UIs Are Not Pure Functions of the Model – React.js and Cocoa Side by Side - <AUTHOR> https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/12/uis-are-not-pure-functions-of-model.html <comment><USER2> This was discussed over on Reddit as well, and Dan Abramov pointed out several issues with the author's writeup and conclusions:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/abj7hn/uis_are_not...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/abj7hn/uis_are_not_pure_functions_of_the_model_reactjs/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm...he didn't actually point out any actual problems with the writeup or conclusions.

He admitted that the "core premise" of React, as given by the "Basic Theoretical Concepts" page is wrong: the UI is _not_ , contrary to the "core premise" a "pure" function of the state.

He also wrote that React users don't have to deal with all the stuff that is in the concepts. Of course, it was never claimed the React users have to deal with this, so not sure why that is an "issue". On the other hand, the fact that the "concepts" seem so far removed from the realities of React programming and also aren't actually true (see above), makes the whole idea of these things being the react "concepts" at best a bit questionable.

He waffles a bit about practicalities, but doesn't seem to understand that once you remove the "pure function" bit, what you are describing is at least conceptually the same as any old MVC framework, except for a bit muddled. In which case it would have been more useful to write "React is an MVC framework with these slight differences due to the fact that we are 'drawing' into a DOM". However, that's not how React is presented.</comment></comment>


AI Can Now Fix Your Grainy Photos by Only Looking at Grainy Photos - <AUTHOR> https://news.developer.nvidia.com/ai-can-now-fix-your-grainy-photos-by-only-looking-at-grainy-photos/ <comment><USER2> I'm impressed. So that's how they can do real-time raytracing. I always thought the reason no one did it in hardware because they were too invested into rasterization. Shows what I know. :)</comment>


The NY Times Fires Tech Writer Quinn Norton, and It's Complicated - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-ny-times-fires-tech-writer-quinn-norton-and-its-complicated/ <comment><USER2> I don't know, doesn't seem that complicated to me. Weev was a piece of shit before he got a swastika tattooed across his chest (eg. the Kathy Sierra stuff) and there is a clear difference between reporting on individuals and befriending them, the latter in this case shades into normalizing those who advocate genocide.</comment>


Gliph integrates Bitcoin send / receive on iOS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coinbase.com/post/57642748085/gliph-integrates-bitcoin-send-receive-on-ios

<comment><USER2> How is this different from another iOS Bitcoin wallet app that was banned by Apple?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It has a completely different UX for sending and receiving bitcoin.</comment>


Musk: There's a one in a billion chance that this is reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-fear <comment><AUTHOR> "There's a one in a billion chance that this is reality, " said Musk.

I think that's a really interesting remark in an otherwise silly piece. It would certainly explain how someone could gear themselves to ignore constraints and consequences. For good or ill.

<comment><USER2> I bet Elon have seen this :-) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8)</comment></comment>


Successful Acquisition Stories - <AUTHOR>

I read a blog post about "top ten worst deals in tech" or something to that effect. A comment on the post stated that there seemed to be no successful acquisitions.
It got me thinking. Can you name any successful acquisitions?
Successful: Flickr by Yahoo
Non Successful: Dodgeball, Jaiku by Google Myspace by Newscorp Bebo by AOL <comment><USER2> There is a nice thread on Quora that discusses this question: [http://www.quora.com/Which-have-been-the-most-successful- acq...](http://www.quora.com/Which-have-been-the-most-successful-acquisitions- in-the-consumer-technology-space)

My favorites are probably PayPal (by eBay) and Overture (by Yahoo).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> There wasn't much point in voting me down. This thread didn't take off. It had a link to nearly the exact same question which satisfied this threads needs so I said thanks. It didn't hurt anybody.

EDIT: More cowardly downvotes.</comment></comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi 4 can handle a wider range of USB adapters thanks to revised design - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/21/pi_4_fixed/ <comment> m-p-3 I think the title would be less confusing if it specifically mentioned that it supports more USB-C cable and power supplies.</comment>


Madoff's Son Is Found Dead in Apparent Suicide - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703518604576013273744399388.html

<comment><USER2> Re-reading both the welcome guidelines: <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>

and the more general guidelines: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

I do not feel this this is appropriate to Hacker News. If you feel otherwise then I'd welcome the opportunity to learn.</comment>


Executable to preview markdown files in your browser - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cih/showmd

<comment><USER2> So how does this differ from doing something like;

      pandoc -o index.html < index.md ; open index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I was not aware of pandoc, just installed it and that certainly does the same job and a lot more.

I guess if you are looking for something solely for previewing markdown and don't use pandoc you may want a lightweight solution. Pandoc has a larger footprint and there are a few more keystrokes after all :)</comment></comment>


Edward Snowden Explains Blockchain to His Lawyer – And the Rest of Us - <AUTHOR> https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/internet-privacy/edward-snowden-explains-blockchain-his-lawyer-and-rest-us <comment><USER2> One of the best quotes from the article...

"And in a world full of shifty bullshit, being able to prove something is true is a radical development."

Coming from most anyone else this would just be glib cynicism.</comment>


What Has Irony Done for Us Lately - <AUTHOR> https://aboutplacejournal.org/issues/political-landscapes/political/pam-houston/ <comment><USER2> Beautiful piece. I've felt the temptation to stop caring about the earth just because caring about a dying planet is too much to bear. But I think the author is right. It's a false comfort.</comment>


Keystone: RISC-V Based Open-Source Secure Hardware Enclave - <AUTHOR> http://keystone-enclave.org/ <comment><USER2> Begs the obvious question - is this immune to Spectre and Meltdown?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's unlikely to be affected by spectre-like attack since Rocket chip based core doesn't have speculative exec.

[https://riscv.org/2018/01/more-secure-world-risc-v- isa/](https://riscv.org/2018/01/more-secure-world-risc-v-isa/) [https://www.sifive.com/blog/2018/01/05/sifive-statement- on-m...](https://www.sifive.com/blog/2018/01/05/sifive-statement-on-meltdown- and-spectre/)</comment></comment>


Hg advent init - <AUTHOR> http://kamalmarhubi.com/blog/hg-advent/ <comment><USER2> To the author - I'm in the opposite boat where I've used mercurial for nearly 10 years but any time I try to use git I get lost. Everything in your post rung out to me as why I rather enjoy and understand hg (with exception to absorb which I haven't yet tried).

I highly recommend checking out this blog which discusses adding a command which is a customized log. It's made getting a visible understanding of my working state & phases tremendously easy.

[http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising- mercurial-l...](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising-mercurial- like-a-pro/)

Additionally if you're planning to use evolve, most of the instructions I've seen for using it indicate installing it via pip, however I've only run into issues with that (as well as coworkers and others). Instead I recommend cloning the evolve repository and pointing the extension location to it (seen in .hgrc gist below). Upgrading is as simple as going into the evolve repo and running `hg up`. I can't wait until it's shipped with mercurial. The evolve repo can be cloned from:

[https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/evolve](https://www.mercurial- scm.org/repo/evolve)

This is from my .hgrc (for a mac) which customized the wip colors a bit more (and fixes a recent issue where one of the original revset commands used by the blog has been deprecated/removed).

[https://gist.github.com/neandrake/e770ea7b3d6bf8299f6be2ca08...](https://gist.github.com/neandrake/e770ea7b3d6bf8299f6be2ca0800290c)

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Those are great tips, thanks! I actually just installed evolve from pip last night. I'll probably borrow from your hgrc, or at least let it inspire me :-)

> I'm in the opposite boat where I've used mercurial for nearly 10 years but > any time I try to use git I get lost.

Very interesting! Do you end up using it as a client to git repos?

<comment><USER2> I've been able to avoid git repos for the most part, or the few times I've had to interact with them I've kept it a bare minimum of contribution to avoid any complex workflow. It's not the best idea especially since the industry still largely uses git, however I haven't had the appropriate occasion to learn git while also learning the project and commit the git process to memory. I've heard you can use hg on git repos but I haven't investigated using that yet. By far I think the things that confuse me most are I believe two points you brought up in your post -- local vs. public changesets, and working in a detached head state (working on a feature branch and then rebasing onto primary branch for landing). I think on top of that I get overly confused when github is thrown into the mix as again I've not sat down to learn the process since it comes up only sporadically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _unnamed branches_

A pretty good description of how Mercurial handles this: [http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/02/mercurial-workflows- branch...](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/02/mercurial-workflows-branch-as- needed/)</comment>


Show HN: PathScrollbarMenu - A Javascript, Path inspired scrollbar menu - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN!
This is PathScrollbarMenu, a javascript implementation of the neat little scrollbar indicator that you can see on Path's mobile apps. It allows the developer to center any content on the scrollbars of a site.
We implemented it at Jetsetter so we could allow users to jump between sections, but still give them the largest content area possible.
GitHub: http://jetsetter.github.com/PathScrollbarMenu/
There is an example page in the project but you can also check it out in action on our new homepage: www.jetsetter.com/?via=hackernewsos <comment><USER2> You may want to include a screenshot of the menu on your github page for people that do not want to sign in to jetsetter to take a peek.

Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah sorry about that, I didn't think that through. Ill go ahead and include a screenshot for now. In the future we'll suppress that login popup for people coming from GitHub/Hacker News/Reddit, so you can get a feel for it without signing up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> oh shit, i had no idea that it was clickable.</comment>


Court Upholds Man's $675,000 Fine for Music Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/26/675000-for-music-piracy

<comment><USER2> Hrrm. Declare bankruptcy, change countries awhile?</comment>


Apple and Google Team Up to 'Contact Trace' the Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/apple-google-coronavirus-contact-tracing.html <comment><USER2> I wonder how would they do it? I believe the system would depend on human input.</comment>


Why do people love to say that correlation does not imply causation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/10/correlation_does_not_imply_causation_how_the_internet_fell_in_love_with_a_stats_class_clich_.single.html <comment><USER2> Because it's one of the few easy truths that most people don't really get.</comment>


Milk intake and risk of mortality and fractures in women and men: cohort studies - <AUTHOR> http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6015

<comment><USER2> Statistical meta studies are such tedious bunk. But thanks for posting the actual findings. The DailyMail headline will be "MILK KILLS YOU" whereas the study shows nothing.</comment>


Ask HN: If iPad CPU is now "desktop class", why does the browser crash so much? - <AUTHOR> I have a new iPad Mini with Retina, and it amazes me how often the browser crashes. Also, when not crashing, it still has issues with far more websites than my laptop browser does (either in OSX or Win7)
Why is this the case?
I'm pretty sure the current iPad has a better CPU and likely more RAM than laptops had a few years ago, and yet laptop browsers were never as problematic as browsers on my iPad.
Laptop browsers work on more websites and are more stable. Why is this the case? <comment><USER2> This happens because most sites are still optimized for desktop use, with little or no testing on iPad. You'd be amazed how broken layout or JS on vast majority of websites are, but few mention this because modern browsers do a decent job of working around say, JS bugs. IE is especially good in this respect. So people test their site on say, IE, Firefox and Chrome, and fix bugs until it works fine there, not mentioning a lot of bugs they still left which were worked around by the browsers, then you open it on your iPad on which they didn't test -> epic fail. Which doesn't say anything bad about iPad's hardware or software really.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does OSX Safari share the same code base as iOS Safari? If yes, why is OSX Safari better able to render websites and better able to work around JS bugs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Assuming the causes of the crashes are not caused by faulty hardware, but by bugs in software, a faster CPU at best means it can crash faster, but doesn't really do anything for avoiding crashes.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's due to more SW bugs in iPads than in laptops, can this be due to iOS being relatively immature as an OS compared to OSX and Windows?

Or are there some HW restrictions in tablets that make the SW more difficult to be made stable?

<comment><USER3> > If it's due to more SW bugs in iPads than in laptops, can this be due to iOS > being relatively immature as an OS compared to OSX and Windows?

I have no experience with or knowledge about iOS, so my guess is as good as yours, sorry.. but my guess is yes, either that or maybe the browsers for it do things slightly differently. At any rate, I think unless software makes assumptions about hardware/memory instead of checking first, "weak" (but otherwise not faulty) hardware should not lead to a crash.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla's Model 3 has a range of 310 miles, EPA confirms – The Verge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/16715174/teslas-model-3-range-310-miles-epa-ev?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> For average use, coming from the perspective of a traditional combustion engine user, that falls squarely in my "hey, not bad!" area of judgement. That's about 100 miles less than a full tank on my Subaru, and I don't think I would have to adjust my day-to-day routine at all to compensate for that. Even road trips wouldn't be uncomfortable in this range.

<comment><USER3> I live in Connecticut with family all back in Pennsylvania, so my most frequent road trip is just slightly out of range. I could stop and charge for a few minutes to cover it, but if I lived further east in CT or were going further west in PA it'd require a more substantial recharge.

It's a pretty close thing, but my Saturn can make it on a tank of gas without stopping.

Day-to-day for commuting I bet it's great for people who have a garage. Not so great if you live in an apartment with on-street parking.

<comment><USER4> 310 miles at 60 mph is over 5 hours...

Do you really drive for 5 hours straight without a break...? That sounds both unsafe and dull.

Here in the UK, most people take a brief (15 minute, coffee and toilet) break every 1.5 hours or so.

Is that not normal in the USA?

<comment><USER5> 310 miles would be done at 75-80 mph depending on the speed limit. Puts it in the ~4 hour range, and me personally, I would probably take maybe 1 bathroom break, sometimes not. I could imagine driving between lunch and dinner.

<comment><USER6> then i dont believe the range would be 310 miles with such speeds. Probably something like 70% of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And don't forget, battery tech keeps improving. I wonder how many years until it hits 400 miles.

</comment><comment><USER6> Finally they delivered the car for EPA..</comment>


A trip to Amarna, the desert city of Akhenaten - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/26/ancient-egypt-amarna-akhenaten-rebel-king-arab-spring-revolution <comment><USER2> Sadly reminds of every expat I've ever met in Egypt. He lived over there in Egypt but not in Egypt. Rare any of my friends got past this stage and no one can stomach knowing Egyptians at a deeper level and their real problems, so let's talk about pyramids!

(Source: being going for years and have relatives there; can also write italicized Arabic transliterated but gave up needing to assert my street cred long ago; the country's doomed because any more integrated and knowledgeable than this as a journalist and report real stuff you get jailed or killed.)

<comment><USER3> I take it you're not familiar with Peter Hessler's other work? He's an incredible writer who learned Arabic for the gig, and some of his pieces in the New Yorker go way beyond pyramids:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/tales- trash](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/tales-trash)

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/learning-to- sp...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/learning-to-speak- lingerie)

His work about China is also great, particularly _Country Driving_ :

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/books/24book.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/books/24book.html)

<comment><USER2> I actually remember that article from years ago. I liked it and I don't spend much time in Sa3eed (aka Southern Egypt and Sinai where iirc he did that reporting; I don't have time to reread but recall the lingerie angle).

Don't get me wrong, I am a relatively accomplished Arabic speaker and thought it was my role in life to be like him and those like him. But being a white dude who speaks Arabic is the only hurdle set, and no one says that is the only bar to surpass to report on US news in English. You need more and if you didn't speak English _at a minimum_ people will laugh you out of a media outlet if we compare; only in the Middle East does that make you hot shit. It is partly that, and partly that everything is romanticism facing outward bc that is all the system tolerates. I always get away with stuff bc I can string sentences together and I am fluent enough to be charming. It is all you need to be respected, albeit increasingly less in Egypt, even if you are looked upon skeptically as a spy by some and Egyptians call it Foreign Syndrome, 3odet al-khawaga. That skill gets you places, but you cannot be reporting on relevant internal dynamics are you are gonna be sorry.

I know some that are a few degrees separated from me but close to many local people going to jail for sedition or failure to comply with censorship regulations, explicit or not. No amount of Arabic will teach you to hang out in those circles as a journalist, unless you're an Italian researcher during the Mahalla Labour disputes and you want to get beaten to death by the cops for looking into govt involvement in labor inequity. That happened and whoosh the human rights ambulance drove away to never came back. I'll google him later but no one recalls that dude anymore. None one gives a shit about my friends who learned Arabic and stayed during the revolution. Many of them learned not to write bc posting real stuff gets you in real trouble there. End of story.

So Peter is all nice and good but we have a made a global media economy where this is the most that can be tolerated in Egypt and similar regimes down the street bc it sells. Fuck the locals, who cares! And I say that a guilty westerner who fears for family and knows my nation helped facilitate this garbage, and shout at my ignorant Western family for not getting it when they humored me for a visit. The compounded problem is a lot of us work in the software industry building tracking systems used on those brave people who speak up so only an idiot involves himself or herself in that shit directly. Direct or not, I feel great shame at this.

But amarna is nice though.

As he says in his article, mafeesh faida.

<comment><USER4> I think he points it out in the article how it is mainly foreigners that are both leading the work, and are interested in Egyptology.

