Ask HN: New VC Event in Canada - <AUTHOR>

I am hosting an event in Toronto on October 20th, 2010.  I was hoping for some feedback from the community on the site and the concept.  We are pretty far along in the planning but we can change the concept or structure of the event if enough people feel strongly about it.
Here is my elevator pitch (feedback would be great on it too):
I am looking for startups in any market that will be seeking financing within 6 months.  This is restricted to companies in Canada.
The Investment industry in Canada is at an all-time low.  Great startups in Canada have to reach out to the Valley to get investments.  I think that there is enough money in Canada and people are willing to take the risk.  I am organizing an event bringing together the biggest investors in Canada.  The goal of the event is to get a commitment from Investors within 30 minutes after the startup pitches.  Funding will range from $50k to $5 million, preferably Series A funding.
If you think your company has what it takes and is ready for a pitch of a lifetime let me know and we will go from there.
Apply here http://www.fundation.org/apply/ <comment><USER2> Glad to see someone trying to help Canadian funding efforts.

Your about page is pretty weak on actual information about who's organizing this (i.e. you) and your background. I'd love to see those details.

No harsh criticism intended, but at the moment it kind of comes off as: I've rented a conference room, but I still need people to pitch AND people to invest in those pitches. Some indication that you've got some connection to one of those 2 groups would be encouraging.

I've bookmarked the site though, I'll keep my eye on it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. We will put together some content on who we are, who our guest speakers are, and the people currently on our board of advisers in short order. We are more heavily connected to investors and sweat equity investors than entrepreneurs at this point, so we are pushing out to the community for help in that area specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a grand idea. Any clues to as who are the investors?

As for the site, here is some constructive criticism:

\- Check your formatting on the pages. Wordpress can be a bitch sometimes. Try Shift-Enter for line breaks.

\- Think about segmenting the copy on the about page into maybe a couple of different sections, say investors, pitchers, About Us . Segmenting helps readers with text overload.

Other than that, site looks good.

As a fellow Toronto resident, I am looking forward to seeing how far you get with this.

</comment><comment><USER5> As an entrepreneur in Toronto I can say that this is sorely needed. I do echo the question by someone else why there is pressure to make a decision so soon.

Wouldn't that be like speed-dating except you have to marry the person you just met?

</comment><comment><USER6> > _The goal of the event is to get a commitment from Investors within 30 > minutes after the startup pitches._

This sounds like a typical time-share "information session" to me. Why the pressure?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Great comment! I completely understand where this is coming from. I am going to change the sentence to reflect that within 30 minutes of the pitch investors will set the expectation that they want to see more. I dont want it to seem like there is pressure to invest or that if an investor is interested then the money is guaranteed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nothing for super early startups? Might expand your audience a bit more, people looking for less than $50k (ie. YC sized investments)</comment>


Hackers Came, but the French Were Prepared - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/world/europe/hackers-came-but-the-french-were-prepared.html <comment><USER2> Duplicate of front page post...</comment>


Pentagon Tells Staff: Stop Surfing Porn Sites at Work - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5931159/pentagon-tells-staff-stop-surfing-porn-sites-at-work

<comment><USER2> Gentlemen, this is the Pentagon. Make war, not love.</comment>


Ask HN: Testing Out of College? - barry-cotter

Has anybody reading done it? What's the experience been like?
I'm not referring to just doing a lot of tests so that you can put them towards credit, but to getting a university degree without ever attending a lecture, and proven one's knowledge by getting tested on it.
I had been mulling this over after Eliezer linked to Excelsior College Exams but I let it slide because I didn't see any examinations that seemed to be at a high enough level that I actually believed a degree would be granted, even if you did technically have enough credits. I learned differently courtesy of www.testingoutofcollege.com (one of the ugliest, most poorly designed websites ever)
I'm asking out of curiousity, and a desire to acquire the credentialling/signalling benefits in the minimum time. Or B.A. = Easier Visas <comment><AUTHOR> Just prove P!=NP and you can get your dissertation certified by the college of your choice.

-

That site really makes this seem like a great idea. If you're planning on going to grad school once you have your bachelor's degree, this seems like a good shortcut.

</comment><comment><USER2> There are lots of companies which will give you a "degree" in exchange for passing some exams and a few thousand dollars. Most companies -- and governments -- realize that these degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

If you want a university degree, go to university. I don't care how smart you think you are; you're not as smart as I am, and I learned things by attending lectures. You can, too.

<comment> barry-cotter I want a credential. I learn on my time.

I'm well aware that the learning from testing out is going to be minimal, but I'm not interested in these qualifications as an end in themselves, they're worthwhile as a credential filter. If you want to do a second entry degree these degrees would be fantastic. An MBA or an IR Masters does not actually cover material that requires an undergraduate degree (or a J.D. for that matter) so you're just avoiding wasting money.

Also, Excelsior College is accredited by Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, so it is a degree, not a "degree". I'm perfectly capable of learning off my own bat, no doubt slower and with more wrong turns and wasted time than if I was in a small liberal arts college but that option is not available, so I read a great deal instead.

You're right that I'm not as smart as you are but I am smart enough that the added value of attending lectures and tutorials in history over just having the reading list and access to a good library is minimal in my experience. My university is by no means bad. I see no reason in theory why the hard science degrees could not be awarded purely on the basis of a syllabus and examination, well Math anyway, Physics and Chemistry dependent on lab work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My father had an incomplete BA and was able to Clep out of enough stuff to enroll in business school. I don't think he received an under grad degree though. That is the closest thing I know of.</comment>


Mojang's Monster Profits - <AUTHOR> http://it24.idg.se/2.2275/1.490017/mojangs-monstervinst <comment><USER2> Are there honestly any Mojang haters in the world? These guys are just great.

1\. Minecraft is an absolute work of art as a standalone game. The possibilities are endless and it works everywhere. It's simple to play yet is possible of incredible complexity.

2\. Relative to the playtime, the game is actually very inexpensive, especially if you got the beta/alpha discount

3\. Notch really seems like just about the most pleasant guy in the world and really just wears his passion on his sleeve. He's an easy guy to like.

4\. Notch and everyone at Mojang really love video games and it shows. I always really respected guys like Kurt Cobain and Flea growing up because they always tried to give credit and lend their popularity to fellow musicians and influences. Everyone at Mojang does this and are surely leading kids toward a lot of great games. They even support the Minecraft clones.

5\. It's been covered but Notch has used the massive profits of Minecraft in smart ways to build Mojang slowly and really help out the developers who make it possible. Great bunch of developers too, very public and responsive. They are also smart about what actually gets added to Minecraft.

6\. Best community in gaming currently, hands down. The user made stuff is jaw dropping.

7\. They continue to spend most of their resources working on Minecraft despite the fact that they are both working on other games now and could sit on their thumbs and rake in the cash on Minecraft if they wanted. Let users fix the bugs. You know, like Bethesda does.

8\. Cutest mersh ever.

<comment><USER3> 9\. He made some pretty sweet amateur techno back in the day under the name Markus Alexei on (remember this one?) mp3.com. Some of the more treasured stuff in my mp3 collection.

<comment><USER4> Is it possible to find mp3.com-era stuff in some archive?

<comment><USER3> I sent him an email yonks ago and he put up all his stuff for a week or so. This was pre-fame so maybe that won't work anymore.. if you're really keen I'm sure I could put up what I have somewhere (I managed to mangle some of the id3 tags unfortunately, I need to clean that up sometime, it's on a list...)

<comment><USER5> Could you kindly? I'd love to check out his songs. Bandcamp only hosts a couple of his songs, but the archive.org page of his old music page shows plenty more songs. [[http://web.archive.org/web/20090728013239/http://www.mojang....](http://web.archive.org/web/20090728013239/http://www.mojang.com/music)] I can't seem to find them anywhere, so if you do upload them, please let me know!

<comment><USER3> Heh, you have no contact information in your profile. Flick me an email (my email is in my contact page) and if I get around to it I'll let you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The amazing thing about this game is that I'm using it to teach my girls how to program with it. Its a great tool because it allows them to see the value in writing code by getting real results quickly.

The oldest one wanted to create pink wood to build herself a pink wood house. Why? Well duh, its pink (her words). We quickly dug the source code and had a pink wood block in a short time. She was so happy and learned about Java. A double win in my book.

<comment><USER7> How did you dig through the source code? Dissasembling or is it somewhere available?

<comment><USER8> Use MCP <http://mcp.ocean-labs.de/index.php/MCP_Releases>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorry for my meta-snark, but:

This is an example of bad editing of the title. The original one was much more descriptive and got to the core of what is interesting about this article. The edit has made the title bland and uninformative.

<comment><USER10> A controversial suggestion:

Mention a small indicator ('*' or '~') below or after a renamed title, clicking on which will show a log of the original title, the name of the admin who made the change and a footnote.

<comment><USER11> The original title could also be in a "title" element on the A tag so that hovering over it would show the original. (Not necessarily a better idea but involves no interface changes which the YC folks seem not to like doing.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The actual amounts were 1500 MM SEK revenue (236 MM USD), and a 640 MM SEK (100 M USD) licensing fee/royalty to Notch, leaving that 580 MM (92 MM USD) profit. So that's 92 million on top of 100 million in effectively dividends to Notch (by pulling out that amount, he must be one of the Swedes paying most tax!)

<comment><USER13> I'll bet that at that level there are ways of paying less than the standard ~40-50% (or whatever the maximum tax rate is in Sweden) individual income tax.

