Ask HN: Anyone want to sell their side project or startup? - <AUTHOR> I am looking to buy a side project or startup that can be potentially run by a single person.
I don't want to disclose budget. For the right project and technology startup, I can put down money.
Please answer with following questions. If you are not willing to disclose data publicly, then shoot me an email.
My email is domainsurgeon at gmail.
Questions-
1. Website url
2. What the project or startup is about (one line)
3. Monthly active users
4. Source of revenue streams
5. Monthly income (if any )
6. Adsense enabled?
Thanks. <comment><USER4> You may be interested in this? [https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home](https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home)

</comment><comment><USER5> Possibly not one that can be run by one person but will add this here anyway. Been running this for the last few years, funded and self-funded, full-time and part-time and as a side project. Whilst popular with the users we have and with sounds uploaded from all over the world it never took off in the way we'd hoped and now I'm unfortunately considering shutting it down to move onto pastures new. Though I have been thinking if anyone would want the IP or the platform we've built for another purpose.

1\. Website url: [https://foundbite.co](https://foundbite.co) (Also have Android, iOS and Windows apps) 2\. What the project or startup is about (one line) \- Apps for sharing and exploring the sounds of the world. 3\. Monthly active users \- Varies but around 600-1000 for our iOS and Windows Apps and ~150 downloads per day on Android. Figures have dwindled since I stopped working on the app for obvious reasons. 4\. Source of revenue streams - <USER2> were planning on implementing sponsored foundbites but just didn't have the audience. 5\. Monthly income (if any ) £0 - current cost to run is ~£150 per month. 6\. Adsense enabled? Nope, but something we were considering.

<comment><USER6> this is an awesome idea!

<comment><USER5> Thanks Nico :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would help if you said what your goal is. Are you just looking for something that is already earning revenue, that you can tweak and maintain? Or are you looking to purchase an interesting technology startup and associated intellectual property which you can then build on?

It would also help if you gave a ballpark of your budget, otherwise you might be wasting people's time. Is it closer to $10M, $1M, or $100k?

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Website url: [http://c2x.eastros.com/](http://c2x.eastros.com/)

2\. What the project or startup is about (one line): Contacts backup and restore service

3\. Monthly active users: Will have to check, a while back were getting one backup request every 2 minutes.

4\. Source of revenue streams: In app purchase

5\. Monthly income (if any ): ~ $700/month in profits

6\. Adsense enabled?: No

</comment><comment><USER9> I created Learneroo.com for people to learn programming online. It earns revenue from members paying for full access to the site. I considered selling it when I joined Google as a software engineer, but I decided it made more sense to keep running it as a side project. However I'm open to collaborating with someone who would be interested in developing it further.

<comment><USER10> Great side project — I'm a fan of interactive tutorials like the ones you've made. Even though, not exactly the same your project reminds of the very helpful interactive textbooks on [http://interactivepython.org/runestone/default/user/login?_n...](http://interactivepython.org/runestone/default/user/login?_next=/runestone/default/index)

For someone interesting in collaborating for further development, what are your ideas for future development?

P.S. - I'm an alright Python/JavaScript programmer from Mumbai with time on my hand to work on side projects that align with my interests and I'm totally down to build stuff that helps people learn programming!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An iOS app(swift with Firebase as backend) for an organisation to chat among employees and create groups among employees and chat between them.Meetings availability of all members can be checked as well because employees can share availability through app.Very rich in UI/UX.

Just developed

dont know

zero

not yet

</comment><comment><USER12> Memetrades.com

Stock market for memes

Like 12 active users

No revenue

No income

No Adsense

How does 9001$ sound?

(It's over 9000)

<comment><USER13> This is really cool.

I have to admit that I don't like the login-via-Facebook thing though - <USER3> don't have an FB account. So I can't play with it. Something to possibly keep in mind.

<comment><USER12> This was definitely something we thought about, and the prototype ( hgreer.com/meme-dev ) used just cookie authentication. However, because each new account starts with money, we had to discourage people using multiple accounts, and Facebook auth seemed like the most effective way.

<comment><USER13> Ohh. That part I didn't actually get. _That 's actual money._

I apologize: I... I thought this was a concept, with the "money" being abstract. I'm kind of more impressed now (although slightly stunned - but not in a negative way).

I do get the rationale behind actually involving real money: I figured it would create a sense of focus and eliminates noise. And then I had a look at the prototype. :)

<comment><USER12> Oh, it's definitely fake money. Sorry for the misunderstanding

<comment><USER13> Welp!

Thanks for the clarification.

(A version with actual real money could be interesting, although the caveats and ramifications do pile up at an alarming rate. But Bitcoin was bold and daring when it started...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://giki.wiki](https://giki.wiki) , keen?

<comment><USER15> I have to say, that is very very slick!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1\. [http://isittaxed.ca](http://isittaxed.ca)

2\. World's first search engine for sales tax (Canada only)

3\. Difficult to know, since it was soft launched a few days ago

4\. Classified ads (against 12,000+ consumer goods and services in the database)

5\. Not monetized; classified ads have not been activated yet</comment>


Show HN: Liberate – Painlessly add user editable content to static HTML webpages - <AUTHOR>

Over the weekend I created a web app to scratch my own itch, called Liberate, which lets you embed user editable sections to static HTML webpages.
http://liberateapp.com
I have initial thoughts how this might be useful some folks:
1. Webmasters - plug these user editable sections into existing webpages and let your users update content themselves, without involving you.
2. Website owners – if you don't know HTML or FTP, you can get your webmaster/designer to do a one time setup and henceforth, you can update the content without involving them, saving time and money.
3. Designers – since the basic user-updatable blocks are essentially DIVs, you wouldn't be constrained by a CMS or blogging engine's template layouts – your imagination is the limit.
Really looking forward to hearing what you brilliant folks think! <comment><USER2> Watching the video, my first thought is that it's very _anti-seo_ (because it looks like you're inserting the dynamic content via JS).