I don't know if you have read Edward Said work, Orientalism, but this explains the article. What interests the readers of HN, and the Guardian is the romanticized past rather than the reality of now. But Peter Hessler in a way brings this up.

Is Orientalism that bad ? If it gets people interested in a geographic region. We have many more conflicts which are just ignored like West Papa, or even Sudan now.

<comment><USER2> Again, Arabist by trade. I have read Edward Said. My take: Orientalism has been internalized by insider and outsider alike, as it kept the wheels greased and trains running on time. Turning that back will take a long time, whether western powers try to fix it out I'd guilt or locals do of their own accord wholesale.

Egypt has many ills. As a young man I tried blogging in Arabic and said to any listening audience: focus on improving education and economics to fight Israel since because the Saudi Qatar spat, on paper, that was the existential threat and money talks, and if you're serious that's how you'll win a war with the west on your side, o Egypt, not with silly peace settlements and weapons stockpiles. Official rhetoric talked of outside threats, not inside ills (build a wall anyone? My time there informed a lot of my extreme cynicism about US domestic politics). Random people would come out of the wood work and label me a Zionist agent and because I said put Egyptians first.

I was amused and realized I should give my opinions to myself. I stopped soon after.

Want to read someone real? Look up Abderrahman Munif: the other Saudi aside from a few like Bin Laden stripped of citizenship; a hardcore Baathist who was an oil minister in Iraq, became jaded, left politics, and became an artist and social activist. Only one book translated and his Cities of Salt magna opa was the prophecy that part of the world snubbed about western nations devouring them complicity. It will be ironic to read him.

And Egyptology doesn't pay bills for locals. He has a story about that. Come find me in my profile if you're interested, since no one remembers that book. Lol</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Journeyman Python Programmer - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/4gt1tw/journeyman_python_programmer_alpha_readers/ <comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm the guy working on this book - shame on me for posting a link to my own reddit post about my own book which is still in progress....

Oh wait, all the startup kids do that too - I think I'm ok then.</comment>


Beach theft - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_theft#Beach_theft_in_Jamaica

<comment><USER2> Growing up, I lived on an isolated 4 acre block, surrounded by forest. The only house nearby was an old house, built on stumps, a hundred meters or so away, with no-one living in it. One day a truck showed up, a team of workers put the house on the back of the truck, and took it away.

A year later detectives arrived at our house. They asked to speak to my mother, and told her that the house next door had actually been stolen, and the real owners were now looking for leads, hoping to find their stolen house.

<comment><USER3> That reminded me of something that happened to a guy I went to high school. Not quite as dramatic as your story but during the day when he was at school and his parents were at work some guys backed a moving truck up to the house and emptied the place.

This is in a city. The family in question weren't particularly friendly with their neighbors but at least one neighbor saw the guys playing with the family dog in the front yard and assumed all was well (as you probably would).

They apparently quickly got everything loaded up and were on their way. The family came home to an essentially empty house. It was very odd.

<comment><USER4> was the dog OK?

<comment><USER3> The dog was fine. If anything I suspect it enjoyed the extra play time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a problem in my home city of Chennai, India too. Not only is this a monetary loss, people start building homes on these bodies killing off water supply. [http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/Illegal- sand-...](http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/Illegal-sand-mining- caused-Rs-5200-cr-loss-to-govt-PUCL/2013/10/10/article1828363.ece)

</comment><comment><USER6> >The bulk of the sand in the 0.5-hectare beach, of approximately 500 truckloads, was found missing in July 2008

10000 tons - an amount of sand that could have been brought by a midsize ship from a place like Morocco/Sahara (if we discard any other closer sources). At $20/mt that would be $200K - may be more expensive than real estate price of the beach, yet considering overall value of the beach for the society...

<comment><USER7> It's Jamaica, the beach's "value" is not shared with the greater Jamaican society. Maybe if it were the sand would still be there.

<comment><USER8> > It's Jamaica, the beach's "value" is not shared with the greater Jamaican > society.

Can you please expand on this? I read it to mean that Jamaican beaches are often privatised and off-limits to the public. Is that correct?

<comment><USER7> There are two Jamaicas, one for the tourists (the Beach) and the rest which is often quite poor and destitute. They mix as much as oil and water do, and the natives are "discouraged" from interacting with the tourists other than in a service role.

This is from personal experience and from extensive contact with Jamaican service employees working in the US (worked for several months with imported hotel staff from Jamaica when I was younger). These were some of the hardest working folks I have ever met, working two or three jobs at the five-star hotel we were employed at and saving up every single bit they could before returning to Jamaica where their opportunities were even less.

<comment><USER8> > There are two Jamaicas, one for the tourists (the Beach) and the rest which > is often quite poor and destitute. They mix as much as oil and water do, and > the natives are "discouraged" from interacting with the tourists other than > in a service role.

Man, that's sad, half the fun of travelling is the culture and people. Hell, that sounds pretty damned colonial in mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hallsands in Devon, England was washed away in 1917 after thousands of tons of gravel were dredged up offshore to build a Dockyard in Plymouth. The dredging caused the level of the beach to drop leaving it unprotected from winter storms. See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallsands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallsands)

</comment><comment><USER10> Thought for sure this was going to be an article about Martin's Beach.

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://www.invw.org/article/benton-harbor- michigan-1280](http://www.invw.org/article/benton-harbor-michigan-1280)</comment>


Hundreds of web firms record 'every keystroke' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42065650 <comment><USER2> Not to bang on about it, but this kind of thing is why I use an ad-blocker.

It's barely even about ads in the traditional sense anymore, it's about being able to read a fucking article without having half the internet downloaded in the background while every nano of my being available is processed and analysed by 30 different tracking companies simultaneously.

<comment><USER3> Its not as sexy a name, but I think ad blockers should be primarily described as tracking blockers. Its sounds as important as "anti-virus" and i think it could drive a few more people towards using them.

<comment><USER4> Firefox and Brave have tracking protection built-in. Not sure if any other browsers offer this out of the box.

<comment><USER3> Firefox doesn't really have tracking protection built-in. There's "Do not track", but that's worse than worthless and off by default, and you can turn on blocking thrid-party cookies but, again, off by default and only covers a small area of concern. I don't even know what to say about Brave other than the business model feels very wrong.

Firefox + uBlock Origin is the right level of protection and you can get it on desktop and mobile (Android at least).

I've come across a few sites that were still using affiliate links and uO didn't block them. I'm not sure if uO has a policy of not blocking them but, to me, those are the only type of "acceptable ad" and CPU cycles shouldn't be wasted trying to detect and eliminate them.

<comment><USER5> I use noscript and am pretty happy with it. I also use Adblock Plus because I'm ok with the _idea_ of allowing certain types of ads through the adblockers. I was kind of thinking that we could get sites to stop doing the tracking bullshit if we put out a list of what is acceptable and blocked the rest. I guess it wasn't well executed?

<comment><USER6> I see people mention noscript and uMatix a lot, but you should also consider RequestPolicy for added protection: [https://requestpolicycontinued.github.io/](https://requestpolicycontinued.github.io/)

<comment><USER7> As far as I can tell uMatrix covers this (XHRs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is why it is absolutely mandatory that any browser I use has Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin in dynamic mode with all 3rd party scripts and 3rd party frames blocked by default, in addition to the static block lists.

Dynamic mode is the somewhat hidden feature that makes uBlock Origin as powerful as NoScript, and more flexible when it comes to differentiating between whether to allow content from a domain globally, or only on specific sites.

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic- filtering:-qu...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic- filtering:-quick-guide)

 _Highly_ recommended.

<comment><USER9> Long time NoScript user here, and I had to remove it today as it is completely broken and unusable. I cannot even get the preferences to open so I can export my whitelisted domains to uMatrix, which I'm testing as a replacement.

I would like to combine uBlock and uMatrix, but I'm not sure I can replicate the functionality I want. Your mention of dynamic filtering is interesting and I wonder if others are using it and can make a recommendation?

I need all JavaScript off by default (including first-party) and the ability to block both ad-serving domains and filters such as _/ ads/_ that work across all domains. Is this possible to do entirely within uBlock Origin?

<comment><USER5> Did you change browsers or something? Noscript seems to still work fine for me. Linux Firefox 56.0 (64-bit)

<comment><USER10> Firefox 57 was release a couple weeks ago and breaks most extension by dropping the legacy add-on system.

<comment><USER9> For the avoidance of doubt, NoScript version 10 shipped a few days after FF57 was released, and it is an update to that combination which is not working for me. I uninstalled & reinstalled the extension, and clicking on the settings icon instantly crashes the browser. It is totally unusable for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bit hypocritical of the publisher to be decrying intrusive analytics when their site is running Comscore and Chartbeat tracking.

