Ask EU users: why are you using this shady site that doesn't comply with GDPR? - <AUTHOR> Pretty sure that HN is not fully compliant with GDPR, and that only very shady sites that intend to misuse your data are not compliant as of today. How can you stand this blatant violation of your human rights?
OK, I'm being deliberately provocative about it, but it's a serious question. Is HN actually compliant and I'm just not aware? Or are you giving them a pass for some reason? Or are you all filing complaints right now?
Genuinely curious. <comment><USER3> First, you can use HN without even creating an account. If you want to comment and upvote you can create a an account, and the only personal information you need to provide is an email address, which doesn't even need to be your main email address. It doesn't show ads, so it doesn't have an incentive to collect our personal data and interests to target ads or sell the data to third parties.

Your comment seems to denote that you think GDPR is a silly european thing and that it restricts companies freedom and that USA doesn't need similar laws to protect user data and privacy. So, are you really ok with Facebook, Google, Amazon and so many other companies spying on us for their own benefit, to profit off personal data, even share that data with three letter agencies or it's just because it's an US vs THEM mentality that everything outside US is strange and slightly frightening? Genuinely curious.

<comment><AUTHOR> They're likely storing your IP, and collecting data for analytics. Maybe not?

I'm general, yes, I'm OK with Google and Facebook collecting my info. I'm sending it to them voluntarily as a tradeoff for using their services.

Your use of the word "spying" is just propaganda. And the accusations of xenophobia are a cheap shot as well. I love Europe, I lived there for several years, and I'd do so again. I currently visit Europe 1-2x per year.

I'm generally in favor of some of the intent behind the GDPR, and would probably support a more sane version of it here. I'm not in favor of its claims to jurisdiction over any company in the world under the logic that an EU citizen might visit their website. That's a dangerous precedent.

<comment><USER4> HN's privacy policy is freely readable here: [http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/](http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/)

They go out of their way to ensure you need to give them absolutely minimal data - IP communications won't work without IP addresses, and logging them is pretty harmless in my mind. Geolocation for analytics purposes is also fine in my book.

The biggest part of GDPR is to give individual end users control over their personal data and the way it's processed. The easiest way to sidestep GDPR is to not collect this data in the first place.

As a European and as someone involved in my company's GDPR implementation, I am fully in favour of it, it's what 'normal' users have clamoured for. EU laws are quite powerful and can be applied to any member state, equivalent to federal law in the US. This grants a very good standard of basic rights and legal protection, and I am very glad we have it.

Edit: in fact, I view it as a massive cop-out that so many non-EU sites have chosen to block requests from the EU rather than face up to the fact they do not need to collect and process this data for general operation of their sites - I'm looking at you, US news sites. Frankly, that is also fine by me - <USER2> visiting such a site requires me to submit to being clinically profiled and categorised for reading a news article, I'll go somewhere else.

<comment><AUTHOR> _logging them is pretty harmless in my mind. Geolocation for analytics purposes is also fine in my book._

Great, but that's not what the law says?

I think it's fine for sites to block EU visitors, and fine for EU visitors to go somewhere else, whether they're blocked or not. But that's not at issue here, is it? HN isn't blocking EU users, they haven't updated their privacy policy in more than a year, and they're likely collecting data that, while you personally may be OK with it, isn't compliant with the GDPR.

So it seems like you're willing to give them a pass even though they're not compliant? So why the hostility towards other sites that are in the same boat, but take the additional precautionary step of blocking EU users to show that they're really trying not to violate the law, and that they don't want those visitors since they're not compliant?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/200000-bittorrent-users-sued-in-the-united-states-110808/

<comment><USER2> And they say the movie industry resists new business models.

<comment><USER3> Abusing contract law is a very old business model for the movie and music industries. There just wasn't the opportunity to scale like this before the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that the evidence hasn't been tested in court while ~60.000 people had to pay damages is a clear argument for "loser pays" court system.

<comment><USER5> I don't get it. If I'm being sued by a big record company, then unless I'm absolutely 100% sure I'm going to win, wouldn't a loser-pays system be an even _bigger_ disincentive to fight it in court? I'm sure their lawyers cost much more than mine do.

In fact, doesn't loser-pays in general make it even easier for big players to intimidate small players? "I'm suing you for actual damages of twenty dollars. My legal team costs one million dollars a day. Want to settle?"

<comment><USER6> How come loser pays works well in the rest of the world? Because that's not how loser pays works :) You don't pay a million dollars a day, you pay a reasonable price instead; they pay the rest. Also, loser pays is not decided on the whole case, but on specific subcases. So the suing party is less likely to use the shotgun approach where they throw every claim and the kitchen sink in, in the hope that they at least win something. Also, if you claim $1M damages, and the judge awards you $1k, that counts as a (partial) loss. So it also ends ridiculously high claims.

> Nearly every Western democracy, other than the United States, follows the > "English rule," which requires the loser of a civil suit to compensate the > winner for his or her attorney's fees. -- > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule>

There is much much more suing going on in the US than in Europe and the prime reason is that Europe has a loser pays system.

<comment><USER7> > There is much much more suing going on in the US than in Europe

This will be an unpopular opinion, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. How many wronged plaintiffs in Europe end up never having their day in court because of the threat of paying the other party's attorneys fees?

<comment><USER8> Almost none.

When people think they're in the right - they sue (or defend).

Further, because of the 'loser pays' system, if the case is obviously bogus or blown up, often a lawyer will agree to take up a defense just for the right to claim the other side's expenses (e.g. instead of paying the lawyer, the lawyer takes a relatively small fee plus the right to any 'expense fees' leveled on the other side).

In addition, I believe that in most of Europe lawyers cost a lot less than they do in the US (certainly so in Israel), to which a contributing factor is that less litigation going on.

<comment><USER7> > in most of Europe lawyers cost a lot less than they do in the US

As a lawyer, I don't see how this is a positive thing :)

But seriously, nobody knows how many cases there are at the margin that don't get brought due to the loser pays system. Neither system is perfect though, and I can certainly make arguments in favor of either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> With that many cases, it's remarkable that they haven't accidentally threatened someone who either happens to be of means or is a shark of an attorney. If I had the money/ability, I would love to take one of these things to court.

<comment><USER10> It's been done, and it doesn't always end well: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20021735-93.html>

<comment><USER11> Doesn't always end that poorly, either:

> _But earlier this year, the judge found [$1.92 million] to be "monstrous and > shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA > informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the > court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his > decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset > rejected that offer almost immediately._

At least she's principled. I wonder if she has a means of accepting donations...

<comment><USER10> She still lost, and she really got lucky that the judge was both sensible and not in the RIAA's pocket.

<comment><USER11> yes, but I'd imagine part of the reason people would want to fight against such claims is to help set precedent and prevent _others_ from having to pay ridiculous amounts. If nobody fights, everyone loses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the linked document, it looks like the bulk of the alleged content is for various adult titles. Who wants to go to go to court for allegedly sharing "Don't Tell My Wife I A$$ __ __ed The Babysitter" (1257 users)?

Given the choice of an publicly embarrassing allegation vs. paying "damages", it is no surprise that so many are settling rather than going to court.