If that's the case, I'd never recommend this for pages/content where seo is critical.

So, as much as I hate WordPress—and I really do—I don't see this as a viable alternative. I need more convincing ...

BTW, I don't want to just pee in your cheerios, so I will admit the actual execution/tech aspect is impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey callmeed,

That's right, I haven't found a method for content updated this way to be indexable by search engines.

While it's not going to replace server-side generated HTML, I think certain types of content that needs to be updated regularly aren't going to mean much for search engine rankings.

Announcements, promotions, product updates, statements verses of the week, are some I can think of offhand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is this different from remote CMS systems like cushycms and pagelime?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey mtogo,

Here are some differences I'm aware of:

CushyCMS – you'll have to host it on their servers.

PageLime – you'll have to provide PageLime with your FTP login credentials.

With Liberate, all you need is to get your webmaster to add in the DIVs and Javascript that Liberate gives you to the HTML page you're trying to update.

This is handy if there's an existing website that's already hosted somewhere that you'll need to update now and then, much faster than porting the whole site to CushyCMS.

Some webmasters aren't too comfortable saving FTP login credentials onto a 3rd party service either.

<comment><USER4> But technically with this solution your content will be hosted on the Liberate server too. So when that server goes down or gets slow, so does your entire website. PageLime would be the best option in that case. Allowing remote javascript on your site can be just as bad as giving FTP credentials. Besides, you can just create an FTP account for the CMS.

<comment><AUTHOR> rvschuilenburg, that's true, it's a convenience tradeoff.

On my end, I intend to grow this service at a slower, manageable pace, which which makes it easier to focus on availability for a smaller, more valued user base.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Driverless cars are going to spy on us. All the time - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/108336/driverless-cars-need-to-be-spy-machines-so-they-dont-kill-you/

<comment><USER2> I think people are willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience. They did with smartphones,cloud data, etc, but maybe the average person simply isn't aware of the implications.

</comment><comment><USER3> Driverless cars booming => more paranoid articles incoming..</comment>


FullStory – Track People in the Creepiest Way Possible - <AUTHOR> https://telegra.ph/FullStory---Track-people-in-the-creepiest-way-possible-09-18 <comment><USER3> Why just FullStory? There are tons and tons of apps that do this... [https://www.g2.com/categories/session- replay](https://www.g2.com/categories/session-replay)

It's just session replay... in 2020... if we don't want to be tracked I think it's on us at this point to use a blocker.

As someone who runs a site that uses this, I can tell you with 100% certainty that without it we (a) would not be able to optimize user experience nearly as well, (b) would not be able to serve customer support tickets nearly as well and (c) would not be able to make product decisions at the velocity we want.

Not sure what folks are doing on sites like Notion, etc. that makes session replay so creepy but also do we really think companies and startups have time to sit and watch all the user sessions?

Seems like an unfair takedown to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Why just FullStory? There are tons and tons of apps that do this?

I've clearly mentioned they are not the only ones, but the most popular.

> if we don't want to be tracked I think it's on us at this point to use a > blocker.

The main point of my post is to inform people this is happening, and use a blocker.

> As someone who runs a site that uses this, I can tell you with 100% > certainty that without it we (a) would not be able to optimize user > experience nearly as well

Everything happens in the name of user experience. There is a limit to certain things. What next? Sending an actual person to the customer and watching everything they do on their desktop to improve user exp and serve support tickets faster? Do you clearly tell your users that you are doing this?

What if I sat behind you and watched everything you do? I want to improve your web experience, help you faster and help make your product decisions at the velocity you want. Don't worry. You can use a blocker. But you don't know I am watching you tho.

> but also do we really think companies and startups have time to sit and > watch all the user sessions?

That's your excuse? Haven't you heard of artificial intelligence? It can move through thousands of recordings in minutes.

> Not sure what folks are doing on sites like Notion

Notion has another privacy issue to be concerned off. This is not their main concern. Their user generated notion pages expose the user's email, full name, the collaboraters email and full names too.

> Seems like an unfair takedown to me.

Might seem so to you. I have no problem with it, but just to clear things, I have nothing personal against them nor am I involved with any of their competitors.

<comment><USER3> > That's your excuse? Haven't you heard of artificial intelligence? It can > move through thousands of recordings in minutes.

Doing what nefarious activity exactly? I'm not sure good sir, but if we want to make mountains out of molehills we're all free to do it... it's just an analytics tool like any other with the one caveat that they recreate the screen from DOM reconstruction instead of just sending over each and every click event like every other marketing tool (Heap, Segment, Intercom - <USER2> name it).

Sure, give users an opt out and respect that but otherwise the drama around this stuff is pretty wild.

You don't use the same argument when entering a grocery store - you're being tracked all over the place. Well, when you're on my website you're on my property and I'll respect the governing rules that say what I can and can't do without permission but hey, if you don't like it... leave?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I practice Software Design? - <AUTHOR>

Hi folks. I'm currently studying software engineering and design, by reading "Software Architecture in Practice", among other books. I understand that reading alone is not enough, and I need to practice design. The question is: What's the best way to practice software design based on what's online nowadays? Is there any recommended way to do that? How can I validate my designs?<p>Hope this is not too much of a dumb question, but some help might come in handy. Thanks a lot. <comment><USER2> Practice. Lots of it.

Also, take your favorite framework and look underneath the covers to see how others have been doing it.</comment>


The Story of 2 $1 Million Projects in 24 Hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/24-hours <comment><USER2> Hi HN, Casey from the Elevation Dock project.

People use the term disruption pretty loosely, I think crowd-funding is really doing it. Goodbye middlemen, sayonara to the massive traditional barriers to entry. Hello bootstrapped projects like this that would otherwise never see the light of day.

<comment><USER3> Hi Casey,

First off - Congratulations!