E.g. I'll bet Bill Gates didn't personally pay (10s of) $billions in income taxes either.

<comment><USER14> That's correct. Gates would have been paying capital gains (rather than income taxes (except on his salary)), but has probably paid vast sums in taxes over time just due to the scale. He has shifted a lot of wealth from Microsoft stock holdings to his Cascade Investments. He holds roughly $20 billion in Microsoft, and $40 to $45 billion in Cascade. Gates would have paid a huge amount of capital gains taxes on that shift most likely (even if he managed to shield some or most of it; just 5% * $20 billion is still a billion in taxes).

Just as a side reference, the dividend and capital gains rate in Sweden is about 30%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I still don't understand the appeal, which is obviously my problem, because there is certainly appeal. I've given the game some time, and I consider myself quite an avid gamer, but I just don't find it all that fun, interesting or entertaining.

Can someone explain why this thing exploded how it did?

<comment><USER16> I've been to the well many times on Minecraft.

On the family multiplayer server, I made sky houses out of giant mushrooms and bone dust. I made a hockey arena in the snow. I laid roads out of gravel (wood for bridges) that stretch for days of in-game time. There are waystations that you reach just as night is falling. We made a monster trap that drops tons of resources next to a powered railroad track, so you can get in a cart, whiz by monsters, after which they burn in lava, then their byproducts fall down a waterfall. I made an underwater dome out of glass.

My son loves this game and we play it together.

But there is also a special beauty when playing alone. You are marooned on a planet the size of earth. You have the power to keep yourself safe by your own efforts. You can explore vast caves to find treasure. You can light areas with torches to create zones of safety. You can grow crops and breed animals to feed yourself. You can look at the sunset through windows at your beach house, then go to bed. This is all with the tragic realization that virtually no one will appreciate your efforts (and in the game), so whatever experience or meaning you derive from it is for you alone. The world is by turns bleak, elegiac, beautiful.

Lately I've been playing hardcore mode, which gives you only one life to live and deletes the world when you die. It is easy to starve, so the first few days are scrambling just to get to a subsistent existence. It's hard even for veterans, and it turns up all that tragic stuff to 11.

There is in-game programming that people have used to make adders and ROMs and clocks. There are notes that you can use to make music (my doorbells play Raiders of the Lost Ark). You can make secret doors that open with pistons.

And that's all in the base game! Modders have had an endless field day with this game. It's now a game that contains other games, contains multitudes.

<comment><USER17> Best description of Minecraft I've ever read. Watching a beautiful scene unfold, alone, the urge to share the experience; knowing your structures won't be worth anything but still doing it for fun or to share with friends; it's something very unique. Few games generate the same kind of emotional attachment that minecraft does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Couldn't have happened to a greater bunch of indie gamers.

Also from the article here: "Markus Persson gave away his part, about 27 million, to the employees."

<comment><USER19> That was last year though. And it was 27 million SEK not USD.

edit: Just wanted to make it clear what the article said, it was not meant to sound negative. It is truly an awesome and very kind gesture from Markus!

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the clarification - looks like 27MM SEK = ~4MM USD. Still not a bad chunk of change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Check out Mojang's next project: <http://0x10c.com/>

Minecraft-sized space game? Where you have to program your ship?

Yes please!

<comment><USER21> Don't forget about scrolls!

<http://scrolls.com>

<comment><USER22> And Cobalt: <http://playcobalt.com/>

<comment><USER23> ..and if you haven't played it yet.. buy it now! it will not disappoint.

<https://minecraft.net/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow, it just almost seems impossible that an indie game can be that successful. It's unfortunate that it's such a rarity, I'm sure there are hundreds of great games out there that languish.

If anyone wonders, the PC version is not the best seller (currently) for Mojang. The XBox version sells more than the PC version and the Pocket Edition (iOS, Android) sells more than both combined[1].

[1] <http://www.mojang.com/2013/01/christmas-stat-attack/>

<comment><USER25> But, maybe surprisingly, the PC version has been selling at a pretty constant pace for years now, between 8,000 and 12,000 copies per day. It never sold much more than that per day (certain peaks excluded), so demand is not shrinking, strangely enough.

Daily stats for the PC version here: <http://minecraft.net/stats>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Swedish to English translation: [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fit24.idg.se%2F2.2275%2F1.490017%2Fmojangs- monstervinst)

</comment><comment><USER27> Java on the Desktop... in a biiig way.

My son loves it, especially building complicated redstone devices -- kind of a form of in-game programming.

<comment><USER28> It could have succeeded without being in Java... it's the game's design and concepts that make it successful. Though to be fair, it helps make multiplatform availability easier.

<comment><USER27> I don't disagree... it was merely an observation. The largest-selling game currently available just happens to run on desktop Java... and the consensus I see recently around here is that Desktop Java is dead -- I like to point out that millions of homes are actively using it, even if only to play a game that really isn't dependent on what one would typically think of when they think 'desktop Java'.

Probably a few users of Eclipse out there, as well.

<comment><USER29> With the amount of money that enterprise has invested in Java, it'll probably follow a similar trajectory to COBOL where "dead" isn't really dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why do you keep changing the title

</comment><comment><USER31> Congrats are in order for Notch and his team. Thanks for the great game and we are all looking forward to 0x10c. :D

</comment><comment><USER32> Is it just me or is the whole article in Swedish?

<comment><USER33> Not just you. The Google translation is not that great, either.

To the OP, HN is not a Swedish language site.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was submitted with the title "Minecraft brought in $92 million net in 2012". The linked URL is the original source and when it was submitted, there were no translations available.

<comment><USER34> Yet another example of mods removing context from a title

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> We've been tracking Minecraft's public sales over time: <http://minecraft- sales.herokuapp.com>. That's _only_ for the PC version. We estimate that sales of Minecraft across other platforms at least double that revenue.

</comment><comment><USER36> Gotta love these guys, great game too, something I play with the kids and we all love it.

A great documentary you can download with ads on it from PirateBay, or buy a full copy:

PB Free with Ads: <http://thepiratebay.se/search/story%20of%20mojang>

Purchase for $8 (US): <http://redux.com/minecraft-movie>

</comment><comment><USER37> Congratulations to the Minecraft team, well deserved. Hopefully this serves as inspiration to other indie devs working on their projects.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ooops, I paid twice - gift for son of my cousin (yay!) and for myself. How he could go on an adventure and I would not follow? Also, trying to login while he was offline felt so cheap.

After we started building together I tried to destroy our island in many ways, including dying with handfuls of equipment, but am getting better fast.

P.S. Not that I didn't want to play MC in the first place...

</comment><comment><USER39> My son plays several games online including Minecraft, League of Legends, Clash of Clans and Lost Saga. Minecraft is the only one out of these which doesn't have any pernicious "in app purchase" or online game credit system. I totally admire the fact that Mojang haven't stooped to this level of trying to gouge money from their customers pockets.

</comment><comment><USER40> Its gratifying to see Notch benefit from some really creative work. I do not believe that Minecraft, as a building game, would not have been touched by any of the 'major' studios had he proposed it to them directly. The games industry is a bit crusty in that way.

</comment><comment><USER41> My wife and I play Minecraft with our two sons and their friends, and we have a blast with it. We have a family server running on an old Mac mini, a whitelist for family and friends to jump on whenever they want. Minecraft is absolutely brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER42> I remember when I bought Minecraft, at the time Minecraft had grossed less than 100 Euros. I wish I could go back and tell myself that the game was going to gross 1,500,000,000 SEK... hah.

</comment><comment><USER43> A hypothetical question I'd like to have some possible answer to:

What would've happened if Minecraft were made open source? How would that alternative reality be different from our current one?

</comment><comment><USER44> One thing I wish I could do is import mesh models into Minecraft. Just so I can write scientific papers featuring Minecraft visualizations and analysis ;)

</comment><comment><USER45> And to think Mojang would have been known as a "lifestyle" business by many people (no outside funding, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER46> Nice, hopefully they will invest in Reborn(A vaporware game told to be the new Quake.).

</comment><comment><USER47> Lego Group, 758 million in 2011. There's your target Minecraft.

</comment><comment><USER48> The awesome thing is that it is written in Java. All the Java haters (I'm looking at you Ruby developers) wish it weren't so.

<comment><USER49> I'm a Ruby dev with no feelings about Java (never programmed in it).

I've gotta say these kind of posts piss me off. A programming language is a tool, nothing more, nothing less. Certain tools are better than others for certain jobs.

<comment><USER48> I feel the same. A programming language is just a tool. And yet your ilk have been bashing it for way too long. Maybe not you, but a vocal group of Ruby developers have.

I program in C,C++,Java,VBA,JavaScrip,PL-SQL and I've even dabbled in Ruby, Perl and LISP. However, I still find it offensive that some noob Ruby developers think somehow that they are the chosen ones and can bash other developers without expecting any backlash.

<comment><USER50> Preemptively "anti-fanboying" doesn't really raise the level of discourse.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IPad gets approval from FAA to replace paper flight charts and maps - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/01/ipad-gets-approval-from-faa-to-replace-paper-flight-charts-and-m/

<comment><USER2> This wasn't a blanket approval for pilots to throw out all dead trees.

The FAA actually only gave approval to one charter company (Executive Jet Management) to use the iPad in conjunction with their extensive operations manual. Right now all authorizations are being done on a case-by-case basis.

