Facebook activated my dormant account and won't let me deactivate it - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/facebook-activated-my-dormant-account-and-it-wont-let-me-deactivate-it <comment><USER2> > I am concerned that they knew that I used this password on several different > sites. How did they know that? I suppose they keep an automated list of > passwords that have been hacked on other sites, when those hacked passwords > are made public? If so, that much is reasonable.

A clear demonstration of how users don't read error messages, as the screenshot that appears above this paragraph spells out the exact method the author suggests.

<comment> awinter-py Also possible that the user read & understood the message but didn't take it as proof of its claim.

FB has a history of collecting cross-site passwords from failed logins.

<comment><USER3> I would like to know more about this. Do you have a source? I have suspected this for years.

<comment> awinter-py [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked- in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the- harvard-crimson-2010-3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It may not be Facebook themselves that caused the account reactivation.

I'm was very recently in a similar situation having a Facebook account that was deactivated about 5 years ago (I thought I had deleted it).

I received the exact same account reactivation notification email as in the article and I also started receiving photo post notification emails.

Upon attempting to sign in to my Facebook account to investigate, I was presented with a screen informing me that my account had been locked due to recent suspicious activity. In my case I did recall my password and as such didn't encounter the ID verification process.

I was presented with the details of the most recent login which was shown to be from a Samsung phone and from a Russian IP address. I have never owned a Samsung phone nor have I ever visited Russia.

My girlfriend's Facebook account was also recently accessed in similar suspicious circumstances.

I suspect that account credentials acquired from breaches of non-Facebook services are being used to attempt to access Facebook accounts.

<comment><USER5> > I suspect that account credentials acquired from breaches of non-Facebook > services are being used to attempt to access Facebook accounts.

Given you more or less gave away the idea that you reuse your own passwords, if you haven't already, I suggest you start using a password manager and changing all your passwords to something random.

<comment><USER6> They did mention it was 5 years ago; password managers have become a lot more popular in that time.

<comment><USER7> You don't need to manage a password of an abandoned account.

Just make it long and random.

<comment><USER8> Theoretically, it should require an email to reactivate an account. OP didn't get one I bet.

<comment><USER7> OP did get an email. It's mentioned on line 4 of the post!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR: Author reuses same password for most websites. Password was leaked. Attackers likely used password to try and login to his old FB account, causing it to reactivite. Facebook has protections which prevent attackers from accessing account based on stolen password alone (no doubt preventing further damage from attack). Author is annoyed by this.

<comment><USER10> Nice summary, but it downplays the issue. The author has no remedy other than sending a photo ID. Why is an account able to be reactivated using a password known to be compromised? Perhaps Facebook should require an ID _before_ reactivation if the password is compromised, instead of the other way around.

<comment><USER11> To preface my comment, I don't like the idea of providing government-issued ID either. I'd like to see their privacy policy regarding the storage of the ID and if they collect the info from it.

Having said that, I'm almost glad this measure is in place. Assuming the account was only deactivated and not completely destroyed (and let's be honest, they likely never completely destroy all data on a user) an attacker can very easily assume the identity of that user as well as invade the privacy of their friends who have an account but lock down info to only their connections.

What I'm trying to say is, showing ID seems extreme, but given the amount of power you gain by getting access to someone's Facebook account today, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My guess is that someone is using password db dumps and then using those credentials to login to Facebook accounts, in this case it reactivated it.

TL;DR Don't use the same password on multiple accounts, no matter how "unimportant".

<comment><USER13> Fairly sure someone is. I haven't been using FB for months and last week received a "messenger sign in code" SMS from FB. (I use LastPass btw with each site their own pw, I highly doubt they need your actual current password to login)

<comment><USER14> Phone number reuse is also a major pain in this scenario. If your mobile phone number has ever changed, you still likely have the old number registered with many sites. The SMS you received may not have been for _your_ Facebook account, but rather for someone else's account using your new phone number that used to belong to them.

The number of sites that use - sometimes even _requiring_ \- SMS as a backup authentication mechanism, even while you use a separate authenticator app, is astounding. Cell phone number recycling is just as bad as email addresses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I uploaded a picture of my driver license with my finger covering my D.O.B. and address. They responded by deleting my account I was locked out of and did not want online any longer.

</comment><comment><USER16> For those who still have access and don't just want to deactivate- [https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

<comment><USER17> [http://www.accountkiller.com/en/](http://www.accountkiller.com/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> At least they emailed you about it.

In my case they reactivated it for some reason and I had no idea for months until someone told me they saw my Facebook page.

I had just deactivated because I wanted to take a break from all the fake relationships, but I never really hated the company itself.

But now that I know this company just does whatever they want and doesn't care about the contract with their users, I despise them with passion. It's one thing to change privacy policy, but reactivating someone's account without permission when he clearly has deactivated is almost illegal.

I ended up completely deleting my account (that's different from "deactivating". It's actually all gone (hopefully)

I'm sure there are many people like me and OP out there. It's sad that people can't do much about it as individuals even when their privacy is fucked with.

<comment><USER19> Well, if you give somebody your facebook password and they reactivate your account, shouldn't you be angry with that somebody?

<comment><USER18> Where did i say I gave someone my password? I said it just got re-activated automatically without me knowing. No one else other than me knows the password. And I never got a notice.

I am angry at you.

<comment><USER20> FB doesn't just randomly reactivate accounts... If your account comes back, it was probably compromised. Spammers and scammers look for deactivated accounts because i will be longer until they are discovered...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What would the alternative be? Allow anyone to request that an account is deleted? Facebook needs some form of verification due to the password being breached (and its great that they are checking for that sort of thing)

<comment><USER22> Requiring the same standard of verification for activating an account. Of course, they want to make it easy so it's unlikely to happen...

<comment><USER23> If he knew his password he could deactivate the account using the same standard of verification as was used for reactivating it.

<comment><USER24> He does know it, but Facebook is requiring that he change it before deleting his account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The author claims the request for ID is an "invasion of privacy"? Such a claim is absurd. A request for something is not an invasion of privacy and never is. He can simply decline to provide the information - which is the path he took. The ability to take such an action makes it a decision. He just doesn't like that his account is not in his control. I get that. The situation sucks. But guess what - too bad. He never owned his account in the first place. That information belongs to Facebook and is the property of Facebook.

Also, the Facebook page clearly says to block out everything except the photo, name, and birth date. This is information Facebook already has and the photo upload is simply for verification purposes. This makes his claim of privacy invasion even more ridiculous since he already gave them that information years ago.

<comment><USER26> >He never owned his account in the first place. That information belongs to Facebook and is the property of Facebook.

Don't you think that was part of the point and part of the problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Pretty obvious your leaked email/password (from another website) was tried against facebook.

And while I agree with not likely to upload photo of our driver's licence/etc.. it's pretty likely this is really just to verify that it's your account to delete (although I'm sure you could photoshop something that passes pretty easily if you were malicious) and it sounds like they remove that proof of identity pretty securely afterwards.

<comment><USER28> They say:

> We aren't aware of any suspicious login activity on your account

So they admit they don't think anything is going on, even. Facebook is just punishing the author because they committed the sin of password reuse. And the punishment for password reuse is apparently demanding ID before allowing the author to do anything with the account that belongs to them. Even though they control the email address associated with the account.

<comment><USER7> They aren't aware of suspicious activity because they think OP reactivated his own account!

<comment><USER28> So supposedly OP was allowed to reactivate the account without any hassle at all, but then to actually sign in ID has to be shown? That is even more ridiculous since that just leaves the account in a limbo state for no reason at all. Should have asked for ID prior to reactivating if going down that road.

<comment><USER29> > _So supposedly OP was allowed to reactivate the account without any hassle > at all, but then to actually sign in ID has to be shown? That is even more > ridiculous_

Try to think about it without all that negative mindset. Someone quite obviously obtained the (careless) author's password from a leaked user database of another site. They used it to log on to FB and reactivate the account. That isn't suspicious, because the last login IP address FB had is 5+ years old and having a different one now is not unlikely. Then, the author logged on with his IP address - which was suspicious to FB, because they thought the legitimate owner of the account had recently logged on using a different IP address (perhaps even from a different country). In addition, it took him several attempts to get the password right. Therefore, they demanded some ID.

<comment><USER28> So their automated systems detected malicious access as legitimate access, and legitimate access as malicious access? And this is somehow working as intended?

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what you are suggesting facebook should do.

They can't very well just assume all attackers will set the evil-bit now can they?

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

The automated system has done "the right thing" and fallen back to manual verification when it detected suspicious activity. They can't request id for every activation or reactivation.

<comment><USER28> They assume their automated system can catch evil users in the act. It couldn't. It failed it's job and let the attacker do what they wanted while preventing the legitimate user from controlling their account.

So the automated system did more harm than good. It should either be overhauled or disabled.

<comment><USER30> It did that, in this one particular case. Facebook has what, hundreds of millions of users, maybe billions? No system anybody can come up with can handle every case that every one of those users will have perfectly. They have something that their experience leads them to believe is at least pretty good for most cases. They're not going to change it because it did the wrong thing for one guy.

They don't even know right now that it did the wrong thing. Presuming the root cause is a login from somewhere else from a password DB, all they know is they have 2 logins with the right password from 2 widely separated places. How are they to know which one is the right one? Asking for a real ID sounds like a good start, but the author refuses to provide one. Understandable, I suppose, but how else can he prove that he's the real account owner and not the other guy?