I have a burning question. Have you figured out how you're going to do shipping and handling? Are you using a 3rd party to do all of the distribution, or do you have the workforce yourself to do it? Kickstarter and Amazon don't do it for you, do they?

<comment><USER4> I did calculations for my (failed) kickstarter campaign between Amazon Fulfillment and me personally packing and mailing everything.

Amazon Fulfillment would have cut my profit in half. Yes it saves you time but depending on where you live and where the fulfillment warehouse is, the size of the products you're making, and the cost of shipping them. For my specific case it wasn't worth it. Hiring a few neighbors and working out of the garage for a few days would be far more feasible.

<comment><USER5> There are cheaper alternatives then Amazon for fulfilment.

<comment><USER6> Can you list them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really starting to show the potential of Kickstarter.

So many of the successful Kickstarter projects have been unknowns. Just really smart and driven people with a dream.

If established companies can bypass publishers and investors by promising to sell a product directly to the consumer then we have a whole new ballgame here.

Double Fine has successfully funded a game where the only promise is that they will release it. That's it. No percentage of revenue to the publisher. The publisher can't demand they add DRM, etc. Their only obligation is to do what they do best because they are only answering to someone who wants a great game, not a return on their investment.

This is big.

<comment><USER8> They already decided to use DRM. They use Steam. I'd be among the backers if I would get a simple standalone installer or even zip archive without any honest-customer-punishment.

<comment><USER7> True. They've decided to go with the least invasive form of DRM that is typically excepted.

I agree with you that a stand alone installer would be best but because of how easy Steam is I am gladly willing to give them $30 for said game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One has to wonder though, if you priced out your Kickstarter project because you wanted to make one for yourself and well if you could get 100 other people to kick in you would be able to get the better price on parts, and then 10,000 people kick in and now you're looking at something which was 'spend the weekend building up a hundred or so foo-widgets' becomes 'spend the next six months building 10 thousand foo-widgets' that has to suck.

<comment><USER10> I think that's a problem we'd all like to have.

<comment><USER9> Actually its not. Let me phrase it differently and you tell me if you'd volunteer :-)

"Hi! I need you to work for slave labor wages for the next six months, if you don't you are going to be pilloried and your reputation destroyed, no one will ever work with you ever again, you may not be able to find future employment.

How about it?"

The situation arises when you haven't covered all of the possibilities. Generally the one over looked by Kickstarter participants is the 'wildly successful' one. The dilemma is as follows, to make one of something by hand might take an hour of your time. If you are going to make 10 you might create a couple of frames or something to hold parts to make it go more smoothly so it takes three or four hours, to make 100 might involve some slightly more elaborate frames and all weekend. Now if you've priced your kickstarter such that you 'make' a couple of dollars on each unit, then you've spent your weekend making a hundred widgets and you've got $200 to show for it. If you need to make 10,000 things get more complicated. You can invest in more sophisticated jigs and holders (that eats into your profit), or more sophisticated machinery (that eats into your profit), or more help (that hugely eats into your profit) So you still 'make money' after making 10,000 but its like $2,000 over 6 months, rather than $200 over a weekend. I suspect you could find better work for $350/month. However if you had priced your widget such that you could make money building 10,000 of them, well then you're golden because you've included the cost of paying for tooling at a small factory nearby and having _them_ make the widgets. Now the second 10,000 are like 'free' since you've already got the overhead of setting up manufacturing paid for. The downside is that at the higher cost your Kickstarter might not fund that many.

Its just a cautionary tale for would-be kick starters to think though the various scenarios and internalize what each scenario would mean to them and then price out accordingly.

<comment><USER11> Really interesting point, but since kickstarters aren't technically obligated to offer their product as an incentive, it would be pretty simple to get around that without messing with pricing by just saying 'first N backers get a widget' (though, this in itself does also require the foresight to consider your scenario).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So if Blizzard does a Kickstarter and raises $10M in pre-sales for a new game, is that within the mission of the site? I was under the impression that it was a site for projects by people who otherwise wouldn't be able to fund them. This seems to be pushing that boundary.

<comment><USER13> I'd rather rephrase the question to ask generally what it would take to break the spirit of the site. A lot of projects already use it as a shop-like site.

And as far as big companies are concerned, Kickstarter and Amazon take a combined 7.9% cut, which is quite significant.

I'm also not entirely sure whether companies with DRM-encumbered games will manage to attract donours in a similar fashion to Double Fine who seem to be using the Steam platform, which is widely used and loved.

Blizzard could probably pull it off with their games (MMOs not included) because of Battle.net, but it would turn into a major shitstorm, if they funded something like Call of Duty, which is a magnet to controversy and uproar. Then there would be the ensuing hell of charge-backs and refunds.

With Kickstarter, you generally invest in an idea more so than a product. What but a product do you invest in by giving Blizzard money? With Double Fine, you revive the adventure genre, have a chance of disrupting the videogame industry and bring back some of the biggest videogame developer legends and give them free reins over their product without having to go hat in hand and pander to producers. With Blizzard, it would just be business as usual.

I don't know whether Kickstarter will ever lose its indie feel, but if it does, or some project starters do, they will be subjected to a level of scrutiny orders of magnitude higher than what we are used to.

I think Kickstarter projects depend more on goodwill than most of us imagine.

<comment><USER14> Steam games are DRM encumbered. If Valve decide they don't like you any more, you can no longer play the games on your Steam account.

<comment><USER13> I didn't mean that as mutually exclusive but yes, Steam - obviously comes with DRM. Valve have so much goodwill that it isn't a problem with its users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats to Kickstarter!! This is the type of win-win startup I want to create/work at. Gives a simple example of pg's essay about wealth not being a fixed cake to share but that it can be created (<http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>).

Two things that piqued my interest:

1) They kept saying that they were refreshing the project page to say when it'll hit 1M. Surely a company like Kickstarter has created visualization tools that create nice, real-time graphs of selected projects. No?