</comment><comment><USER5> If this is really the case, why is anyone still crazy enough to use BitTorrent?

<comment><USER13> I think you'd have to be crazy to _upload_ on bittorrent. IANAL but I think you can only get sued for redistribution of copyrighted material, so downloading is safe.

<comment><USER14> Don't they treat seeding the same as uploading?

<comment><USER13> By uploading I also mean seeding

<comment><USER15> Aren't they technically the same thing? Either way, you're uploading bits to someone else, right?

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't making the initial files available be slightly worse then uploading partial bits?

<comment><USER15> Sure, but in the eyes of the law, you're still guilty.

To pick a random horseman of the infocalypse to draw an analogy from, importing drugs into the country is arguably worse than selling them on the street corner, but both are illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can that really be right? One out of every 1535 people in America?

<comment><USER18> I believe it.

Just two months ago I received one of these letters alleging I downloaded a game over BitTorrent, showing an IP address and how many bytes of the file I supposedly seeded.

Problem was it wasn't my IP and I had never heard of the game. I had to _fax_ Comcast's "Security" department to verify that the IP address in question had never been assigned to a modem on my account...

Yet Comcast told the copyright holder I was their John Doe.

<comment><USER19> As an aside - what do you do to keep track of your IP? I have a consumer-grade router (running Tomato firmware) between "the world" and myself, so the router actually gets the IP.

Is there some automated solution to keep track of this?

Thanks.

<comment><USER18> I've had Comcast at 5 different apartments and only once did my IP address ever change while living at the same address, after a prolonged maintenance period when they ran new physical cables in my neighborhood.

The IPs are semi-static, and I would notice immediately if my IP changed since I have deny requests from any IP but my own to several webpages of mine.

Plus the IP address in the copyright infringement notice had a rdns hostname corresponding to an entirely different state.

<comment><USER19> I've got Qwest/CenturyLink and they change my IP quite frequently. A month ago they were changing it once a week. In the early evening (9-10 PM local time).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is it possible to request "reverse class-action status" for this so all these people can pool resources into one case?

</comment><comment><USER21> How do they figure out who participated in a torrent or not? If they joined the swarm, isn't that entrapment?

<comment><USER22> Entrapment is only entrapment if the person doesn't reasonably have a choice.

Example 1: Cop walks up to person on the street and offers him cocaine. Person accepts, that's not entrapment since the person could have declined.

Example 2: Cop walks up to person on the street and forces that person to snort cocaine at gunpoint. Entrapment, since no reasonable person could have declined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why do the ISPs keep the DHCP logs?

<comment><USER24> The US government already requires that ISPs retain logs of leased IP addresses for at least ninety days. As lnhh indicates, there is a bill making its way through Congress now that extends this to something like 18 months iirc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It would be handy if the spreadsheet came with the IP addresses.</comment>


Show HN: Information Schema and Collaboration and Analysis = Orgzit - <AUTHOR> https://www.orgzit.com/app/#signup <comment><AUTHOR> Can all your task management tools and apps be unified into a single platform with self-customizable fields and What-you-need-you-create basis?

Would be great if could gather some users to play around with the web app and try to use it for all task management purposes (project management, asset management, CRM, Recruitment, and individual use-cases)

Let me know what do you think of it.</comment>


Microsoft's Guide to Humor - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/humor.mspx <comment><USER2> This reminds me of E. B. White's quote:

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White>

It's also reminiscent of Louis Armstrong's

"Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know"

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong>

Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice? I'm not really convinced that this isn't a really brilliant, very subtle joke on a completely higher level.

I can't decide whether this is funnier if posted by someone in earnest, or if posted in total seriousness. I think that's the joke.

<comment><USER3> This may be a little bit convoluted of an idea but when i was much younger I made a concerted effort to be "funnier". I watched stand up commedians on tv and analyzed why some jokes worked and some didn't. I paid attention to my friends jokes and took mental notes. All in all it worked out, i'm no robbin williams, but I make people around me laugh (in a good way) fairly frequently.

So structured learning of "un-learnable" fields can pay off, though your intent, desire, and actions all have to be aligned. Microsofts attempts to introduce humor to the workplace could legitimately be successful if they really really followed through, sponsoring weekly sitcom watching parties, making jokes in email signatures the internal norm, etc.

What makes this document so sad, is the perception that feelings and enjoyment can be delegated to a memo.

<comment><USER4> I did the same thing. I found that a frequent key component of humor is unexpected word choice, which synergized well with my extensive vernacular.

Can you summarize some of the lessons you learned?

<comment><USER3> It can never hurt to try out your material on the internet. i'm currently floating at the top of the page with an office one-liner. Sometimes it pays to stick to the classics ^_^

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't look like they have a policy on "that's what she said"

</comment><comment><USER5> Level 5: Super Expert

Can recognize the humor in Microsoft publishing strict guidelines documenting requirements for various "proficiency" levels in humor. Microsoft spent money doing this. Money that came ultimately from Windows license revenue. Can barely hold back tears at the thought of this.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Learning From Bad Situations

All of us will find ourselves in bad situations from time to time. Good intentions gone bad. Impossible tasks and goals. Hopeless projects. Even though you probably can't perform well, the key is to at least take away some lessons and insights. Was there anything ironic, odd, or downright funny in all of this?_

Trapped on the thirty-second floor of Microsoft Documentation Complex 27B/6, Will Burnham shuddered, silently, and wept.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of Microserfs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Since you are reading this because you or others don't think you are good at using humor, the best technique is to follow the lead of others."

</comment><comment><USER9> > Can see humor in almost everything

I must be an expert because this page is hilarious.

Particularly the fact that they suggest learning to shoot skeet.

</comment><comment><USER10> At first I thought this was a joke. But it's dead serious.

<comment><USER11> This has to be a joke.

<comment><USER12> Nope, these are actual guidelines Microsoft uses to make hiring, promotion, and compensation decisions. city41's comment is 100% accurate about how these things are used.

The entire list of 'competencies' is here: [http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/allcompetenc...](http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/allcompetencies.mspx)

It probably started as your typical big-company CYA in case someone tries to sue them for HR-related stuff and grew into this monster as some middle manager began empire-building.

There's even a wheel, in case you felt like making a poster: (pdf) [http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/4/7/3477e49d-315d-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/4/7/3477e49d-315d-4ee7-a8ca- ff653a4455d6/Competency_Wheel.pdf)

<comment><USER13> These linked ones are the education ones. They are completely different in content from the ones used in in the product team roles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Rule #28941: When someone cracks a joke say "ha-ha-ha" out loud.

<comment><USER15> If online, post the letters L, O and L (in that order) to indicate laughter in real life. Optionally the letters X and D may be used to form a so called "emoticon", for added effect.

<comment><USER16> If (or perhaps when) making a joke yourself, you can also use a (semi-)colon and o or dash and a closing parenthesis at the end of your sentence as a hint to the recipient who may otherwise--in the absence of body language or tone of spoken words--not notice that your utterance was meant to be humorous.

However, in some circles this may be frowned up on as an insult on the readers intelligence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, I thought this would be ridiculous, but it's actually a pretty sharp analysis of how to effectively use humor in the workplace.