<comment><USER28> By controlling the email account that was used to sign up. This is standard practise and quite simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seriously, after 5 years they still have your account information? Are they completely nuts?

<comment><USER32> On Facebook, there's a difference between "deleting" and "deactivating" your account. OP did the latter, in which case it stays in the DB but is made invisible to everyone else. All you have to do to make it a normal, visible account again is simply log in. Deleting is a different matter.

<comment><USER17> There was no deleting option years go, it only came to exists recently and there is no proof that any deleting is actually happening only that outside access is disabled.

I remember an insider interview a while ago explaining that at any time facebook hold several, seven if my memory is correct, copies of every data ever collected on all users and non users. Surveillance capitalism.

<comment><USER31> Yes, I think the only one who's publicly fighting that is the Austrian Max Schrems. Unfortunately the case is too big for one person. The only chance I see is to make people aware and let Facebook and other companies know that we HATE being treated like sales objects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It said that the email and password was shown to be the same as a compromised account so may well have been activated by a malicious party. Don't reuse accounts and don't consider Facebook to be unimportant even if you don't like it.

</comment><comment><USER34> I see another problem: The OP thought he deleted his account, but actually deactivated it. I've deleted my account before, even in the last few years and it requires a specific link from the FAQ, otherwise you only get a deactivation link, it takes about 2 weeks, if you login after the 2 weeks, you will not get an account back. If years passed and you can still somehow get a response from FB about your account, you didn't delete your account, you deactivated it.

Edit:

It seems this is common enough to be in the FAQ as well:

[https://www.facebook.com/help/359046244166395/](https://www.facebook.com/help/359046244166395/)

How to DELETE your account (will take about 2 weeks or so DO NOT LOG ON TO YOUR ACCOUNT or it will cancel the arrangement):

[https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=relate...](https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=related)

</comment><comment><USER35> Noticed that they've started sending me notification emails about things my friends connected to my account that was deactivated for 4+ years.

I was worried it had been hacked and activated by someone so I logged back in. Nope, so turned off the emails and "deactivated" it again.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yet another situation that proves it's not reasonable to let users keep their account information/data for an extended period of time when they don't use the service.

FB should provide backup/restore functionality for account data and delete accounts after N months of inactivity. They should require e-mail confirmation for logins after N weeks of inactivity and any suspicious logins. The author of the article is lucky that he still owns his geocities.com e-mail address, many such old domains have been sold and re-used.

Inactive/Dead accounts are useful for bragging with account numbers, but for users they're just a risk and burden.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is concerning since I had assumed the data contained in 'inactive' accounts would eventually be deleted. I closed my own account in 2011 because I found no benefit to having one. Given how difficult it was to close my account the first time around, I'm now expecting to receive a similar email. Why would they hold onto all this data for years after the account was closed? They're not going to be able to glean anything else from it.

If necessary, I'll pull a Data Protection Act request on these goons.

<comment><USER17> You certainly fooled yourself in assuming that, it is, at least I thought it was, common knowledge that facebook does not delete a single thing ever they just disable it for user access.

I seems to remember this was exposed a few years back with the introduction of a "past memories" features or something that mistakenly took some of the supposedly deleted content and put it in the spotlight.

They hold onto this data because: 1\. You gave them full legal rights to do so by agreeing to their ToS and giving them full ownership of everything ever collected on you by facebook. 2\. Exploiting user data is how the make money. (well that and investor story time).

<comment><USER37> > ... common knowledge that facebook does not delete a single thing ever they > just disable it for user access.

That is correct, I remember there even was a presentation video from one of FBs engineers describing exactly that, also that they intended to burn that data to long time storage archival discs (probably already are). I have no time to look for that video but if someone knows what it was called please link to it, it should be somewhere on the youtubes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Let's call a spade a spade -- these people are parasites. After reading the linked article I ran a generic inquiry and discovered that "Paul Lutus is on Facebook[1]." False and annoying. I suspect this is how Facebook can claim to have so many followers. I'm sure there are many dead people who are "on Facebook" too and, by virtue of being dead, less likely to object.

1\. [https://www.facebook.com/paul.lutus](https://www.facebook.com/paul.lutus)

</comment><comment><USER39> To echo others in this thread, the same happened to me. The account was deactivated in 2009, and I used a password that I know to have been compromised in hacks of other services.

After several weeks, I got an email yesterday telling me that due to no further suspicious activity, they unlocked the account without Photo ID verification. I went in and scheduled the account for deletion.

</comment><comment><USER40> Since his Facebook account is clearly important to him, he shouldn't have reused a password that he shared with unimportant sites.

<comment><USER41> No I think you've missed the point, the _account_ is unimportant: "I do not want an account on Facebook. I have been happy to live without Facebook for the last 5 years."

What is _important_ is the fact that it was activated without any user input, and can't be deactivated without handing over quite substantial trust.

<comment><USER7> GP has not missed the point. The deactivated account should have been secured with a decent password (if the "lack-of-an-account" was important).

It wasn't reactivated without any user input - or at least we can't possibly know that.

We just don't know who the user was who did the reactivating.

<comment><USER17> Decent or not is irrelevant to the triggering of the breached credentials. You could have the best possible password ever, once you give it to a service that stores it plain text it's game over.

The actual password issue here is password reuse and what should have been done is not having a facebook account in the first place. Is it even possible to get out of facebook once your data is in there ?

The user being the account owner, we do know (provided we trust him) that it was not him so yes it was reactivated without any user input.

From what I gather it could be that email/password was used on another service that got breached and either a bot or someone trying all those breached credentials on facebook caused the reactivation, or a relative that knew the user/pass or facebook trying to collect more personal data on old inactive accounts and inadvertently getting exposed once again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Ha, Facebook UI without logging in is the stupidest. Help center behind a login, emails that can't be unsubscribed from from the email without login, stupid popup that blocks the view every now and then if you're logged out...

I'm tempted to try logging in if they really deleted my account after I requested it.

<comment><USER17> Breaking news: they delete nothing, at best outside access is disabled.

<comment><USER42> I don't hold my breath either. I marked all content as removed, before deleting the account, and removed all advertising topics, and yet after a month of not using FB, the advertising topics were re-generated as if the old content was there. Also a few posts that I marked as deleted popped back in and were showing again.

But nevertheless, they advertise that they actually remove the content, when you delete the account (saying it can take a few months before they prune all the backups from it), so it would be fraud if they did not. Also EU, there's a right to delete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not helpful in OP case but for those in need of how deleting accounts on various services, accountkiller[1] will provide the info you need.

About facebook account deletion:

      Publicly visible text/images often aren't properly deleted
      even when you succeed in deleting an account. Try editing
      or deleting them manually before deleting the account
      itself. If you're unsure what happens to your tracks: this
      can be found mostly in the Terms of Service/Privacy
      Policy; otherwise you can always contact Facebook and ask
      personally. By the way, deletion requests don't
      necessarily mean your data will actually be deleted (e.g.
      due to legal obligations).

[1]: [https://www.accountkiller.com/](https://www.accountkiller.com/)

</comment><comment> awinter-py Does anybody have conversion stats for the facebook signup process? What's the dropoff rate when it wants to scan your driver's license? Do they do this in every country? Do they do it on mobile?

I'm more disturbed by 5 year data retention than the crappy verification step.

<comment><USER14> The request for ID is certainly not standard across all accounts and situations. My guess: the account reactivation came from a different location than OP's home country/state, or OP themselves moved states/countries in the past 5 years. The account being reactivated from a different location would certainly be cause for alarm. This would be a reasonable check in my book, as it is the best way to fight against compromised credentials - you know, the exact situation OP finds themselves in for having reused their Facebook password on other (previously compromised?) sites.

What the OP doesn't seem to understand is that the attacker may have been able to technically "reactivate" the account, but _they also probably can 't actually gain access until they provide ID_. This ID requirement has likely saved the OP's account from actually falling into the attacker's eager hands.

OP is complaining about the privacy implications of a _compromised reactivation by an attacker_ , and sour they are being asked to prove that _they_ are not the attacker. Take off the tin foil hat, stop crying foul, be _grateful_ Facebook seems to have saved your password-reusing ass, send them the ID, and then delete the account instead of deactivating it.

<comment> awinter-py email verification would have also stopped reactivation in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Similarly (arguably worse) someone can create a drop box account using your email address and there is no verification nor mechanism to say that it is not yours. Their support will repeatedly bug you to use an automated system, and of course the automated system cannot fathom that you do not have or want an account. I think it took a couple of weeks for them to actually delete it. Alternatively you could try the lost password flow, log in and delete all the files belonging to the poor sap that made a typo. All the while, you hope none of those files were intended for you.

</comment><comment><USER44> I used Facebook briefly years ago as part of a job requirement, but the account sat stagnant and unused for a very long time. Recently I thought I would login just to see if the account was still there, and found that FB had deactivated my account.

The only path to reactivate the account is to send them my government issued ID.

In my case it doesn't matter because I don't want to reactivate the account anyways, but if things were different I would be absolutely horrified at the thought of sending them my driver's license or passport photo.

</comment><comment> thunder-ltu I am so glad I've deleted my Facebook account a long time ago. A request to provide a photo ID for a social network platform just shocks me. Welcome to the Orwellian world, dear people...