Not to bash the BBC – _all_ web publishers are using this stuff and loads more. The BBC are unusually good actually, as their sites don't run adverts and all the adtech crap that comes with them.

As someone who designs and builds websites, the data provided by platforms like Hotjar etc. are very useful. And the advertising stuff is required if you want to keep the lights on (unless you have another source of funding like the BBC).

As a user I block it all with extreme prejudice.

<comment><USER12> > Not to bash the BBC – all web publishers are using this stuff and loads > more. The BBC are unusually good actually, as their sites don't run adverts > and all the adtech crap that comes with them.

Recently I was surprised to discover that the Australian equivalent that also has no advertising has half a dozen trackers on there main page. Plus twitter integration and CDN material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I agree that this can be used for ill, but there's a number of very valid reasons to use these tools:

\- Heatmap views of where people hover and start to type

\- capture of individual sessions to research support cases

\- Better understanding of user flows through a site or web app

And all of these tools, at least the reputable ones cited in the article, allow you to mask fields or parts of the screens so that PII isn't captured, and reputable companies do that.

The other part of this is that I don't think the article captures well is that these tools aren't used for targeting of ads or personalization or "spying" in the sense of malice, but to try to better understand users, what they're trying to find on a site, and clarify pain when using applications. I also think the people that use these tools, generally speaking, are perfectly fine with blocking them, since it's meant as a diagnostic and analytic tool.

<comment><USER14> I've found these tools extremely useful to understand user behavior. We rely on Fullstory all the time to improve the user experience, to identify bugs, and to debug user issues.

The result of these tools is a far better user experience on our site and many other sites.

"recording every keystroke" makes it sound like there's malicious intent, but it's misleading. It should be added that all these tools have a lot of options to avoid tracking sensitive data (like password fields) and we always rely on that (in fact anything else would be a compliance violation for us).

<comment><USER15> > "recording every keystroke" makes it sound like there's malicious intent

Thinking from a security perspective, I'm not sure "intent" is an important consideration. The question is: should third parties have the technical capability to do this?

IMO there are enough bad actors out there to answer this with a resounding _no_, at least by default.

If you want to record user browsing sessions, you should ask permission.

<comment><USER16> I suppose the issue here is that these aren't really "third" parties doing the recording, even if they're using third-party scripts.

<comment><USER17> Yeah the owner of the website which include the script has only their website data.

The third party follows users over all the websites they're deployed on. Best example is google analytics and all beacons scripts (G+, FB like, share on twitter etc.) which track you almost everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And this is why we need the GDPR. The potential for the sheer amount of sensitive personal information that this can hoover up is extraordinary.

<comment><USER19> An EU regulation for data protection ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation)) for anyone else who was wondering.

<comment><USER20> If you are a tech-type company doing business in the EU and this is news to you, hie thee hence to a lawyer forthwith. The GDPR has teeth. You are not going to want to discover you're in violation the hard way.

<comment><USER21> 2018 will likely not see active enforcement, a couple of stern warnings and maybe a single case to court to show they mean business. But I fully expect the hammer to come down in 2019 and frankly I can't wait.

I look at a lot of companies professionally and the range goes from: "GDPR? What is that?" to "Sure, we're ready, here is what we did and we are already compliant.".

Most companies are somewhere in the middle between those two, they are aware that something is changing but they are still trying to figure out the impact on their business. Lawyers are - unless their specialty is privacy law and they have boned up on this - pretty useless and generally tend to know even less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Many a year ago, an ad firm used to track the words you highlighted with your cursor. I wrote a userscript that highlights every letter repeatedly to spell out "FUCKYOU" when it loaded that company's JS.

I mean why do advertisers think its impressive to do this? I swear they increase their intrusion and in return more and more people tune into ad blocking. And don't even ask what I do about sites that insist I turn it off -- I blacklist them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is there a browser or extension which doesn't enable mouse and keyboard events by default? I would like to see permission alerts for mouse and keyboard listeners similar to location permission requests.

</comment><comment><USER24> About 6 months ago I got tired of all the tracking and fingerprinting that is going on and installed NoScript. Surprisingly few web pages require Javascript. Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

<comment><USER25> That's not the case at all if you go to a site that uses React. For those, you are welcome by a blank page with NoScript.

<comment><USER26> This is somewhat moot as (a) I think most React devs don't do this, and (b) if they do, the resulting page may still not be very useful.

However, any React developer worth their salt (probably still a minority, as mentioned above) should be using ReactDOMServer which will render the page fine without browser JS being enabled.

<comment><USER27> I thought this was mainly used to improve first load speed. The site won't be very useful if you can't interact with it beyond that.

<comment><USER26> While it does depend on the purpose of your site, even in the purest examples in the "web app" category, I can think of very few sites that are guaranteed to be absolutely 100% useless without interactivity. Certainly not as useless as a white screen.

In most cases though, you should be able to present a pretty useful static page by default without too much effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Once again, this is why I've blocked javascript for years. Browsers really need to start offering this without add-ons or extensions.

<comment><USER29> Whenever someone complains about a website not working without javascript enabled, someone inevitably responds "it's 2017, you can expect javascript to be enabled". I think that piece of knowledge is outdated:

\- Late 1990's: static html documents + forms \- early 2000's: shitty DHTML scripts that added nothing \- early 2010's: javascript + gracefully downgrading sites \- 2015/16: required useful javascript everywhere \- early 2017: trackers everywhere, html5 popups, trackers, spywhere, trackers, bitcoin miners, trackers, etc, etc.

2017 is the year where you NEED a javascript blocker. What's the use of having any security at all if you're going to leave the biggest attack vector in modern times _completely_ unprotected?

Plus, the web has become completely unusable without a script blocker.

<comment><USER30> > the web has become completely unusable without a script blocker.

When you exaggerate like that, it diminishes your point. I use the web all day, every day and I have never installed a script blocker.

<comment><USER8> Maybe not outright unusable, but certainly really fucking annoying.

Not to mention hazardous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> We use HotJar at work, and it's super useful to see heatmaps of what people click on and what they ignore.

This article is a little clickbaity- it implies your passwords and other private info are being stolen, instead of just webpage clicks.

Maybe people can hack those tools for ill but that's true of almost any web software platform.

<comment><USER32> I don't want to be alarmist, but just because it's not stolen doesn't mean that it isn't logged. I've worked with Dynatrace. I've used it piece together bugs that QA had found but couldn't reproduce a second time around. It's truly powerful software.

After a set of test data refresh, we lost some of the new test passwords associated with some of the new data. Then it clicked: Dynatrace has keylogging. I searched for login events of those users, and sure enough, there were the keystrokes for the passwords of each of those users.

Yes, this kind of software is a godsend for debugging, but improper usage, storage or transmission of data is a real concern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's our fault for turning the web into the monstrosity it has become. Web browsers are for displaying hypertext documents. DOCUMENTS. Why on earth are we executing code at all?

<comment><USER34> For the same reason all major document formats execute code.

PDFs execute code, DOC(X)s execute code.

Users want features: interactivity, automation of various bits, etc. Features = users = money. Money > anything (security, privacy, etc.).

<comment><USER21> Plenty of that could have been achieved by slower but more consistent and secure development of extensions to HTML.

That wouldn't give you Google maps, docs or gmail, but the vast majorit of SAAS products could have probably been created in one way or another with the restriction that no code could execute client side.

More and more pages that could have worked just fine now render as totally blank because client side frameworks are now being pushed from every angle. As an end user there is no clear advantage to this.

<comment><USER30> > That wouldn't give you Google maps, docs or gmail

So, it wouldn't have given you three of the most important and useful applications in the modern world, used every day by millions of people.

<comment><USER21> No, it would not have given you those _on the web_. You could have simply made applications that do the same thing.

Gmail could have been made to work (on the web) by the way, just not with such a spiffy interface, and maps _probably_ as well.

<comment><USER34> > just not with such a spiffy interface

What makes you think that's not the main selling point of those applications? "Except for that one thing that normal people care about, my sticks-and-stones are just as good!" :)

<comment><USER21> Works in a secure and predictable way without eye candy to me trumps works in an insecure way but has eye candy.

Software was plenty usable before we had the CPU power to burn on 'pretty'. In fact, in many ways it was _more_ usable.