<comment><USER18> So did you find the information useful? [Yes] [No]

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> All I can think of right now is the Chinese room thought problem for artificial intelligence.

Even if you make people laugh following these guidelines to the letter, would you have a sense of humor?

</comment><comment><USER20> From the article: "Learning From Bad Things That Happen

Bad things happen to everyone, sometimes because of what we do and sometimes with help from us. We all have bad bosses, bad staffs, impossible and hopeless situations, impossible tasks, and unintended consequences. Aside from the trouble these bad things cause for you, the key is how can you learn from each of them.

Learning From Bad Situations

All of us will find ourselves in bad situations from time to time. Good intentions gone bad. Impossible tasks and goals. Hopeless projects. Even though you probably can't perform well, the key is to at least take away some lessons and insights. Was there anything ironic, odd, or downright funny in all of this?"

Hmm, the Internet Explorer team wrote this? At least they've proven their "Level 1: Basic" proficiency by being able to laugh at themselves and their hopeless predicament.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its smart. They know that the best executives will be able to use humor, anger, and a spectrum of human emotions, to further their goals.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this their 'Intranet' accidentally published on the Web? I don't understand what is the purpose of it being up there.

<comment><USER23> It's similar. They use the same proficiency level guidelines for many different aspects when doing employee reviews. There is also a pre-established ruling on at what level of proficiency an employee of a certain level should be at for each one. So, for example, a level 62 employee should be at level 2 humor proficiency. Level 64 should be at proficiency 3, etc. Being above the expected proficiency for your level is a factor in getting a bigger bonus. You also can't get promoted until your proficiencies are at least at the next expected level.

<comment><USER24> Wow. I'm an engineer at Microsoft. I don't know what this particular site is about (from poking around, it seems to be targeted at education) but I can assure you that career paths and employee reviews at Microsoft have nothing to do with humor.

It's a weird day when you have to write such a comment :)

<comment><USER23> No, not humor. I mean that proficiency scale is used for various other more pertinent traits. I worked for Microsoft up until February.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The funny thing is that some people think it's serious.

</comment><comment><USER26> Level one, 'Basic,' includes: "Tries to diffuse tense situations with appropriate humor."

In a different row, level two, 'Intermediate,' includes: "Uses humor to boost morale or decrease tension."

Similarly, level one includes "Is conscientious about timing and setting for humor," and level three, 'Advanced,' includes "Realizes when and where humor will backfire, and withholds."

If this were a real skill being assessed, that kind of redundancy would be a problem. In fact, it probably wouldn't be there at all, because the person writing it would sense that something was a level-one trait or a level-three trait. But when you start down the path of bullshit like this, you find yourself in the land of arbitrariness, and pretty soon you're just desperate for some more words to fill up the boxes.

And it is, indeed, bullshit. A good sense of humor is important in the workplace, as it is everywhere, but it's not something that can be assessed in some abstract way like this, separate from the person's other qualities.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is depressing. How can you work for Microsoft, see that, and not be depressed? Whatever you think of the company's technology over the years, you have to wonder how old timers feel about starting a career at a software company and ending it at a company that exists solely as charity for office workers.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't believe I'm the first to post this nugget:

"In a seemingly serious situation, what nuggets of humor or irony can I find?"

</comment><comment><USER29> The author of that page is obviously a "Level 4: Expert" in humor.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is really funny! The one who wrote this has to have an incredible "expert level" sense of humour!

</comment><comment><USER31> This is well and good for those zany jokesters at Microsoft, but what are _we_ to do?

</comment><comment><USER32> Strategic Agility and Innovation Management - [http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/comp_strateg...](http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/comp_strategicagilityandinnovationmanagement.mspx)

Really, Microsoft...

</comment><comment><USER33> > Do I ever encourage a near party atmosphere because of my comfort with using > humor?

How many points do I get for encouraging near party atmospheres because of my comfort with using alcohol?

</comment><comment><USER34> Hey boss, I learned 50 jokes last year. Will I have my pay rise?

</comment><comment><USER35> Humor in the workplace is mostly a way to assert dominance.

</comment><comment><USER36> Level 5: You cracked the humor algorithm and developed a small humor library that now ships with the operating system.

<comment><USER37> This library thinks Franz Kafka and Charlie Chaplain were the funniest people ever, particularly as epitomized in _The Trial_ and _Modern Times_ , respectively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised they haven't used a PowerPoint presentation.

</comment><comment><USER39> Humor: something Microsoft could stand to learn a bit of.

</comment><comment><USER40> Guide itself is more funny than the subject.

</comment><comment><USER41> I can't believe this is real. Just wow.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is this a joke?

<comment><USER44> That's what she said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Say "Aidsfart" four times fast. Now say it backwards. Now stick out your tongue.

<comment><USER45> ^ I wish I could delete this. I realize the comment sounds very tasteless out of context.

I was ripping on the sterility and general uselessness of corporate so-called "humor" by describing a behavior that would be offensive and bizarre in normal interaction, but hilarious and awesome within a corporate context (because of its offensiveness and, therefore, its departure from what is expected).</comment></comment>


The pressure to achieve academically is a crime against learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/when-success-leads-to-failure/400925/?utm_source=atlfb&single_page=true <comment><USER2> Since it's all becoming a signalling effort, especially at the University level; um, yeah, narcissism - a concentration on appearances rather than learning creeps in everywhere.

But as long as the 1% have more than half the power in society, that's how things MUST be in order to allow their children to elbow their way to the top. The destruction of learning is just collateral damage.</comment>


How Monotheists Modelled God on a Harem-Keeping Alpha-Male - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-monotheists-modelled-god-on-a-harem-keeping-alpha-male <comment><USER2> This isn't about "monothesism". It's about the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with a strong focus on Christianity. They are related branches from the same root religion, and have their source in the same part of the world, with a relatively recent basis, evolutionary speaking.

A serious analysis would ponder the transition from the Ancient Canaanite religion through Abraham's rejection of idol worship, and the strictly monotheistic Judaism developed during the Babylonian captivity.

A serious analysis would look at other monotheistic religions, like Zoroastrianism and Sikhism.

A serious analysis would consider why so much of the world was polytheistic, before the spread of the Abrahamic religions.

A serious analysis would compare us not to the silverback gorilla but to our closest living kin, the bonobos and the chimpanzees. So close, and yet with very different social and sexual behaviors both from us and each other.

I'm not even sure how to understand the part about infanticide. The quote from Num. 31:17-18 looks like a call for ethnic cleansing, leaving only the virgin girls. It's not, strictly speaking, infanticide. Regarding infanticide in general, and quoting Laila Williamson from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide) "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule." That Wikipedia page then says "Judaism prohibits infanticide", "Christianity rejects infanticide", and "Islam Infanticide is explicitly prohibited by the Qur'an".

