Show HN: Appsites – Beautiful websites for mobile apps in minutes - <AUTHOR> http://appsites.com

<comment><USER2> It seems to be down at the moment as I keep getting the "We'll be right back!" message. Possibly the HN effect?

Anyway - that aside this is an absolutely brilliant idea and fixes a real pain point for me. After spending so long on the app that I've started to hate it, doing all the screenshots, videos, etc. is bad enough - but then you have to do the website as well and it just makes you feel like - "urgh, really? CSS mangling time? Blergh." I would easily pay some of my hard earned indie cash to just have it done for me. Some thoughts:

\- I'm going to want to integrate whatever site you create into my own website, so I just want to download whatever you have and throw it into a div container and have it work. Which means there shouldn't be any/many dependencies on CSS frameworks / JavaScript etc. It should be clean.

\- If I'm going to give you my cash I'm going to want to be able to choose from a LOT of different themes so that I can differentiate my app from all the others out there. I don't mind doing some of the simple customization myself (colours, text, etc.). I'm not going to want to pay each time if all it comes down to is changing the logo / picture / text when I could easily do that myself.

\- I don't know how you plan to monetize, but I wouldn't pay monthly for this. I just don't churn out apps fast enough (other people might want to though, of course). But I would be prepared to pay a fair bit each time if it looks good enough. I'm thinking £5 for the simple demo shown (chow.appsites.com), up to £25 for something like [http://staticapp.co/](http://staticapp.co/) \- with all the fancy animations and the like.

Anyway - hope it works out and you do well.

<comment><USER3> Honest question: Why not us a Wordpress template?

<comment><USER2> Because that would mean I'd have to use Wordpress. I still want to have enough control to change what I want to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was actually of just thinking of building something like this, ha. I like the idea.

Under the "enter your appstore link" you should have a default that the user can try. I don't have an app link but I'd still lie to see some output.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we just put this in the roadmap last night :)

Try any URL to test it out. Here is one: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon- story/id513474544?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon- story/id513474544?mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should have a link to a demo customer, so we can see what the output looks like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we just put that in todo list last night. Try this: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon- story/id513474544?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon- story/id513474544?mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice, I built something like this before too, but with much few feature.

[http://myapppage.herokuapp.com/demo?appID=471966214](http://myapppage.herokuapp.com/demo?appID=471966214)

<comment><USER7> wow, impressed

<comment><USER6> Thank you for your good word :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What do these look like live? have an example?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, check out [http://chow.appsites.com](http://chow.appsites.com)

<comment><USER9> Is this example removed? Shows just the main page here...

<comment><USER5> Seeing the same. Chrome 36.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should be up now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cool concept but your landing page spends too much time telling me what I'll get and not why I'd want it.

I tried out the editor by pasting a random app link. It looks pretty neat but took forever to load. You could also short circuit the reloading when I cancel out of an edit panel. And fix the settings popup so that it can be dismissed when viewed in small browser windows.

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't seem to work right now, but reminds me of how app.io started. They basically created websites for your apps automatically but then I think found the demand wasn't that great and pivoted to the realtime demo idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's actually been quite a few VC backed companies try this model: App.net and App.io come to mind. The beautiful thing about Appsites is that we won't be taking money -- from anyone. So we don't have the same pressure to be a $100M to business. We're perfectly content being a $100k a year business. We're completely bootstrapped and intend to stay that way. So as long as we're pulling a profit, we intend to keep our customer's websites running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately, it only seems to work for apps that are on the US app store. It doesn't create a page for apps that are, say, only in the UK app store.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch, we'll fix this today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very interesting. Does it include A/B testing functionality, or can you integrate 3rd-party analytics and testing KISSMetrics, Optimizely, etc.?

<comment><AUTHOR> Optimizely is next on our list of integrations to support. Right now we support Google Analytics, but it's pretty trivial to add more. Any other services you think we should support?

<comment><USER13> Userlytics, Mixpanel, maybe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cool! You should include a landscape theme (game)

</comment><comment><USER15> Definitely something I'd be interested in also, but sadly seems to be struggling with the load.</comment>


Successful Side Project Schedules? - <AUTHOR>

I've seen some things asked here previously regarding how to find time to put into a side project, usually with the idea of how to put enough time into it to bootstrap it and launch as a full time thing.  I am curious about schedules people have found that work to be adequately productive for a side project that is intended to remain a side project.
I am interested in hearing about the schedule you kept (hours per week, frequency of updates, etc), what assets (skills, experience, etc) you brought to the table that you feel made it feasible to do as a part-time success, and what criteria you are using to measure "success".  I am interested in both monetary and non-monetary measures of success: If there was a specific non-financial goal, what was it and how well do you feel you met that goal?  And any other thoughts you care to volunteer on doing something meaningful as a side project, something more serious and professional than piddling around in a hobby-like fashion (which is what I feel I often do and am trying to stop doing).
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> When I'd started my first job (after an ad-driven web app that went nowhere), I quickly found I wouldn't have much time for side projects. So I'd outsourced my little project to a talented dude from the east. This first project was to be measured with a financial goal -- 30,000$ a month. (was pretty naive)

Hours per week: about 10. (learned a lot about documenting processes, instructions & ui flow's for an other dev.)

Skills/Profile: worked on a ton of platforms. wrote emulators in high school. game engine developer. designed graphics hardware devices. published research papers. failed web startups.

Success measurement: 30,000$ per month. (hit about 2,000$. liquidated. back to basics)

\-----

These days, my day job involves lots of consulting. Side project profile:

Hours per week: 40~ (I'm the core developer)

Success measured: 100-1000~ active users.

Financial goal: acquisition(s) in the 50-100,000$ range. (not tied to revenue / year)

\-----

Haven't hit any of my (almost) modest end-goals/exits yet. I've met a few of my 'on the road' milestones. They didn't make me feel any different. I love the process, and that keeps me going.

If you're serious about forcing yourself into making an impact, find a bunch of target customers with a pain to be solved, talk to them, and promise them something with a deadline attached. I've found a lot of folks need the brute- force kickstart approach early on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great feedback/long, detailed post!

 _If you're serious about forcing yourself into making an impact, find a bunch of target customers with a pain to be solved, talk to them, and promise them something with a deadline attached._

Oh, I wish my life were that simple. The people who most need/can benefit from one of my side projects are mostly openly hostile. I've spent a lot of time trying to make communication in-roads in the face of that situation. One of my goals is to try to start making more regular updates to the website in question in hopes that gets people thinking without getting their ire up so much (ie not as much as trying to actually talk to them tends to do). Eventually, I want to write an app for it (a simulation -- aka "game"). But a) the audience isn't ready for that and b) I don't know a progamming language. Recently, someone kind of suggested I start with a design doc to start documenting my ideas without needing to learn to program first.

I was quite ill for a very long time. So I spent a lot of time piddling around on the computer to occupy myself so I wouldn't go nuts but was unable to be very focused/productive. Now that I am healthier, I am trying to break some of those habits and figure out how to structure my time so I can gradually start accomplishing more.

<comment><USER2> Apologies for the late reply. Lot of interesting stuff packed into your comment. Thanks for taking the time. Also, great to know you're healthier now.