To some extent hardware has outpaced our ability to do useful things with the cycles and transistor budgets available. So we've become super wasteful and our software is now mostly immature. If instead clock cycles had doubled every decade or two and ditto with the transistor count we probably would have had a much more mature software eco system as a result, rather than a bunch of pretty junk with plenty of that pretty junk as a service rather than as an application that you control and all the security headaches that come with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The Princeton study: [https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/11/15/no-boundaries- exfil...](https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/11/15/no-boundaries-exfiltration- of-personal-data-by-session-replay-scripts/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Makes me want to search StackOverflow to see who asked how to reverse the order of a keystroke log file, so they can see if anyone backspaced off "your site sucks" in the comments box.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does uBlock origin block these recorders without having to do all kinds of crazy advanced config?

Edit: TO anyone else wondering the same thing, the answer is no. However, Ghostery does block it. I didn't like ghostery before because it broke all kinds of sites, so this time around I re-added it except I ONLY selected the "Site Analytics" category and left all the others blank (which can be handled by uBlock origin)

<comment><USER8> Ditch Ghostery, they collect and sell your information (how ironic). Use Privacy Badger instead.

<comment><USER37> That didn't block the inspectlet demo: [https://www.inspectlet.com/hello/capturedemo](https://www.inspectlet.com/hello/capturedemo)

Do you have a source for them selling data?

<comment><USER8> That demo doesn't record anything at all here, or at least it certainly cannot play anything back. I'm using Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin (with dynamic mode on).

In all fairness to Ghostery, it seems they've cleaned up their act after being bought out by Cliqz: [https://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/ghostery-sheds- ad-tra...](https://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/ghostery-sheds-ad-tracker- sells-off-plug-focus-compliance/)

Specifically, it was the Ghostrank feature that was troublesome: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism)

I don't know how the current version of Ghostery behaves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's more than hundreds. I'm guessing that _each_ of Inspectlet, Hotjar, Mouseflow, Crazy Egg and Full Story has hundreds of customers.

But it's not 'every keystroke', but keystrokes you make whilst interacting with a page on that particular site.

</comment><comment><USER39> When they "record every keystroke", do they mean: a) every keystroke on that particular webpage? b) every keystroke of any webpage on any tab of the browser? c) every keystroke on the laptop itself?

If it's b or c, I have a MAJOR problem with this.

<comment><USER40> It's referring to scenario A, since the code only runs on that webpage (or any others with it).

<comment><USER41> Assuming no bugs in the browser's same-origin implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is what worries me a bit about browser extensions like 1 password and other password managers.

Could a website that has a keylogger in it potentially pick up these keystrokes when I put my password into an extension?

<comment><USER27> No. They only have access to anything inputted within their site's window.

I think this article is a bit sensationalist. These sites already have access to all of your data (stored in their databases!). There's nothing additional they are gaining from this aside from how you input that data. That is much less sensitive information and I can't think of another usage aside from improving their site's UX.

<comment><USER42> Is there a risk of information leakage?

Say for example a website asks me for something (e.g. an address, phone number, bank account number), I type it in (thus registering my keystroke presses to the keylogger) and then realise oops I didn't mean to type that, I meant to type something else

Does the website then submit the logged keystrokes for offline analysis?

<comment><USER27> Yes, theoretically in the case you mentioned.

All responsible implementations of this won't actually log PII. It's pretty trivial to withhold certain inputs. All of the services mentioned in the article have easy ways to flag an input field as private / do not log. I'd wager a lot of money that these sites are interested in gathering UX data and not scraping for accidental form input.

I suppose there's a certain level of trust involved, but I don't think that's any different than when you make an online purchase. /shrug

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is sensationalized, fear-based reporting. Classic case of someone publishing a strong opinion about something they don't understand. Unless she is trying to imply that security issues are inevitable, session replay tools are used to improve user experience in 95% of cases.

</comment><comment><USER44> Not that I agree with the practice or anything, but I have to call out the how obviously maximally-outrage-inducing the headline is. From the middle of the story:

>They found that 482 of the world's top 50,000 sites used scripts provided by one of these firms.

Less than 1% of the sites did this.

God I'm tired of this kind of "journalism".</comment>


YC will accept 10k new companies into its new online Startup School - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/987043/y-combinator-will-back-10000-startups-to-prove-theres-nothing-magical-about-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER2> Funding startups others wouldn't is perhaps the most essential part of YC.

VCs didn't want Dropbox or Airbnb or Stripe without YCs stamp of approval.

YC could very plausible fund as many startups as there are ambitious and determined founders.

Let anyone participate in the programs and then let the startups filter _themselves_ out by failing to keep up the progressively more challenging levels of effort.

<comment><USER3> IMO YC depends on its branding as the exclusive, "Harvard of incubators," and if they keep funding so many startups they are going to lose that edge and create the space for a new YC.

Each class is like 130 startups now, right? I keep seeing startups that duplicate other existing YC startups. I just imagine as an investor you have to be thinking "Ok, now there are 2 or 3 or 4 times as many startups as 3 years ago being pitched to me that are going to fail."

<comment><USER4> Or the opposite - look at all this deal flow. As these startups move through the program I am sure YC is collecting tons of data in regards to how their trending. Imagine an online portal an investor could log into and within seconds have access to thousands of startups but more importantly, visibility into their metrics and traction.

<comment><USER5> You mean Mattermark?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Replying while somewhat under-slept here, but I've been taking the course and from everything seen so far Startup School is an excellent step in the right direction. The world today needs more people solving the problems they see in the world, instead of waiting to make enough money in a job that may be automated soon enough, or relying on benefits and insurance that can be ripped apart by a politician's pen. Building something from scratch is hard, and veering off-road is obviously easy (going to press to early, raising huge amounts, or not raising when you have a viral product, being scared away by a patent troll, hiring people for the sake of headcount, you name it). Compound the problems you have with additional regulatory burdens in other countries, and it can be downright impossible to make something new (vs starting another store, or restaurant).

YC tries to make it as simple as possible to make the life of ENTREPRENEURS survivable(Not just VC-fundable businesses). If that wasn't the case, Startup School would include an investment that gets you into the feedback loop of having to produce returns for someone. Not asking for equity is a great feature, because it encourages experimentation and provides railings to keep as many of these experiments on the lane that gives them room to validate and less risk of predictable failures. School may even be the wrong term here, I would call it an Apprenticeship, because you are practicing and mastering your craft with mentors and peers in practice.

This Apprenticeship for Entrepreneurs, crafted by YC, needs to spread with as much quality mentors and talent, as is available, and it needs to have proper funnels doubling down on people who strike gold by meeting a high-demand unmet need. Startups at advanced stages should more qualified support and more funding for equity. (Right now that step is YC Core)

Do that across any country and market segment and you won't need to worry about Jobs automation. Humanity will have an efficient method to create as many entrepreneurs out of Job bleeds as it needs and to lead them into fixing problems that actually need fixing.

<comment><USER7> I am curious about your experience taking the course. How much time commitment is it? Is it something I can do while working a full time job?

<comment><USER8> At min, 2-4 hours for office hours per week ( within my group at least )

However, at the core they are pushing you to grow and build a company.

So within my group there are alot of fulltime founders.

Im a fulltime founder myself and have found the experience to be great. Its helped me to ask the correct questions and to move alot faster.

Its also great to have a solid network of other founders to chat with.

In saying this, there are members within our group whom have full-time jobs and simply work alot after hours on their products.

<comment><USER7> I think I can handle 2-4 hours a week. I am really interested in learning from YC how to grow

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They don't financially back the 10k startups, it's just an online course where you get discounts on various online services.

Granted the online courses are supposedly very valuable, but the lack of face to face with YC's network and lack of available funding makes it hard to see how they can get away with the claim that they are "backing" 10k startups.

Edit: 200 people related to YC have volunteered to "mentor" the 10k companies. Let's assume 2 founders per company, that's 1 mentor for every 100 founders. And the course is 10 weeks long, so assuming the volunteers spend 40 hours a week for 10 weeks mentoring the founders (which they likely wont), that works out to be 4 hours per founder over the entire course.

Yeah, not the same as "backing" a company.

<comment><USER10> Being in startup school, I can say it's definitely useful, and having a mentor point out when ideas are bad or ways to improve is helpful.

What's more helpful, is that you're placed in a group of say 20 other companies all trying to produce something, some are making money, some have literally nothing. You can learn from one another, share ideas, test out each others products, etc.

One thing most people trying to start a company don't have is a support network of highly motivated people doing the same thing. I know I personally do, but many of my fellow startup school colleagues do not. That's what's helpful: The startup school group office hours (or therapy sessions).

The second most valuable portion of startup school, is that they force you to be accountable. If I say I'm doing X, they want to see it. They expect results, and they push you to share.