This is not a serious study. This comes across as one of those just-so stories that evolutionary psychologists seem to love to put together.</comment>


Efficient Thought-To-Screen Process: My Keyboard Optimization - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@baitalmal/efficient-thought-to-screen-process-my-keyboard-optimization-933836628e8e#.o50h70nfy <comment><USER2> DreymaR's extension layers to COLEMAK provide a setup that these as well as backspace/delete: [https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1438-dreymars-big-bag-of- key...](https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1438-dreymars-big-bag-of-keyboard- tricks-linuxxkb-files-included/)

I've been using my own XKB keymap and hotkeys based on Ergoemacs that lets me use some other Emacs-style shortcuts like "kill-word" everywhere as well. It's great to be able to have at least somewhat efficient text editing no matter the program.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tl-Dr;

Relative newcomer to the world of computers independently re-invents keyboard mappings that allow similar control as is provided by the 38 year old WordStar control key combinations for text editing purposes.

What was old is new again....</comment>


Show HN: My first game, lite version, working on full version - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pipsqueake.cupi2015

<comment><USER2> Installed on Google Nexus 10. Tapping the "PLAY" button on the title screen results in the Unity splash screen flashing briefly, then the title screen reappearing.

I like the cloud that floats around on the title screen and the music isn't too bad, but the game doesn't actually play on my device.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alright, I'll try to see if the Analytics picked anything up. I don't have a Nexus 10 to test on personally, but I'll see if it happens on another tablet I have access to :)

Thank you for letting me know!

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose you tried more than once, if so was the error the same?

<comment><USER2> Works alright on Samsung Galaxy Tab and a THL phone.

Tried a few times, with a similar error. I've never worked with Unity, so I don't know how to debug a problem inside Unity native code. I can't post all of the logcat data here, but this seems to be the most relevant:

01-20 10:20:49.570: I/WindowState(411): WIN DEATH: Window{1f4c259b u0 com.pipsqueake.cupi2015/com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerProxyActivity} 01-20 10:20:49.582: I/WindowState(411): WIN DEATH: Window{2d726002 u0 com.pipsqueake.cupi2015/com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerNativeActivity} 01-20 10:20:49.583: W/WindowManager(411): Force-removing child win Window{2eedb347 u0 SurfaceView} from container Window{2d726002 u0 com.pipsqueake.cupi2015/com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerNativeActivity} 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): Failed looking up window 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Requested window android.os.BinderProxy@367fad13 does not exist 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): at com.android.server.wm.WindowManagerService.windowForClientLocked(WindowManagerService.java:8412) 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): at com.android.server.wm.WindowManagerService.windowForClientLocked(WindowManagerService.java:8403) 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): at com.android.server.wm.WindowState$DeathRecipient.binderDied(WindowState.java:1113) 01-20 10:20:49.603: W/WindowManager(411): at android.os.BinderProxy.sendDeathNotice(Binder.java:551) 01-20 10:20:49.603: I/WindowState(411): WIN DEATH: null 01-20 10:20:49.752: I/Zygote(131): Process 3008 exited due to signal (11) 01-20 10:20:49.802: I/ActivityManager(411): Process com.pipsqueake.cupi2015 (pid 3008) has died

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looking for feedback on the gameplay/style of the game, please.

Also any suggestions for making a 'Full version' more worth it to the end- user...

'Story' tweaks or suggestions too :)

Thank you in advance, Pipsqueake

Tools: Unity3D, Flash - More comfortable for me, especially cartoony graphics

</comment><comment><USER3> The white text borders and the textures of the hearts them selves are very aliassed; have you tried using a higher resolution texture (all based on the screenshots in the play store, at work atm).

</comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't get it to run on my Nexus 6. Whenever I press play it goes right back to the title screen.

</comment><comment><USER5> Put some gameplay video somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll see about recording some gameplay tonight and uploading it to the Play Store :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So it's a Candy Crush clone?

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with that? Candy Crush is a very fun game even if you don't spend a dime.</comment></comment>


How technology ruined the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/jonathan-franzen-wrong-modern-world

<comment><USER2> It's unfortunate that you didn't just use the title of this article for the title of your post. The article's actual title is "what's wrong with the modern world." It's somewhat ironic that the change in title to a more incendiary, attention grabbing topic that has nothing to do with the crux of Franzen's argument is itself one of the things that's "wrong with the modern world."</comment>


Launchaco – Instantly generate a responsive, free, website - <AUTHOR> http://launchaco.com/build/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting. I'm blind, and while I can think of ideas for products/side projects, designing a nice-looking website is such a huge momentum-killer. I mean, I know that I _could_ just focus on features, keep the site design simple, and build a good design later. Then I visit <insert random Show HN here>, and half the comments are about how some UI element or other breaks on some combination of browser or other, and the last thing I want is to have my idea dismissed because it's ugly. I thought Bootstrap would help with this, but when my sighted GF takes one look at my attempts at site design, her first comments revolve around lack of color, and I don't even know where to begin with that. And yes, I know about themes, but sometimes that feels like I'd have to make my idea fit the theme, whereas this seems to let me pick and choose what elements I want.

Unfortunately, when asked to select a hero block, I'm greeted with a series of images. Would you consider adding alt attributes to these? If I knew roughly what they looked like, I could probably pick and choose something semi- appropriate for a given project. I don't know what other issues I'm likely to hit, but I'd be interested in providing additional feedback if this at all seems like a viable direction.

Also, just noticed I can't select a hero block via the keyboard. Items aren't tab-focusable and keyboard-selectable. Maybe this won't work at all for me, but I'd really like something between "Here's a fully-formed theme" and "Here's a completely inaccessible website builder that gives you a blank canvas and assumes you don't want to touch the final HTML." :) If anyone knows of anything like that, please do share.

<comment><USER3> You know, I have no idea how to make stuff more accessible. If you don't mind, could you tell us about how you browse the web, so others like me can make our content more universally accessible? Any recommended resources for that kind of design?

<comment><USER4> There's heaps of resources out there, but honestly, just download something like NVDA (it's an open source Screen Reader) and try it for yourself, first hand.

<comment><USER5> are there any 'touchable' monitor that renders pixel-as-depth yet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brilliant execution and so refreshing to just be given everything needed at the end rather than a download link via email. Throw in an optional donation button (so people can tip you $20, $50, $100, $150, etc) and careful hosting upsells to make it painless and this will become a solid earner. Well done and good luck - you're on the right track.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the kind words. We honestly would rather people's emails then any money at all. We're working really hard to make good design more accessible, and monetization will certainly come down the line! Plus we already make a bit of money with our other tool listed on the website :)

<comment><USER8> It doesn't have to be an either/or thing, especially if it's presented as an option to tip rather than to purchase!

<comment><USER6> Exactly. I'm a web designer/developer and even I could use something like this as a shortcut for a job. If it saves me a few hours of stuffing around, then $20-100 as a voluntary tip is an easy decision. Still free for third world businesses or students or tightarses, but at least gives people an option of saying "Thanks, this was worth it."

And while I can grab the files and set up my own hosting, being able to hit a button, enter card details and have everything done automatically would be powerful. Every web developer inevitably does quick jobs on the sides for friends and family, and making that process pain-free would be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile.

Depending on your target audience, I'd love to see some tooling to help with a signup form. Maybe offer some integration options (and an affiliate link) for Mailchimp or something else?

I'd also love the ability to easily create multiple pages linked to each other within the app. Sure I can create separate pages, but would be nice to have that done for me and add some basic organization.