I'm intrigued about your 'openly hostile' target market. Firstly, it sounds like you've thought about your target audience quite a bit. Great sign. Why would they be hostile about you solving their pains? Is it the price point? Privacy concerns? General mistrust?

Or is it likely you're packaging an anti-depressant as a pain-killer. ([http://pablobrenner.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/neither- painkil...](http://pablobrenner.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/neither-painkillers- nor-vitamins-antidepressants/))

You say 'the audience isn't ready for that'. That seems perfectly fine. You can probably think ahead a lot more than they can. But it'd be great to have some validation, even if that means dealing with their hostility, to get through.

\-----

I'll echo the advice about starting with a design doc. Once you know what the game should be like, you can start implementing tiny features and learn along the way. When I'd starting building games (new to programming as well), I had weekly goals that were like "fighter jet moves right/left using arrow keys, over a static background". Next week would have 'implement top-down scrolling background' etc. When you're starting out, its important to take care of your mental state. Things that seem trivial might take much longer. You've gotta keep reminding yourself that its a learning experience too. That with every seemingly trivial item that you conquer, your value in the market increases.

With games, it often is easy to get overwhelmed. You'll need to split yourself into 'designer/manager' and 'developer'. The developer works on the tiniest, most detailed instructions. The designer/manager is allowed only a single day a week perhaps, to write (in detail) about the next tiny feature to implement & to dream of new features. In my case, I'd get my 'big plan' down on paper(about 2 pages worth about what the entire game was like), from memory, every single week. Just so I'd know subconsciously, where the project as a whole was headed.

\-----

Here's hoping you'll be inspiring others with your story soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was diagnosed a bit over 10 years ago with "atypical cystic fibrosis". This is a relatively recently recognized, milder form of a very deadly condition. It has all the same issues, but they tend to be somewhat less severe. It's still a very serious condition and I spent 3.5 months bedridden and a year at death's door, in part because I had to get pretty darn sick before doctors took me seriously. I was just kind of low-grade sick all the time and doctors and everyone else treated me like a hypochondriac for most of my life. Because it's genetic, they tested both my sons. I told them which son had it before they ran the tests: The one who was 'like me'.

While mostly bedridden and sleeping 18 to 20 hours a day, I was being routinely denied treatment while they referred me on to yet another specialist and more testing. They were often unwilling to prescribe me anything because they didn't know what was going on. So I ended up doing what I could for myself because I had no real choice: I was being denied treatment and in serious danger of dying. Then, after getting a diagnosis, rather than trying to get me well, doctors promptly informed me "People like you don't get well. Symptom management is the name of the game." I was kind of like "Fuck that. I survived using alternative treatments with NO diagnosis. Surely we can do better than that now that we know what the problem is. Yeeesh!" So I intentionally turned something of a deaf ear to my doctors and the world and sought my own answers for a long time. (People act like I am some whack job who is hostile towards doctors and refused to see them. Nope. They largely refused to treat me. Excuse me for being so gauche as to live anyway.)

I eventually figured out how to get myself (and my son) basically well. Saying this on CF lists elicits two types of reactions: 1) I'm the second coming of jesus christ or 2) I'm a liar, a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. There are more folks who are openly hostile than folks who are adoring fans. Long experience has taught me that it's a very bad idea to engage the adoring fans. It only inflames the haters more and convinces everyone this really is solely about my ego. The fans also have a tendency to say things that are adoring but vacuous. In other words, they basically fawn all over me but don't ask good questions about "so, how exactly did you accomplish that?" This is extremely dangerous, not just because it incites lynch mobs and provokes other people into attacking me all the more but because I don't want anyone doing anything on "faith" in me. I want them to come to a better understanding of their condition and make more informed choices. I don't want someone latching onto some detail of something I said and running with that, without context. Some of the things people with CF have tried is pretty stupid and it shocks me what I have to explain because they are missing the background info. So in order to help them, I need more info about what they don't understand and that means I need them to engage me in conversation, not just adore me and feel "inspired". Making in roads into real conversation is a very hard row to hoe.

I think it would be a shame for what I have learned to not benefit others. But I am also not interested in taking all kinds of abuse or trying to cram my help down the throats of people who are openly hostile and not receptive. Since what I did is largely rooted in diet and lifestyle, unwillingness or disinterest is a show-stopper. This doesn't work if it is not by choice and participatory. I think the top-down medical model is part of the problem anyway. In my experience, the top down approach amounts to "you can't get there from here" in terms of genuine wellness. It simply doesn't work.

At some point, I concluded that one of the issues is that most people in the CF community simply can't wrap their brains around what I am talking about and one thing that would help would be a more information-dense delivery method than the written word currently on my website. I think a simulation (aka "game") would be useful in that regard. But for the moment, I have left most of the CF lists I was on due to the attacks (which often occurred with the backing of the moderators, who then treated me like a loon for suggesting the expectation of politeness and respect from other people which applied to everyone else should also apply to me) and have largely stopped updating the site (in part because I am just busy getting a life but also because the site has been used as a source of ammo by people who are openly hostile).

If I am unable to find a way around this impasse, I am willing to focus on other things and let this go. I got myself well to get my life back, not to seek out new ways to be martyred. I think it would be a shame if I cannot share what I have learned but I'm also not willing to put up with the level abuse that I've been subjected to and I can well imagine it escalating further into far more than mere name calling on some email list. People with CF suffer quite a lot and people die from it, often at extremely young ages. So emotion runs very high in the CF community. I think some people are hostile in part because they have basically tortured their child to keep them alive and they can only live with it because they were told it was the only option. Someone telling them "there's another way and it's more humane" is tantamount to calling them a child abuser. Not my intent at all and I don't agree with that interpretation but I get the impression that's part of why I get so much hostility. There are other reasons why I get such strong negative reactions but this is fairly long as is.

Thanks for asking. It's a pleasure to discuss it with someone actually interested/curious.

<comment><USER2> Whoa. Wasn't expecting that. Firstly, do not let go of your intense need/desire to fix this. There's someone out there who could really use your insights.

Reading through, couldn't help flash back to circumstances I've been through personally. The flawed medical system isn't new to me. Been called a hypochondriac. Prescribed tons of antibiotics. 'Irritable bowel' 'stress' 'migranes' 'whitecoat blah'; how quickly they'd come up their diagnosis. And, I'd gotten out (almost there) of my messed up state through a similar path as yours. Via massive dietary and lifestyle changes. Though, certainly nothing compared to what you've been through, and I've been trying to raise hell against the med community for quite a while. My folks are doctors; so I've had an insider preview of how bad things really are.

\-----

Back to the CF community, Would it be possible to get them on board, if you started over from a different perspective?

You've probably seen <http://crohnology.com/>. Certainly could derive a lot of inspiration from there. (including the HN post)

Existing communities might be harder to penetrate. Especially ones that're heavily moderated. BUT, I'd bet there's a ton of folks who share your opinions about the med community, and the ways they diagnose & treat symptoms.

What might the other reasons for why you've received those strong negative reactions be?