<comment><USER3> I concur and approve this post for Internet Accuracy*.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't worry, they'll still make you turn yours off until 10,000 feet.

</comment><comment><USER5> There probably are some good reasons for doing this (or at least in addition to the paper versions). That is, until a pilot gets caught playing Angry Birds instead of doing their job.

<comment><USER6> What about Flight Control HD?

<comment><USER7> It will definitely be concerning to see planes crashing into helicopters and landing after 180-degree turns at 500 feet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how this is going to pan out with the FlightPrep/RunwayFinder patent drama?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007899>

(this might be a very smart move on FlightPreps part - wait until some well funded company gets far enough down the rabbithole to get FAA approval, then hit them up for license fees. _Way_ more likely to get money out of _that_ than from RunwayFinder)

</comment><comment><USER9> What happens when you run out of batteries mid flight? Paper doesn't have that problem.

<comment><USER10> You plug it in and charge it. At least that's what I did on my last vacation when I was in the air for 15 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know folks who have used e-readers for this purpose too. Charts are a really natural fit since they are updated regularly and they are bulky. Next up check lists.

</comment><comment><USER12> Paper flight charts are there for a reason - they're made of paper!

<comment><USER13> Indeed. They burn _far_ better if you're stranded on an island.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> apparently they're ahead of their seafaring counterparts. Commercial ships are still required to carry paper charts.

<comment><USER15> Three reasons:

1\. Electronics are vulnerable to salt water.

2\. Ships are at sea for longer than planes are in the air, so their power supplies are less reliable, and they are generally dirtier and more chaotic.

2\. Ships tend to have proportionally smaller budgets for fancy electronics. More of them are run by random people from poor countries.

None of these is a fundamental limit. There are tens of thousands of ships designed and run such that none of these points matters. But I think that, generally, they tend to damp down enthusiasm about relying on electronics at sea.

<comment><USER16> If you believe what you see in those "reality" fishing shows on the Discovery Channel, they are using computerized charts and setting crab pots using GPS so the know exactly where they are. Not to say they don't also carry paper charts, and maybe even a sextant so they can navigate if the GPS goes down, but I am guessing they are not used in practice very often.

<comment><USER15> Yes, offshore fishing boats in the developed world almost universally use GPS, as do most ships of any size. But there's still a lot of conservatism in the regulation of what you _have to_ have aboard and know how to use.

Reading nautical charts is nontrivial. They tend to be extremely dense (in areas where you need to use one at all); you have to know a bunch of buoy symbols, implicit rules, and so forth. Switching entirely to an electronic system where you could choose optional display layers and tap unrecognized symbols for help could make navigators' licensing considerably easier.

Edit: A chart I happen to know a little: <http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18432.shtml> . Notice the cable zones (where you can't anchor), the international boundary, the shipping lanes (where you're liable to be run over if you're not a 1000-ton vessel), the magnetic declination rosettes, the angles showing lighthouse visibility, the warning of local magnetic disturbance, the nature preserves … and not far off this particular chart, there are even markings for unexploded ordnance, left over from exercises in the Cold War. And this is a simpler chart than one you would theoretically use to move an oil tanker through the shipping lane, if you did it on paper. So you can imagine how much a good electronic system could clear things up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> they should require papers maps on the plane at least, what happens if you drop the ipad and it breaks ?

<comment><USER2> And what happens when you spill your coffee on paper maps? No system is perfect.

(not that an iPad is immune to the cup of joe either)

<comment><USER18> It's harder to make a paper map useless than to make an iPad useless.

Of course a protective case and a spare would solve that problem since I assume flight crews are used to operating in an environment where they are surrounded by sensitive electronics that they really don't want to break.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sounds great, but I bet a few months after they finally purchase them everyone will wonder what pilots are doing with outdated iPads.</comment>


Uphold the VAT Exemption Threshold for businesses supplying digital products - <AUTHOR> https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products

<comment><USER2> Isn't there a petition for the EU as a whole? UK is (by far) not the only country that's severely affected by this new law.

Signed and upvoted though!</comment>


Ants have a sense of number - <AUTHOR> http://alexbellos.com/?p=1249

<comment><USER2> I read some time ago in a book titled 'Swarm Intelligence' that ants use pheromone to optimize their way to the food. Ants which go through the shortest path come back earlier, thus incrementing the amount of pheremone in that path, thus attracting more ants inducing them to follow that path.

I don't know the relationship between pheromone-path-finding with missjudging the distance because of a bodily alteration, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> hehe read that as "sense of humour"</comment>


Police Surveillance Tools from Special Services Group - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/01/police_surveill.html <comment><USER2> [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdp95/this-secretive- sur...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdp95/this-secretive-surveillance- company-is-selling-cops-cameras-hidden-in-gravestones)

Not a fan of recent Vice per say, but they did all the reporting here, with Bruce adding virtually nothing and quoting directly from them, and not having ads. Might change the link as vice article is original, unedited, and has pictures, desipte ads, etc.

<comment><USER3> This is also in the HN Guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

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


Country-coder: Convert lat/lon to country code locally - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ideditor/country-coder <comment><USER2> How do you solve the problem that some areas that are claimed by more than one country or are claimed by countries that are recognized/not recognized by other countries?

<comment><USER3> It doesn't appear to, there's just a hardcoded geo json file it queries against: [https://github.com/ideditor/country- coder/blob/master/src/da...](https://github.com/ideditor/country- coder/blob/master/src/data/borders.json)

Kashmir, for instance, is only part of Pakistan.

Still an interesting exercise in geojson. I'm impressed that github automatically renders the shapefile, rather than just the text.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is hosting in Australia (and New Zealand) so crazy expensive? - <AUTHOR> I have a dedicated Xeon server in Australia with 20TB monthly bandwidth allowance, costs about US$315 a month - this is cheap. I think I got lucky because I went to get another, my 20TB bandwidth now costs US$1550 a month. Looking around for a VPS, found 200GB allowance a month for $60, but each extra GB over is $1. So it seems the bandwidth is expensive compared to Europe where they're just giving it away. What gives? <comment><USER2> Our office is in Sydney. It's not as expensive as you make out. You do not need to rent in a CBD high-rise. Whilst some VPS are expensive you can shop around. We use AWS & Google hosting - only about 10% more than USA. You have to shop around for good prices for internet access. Most mobile phone plans provide ample access at reasonable cost. Home ADSL is around $70 / mth for unlimited access.

Most phone boxes provide free WiFi as do MacDonalds, StarBucks, etc. But with 4G & LTE on your phone, you generally don't bother.

</comment><comment><USER3> Essentially Telstra (the biggest ISP in Australia) charges a fortune for transit. Cloudflare provide some detail about the relatively high cost here: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of- bandwidth-a...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth- around-the-world/)

<comment><USER4> Do you think Australian ISP services is a market that could be disrupted? As an Aus, I would love Google to come through and strongarming Telstra into at least rethinking their inflated prices.

<comment><USER5> Definitely could, but they'd need to lay their own international cables -- PIPE Networks (owned by TPG) is the closest we've got to a market disruptor and they can only compete because they have their own undersea cables.

Given the low total population and very low population density it's probably not really worth it though.

<comment><USER6> As a general comment, I hear this 'low population density' about Australia a bunch. I wonder if its a fallacious argument for many business cases.

Contrary to the Crocodile Dundee image, Australia is one of the most urbanised nations in the world. We have almost 50% of the population in Sydney & Melbourne alone, and our top 10 cities takes this to almost 90%. While a big landmass you can reach a high proportion in relatively few spots. Assuming a business doesn't expect infrastructure/coverage for the entire population Australia not to bad density.

Obviously the general remoteness of Australia and 25m population remain big factors, and I suspect this is more relevant than the often cited density issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A workaround: I tend to rent servers in Singapore when I need to address the AU/NZ market. They're considerably less expensive and the latency's still pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER8> Everything is more expensive in Australia. A large social net, a minimum wage > $20USD, and other high taxes, leads to rising costs of most goods and services.

I went there 2 years ago on vacation and stayed in hostels (which were $70USD/night) to save on price. Meals at most restaurants for 2 was $50+ and a 20 oz of coke and a small bag of chips cost me close to $11USD.

Internet was more expensive than anywhere I traveled. Free wifi was almost non-existent and most hostels charge $25USD/8 hours (it was also ~4MB).

It's probably why they don't have a flourishing startup scene.

<comment><USER9> Are you trying to be the 'typical' American who portrays 'facts' about other countries that are nothing of the sort?

Minimum wage is AUD 17.29 per hour, not the AUD ~28 you quote. A hostel at Bondi Beach is ~ USD 50 per night, not the USD 70 you quoted (and this is an expensive spot!). I can only think you must have visited when the USD was down the toilet.

On the hostel charging USD 25 for 8 hours. You can get a 4G sim card with with 50mbps+ download and 5GB limit for AUD 30ish.

But yes, everything is more expensive, generally. The dollar fluctuations makes it interesting. Also, sales tax is included in our prices unlike the US.

<comment><USER8> "Are you trying to be the 'typical' American who portrays 'facts' about other countries that are nothing of the sort?"

The facts are that Australia has high taxes and is much more expensive than the US. The numbers I gave might not be 100% accurate, but it's still a fact.

"Also, sales tax is included in our prices unlike the US."

I would rather have sales tax separated. Why? I've seen so many people bitching about why certain products are more expensive in Australia, and commonly blame the company.