The finally, and perhaps most valuable portion of startup school, is the fact you can network. I'd argue this is different than group office hours. There are many companies that have synergies, for example my project: [https://projectpiglet.com/](https://projectpiglet.com/) can help identify trends, or "experts", which other teams could use.

There are other examples, but it's definitely been useful.

That being said, it is not YC proper. You don't get funds, many of the founders don't actually have an LLC or C-Corps. Many are in school, or (like myself) have full-time jobs working 50 hours a week.

Although not being able to work on the project full-time sucks, I've definitely made progress through startup school. We would have had less without it, the ideas from the team have bubbled up and the support pushes us to do better. I would recommend it, and definitely don't think it's "backing 10k startups", however it is helping in a significant way.

<comment><USER11> Networking only works if you're with a relevant audience. It's probably not useful to participate in a fashion industry networking event if you're a startup selling EDA software.

In any case, as long as it's not asking for an ownership stake, I don't see the problem with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Where can I apply? The site says it's already started: [https://www.startupschool.org/](https://www.startupschool.org/)

> The course will begin on April 5th, 2017

But the title implies they're going to add 10,000 new applicants.

<comment><USER13> The article answers your question:

> Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says > Altman, and potentially more after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am super excited about this. The thought of applying for YC was never on the table because I'm reluctant to move to the US. Startup School is great, but sometimes I feel that it's a little too condensed and, well, at the end of the day it's still passive consumption. Mentoring personalises things a little, so this news is welcoming.

My question is, can this mentoring be as effective as having a 'real' mentor? I have no doubt that YC mentors are highly qualified individuals, but with _10k startups_ , I can't help but feel that these sessions would be as rapid- fire as one of the live office hour videos in Startup School. Nothing wrong with that, but for me, I look for _relationships_ the most from mentors.

This also makes me think that this may just be a Round One to perhaps a lengthier process to sift for startups with the best potential..

</comment><comment><USER15> As a side note, the data in the graph "Number of applicants and startups accepted into Y Combinator", evidences two things:

1) the number of applicants is increasing (which is what the graph was evidently made for)

2) the percentage of successful applicants is declining steadily actually halving from (roughly) around 3-4% until 2012 to (still roughly) 1,50-2,00 later

This may be IMHO due to two factors (or a combination of both):

1) Too many startups lately apply without having a sound enough project or not original enough ideas

2) Y Combinator has become more picky when choosing who to accept

Surely it is not as easy to be accepted (in the actual YC financing program) as it may sound, I thought that the success rate was higher than that.

</comment><comment><USER16> This should be good for a large number of startups who are not in the valley. Structure with an incentive program is a great way to get teams in markets lacking a SV-style approach to entrepreneurship. I think English speaking countries have had a big advantage here because there's so much content and expertise out there. One thing they should do is simulcast the lectures with professional translators in another langauage or at least crowdsourcing subtitles. This would be really helpful for entrepreneurs in places like Japan.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been saying for long time that YC is just a new kind of university and now it starts appearing more and more like that. The goal of a traditional university is to enable financial security for students through high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university. YC effectively does the same -- it provides students with a necessary skill set to enable financial security through self-employment. The main difference is that education in YC is paid with shares, not cash.

<comment><USER18> > high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university

Neither YC nor a university are in the business of particularly providing such a thing. They provide a stamp of approval, aka vetting, which is what gets you the job. That you survive it, learn very minimalist skills, graduate and get that piece of paper in theory increases the odds that you possess such and such personal qualities. From there, the overwhelming majority of what you will need for your career, will be learned post-university. The university isn't doing much more than vouching that you represent at least a baseline, ideally according to / in-line with the university reputation.

In the case of YC, their stamp of approval is what gets you the big money. They vet you. They do not make you a great hacker or leader, or give you those skills, you have to do almost all of that yourself. The best they can do is sometimes point you in the right direction and offer occasional help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just LOVE the photo used in the article. Is that the very first cohort? so many familiar faces.. Sam standing next to Paul.. even Aaron!

great piece of yc history! What a great photo.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think this is the money line right here:

The heart of YC's philosophy is that world has too few people solving fixable problems, a "bottleneck in society," says Garg. "If you fundamentally believe that, then [Startup School] is exactly the right thing to do. You are empowering a bunch of people to just try and it'll turn out it's going to be way easier than they thought it was going to be. And there'll be more progress."

</comment><comment><USER21> > They chose inexperienced college students over startup veterans.

Is this still true of YC today?

<comment><USER22> As of June 2016 the average age was around 29.

[https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/](https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/)

<comment><USER23> I would imagine the startup life skews young in general because older age tends to mean more responsibilities, and at some point if you haven't been successful with a startup you'll tend towards a more traditional position for those reasons? "Startup Veteran" is kind of an amusing phrase.

<comment><USER24> I disagree. I'd say older people have more networks, more experience and more resources, hence will find less comparative benefit in giving away precious equity to YC (etc) than young people who need all the above.

It could be said that YC and other startup incubators have done a stellar marketing job in taking ~6% equity off organisations by turning the tables on funding and making companies "apply" to give their equity away. From YC's perspective they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this arrangement, versus the founders who are in pretty much the opposite position.

<comment><USER23> That's probably true. I was sort of envisioning bootstrapped, self-funded businesses as a different category than the YC-startup style business.

<comment><USER25> Youre confusing concepts. You can skip an incubator like YC while still intending to not bootstrap. There is also no such thing as a 'YC-style' startup, YC was set up to target startups, so can't have invented them.

YC used to only give a tiny amount of equity that any vaguely successful person could match ($16k?). It filled the gap between starting and series A.

Bootstrapping means avoiding getting a series A.

Basically, YC didn't invent startups, it invented a new, more accessible route to starting one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This would be somewhere in the Vingean Scholastics portion of the Venn diagram I proposed a few years ago:

[https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the- venture-...](https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture- capital-industry/)

The future is wandering towards Fast Times at Fairmont High, it seems.

</comment><comment><USER27> So, I am looking at a bit of the transcript from the first course and it is talking about scaling companies from millions to billions and things like that.

YC started with this idea that you take a couple of college student hackers, give them like $20k and let them build something "ramen profitable." The basic idea was that tech had lowered the barriers to entry for business.

An awful lot of these big companies (Uber, Home Hero -- which is shutting down -- etc) seem to hire 1099 contractors instead of employees and they often don't pay all that well. The goal for YC seems to have become grow the next unicorn.

So, I find myself wondering (having already forwarded this stuff to various people): Is there anything of use in these lectures if you aren't looking to become a billionaire and have no desire to grow some gargantuan company that probably is making the founders rich on the backs of the 99 percent who are so often underpaid?

Is there any basic business wisdom here for people not looking for some J curve growth and then cashing out? (Serious question and I know it sounds like snark. I just don't know how to say this more diplomatically because this is not how YC started and I have trouble with the direction it seems to have taken.)

<comment><USER28> I think there's _some_ value if you're more interested in creating a lifestyle business than a unicorn (as it seems like we both are), but it's certainly not perfectly matched to that goal.

It's a shame there's not a Startup School-like resource for creating a lifestyle business (YC-like in that it'd have a unified theory of lifestyle business creation, as YC has for startups, that'd been honed through assisting in the creation of hundreds of such businesses).

<comment><USER29> There is. It's called Hacker News. There's isn't a better resource to learn more about starting a small business than HN itself. From starting a consulting business to creating a passive income, everything has been extensively discussed. There are tons of inspiring stories here about creating a small business. (Incidentally, I think it would a great idea to collect all entrepreneurship related threads in a single place.)

HN's expertise falls short when it comes to adjudicating unicorns as they don't usually look promising at the beginning. But, in case of a small product, I think community's feedback and advice can be invaluable.

<comment><USER27> _(Incidentally, I think it would a great idea to collect all entrepreneurship related threads in a single place.)_

I forward stuff from HN that I think is pertinent to the group I run called Business Bootstrappers: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/business- bootstrappe...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/business- bootstrappers)

So far, that is the vast majority of what has been posted there. As yet, conversation has not broken out and I don't post very much else there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My co-founders and I really enjoyed the 10 week startup school. We're full time founders and have been working for the last three years on building MyAppConverter. The course gave us time to really get some actionable advice on how to grow our business. The greatest thing is that our time committment for the OH call and weekly reporting on our business metrics made us really focus on what matters i.e. making and selling as part of daily work. Wether or not one applies to YC programme, I would highly recommend any founders to join the MOOC course.

</comment><comment><USER31> So, YC branches out into the MOOC business.

</comment><comment><USER32> I was excited until:

> Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says > Altman, and potentially more after that.