I'm all for the simulation/game idea. I'd even recommend starting a movement over on Kickstarter, if you don't mind the publicity. Although, it might be better if you'd build a new community from scratch first. Share your story, tell them what the goals are, speak of your vision. Trust me, it'll resonate with a whole bunch of folks. Much like 'crohnology' did.

AND, like you'd mentioned, the folks most active on these communities might have been there for quite some time, and to suggest something disruptive would do nothing but ignite a wildfire. Could possibly start with those who've been diagnosed recently. The clueless ones. Perhaps the ones who haven't yet reached out for support. At a point where they're confused, looking for options, and they're just hoping some (usually clueless) doc has all the right answers. Of course, you'll still have to answer the question about how you'll actually get to them. Google adwords & seo, if not anything else.

\-----

Lastly, I'm not sure you should pursue this with monetary goals in mind. Although, it'd be ridiculous to ignore the possibilities. Imagine all the positive press/attention/network/connections you'd attain, by starting a 'movement'. In a day and age where every other person seems to be trying their hand at the popular little social gizmo idea of the moment, making a real impact ensures you'll stand out like boeing 747 on a highschool playground. You've got a great story here. Leverage it. Save some lives.

Would you be willing to discuss your thoughts on how the simulation/game would work? What would the flow be like? How might it convince them about the changes they'd need to make?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty tired today. Will touch on a few points. I reserve the right to reply more later, should I come up with more to say.

Other reasons for hostility: As you noted, those who have been around a while and were "big names" in the CF community were often my biggest opponents. I can be pretty charismatic and I was stealing their thunder. I think I must have been the cutest 3 year old in the history of the universe (or at least treated that way by the people I knew -- I don't mean it too literally) and got socialized in a problematic way. I have used all the really horribly negative feedback to help me root out some of the stupid crap from my childhood. I don't share the health info out of ego but it's easy for me to soak up the limelight and then miss the fact that nothing constructive is being done, that the issues are not being discussed because people who are miserable have gotten distracted by a relatively rare feel-good moment in their lives. It's taken a lot of effort for me to learn to work this from another angle. In that regard, it's definitely been a growth experience.

Additionally, I am of the opinion that doctors and drugs are part of the problem. This doesn't go over well with people living with a death sentence whose doctors and drugs help keep them alive. They can't imagine a solution that doesn't involve serious drugs. So they do fundraisers for the CF Foundation to the tune of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars (and spit in my face for having ads on my site). The CF Foundation is in bed with big pharma and looking to develop better drugs (to line the pockets of the industry that gives them millions every year). Many in the CF community bitch about what doctors do and what the CF Foundation does and all that but the mantra is also "drug side effects are a necessary evil".

Also, I threw out everything I ever owned, got divorced and moved cross country to break the cycle of infection. This is very scary stuff for people who are ill, financially dependent on their spouse because they are often too sick to work, and dealing with large medical bills and so on. They are scared, and with good reason. The things I did sound very risky. They really aren't. It was a slippery slope and one thing led to another in a logical fashion. It wasn't anything radical, but trying to compare the life I have now to the way they live makes it sound extremely radical.

I have found that people with a newly diagnosed child or who have been doing alternative stuff for a long time are more able to understand and use the information I share. Other people just can't fit it into their "disease model" mentality if they are too entrenched in conventional treatments.

I do have a tiny private email list. Some months ago an older man joined who has been doing alternative stuff a long time. He was able to ask good questions and start the conversation somewhat there. That list might eventually grow.

Cynical observation: At least one woman who was incredibly ugly to me has already died. Doctors don't know how to get people with CF well and the life expectancy is pretty low (around 36 or 37 in the US). So all I have to do is outlive my critics and eventually a new generation will be there who hasn't been psychologically poisoned yet and those folks who hate me won't be around to trash me. <shrug>

I don't think I ever mentioned monetary goals. There really aren't any. I hope to make money another way. The current tentative plan is to make money via a web comic, which hasn't been launched yet. I am okay with sorting out what flies and what doesn't based on what fails (or even fails to launch at all). Another interest of mine is clothing. When I was younger, I wanted to be a fashion consultant. I've done a few posts here inquiring about the clothing space. Now that I have a full-time job (I was a homemaker for 2 decades), it is clear to me that a better paradigm for office wear for women is desperately needed. We currently have basically two paradigms for how women can dress: A) sluts R us and B) She's a man, baby. We desperately need "power dressing for women, and no I'm not some imitation man, thank you". I think I am somewhat uniquely qualified to try to promote such an idea, though I can't figure out if actually producing a clothing line would be the way to go or if there is some other path to promoting that...and a million other details.

FWIW: I was quoted in a health book at some point under my full name. It lists my diagnosis and the diagnosis of my son. One of the co-authors has two children with CF. So my name is getting out there, albeit slowly. I'm okay with that. The CF community needs time to absorb it. I'm a pretty shocking figure and have long been a lightening rod for controversy, regardless of the topic. Before going down in flames in CF-land, I used to be routinely at the center of a firestorm of controversy on gifted/parenting lists. I would kind of like to get back to updating my parenting site as well, but it has the same issue my health site has: No direction and no audience because no one will talk to me. I burned a lot of bridges while going through drug withdrawal. People were far more forgiving and tolerant while I was a basketcase. I think probably people stopped being tolerant and forgiving because I got well. I think it probably makes it harder for them to accept their own personal failures and excuses in life and that is more unforgivable than the rampant foot-in-mouth disease I suffered while in constant excruciating pain and doped to the gills. When I was a basketcase, they could be nice about it and feel good about themselves and be glad their life was better than mine.

As for the game, there are a million little things I do to avoid exposure to germs, fumes and so on. It's hard to convey that in written word. I also want to present the mental models I have for how you build health and gradually alter your body chemistry so you don't need the drugs. Every single thing you do every single minute of every day impacts your body chemistry, the germs you carry (and we all carry millions of microbes -- you can't even digest your food without them) and so on. The power to beat this deadly condition lies in the many small things that get done. CF is so deadly that people want to nuke the body with really strong drugs, which worsens the problem in the long run. They need to build up the body, and do so gently. And until it is rebuilt, it needs to be protected from all kinds of stuff that wouldn't be a big deal for a "normal" person. Afterwards, many of those things need to be maintained. Healing the body does not make the genetic defect go away. But it can be compensated for so it isn't so disastrous, just like being Caucasian doesn't doom you to being chronically sunburned to the point of peeling and then dying of skin cancer at an early age. There are things you can do to protect yourself. The complex, myriad set of choices I make through-out the day are critical to my ability to stay off drugs. That needs to be conveyed somehow. Right now, people hear "just stop taking drugs, they are bad for you" and rightly react to that with "are you nuts??? that would kill me!" Of course it would. You can't simply reject drugs and live with CF. You have to find non- drug approaches that work to make the drugs unnecessary before you can leave them behind. And that's an extremely hard point to convey.

I've been told a Rogue-like game would likely be the best place to start for modeling some of the data I want to convey, like tracking germ exposures, body chemistry, etc. I do not have first hand familiarity with such games. This was feedback from my adult son with CF who plays a lot of games.