In reality, they should be blaming the government. Merging the prices allows politicians to raise taxes without the citizens actually knowing the true amount.

The same thing happens with the gas tax in the US. So many people bitch about the cost, yet have no idea that taxes account for a big portion of it.

<comment><USER10>
       I would rather have sales tax separated. Why? I've seen so many people bitching about why certain products are more expensive in Australia, and commonly blame the company.

       In reality, they should be blaming the government. Merging the prices allows politicians to raise taxes without the citizens actually knowing the true amount.

This is not true. If you sell to consumers in Germany, you have to add the sales tax in your prices, too, but you also have to give out an receipt that shows the tax rate and amount. I believe it is the same in Australia. The consumer knows the tax rate and he does not have to calculate the price he is paying.

If you sell to businesses only, you do not have to add the tax in your prices, but you have to give out this receipt, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Few simple answers off the top of my head:

Electricity is generally more expensive in Australia than US/Europe

Internet (consumer and business) is more expensive, huge area to cover with low population density

Most DCs are located in Sydney and Melbourne where rent/land and other costs are a lot higher than less populated parts of the country

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I can understand the price of renting the box, but bandwidth seems unreasonably expensive.

<comment><USER5> Local bandwidth in Australia is generally more expensive than Europe or USA because we have a huge area to cover and a relatively low population. Also because of this the infrastructure that does exist is held by a handful of companies who can pretty much dictate the price.

International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by expensive undersea cables. While both the US and Europe have bordering countries where most of traffic is likely to go. Also similarly with local infrastructure, it's all owned by just a handful of companies who can strong arm providers.

Also in reference to your original question, it sounds like the VPS provider your using doesn't separate local vs. international traffic, so they're probably assuming most of it will be international and are charging on the higher end of the scale.

I think BinaryLane charges a bit less at around $1 per 10GB. There's probably cheaper providers out there but YMMV.

<comment><USER11> > International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by > expensive undersea cables

I have heard this quite a bit, but _why_ is it hugely expensive for this reason? Is it because of the maintenance of the undersea cables or recouping initial construction costs?

<comment><USER12> It just all adds up:

\- First world, bandwidth hungry nation.

\- Low population to recoup costs from.

\- Very low population density so transit across the country isn't super economical (related to above)

\- Expensive to build transit because it's all underwater cable, no easy cross-border land-based fiber.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reversing Apple80211 - <AUTHOR> http://newosxbook.com/articles/11208ellpA.html <comment><USER2> It is interesting that in the 90s there was a large shitstorm against Microsoft for having lots of private, undocumented APIs. The fact that Apple does the same thing in OS X doesn't seem to bother anybody - at least there is no such outcry.

<comment><USER3> I think part of the outrage was that MS was using those private APIs in software like Office that would allow it to do things that competing office software couldn't do. That's theoretically true of Apple as well, but either they haven't done that, or no one has looked closely enough to find out.

<comment><USER4> I seem to recall - though I definitely can't think of any specific examples - of there being plenty of things "only Apple apps" can do, be it on OS X or iOS. Seems like anything around security, limitations on extensions and such (though many of those are policy, not API-based).

<comment><USER3> I don't think those sorts of things are quite as objectionable, though. AFAIK, most of the things only Apple apps are allowed to do are more "system level" things that 3rd-party apps in general don't need to do. Sure, there are exceptions, but I think "Apple can bundle a wifi scanner app with the OS and I can't build a 3rd-party scanner" is a lot different from "Microsoft can _sell_ an office suite that does things I can't do in my office suite because of private APIs".

... the key difference being that MS was using their private APIs to crush competition.

Also one could argue that Apple is more of a hardware company, to a certain extent. They give away most of their software for free. Microsoft was using their OS monopoly to beat competitor's apps that run on top of Windows.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rage against the machine: self-driving cars attacked by angry Californians - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/06/california-self-driving-cars-attacked <comment><USER2> Considering how easy it is to for people experiencing a lack of equality and prosperity to direct their animosity toward foreigners, is anyone really surprised by this?

If technology like this is going to increase unabated while the economy remains erratic, wages stagnate, and government legislative ability decreases under the weight of their own bullshit, then I expect this will become more frequent until we have a genuine neo-Luddite movement on our hands.</comment>


Oracle to buy taleo for 1.9 billion - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/oracle-to-buy-taleo-for-1-9-billion/

<comment><USER2> From the job hunting end Taleo is terrible. Most of the big guys use it but it kills me not being able to go down the list of openings and open jobs in new tabs. Hitting the back button instead of clicking "back to search results" also clears your search.</comment>


Ask HN: Designer Critique and Feedback? - <AUTHOR> For all the non-designers out there,<p>Is there a paid service or forum where one could post their site / web app and get critique from designers along with suggested improvements to the look / UI? <comment><USER2> Probably not in the way you imagine it happening.

First, you're probably not looking for open-ended critique. There are probably a limited number of things you're open to and capable of changing. They're probably mostly superficial things at best; you're probably not going to pay what it would actually cost for someone to analyze e.g. an onboarding flow.

Most designers deal with people who only want superficial changes all day long for their day jobs; they don't also do that for fun or beer money.

Second, a designer doesn't know anything about your users or your vertical. The most a designer could do is suggest things for you to test. You still have to build them out and test them.

If you're like most startups, you don't have infrastructure or traffic enough to do this well, to measure a baseline beforehand and change after the fact, etc.

Third, wherever you're located, there are probably local design meetups and professional chapters. They probably have happy hours and office hours. If you're really interested in improvement, you could follow my suggestions from this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8756258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8756258) pasted below:

Put together your customer lists. Make sure you understand their demographics and their usage patterns and why they purchased and what they were considering instead. Make sure you have ways to contact them for research interviews and if it's possible to go on-site to see them use your product live. Document how your competitors present and discuss their products.

Then, pick something. One small thing. A landing page. A particular form. A headline. Copy for a Google Adwords ad. Something you can measure your current performance on, and measure a change to afterwards. If you're not high-volume, this might be harder to find than you think, but go through the exercise of figuring out what you can collect enough data on now, and what can wait to change until you can measure it later (or what you don't care about measuring).

Then, you can take that one thing to a designer and say, "I'm looking to experiment with different changes to <X>. What are some things you think might be interesting to try? Anything goes."

You're not asking them to do any work. You're not asking them to stake their reputation on the line. Your language ("experiment," "different changes (plural)," "interesting," "try," "anything goes") all says you're willing to respect their time and level of engagement and also that you're prepared to handle their advice properly, that you're not looking for a silver bullet, you're looking for all of the lead bullets.

Say you ask for help with a landing page. A designer might suggest some copy or visual design tweaks for clarity (specific changes), but also suggest you test different headlines (without providing any), and also changing your format from short form to long form or vice versa (definitely without providing any content to you, but maybe they would be interested enough to sketch out some varied layouts). These are all great ideas. You should read up on A/B testing and test all of them in isolation, and also all together. You should test big dramatic changes even more frequently than you test small copy changes, because you don't want to be stuck looking for a local maximum. A UX person might also suggest ways to find out other things to test, research questions to ask, and suggest books or other resources so you can collect that data well.

A startup that came to office hours that well-prepared would basically almost not need design help at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Vitorio,

thank you for taking the time to write a detailed response. I agree with all of what you said. I have one small aspect on my project that I would like to improve. Specifically, it is the layout of the food dish information and how it is presented for a single dish.

Example: [https://bestfoodnearme.com/best- food/7](https://bestfoodnearme.com/best-food/7)

I do not have that much traffic to the site now, maybe 30 - 50 new visitors a day, but I do have an accurate idea of how they are using the site through Google analytics.

I did consider trying some multivariate testing via bandit algorithms instead of A/B, but at my current traffic numbers, this might be a bit too early.

I will try to find some local designer meetups as you suggest, I am very close to NYC.

Thanks again,

Ty</comment></comment>


Show HN: Decision Jam – make better decisions quickly with your team - <AUTHOR> https://decisionjam.com/landing.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is inspired by the GV Design Sprint - Jake Knapp [https://twitter.com/jakek](https://twitter.com/jakek) & Decision Jam - AJ&Smart [https://www.youtube.com/ajsmart](https://www.youtube.com/ajsmart) and is a simple tool designed to help teams crowdsource ideas and make better decisions.

Feedback and feature requests are welcome.</comment>


Wanted by the U.S.: The Stolen Millions of Despots and Crooked Elites - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/business/wanted-by-the-us-the-stolen-millions-of-despots-and-crooked-elites.html <comment><USER2> We call money "capital"

We call crimes punishable by death "capital crimes"

We never seem to charge people who steal shitloads of money as "capital criminals" where death is the sentance.

WTF??

God this world is fucking retarded.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for Upcoming Events Where I can meet Hackers - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to recruit an entrepreneurial hacker to our team.  We're offering equity + pay to the right person.  I would like to get some info for some upcoming events where I can meet some great hackers.  Anywhere in California is alright. <comment><USER2> You're welcome to join us for [http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Me...](http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Meetup)

I can't promise any turnout numbers or particular qualifications, though.

<comment><USER3> We have some people from UC Irvine that may join us. We should inform them ahead of time too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.techstars.org/2010/01/14/techstars-founder- dating...](http://www.techstars.org/2010/01/14/techstars-founder-dating- meetup-is-feb-10th/)

Not in California, but they are opening a chatroom during the event.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://founderdating.com/> is trying to fit this niche. Also check out Startup Weekends (was started to address this problem).