2018 seems like an eternity away. I hope my new company is profitable by then.

<comment><USER33> whats your new company?

<comment><USER32> Hi a1exyz,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I wasn't checking in on this thread.

Unfortunately since this is an anonymous account I can't say :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> With immigration to the US being as hard as it is (Nigh on impossible for say, Europeans, to work in the US), and , on top of that, the US government going full protectionist, this is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Complete aside: am I the only one who imagined Naval flipping through a physics book to double check his assertion?

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm trying to work out what bothers me about this.

I wonder if it's actually bad advice for all those thousands of entrepreneurs to be advising them to go for being mega gigantic.

It's bad advice because those thousands of new entrepreneurs have a much greater chance of long term success by NOT following the "go super big" path.

Indeed it appears that taking a "quite successful" company down the "go super big" path might lead to a variety of adverse outcomes (as I have gleaned from reading the stories of many failed venture backed companies).

I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in _their_ interests, which is _really not_ in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs.

I suppose YC's history and origin make it _feel_ like they are on the side of the entrepreneur, but is that still true?

<comment><USER37> I dunno. I got accepted into office hours, and yc didn't provide me with Amazon credits that they said were part of the program, and I didn't feel like the advice the person gave me was anything I didn't already know, besides "do what you're doing, but harder". Perhaps it's jumped the shark. I distinctly got the feeling that yc is now peddling a narrative of the hacker that is either untrue or no longer true, and is dispensing platitudes instead of actually getting people help with "the hard parts", as in connecting people with a real process that helps them get money (or conversely, critical responses to "stop wasting your time", if that's what's deserved)

<comment><USER36> Perhaps they have refined their business down to the essential core which is to back large numbers of entrepreneurs in the hope they don't miss one that gets big. Like 500 startups. Hard to believe that backing large numbers of companies can be much more than betting on lots of horses.

<comment><USER38> They aren't backing any of these companies financially. It is hard to tell what is in it for them yet. The only way this makes sense is if it is a pre- filter for their application funnel to increase the quality of their selections. Contrary to this, they originally claimed that startup school would not give you any leg up in the application process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Bullshit, I've attended a startup school event in london and they were very clear that they want people to relocate to SV.

Is YC backing 10k international startups with funding, or is this just a MOOC?

<comment><USER40> I think you're confusing the Startup School conference with YC's new Startup School MOOC. The MOOC is completely remote with no expectation that companies will move to SV.

<comment><USER41> The headline before indicated YC was changing its rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Frightenly ambitious.

</comment><comment><USER43> Click-bait warning! TL;DR: YC won't be 'backing' 10k startups in the financial backing/investing sense at all, but accepting 10k startups into their Startup School MOOC.

<comment><USER44> Agreed. We replaced the title above with a representative phrase from the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> If I'm making a tech product (not SaaS) as a solo founder, no employees, no funding, not in the Bay Area, but making a product that people love, would I be considered a success?

I personally love the Startup School lectures and they have been a great help to me.

<comment><USER46> If you're growing and profitable, you might consider ignoring all the startup culture nonsense.

<comment><USER47> Why would "growing" be a prerequisite to success? Isn't profitable enough, especially if already decently profitable?

<comment><USER46> I assume you are asking a serious question, but yes, you need to at least grow to match the rate of inflation/cost of living. Aside from that, it's up to you to decide how much you want to grow.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any easter eggs on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I think I remember reading a while back (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=575487) that if you have enough karma you can change the title bar background. And the Hacker News title eventually, too? Anyone know what # gets you to these marks? Are there any other easter eggs for which I can keep an eye out? <comment><USER2> On the final level, where you face the giant Paul Graham with eye lasers, you can defeat him fairly easily if you disable his parenthesis by stealing them from his keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER3> The whole site is open source. Here's a post where I explain how to grab the code and find karma thresholds:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=853964>

There could be easter eggs that aren't in the publicly distributed source code...

<comment><USER4> I think something must have changed since that post. As displayed to me, I'm at 495 karma as of the writing of this post, but I don't currently have the ability to down-vote comments.

<comment><USER5> Increased to a 500 karma minimum - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1853529>

<comment><USER6> Interesting. Thanks for linking to this. At the moment, I have 490 karma :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope this doesn't come across as sarcastic, but wouldn't the Codemonkey addon for Firefox suffice for what you're asking/trying to accomplish?

<comment><USER8> ... because using codemonkey to mess around with webpages is an easter egg. You're completely missing the point. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)>

<comment><USER7> I fully understood the point. It was merely a suggestion. I'll give you a second to unbunch those panties.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Next steps once business concept is verified? - <AUTHOR>

I could really use some pointers on what my next step should be. A B2B service idea dawned on me from my experience as a consultant. I vetted the idea with ~10 professionals in the field. All of them really like the idea and had a lot of questions and interest. I am not a developer. Do I hire the development out or should I work on finding a co-founder? Honestly, I prefer a partner, but have reservations about approaching someone with an idea, vision, and options/share. <comment><USER2> You don't really need a developer just yet. I'd say crystalize your idea to it's essence and make a one-page website looking like the real deal. See how much people find you because they're having the problem you're solving. How much actually sign up? There are one-click services that can help you. Have a look at <http://launchrock.co/> It's free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you - that is great advice. I guess I should also making waves for the family/friend investing.

Is there a rule-of-thumb on the number of sign-ups to realistically validate an idea and move into the development phase?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Ad-Free Life – Adblocking as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.adfree.life <comment><USER2> I'm not the most networking-literate person. How does this work? In the case PiHole you set your router force all of the devices on the network to go through the Pi, correct? So for this service you'd be routing all of your internet traffic through a remote server run by a company you know very little about? That feels sketchy to me, but again it might just be due to ignorance or misunderstanding.

Also, to anyone who has used PiHole - what do you do when a news site bugs you about using an ad blocker? What's the equivalent of "open up your other browser to access the page"?

Side note: why are people flagging this? Seems like a normal "Show HN"-type of post to me, but I'm not always savvy to the etiquette here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure why it keeps getting flagged, but it seems to be removed quickly afterwards.

It actually only sends your DNS traffic, which turns a pretty url (like [https://www.adfree.life](https://www.adfree.life)) into an ugly IP (like 184.108.40.206) and then returns to your computer to make the actual call with all of the important stuff. It is not to be confused with a VPN, where your traffic could actually be logged. You can read more about it here [http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm](http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm)

<comment><USER3> To be blunt, that's still too much for me. I'm already unhappy about my ISP having my DNS history, I certainly don't want to offer it to a third part for a service that I could run without giving up that info.

I don't say that as a product criticism, I see why you can't do it another way and plenty of people won't mind. But if you're curious, that takes me out of the pool for this service. Shipping trusted hardware that could go behind a router is about all I'd be open to.

<comment><USER4> Give dnscrypt a try. Someone will still know that your IP made those requests, but it will be much harder to tie your identity to the IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is PiHole[1] as a service without any mention about pricing. You can buy a Pi for ~£10 (one off price) and install this for your own network in a few minutes.

1\. [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to be transparent about pricing, and the free trial lasts an entire day before resetting to make sure you are comfortable setting it up before purchasing. You are getting a dedicated VPS with every plan, no sharing. So the price includes the overhead there.

<comment><USER6> Seems a little weird and highly inefficient to separate them like that, especially use of IPs etc.

Why not just have one large instance?

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't different people want different things on their whitelist/blacklist? AFAIK Pi-hole doesn't offer a way to do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly right. Everyone gets their own white/blacklist, control over logging, etc. And how would you end a subscription if the IP still existed with the software?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this part of the pitch: "Ads on news sites gobble up as much as 79% of users' mobile data. Why are you wasting valuable data to see ads?"

Precious data –– there's only so much of it, and when we burn it all, it'll be gone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3bZ6y_23_Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3bZ6y_23_Y)

<comment><USER9> No to mention your mobile data wouldn't be going through the device?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would have thought that the target market for this service are the sort of people who would just run PiHole at home, or set up their own VPS if they really wanted? Most non-technical people I know are just happy with an ad blocker extension so they won't be interested.

I'm interested to see how this pans out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out! I actually am the sort of person that runs a pi- hole at home on a pi, but I wanted my family's devices to be blocking ads also when we left the house, and I found it a pain to always be asking to install extensions on each of the browsers on each of the computers, so a cloud offering let me manage it in one place (after setting up the DNS). I figured I was not alone as a hacker/tinkerer with a family and though others might benefit.

<comment><USER11> What ad lists does it use? the standard one?