<comment><USER2> Been a long day. Sorry for the late reply again. BTW, haven't had a stimulating conversation like this in a while.

I'm glad you've looked through the situation from different angles. Sounds like you've learnt lots.

Wow. You've made some drastic changes to your life. Freaky indeed. On the upside, you've beaten this huge monster of a disease.

It's great that you've got a list already. Also great that you've been featured in a health book. Perfect bunch of reasons for why it'd be great if you'd consider raising some funding over at kickStarter. Take things to a whole other level. It'll help you collect your thoughts about how you'd build an ideal community for CF-conquerers. Where members could share what worked for them, have very customized 'plans of action' even. (hope you've explored <http://crohnology.com>) You'll need some funding for the game, as well as the ad campaigns, etc. Also, with this one move, you'd have built up a list of 1000's. I'd be glad to help out a little, if required.

What is your web comic about? Have you got a marketing/distribution plan handy? Webcomics certainly are interesting, but I'd say the existing publisher/writer distribution model sucks to say the least. I recently convinced a friend of mine, who'd been turning his freshly baked novel into a web comic, to turn it into a Facebook game instead. Drove the idea's monetization potential up a hundred fold possibly.

"power dressing for women". Love the idea. Feel you certainly should pursue it in some form or the other. How about starting with a dribbble/pinterest-like community for fashion designers. Get them to submit ideas etc. I'd be more psyched about curation/community, utilizing network-effects and so on. Than a pure clothing line. But either way, you'll get a lot of great feedback from HN about the most vital parts -- e-commerce, marketing, seo etc. An internet- first clothing line around this concept seems doable, and the community aspect 'empowering women' etc. would drive it ahead. Every successful business needs to start with inspirational stories. And you've got plenty of 'em.

Interesting that you'd say people weren't as forgiving 'cause you got better. This seems quite plausible. Empathy is indeed a depletable resource. Reading through, can't help but feel inspired by your attitude towards all of this. Massively inspired.

You haven't elaborated on the mechanics of the game yet. But I love the idea of the shift in mental models -- leveling up on the characters health through subtle changes that can be visualized. What might the game look like? 2D side- scroller? top-down/isometric? (farmville/diablo) 3d environments? text-based? (like mafia wars) What sort of environmental / personal changes would the character make? I've gotten myself all worked-up about the game concept. Would love to send over a single page write-up of what I imagine this should look/play like, if you don't mind ie.

I'm really curious about the 'complex set of choices' you make throughout the day. Have you considered parallels that could be applied to curing other diseases. More often than not, there tends to be subtle links between certain diseases.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Would love to send over a single page write-up of what I imagine this should look/play like, if you don't mind ie._

Please do send it over. Email address is in profile. And we can continue this conversation privately.

 _I'm really curious about the 'complex set of choices' you make throughout the day. Have you considered parallels that could be applied to curing other diseases. More often than not, there tends to be subtle links between certain diseases._

I'm pretty sure a good bit of it would generalize. I mostly learned how to heal my gut from an autism list (I have two ASD sons and gut issues are really common in ASD kids). The CF community knows rather little about how to do that. People with CF are still human and our bodies still mostly work like that of other humans. One channel in the cell is defective and this makes a few things go very, very wrong. Some of the issues found in the CF community seem fairly common to citizens of 1st world countries generally, but are just taken to real extremes. For example, acidosis is a major issue with CF, one largely overlooked by doctors. Addressing that issue did quite a lot for me. From what I gather, the modern American diet is generally too acid and many of the health issues we have are likely made worse by widespread acidosis, though probably generally milder than what people with CF go through. One issue that seems likely impacted by acidosis is diabetes. People with CF are at high risk for "CF related diabetes" and diabetes is rather common in the US.

I've had quite a long day. My apologies for not replying more thoroughly at this time. I look forward to getting an email from you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ok, I will make a long story short, here.

My current business began as a side project many years ago. At first, I was building/managing the technical aspect of the business( website, integration, inventory systems, fulfillment systems, etc )remotely on an average basis of 20 hours per week. I say average because some weeks I did nothing, and other weeks I worked more than my "day job".

Growth was so strong that I ultimately made the decision to jump ship from my prior company and make my current company a fulltime endeavor. It was one of the most difficult decisions I've made in my life, as the cofounder of my prior company was very close.

During this time, we've grown from < $100k/y revenues to > $5mm ( making an effort to be vague here ), and still enjoying good growth. We are profitable and never took a dime of VC.

Hopefully this anecdote answers your question sufficiently.

<comment><USER2> Inspirational anecdote ya got there. Thanks for sharing.

If you don't mind me asking. How long did it take to get to 5mm in revenues? Also, do you / did you ever have partners on this biz?

<comment><USER3> It's been many years; We've been building this company fulltime since 2005, and on a part time basis since 2002. Bootstrapping is a slog, since you make expansionary investments from cash flow only.

Yes, I have a co-founder. In fact, he's the majority owner.</comment></comment></comment>


Is there really a cloud price war? - <AUTHOR> https://community.csc.com/community/cio-engage/blog/2014/05/28/is-there-really-a-cloud-price-war

<comment><USER2> Good article. Author takes on what so often turns out to be a overly simplistic and poorly thought out "white paper" put out by these research firms. Glad to see someone respond with more insightful points.</comment>


Show HN: Interactive blockchain backend tutorial [MVP] - <AUTHOR> https://web3.coach/blockchain/backend-tutorial <comment><AUTHOR> Visualizing backend learnings is difficult. I was brainstorming over the last week how could I make the entire eBook where you build the blockchain from scratch more... "user friendly".

So I created this MVP tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on it. Is this a good step forward? Would you like to see more tutorials like this and with more steps?

What would you add?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> First 1000 TBB testing tokens were transferred to the first student's account! :) Can't insert an image here, Twitter link: [https://twitter.com/Web3Coach/status/1272912331396259846](https://twitter.com/Web3Coach/status/1272912331396259846)</comment>


Seth Godin: Shoestring opportunity - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/06/shoestring_oppo.html <comment><USER2> So the idea is that for every subject area, there is an opportunity for someone to aggregate news and blogs and make money off it.

I have to disagree with Seth this time. There are already plenty of people doing this, and the reason more aren't doing it is because the ones who are aren't making any money.

Look at row2k.com, the most popular news site for rowers. Ed Hewitt is spending like 18 hours a day on that site, but only because he loves the sport so much, because pretty much the only income they get is from donations. The ads seem to barely cover the server expenses.

For any given blog subject matter there is a blog carnival that aggregates the best posts each week, and none of those seem to be making any money either.

It makes sense. Think about it. If even the biggest news aggregators like Digg and Reddit, which aggregate all stories, can't make any money, then what are the chances that a news aggregator that collects only a tiny slice of stories will be hugely profitable. Especially since Seth is talking about setting up ads. It simply isn't realistic.

<comment><USER3> Demographic data is what drives solid ad revenue. In this way, a niche site could actually generate better and more profitable advertising than one like Digg, which are less focused but have bigger numbers.

<comment><USER2> I'd agree with this is theory. But how many demographics really have a higher discretionary income than web-savvy rowers? The people-who-light-cigars- with-100-dollar-bills society? :-)

<comment><USER3> Touche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm skeptical.