Overall this is really awesome. Would love to know more about what technology you used to build this, why you built it, and what your future product/monetization plans are.

<comment><USER10> >>Really fantastic UI. And I LOVE party parrot at the end. Made me smile.

Agreed. Really nice touch.

<comment><USER11> Just to get all view points in. I hated it, made the site feel unprofessional at a crucial moment.

<comment><USER12> Completely agree. Went from moderately professional to childish meme unexpectedly. Made me question whether there would be party parrot easter eggs in the download.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Once I figured out what was going on, I liked it. But at first, I thought you were really trying to sell me domains the whole time. I thought it was a big marketing page for a hosting/domain service, and did not realize it was actually all editable. You really need to make it clear what is going on if you want to open this to a larger audience.

<comment><USER14> >...and did not realize it was actually all editable.

This. Speaking for myself, at a pinch I thought this was just a sign-up page, and that the actual designer/editor was not available.

Perhaps, adding something like 'Just click any element to edit' somewhere in the header would make it immediately apparent that its all working and ready to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is fantastic. One argument people will make (just like they did with Bootstrap) is that if every product used something like this, all the webpages would look the same.

To be honest, if all product webpages looked like this, I'd be quite alright with it, because this look great.

Well done!

<comment><USER9> And the reality is that despite this, the vast majority of people have no idea what Bootstrap is, won't notice, and frankly wouldn't care. Increasingly site design is differentiated by the imagery used as images get elevated in prominence, and that is all you need to differentiate your design many times.

<comment><USER16> I disagree that people "won't notice". They totally do. The other day my gf (medical field professional, not a "techie") was looking for a good restaurant to go to and, completely unprompted by me, blurted out "OMG why does every freaking restaurant website look the same!?!" (she couldn't keep track of which restaurant was which among her open tabs.)

I think more people notice than we'd like to admit. There just isn't any direct way for them to tell us about it.

<comment><USER6> I wish restaurants used a clear and consistent format. They can differentiate with their branding, colours, and obviously food photographs. I'd prefer they had a consistent layout!

Too many have shoddy intros, tiny text, difficult to find details and then their beloved PDF menus.

<comment><USER17> > I wish restaurants used a clear and consistent format. They can > differentiate with their branding, colours, and obviously food photographs. > I'd prefer they had a consistent layout!

I'm skeptical. If you're trying to choose a steak restaurant to visit, for example, you're saying that you'd easily be able to differentiate grill_1 with "this" picture of a big bloody steak, and grill_2 with "that" picture of a big bloody steak, both in roughly the same position. Doesn't sound plausible to me.

I agree with the principle though, restaurant sites are often terrible, and PDF menus are super annoying.

<comment><USER6> They'd still have a logo, photos of the interior, different copy and colour schemes. How is it that much more useful to differentiate based on their web design? That only demonstrates a willingness to either spend more on their web site or not interfere with the process.

<comment><USER17> Colours help, sure, but more differentiation makes them more memorable, and being memorable makes for more repeat business. Marketing wouldn't exist and be so successful if our brains didn't work like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The builder works very well once you realize what you're supposed to do. After designing the first block, I didn't realize I had to keep going. Maybe a more apparent CTA would be appropriate?

I'm curious, will you be adding a hosting option for these? Right now they provide a good starting point, but I would love a one-click hosting option so that I can quickly made a page and push it live. The ability to plug in things like Google Analytics token would also be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've talked about it in the past, we very well might implement something like this in the future. This is something we are exploring as a future release :) Thanks for that input, the GA plugin would be awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Asking for my email _after_ letting me download my template??

I'm not sure if it is the most effective way to collect emails, but it sure is a good UX. As a reward, I included my email :)

<comment><USER9> Maybe a candidate for a yet-to-be-built "lightpatterns.org"?

<comment><USER20> Looks like someone had the intention to start one but hasn't quite gotten there yet:

[http://www.lightpatterns.org](http://www.lightpatterns.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is the most simple and intuitive template builder I have ever played with.

<comment><USER22> Second that!

<comment><USER23> Fully agree. Unbounce and other landing page builders should take note. The simplicity of the experience was impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really well done. Few quick questions...

Why not use an off-the-shelf grid system like Bootstrap or Foundation? Would probably make this easier to edit / extend for people already familiar with those layout frameworks.

For SEO... things like Page Title, Meta Description, OG/Sharing Meta Data... those would be good to add somehow. "Click here to add your fav icon / bookmark icon / social share icon / etc." At least adding them as empty fields so people know to add them in manually...

Could you add in semantic elements? Wouldn't take long to add those to the base template... [http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp)

Really nice tool, can see a lot of people getting use out of this.

<comment><USER24> Found 2 minor bugs between the builder and the downloaded version:

Body Styles break with multiple paragraphs - [http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB](http://imgur.com/YOjjGkB)

Emoji break when you change them - [http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH](http://imgur.com/FE8VUgH)

<comment><USER25> The emoji bug is an encoding issue, add

        <meta charset="utf-8">

to the generated html to fix it (and fix any accented characters issues too)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was pleasantly surprised this worked as well as it did, without the need for me signing up or providing an email.

<comment><AUTHOR> We hate having to sign up for things ,we firmly believe you should only ever be on boarded after you get to try out the product and love it :)!

<comment><USER26> I actually gave you my email address because the site wasn't pressuring me for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Now THIS is how it should be done! Congrats to author! Where can we pay you? :)

This hits a sweet spot for me because I am in full control of HTML if I want it, but I can still put together a responsive page in literally a minute.

About missing colors and stuff - yeah, it would be nice if we could select background images, set more colors and similar, but that's secondary. Building a responsive skeleton is what this tool does for me, and first impression is great. Kudos!

</comment><comment> drew-y Nice! Really easy to use and the templates look great. One question though:

> Launchaco website builder is licensed under CC0

Does that mean both the website builder itself and the website you build with it are CC0? And is the source to the builder available anywhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, copy isn't clear there - will deploy a change. The website you download is licensed under cc0, however if there's interest we wouldn't mind open sourcing our builder. It's written in Elm, & go.

<comment><USER28> @insulinrocks you appear to be shadowbanned

<comment><USER29> That's odd. I've only mostly lurked here. Does that happen when you're a new poster or something? I've only had a handful of posts. I hope I didn't break any rules.

<comment><USER28> huh, no, it's weird, i can see some of your comments but the others seem to be dead for no reason.

<comment><USER30> If you have showdead on and see a dead comment you think is worthwhile, you can click the "vouch" button to reanimate it. That may have happened in some of the cases you're seeing. IIRC, I vouched for [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13126780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13126780) after seeing your earlier comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was pleasantly surprised to receive a .zip file with the site after I made it to the bottom, rather than a call-to-action pushing me to sign up for some hosting plan! Well done.

</comment><comment><USER32> I love this. Also a super fan of the UI. Seamlessly led me to a download button with the source. They've coupled it with an awesome hosting setup process. I can promise you I will use this service for the very next project of mine.