</comment><comment><USER45> Facebook has credit cards on file, it is not surprising to me you need to confirm your identity on a platform that takes payment information. In software products, it is safe to assume that they'll be dealing with payments of some sort, so it is best to not even sign up for services, also since your real identity is what advertisers want to sell to which keeps the product free.

</comment><comment><USER46> Seems like an interesting way for law enforcement to get a picture of someone they don't have on record :-) (ok that is pretty paranoid).

I would probably hit them up with a 'Right to be Forgotten' cease and desist letter demanding facebook remove everything they have associated with the account.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm in the same situation, I didn't use my account several years. Than I tried to login, and account is locked. I was asked to send my ID. I did it. Now I'm waiting fifth month to unlock it and nothing happens. They have my ID, I don't have account access.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is this a possible phishing attack?

<comment><USER49> My initial thought as well. Could be identity theft phishing as well (is there a separate word for it) as he was asked for a photo ID.

<comment><USER17> Facebook asking for government photo ID is part of its actual verification procedure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'd say upload some crap as the photo id and let the minions deactivate your account for 'abuse'

Edit: just saw that was done. Let them play their stupid game like they're important.

Does power hungry Mr Z thinks he's some kind of police to ask for a photo id?

</comment><comment><USER51> This is why every site should have it's own unique, strong password.

<comment><USER50> "its own"

And yes it should, and expendable passwords because the world is filled with morons who "encrypt" your password with rot13 or one round of unsalted md5 (but your better follow their "strong password rules")

<comment><USER51> Thanks for the correction. You know, I was once taught, quite poorly, that the apostrophe is used for possession, and when I'm not mindful about it, my brain makes this jump that when referring to something that "belongs" to whatever "it" refers to, that it therefore possesses this thing and therefore should have an apostrophe.

If I think about writing, I write its, but when I'm thinking what I want to write and my fingers just type it, it is like a layer of execution intercepts that thought and correct it.

I guess that's just the brain and one of its features, it's nuts.

Getting back to the subject, this is one of the biggest issues, idiots who hold our data and yet don't add salts to their encryption because salt is bad for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> 1) your acount shouldn't have been reactivated 2) but If you could get an account deaactivated without proving who you are, then that could cause a lot of issues.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm surprised nobody has said this yet: tweet at Facebook, or contact their support.

<comment><USER54> Support's at help center which needs login.

Facebook afaik does nor have twitter support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> No they didn't! go back and read your own post and the screen shots.

</comment><comment><USER55> What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Tagged has 100 million users? Is this legit? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/28/a-social-network-dark-horse-tagged-has-100m-registered-users/?obref=obinsite

<comment><USER2> No. Tagged is a scam that, among other things, logs into your email accounts and sends mail to all your contacts saying you "tagged" them in photos, etc.</comment>


California Covid-19 traffic report finds silver lining - <AUTHOR> https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/california-covid-19-traffic-report-finds-silver-lining/ <comment><USER2> I've been meaning to ask in /r/theydidthemath if the quarantine is actually reducing violent crime, car accidents, pollution, other infectious diseases, STDs, etc. so that we may come out break even or even ahead compared to covid deaths. Just trying to find the silver lining here.

<comment><USER3> The more interesting question is: Will we come ahead in lives saved without the covid measurements.

Because it tells a very interesting story how many lives we're willing to accept to be lost in normal circumstances.

Cars, air pollution, avoidable infections, ... - there's a lot of harm society could avoid and doesn't.

<comment><USER4> > The more interesting question is: Will we come ahead in lives saved without > the covid measurements.

I'm still waiting to see what has happened to the number of deaths caused by heart attack, stroke, etc. that aren't COVID related. I'm betting those causes of death have dropped by about the same amount of COVID deaths.

<comment><USER5> At least in some European countries where COVID cases has submerged the healthcare system, it is a very bad time to have a stroke or a car accident since the ER rooms are full and a lot of hospital resources are diverted to fight the pandemic. So it increases the mortality of these other situations.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure that's true [https://youtu.be/sN6Trgzf9kY](https://youtu.be/sN6Trgzf9kY)

<comment><USER7> Not sure how this is a contradiction to what the previous poster said. There is a huge variation across Europe and across regions of each country. There are regions where the medical system is completely overloaded. Northern Italy, central Spain and France. It plays a huge role, what phase of the pandemic a country is in. The peak of hospital load is clearly yet to come in the UK. Also, as the vlogger says, people are coming less to the hospitals with non- covid diseases, partially because the local docters are loaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ~$1/resident/day sounds a lot less impressive

<comment><USER9> Indeed. And what are net economic losses? I'm guessing that it's somewhere between 100 and 1000 times that.

Edit: Sorry. Make that 10-100 times greater.

<comment><USER10> > _Indeed. And what are net economic losses? I 'm guessing that it's somewhere > between 100 and 1000 times that._

$40 million per day = $14.6 billion per year

The GDP of California is $2.75 trillion.

Your low end estimate of 100x would be a 53% drop in California's GDP, while the 1000x estimate seems impossible.

<comment><USER11> 0.5% of GDP isn't nothing! Wow!

<comment><USER10> > _0.5% of GDP isn't nothing! Wow!_

Are you saying that you disagree that California losing 500% of its GDP seems impossible?

<comment><USER12> I doubt we are even near 500%, but I'll go ahead and say I think it's possible in the short term for California to be lose 500% of it's GDP. It's possible to borrow against our future, both literally with money, and figuratively by decreasing future productivity.

For instance, we're (probably) negatively impacting kids education, that's going to have a negative impact on the economy for the next 50+ years. If we fuck up the food supply chains too badly (e.g. migrant works, locusts in africa [1], etc) more kids will suffer from malnutrition, which has a long term effect. Increased poverty rates from the shutdown will likely increase crime rates (and have many other ill effects), which will have a long term effect. Putting the economy into a recession will no doubt significantly slow down all sorts of R&D work delaying useful (and even life saving) inventions. And so and and so forth.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/africas-huge- locust-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/africas-huge-locust- swarms-are-growing-at-the-worst-time/)

<comment><USER9> That's a sobering argument. But I wonder how it compares to other major disruptions, such as major wars. Or even the 2008 recession.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When you say something "saves money" do you think it's reasonable to require such a statement attest that there is a _net_ savings?

If I go on vacation and set my Nest to eco mode, am I saving money? Sure, certainly I may be saving $5 a day in home utilities cost on my $300/day vacation. But that is not to say that said vacation is actually _saving_ me money.

It would be accurate to say that vacation may be costing me $295 net instead of $300 face value. But just reporting the savings would be misleading.

<comment><USER10> I don't think this comment deserves to be downvoted. It seems sensible. Sure, it's mostly sensitive to the phrasing, but careful phrasing matters in matters of finance and politics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Los Angeles, there may be fewer car accidents but I'm afraid the ones that do occur will be more fatal. The lack of traffic is allowing people to drive at unsafe speeds. While there is dramatically less traffic, there are still a lot of cars on the freeway. The few times I've driven on the freeway, there have been many high speed impatient drivers weaving unsafely between the many remaining cars.

</comment><comment><USER15> Probably a silly question but what are the savings from?

</comment><comment><USER16> >due to COVID19

It is more accurate to say due to the shutdown.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Saving State $40 Million Per Day"

As a back of the envelope for that "$40 Million Per Day" we used to spend, we would have gotten something of greater value. Probably far far greater value.

So we are also losing _over_ "$40 Million Per Day" through lost traffic.

There is no silver lining, it's just giving us a minimum of the value of traffic.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone else wonder from where did they cite the costs in Table 1? I can imagine the reduction in accidents and fatalities and believe their reported numbers with the "significant" p-values but there is no information on how did they arrive at the reported costs. You had one job!

</comment><comment><USER19> will US learn to be less car-centric after this?

<comment><USER20> No.

For one, this situation has nothing to do with cars, so there's no obvious lesson about cars to be drawn from it. Accidents are relatively rare, and when you frame the headline, as another commenter did, as $1 per person-day, it's a lot less impressive.

It's also not viable in a lot of places. Mass transit and living close to work, shopping, and services, is only viable in certain urban centers. NYC, DC, Boston, maybe Chicago are good. LA, not so much (but improving), Dallas, hah! And if you live in a suburb our outside the city? Car.

What will change is habits around traveling. Maybe there will be more working from home (or maybe not). Maybe cities aren't as desirable (or they still are). Maybe there's a broader economic reshuffle. Oil is incredibly cheap right now. Those are the factors that will drive car use over the next few years, not a dollar figure that is, not surprisingly, on the order of what I pay for car insurance. If a $1000 annual insurance bill doesn't keep people out of their cars, why would this headline?

<comment> WD-42 Funny you say accidents are rare. The death toll from covid in the US has just barely surpassed the amount of car related deaths per year in the US.

<comment><USER21> in 2 months. 1/6 of a year.

<comment><USER22> We don't know how many people covid19 would kill if everyone were infected. Given the data we have now about covid19, cars probably killed more people in the last 15 years than covid19 will kill people in the next 15 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it real cost saving? Many costs are infra and standby people. Not sure it is real saving.

</comment><comment><USER24> > _California is saving $40M per day from reduction in car crashes due to > COVID19_

I go to Vegas. Lose $100K in poker but win $190 at slot machines. How did I do?