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://thestartupdigest.com/> Lots of different types of events; delivered weekly; sorted by region. pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders/> I haven't personally been but our NYC H&F meetups are always great.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the leads. Star hackers are hard to find. -Chris chris(at)phonehalo.com</comment>


Scientists Create Device That Works Just Like the Human Brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/computing-device-mimics-human-brain-activity-1499413 <comment><USER2> This must be one of the most exaggerated science headlines ever.

Perhaps: "Scientists Create Device That Works Somewhat Similarly To Parts of a Single Brain Cell"

I don't think "Human" has anything to do with the claims made.</comment>


Ask HN: Should Medium be more upfront when it censors content? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I've been reading this page:
https://medium.com/@kesterratcliff/international-assadists-references-directory-8038067fe394
Today it's gone. If I didn't search the author on Twitter, I wouldn't know it was removed by Medium.
"This page is unavailable."
doesn't really cut it. "We removed this content because it violated XYZ" would be less confusing.
I think websites that publish other people's content should be more upfront about these kinds of removals. Otherwise it's confusing to the users. I mean if it's not spam, but something users might have read and liked, why not state the reason for removal? <comment> crooked-v Holy leading question, Batman!

My default inclination is to entirely skip over arguments that use this tactic even if I'd otherwise agree with them, because it suggests that the person writing it can't phrase their thoughts in a non-clickbaity way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still trying to improve my clickbait skills. I guess I still have ways to go.

But I don't think you can extrapolate from a single instance what other person can or can't do. ;)

Anyway. I'd call it "Suggest HN", but there's no such thing, yet.</comment></comment>


Top 15K English words - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/top-15k-english-words.html

<comment><USER2> The blog entry does not show up... But I when I visited the blog's home page, I was able to read the post.

EDIT: Thank you so much for this list, I really needed it.. although it contains words like: "she", "the", "and", and such words that I don't really consider it words.

EDIT: Do you know what? After I read the technical part of sorting this list, it gave me an idea.... Here is the idea:

1- Crawling news articles on daily basis, from some well known news websites. 2- Each word found in an article, submit it to a list of words. 3- About the list of words: If the word is not found in the list, then add it to the list and give it rank 1. If the word is already in the list, then increase it's rank 1 point... so if it's 1, make it 2, and if its 30, make it 31. 4- Sorting the list by rank... and here we will have a real solution for finding the most found words! 5- We can make some filters to guarantee that a word won't be repeated... and also filter to detect names and remove it from the list... I am talking about names like public figure names, companies' names, countries' names, and such names.

P.S.: We can do it with any language... as long as we can find a news websites for that language that has new articles everyday!

What do you think? :)</comment>


During the Renaissance, the beard was the defining feature of a man - <AUTHOR> https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/beard-maketh-man <comment><USER2> Safety razor was invented around WWII [0] and that is probably linked to the requirements of wearing a gas mask. Probably has something to do with the change in fashion.

Fun fact; often there is a general ban on beards in underground coal mines because the miners need to be able to wear gas masks.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor#History)

<comment><USER3> Firefighters also aren't allowed to grow beards for the same reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The idea of "four great beard movements" seems like an odd framing.

Another way to look at it is that periodically the somewhat-unnatural act of shaving becomes fashionable.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article has the Renaissance in its title, but then continues to discuss the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare != Renaissance.

<comment><USER6> Also, what about the rest of the world. This is just specific European history. Seems pretty exclusionary.

<comment><USER7> Do we have a lot of records about the Inuit Renaissance?

<comment><USER6> We know they didn't have large bushy European beards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've typically had a beard, because I hate shaving. Or rather, because I have both a bristly beard and sensitive skin. And no, shaving every day for years didn't "toughen up" my face.

<comment><USER9> Safety razors tend to be quite rough, and the canned foam offers little protection. Consider using a double edged razor and better cream (my personal usage is a merkur handle w/ feather blade, and cremo cream; a fairly cheap and effective set)

<comment><USER10> I think safety razors and double edged are the same thing.

But yeah those multi blade cartridges are rather bad, not to mention expensive. I've seen a pack of cartridges with 6 or 8 blades each for $7 a piece recently. Not sure how much they last, but my DE blade lasts for months and costs $0.10 a piece... That "investment" in a $15 DE razor will keep paying off forever...

EDIT: that life time estimate is on the basis that I shave like one a week though, if you shave daily you'll go through a few $0.10 blades in a month maybe :)

<comment><USER11> How frequently do you shave? _Months_ from a blade seems pretty atypical.

I get about the same lifespan from a good safety/double edge blade as I used to from a Mach III blade, but with less irritation and lower cost (though my safety razor was unnecessarily expensive so it took a while to actually pay off). I would guess I get 5ish shaves out of a blade before it's worth it to me to replace it.

<comment><USER10> I get more than five per blade, but it is hard to keep track, since I shave once a week or so. Probably depends a lot on hair type and tolerance for dull blades.

Another point for DE, they don't clog on a week's stubble, I had to whack the cartridge I used before on every move. I actually broke the handle eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You don't need to read much ancient literature to know that beards have always been associated with manliness. Going out on a limb here, but my guess is that's because typically only adult men can grow them. Shocking I know.

Anyway, it's not particular to the Renaissance at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> And the foregone conclusion in the article:

"The dramatic uses of the sign of Renaissance masculinity par excellence – the beard – reveal how precarious, provisional and potentially groundless the ideology of early modern masculinity was, the very ideology upon which the sign-system of the stage relied. As we look at today's hipsters – beards, man- buns and tattoos aplenty – we may also wonder what lies beneath the surface of the identities that they construct."

Appears the writer confuses criticism with competence. It's the conceit of modern academia. Yawn.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure this is a misunderstanding. I believe the author means to remind us that fashion and gender norms are arbitrary and performed, not to say that the hipsters chose theirs' _wrong_. Societal standards of masculinity are of particular interest here because they capricious, mutable, and especially likely to result in ass-kickings.

In conclusion the author encourages us to reflect on the difference between the person and the performance, and hold our assumptions lightly. You are not your beard.

<comment><USER15> It seems a little clinical and dehumanizing. I wonder how people would react to similar writing about women:

"The dramatic uses of the sign of Renaissance femininity par excellence – the hairdo – reveal how precarious, provisional and potentially groundless the ideology of early modern femininity was, the very ideology upon which the sign-system of the stage relied. As we look at today's hipsters – hairdos, cardigans and makeup aplenty – we may also wonder what lies beneath the surface of the identities that they construct."

<comment><USER14> That sounds like an equally valid criticism to me, but if you're sense of prudence suggests that some people might not want to hear it from a dude, so does mine. It's understandable that people sometimes feel like their being attacked en masse by outsiders when we talk about this, but I think we're better off if we're able to talk about it civilly.

Looking and dressing "right" is hard for some people. Approaching our expectations with a more removed perspective helps, but does tend to sound clinical. For what it's worth my gf complains about this kind of stuff in a way that sounds similar to me, but using somewhat less high-brow language. :)

EDIT: I asked gf what she thought of that paragraph: "meh i don't give shit it's fine." Then I asked if she thought a man could get away with saying it: "probably not on the internet LOL". n=1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone have any luck growing a beard after a lifetime of not being able to? My dad could grow one after 40 but no such luck for me. Also I had a few bad sunburns under my chin snowboarding and I wonder if I triggered something like an electrolysis effect. I've noticed that some things like drinking alcohol seem to stimulate brief growth but it's not a permanent fix hah. Also I've read that testosterone levels today are much lower than what the baby boomers had, but I don't know how scientific that is. I haven't been to a doctor to get my T level checked, just curious.

<comment><USER17> I've kept a beard since my late teens, and frankly it never occurred to me that some men may not be able to grow one. This has me curious. Do you mean it literally doesn't grow, as in you don't even need to shave - or just that it looks thin or uneven when you let it grow?

<comment><USER18> I know people that have the eternal babyface. At most, a few chin hairs but otherwise smooth. Some people just don't have the genetics for a beard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure that characterization of Aristotle is bullshit. Sadly, there is a great deal that Aristotle is slanderously impugned with and mischaracterized with, including his views of women. It's a game of historian telephone and shoddy scholarship, it seems. In this case, if there's even a whiff of authenticity to the claim, it would seem that Aristotle's thoughts on development may have been given an uneducated "normative reading", i.e., one in which the author attempts to once again reinforce the idea that Aristotle was a silly bigot that we, in all our modern wisdom, should scoff at and dismiss as an unsophisticated rube.

Anyway, what's the point of this article? All I see is some woman swinging a gender ideology axe around looking for something to hit with an hazy insinuation or superficial remark. I honestly couldn't care less about hipster beards and no one claims that beards make a man a man, only that beards are a male feature.

<comment> word-reader One of the pellets in this scattershot is basically, because sometimes beards are associated with being a man, and sometimes being clean-shaven is associated with being a man, there are surely no cross-cultural or cross- temporal ideals about masculinity at all and being a man can be completely redefined by lecturers in early modern masculinity or whoever.

That being said, as someone who can't grow a great beard, I'll always have the Romans; can't blame it on gas masks or TV ads back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article is trying to say that because the theatre used beards as a symbol of manliness, the entire male identity revolved around beards. This is ridiculous.