Commoditisation of design cannot come soon enough! ( at least the web design part :) )

<comment><USER33> So I hit the download button and got a file named download with no extensions. Am I doing something wrong (I didn't change anything just wanted to see what it spits out)?

<comment><USER34> It's a zip file containing HTML/CSS.

<comment><USER33> Wow thanks. I've never been more ashamed to say I work with computers every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I noticed you posted Launchaco a few months ago. Why do you think this post succeeded in generating traction while the previous failed? Love the product!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question, I guess the community feels stronger about this product than the name page. I read your post on "Ask HN: What are some successful products that had a disappointing Show HN?", loved the dropbox comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> nitpick: please enable HTTPS

I just had some issues on airline wifi because they man-in-the-middle the connection to inject their crappy "flight tracker" menubar and it covered some of the builder controls. That wouldn't happen with SSL and your visitors would be more secure.

</comment><comment><USER20> I absolutely love this and thats coming from a "professional" web developer.

I gave this to a client of mine to try for one of her personal projects and she was somewhat confused. After I pointed out the steps vs previews, she got the hang of it. But by that time she'd made a bit of a mess with a lot of extra feature blocks/steps.

She wanted a clean slate but it looks like you're storing progress in a cookie. Can we have a reset all?

While I'd love an arbitrary HTML block, the ability to add meta tags, custom fonts, blah blah...don't. If people want that kind of power there's a lot of alternative static site tools/CMS' out there.

</comment><comment><USER37> Really awesome. Surprised by how much time I spent on there. I noticed when I tried to download it in Safari, it didn't work because I don't think fetch is supported. Would have been good to get a notice about that earlier on. Would also be nice to see what exactly the download button is going to provide (just a zip of HTML/css/JS files I assume?)

Thanks for sharing, will probably come back to this. Happy to sign up for email updates

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, deploying fix asap!

<comment><USER38> Love the builder feature! I, too, had a problem downloading in Firefox. It worked fine in Chrome though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very interesting. I did loose track of the 4 steps and was confused on how to finish the project.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, I think there's simple things we can do to help with this. The UX is flawed atm, with out a doubt.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Fun fact: Every device is in pure css, this means adding your own app images is dead simple.

<comment><USER40> Could instructions be added to the site? I was going to add a top level comment to say "Why does every image include the launchaco name?"

<comment><USER7> Yah good idea, I'll make a readme attached to the download.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Love the builder! Wish I had seen this a week ago.

</comment><comment><USER42> Holy smokes, this is such a useful tool! For any little updates that could certainly be applied in the future (e.g. adding more accessibility aspects, other color palettes, etc.), the sheer ease and speed with which I was able to create a website was absolutely astonishing, and overshadows any shortfall. I seldom share my email but submitted it in this case, because I believe this is a solid product, and I have this feeling the authors behind this tool really know what they're doing (as far as product dev.). Kudos to the creators! Great job!

</comment><comment><USER43> This is just what I was looking for! I needed a simple landing page for our startup, and the layouts / design are perfect.

Quick noob question though: Do you have / are you planning to include templates where I can add video (hosted on Vimeo / Youtube) instead of the computer / browser images?

I know I can edit the HTML / CSS files, but my background is statistics / R, and I am wary of mucking up the code and spoiling the layout.

I signed up with my email. Looking forward to seeing where this goes, and would gladly pay for the service as & when you start accepting payments.

Thank you! :)

</comment><comment><USER44> Nice work! Really like the way you provide color palette instead wild crazy color selector for your user, that simplifies things so much! However, A common problem with this product and a lot of other template based website builders like Squarespace, Weebly, Wix is, you will end up creating so many sites that looks just the same. If you just want a clone, then I have nothing to say. But more customization and more unique intelligent generation certainly needs advanced models other than naive templates.

<comment><USER45> Second that. Static site generator seems like popular those days. But they don't have much template selections so they end up look similar. Or spend $10 ~ $20 on Themeforrest [https://themeforest.net/category/site- templates](https://themeforest.net/category/site-templates) with nearly infinitely number of options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Very efficiently done!

Love that you didn't force me with any annoying pop-ups or interfering spaces to ask for email. I gave you anyway, with my 100% will.

Looking forward to your finished product. My girlfriend wants to build a Yoga website to put in all her stuff and promote her private lessons. I was going to build it myself, but your product is so intuitive that I might give her this and ask her to build it herself!

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm pretty used to being different from most people, but I'm not used to being so utterly different from the hackernews crowd as I feel right now.

Am I seeing a different website than everyone is talking about? All I see is a bunch of different boxes with links, where most links just shove me to some external service (GoDaddy, Twitter, Google Fonts, etc.)

Where's the "website builder"?

<comment><USER17> Those links and that text are all editable. It's sample content for the layout you're building. A little confusing at first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Doesn't load at all without JavaScript :)

<comment><USER49> The problem is not that the site doesn't load without JavaScript. The problem is that a very small vocal minority mistakenly think that anyone else gives a damn that they can't surf the Internet with JavaScript turned off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This looks great but was a little confusing at first. Maybe make it clearer to the user what's going on so they know they're just building their own site.

I think it's nice not to have to enter an email at the end, but you'll miss out on a lot of emails. Maybe provide the prompt to enter an email first, but let them skip it.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is great - I am literally just finishing a site that looks exactly like this (single product site). I would 100% use this for future things!

I agree about the donation buttons as well - even keep it to micro-donating - you would be surprised at how many people would use it!

</comment><comment><USER52> whoa this is the fastest product website process ever.

</comment><comment><USER53> Super cool idea - Though one of my first interactions was to search for an emoji, which failed completely as it deleted my query when I typed more than one letter. (MacOS Sierra, Safari.) Other than that, thumbs up on the delicious UX.

</comment><comment><USER54> Very cool - I've had ideas for a few sites, but when the time came to create the site and get a half decent design going, I found myself running out of time to work on the actual content. Best of luck to your idea/service

</comment><comment><USER55> Great idea. This could save me all sorts of wasteful dithering. Looks like it's broken right now. When I try to download, I get a file called "download.txt" which contains the text "Internal Server Error"

</comment><comment><USER56> would like to point out that the author has not only built a tool that is making a bunch of people happy, but is also responding brilliantly to all comments with a super helpful tone. very cool all around.

</comment><comment><USER57> That's one of the brilliant service as I have ever tried.

Actually, I'll also consider to pay something to this wonderful service. I think producer should consider about adding premium staff for small prices.

</comment><comment><USER58> Definitely put that "download" file as "template.zip" or something.

I was baffled getting a file without extension, and Windows 10 didn't see it as a zip, but just a binary blob.

</comment><comment><USER59> Awesome job! It would be great if you added a pricing feature block.

</comment><comment><USER60> I haven't even checked the site out (yet, hear me out), but this is one of the most positive reactions I've seen on HN. So congrats on that already.

</comment><comment><USER61> Could you please make it possible to add more than one social template and more than one footer template, just like you do with the feature blocks?

<comment><USER62> After you download the generated HTML, you can just copy/paste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Looks awesome. Have reviewed a ton of website builders and this is one of the easier ones.

Only problem is when I hit the download button the .txt file is blank.

<comment><USER7> That is indeed a big problem, we're deploying some changes atm that should hopefully fix this. Sorry about that.

