, the Ford Massacre, any small town in the south where the KKK + police department venn diagram was basically just a single circle, and of course Blackwater's (of Betsy Devoss fame) Nisour Square Massacre.

<comment><USER9> None of those are really the same- the closest thing I'm aware of in US history is the Pinkertons- except they were presumably professionals- in HK we're seeing illegal gangs being hired to terrorize the populace

<comment><USER7> _None of those are really the same- the closest thing I 'm aware of in US history is the Pinkertons- except they were presumably professionals- in HK we're seeing illegal gangs being hired to terrorize the populace _

What is happening in Hong Kong is, presumably, the government using outside groups as a proxy for violence. I've outlined a number of instances of the American government using disproportionate violence and using outside groups to perpetrate disproportionate violence. The one thing I forgot were the allegations that the FBI used Gregory Scarpa (a mob hitman) to extract information might seem closer for you.

If you look to the south, there are plenty of instances of the American government funding South American rebel groups (while not the mob, they were not professionals, and did perpetrate plenty of heinous crimes). I mentioned the Contras in the context of the CIA funding drug trafficking into the US (if you don't believe that resulted in an explosion of violence go check out the homicide stats for LA County in the 1990s), but the Contras were extraordinarily violent in their home of Nicaragua.

Of course nothing is ever _exactly_ the same. I don't think that making a difference between professional and hobbyist thug is one worth making here. Beyond that I don't think that legal vs illegal is a worth making either. Do you think the PRC is going to sanction the triads (therefor declaring their behavior illegal)? I don't.

<comment><USER9> The point I was referring to was that this is a domestic incident of proxy violence.

The Scarpa and Crack episodes were closer to that, but it still doesn't seem like the Pinkertons were the closest we came to this in the USA

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's scarier is the organized attacks by white shirt Triads on normal people. It looks like it was coordinated with the police who went into the police station and shut the doors shortly before the attack. See the video and comments on this thread:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0diu/triads_att...](https://old.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0diu/triads_attacking_civilians_anyone_on_the_mtr_in/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I worry about Hong Kong protestors as it isn't like mainland China isn't in this for the long game. Mainland China will increasing integrate Hong Kong, it is an unstoppable force. I think the most prominent protestors should have plans to get out of the country.

<comment><USER12> I think part of their goal is to make the intergration as expensive as possible. They don't need to beat the Mainland in a classical sense - <USER2> make it not worth it even when trying to preserve face.

The ideal goal is either turning Mainland to be more like their values or being cut loose into a "offically a part of China that we don't deliver mail to" like Taiwan. The Mainland could always go Tiananmen Square part 2 but it would do more damage to their relations, create martyrs, and lead to sanctions and boycotts value.

<comment><USER13> There does not seem to be a unified long-term goal among the protesters.

Support for independence is strong primarily among young people, so embracing the cause of independence would probably split the protest movement along generational lines. However, everybody knows that Hong Kong's special deal with mainland will expire after 2046 and it doesn't seem like anyone outside the independence movement really has a strategy to preserve democracy after that.

<comment><USER14> > There does not seem to be a unified long-term goal among the protesters.

Universal sufferage has been trending as another talking point too among protesters. This would be very long term because if Hong Kong would allot all seats in the LegCo based on popular vote Beijing would almost certainly lose its ability to legislate this easily and hand pick the government.

<comment><USER13> How would universal suffrage last beyond 2046, at which time the mainland government can just rewrite all of the laws?

<comment><USER14> Because China, contrary to popular opinion, cares about its image. Dismantling democracy in one sweep at 2046 would look pretty bad, replacing the democratically elected government at 2046 would also look bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I originally compared Hong Kong to my understanding of the cities in the middle ages. London and it's citizens were granted special privileges.

I thought this was a sort of recapitulation of that. That still might be the case but I'm also starting to think this might be bad for the mainland Chinese government. They are fighting ideas about autonomy. The people in Hong Kong don't just want to sit back and make money - they want a say in how the world is run. They want power. That's the idea that's being fought against.

If it's China vs. Hong Kong then my money is on China. But what if that alienation between governed and government spreads from Hong Kong to other places in China? It seems unlikely but can the Chinese government respond to that?