Hoopskirts were used to represent matronly women in early American theatre: therefore women gathered around these laughable garments as a symbol of their femininity.

</comment><comment><USER21> Article makes it sound as if beardlessness is some kind of default? Not sure if true

<comment><USER22> Stop shaving and let us know how that turns out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's been a while since I've lived in a western city - is the bearded hipster still a thing? My gut tells me it must have passed its expiry date by now, but I'm not sure.

<comment><USER24> Yes it's still a thing. I don't even think it's decreased, society just seems to care less about them than before. Because hipsters are "growing up", and so are the people who criticised them in the first place, you don't hear about it as much anymore. ("criticised" seems like the wrong word, but I can't think of another that fits).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a theory that lazy/poor/busy modern men are the reason that beards are back in style. Economic factors contribute to trends pretty often.

<comment><USER26> It's much easier to keep clean shaven than it is to maintain a beard, so beards are not the ideal choice for the lazy man. It's also much less time consuming to shave, so neither are they the ideal choice for the busy man. Razors are the cheapest facial hair grooming tool, so not the ideal choice for the poor man either. They type of lazy/poor/busy man that _would_ wear a beard would likely not be clean shaven on a daily basis regardless.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm talking about kempt facial hair, which is implied by the context of both the article in question and the comment that I'm responding to. Anyone can be unkempt, but that is never stylish.

<comment><USER27> I have worn a beard nearly continuously for approaching three decades, now.

I used to keep my beard neat enough with a pair of scissors, a mirror, and few minutes every few days. Then I got a wet-dry trimmer that I used periodically in the shower. Now I'm just growing it out (about 5 months in), and I work a dab of shampoo in occasionally.

Beard maintenance _really_ isn't that onerous. I spend vastly more time grooming my untrimmed whiskers than I _ever_ spent trimming them. Being clean- shaven takes significantly more frequent effort, and though I have no data points, given all the process involved in shaving, it probably takes a lot more time, all-in, too.

EDIT: Phrasing

<comment><USER8> I keep my beard clean. And I brush it occasionally during the day. I also trim split ends, as needed. Other than that, it does what it wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Regulated labs that use facial respirators do not allow employees to have facial hair where the attachment seal rests...

</comment><comment><USER29> The defining feature of a man? If so, why were codpieces in fashion?

<comment><USER30> Eagerly awaiting the next fashion trend:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well of course, this can be deduced scientifically: most characteristics of sexual dimorphism in humans are not polite to flaunt in public, but a beard is one of the few features of sexual dimorphism that is acceptably to show publicly, so it is only natural that men want to show off their beards.

<comment><USER32> It's quite acceptable to be tall and speak with a deep voice in society. Most male clothing is intended to highlight masculine features, such as broad shoulders, and present a generally "top heavy" look.

<comment><USER33> Likewise plenty of female clothing accentuates physical traits that happen to be fertility proxies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why is this here?

</comment><comment><USER35> So basically like today.

<comment><USER36> No, now it's laptop stickers

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> That explains why a hipster would describe himself as a "Renaissance Man"

</comment><comment><USER38> Beards are too hot for a global warming earth. I don't see a fifth age of beards coming.

<comment><USER39> Beards are not actually as hot as they might seem. Think of how a shady forest buffers the temperature. Compared to the surrounding area, it is cooler in the heat of the day, and warmer in the cold of night

<comment><USER38> Lol I've had a beard I'll trust my own assessment.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Deals Of Scale. Coupons that scale with interest. - <AUTHOR> http://www.dealsofscale.com/

<comment><USER2> Just watched the How it works video. When the coupon increases as more people use it, doesn't that hurt the merchant? Or is the goal to just get more people to buy?</comment>


Writing a small ray tracer in Rust and Zig - <AUTHOR> https://nelari.us/post/raytracer_with_rust_and_zig/ <comment><USER2> This is an awesome post.

At the risk of shedding it to bikes, one point that the author makes is that Zig's lack of operator overloading makes him write vector math like this:

        if (discriminant > 0.0) {
            // I stared at this monster for a while to ensure I got it right
            return uv.sub(n.mul(dt)).mul(ni_over_nt).sub(n.mul(math.sqrt(discriminant)));
        }

He signs off with:

> _How do C programmers manage?_

The answer is simple: we assign names to intermediate results. Now, I have absolutely no idea what that expression computes, because I suck at graphics programming and math in general. Please pretend that these are proper mathy terms:

        if (discriminant > 0.0) {
            const banana = uv.sub(n.mul(dt))
            const apple = banana.mul(ni_over_nt)
            const pear = n.mul(math.sqrt(discriminant)
            return apple.sub(pear)
        }

I'm convinced that there's a proper mathy/lighting-y word for each component in that expression. Of course this approach totally breaks down if you're copying expressions from papers or articles without understanding why they are correct (which is how I do all my graphics programming). I do find that naming variables is often a great way to force myself to grok what's going on.

<comment><USER3> In my experience writing math code the intermediary values get quite goofy Ex: orthogonal-vector-to-plane-bisecting-input-vector-and-first-column-vector

But I rather use crazy descriptive names than hiding it away. Otherwise it gets quite incomprehensible when you reread it 3 months later

Anyone else hit this problem? I suspect most people just reference a paper or book and use the letters to match the source ( x/y/n/m/etc. )

<comment><USER4> I think people's brains must work different, because for me this would be a terrible way to do it. I simply cannot read and comprehend math with very long descriptive variable names.

Whenever I see people do that, I have to write down the equation with single letters, and then look at it.

I am more of a literate programming type of person. I prefer writing longer explanations of code. But usually as a header. I like keeping the core of the code as clean and noise free as possible.

So I write code more like a math or physics book I guess. The equations are kept simple and clutter free, and then there is a body of text above or below explaining how to think about it. I tend to prefer using a lot of unicode, because following conventions helps me a lot. If I see a t₀, t and Δt variable e.g. I immediately get a sense of what sort of variables this is and how they are related. If instead it said start_time_of_incident, current_time and time_difference_between_events I could not quickly parse and internalize that.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I feel you on that and I started out writing in a similar style b/c it's terse and easy to digest. To be clear, this is mostly a hobby things for me so I'm not speaking from a position of authority, but in my limited experience once the problem gets bigger and you worry about performance/caching/recursion/etc. the math and equation start to diverge from the code substantially.

For instance over the last few months I've been playing with BLAS and the BLAS operators just don't really map cleanly to equations - and the way you structure efficient solutions just ends up being more nuanced and complicated than the simple clean "theoretical" on-paper solution. All the nuances need to be captured in the variable names to have any chance of making the code understandable

<comment><USER5> the distance between BLAS and mathematics is quite big. Have you had a look at, for example, the Eigen library?

Although it's still more verbose than math notation, it stays much closer and, in my experience, does allow for nearly all the optimization-wiggle-room one could want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But rendering in separate threads turned out to be (unsurprisingly) harder > than the way I would do it in C++...It was a bit frustrating to figure out > how to accomplish this. Googling yielded a few stack overflow posts with > similar questions, and were answered by people basically saying use my > crate!

Based on some discussion in r/rust ([https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/c7t5za/writing_a_smal...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/c7t5za/writing_a_small_ray_tracer_in_rust_and_zig/)) I went ahead and added a Rayon-based answer to that SO question ([https://stackoverflow.com/a/56840441/823869](https://stackoverflow.com/a/56840441/823869)). That's been the de facto standard for data parallelism in Rust for the last few years. But the article highlights that discovering the de facto standards is still a challenge for new Rust users -- does anyone know of a well- maintained list of the 10-20 most critical crates that new users should familiarize themselves with after reading The Book? Things like Rayon and lazy_static. The ranked search results at [https://crates.io/crates?sort=recent- downloads](https://crates.io/crates?sort=recent-downloads) are _almost_ good enough, but they include a lot of transitive dependencies that new users shouldn't care about. (I.e. `regex` is a very important crate, but `aho- corasick` is usually only downloaded as a dependency of `regex`.)

<comment><USER7> [https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/](https://rust-lang- nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/) is sorta kinda this, sorta

<comment><USER8> I will say, the one example they have there which is sort-of analogous to "render each pixel of this image in parallel" is the "draw a julia set" one [0], and it's a very bad way of convincing a C/C++ programmer that Rust is good at this sort of thing. Even if the "loop over all rows in the main thread, adding to the pool a lambda that loops over each column" is somehow optimized in a good data-parallel way (I doubt it compares favorably performance-wise with "#pragma omp parallel for"), the lambdas then push each finished pixel into a channel along with their coordinates. The main thread then has to literally loop through every pixel and read from the channel for each and every one.

The natural way to do that in C/C++ is to just write the pixel to the bitmap in each thread. There are no race conditions here (everything is embarassingly parallel), just write the resulting pixel to the bitmap and be done with it. The only reason to have that channel with all that overhead (and that final synchronization on the main thread) is to satisfy the borrow checker, which is just silly in this case. It adds a tremendous amount of overhead just to make it idiomatic Rust.

It's true that you can do it the "C++ way" in Rust using unsafe and raw pointers (and there's probably crates that can do the "parallel for" in a way that compares well with OpenMP), but as a graphics programmer who's done a lot of this sort of thing, that piece of code made a very bad first impression of Rust as a high-performance language.

EDIT: also, the description is wrong. It says: "ThreadPool::execute receives each pixel as a separate job". No it doesn't, it receives each scanline as a separate job. It might be better if the pool had each pixel as a separate job, but that's not what the code is doing.