This sounds more like a request to the Lazyweb -- <http://lazyweb.org/> \-- because it's something he'd like to use, rather than a business opportunity.

If he really thought it was the latter, he would probably just go ahead and do it himself.

<comment><USER5> We'll he's basically doing this with <http://www.squidoo.com/> right?

Although that site seems so spammy to me - I can't believe it's #628 on Alexa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those are called blogs, no?</comment>


Odin: Co-Packaging Next-Gen DC Switches and Accelerators with Silicon Photonics - <AUTHOR> https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3420/ranovus-odin-co-packaging-next-gen-dc-switches-and-accelerators-with-silicon-photonics/ <comment><USER2> Wired communication at VRAM speeds on a single low (production) cost chip?! This is going to be game changing for AI and super-computing. Wow.

At these speeds clustering and distributed computing will be a thing of the past in supercomputing.

The supercomputer of next year may functionally be an enormous symmetric multiprocessor bottle-necked only by physical space and power.

The same code could be run on a laptop or supercomputer without having to optimize it. This will make development of large scale applications way more accessible.

<comment><USER3> There's this thing called the speed of light... And RAM access speed. Probably more. It'll be more of a step than a revolution I guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> Photons are still a lot faster than electrons. Latency at the endpoints is still a thing, but this allows a lot of 800 Gbps channels along distances copper can't match.

I don't want to think about the NUMA model for a beast that takes this to its upper limits.

<comment><USER4> What is the class of problem that can be solved by computers of a certain size (compute density metric)? If a computer is basically instantaneous, but has to communicate over vast distances, it still couldn't solve large problems.

Couldn't we have already made 100k core single image OSs running over RDMA?

<comment><USER3> I don't think @rbanffy is claiming such a class of problems exist. I certainly didn't read it that way.

<comment><USER4> @rbanffy might know if they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure that, as we extend the capabilities of our machines, we'll find new problems or approaches to known problems that were not practical up until then.

Like I mentioned, this can increase bandwidth and reduce latency between system components, making warehouse-sized computers look like container-sized ones. I bet we can find some use for that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple keeps the web second-class on iOS - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1191026394421026816 <comment><USER2> The market power that iOS gives Apple in the browser market is the only thing that keeps the web from being shaped by an ad company.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am going to disagree on this. I for one am very grateful that garbage like notifications are not supported on Safari and that developers are forced to create native apps and go through review instead of just making a slow as hell PWA and calling it a day.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree with everything say. Also want to add that most websites are not designed with accessibility in mind. The default font tends to be small and websites block reader view for ad revenues. The same experience is carried over to poorly built mobile apps - I can name and shame the Wells Fargo app. It just spins for 10 seconds after logging in for no good reason.

If anything we should have more review process around these and make accessibility and latencies hard requirements and not optional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple makes several billions from Google to keep it the default search engine including on Safari. So Apple does have a strong business reason to keep increasing Safari usage.

That said, web standards have become super convoluted and hard to implement things consistently. If anything we should aim to reduce this complexity and slow it down a bit.

</comment><comment><USER5> Safari on iOS really is total garbage. Everything this person said is true, but he forgot a few things: It's really inconsistent. Adding a webpage to the homescreen usually makes the experience even worse as apple usually have two webkit versions for iOS. One for browsers and an even worse one for pages added to the homescreen.

Not only that, but the browser is so insanely full of bugs, with race conditions, keyboard that won't show up if you press the address bar (requiring people to quit the browser), scroll that isn't always working and so on. The amount of strange bugs are really impressive.

<comment><USER6> I've been using Mobile Safari since the first iPad launched and haven't run into any of the bugs you mentioned.</comment></comment>


Hypercard (1987) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMFscTOazS0 <comment><AUTHOR> I enjoy revisiting this demo from time to time, because it reminds me of how fun Hypercard was.

As much as I enjoy developing modern web apps using React etc., I can't help but feeling that we're kind of like cavemen assembling things out of sticks and stones when you look at what was possible in Hypercard 30 years ago.

<comment><USER2> I used to sell computers at a local Apple dealership back in the day, and I loved HyperCard and sowed it off in all my demos. I was so disappointed in Apple when they cancelled it. I just couldn't understand Apple's decision! Even now, I wish Apple would find a way to bring it back :-)</comment></comment>


What Were Blogs? - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/136272/what-were-blogs-death-gawker-blogging <comment><USER2> "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15k."</comment>


Invalid or incomplete POST parameters - <AUTHOR> https://thomasleecopeland.com/2018/08/12/invalid-or-incomplete-post-parameters.html <comment><USER2> content type is one of the fields which is almost always required for an application to function upon the sent data. it's not by RFC, but i noticed most servers and libraries won't handle requests missing this header properly (likely because they will have to guess media type and you will be lucky if it guesses the right one...)

from rfc: A sender that generates a message containing a payload body SHOULD generate a Content-Type header field in that message unless the intended media type of the enclosed representation is unknown to the sender. If a Content- Type header field is not present, the recipient MAY either assume a media type of "application/octet-stream" ([RFC2046], Section 4.5.1) or examine the data to determine its type.

here it says SHOULD, which is:

3\. SHOULD This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616)

Ran into so many things that just don't respond atall when that header is there, that i made it practice just to include it in every http request i make, even if it's mainly just plaintext media type which you fill in... you can see that by rfc one would assume it's an octet-stream, so an xml would never be excpected if someone built to specifications.</comment>


Isabel dos Santos: president's daughter who became Africa's richest woman - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/19/isabel-dos-santos-president-daughter-africa-richest-woman-angola <comment><USER2> Warning: I haven't even read the article yet

Just want to point out that both her and her father are very well known around here for big corruption. Mainly moving the state's money (oil and diamonds) into their own private ventures.

When the new Angola President took over, the state reserves were empty. Again on a country that should be getting loads from oil and diamonds

<comment><USER3> I did read the article but know nothing about Angola.

My take was that she seems to have a similar background to a typical Russian oligarch. Being smart enough to take advantage of a particular situation doesn't mean that you should do that.

<comment><USER4> > But her wealth is the subject of mounting scrutiny

The problem is articles like this glamorize the people and the activities. "Savvy investor", "lucky". I know the verdict isn't in and if she did her job just right it will never be. The whole point of being so rich and benefiting from nepotism is that nobody can or wants to touch you. But from a reasonable perspective I guess it's pretty obvious that with such relationships you don't get rich in a country where most barely go from one day to the next by making honest business. This while state coffers that should be full somehow stay empty.

On the flip side you have just "mounting scrutiny". This article does too good of a job at staying "impartial" by completely avoiding any claim that the accusations are real. But gives a strong hint that she is actually the savvy businesswoman she presents herself as. You never get sued for defamation for saying that eh?

<comment><USER5> _> you don't get rich in a country where most barely go from one day to the next by making honest business_

probably why she has hundreds of businesses in her name located in the UK, France and literally any other place that isn't Africa: [https://aleph.occrp.org/search?q=Isabel%20dos%20Santos](https://aleph.occrp.org/search?q=Isabel%20dos%20Santos)

<comment><USER2> Financed by Angola's natural resources.