2) "After not having a single million dollar project in Kickstarter's first two-plus years, there are suddenly two within four hours of each other." Call it black swan, non-normality, heavy tail, whatever, this shows how common (and lumped) rare events are.

<comment><USER16> > 1) They kept saying that they were refreshing the project page to say when > it'll hit 1M. Surely a company like Kickstarter has created visualization > tools that create nice, real-time graphs of selected projects. No?

I found that odd as well. Where's the websocket goodness?

<comment><USER17> This just in: Web-socket powered dashboards not necessary for success.

<comment><USER16> You're right - they're not. I'm not trying to argue that they are, though. I just assumed that a company that's dependent on projects succeeding to make their living would have something more than "keep hitting refresh" in place to track big projects like these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is the money raised through Kickstarter seen as income, and therefore, taxable (meaning that 20-30% of the final amount raised is lopped off)?

<comment><USER19> Trade of money in return for promise of a future good/service is unquestionably income in the US, but that does not necessarily imply that sort of marginal rate. For example, if the money hits a corporate entity who hires programmers with it, the corp will use their salaries as an expense to offset that income.

Similarly, if you raise $25k to make a foobar and spend $20k on materials, you'd only owe taxes on the profit.

I am not an accountant, etc.

<comment><USER20> > For example, if the money hits a corporate entity who hires programmers with > it, the corp will use their salaries as an expense to offset that income.

Or, to my understanding, even if it goes to a person. Being a sole proprietor does not preclude you from deducting your business expenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think Kickstarter is the most interesting thing happening on the net today. Simply because it aggregates the most interesting things happening in the real world, by its very nature. Browsing Kickstarter has actually become a fun activity for me.

It's such a simple and genius way of directly connecting producers and consumers, reducing risk for both parties, verifying ideas, creating relationships. So elegant. The number of opportunities this is going to enable is staggering. And Kickstarter themselves, do they have any overhead? These guys are going to be printing money.

And being a patron is fun!

One thing I'm curious about is Kickstarter's exposure to someone who fails to produce the promised rewards for funding. As a funder/patron, do I have any recourse for a producer failing to uphold their end of the bargain?

<comment><USER22> There's no guarantee that a project will be successful – your funds are treated as a donation. Here's a story from a few weeks ago of a failed kickstarter: [http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for- kickstart...](http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for-kickstarter- creators-from-the-worst-project-i-ever-funded-on-kickstarter.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I love how enthusiastic the Kickstarter team looks in those photos - it's awesome for them to be able to share in the success of the projects on their platform.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows and what other projects crop up now that people have seen this incredible milestone passed.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is really inspiring to see.

I give my respect, admiration, to the empowerment Kickstarter is enabling in the world. People say they do crap like empowerment all the time.. Kickstarter seems to say very little themselves, all I hear is the success stories.

It's a delightfully simple concept: Put a great idea out there and let it be loved and supported.

Ideas that wouldn't have seen the light of day are, fuelled by early adopters and pioneers.

Being on the web for almost 2 decades makes everything look the same, or at least kind of blur together over time.

For me, with information and innovation; since Gutenberg, the web really was the second big thing.

Maybe enablers like Kickstarter are part of the third leap for our world where they are creating change in the real world from innovation.

I've rarely seen something successful on Kickstarter I didn't want to buy. Normally I can't decide as quickly on items in the retail market that compete with it.

The continued popping up of Kickstarter stories and dreams becoming a reality have made me think about all those things I wondered about.

Could they become a reality? Where could I start learning about how to kickstart something successfully? (I Might be a search or two away but the feeling of possibility is great.)

</comment><comment><USER25> This must be the epitome of feel-good startup stories. Congrats to everyone involved!

</comment><comment><USER26> Congratulations to all concerned. I think the Kickstarter model is really powerful, and it's exciting to see that these projects have got off the ground, but - without wanting to be party pooper - what happens if a fundraiser can't deliver?

It seems that Kickstarter have an incentive to raise as much money as possible. After all, they take their 5% - so as a company they've taken over $100,000 in the last 24 hours from two projects alone. Spending a vast amount of money without the necessary battle-scars and bruises gained from experience, is likely to involve a steep learning curve.

Bringing a product to market isn't easy. The fundraisers in question are in a unique position, because they have their buyers' attention and money from the start. This has to be a great thing, and to large extent levels the playing field and creates a great environment for innovation .. BUT, the hard work has just begun.

I can't help feeling that this model of funding is about to gain even more popularity - but could eventually open up a can of worms.

<comment><USER27> What I see as a problem is a failure by some projects to manage expectations. I think that a lot of people who are backing projects like this don't realise that they are not pre-ordering anything, they're making a contribution to the project startup costs and _hopefully_ they'll receive one or more of that product when manufacturing begins. I've seen comments on some Kickstarter projects that have slipped on shipping deadlines that don't seem to indicate that the commenter understands the uncertainty of funding a project like this.

I don't think there's much risk backing an experienced person with a ready to be manufactured product, and I've backed several such projects on Kickstarter, but I think that backers need to remember that part of the Kickstarter proposition is that you get discounts on products like this as a reward for putting in fixed upside risk capital.

<comment><USER26> So is the contribution a donation?

<comment><USER27> I think that might be an open legal question, if you use the word pre-order all over your Kickstarter page you might be creating a situation where you're on the hook, legally speaking for fulfilling those orders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> KickStarter is one of the very few businesses that's truly innovating / disrupting anything right now.

Then Stripe.

Then CloudFlare (I really like their story and pivot).

<comment><USER29> Don't forget Khan Academy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> For Kickstarter, business model... Validated! Great job guys congrats! What a great story of someone not playing the startup lottery and winning.

</comment><comment><USER31> Kickstarter continues to prove that good ideas spread quickly. Where websites show viral growth in user visits, kickstart shows it with real dollars for real products. Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing this post- it lets the community get an insider view of the excitement.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is going to put Kickstarter well and truly in the public eye and, as a result, bring many more potential wallets browsing the site. Great time to be an entrepreneurial industrial designer in the US.