<comment><USER25> Save $190 in Vegas with this one weird trick!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If we forbid all operations, a lot fewer people will die in surgery.

<comment><USER27> I remember Atul Gawande mentioning in one of his books that patient deaths slow when their surgeons take a holiday.

<comment><USER26> Don't recall the details, but I think this was for a few specific kinds of procedures (cardiac-related?).

There certainly is a problem with iatrogenic deaths (those caused by medical attention itself), but it would be quite a bit too far to say that surgery is on balance harmful taken as a whole.

(And indeed, the point of my remark was that a falling traffic fatality rate isn't necessarily a good thing, once one looks at the entire picture.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Saving State $40 Million Per Day During Shelter-In-Place

!!!!

</comment><comment><USER29> I mean, sure but how much is it losing from loss of revenue? I.e. sales tax?

Bad title and bad article.

<comment><USER30> The scope that you seem to be expecting isn't possible right now. Anything that's attempting to account for every amount of money lost or saved will end up missing something. The title contains itself to the scope that it is accurate at.

Trusting the reader to intuitively know California is losing massive amounts of money from other things seems reasonable. Just because a title isn't written for the most uneducated reader does not mean it is misleading.

<comment><USER31> Yep. A silver lining is unambiguously defining a small upside to the larger downside.

For instance, my niece's pediatrician apparently has not seen or got calls for any severe cases of flu due to social distancing despite still seeing relatively similar amounts of patients

<comment><USER32> The title was changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The irony is that getting in a car is far more deadly than Covid.

</comment><comment><USER34> This seems like a low effort illogical argument to push an anti car agenda? Obviously the economic benefit of cars is far greater than $40M a day for CA. Everything we do involves risk, whether it is driving or flying or simply leaving the house. With risk comes the chance of injury and death. We still decide to go about our lives because there is immense benefit in that. So I don't see why this is a problem.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you get your news? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'd love to know any news sources with a UK focus, or at least a good UK section, that aren't towing the government line on leaks from Snowden. The Guardian is the only one I've found so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.theinquirer.net/](http://www.theinquirer.net/)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Wire services and the _Economist_. And here, obviously.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm getting lots of good stuff from [http://www.quibb.com](http://www.quibb.com) lately.

</comment><comment><USER2> TWiT shows: TNT, TWiG (it's more than just Google related news despite the title), Security Now, Framerate

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://Archive.org/](http://Archive.org/)

I just heard about "thefacebook.com". Reckon it's going to be pretty big.

</comment><comment><USER7> Twitter, Hacker News, and Zite

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER9> \- [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com) [http://www.cnn.com/](http://www.cnn.com/) [http://www.wired.com/](http://www.wired.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever cofounded two startup's at once? How'd it go? - <AUTHOR> I have a unique opportunity in that I am involved in the founding of two separate projects. One of them I am cofounder with another partner, we're preparing to go into beta soon (social space) and have worked on for 1.5yr+; it's my baby. The other one has sprouted up out of the consulting work both myself and partner have been involved with to help fund us working on first startup. The CEO of a successful & rapidly expanding company that is backing the consulting project wants us to cofound a much bigger picture project in that space with him. They both have a ton of potential and are exciting in their own ways. We're also already testing the first phase of software for the 2nd project internally with said company and seeing success. Feedback from initial users of social app is also exciting...
My question is this, I'm 33, no wife/kids, no mortgage, and highly driven; but would it be sane to be involved with two projects? I am the ceo of social project and as it's my first startup and first time leading such a project, I want to have the best chance for success. Likewise I would need to figure out my role for second project but so far I have acted like a mix between leader & developer in coordinating other contractors, developing on backend/client, and interfacing with company backing it. I'm having a hard time figuring out what approach to take if I choose to be involved in 2nd project and also have FOMO of ditching it entirely. I'm also interested in approach from angle of myself and partner from first startup as a team etc and if it makes sense to spread the risk around some in two projects?
Anyone ever have similar situation? Advice? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Currently doing that, with the following differences: \- I am the cto for both companies \- one of my startup is already 3 years old

Even with a very low maintenance mode on my first startup, it's insane. Actually just one startup creation and bootstrapping is insane, so what happens is I just don't have time to manage and improve the first startup, yet it «kinda» works because it's a niche, with no competition, and my partner agreed to manage most of it while I am «less» available, but it really is a nightmare and it puts the business at risk.

I know it's hard to choose («to choose is to renounce»), but my advice would be to focus on just one of them.</comment>


26 reported killed in Newtown, Conn., school shooting - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/14/school-shooting-connecticut/1769367/

<comment><USER2> Articles like this which simply report the impressions of various eyewitnesses are interesting. It was a fluid situation, evidenced by some teachers barricading students into their room (good planning; I'm sure this is standard policy for gunshots) while others were directed by police to run for a more secure location. (This last seems pretty sketchy for kindergartners: would they have any idea what or where the firehouse is, and could they be expected to run as a group without losing stragglers with only a single teacher supervising?)

</comment><comment><USER3> While what happened in Newtown was tragic, other stories regarding this on Hacker News have been killed already due to the HN Guidelines: (<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>)

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off- topic.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Several law enforcement agencies are working to determine "exactly what > happened", Vance said.

People sometimes go crazy and uncontrollable, nobody can do anything about that. Some stupid laws allowing people to have firearms, that's what happened.</comment>


Fuckit, I'm launching - <AUTHOR> http://colevscode.posterous.com/fuckit-im-launching

<comment><USER2> Sign-up by email was among the worst decisions I made on a web "startup" years ago, because I was oblivious to how non-obvious this was for your average person. It's good that you seem to be aware of this barrier.

Potential users didn't understand the registration process at all when I told them to send an email to register. From talking to some of them later, many figured the sign-up email address was one that I was reading & acting on manually. Perhaps in the years since, average people are more at ease with the idea that a computer can just as easily process email as it can a web form. The lesson I learned is that there are some places where it's better to be conventional than clever, and on-boarding users is one of them.

Congrats on launching, and good luck.

<comment><USER3> OTOH, it worked great for posterous.

<comment><USER4> Posterous ended up de-emphasizing the email signup aspect of their service (it's no longer mentioned anywhere on <http://posterous.com/> ) - I remember reading something about that decision somewhere, but I can't find it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congratulations!

I'm waiting for sendwrite 2.0 in which I can email you a photo and a message and you print a postcard with my message on the back and drop it in the mail for me.

Also, I dig the workflow of sending and email to signup. It seems to work well for tripit.com. If you commonly interact with your users through email, I don't see any reason against it.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> Check out <http://postagramapp.com/> if you're an Android or iOS user. Only 99-cents per postcard.

<comment><USER7> so if I can send 3 custom photos AND messages for $2.97 (plus that have bulk sending prices that are even cheaper) , through Postagram, is the selling point of SendWrite that you can do it from any email app?

Must be an API / Webservice for Postagram that their iPhone / Android app uses. Can't find any mention of it on their site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It'd be helpful to know how much it costs without having to watch a video. You know, like an upfront price or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. The price will be more transparent during the web reg process. I was really trying to keep it simple on the landing page since it's a bit confusing. Frankly I didn't want to hit people with an out-of-the-ordinary registration process and the price both at once. But I certainly don't want to lead people on. I'm curious, did you expect it to be free?

<comment><USER8> Without a price shown, I did expect it to be free. Except that I know a stamp costs something, so that was weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh my god, this is awesome!

I would love it if version 2.0 would let me pick from a variety of hallmark type cards for various occasions.

Congrats on launching!

</comment><comment><USER10> Props to you for launching, knowing it's not ready yet and there will be pissed off people because of the bugs. That's a scary thing to do, no matter how easy it is for us all to say we would do it too.

More people need to do this. Like you said, without constant customer feedback, you're tweaking things because you think you should, not because it will improve anything necessarily.

<comment><USER11> "knowing it's not ready yet and there will be pissed off people because of the bugs."

I realize the conventional wisdom these days is to try to launch something earlier than you want to, but has the goalpost really moved back towards launching products that are "not ready" and full of bugs? I don't know how good or bad the OP's product is, I'm just commenting on the sentiment that its admirable if he did launch something that sucks.

I think there's a certain level of craftmanship and pride in your work that should override the urge to launch early for all the usual reasons echoed on HN. Launching too early can be as disastrous as launching too late, I think this lesson often gets lost in translation because the natural habit is to launch too late.

<comment><USER12> I think conventional wisdom is to cut features till you have a MVP and then you can release early, but have a product that doesn't suck.

Releasing early by skipping bug fixing you will make a bad first impression, and that'll pretty much destroy any benefit from launching early.

edit: Note - I am not saying sendwrite has lots of bugs, just commenting that launching with lots of bugs is a bad idea.

<comment><USER10> I'm definitely not condoning purposely launching with a boatload of bugs. Instead, I'm just complimenting the OP on launching knowing that it's not 100% perfect yet and welcoming any positive or negative feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Massive congratulations on launching - and it's a great, interesting idea as well (I'd help test it out for you, but I'm in the UK).

Like a lot of people have said, the pricing should be clear without having to watch the video. Personally, I think the graphic at the top looks great, but I'm not 100% sold on the video - there's something about it that doesn't seem overly professional (sorry). I might be the only one that thinks that, but if not - you could potentially try to get the information you need to say put into a similar graphic as the one you have at the top, rather than have people watch the video at all?