Yeah, she seems smart, but being smart alone usually is not enough. Having big piles of cash "stolen" from the one of the richest in natural resources country in the world sure does help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yachts, villas, partying: many super-rich seem to be so unimaginative what to do with their money.

I'd have a lab and employ engineers and workers to create all the crazy stuff I always dreamt of.

Edit: I talked about the yacht in particular before editing the comment, hence the comment below.

<comment><USER7> > I'd have a lab and employ engineers and workers to create all the crazy > stuff I always dreamt of.

That's exactly what they are doing with their businesses. Isabel dos Santo has worked hard to get where she is. She doesn't have the time to run a lab she's creating all the crazy stuff she dreams of.

Unless you are talking about the kids who are not working in the business, which is why they are not working, to not work.

<comment><USER5> _> Isabel dos Santo has worked hard to get where she is_

other headlines about her indicate that she is just another corrupt despot:

 _Isabel dos Santos: Africa 's richest woman 'ripped off Angola'_: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- africa-51128950](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51128950)

<comment><USER7> She's the richest women in Africa. $2 billion.

That's not just an 'another corrupt despot'

Her wealth surpasses most male despotes in Africa.

Are you claiming she is a trophy wife or something? The articles imply she amassed the wealth not it was given to her in her lap by a despot husband or despot father.

And if she hasn't worked for the money (which I really doubt, her hours will be higher than almost all people here) then she doesn't want to work, back to she won't be setting up a lab, aka she doesn't want to do work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/world/africa/isabel- dos-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/world/africa/isabel-dos-santos- angola.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> You know what you end up with if you steal $50 million from your country?

$50 million.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wouldn't be surprised if they moved minerals like uranium etc. to willing international buyers.</comment>


Show HN: NotCRUD – Hacker News of India - <AUTHOR> http://notcrud.com/ <comment><USER3> You may want to rethink the presence of that unreachable footer, given the contemporary presence of infinite scrolling...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, on our mind. Anyway footer doesn't have much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember reading about paraschopra and Wingify on HackerStreet India - <USER2> India-centric HN rip-off that didn't work out though paraschopra was pretty active in the early days. Nice to see a corp-backed initiative in this direction. Hope this doesn't suffer the same fate.

Although !CRUD isn't another HN (despite the tagline), one reason why HN is so amazing is its unintimidating design which serves the tired mind taking a 10-minute break well. !CRUD gives a less relaxing vibe IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback on design. We used NodeBB and threaded replies is something on our agenda. HN design works really well right now because the new content posted is much greater than the discussions that happen on home page.

On notCRUD, opposite is true. Right now we want to highlight each and every discussion that happens because building a vibrant community takes time.

<comment><USER4> Makes sense, which is why I clarified that notCRUD isn't HN. I'm just overtly skeptical about engaging tech discussions in Indian forums, but this isn't a skeptic's world anymore, so hopefully notCRUD will do well.

Good luck!

<comment><USER5> Totally agree with you. Hopefully, that's something we'll manage to change just yet :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone, Paras from notCRUD here. We're Wingify, the company behind VWO.com. Created this forum to aggregate all interesting tech and product thought and projects to emerge from India.

Being bootstrapped, we were sick of all the startup news in India being dominated with funding and eCommerce. The real innovative stuff was being drowned and not given enough attention. So our motive is to highlight all of that. We'll also be producing original content. The first original post is about Postman (a popular product from India). Take a look: [http://originals.notcrud.com/2015/10/21/postman-fixing- the-a...](http://originals.notcrud.com/2015/10/21/postman-fixing-the-api- workflow/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The online users part of the site is pretty concerning, I wonder if they intend to keep it there? I wouldn't want to sign up to a site that broadcasts when I am online…

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I agree that showing online users may not be a good idea. We'll probably disable that soon. Feedback taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thank you!

After a quick look, already this post is very cool: [http://notcrud.com/topic/220/show-nc-a-i-assisted-code- gener...](http://notcrud.com/topic/220/show-nc-a-i-assisted-code-generation- for-react-skip-boilerplates)

generates react native code from an image!

Watch the video!

</comment><comment><USER8> If you don't mind sharing the details, What is the tech stack?

Also most of headlines are trimmed off. I have to click on the link just to know what this post is about. Longer headlines should be displayed so people can decide before clicking if they want to read it (There's always the tooltip feature)

<comment><USER4> You can check out the stack on BuiltWith:

[http://builtwith.com/notcrud.com](http://builtwith.com/notcrud.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not able to see the full title of the posts (13" MBP Retina). It is cut off half-way. As a front-page for a HN-style site, that's a serious usability bug that you want to fix.

[http://imgur.com/DatjKpe](http://imgur.com/DatjKpe)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the screenshot. We're still iterating on our design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice work...a little busy for my tastes but that could be a cultural thing :)

An excellent showcase of your skills I think.

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool idea, but the best part of HN (aside from the content) is how simple the layout and design is. Yours is not complex nor does it perform badly, but I don't get the same feeling.

I'd get rid of the infinite scrolling and the column with the "Subscribe" message.

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought [http://hackerstreet.in/](http://hackerstreet.in/) was kinda already Hackernews for Indian audience?

<comment><USER13> hackerstreet has lost it's relevance and it's not really maintained anymore. I plan to shut it down sometime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks good, I don't get why you called it !CRUD however.

<comment><USER15> From [http://thenextweb.com/in/2015/09/03/notcrud-is-a-hacker- news...](http://thenextweb.com/in/2015/09/03/notcrud-is-a-hacker-news- inspired-community-for-developers-in-india/)

PC: "CRUD refers to basic database functions — create, read, update and delete — and in my mind, the acronym describes most poorly built products: a database with a UI slapped on top of it, with no real user experience to speak of.

We want to showcase the best of Indian creativity and ingenuity in product development. So we coined the name NotCRUD to describe quality custom-built software and hardware that Indians are capable of building."

<comment><USER16> > showcase the best of Indian creativity and ingenuity in product development.

I genuinely don't understand above. You want to showcase the "best creativity" by showing that you yourself describe as "the Hacker News of India". I think you may have a different understanding of what creativity is than what I have. Also, about this concept of "best of India" and such things, the line that Peter Thiel loves to use comes to mind. The something of somewhere is the nothing of nowhere.

<comment><USER17> I think there's a place for an India, the location, specific well-maintained tech discussion forum. The original hacker news may not be "officially" specific to any place but in practice it's very clearly of and for silicon valley first and foremost.

The valley bias on this HN is natural and organic. Simply because of the location of most of it's audience. You can look at the trends of upvoting and frontpage activity and clearly see how the Pacific timezone affects the activity on this site. I expect an India focused forum to be most active during Indian waking hours and that alone should make it a worthwhile thing to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Like it! I wanted to read the footer of the page (to see what this is powered by) but scrolling down loads more content.

(Pressing Esc+Page down simultaneously let me see it).