Just wish it was open to those outside the US as well.

</comment><comment><USER32> Every startup should be like a Kickstarter project. Show your concept, find customers who pre-purchase, build product, deliver and scale.

Grow organically.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why din't Raspberry Pi use Kickstarter?

<comment><USER27> Kickstarter is US only, isn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why is Ron Gilbert nowhere to find in the celebration photo? Is he really that grumpy & shy?

<comment><USER35> Maybe he was smiling and didn't want to be caught on camera (It would reduce the value of the $35k reward)</comment></comment>


The Russian Peasant Algorithm [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://lafstern.org/matt/col3.pdf <comment><USER2> I'm a Russian peasant and I don't understand this at all.</comment>


101 Classic Computer Ads - <AUTHOR> http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/08/101-classic-computer.html

<comment><USER2> Who's keeping up with the commodore?

[http://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/303363480_7cfe9c070a.jpg?...](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/303363480_7cfe9c070a.jpg?v=0)</comment>


Show HN: Imgur for QR-Codes - <AUTHOR> http://qrawl.in/

<comment><USER2> Nice idea but this will require users to install your app right. I also created a qr code customize website maybe you can utilize it in some manner: [http://www.qrunched.com](http://www.qrunched.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback. But I did not want to market the app. Therefore no link here. Thank you for the link, will check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I still don't understand what this is. I only see a lot of screenshots of random websites.

Can I submit a URL? Can I submit a QR??

<comment><AUTHOR> Good questions. Thank you :-) Well, what it does simply show which qr-codes were scanned in China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan. It is a way of finding new content. Users of one of our apps can submit to the website and have this content shown. ...does it make more sense?

<comment><USER3> I expect at least a link to download your app. The logo and name on the top are only a gift and text, (I think that) they must have links to the app or your main webpage.

Also, there are many dupes or quasi-dupes. For example, all the Facebook pages look alike. They probably require some login information to provide the image. The Youtube pages also look similar. They need more render time to get the main a good image of the video.

Also, is there any privacy concern? DO the users know that the page from the QR is made public?

And how do you filter NSFW content?</comment></comment></comment>


Is it Sexist to Recruit Women in Tech? - <AUTHOR> http://julieannhorvath.com/2013/10/10/is-it-sexist-to-recruit-women.html <comment><USER2> This is a common topic of discussion on HN.

I'll risk downvotes to create a discussion in a sometimes touchy subject.

STEM fields aren't the only ones with large gender imbalances. Others include elementary school teaching, nursing, garbage collecting, road maintenance, and many others.

Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field?

Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage?

Why or why not? I don't have the answers, although I don't think male-only scholarships exist to promote male teachers (though I think society would benefit from it) nor female-only apprenticeships to promote women going into construction or garbage collection (though I think society would benefit from it, and would probably result in making the fields safer).

I'm curious what people say. If nothing else, if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others.

<comment><USER3> I'll jump into this touchy subject. The reason why there are not efforts to balance the other fields you mention is because of the "position of power"/"social prestige" of said jobs. I don't think anyone can debate that due to complicated social/economic issues, but significantly sexism/racism, the history of USA shows that jobs with power/prestige are usually held by white males. Oprah Winfrey crying at Obama's speech wouldn't of happened if Obama just became the first black garbage man. It was about the power/prestige of a black man being USA president. Sexism pretty much puts women as teachers & nurses and "men"(or society in general) is apparently fine with that. Road maintenance, garbage collection? Those are low-prestige & physical/dirty work. That's for minorities & men. Society(sexism) probably prevents most women from even considering those jobs and the few that do, I'm sure are greeted with an insane amount of inappropriate jokes/comments. Now, since positions of power/prestige tend to have a much greater impact on overall society, having some balance in those positions will help make products & laws more diverse to reflect the diverse society we're in. BTW, this is why I find it ridiculous the concept of exclusively men making laws on abortion.

Anecdotal: When I was a kid, I had to take some kind of "development" test to see if I was generally progressing properly. I failed that test, the results stated things such as "No solid understanding of reality vs fantasy". My parents were livid. They went to school to complain. Turns out, _a lot_ of parents were complaining. Also turns out, all the complaining parents were foreigners. And it also turned out that the questions on the test had a heavy assumption that you were an american child with american parents. I didn't know what a pizza was when I was a kid; that's one of the questions I bombed. My parents never got it for me; at least not yet. The school ended up having to put the test-questions through some kind of minority/foreign-parents verification process and re-do the tests for everyone.

<comment><USER4> Historically, programming was low-prestige as well.

<comment><USER3> True, but the background required for it... math & science, that was historically a "man's skill"(sexism). Women went to school for things related to home-making, if they went to school at all.

That's why this story has an impact: [http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans- story.ht...](http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.html)

EDIT: Wow, this story fell off the frontpage fast...

<comment><USER4> I think you have your timelines mixed up a bit. In 1995, right before the tech bubble, programming was definitely low prestige and women were definitely already well educated, earning about half of the college degrees.

In fact, there's a direct cause and effect going on--programming became high prestige, which caused the feminist hullabaloo about not having enough women programmers that we see today. If programming was already high prestige this would not be news to us and there would already be more women programmers, just as people in the past were obsessed with having more women doctors and lawyers and now there are lots of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes. If you're discriminating on the basis of gender, how is that not sexist?

<comment><USER6> Using a definition that simple, most people in the world are deeply sexist.

<comment><USER7> Yes, and...?

When someone self-identifies as 'not a sexist' they also implicitly identify as a liar. To think we can ever get past discrimination -- sex, race, or whatever -- is extremely naive. It is as fundamental to us as making the distinction between 'me' and 'not me'.