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> Good luck, dude. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory as they say.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great idea! I think receiving a physical card does mean more to people. Down the line, maybe people can purchase credits. I wouldn't mind opening an account, putting in let's say, $30 worth of credits and then over the year send cards out using the credits I've already purchased. At the end of the year I can buy more. Heck you could go a step further and allow users to set up reminders for any special occasions if they want.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is the right move for you. Most start-ups that fail never even launched anything at all. Some are trying to perfect their product before exposing it to beta users then they run out of money. This is a flaw. You can never achieve perfection but the pursuit of it will make one great product. You do this by letting people try them out and get feedbacks from it. Launch quickly and learn fast....good job and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats on launching. Its refreshing and inspiring to see people who go from start to launch so quickly, rather than the examples of people in stealth mode for 12-18 months before taking on customers.

There are a couple of services that do similar things, but it seems like a couple possible differentiators would be keeping it dead simple, and perhaps eventually focusing on mobile users.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good call on launching as soon as you can, but in regards to your startup, why are you trying to take the meaning out of physical letters? The splash page basically says, "Everybody loves getting cards because they mean something. We're trying to make them as meaningless as email."

</comment><comment><USER19> "You agree to be responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any passwords or other account identifiers which you choose or are assigned as a result of the registration process; and all activities that occur under your account or password. You further agree to notify SendWrite immediately of any unauthorized use of your password or account"

I like the idea of your service, however this part of your Terms of Use put me off somewhat. How am I responsible for my data if your site gets "liberated" of its data? If your site gets hacked the attackers do nefarious things under my account, am I still responsible for the actions?

I may be splitting hairs, but I am a tad confused by this statement.

<comment><USER20> I read it as him saying if your account is accessed using your email or your password you take full responsibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You should let me send the first card for free, but make sure I make an account and then follow up with it. Check out Touchnote, which is an iOS app that lets you send people cards using photos you take with your phone. They have a good startup experience that converts you into a return user pretty effectively.

It might be interesting to put a note in the card that tells mom that she can send a card back to me by emailing a special address as well. It would be nice if I could pick something for her that she feels is familiar, for instance firstname.lastname@example.com, as opposed to the anonymous email@example.com, which feels like I'm emailing a company.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like your second idea about the email addresses.

WRT price. I just can't afford to offer the first card free. I've received nearly 200 cards in the first hour. Once I get going though, I'll definitely consider promotions like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great, I just signed up and sent a letter to my mom!

I've been meaning to look more into a good service like this, because I hate "writing" letters. I would love to keep in touch with my relatives and send out updates, but I am quite lazy. Photos/postcards aren't quite what I want either.

I hate paying through Paypal though :(

The $2/letter price point for the 20 pack still seems high. Care to comment on the pricing? I know I am inaccurately spitballing, but $0.44 postage and then $0.25 maybe for letter+envelope in bulk?

<comment><USER23> So 1.31 service and handling seems high?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Congratulations - Posts like this are inspiring, I'll be working hard this weekend to finish my own project and launch early next week - will keep you updated.

Brilliant concept by the way!

</comment><comment><USER25> Great Idea, Ive already sent a card from my Ego to my Self. I second the request for sending "special occasion" requests. Also how about international mailings and mass mailings, I have lots of family in Germany and they need christmas cards/thankyou cards.. and I am the lazy type so only 20% of my family gets a card, this would help lots

Also in your Proof email it is not apparent whether I need to take any action if there are no issues, wording changes perhaps? Maybe also on SendWrite "stationary"?

</comment><comment><USER26> Cool Idea. Congrats on launching. Some feedback:

* Increase the quality of the video you have, and please show the control bar. It feels weird when I can't go back and forth.

* The black background on "your message here" icon looks out of place. Sticking to the blue theme might help

* login button is way too far to the right. Have another wrapper div, and keep the width somewhat narrow. Feels weird when I have to go all the way to the bottom right to login.

Just my $0.03 :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Great tips. I appreciate them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Goodluck - others have experimented with this but I don't know of any existing service right now. There's a great novelty factor involved with a "email-to- signup" flow but I agree that that's a bit awkward for many users. One cool idea is a twist on that - use an OAuth signup process with FB/Twitter and send a cool confirmation postcard to the user's address they have listed on FB, etc - depending on how to word it there's a viral element to it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Good luck, brother. I had the same moment this week and launched an idea this past Monday. I didn't get much traction here on HN, but I did in other places. The response was overwhelming, and we raised some seed money last night over drinks. hmmm...maybe I should write that story up for HN? "From fuckit, I'm launching to seed capital in 4 days!"

Cheers, and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER29> Very cool. I love that it's not an established work flow but you're willing to play with it. I sent an email and signed up but stopped short of where I'd have to pay (I don't have a real card to send atm).

Considering the flow starts with an email and ends up on the web (odd!) ... it was as smooth as I could expect!

Best of luck and congrats on launching!

</comment><comment><USER30> How does this compare with what PostalMethods[1] offers? They have an email interface as well an API, and their prices appear to be slightly better.

[1] <http://www.postalmethods.com>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, what an awesome response. And such great ideas and feedback. I'm ecstatic.

</comment><comment><USER31> This service looks similar to various 'MMS postcard' offerings that many telcos have for their subscribers.

</comment><comment><USER32> that's an awesome way to streamline the onboarding workflow of ubiquitous email-as-identity.

</comment><comment><USER33> Glad to hear you're launching. Good luck!

I don't need to send a card to my mom.

I do need to send mail pretty regularly when I'm out of the country, but dealing with businesses that don't do the "online thing" very well, or at all.

I'd love to have a service where I can, say, email, or via a web form, create a letter, have it printed and mailed, and have it sent using specific mailing methods such as certified mail, or return receipt.

If there were such a service, they'd get all of my mail business.... because there's nothing I like less than going to the post office, even when I am in the country.

<comment><USER34> You're in luck: <https://click2mail.com/>

They even have an API.

(Disclaimer: I used Google, I've never heard of them before now.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Big-ups to you for knowingly launching a half-baked, half-assed product. Judging by the number of "hackers" you've inspired here, I feel great knowing that the main goal nowadays is to simply set the bar lower. Maybe even stick some ads on it if you're looking for other ways to "improve" it.

</comment><comment><USER36> ?? <\- ?? PROFIT

</comment><comment><USER37> Link Title of the Year!!!! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> \m/</comment></comment>


Show HN: My First Attempt at Web Development - Would Love Feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.criticrania.com/homepage.php

<comment><USER2> The link you used to direct to your site showed:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Unknown MySQL server host 'criticrania.db.6354580.hostedresource.com' (2) in /home/content/80/6354580/html/criticrania.com/functions.php on line 2 Unknown MySQL server host 'criticrania.db.6354580.hostedresource.com' (2)

From the root (<http://www.criticrania.com/>), it seems however to work fine.

Wait, I'm getting what seems to be random error messages.

E.g., /movies.php, showed an error on a visit, but was OK when revisited after a while. Another time, the root gave an error, when reloaded it worked fine.

Retried /homepage.php, it works fine now.

You better look into that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Learned web langauges (HTML, JavaScript, PHP, mySQL, etc). Been a learning process and want to see what you think and where I can do better. Design was a definite challenge, but I think the idea and execution aren't bad. Looking forward to any and all input. Thanks in advance!</comment>


Show HN: Learn how to build electronics with monthly kits - <AUTHOR> https://thimble.io <comment><USER2> I like the idea of an electronics kit with instructions.

But (and I'm sorry if this sounds negative but I'm just FED UP) I'm so SICK of freaking subscription services. Can't you guys just rely on interested customers coming back if they want to? The way I see it, there's absolutely no relation between the message you have on the site to teach people electronics and make a few bucks while you're at it, and the need for customers to have accounts, registration, subscription and all of that crap. Just let me buy the kit I'm interested in and be done with it! With so many subscription services around, I'm following a policy of immediately disregarding anything following the same model, specially if there's really no need for it. Make a one-time purchase option, with no registration or crappy spammy emails and I'd be interested (yes i know you won't share my details with 3rd party but you'll hammer me with emails on every freaking occasion I know.)

<comment><USER3> Ability to buy multiple kits on demand = requirement for inventory = higher overhead = higher prices. Theoretically. You can tweak the inventory need but that still increases overhead (less) while simultaneously cutting into your margins.

Any time you see "$400 value for $10/mo!" it's marketing garbage, but you really can get for $20/mo what would probably cost you $25 or a little more if you bought it on-demand.

<comment><USER2> I'm okay with that extra 5 bucks for their inventory cost if they allow me to opt out of permanently saving my details on their servers. No matter how many times I unsubscribe from their emails, they always start a new list and I'm strangely on it again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My issue with learning electronics is that there's a steep gap between "plug this into that" and "plug this into that _because x_ ". I want to learn how to reason about the latter. Most resources I've seen like this don't give you that, they just have a bunch of prefab projects and lead you through them with the former strategy. Fortunately I've been able to learn some of the latter on my own but it would be great to see a good resource for the former.

I know how to program. I don't want to program a microcontroller to do all of the work. I don't want to build a "WiFi robot", I want to build a simple circuit with a few LEDs and understand completely how it works and why it was designed that way. I want to know how to choose the right batteries and resistors, or what components I need for arbitrary projects.