There's that classic Churchill quote about Democracy (The worst but for all the others) and - if what I've described is accurate - this is one of the places Democracy shines because it's agile enough to concede power as a way of avoiding chaos. More autocratic systems tend to be a lot firmer - they concede nothing by their nature but the prices of firmness is brittleness. If they are finally forced to concede it comes in the form of shattering.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there wide-spread support of the protesters among the HongKong general public? Have their been polls conducted? I support Democracy and the HongKong protesters, but I wonder whether the police actions reflect the broader public's consensus or not....[edit]I say this because it is hard for me to imagine the public NOT supporting the protestors, which would make the police actions against the protestors that much more a sign of impending oppression and influence of the Chinese government...

<comment><USER17> Of the 7.4 million people who live in Hong Kong, between 338,000 (police count) and 2 million (organizer count) people took to the streets on June 16th alone. Here's a timelapse of one evening of protests (I couldn't find a palatable source so I rehosted it myself):

[https://yukari.sr.ht/hk-timelapse.mp4](https://yukari.sr.ht/hk-timelapse.mp4)

<comment><USER18> Those clips make my every hair stand. It is a movement of unquestionable legitimacy.

P.S. watching on Sway, thank you Drew.</comment></comment></comment>


Cuil frozen out, market share drops to next to nothing. - <AUTHOR> http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2008/09/24/cuil-frozen-out-market-share-drops-to-next-to-nothing/

<comment><USER2> Because it sucked.

The UI was nothing earth shattering, in fact it confused a lot of people. The results were short of impressive in terms of relevance and usefulness.

If you're going to beat Google, you're going to have to be better, easier and faster.

Cuil didn't just fall short in all three, it was abysmal in all three.</comment>


Ask HN: Pure mathematical route to intelligence? - <AUTHOR> Are there purely mathematical inspired routes to Artificial intelligence. Such routes perhaps assume intelligence as a property of some exotic pure mathematical structure? Such route deviate from the human-brain/nature inspired ways of intelligence <comment><USER2> The closest thing I can think of would be Algorithmic Information Theory[1]. Marcus Hutter has done some work with that vis-a-vis Artificial Intelligence[2][3][4]. And while it's not quite the same thing, you might find Pei Wang's NARS[5] approach of interest.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory)

[2]: [http://www.hutter1.net/ait.htm](http://www.hutter1.net/ait.htm)

[3]: [http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm](http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm)

[4]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXI)

[5]: [https://cis.temple.edu/~pwang/papers.html](https://cis.temple.edu/~pwang/papers.html)

<comment><USER3> I was going to say the same thing. You might also be interested in logical induction:

[https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/logical_uncerta...](https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/logical_uncertainty_and_logica.html)

[https://intelligence.org/2016/09/12/new-paper-logical- induct...](https://intelligence.org/2016/09/12/new-paper-logical-induction/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paraphrasing a quote from Al Perlis:

"there is no formal way from informal to formal"

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out the work of Dr. Sergio Pissanetzky on artificial general intelligence starting at [http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/](http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/) and [http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/index-2.html](http://sergio.pissanetzky.com/index-2.html). It seems plausible and promising, but details are omitted preventing easy verification and it would have been convenient if he used graphs insted of causal sets. Additional references to his work are in his Google Scholar page at [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KEuEW8QAAAAJ&hl=en](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KEuEW8QAAAAJ&hl=en), in particular see his 2 most recent publications near the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER6> The universe seems to run on a maths based OS so I'd think so.

</comment><comment><USER7> The question reminds me of a paper I read: Causal Entropic Forces, sometimes referred to as 'entropic intelligence' but the basis is physics rather mathematics.

[https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46](https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/46)

In this theory, intelligence is equivalent to maximising future possible states in a system. There are some interesting videos on YouTube about it as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Intelligence seems to me a particularly adequate solution to the existential problems of being and as such as inevitable as life its self, being a local entropic minima. To put it another way I think you can extrapolate life from physical laws and intelligence from life.

</comment><comment><USER9> I find questions like this frustrating...do you know what intelligence actually is? I don't mean just a vague notion of it but an understanding of the principles behind which it works.