<comment><USER6> The issue starts to become semantic. If by "discrimination" we just mean "recognizing differences and making decisions based on those differences," then it obviously shouldn't carry a stigma. But usually "discrimination" is being used to refer to _unfair_ or _undesirable_ decisions based on differences, and in this case we need to define what is and isn't fair or desirable.

<comment><USER7> If you take action based on a recognition of difference, a value judgement is implied. For example choosing action A over B implies a preference for action A, even if you don't consciously think of it that way. So it is hard to see how any human endeavour can ever be free of discrimination in the moral sense you're talking about. Every decision we make discriminates against someone or something in an 'unfair' manner, basically.

<comment><USER6> But why are all preferences "unfair"? What about preferences in partners, i.e. heterosexuality or homosexuality?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As somebody who is in a hiring position and aspires to a more gender-balanced work-place, I've found it really disheartening that so few applicants are female. We have mostly male developers and leadership, so I understand that a female coming into our office might not feel particularly attracted to it. I guess it is a slow process to try to improve that situation.

<comment><USER9> I don't think that having mostly men as coworkers is a deterrent. I had a conversation with a co-worker about general work life in our company. There are no work from home opportunities and no paid time off for maternity leave. Most of my (male and female) coworkers like the idea of a work from home or alternative work schedule (4x10 or 9x9 days) but only women commented about better maternity practices. Don't be disheartened by the few number of applicants, that's more due to there being less women in general with the skills needed. I agree don't hire for token numbers, but work on retention, see what keeps them.

Also work with community to encourage both boys and girls into your field. Women get discouraged not when its time to find a job, it starts when they are learning what they are supposed to do (good and bad of gender roles).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it racist to recruit Black's and Hispanic's in Tech? Asian's in Hollywood, Politics, and Sports?

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't think it is sexist, but I think its misguided. Maybe I lack the data, but it seems to me that forcibly encouraging companies to hire more women only seems to mask the real problem. Is the problem really top-down or is it bottom up?

For example, a couple months ago I read this report on bitcoin adoption that said bitcoin users were 92% male. If we assume this report is correct, then why? If bitcoin, (pretend with me here), is going to be the next driver in the global economy, why is it so heavily male dominated? Bitcoin is fairly anonymous and low entry. Now in our world where Bitcoin rules, if our bitcoin overlords were 92% male, who do we blame for this gender homogeneity?

Now, I may be ignorant in the latest innovations of public schooling, but is the problem that "Brogrammers" are refusing to hire women, or are women just not entering into CS/STEM tracks, and if the problem is the latter, wouldn't it be more sustainable to force our efforts into public schooling rather than constantly remind HN that if our company doesn't have a female mixer we are doing it wrong?

I really hope I'm right with this, and I'm really excited for BlackGirlsCode ([http://www.blackgirlscode.com/](http://www.blackgirlscode.com/)). With this organization's efforts I hope in the next 10-15 years we see a growth of talented female/black developers leading to a more concentrated effort on the source of this problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are many gradients of inequality, and only one true equality. Anything that isn't true equality is inequality.

Is giving a helping hand to disadvantaged minorities an exercise in promotion of equality? I don't think so. So is it a bad thing? Not always.

</comment><comment><USER13> > I remember I was helping out a friend with a side project after work one > day. We sat down and spent the night writing code together. It was just > so...easy. To get along, to get on the same page, our arguments were > productive and from the minute we sat down together there was an immediate > sense that we respected each other.

She get's along better with a person that has more in common with her. The outcome of this is kind of ironic, if you think that the purpose of these initiatives is 'diversity'.

<comment><USER5> That's the part that I found a little funny too. Sure, it's a lot more pleasant to work closely with somebody you get along well with, but I don't really see what gender has to do with that. I guess she doesn't get along with the men she works with all that well, but being a guy myself, I don't necessarily enjoy working closely with every guy I've worked with just because we're both men. If there were 50 women developers at her company, would she enjoy working with every one of them? Or if there are 50 men and she doesn't enjoy working with any of them, then that's a little odd too.

<comment><USER14> She probably gets along great with her male colleagues. But if she is straight (I don't know if she is), and she was with a straight, male colleague after work, and spent "the night writing code together", there would probably be at least some romantic tension.

At work, it's possible to have none, because everyone is a professional and we all understand the boundaries. But once you're _electing_ to spend time with a person outside of work hours, then it can become ambiguous, and one party may feel compelled to say "By the way, this isn't a date...". If she is straight, and she is spending time with a straight female colleague, then that tension is not present at all.

When you're a straight guy, working almost exclusively with straight guys, then this doesn't have to enter your thinking.

<comment><USER13> This is real life we're talking about, not a romantic comedy.

<comment><USER14> I don't see how what I described has anything to do with a romantic comedy. I think it's completely reasonable that women may not feel immediately comfortable spending after-work time with male colleagues. But, with a fellow female colleague, there is no ambiguity.

<comment><USER13> > I think it's completely reasonable that women may not feel immediately > comfortable spending after-work time with male colleagues.

Yes, that might be the case for a lot of women. In Saudi Arabia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure I follow this logic. She fessed up to pushing a sexist hiring policy and then tried to justify it by explaining it's just because she enjoys working with other females more?

Well, I enjoy a good laugh... and sexist jokes often make me laugh. Should I apologize?... I feel like I should.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'll believe that "tech" is interested in diversity when it stops being married to nerd-culture. Tech seems to be just as homogenus as any other subculture, and people within it actively encourage it with trying to playfully out-nerd each other with whatever slightly obsessive quirks are in vogue.

<comment><USER16> > "I'll believe that "tech" is interested in diversity when it stops being > married to nerd-culture."

I hope that will never happen. Being a nerd is not a fashion statement, it's a way of thinking, which happens to drive the progress of technology.