<comment><USER5> I recommend The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill.

I'm an electrical engineer and in my experience most EE courses are very math heavy. This is because the theory behind electronics is very math heavy. Many people don't enjoy doing math problems in their spare time, though. The thing is that after you get past the theory and into the practice, the math mostly drops away as you learn abstractions and little tricks to aid in designing circuits. I like The Art of Electronics because it has the math there if you need it, but assumes you didn't get past Algebra. It mostly leads with the abstractions and little tricks that you would use to design circuits with a just a pen and paper.

Some people find it tedious, though. My advice is not to read it cover to cover. Read the parts that interest you and use the rest as a reference.

<comment><USER6> I'll second the recommendation, it does a great job of not only covering things but explaining why you'd use certain components and the engineering trade-offs required(the section on transistors is fantastic). It's old but still very relevant today.

If I remember correctly they even go from transistor up to building an entire 8-bit micro in addition to the excellent analog reference.

As someone who isn't an EE I found it still very straightforward to follow if a bit dense(in a good way) in some sections.

<comment><USER7> I started in EE in college and ended up switching to CpE (Computer Engineering, which basically was 60/40 CS/EE) because I found I liked the programming slightly more than the EE side of things.

I still find the book a tad dense at times but it's absolutely a must have for anyone that cares more about the why than the how. As said above, this is a fantastic reference book, you will likely never read this cover to cover unless you're following it as instruction material for a class.

Anymore these days, with all the breakouts and instructables a person could very likely get by with know whether something needs 5v or 3.3v (if that).

I feel like these monthly subscriptions are good for a while for someone who wants to get into the hobby and has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where to start. You get the inspiration, materials, and help specifically for the task at hand without all the other noise.

I have a feeling that after a few months if the person is still keenly interested they wouldn't need the subscription anymore and I'd be surprised if most subscribers stayed on past 6-9 months because of this (or the opposite).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Step 1: Buy Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims, or any other book by him. Step 2: Build all the projects in his books. You'll only need a proto board and a few other cheap components.

You'll build up an intuition in electronics by doing all these projects. If you want to throw a microcontroller in the mix, get the cheap TI MSP430 Launchpad- it's about $5, and you can use C or Arduino.

<comment><USER9> > Step 1: Buy Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims

This is the defacto book for beginners but I've never really been able to parse the format. I've gone through a lot of books and none seem to match the approach (gently, less formal) with some formatting that is easy to ingest.

I do love the Launchpads, and they were a ton of fun to use (the IDE is a beast, though). I'd say starting with Arduino or a Pi before a microcontroller is a natural step for beginners, though.

<comment><USER10> Arduinos are microcontrollers... but I get what you're saying, a more beginner-friendly microcontroller stack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An alternative which I subscribe to is Hackerboxes[0]. It's a bit cheaper at $44/month and each month's box comes with all of the required hardware. You can check out the instructions for past boxes here[1].

I've followed both thimble.io and Hackerboxes prior to launch and thimble.io definitely has more thorough instructions and a nice learning platform[2] which may be less intimidating for beginners.

I ended up going with Hackerboxes because the kits include all the parts, use of open source hardware, the lower price, and they've already shipped a year's worth of kits.

[0] [http://www.hackerboxes.com/](http://www.hackerboxes.com/)

[1] [http://www.instructables.com/member/HackerBoxes/instructable...](http://www.instructables.com/member/HackerBoxes/instructables/)

[2] [https://learning.thimble.io/](https://learning.thimble.io/)

<comment><USER12> Is there a subscription box that sends you just the parts for a project that uses an Arduino? Basically, I want to save cost by not having to get the (usually) most expensive part of the kit. I don't mind dismantling each month's project to reuse the core components.

<comment><USER13> From what I can see, Hackerboxes use an ESP8266 01 or an Arduino Nano, both of which cost around $2. You will definitely not be paying lots for the MCU, and it's good to have lots of them (I have around 20 of various types at any time) because they're dirt cheap and you can use them anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The price is a bit steep. I could probably justify it if I saw more project examples with a parts list. I can get an arduino uno knockoff from Amazon for about $5, so I'd want to know what is included to justify the price. Of course a major part of the price is coming up with kit, sourcing all the parts, etc.

<comment><USER15> Arduino kits have never been a good value proposition from a parts list perspective, you tend to hope it's the ease of access and guided learning that make it worthwhile.

Starter kits with pennies worth of a few passive components and a few "interesting" sensors on breakouts sell for 50$+. Taken at their parts list you could get a thousand assorted pieces of most of the passive components for a few bucks on eBay, and you could get the breakouts on AliExpress for a few bucks too.

But the time it'd take to wait for a packet from China, or even from the US for a small premium, can disrupt someone who's just learning. If you forget a part, that can be a week of waiting. The kit promises everything you'll need.

And the guided nature helps beginners not get caught up in the minutiae of designing things. Google "turn on LED with Arduino" and you'll get answers ranging from "just stick it in series with an IO pin(not a great idea imo)", to "use a NPN transistor (which leads down its own train of learning as to how it works and why it's needed)" and a bunch of stuff in between".

I know _some_ basic electronics (I think), and felt I was better off "splurging" on AliExpress and eBay once and filling a drawer with an assortment of passive components and breakouts to sensors I thought might be interesting and just building stuff as it came to mind.

A handful of ESP8266s and some assorted sensors can make for some pretty interesting projects by themselves

<comment><USER5> FWIW, Atmel AVR (the Arduino microcontroller) I/Os are typically beefy enough to drive the 20 mA that LEDs usually like to get nice and bright. It was one of their early differentiators.

Depending on the LED, I would have no problem driving it directly with just a current limiting resisitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is _exactly_ what I need. I got an undergraduate education in CS and biochem, and now that I'm employed it felt impossible to devote time or energy to studying electronics. The subject is simply too deep. I was worried the only way I'd ever be able to learn would be to go back to university. This looks like a solution to my problem!

The only thing I worry about is a lack of mathematical rigor, but I suppose as long as I can get hands on experience that amounts to much more than I'd accomplish on my own.

In any event, this is beyond awesome and I'm subscribing as soon as I get home.

<comment><USER17> Analytical solutions in circuit analysis are impossible for the vast majority of nontrivial circuit designs and few subfields of electrical engineering require computer simulations so you wont see much mathematical rigor in practice. Electrical engineering is all about rules of thumb, experience, and intuition unless you're designing something like a high efficiency power circuit, a complex high speed digital or mixed mode design, or an antenna. Most of the time, my circuit designs are based off of reference designs provided by the part manufacturer, who also provide routing and design guidelines. As long as I'm not pushing the limits with fabrication (bigger board, more layers to route, few overlapping power domains, large vias and no microvias, etc) the first prototype usually just works, with a few minor mistakes and oversights, without having to do any math or simulations.

By the time intuition and documentation fails an experienced electrical engineer, they're probably designing something that costs tens of thousands of dollars to prototype and hundreds of thousands worth of testing equipment. It'll be a long while before you get to that point so I wouldn't worry about the math, although I still recommend studying it because it might help develop that intuition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> All I have is a breadboard, some wire, a variety of passive components and ICs from HK ($20 total for tens of thousands of parts), a USB oscilloscope (eBay $60-$200), and maybe an AVR or STM32 development board. I'm overwhelmed by the number of analog and digital projects I can do, and I've been messing around with my kit for a couple years. I mostly do hobby filter design and audio synthesis.

<comment><USER19> Do you have a link to the "passsive components"? What sort of thigns were you able to get in that pack?

<comment><USER18> I won't link any, but it's probably cheaper to buy variety packs of individual types of components. Search on eBay for "resistor assortment", "transistor assortment", "electrolytic capacitor assortment", "diode assortment", "LED assortment", "ceramic capacitor assortment", etc. Each of these packs of a few thousand mixed components are $0.50 to $4 shipped worldwide from China. Then pick up the most common ICs like the ne555p, lm741, lm393, pc817, etc. The game here is quantity over quality, so you never need a part that you don't have. Once you prototype your idea, then use Mouser to pick out your parts made with better quality control, although they're 10x more expensive. But this isn't a problem, as you should know exactly what you need after a prototype.

<comment><USER20> This is a great plan. I'm always astounded at the cost of individual components when you are looking for something specific, and the general lack of availability of things at places like Fry's or Radio Shack which were always well stocked with cheap options when I was young.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No pictures is just silly.

I'm not at all technical by nature. I learned from the ARDX kit (but I still don't know much). It's what I recommend to other women. Work on it like a jigsaw puzzle in front of the TV at night for as many nights as it takes to finish.

One project per kit is a problem because you can't just move on to the next project. You get stuck and frustrated. I find dealing with that frustration is a big part of technical learning for beginners that lack confidence. with a kit that gives you a lot of projects you don't go to bed feeling dumb like you can't do this. This matters. At least to me.

</comment><comment><USER22> 50 bucks is pretty steep for a student like me. If something in the $20 range (that included no arduinos, just really shitty and cheap stuff off the "Shenzhen market" as Dave would say). No brand name stuff and I'd be fine with crappier instructions.

The cutoff for college student involvement is pretty much $20 and that's where the bread and butter market for something like this is. EE/CE/CS student's who want to be able to "do" electronics. Intersplice it will lesses on simple formulas we need in class and you've got a winner, you could even recylce kits every semester.