[0]: [https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust- cookbook/concurrenc...](https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust- cookbook/concurrency/threads.html#draw-fractal-dispatching-work-to-a-thread- pool)

<comment><USER9> To me, this somehow says that most truely interesting problems can only be solved efficiently in Rust using unsafe. Granted, my definition of interesting may be a bit limited, but my initial takeaway here is that Rusts safety story is much more limited than its proponents claim.

<comment><USER10> > To me, this somehow says that most truely interesting problems can only be > solved efficiently in Rust using unsafe.

Even Vec is implemented with unsafe code under the hood. Rust isn't about not using unsafe code _anywhere_ : it's about encapsulating that unsafe code in reusable abstractions that can be easily audited. This is how essentially all languages work to begin with: unless you're using CompCert, the compiler itself is not proven correct, and so the compiler's code generator is "unsafe".

Here's an example of how rav1e, an AV1 encoder in Rust, builds safe abstractions out of unsafe primitives in order to solve a similar problem: [https://blog.rom1v.com/2019/04/implementing-tile-encoding- in...](https://blog.rom1v.com/2019/04/implementing-tile-encoding-in-rav1e/)

<comment><USER9> Wait, so how exactly is Rust better than C++ again? If I need to bring my own unsafe code to the party, where is the gain? Especially, if - in your words - "This is how essentially all languages work to begin with". I can build "safe" abstractions in any other language, too, can I not?

<comment><USER10> No, you can't build safe abstractions in C++. The language lacks the ability to enforce memory safety. Every abstraction you can come up with will have some way to subvert it. In Rust, the abstractions can't be broken without using unsafe, which application logic should never use.

This isn't just a theoretical distinction. Empirically, Rust programs have far fewer memory safety problems than C++ programs do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What a delightful post. Author wrote a very nice description of things they learned from a little weekend project. No preaching or ranting or opinionating. Just "I did a thing and here's what I learned". That's easily my favorite type of blog post.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER12> > I wrapped my objects in atomic reference counters, and wrapped my pixel > buffer in a mutex

Rust people, is there a way to tell the compiler that each thread gets its own elements? Do you really have to either (unnecessarily) add a lock or reach for unsafe?

<comment><USER13> I wonder if there's a way to borrow noncontiguous slices.

<comment><USER14> unsafe is the tool u are looking for.

<comment> Tuna-Fish No, there are plenty of safe ways to achieve this in the standard library. The chunks and split families of functions on slices are all designed to do pretty much exactly this.

<comment><USER15> In fairness to GP, they are implemented using unsafe (which is unsurprising since they take one &mut and return two to the same borrowed data).

<comment><USER16> If you go by that definition, I think you'll eventually find out that everything depends on unsafe, and thus nothing is actually safe

Which isn't a very useful distinction

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Zig is worth supporting on Patreon: [https://www.patreon.com/andrewrk](https://www.patreon.com/andrewrk)

</comment><comment><USER18> I didn't quite grok this bit:

> _The ability to return values from if expressions and blocks is awesome and > I don't know how I've managed to live up until now without it. Instead of > conditionally assigning to a bunch of variables it is better to return them > from an if expression instead._

The example shown (aside from the fact it's assigning a tuple, which is a different point) would naturally be a ternary in C/C++. Does the awesomeness kick in for more complicated examples where you want intermediate vars etc in the two branches?

<comment><USER19> Yeah, exactly. YOu know how it becomes a pain to make a const variable that needs some setup in C and C++? This lets you const all the things.

<comment><USER5> You could assign it from a lambda function.

<comment><USER19> Which is still more of a pain than "everything's an expression".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Really cool post. I always dreamed of writing a small realtime, raytraced game, with lights etc. Basically a roguelike in 3D. I never managed to finish it, and this project reminds me of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I really don't think these languages should be set opposite to one another as much as they do. I mean, I get why they are. They take up almost the same position and have quite different ways to view security and lang design. And they both try to grow and compete. But still. I think there are some space for them both. I would really think it would be cool to spend my working hours programming Rust for safety and switching to Zig whenever I have to code an unsafe block (all of it compiling to webasm :o )

<comment><USER22> In my mind/opinion, Rust is a potential replacement for C++, while Zig is a potential replacement for C, and both have their place in the world.

Rust feels more restrictive, but that may be the right approach for building large software projects with big, "diverse" (in terms of skill level) teams.

Zig is smaller and feels more nimble, and might be better suited for smaller teams working on smaller projects, and for getting results faster, while avoiding most of C's darker corners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That was a really fun read... Now if the author could do it in nim and v-lang...</comment>


Ask HN: Question about .io domains - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I've got that "idea of the week" that has me going right now. It's one of those ideas where everything is adding up and I'm about to just go all in, lol. A ".io" domain would fit perfectly, too. The domain I want is available but costs $99/mo. Also, it doesn't look like any of my usual registrars offer .io domains. I know to avoid 101domains - they're terrible I've heard. I even tried registering a domain with them right when .co's came out and it took a week to hear a response from them and when I did the response was that they were unable to reserve my domain.
So, does anyone know a reliable place to purchase a .io domain name?
Thank you! <comment><USER2> Plenty of registrars support .IO domains. Choose anyone you like - <http://www.nic.io/registrars.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I had the same problem but then found Moniker do .ios. Their interface is a bit crufty but they have a good reputation. That's where coder.io is registered.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why not just use <http://nic.io> ? .io domains from there appear to be 60 EUR, or ~$100.

</comment><comment><USER5> Name.com costs 99$</comment>


TIOBE is (unintentionally) misleading; in truth, interest in Java is surging - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/241acq/tiobe_is_unintentionally_misleading_in_truth/

<comment><USER2> > The core component of the method seems to be search statistics for the name > of each language followed by the word "programming," for example, "Java > programming."

I don't believe I've ever searched for "[language] programming". Most of my programming-related searches don't even have the language's name on them, much less "programming". They're usually much more specific, like "guava base64" instead of "base64 encoding with guava for Java programming".

</comment><comment><USER3> The reddit page has no comments. Why doesn't the link go directly to the original post? [https://weblogs.java.net/blog/editor/archive/2014/04/23/tiob...](https://weblogs.java.net/blog/editor/archive/2014/04/23/tiobe- unintentionally-misleading-truth-interest-java-surging)

<comment><AUTHOR> Copy-paste mistake :-(</comment></comment>


4 dead, more than 60 injured in NYC train derail nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2013/12/01/metro-north-train-derails-in-the-bronx/

<comment><USER2> All the more reason to automate operation of trains. If it is almost possible with cars (meaning, is possible in some cases, like Google's cars), surely it is possible with the many fewer degrees of freedom a train has.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "All the more reason to automate operation of trains"

We don't know what the cause was yet (unless you're basing it on the speculation of passengers/witnesses). Automation may not have helped.</comment></comment>


Tell PG: Logout is broken - <AUTHOR>

On OSX Chrome and Firefox, the logout button doesn't work, both on the home page, and the YC application page (http://news.ycombinator.com/apply) <comment><USER2> Logout is NOT broken in OS X Lion either in Chrome (14.0.835.163) or Firefox (6.0), on my machine at least.

However, logout can be extremely slow, and it seems to get slower if you bang on login/logout a lot; HN might have coded in some delays to keep users from slowing the server down.

My guess is, this user just didn't wait long enough for logout to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, I'm waiting for the page to refresh on its own. My username stays in the upper right corner the whole time.

I "logged out" between viewing this comment and replying to it.

It's also broken for me on OSX Safari. I don't understand how I can be the only one with this problem on multiple browsers.

<comment><USER3> If it's hanging in both browsers, could be a network issue... I've occasionally seen paths to some (but not all) websites suffer from hanging HTTP/TCP connections, perhaps due to packet sizing/fragmentation/loss issues.

Does the problem happen for you at another location? Any new local routers/switches/access-points in the local mix? Does another OS on the same network (perhaps even via a VM on OSX) show the same issue?

Notably, when testing this, I discovered that logging out of HN from anywhere logs you out from everywhere. So even using a smartphone to login/logout might be a workaround for getting your OSX login session invalidated. (Of course discarding the browser cookies should work as well for the local browser.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm. Works for me in Win 7 Chrome. I'd be curious if the issue is related to the login method. I use clickpass with Google.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Trollface_ he made you all log out and log back in again.

</comment><comment><USER6> Works fine on fedora 15. Chrome 14 FF 6 Both work fine.

</comment><comment><USER7> Works for me, Android 3.2 Browser.

</comment><comment><USER8> Works for me on OSX Chrome 14.

</comment><comment><USER9> Works for me, OSX chrome.

</comment><comment><USER10> Works on my iPad.

</comment><comment><USER3> Works for me, OSX FF7 (beta channel).</comment>


A website to help people achieve life dreams and goals - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamus.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you use a website like this?</comment>


Model-Free, Model-Based, and General Intelligence [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2018/0002.pdf <comment><USER2> It seems the fundamental problem with bottom up/learning AI is that it is opaque and essentially unknowable. I find it all very hackish. We can develop systems now which we can test and seem to work, but we don't know exactly why they work (eg: what parts of the training data they are promoting) and when (or why) they will fail. The effectiveness of adversarial inputs to trained vision systems illustrates this.