</comment><comment><USER19> Calling it Hacker News of India, but I'm not able to find any Guildlines or FAQs on your site.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is extensively desi and useful. Coders of Indian SaaS companies are bookmarking it.

</comment><comment><USER21> There was hackerstreet.in</comment>


Can it be that Hackernews attention is controlled by Europeans - <AUTHOR>

Most of people tend to read the most upvoted articles on HN. Many even have setups that just don't show them the links if they were not upvoted enough.
The US is the biggest reader of HN obviously. But I think it's attentions is very much controlled by Europe.
Because when the US are sleeping, the new submissions don't fade away so quick, so that links and posts manage to gain some more upvotes. That's how they can pass over the limit of votes set by more people before the day in the USA begins.
what do you think?
sure the really good news like Nginx announcement will make it's way up without any magic. <comment><USER2> You could equally make the case that HN attention is controlled by California night owls. I'm usually awake till around 3 AM PDT - that's 6 AM Eastern. So while the east coast is sleeping, I'm upvoting stories on the New page.

<comment><AUTHOR> i actually hate all this seo, and tend to think that the good thing will find it's way without special tricks. i even think (maybe wrongly) that marketing tricks are recognized by people, and they start to think that the thing marketed to them is actually bad.

but after my question stayed virtually unnoticed, i started to think, what are the statistics of what time and weekday is the best to be noticed, if it's not Apple, Google+ or Microsoft.

How much California night owls are there? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What sorts of links get upvoted more by Europeans than by Americans?

What sorts of links get upvoted more by Americans than by Europeans?

What proportion of the total links submitted / that make it to the front page are these?

Look, you've persuaded me that it's theoretically possible, but you've not demonstrated that it's actually happening. You appear to think that this phenomenon would be bad for HN, but you've not demonstrated that, either.

<comment><AUTHOR> no, not bad for HN, really. Hate to admit, but it's a theoretical question connected with (kill me) how to get attention here

<comment><USER4> How to get attention? Maybe just like everywhere else: Provide good content, worth sharing! (And then your links and posts on HN will get upvoted by Europeans AND Americans AND everyone else. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> got it! good _and_ mainstream for this particular community. because can't believe that my content [1] is bad (except that i know only 8500 of english words :)

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2777753></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon, the tax bully - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/amazon_the_tax_bully/

<comment><USER2> > Rather than being hit by new sales tax regulations, the company is now using > the regulations to profit.

What did anyone else expect to happen? Processing that information isn't free, and I wouldn't be surprised if they push to require all online stores to use their sales tax processing service.</comment>


Yammer moving away from Scala - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/7565976a89d5da1511ce

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for alternatives to Java for Android development. Since Python and Clojure aren't options (right now anyway), I looked at Scala among others.

I found the syntax pretty terrible, worse than Java in several ways. In particular, too complex. I also found the object system overly complicated (and I find Haskell's ok).

<comment><USER3> Have a look at Xtend (<http://xtend-lang.org>). It's exactly what the yammer guy is looking for: convenience of Scala (closures, type inference, and more) without the complexity.

And it compiles to Java source code, which makes it an ideal language for Android development.

<comment><USER4> If you are the real Sven then kudos for signing your name to this comment but I think it looks a bit opportunistic of you to pile on in this context with a recommendation for your language. No language is perfect and xtend itself hasn't even been used in anger yet.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I was recommending it as an answer to the Android question. I should have left out the bit about the "Yammer guy". I like Scala btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating writeup, honestly. I've only dabbled with Scala around the edges and have been focusing on Clojure recently, so I don't have enough experience to agree or disagree with that, but Scala always felt too ... something, for me. I'm having fun with Clojure, and the community is wonderful. For quicky java-esque one-offs, Groovy is suiting me.

But to each their own.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also available here: <https://gist.github.com/1406238>

</comment><comment><USER7> I've also copied it to my blog, in case the new gist disappears: [http://blog.joda.org/2011/11/real-life-scala-feedback- from-y...](http://blog.joda.org/2011/11/real-life-scala-feedback-from- yammer.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Note that InfoQ covered the whole story (which is how I found out about this HN discussion): <http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/11/yammer-scala>

</comment><comment><USER9> Would love to hear more feedback regarding usage of scala in big companies with large code-base.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that it has gone away now. @jbrkr, thanks for finding a new link.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious as to where you got that link, considering that I didn't share my personal correspondance with Typesafe with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Gist has been deleted, did the OP happen to grab the text?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a way to enforce Git merges/commits? - <AUTHOR> I was curious if there was a way to enforce 2 things on a git repo in either bitbucket or github
1) A JIRA-XXX format at the start of each commit.  This makes sure we can relate/find a commit with a ticket/issue/feature and vice versa
2) Require merges to be rebased/squashed <comment><USER2> (1) at least could probably be done with a hook on commit or push. It's also not all that difficult to inculcate culturally. Many teams just do this as part of agreed upon process without any explicit enforcement necessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh we have agreed upon the process certainly... its just that sometimes people get lazy/forgetful and I hate being the git log nazi reviewing code all the time. Oh well.

I'll checkout the hook thx</comment></comment>


Fox Juices 'Fringe' Re-Runs with Twitter Twist - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/171111/fox_juices_fringe_reruns_with_twitter_twist.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it is a very interesting move and might actually be successful. Personally, I would love to read comments by my favorite characters from tv- series I watch during a show.</comment>


How Long Will We Keep Typing? - <AUTHOR> http://allenc.com/2015/10/how-long-will-we-keep-typing/ <comment><USER3> In the past couple of years voice recognition has gotten good enough that developers who can't type for whatever reason have started using voice recognition:

[http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/using_voice_to_code.html)

Other advances like eye-tracking might help. OptiKey, for example, was released last month to help with with ALS use eye-tracking to use a computer: [https://github.com/JuliusSweetland/OptiKey/wiki](https://github.com/JuliusSweetland/OptiKey/wiki)

John Siracusa used to write his 20,000 word Mac reviews with Dragon:

"Recognition is surprisingly good. I'm using Dragon Dictate for OS X to write these very words. It costs over a hundred dollars, but it earns its price with extensive customization features and a recognition engine trained specifically for my voice. Dragon has no problem transcribing sentences like, "Craig Federighi loves ice cream and OS X 10.9.""

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/23/](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/23/)

So, it's probably possible to eliminate typing now, it's just a matter of finding the proper setup to make it more efficient than typing.

<comment> lloyd-christmas Perfect timing for my cubital tunnels to start to kick in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its about the more naturalistic interface between the computer and the user and the way they're making thoughts. You can much more easily correct words for non-fully-formed thoughts via typing and text than through speech - <USER2> "backspace" key of speech requires a lot more slowing down and then going back. In writing these sentences I've stared at a few of them, made some edits and decided they're better that way. You spend more time with your thoughts than with speech.

Maybe that's fine of course, but for such a fundamental change it will take a while for those who are used to text-based stream of consciousness to ever consider changing.

<comment><USER3> No one said that the solution has to be all speech. Throw in some small gestures and that'll be faster than reaching for a key.

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0)

Throw in eye-tracking and you can pick out any word quickly.