Nature had billions of years and a possibly infinite universe to figure it out. You don't have that long.

<comment><USER2> But nature wasn't _trying_ to create intelligence. Intelligence emerged because intelligent creatures lived long enough to pro-create and spread their genes.

Yes, evolution is a powerful force, but there's no _particular_ reason that I'm aware of to think that we, as human, without our own intelligence and reasoning abilities, can't engineer other intelligences.

<comment><USER10> "But nature wasn't trying to create intelligence"

That may _seem_ true... but what if it was/is though?

<comment><USER11> That's the whole argument around theism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is interesting. I've opted completely for the other side of the spectrum, modeling networks rigorously to the biological standard, but this may be worth looking into.

</comment><comment><USER8> IMHO Game Theory is the key to that

<comment><USER11> Game theory will result in something weird like Facebook, which is marginally useful, but comes with so many downsides that people wish they didn't use it.

<comment><USER8> I'm interested in how you got to that conclusion.</comment></comment></comment>


Worst Design Failures - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uxpin.com/2837/10-worst-design-failures-of-all-times/

<comment><USER2> Windows Mobile? Worst OS ever? Why ? It was very usable with a stylus, and you could do tons of what you now do on the iPhone like 5 years earlier (or more). It was not perfect but it certainly was not bad.

Google Wave ? Bad usability ? Where? No reasons given.

Sony Remote for Google TV -> what's wrong with it? You don't like having a keyboard? Again, no reason given, just a picture that is supposed to explain everything.

Shitty Blogspam. The author did not even sign with his name (because they are several of them in About Us) so I guess he's not too proud of his shitty list.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK than. Couple of reasons - Windows Mobile was a single worse case of Fits Law violation. Small interface elements hard to reach even with stylus. I remember that one of my test devices was HTC Diamond. I don't recall slower, uglier mobile device. Apart from that UI guidelines were a joke. Microsoft tried to fit Windows into a mobile device and failed. Phone 8 is a completely new approach. Just try to compare them.

Google Wave failed to address one particular useful 'use case'. The interface was a mess and people didn't know what to do with it.

Sony Remote? It was actually canceled and changed because of problems with usability. Lots of buttons with lack of clear information architecture - straight way to design hell.

Each and one of mentioned devices could be throughly analyzed. I just thought it will be more fun to list them :).

Thanks for comment anyway.

<comment><USER3> Assertive overstatements are no substitute thought or analysis. I'm glad it was fun for you. It wasn't fun for me. More a case of "Why is this idiot wasting my time?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those of you who are annoyed by the shutdown/restart processes in Windows 8, consider adding some shortcuts to your desktop and start menu to make this process 1-click[1]:

Shutdown: Right-click on the desktop, click "New > Shortcut" and enter "shutdown /s /t 0"

Restart: Right-click on the desktop, click "New > Shortcut" and enter "shutdown /r /t 0"

You can change the icon to look more appropriate, and pin this to the start menu or task bar.

[1]: [http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-add-windows-8-shutdown- rest...](http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-add-windows-8-shutdown-restart- shortcuts-to-start-screen-taskbar-and-desktop/)

<comment><USER3> I think ordinary users are supposed to press the (physical) on/off button. That's really simple.

<comment><USER5> Although this only suspends the machine (by default, as far as I remember the only other option is hibernate).

<comment><USER3> Yes. Push the power button and your Windows 8 machine should resume in about two seconds, and even after hibernating overnight, come back in less than 20 seconds.

You don't want users to turn it off, and they shouldn't really need to restart it more often than Microsoft Update does already. Hiding away the reboot process is therefore a useful bit of design....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This bit of obvious linkbait would look less stupid if the headline read "10 of the Worst Gadget Design Failures of the Past 10 Years", though it still wouldn't show much knowledge of gadgets....

</comment><comment><USER6> The worst spelling of all time as well. The sheer number of errors in that 'article' made my eyes bleed.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would personally add iOS7 to the list.

<comment><USER8> Why?

<comment><USER7> It's just matter of personal preferences. I find it step backward. But maybe it's more aesthetic issue than UX. As I said - subjective opinion.</comment></comment></comment>