<comment><USER8> Presumably you have access to EE labs and don't need a kit at all? You're probably paying a lot more than $50 for access to EE labs.

<comment><USER22> Sadly no. You need to take an EE course AND buy an EE kit. Also don't get me started on the machine shop.

<comment><USER8> I'm willing to bet they have some old dev kits not being used by classes anymore that you could check out. Sure, they won't be Arduino, but you're not going to learn anything making Arduino sketches anyway. Look for a Freescale 6812 or TI DSP kit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's so retro. Take a look at the ads in this 1957 issue of Popular Electronics.[1] "You can train at home for good pay jobs Radio-Television - Get Practical Experience with Kits N.R.I. sends." (p.99) "You build AC-DC Superhet Receiver". "You build Vacuum Tube Voltmeter". A competing school offers a course that gets all the way up to building a TV kit. (p.7) And there's the DeVry Technical Institute, trying to sign up veterans back then and still at it today.

Distance learning goes back a long way.

[1] [http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive- Poptronics/50s/5...](http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive- Poptronics/50s/57/Pop-1957-01.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER24> I wanted to find at least one photo of the kit. The video is similar, but I prefer at least 2 or 3 photos.

About the video: (I didn't watch it f100%) Do all projects require soldering? Can I filter for non soldering projects? (Actually, I can solder but not extremely good. I even tried a few home made projects with my daughter so she can learn to solder, but she has already done many non soldering projects.)

<comment><USER25> It won't take too much to feel confident soldering. Watch a few videos, do some intentional practice, and you'll be good in no time. I just kept building projects and I'm fine now.

<comment><USER24> I can solder. It's just that I have to redo 1/3 of them and most of the times the solder joint is too cold. (I have a Chemistry specialization in secondary school. We learned a bit about electric circuits including soldering, but it's not my specialization.)

Anyway, I suspect that non-soldering projects may have a bigger audience.

<comment><USER26> Some advice I'd have appreciated early on, because it took me a long while to figure out on my own:

Use a tiny dab of solder on the iron tip for better heat transfer, and heat the joint for longer than it feels like you should need to. Melt the solder wire against the joint, not the iron - the iron will always melt solder, but that's not what it's there for; it's there to heat the joint until _that_ melts the solder, which is what needs to happen for proper wetting and bonding to occur.

Also, resist the temptation to use too much solder; you don't want a blob, but rather a clean, concave flow from wire to pad. That's how you avoid cold joints.

<comment><USER27> > _heat the joint for longer than it feels like you should need to._

You shouldn't heat the joint for more than about 2 seconds before feeding solder into it. If you need longer than that, you probably don't have a properly tinned tip or a properly cleaned joint, or your tip is too small, or perhaps your iron has low heat capacity.

I also highly recommend using lead-based flux-core solder, e.g. 63/37 Kester 44. The lead-free stuff is awful to work with.

Anyone trying to learn to solder should watch these videos, especially #1: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837)

<comment><USER26> I run my iron cool to avoid overheating joints, a nasty habit left over from years of not knowing what I was doing. It takes six or eight seconds to heat a joint. Running at a higher temperature would probably obviate the need for the extra dab of solder on the tip, too; I add a tiny drop and roll it against the joint, but with a higher setting, I probably wouldn't need to.

<comment><USER28> There's probably not a huge risk running it cooler, but I would definitely try to learn the correct way to save time. I have always tried to explain it like this: the idea is that the iron gets both areas to above the melting point of the solder, so that when solder is applied it cleanly wicks into both the pin and the pad.

Try and place the iron so that it heats both the pin and the pad at the same time. It helps to have a tiny bit of solder on the tip. Then, after around 1 second (unless the pad is on a ground plane, then maybe much longer...), feed in a bit of solder. It should melt and flow immediately on application. You don't need a lot to get a good connection, it should make a little 'hill' on the PCB. Remove the solder, then remove the iron. The joint should cool and leave a nice shiny connection (depends on the solder.)

Tip for using lead-free solder: when you are done soldering, always leave a big blob of solder on the tip before turning the iron off. This way, the tip doesn't oxidize in air while cooling, and you don't have to clean the tip all the time. Next time you solder, just one wipe of the tip after it heats up and it will be shiny and ready to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> HeathKit partically-reinvented themselves: [https://shop.heathkit.com/shop](https://shop.heathkit.com/shop)

I remember changing the channel on a color HeathKit TV at my grandparents by shaking house keys because the ultrasonic remote sensor circuit interpreted it as channel down. (It had a diagnostic and circuit diagram on a fold-down panel IIRC.)

Also my father and grandfather both made multiple technology generations of oscilloscopes from kits. And, my father opened an electrical automotive shop in Santa Clara, thanks in part to learning from HeathKit and other study-at- home electronics courses.

</comment><comment><USER30> I did this in the 1960s with American Basic Science Club. The projects were incremental- the amplifier tube one month became the core of the radio receiver next month and hamradio telegraph another month. I got almost everything to work. It was five dollars a month then, maybe 75 dollar in current money. [http://www.quickreference.info/small-business- stories/americ...](http://www.quickreference.info/small-business- stories/american-basic-science-club-case-history-of-a-successful-small- business/) I see similar kits are making a comeback.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is great! Are there similar subscription services in the UK/Europe?

<comment><USER32> I have no idea about the quality, but I saw this kit getting posted on Twitter this afternoon: [http://www.boldport.club/](http://www.boldport.club/). It looks a little simpler, but may scratch the itch you're looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Nice looking site and packaging. I am teaching myself analog electronics design, and something to help me achieve that objective quicker would be nice. I am doing it as a hobby and don't want to spend a lot either!

I think the price of $50 or $60 for a random kit is a too expensive[1]. A better model for the product, in my opinion is a magazine + bag of parts and materials $20-$30 monthly or bi-monthly seems fair. The parts and materials could be used to build circuits and conduct experiments that help you better understand the theory.

[1]As a reference point, for probably $20, you could get yourself a TI launchpad (or similar) and a bunch of parts that would allow you to build a TON of fun and interesting circuits.

</comment><comment><USER34> So I subscribed, but the site says the next kit ships in November 2016. When do new subscribers expect to see their kits?

<comment><USER35> One of the devs here... looks like that was caused by an A/B testing template from the people dealing with marketing. It's been fixed.

edit: Just to be clear, the next kit does ship in January 2017.

<comment><USER36> A/B testing doesn't mean 30% get this bug, 30% this one, yada yada.

J/K your kit seems awesome and I think I'll subscribe myself. Want to up my electronics game so something like that might keep me on pace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is kind of like NerdKits, only NerdKits is a one-time purchase with dozens of different projects you can make.

[http://www.nerdkits.com](http://www.nerdkits.com)

</comment><comment><USER38> Love this idea. Please post some photos of the kits and example projects.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am trying to decide between Adabox from Adafruit and Thimble. Does anyone has experience with these two subscriptions?

<comment><USER40> I received the adabox second box just before Christmas. Its a ton of stuff, I feel I got far more than my $60 worth although of course its stuff they selected not stuff I selected. I did not sign up in time to get the first box, so I can't comment on the first box. I think the first box was something with RGB LEDs, looks interesting.

The second box is "make a robot" with a feather which is an adafruit thing which is a custom arduino with on board bluetooth. It looks extremely easy to me, but I am not a noob to either electronics or mechanics. Its a nice little set, everything you need to mess around with a little robot.

Its "make a robot" in the post 1990s sense of a robot is a homemade RC car with homemade UI. Not make a robot in the pre 1990s sense of its possibly a stationary arm, or its autonomous, or it does something other than be a possibly weaponized RC car. So its a rather basic homemade RC car, OK cool.

Needless to say with the holiday obligations I've done nothing with it other than watch the videos and paw it all over and there's no way I'm going to get to mess with it due to obligations etc until well after the new year.

Everything seems very well selected and packed and looks fun. It looks quite expandable. Somewhere on my cluttered workbench I have a nice IMU/magnetometer/accelerometer I2C board and I think it would be fun to bolt on. It is not maxed out and cries out to be messed with and expanded. Its open loop motors, so I'd like to use a simple IMU board to close the loop so a 90 degree turn really is 90 degrees and so on. Also I could use the magnetometer to discipline the straight line such that its really straight not a curve with a large unknown radius. That'll probably be my first experiment on my own after I complete the official published experiments.

My decades of experience with boxes implies that if a company mostly sells "stuff" and occasionally offers a box or gift basket it'll be a great deal with overstocked items marked down as much as 50%, maybe more, but if its a "gift box company" the prices of the components (perhaps a cheese log or a summer sausage) will be marked UP at least 100% to 500%. So because adafruit is mostly a "stuff seller" and not a "box seller" the box price to retail component price ratio is awesome. There must be $120+ of retail price stuff in the $60 adabox. The thimble being a company focused on selling boxes, I would assume the price ratio will be more like the "sausage and cheese holiday gift box" biz where the box is at least 200% of retail component price. I would be happy to be surprised if thimble is in fact a good value, but observations of parallel businesses implies that would be quite an achievement if they pull it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This kind of thread is exactly the reason I read HN every day. You folks all rock. You just cost me a lot of money, but it's for all kind of fun stuff I can probably use at work as an entertainment electrician.