<comment><USER4> Totally right - I think however it will be a long time before things become so natural - especially with the concept or writing as a whole. I'm sure you'll be able to find specialists with any interface who can perform far faster than even experts on another interface. I'm not being cynical here, but I think the keyboard is an excellent interface right now. Neural feedback and direct thought transcription seems like the most likely thing to replace it, but it also might require far too much attunement. Take all the ways that humans communicate - writing and text have survived as long as they have for a reason.</comment></comment></comment>


Example of Microsimulation with Stackless Python - <AUTHOR> http://amundblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/example-of-microsimulation-with.html <comment><USER2> Simpy is also good for discrete-event simulations.

<http://simpy.sourceforge.net></comment>


Tesla shares soar 40% in 2 days and short sellers get squeezed - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tesla-shares-tuesday-1.5451222 <comment><USER2> No matter how confident you are in your belief that a stock or the market in general is overvalued, never forget what John Maynard Keynes said: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

I repeat this to myself any time I'm tempted to short what I think is a grossly over-valued tech stock.

<comment><USER3> I think the safer option is to buy a solid competitor that will benefit if the overvalued stock corrects. For example, if you think Ford or BMW will attract investors if Tesla deflates, buy that instead.

<comment><USER4> Or their top Chinese competitor.

Not that I would, but

<comment><USER5> NIO hasn't exactly been doing well

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not on the most shorted stocks list here: [https://www.highshortinterest.com/nasdaq/](https://www.highshortinterest.com/nasdaq/)

Where do people get their short interest data ?

</comment><comment><USER7> if anyone is familiar with the chinese electric car scene, then one will know that tesla, america's darling, is not as ahead as people give them credit before. if any of the chinese car manufacturers come to the u.s. and are able to break through stigma, then tesla will be in trouble. neo, byton, weltmeister, byd, and more have serious competitive car offerings. i have ridden in a nio suv, and the quality greatly surpasses that of tesla.

<comment><USER8> you can have the greatest tech in the world, but that won't help you if you can't market your product properly. I've never even heard of any of these brands, yet I'm actually an avid fan of chinese breakthrough tech in many areas, and have absolutely no problem supporting the Chinese tech industry.

But almost all of them have one flaw in common; they don't know how to build a brand and market to western consumers, which is where a lot of the revenue is found. This seems to apply whether we're talking about cheap consumer electronics, specialized digital equipment (in my particular case, audio processing equipment), or cars.

<comment><USER9> Usually it takes a few decades. But there were times that Samsung and Toyota were unknowns.

I think China's problem is the Western belief that their tech products are built to spy first and perform second. And that primary functionality could just be removed for the western market.

<comment><USER10> They aren't doing very much to assuage fears about spying. The west doesn't fear that because they're chinese or asian (we have no problem trusting Japanese products for example) - the fear is because China has an authoritarian government with very close links with industry and state run businesses.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Report: Google+ Use Has Skyrocketed - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/260064/report_google_use_has_skyrocketed.html

<comment><USER2> Reports like these don't take into account active users. And even when they do, they define "active" very vaguely, as in the case of Twitter's 140 million active users.</comment>


The Immaturity of CMM - <AUTHOR> http://sunnyday.mit.edu/16.355/bach-cmm.html <comment><AUTHOR> I came upon this from another post [0], also worth reading. While this article was written when CMM was still CMM, and not CMMI, I feel much of it still holds up today. CMMI (for those who don't know) has two methods of ranking in use today. One is the same as described in this article (5 maturity levels), the other is to evaluate each process area individually and rate them (capability levels). The latter is (IMO) better but still not great, but it doesn't get you that great "CMMI Level 5" certification. Consequently, many organizations don't use that approach.

> The CMM encourages displacement of goals from the true mission of improving > process to the artificial mission of achieving a higher maturity level. I > call this "level envy", and it generally has the effect of blinding an > organization to the most effective use of its resources. The SEI itself > recognizes this as a problem and has taken some steps to correct it. The > problem is built in to the very structure of the model, however, and will be > very hard to exorcise.

This is still a problem, 25 years after this article was written. My current employers have a goal of hitting CMMI Level 3. To be clear, they've made it the business's _goal_ to hit CMMI Level 3. The goal isn't to deliver quality software. The goal isn't to deliver on time and on budget. _The goal is to be CMMI Level 3_. This is a _terrible_ objective, but you see this sort of objective everywhere. It's the goal of looking good and believing that somehow being good follows from it directly. Form over function.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135043)</comment>


Why I use ggplot2 - <AUTHOR> http://varianceexplained.org/r/why-I-use-ggplot2/ <comment><USER2> A somewhat off topic note: that gganimate GIF is _3.5 MB_ , which is a very large file for a image that is not central to the argument!

That's one of the reasons I was dissuaded from making GIFs from my ggplot2 charts, and it's why I created a Convert Frames to GIF tool ([https://github.com/minimaxir/frames-to-gif- osx](https://github.com/minimaxir/frames-to-gif-osx)) to create higher-quality GIFs at manageable file sizes. (the first example GIF in my repo is about the same number of frames and resolution as the OP's GIF, but 1/7th of the filesize, of course due to the nature of GIFs this is not a straight comparison) That said, gganimate does sound like an interesting tool, and certainly much better than the animation package alone.

The killer feature of ggplot2 that cannot easily be replicated in any GUI program is indeed faceting. There are also other geoms that are hard to do in base R/excel are things, like contour maps and native smoothed regression lines (with confidence intervals!)

</comment><comment><USER3> Python's matplotlib was apparently good enough for the Gravitational Wave paper.

I think both this post and the post it is arguing against are actually arguing the same thing... You have to think about what you are communicating and not just plot out things and say you're done.

<comment><USER2> matplotlib is a bit off-topic for comparing R packages.

No one is saying that either base or ggplot2 is _insufficient_ for academic analysis, but one may be more practical than the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have found that base R graphics were a quick way to get a snapshot of things qplot always frustrated me in their syntax. I have replaced that with ggvis. I can do a 3 seconds of code and get a decent plot. I can then add a drop down menu and explore my data, but ggvis is guilty of Jeff Leek's criticism currently with a limit of the plot you can perform. Also ggvis exported to png is more a hassle then it is worth for me.

</comment><comment><USER5> A fantastic set of APIs with Matplotlib under the hood: Seaborn

Http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/

</comment><comment><USER6> for heatmaps with dendrograms there is ggdendro: [https://plot.ly/ggplot2/ggdendro- dendrograms/](https://plot.ly/ggplot2/ggdendro-dendrograms/)

but it's definitely not a streamlined experience.. most of the time I just use pheatmap: [https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pheatmap/index.html](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pheatmap/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Earlier post was discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081961).

</comment><comment><USER8> Honorable mention for yhat's port of ggplot2 to python. [http://ggplot.yhathq.com/](http://ggplot.yhathq.com/)

<comment><USER9> Do you have experience with it? If yes, do you prefer it over matplotlib (assuming you have experience with that)?

<comment><USER10> I have used it some, and my experience usually runs like this: (try simple thing) "Hey, it works!" (try slightly more complicated thing) "Too bad, this isn't implemented yet".</comment></comment></comment>