<comment><USER63> Would love to see the conversion rate from visit to creat, visit to download and visit to provide email. I suspect you're going to have a super high email capture conversion because of the value you're giving up front.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> When dark theme is activated you cannot see the headings "Name Your Business" or "Build Your Website" on the homepage.

</comment><comment><USER65> Holy hell this is well done. Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER66> Shameless plug, I made something related which makes testing out public static sites pretty easy. You can check it out at [https://slugex.com/](https://slugex.com/) It also allows you to deploy via the terminal. All you need is bash and curl :)

</comment><comment><USER67> How do we make money?

Volume!

Seriously, though. This is an interesting idea, but what's the endgame?

</comment><comment><USER68> Nice UI. Bad idea to do domain lookups on a site without SSL.

</comment><comment><USER69> Really good job! It turned out better than most templates.

</comment><comment><USER70> Very nice. For creating a quick app site, this is perfect!

</comment><comment><USER71> Great work. Do you have any plans to make it open source?

<comment><USER72> This. I would love to see this open sourced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Reason I'm not getting into web development.

<comment><USER74> I am not sure if building static HTML pages represents the bulk of what web development is about.

(Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")

<comment><USER75> The other way you could take his comment is he doesn't want to have to build apps like Launchaco. Because they way you interpreted it, which is probably correct, is completely ignorant. Launchaco generates marketing web sites. Web developers build the web apps that some of these marketing sites are trying to sell. It might be a reason not to become a web designer though.

(Disclaimer: I am a "web developer")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> This is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER77> Very Cool. Thank you. Will sign up :)

</comment><comment><USER78> Find some excited site which you like and fit your business. Right click and there your template done!

</comment><comment><USER79> looks great! could definitely see myself using this as a starter

</comment><comment><USER80> Holy shit this is incredible!

</comment><comment><USER81> T H I S I S E P I C !!!!!

</comment><comment><USER82> nice product.

</comment><comment><USER83> great work

</comment><comment><USER84> Sorry to be negative, but I'm honestly mystified by the complimentary comments.

First, attempting to set up a domain name sends me to some site named shareasale.com. The site is blocked on my system because I'm using the winhelp2002.mvps.org HOSTS file to block shady web sites.

Next, I follow the 4 steps to select the Hero, Feature, Social and Footer templates. How I'm supposed to make an intelligent choice based on the shadowy outlines is beyond me.

Finally, I'm apparently supposed to click the Download... link. This gets me a little "success" message - but the end result is a file called "download" with no extension. Renaming the download to download.zip gives me something to extract which is... a single HTML file plus css and image folders. Clicking on the HTML gives me a local copy of the launchaco main page with no sort of customizations or anything.

WTF?

<comment><USER84> Reply to myself... In spite of the downvotes, I'll plow ahead with this.

I see now that you're supposed to "play" with the website and put it into some sort of personally pleasing configuration and download the result. (The download feature still doesn't work properly for me, SORRY.)

People won't be surprised to learn that I'm an older programmer. I found it interesting to see how apparently out of step I am. People seem to like this and I think it cries for more structure and a tiny bit of DOCUMENTATION.

And those CSS/JS files. (f7e531b07478dedf9916.js??) There's no way I'd want to maintain something like this unless it used Bootstrap or some other established system.

So, downvote away. I personally remain unimpressed.

<comment><USER85> (disclaimed: not tied to Launchaco but I felt compelled to address your points)

#1 - can you provide an example of where buying/setting up a domain takes you to somewhere called "shareasale.com"? At worst, it seems like the links to the registrars (which are all legit, as far as I can tell) go through some sort of analytics/tracking service.

#2 - have you considered rephrasing your download issue as "Hey, this seems broken, and here's why: ..."?

#3 - what customizations did you expect there to be in the downloaded archive? are you not seeing the selected hero/feature/social/footer templates you selected?

#4 - while others have brought up the idea of using Bootstrap/Foundation/etc as a more familiar and tweakable base, the point is around easily making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies. if you're already deadset of needing/wanting to do things yourself, the tool clearly isn't for you.

you may be unimpressed, but you could be a little more positive/helpful with explaining issues rather than writing about them in such a dismissive tone that sreams "i don't care about your thing, but let me tell you everything i think is wrong with it"

<comment><USER84> Thanks for the reply...

#1 At the top of the first page, where it says "Name Your Business", click on "Let's Do It." The next page is full of link for various TLDs with prices - the links go to shareasale.com. ##UPDATE## The domain purchase links are now dead and there are no prices/links. Someone must have decided to remove them (maybe someone read my comment -- or something else -- who knows).

#2 In my first message I described exactly what went wrong. In my second message I said "the download feature still doesn't work properly for me" Different wording, but pretty much what you suggested. We must think alike (smile).

#3 When I wrote the first message, I clearly didn't get how the customization was supposed to work. My second message explains and clarifies. As I said, just a bit of documentation would be nice.

#4 I think of HN as a programmer's venue. When I saw all the glowing comments, I thought there might be a nice web development tool to check out. If HN has a lot of readers who are interested in "making a website WITHOUT having to know or understand the underlying technologies" \- then I apologize for my misunderstanding. If we agree that this is not a tool for technical web developers, then your comments are spot on.

As to the last paragraph, the first thing I said was "sorry to be negative." Criticism, by it's nature, is often negative. I hate knee-jerk negativity as much as you do (I'll bet). But heaps of sugary praise is also bad in it's own "awesome" way.

In/re being more helpful -- well, pointing out problems is helpful, right? I'm wondering if my comments didn't result in the shareasale.com links being removed (see #1 above). Maybe OP could comment.

In/re dismissive -- That's what you say but who cares what you think? (smile again - please note as joke)

To the author of "Launchaco" I would certainly offer a "well done!" To me, the most impressive thing that you have done is offer your work up for us to review and discuss. I hope and suspect you were looking for more than praise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> dude this is hella crazy nice yo. gonna use this for my next landing page</comment>


Fun with debugging a complex Cocoa app, with Dr. Greg Parker - <AUTHOR> http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/archive/2010/09/01/Dr_Gregory_Parker_Department_of_Diagnostic_Engineering.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This kind of debugging tale is exceedingly fun for hard-core hackers, so thought the HN community would enjoy it.</comment>


The oil bust is exposing weaknesses in the Norwegian model - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21672206-now-easy-times-are-over-norway-must-rediscover-its-viking-spirit-norwegian-blues <comment><USER2> I found it interesting how they praise the privatisation route for schools and hospitals etc. We clearly see this doesn't benifit the masses from the US model.

And to criticise Norway for paying out more in benifit to the lower end of society compared to other OECD, why is this bad? It simply means they are paying out less in other areas but what are these and why is it a negative?

Personally I found this a weak article. I expect better fact driven discussion from the economist rather than a piece that seems to want to find a reason to bash a country for popular reading.

<comment><USER3> School privatization (charter schools) has shown a lot of success over traditional public schools. Im not really sure what hospital privatization refers to. Now prison privatization has come under recent scrutiny but that's more of a failure of oversight by the governing bodies employing private administration than of the concept of privatization itself.