Thanks for the Hacker Box rec too, just subscribed. My crew at work is already excited.

</comment><comment><USER42> Probably better to subscribe to something like Everyday Practical Electronics (UK) or Elektor (Netherlands) if you want some random projects. Then you get a chance to reject the ones you aren't interested in.

Anyway USD59 a month is ridiculous, you can by a big Arduino kit for less than the price of one month, for instance this one: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/New- Ultimate-UNO-R3-Starter-Kit-For-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Ultimate- UNO-R3-Starter-Kit-For-Arduino-1602-LCD-Servo-Motor-Relay-RTC- LED-/311615042684?hash=item488db4347c:g:mPgAAOSwPCVX~dlT)

After that you can just buy bits and pieces as needed.

There is no shortage of free help to be found online, all you need do is ask.

</comment><comment><USER43> Cool! I was just talking about something very similar - some kind of parent + kid project kit box, for busy parents who want to work with their kids on something but don't have the knack / time to figure it all out for themselves.

<comment><USER44> I was looking for similar as well. Have an 8 month old and plopped him down to watch the intro video and he looked pretty interested. Looks like a bunch of different learning all at once, why not try to teach algebra at an early age, or whatever the thimble website is getting at with how early a kid can start learning to code? I am running a small business and don't have the time I use to have, mucking around for parts trying to nickel and dime everything. Civil Engr over here who wants his kid to engage in this kind of stuff instead of handing a tablet over for him to watch youtube cartoons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is interesting but I'm not particularly impressed with the seemingly- outdated website. Says the next kit will ship Nov 2016? Not going to sign up for a recurring subscription for something that may never come.

</comment><comment><USER46> Was just thinking today of how to get started with hardware as a software engineer. Signing up now. Quick conversion suggestions - show real people on the landing page, show pictures of the real product.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is mildly off-topic. I just got a robot, motor shield and and Arduino for my 8 year old niece. In about 10 mins, we put the robot chassis together. The software was a different story. She had used code.org with its scratch-like blockly-based programming language. This made her think processing was too complicated and generally unappealing. Anyone else have ideas on how to deal with this?

</comment><comment><USER48> I am having trouble find an example of the kit that I would be receiving. Can anyone link me to an example, I am very interested in this .

<comment><USER49> I'm a customer, not a Thimble employee - but here are the instructions for the 1st kit:

[https://learning.thimble.io/modules/wi-fi-bot- part-1](https://learning.thimble.io/modules/wi-fi-bot-part-1)

Should give you an idea of what's included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Wow, that's really expensive.

I've subscribed to HackerBoxes since their start; significantly cheaper (sometimes thrown together and a little cheap, but never boring).

</comment><comment><USER51> So _boom!_ there are at least three of these, thimble.io, hackerboxes, and Adabox. They are all basically the same idea, every month a new "kit" of parts etc comes in. You open the box, you use the parts to build something, and then in another month something else shows up.

The weak spot in all three seems to be the curriculum.

So in general I love that this takes the 'get the stuff' problem out of the way. Sure you can buy a book on transistor projects or computer projects, but then you have to source the parts and move from there. The same issue happens with the "starter kits".

Back in the 80's and 90's a number of people made "<some#>-in-1" electronic boxes. These usually had the components mounted on a substrate and usually came in two flavors, in the first flavor everything was mounted on the substrate and you just stuck wire between springs to make your circuits[1]. Then they added a breadboard and you could wire up the basic circuit on the breadboard with the knobs and such around it[2]. And then even some compute stuff built in[3].

So what generally makes these things engaging are either they are easy to start and get more interesting as you build on your knowledge, or they culminate into something useful. There was an RCA technician training course where you built all of the components of a color television and then assembled them into the final unit[4]. You got a color TV out of it and a lucrative career in television repair :-).

I'm not trying to be dismissive of this idea, I'm trying to say that these ideas work best when they have an editorial position, a path, start points and end points. Imagine a web design "box" type product where each month you got a box with some aspect of web site design. It would include exercises and text book type material, quizzes and working problems so that at the end of each month you had mastered some part of the web service stack. So perhaps your first month would be about putting up a web server, the second month about getting keys so that it can be secured with SSL, then the third month CSS that helps style the pages, and the fourth month maybe PHP or a JS module. Each month with a digestable bit that assumes you're going to spend perhaps one or two evenings a week on the material. At the end of the year you have a full web app deployed on a droplet or something. But every month you get something that works and something that builds on the overall thing.

Electronics can do that if you pick a specific area of interest, so sensors or computers or radio or audio.

An editorial spin like that could take the box idea and take it to a whole new level I think.

[1] [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/9141qwL5XvL...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/9141qwL5XvL._SL1500_.jpg)

[2] [http://www.elenco.com/product/productdetails/project_labs=NT...](http://www.elenco.com/product/productdetails/project_labs=NTQ=/300in1_lab=Mjg2)

[3] [http://www.elenco.com/product/productdetails/project_labs=NT...](http://www.elenco.com/product/productdetails/project_labs=NTQ=/discontinued_-_500-in-1_electronic_project_lab=Mjg3)

[4] [https://books.google.com/books?id=wi0DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=wi0DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=color+television+course+build+a+tv&source=bl&ots=JtG4LsOvCQ&sig=6lyqI7Ixr- ZoQtxrcPyXoPIJVp4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD_tfz6ZPRAhUY9mMKHX5AAooQ6AEIHjAB#v=onepage&q=color%20television%20course%20build%20a%20tv&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER52> Looks promising but it would be useful . One of the problems with hardware hacking in the US is the demise of local shops like Radio Shack that sold components. It can be very intimidating to order a few parts from the big sellers like Mouser and Arrow. There are a few places that sell kits but a subscription could be a nice present for a kid. Consider advertising in senior oriented magazines since grandparents might be the main buyers for this.

</comment><comment><USER53> I've been thinking about trying to build a radio from scratch lately. Any chance a kit like that's in there?

<comment><USER54> I recall WWII PoW stories of 'foxhole' radios[1] made from rusting razors and paper clips, I always thought replicating that would be quite fun.

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

<comment><USER55> Yea man, crystal radios are great. Many books, vids and material on the subject. Think I built my fist set in primary school, winding and mounting the coils are delightfully steampunk-esqueish, building a sweet box for the thing from aromatic hardwood is a trip in itself.

Hell yes, make you some crystal radio magic, highly recommended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ryan-c I would be _really_ interested in something like this with surface mount kits.</comment>


What Earth would look like if it rotated backwards - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/dhsufx/what_earth_would_look_like_if_it_rotated_backwards/ <comment><USER2> Looks nicer, but I'd like to see a more technical report of the model. In particular, I really doubt that Central America will be so desert-like. Some from Panama told me as a joke that they only had two seasons "rainy-summer" and "very-rainy-summer". I doubt it will change.</comment>


Beginning of AirBnB - <AUTHOR>

I just read airbnb was starting in 2007 while democratic party convention. Does anyone know how they advertised airbnb to the people? Thanks. <comment><USER2> i remember listening to it here once:

[http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE](http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE)

</comment><comment><USER3> Same way they have always done it- spammed craigslist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok got it, thank you for your quick answer. Didn't know, craigslist was used for accommodations. What kind of accommodations were the convention participants looking before airbnb? I would have suggested those people were looking for hotels and thereby not searching on craigslist.</comment></comment>


Subscription Option Now Available - Hacker Monthly's Posterous - <AUTHOR> http://hackermonthly.posterous.com/subscription-option-now-available <comment><USER2> Interesting to see the digital version being charged for. How does this work with content creators? Do they get a cut? I'm guessing no.

I can understand charging for a physical copy - what with dead tress, and shipping, and all. But a digital repackaging of something already available legally for free?</comment>


Release of Typo 6.1, the oldest Rails blogging engine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.typosphere.org/release-of-typo-6-1-remi-ochlik.html We've just released the 6.1 version of Typo, the oldest blogging engine running on Ruby on Rails. It now comes with every feature you would expect from such a software. Time for you to switch from Wordpress? <comment><USER2> Nice piece of Rails code. The new admin is rather good.</comment>


Thank you Xerox (for not Patenting the GUI) - <AUTHOR> http://supercalafragilisticexpialadocio.us/thank-you-xerox-for-not-patenting-the-gui

<comment><USER2> It's worth pointing out that the most fundamental stuff came from Douglas Engelbart's SRI group, e.g. the mouse and windows: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_%28computer_system%29>

Plus Xerox _did_ sue Apple on the basis of copyright but the case was dismissed since the statute of limitations had expired.

What Xerox did and didn't do when it mattered (before this) is well described by the title of a book and the book itself: _Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Fumbling-Future-Invented-Personal- Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Fumbling-Future-Invented-Personal- Computer/dp/1583482660/))

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it had a lot to do with the mentality of the day. Back then, stuff like guis was something cool that you _did_ with patented technology, not the thing itself.

Much more recently, we've begun patenting all of the ramifications of technology as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, PARC has a history of not patenting perfectly patentable ideas. Like Ethernet.

</comment><comment><USER5> IIRC, at the time Star went to market, they couldn't patent ideas.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does Xerox still own the issuance of ethernet MAC addresses?

<comment><USER7> I think it's now done by IEEE: <http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/index.shtml>

I doubt OUIs were ever a profit center anyway.</comment></comment>