Zoom forward to a super-human AI that mimics our brains in its approach but exceeds its capacity. What is stopping it, for instance, learning that it can play the long game of being good until it has sufficient power at its disposal and then becoming evil? No matter what training data you present, you can't know exactly what the result will be.

I get the feeling that learning systems will be combined with model systems with the former performing "low level" tasks and the latter providing a verifiable "executive" that guides high level goals or outcomes.

<comment><USER3> One approach being considered is "AI Safety Via Debate"[0], which hopes to prevent deception by carefully constructing games in which a superhuman agent's best strategy is honesty. Note that this is the goal; much work to be done!

[0] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.00899](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.00899)

<comment><USER2> Unfortunatley being dishonest or evil is just one example. Arguably the AI can develop new classes of deviancy, abuse or maladaptation that we haven't conceptualized yet. We supersize the ability, surely we supersize the problems.

It leads to a scary question: what does a superhuman AI really want?

<comment><USER4> To be fair a HFT agent can count as superhuman AI technically. Wanting isn't a thing that applies yet to actual AI and there is no special sauce that indicates advancement beyond neuron scale. Barring directives and assuming "grown" what it wants can be utterly peripheral to rationality and likely based on what it is taught - internationally or not. Look at how society preaches honesty from a young age and then starts teaching lying again by rewarding it. The real lesson is the spartan one on stealing- don't get caught. It may not be intended but it is the result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I attended this talk at IJCAI, and I must say that the whole system 1 / system 2 analogy rubbed me the wrong way.

A solver for e.g. 3-SAT is general only in a very narrow sense, namely that an entire class of problems can be reduced to the specific problem it solves. However, the solver itself is not doing the reducing, rather it is being spoon-fed instances generated by somebody, and that somebody is doing all the hard work of actually thinking. The solver is just doing a series of dumb steps very quickly, with lots of heuristics thrown in. How is that not also "system 1"?

Anyway, the whole thing was just a fancy way of saying that you can either solve problems exactly, in the way that complexity theorists and algorithm designers do things, or statistically, in the way that learning theorists do things. No need to superimpose a strained analogy.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention that there is no conclusive evidence of the dual process theory yet, see for example this experimental study finding that logical "type 2" answers are actually typically faster and that intuitive "type 1" answers are typically also logical:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027716302542)

<comment><USER7> > Not to mention that there is no conclusive evidence of the dual process > theory yet

Define "conclusive". There is considerable evidence for this dual reasoning mode.

As for your study, system 1 thinking is not inherently illogical. In fact, it's necessarily logical otherwise it would be maladaptive. The point is that it's logical in a "lossy" way that sometimes excludes pertinent information for speed of response, and so sometimes goes wildly wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> AGI will be a reflection of ourselves. First we must resolve the basic problems of the human condition (poverty, hunger, housing, war, ...) before developing AGI as it will surely amplify our worst nature as well as our best nature.

</comment><comment><USER9> Was this an invited talk?

<comment><USER10> Yep, it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If we want good AI, we can't look away from culture and politics."

At the end AI will join our tense political atmosphere of parties fighting for ruling the world?</comment>


Ask HN: Link to a site designed using a CSS framework (Blueprint, 960,etc)? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to see an example of a creative use that a CSS frameworks has been put to in the design of a real site.
Does anyone know of any sites that were designed using a CSS framework (Blueprint, 960, etc)?
If so, a link would be appreciated. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Our social photo sharing website Snapact (<http://www.snapact.com/>) uses Blueprint - but not to its full extent. We don't take particular advantage of typography and certain other benefits.

</comment><comment><USER3> My site uses 960.gs but not for EVERYTHING. Also not sure how creative the use is but here ya go - <http://www.launchly.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> Try <http://cssbeauty.com> for some examples, you should find a few</comment>


Honda and Yamaha to Make Electric Motorcycles in 2010-2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/honda-yamaha-electric-motorcycles-50cc-2010-2011.php

<comment><USER2> Perhaps the bikes from Akira aren't that far off then: <http://www.burningart.com/meico/moto/akira/>

</comment><comment><USER3> these "bikes" are going to be more like electric scooters with different ergonomics. still I'm sure they'll be great for city people and college students.

but they'll face the same problem of electric scooters. who wants to spend 7 grand on an electric scooter when for $3500 you can get this <http://www.kawasaki.com/PRODUCTS/Detail.aspx?id=263>

which gets 70MPG, tops out at 100MPH and is freeway legal?

<comment><USER4> yeah the Ninja 250 is great..everyone loves them as starter bikes, since the things don't drop in value. You can buy a new one for $3,500 or a 8 year old model for $2,500.

And unlike all other 250cc bikes that tend to have the motocross style, the 250R actually looks like a sport bike. Sure its slow as hell, but it gets great mpg and has enough power for regular daily driving

<comment><USER3> it's not all that slow, 0-60 in 5 seconds. not blazing fast, but faster than most cars on the road.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow that looks ugly. Why did they go with the motocross style? They should have gone for the sport bike style or a touring style.

Motocross and electric just doesn't look right.

<comment><USER5> Weight?

<comment><USER4> those bikes weigh nothing, everything is made of plastic or carbon fiber. The heaviest part on them is the motor and the exhaust system. A few aesthetically pleasing fairings wouldn't have changed the performance that badly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> im sold, just wondering how long a charge takes. thats the only draw-back with battery powered motors. still i'ld get one.

</comment><comment><USER7> Plug-in hybrid, from Piaggio/Vespa:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=piaggio+hys></comment>


Purism Ships Libre 5 Development Kits - <AUTHOR> https://news.softpedia.com/news/purism-ships-librem-5-dev-kits-the-linux-phones-will-arrive-in-april-2019-524319.shtml <comment><USER2> Announcement form the Purism blog: [https://puri.sm/posts/2018-devkits-are- shipping/](https://puri.sm/posts/2018-devkits-are-shipping/)

<comment><USER3> Awesome! I was worried about more delays, but it seems that there's a real chance that they could ship on schedule!

I haven't ordered one, but I'm watching the project closely, and I'll probably be in the market for another phone in another year or so, which should give them time to work out the kinks.</comment></comment>


Nobel in Economics Is Awarded to Richard Thaler - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/nobel-economics-richard-thaler.html <comment><AUTHOR> He wrote the book _Nudge_ with Cass R. Sunstein, about nudging people towards better decisions by reframing them or changing defaults.

Tversky/Kahneman got the Nobel Memorial price in Econ also for behaviour econ ("Prospect theory"), in 2002.

From the article:

> Asked how he would spend the prize money, he replied: "This is quite a funny > question." He added: "I will try to spend it as irrationally as possible."

> Professor Thaler had a cameo appearance, alongside the actress and singer > Selena Gomez, in the film "The Big Short," in which he used behavioral > economics to help explain the causes of the financial crisis. Asked about > his "short Hollywood career," he joked that he was disappointed his acting > prowess had not been mentioned during the summary of his achievements when > the award was announced.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15432617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15432617)</comment>


Quant Based Marketing for Start Ups - <AUTHOR> http://okdork.com/2010/07/15/quant-based-marketing-for-pre-launch-start-ups/ <comment><USER2> Hmm.. so contact some popular sites and buy some clicks, put the expected number of clicks in a spreadsheet. Make up some conversion rate numbers for each traffic source. Then confirm with those popular sites that the numbers you bought/arranged are the numbers you'll get.

Is all this to say that you should simply know your target ad buys well before you launch? I guess I was expecting more...

<comment><USER3> @thetrumanshow Appreciate the feedback. What more would you like to see and I can do a follow up post...

The real takeaway is for people to plan out where they are getting to get their traffic from and how much they will "likely" get. Most just hold their breath and hope for the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hrmm... my anti-virus / anti-malware scanner claims to have detected malware on that site. Something definitely popped up asking to load an encrypted PDF or some jazz. Open at your own risk...

<comment><USER3> Weird. My site got hacked ages ago while I wasn't paying attention. Wordpress updates were missing. Let me know if you see this and I'll fix it.

<comment><USER5> Yep, this got blocked by my work ISP.

<comment><USER3> damn wordpress hacks. let me know if you can see what specifically you are getting blocked for;/

<comment><USER4> I'd tell you, but after I instructed Avast to ignore the request, it didn't pop up any warning or anything when I went back to the site again. And by then, I'd already dismissed the dialog. All I know is that there was something about a PDF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's my iteration of the spreadsheet (I wanted a few more numbers)

<http://bit.ly/blyVpZ>

</comment><comment><USER7> What does the coordinated next to Reddit and Digg mean? Coordinated voting up amongst network of members?

<comment><USER2> My best guess is that 'coordinated' means they want to execute the campaign on some schedule and have made the contacts necessary to make it happen. They probably wanted to hit lots of popular sites with ads simultaneously.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Lining up top people and support to ensure that you get some traction with the sites. There are even paid services that I believe Mint and other companies use today.</comment></comment></comment>


New Horizons has seen Pluto, but at what cost? - <AUTHOR> http://www.questionable-economics.com/pluto/

<comment><USER2> New Horizons isn't for quantifiable (monetary) benefit. It's to explore strange new worlds, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

<comment><USER3> More cynically, New Horizons was an investment to inspire the young generation, which will lead to a real return years down the line. It also worked as a jobs program. It also provides the US with an excuse to continue advancing in the space domain, which will be unambiguously useful if it ever becomes militarized.

Also, in terms of pure enjoyment value, I have already received far more than my two dollars worth from just following the mission over the last few days.</comment></comment>