<comment><AUTHOR> The pihole is pre-configured with

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts)

[https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains](https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains)

[http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts](http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts)

[https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blocklist.php?download=domainbl...](https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blocklist.php?download=domainblocklist)

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt)

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt)

[https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt](https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The main selling point over just buying a raspberry pi and installing it locally on your home network is that it only works out of the box on your home network. Opening up your network to the internet is not recommended for the average developer, and generally not recommended at all.

Yes, you can set up your own VPS for less than $9/mo. But not much less.

There is a lot of concern over logging the DNS entries. I'll put a notice on the site, but you are not only able to clear your logs at any time but are also able to turn off logging altogether. I do not keep your logs.

This is not a DNS provider, this is simply a layer that attempts to stifle known ads and trackers. You can already assume your DNS logs are being used somewhere, this does not stop that.

This does not use a VPN to hide your IP.

<comment><USER12> Technical question: when I send over my DNS requests to you (do I actually do that?), aren't those requests unencrypted going over the internet so everybody can sniff on which pages I visit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks promising! I'm a bit unclear on who the target audience is though. Techies? Regular folks? Techies who want to secure their loved ones? Are you trying to take out the hassle of configuring Pi Hole on a VPS, or to create an easy solution for the average person? It seems like the former to me, so just making sure that you're aware that's how the site comes across.

If you can afford it I would get a professional designer to take a look at the site. It looks pretty good but it's a little bit "off", rough around the edges somehow.

If you're targeting tech people it won't matter as much, but still, first impressions are important.

Best wishes :)

<comment><USER3> I see two obvious targets: people who want this service but aren't game to configure a Pi Hole, and techies who travel and want a fast-and-easy way to get this benefit on any network.

<comment><USER14> Won't Pi-Hole work fine on any VPS? Seems there are much cheaper solutions for anyone who is willing to do the Pi-Hole configuration themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why would someone route their traffic through your servers, opening themselves up to a whole slew of potential privacy issues, and pay you for it, to accomplish the same thing they could do on their own for the cost of a Raspberry pi?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are getting a dedicated VPS, so there is no cross traffic sharing between other subscriptions. You can also disable logging if you don't want to graphs. A Raspberry Pi has to be set up on your own local network, and you'd have to open up that port to the world to be able to use it from outside your home, which has farther reaching security issues. This is limiting that exposure to a dedicated VPS outside your network.

<comment><USER15> > You are getting a dedicated VPS, so there is no cross traffic sharing > between other subscriptions. You can also disable logging if you don't want > to graphs.

...but neither of those things tell me that _you_ don't still have access to that data, which is kind of the whole issue.

<comment><USER16> Its DNS. How do you propose they have access to the data?

<comment><USER15> DNS queries are data, and can give a motivated party plenty of insight into a user's internet usage habits.

<comment><USER16> Sure they are. However, all dns servers are going to have this issue. Even most selfhosted ones, like a self hosted pihole use Google DNS as its backend.

The data is far less valuable than your original claim of "Why would someone route their traffic through your servers" which sounds like a VPN/Proxy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How do you make sure your pi-hole instance is only used by the rightful user? After all you can't restrict port 53, and I am sure iptables are not an option here since you don't know from where the users will be connecting?

<comment><USER18> I want to know this too.

FD - I recently launched an adblock as a service (listed in my profile.)

Edit1 - maybe it's security through anonymity. Don't tell anyone your DNS server address?

<comment><USER17> I doubt it. People are specifically looking for open port 53. After reading a bit the pi-hole documentation, I found out they recommend pairing it with OpenVPN. [https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/wiki/Pi-hole---OpenVPN- se...](https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/wiki/Pi-hole---OpenVPN-server)

<comment><USER18> If OP is using a vpn to route traffic, they should call it out.

Our adblocker uses a much less intrusive idea than VPN to block unauthorized IPs from hitting 53.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The general problem I see with network ad blockers is sometimes you need to enable certain blocked domains for certain sites to work. When the utility or content of the site outweighs the need to block , its impossible to do with most of these network level blockers.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Ads on news sites gobble up as much as 79% of users' mobile data. Why are you wasting valuable data to see ads?"

My understanding is that this is a device on your network... your home network. Can you explain how this device/service would help your mobile data?

<comment><USER3> I think that's the value proposition: rather than using a Pi Hole in your home, you connect to this service on all your devices anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How does this even work for mobile (the major selling point AFAICT)? A few minutes of research suggests that it's non-trivial to change my DNS server on iOS when using my cellular data connection.

<comment><AUTHOR> After creating an account there is a tutorial linking to an iOS and Android app that provides a way to set your DNS via a VPN.

<comment><USER14> A VPN to where? The VPS you control? Now we are back to giving you _all_ of our data rather than just DNS queries... It's mind blowing to me that you expect people to pay a premium for the privilege of giving you all of their data.

Nothing personal, but I really hope this business fails fast and hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So it's a DNS service that blocks blacklisted domains?

</comment><comment><USER21> Page is giving an error

</comment><comment><USER22> $9/month for what essentially is a preinstalled pi-hole is a rip-off.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know why this post would be flagged?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a follow up to my own comment here for those wondering the same or for in the future if it happens to you. I got word from HN that the community probably thought this post was marketing for a business, and that the community was, understandably, wary of a new account posting their product. Truth is I am a solo hacker and this is just a side project of mine. I made an account with a matching name so that it was easier to determine official answers.

TL;DR: submissions from new accounts that are flagged for any reason weigh heavily against you, keeping you from posting or answering questions in a timely manner. Also, it took 40 min for it to be public on New, starting on the second page.

TL;DR:TL:DR: don't create a new account to post something.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anybody have experience with building hobby robots? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys, I've notice a recent post outlining some activities hackers can do apart from writing software. Recently I've taken a liking to building small hobby robots on my spare time.<p>I recently chanced upon a site of the Society of Robots. The author gave a helpful tutorial on how to go about building your first robot. I was wondering if anybody here has had experience building robots on their spare time. Would love to hear your 2c. <comment><USER2> these guys meet up regularly in my town (Brighton, UK). Might be worth talking to some of them via the forums: <http://robotbrighton.ning.com/>

fluffyemily on twitter runs the group so she might be of some help too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Kev, basically I want to know how much it would take to build a basic robot. Nothing to complicated just a cute thing on wheels that could run around and not bump into stuff.

<comment><USER2> well one of the first robots that i saw one of these guys build does pretty much exactly that - so worth getting in touch - they know about where to get all the parts, pre-packaged kits and all kinds of stuff</comment></comment></comment>


Spybot Anti-Beacon for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. I've been skeptical of a lot of Windows registry tools for fixing Windows 10, or Windows 10 upgrades or whatever, because there hasn't been any real trustworthiness in where they came from. But a tool from Spybot is likely worth a try.</comment>


New Rails documentation site - <AUTHOR> http://rails-doc.org/

<comment><USER2> I never understood why nobody has built a documentation webapp where you just enter the SVN/CVS/GIT of a project and the webapp checks out the code onto the server's backend at a fixed internval then generates documentation from a standardized commenting layout, kind of like doxygen but more social.

It could be neat, you could even have the app merge user submitted comments or changes to documentation (submitted via the web-app) back into the code documentation in the repository. Maybe set a convention where you create a DocApp folder for pages, all synced with the online webapp.

I hope this is what Nodata is working towards.

<comment><USER3> It's been on my To-Do list for ruby-doc.org for, oh, forever.

One issue is in making sure that as the API changes you can still correctly associate past comments to API where still appropriate.

(The auto-svn c/o is in place at least ...)

Not a fan of automatically merging comments back into the source code though. Better to just have someone sensible update the docs when needed and submit a patch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Often, I wish the rails-core would "bless" one of these documentation sites. Just knowing that DHH has passed his fairy wand over one would bring an amazing amount of traffic, in turn, creating a more robust resource.

I'm truly confounded why he hasn't done this.

</comment><comment><USER5> And it was good. As I know from personal, recent experience, it is danged hard to learn Rails with my normal surf-around-the-intrawebs method. (I eventually find great content on blogs and message boards, but there's a dearth of good entry-level stuff readily available. *Edit: And good general docs, which this site addresses more directly.)

This looks like a giant step forward for train-kind. Looking forward to using it a lot.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a big fan of RailsBrain. Especially when used with Fluid in offline mode, but this looks great because of the ability to add notes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been using this all morning. I really like the live results search thingy. Seems more accurate that others. We'll see.

</comment><comment><USER7> Usually use ri but this looks neat.

</comment><comment><USER8> slow as snails...can't even get the page to load

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems fine to me. No lag, search is snappy.</comment></comment>