<comment><USER13> But is the nerd "way of thinking" the only way to achieve things like that? Or is it just that being mired in such a homogeneous culture makes it _seem_ like the two are inextricably and inevitably linked?</comment></comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg's Statement on Russian Election Meddling - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4952391/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-russia-meddling-congress/ <comment><USER2> Which is basically only about ads. No mention of astroturfing and the use of platforms like Facebook to spread "news" of things that never happened. Weak sauce.</comment>


Show HN: Volley, a friendly place for helping others - <AUTHOR> http://volley.help

<comment><USER2> Oh man, you went right for my knees with this one. [http://cl.ly/image/3a3t2O2M2H1W](http://cl.ly/image/3a3t2O2M2H1W)

Not a sign up flow I haven't seen improved by a giant dinosaur. :) Anyway, great first moment on that email. So many people waste that moment. What I love more than Godzilla is the giant call to action Sign In button. No confusion what to do next there.

Next step, I don't love so much. [http://cl.ly/image/3H2X1U380v3J](http://cl.ly/image/3H2X1U380v3J)

I'm trying to reply to someone. You make me confirm my email…Okay. I get through that hurdle and then bam, another door. Fill up my profile. You're a big tease. I think I'm done and you make me fill out another form.

I'm like five, ten, i don't know how many clicks in just to reply to this first person. I've seen worse and if you didn't show me an ancient fighting monster from my childhood, I might have given up sooner. What I noticed, however, was all you needed was my name to reply.

Here's a suggestion: Ask for my name after I reply to the person. You got my email so you can bother me to fill out the rest later. More importantly, get my comment or reply to this person. It's a miracle you got me back to the site…those email confirmation flows really kill conversion/engagement rates. Don't squander that.

That all being said, you've got good people making it through the flow. These discussions are pretty good, especially in the startup dedicated questions:

[https://volley.works/topic/Startups](https://volley.works/topic/Startups)

Excited to see where this goes next. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Kevin,

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. And happy to hear that you liked our welcome Godzilla -- definite shout-out to Wufoo's dinosaur there :)

I totally agree that our sign-up flow has far too much friction, and you're spot on that all we need from new users is their full name.

While I like your suggestion of prompting for the user's name after they submit their reply, since Volley is a place to get help from real people, we believe it's super important to avoid all anonymous content, as well as all feelings of creating content anonymously. People just behave differently if they don't know that they have to "Own Their Own Words" ([https://github.com/VolleyIndustries/readme/blob/master/etiqu...](https://github.com/VolleyIndustries/readme/blob/master/etiquette.md)).

Here's our proposed improvement: upon signing up to Volley with your email, we'll also prompt that you enter your full name, but instead of bringing you out of Volley to your email, we'll automatically create an unverified account for you so you can reply right away. I think this gives us the best of both worlds: the benefits of our passwordless sign-up process without the friction of having to bring you to your profile before creating content.

Would love your thoughts on the improvement; we'll be shipping it this week!

Thanks again for the feedback, Kevin, Mike

<comment><USER2> I actually predicted your response to my name suggestion in regards to needing the name. :) To be clear, I don't think you should not collect it, just change how you do it. The new proposed approach sounds promising and it's good to see you move fast!</comment></comment></comment>


China nationalists hijack pro-Hong Kong protest T-shirt listings on Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-nationalists-hack-pro-hong-kong-protest-tshirts-on-amazon-113047095.html <comment><USER2> So China (or pro-China individuals) think that selling pro-HongKong tee shirts on Amazon, _in the US_ , "ignored Chinese rules"? And why do they think we need to pay attention to Chinese rules in order to buy and sell stuff in the US? We live by _US_ rules over here, thank you very much. One of those rules is the First Amendment.

We don't really care what your rules are over there. If you like them, great. You live under them. We're not going to.

<comment><USER3> ignored the Chinese rules which America admitted. China will not sell 'Hawaii Independent ' clothes because we should obey the American rules which China admitted</comment></comment>


Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For? - brown9-2 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/technology/tech-workers-ask-censorship-surveillance.html <comment><AUTHOR> "In June, more than 100 students at Stanford, M.I.T. and other top colleges signed a pledge saying they would turn down job interviews with Google unless the company dropped its Project Maven contract. (Google said that month that it would not renew the contract once it expired.) "We are students opposed to the weaponization of technology by companies like Google and Microsoft," the pledge stated. "Our dream is to be a positive force in the world. We refuse to be complicit in this gross misuse of power."

This is an incredibly powerful message. I don't know how I missed hearing about this. A bunch of students getting together brought Google to its knees.

Now these brave students must stand up to Facebook and its rapidly shrinking signing bonuses before they move too fast and break reality again.

</comment><comment><USER2> Money, people. You're building this for money. Not everything has to be glamorous and inspiring or for a greater cause. People like garbage men live with the fact that their job isn't "Instagrammable". Tech has been the exception.

<comment><USER3> The company does things for money, irrespective of the "moral hazard" of sending people to jail for looking up events that actually happened, or for providing government access to all phone calls and messages.

Inidividuals however can enact change as long as enough refuse to work on such tech.</comment></comment>


Why are Nodejitsu registering the npm trademark - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nodejitsu.com/protecting-npm/

<comment><USER2> So Isaac Schlueter's new company, npm Inc, takes VC and then starts sending out legal threats immediately. nodejitsu decides to play that game and points out that it's been working on the npm trademark which, if granted, would likely force Isaac's new company to change it name.

Am I understanding this all correctly?

I can't see how any of this good for the node community, but then again I couldn't see how npm, Inc was good for the node community either.

<comment><USER3> No, you are not understanding this all correctly. By the time our lawyers got involved, I had already tried at length to reach resolution amicably.