<comment><USER4> To me the only sensible way to judge privatization is to look at the incentives that are created.

Prisons - If we assume the corporation profit comes from prisoner rent, the private corporation is incentivized to encourage more prisoners and longer sentences.

Im not convinced that is a healthy incentive, and the evidence seems to show it is not.

School privatization - Where does the profit come? if it is based on children/hour then the corporation is incentivized to have more people attending school for longer periods.

that again sounds like a problem to me - you COULD achieve it in positive ways, but you could also achieve it by not teaching anyone anything....or by teaching at a slower rate...

Hospital privatization - This just sounds like a total cluster fuck to me, assuming the corporation makes its profit from rent/medical treatment then the incentives are there to keep patients as long as possible and undergoing as much treatment as possible, while actually curing as few problem as possible...

Some things, are just not meant to be privatized IMO.

<comment><USER5> The issue is that you assume that the payment models will also encourage the behavior you pointed out.

For example, Medicare doesn't pay hospitals more money to treat patients longer. They pay them a flat rate (based on what an average stay would cost) and that's it. Patient gets better quicker? Great hospital made a big profit. Patient gets more sick and stays in the hospital longer? Well I guess the hospital takes a loss on that patient.

<comment><USER6> Or the hospitals kicks out patients who are still sick, so they either become someone else's problem, or they make money when they're readmitted.

Aligning incentives is _hard_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Agree with all the other comments, super light on facts and tried to apply an ideological "solution" where there is no issue. Surprised The Economist printed it.

The Norwegians are sitting pretty on top of world's largest sovereign wealth fund, which holds 1.3% of the world's listed stocks. Their oil&gas tech industry is taking a beating, yes, as are every nation and business who depend on the oil&gas industry, but I don't think the Norwegians will starve any time soon. If new revenue from their oil industry stoppe tomorrow they would still be alright.

I don't see how there is a "weakness" in their model or how this calls for privatisation of anything. If anything, their SWF's exposure to QE inflated stock markets is a bigger risk.

<comment><USER8> This also bugged me:

      The state is undermining the work ethic: most
      people enjoy a 37-hour working week, and three-
      day weekends are common.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Why do people need to work 50 hours a week exactly? I imagine there are long term health, social and psychological benefits to a more restful and less stressful life?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While there's no doubt that there's a lot of fluff that has built up simply because we can/could afford it, this article doesn't really touch on any of them. Instead it seems to, among other things, bash state-owned corporations that are doing very well and are in no need of reform.

In general, it's a very weak article. Someone opened Wikipedia and saw some numbers that don't agree with how they think economies should be run, and then wrote about that. It's hard to fire employees who are slacking off, especially in government, but there's not a mention of it. But I guess that wasn't on Wikipedia, but the work-week was.

The turn to the left is mostly aa swinging pendulum thing, but I don't dread it, as the Labour party usually has a better grasp of economics than anyone else.

What's happening is a restructuring born of the decline in one sector with a time-delay until the others can absorb the sacked employees. It's not a crisis in government.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think norway was super smart. They took their oil money and invested in non oil things. Now when oil prices are low they can use the reserve to help pump their economy. I think they are actually doing things right.

<comment><USER11> A lot of the Gulf states took a similar route. Just look at the rise of the region as an airline hub, location of many satellite campuses, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I stopped taking this article seriously when they cited a 37-hour work-week as an indicator that the state is "undermining the work ethic." After finishing the article, it really sounds more like the author is prescribing their favourite solution for something that may not even be a problem. This is one third party talking to another third party about someone else's "problem". Basically gossip and just as useless.

<comment><USER13> And didn't Sweden just adopt a 6h work-day recently? (30 a week, so even fewer).

<comment><USER14> Sweden isn't adopting a 6-hr workday. That was some bogus news item that went viral. There are some small-scale experiments, but there is no prospect of it becoming law, or even common.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's weird that the article didn't mention the large tax reforms and other measures in the recently announced 2016 budget, seems like that would be obvious to include in an article like this.

</comment><comment><USER16> What rubbish. The article talks about the welfare state as if it is inherently bad. Their solutions? Surprise, surprise! Freer markets. Obvious bias here.

Unsurprising, of course. The Economist is owned wholly by a few billionaire families.

<comment><USER17> Also referenced in the article is that despite boards needing to consist of 40% women, that all board members are still only from a single school. Like that is any different to unbounded boards where the members are generally from the same small set of schools.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Weird article.

That said, the NOK, a petrocurrency, has been hit hard relative to other petrocurrencies. Over the LTM, USD's up 24%, 18% and 15% v. NOK, AUD, and CAD, respectively[1].

[1][https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...](https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Linear&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1444603138934&chddm=357679&cmpto=CURRENCY:USDAUD;CURRENCY:USDCAD&cmptdms=0;0&q=CURRENCY:USDNOK&ntsp=1&ei=z-QaVtniG8GljAHRnZDYDw)

<comment><USER19> I'm no economist, but from what I understand a lower valued NOK will over time help Norway's export industries (who have been suffering the last years due to high costs), which in turn will help the economy during a transition from oil and gas.</comment></comment>


Don't write cross-platform code(2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/7ez5/Which-technology-for-writing-desktop-software.html

<comment><USER2> Eh, I'm just finishing a summer of porting our Windows product to Mac, and a fair bit of the code is shared between the two platforms. A decent portion of the code is C++, which took very little massaging to work on both platforms. The other piece of the Windows product is written in C#, and I spent quite a bit of effort in getting things to work under Mono. Looking back I'm glad I didn't try to rewrite things in Objective-C. For one thing, nobody in our company has any Obj-C experience, and after looking at it, nobody had any interest in picking it up. C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, VB(A), javascript, php, various shells: sure, we all either know the language or are willing to learn. Obj-C? Blech.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are Qt bindings for many languages, you don't really have to use C++.</comment>


Ask HN: Which Linux disto is the most power efficient? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> In general, it's not about what distro you install per se, it's about what processes you have running.

Your best bet is to start with a more minimal distro like Crunchbang or Debian and only install what you need. Then use something like Powertop or whatever the current hotness is, to analyze per-process power usage.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are lots of tweaks you can make to a stock Ubuntu system to save power. I'd start with XFCE since it uses less power than Unity or Gnome 3. Then use TLP to tweak the rest of your power settings. [http://askubuntu.com/questions/285434/is-there-a-power- savin...](http://askubuntu.com/questions/285434/is-there-a-power-saving- application-similar-to-jupiter/285681#285681)

</comment><comment><USER4> I found that xubuntu used more power than Linux Mint xfce. Not sure why.

If you can manage in a virtual tty without X, the power savings are noticeable.

But by far the biggest savings will be disabling ethernet/wifi and reducing screen brightness.

</comment><comment><USER5> You need to provide some context, otherwise I'm obliged to answer "Android" based on the small amount of power required by the platforms on which it runs.

<comment><AUTHOR> -For a programmer ,developing web apps (Ruby & JavaScript)

<comment><USER5> As before, you need to provide some context. Do you mean electrical power, psychic power, or processing power? Which of the many meanings of "power" did you have in mind?</comment></comment></comment>