You're seeing a small piece of a conversation taken out of context. Also, they filed the trademark the day _before_ that letter was sent, so it could not have been "in response"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't help feel this was partly fueled by npm Inc asking Arnout Kazemier (Nodejitsu's Lead Software Engineer - [https://www.nodejitsu.com/company/](https://www.nodejitsu.com/company/)) to change the name of his package from npmjs to something else. ([https://medium.com/p/271013ff33c5](https://medium.com/p/271013ff33c5))

<comment><USER3> The trademark filing happened 2 weeks before my request for Arnout to rename his module.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While it makes me sad that this is happening, this actually makes me believe that Node must be valuable now that the sharks are coming out. The question is - will this harm the community or will it make it be stronger? Also - why is there not a similar lawsuit for "node" part of nodejitsu?

</comment><comment><USER6> Mikeal wrote a response here: [https://gist.github.com/mikeal/9242748](https://gist.github.com/mikeal/9242748).

So much drama though, I can barely piece together what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nodejitsu pulling an Oracle.</comment>


Top 6 Web Browsers You Probably Haven't Heard Of - <AUTHOR> http://crenk.com/top-6-web-browsers-you-probably-havent-heard-of/

<comment><USER2> I love how Firefox which at one time was considered a lightweight version of Mozilla now has it's own light-weight variant.

<comment><USER3> I found an old Phoenix (ver 0.1) binary a while back, super small and snappy. Didn't even have Add-on support then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You probably haven't heard of them for a good reason...

<comment><USER5> I thought the same thing before I opened the article; however, I had heard of two of them.

But this forum is full of hackers who create web apps and even though the browsers may be fun for testing, I am doubtful any of those are great tools for dev work seeing as they aren't anything close to even a trivial piece of the browser market share.

Either way, I was appreciative of learning about new browsers. A couple of them look like the could be worth candidates to try firebug on =]

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Damn, and I thought I was going go get go read about obscure browsers I work with like Fresco, Galio, Ekioh or Ipanel to name a few.

</comment><comment><USER7> Most of these look like just extensions of the "big" ones, optimized for specific purposes...

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I'm genuinely irritated at myself for now having heard about Lunascape. Trying it out now, and am impressed so far, recommended for web devs/designers out there:

<http://www.lunascape.tv/>

<comment><USER9> Why don't you get happy with yourself for finding this information, instead?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A browser that is not mentioned but I highly recommend over anything else: <http://www.twotoasts.de/index.php?/pages/midori_summary.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> Also: Shiira [<http://shiira.jp/en.php>] (Mac OS X only)

<comment><USER12> I was all excited until this:

 _Shiira 2.2 (for Mac OS X 10.4, Universal Binary) (released on 2007/7/18)_

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, the ones I haven't heard of are all Mac OS specific. Not a surprise, since I prefer Ubuntu.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'll take your six and raise you

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra_%28web_browser%29>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaco_%28web_browser%29>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_%28web_browser%29></comment>


Tech Mugshots - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/262054/Tech-Mugshots <comment><USER2> Cheap slideshow link-bait but kind of a nice historical archive to have</comment>


Criminal complaint against agents in Silk Road investigation [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf <comment><USER2> For the source in the document go to the bottom of page 3 and top of page 4.

> "FORCE stole and converted to his own personal use a sizeable amount of > bitconins that DPR sent to FORCE in FORCE's official undercover capacity > rather than turning those bitcoin over to the government, FORCE deposited > them into his own personal accounts;"

<comment><USER3> It gets worse.

<comment><USER2> It really does

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's -- astoundingly -- worse than you think it is.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure it was just a few "bad apples", yes?

<comment><USER6> And the phrase is "a few bad apples spoil the barrel" which makes the "bad apples" defence bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a surprisingly good explanation of cryptocurrency in the link, dare I say better than Wikipedia even. I may have a new link to send non-computer people when they ask me what Bitcoin is.

Thanks justice.gov!

</comment><comment><USER8> Evidence of a culture where this attitude and conduct seemingly runs rampant.

If he hadn't tried to impede on the investigation, would a blind eye have been turned?

How many other agents personally benefit from such busts?

</comment><comment><USER9> The more interesting aspect, IMO, was that one of the federal agents extorted DPR for hundreds of thousands of dollars with the promise to withhold information from the government.

<comment><USER10> The most interesting alleged fact is that these agents used the credentials of C.G. (a DPR employee) to steal 20,000 BTC from Silk Road. That caused DPR to suspect C.G. of the theft, and DPR then paid one of the agents even more BTC for a contract hit on C.G. (which the agents were trying to fake).

Better than The Wire!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I am involved in an investigation into members of the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force..."

Good god. It's right out of "The Wire".

</comment><comment><USER12> Can't wait for the movie... where everyone just sits behind the computer typing and clicks all day long...

It is very weird that a undercover agent that investigates this kind of thing is that bad at covering it up.</comment>


Uber for Pets – Schedule a Pet Ride to Groomer, Daycare, Boarding - <AUTHOR> http://www.bibonow.com <comment><AUTHOR> What do you guys think, do you think there is a potential need for this?</comment>


Learning to cope with dysgraphia - <AUTHOR> http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/learning-to-cope-with-dysgraphia/ <comment><USER2> My first thought was that dysgraphia was a breakdown in the linguistic construction of a sentence, etc., but then I remembered the word "aphasia", so I had to look them up:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia)

I wonder why the keyboard solution to dysgraphia is easier than handwriting, when both seem to require fine motor skills?</comment>


New 2014 Mac Mini Has Soldered RAM, Not User Replaceable - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/17/mac-mini-soldered-ram/

<comment><USER2> Quad-core Xeon Dell T20 costs $500 for those who want power.

Intel NUC / Gigabyte Brix for those who want small size.

Unfortunate that Apple is crippling the Mini. Why? It's a big price step up to the Mac Pro.</comment>


Dutch Parliament: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/dutch-parliament-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111224/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I think the Dutch are on the right track here. The one thing that is at the core of all of this is the fact that the Internet doesn't work with the old business model of the entertainment industry, i.e. selling units. SOPA and all that other crap is to make the Internet adjust to the business models of old.

I'd be more than happy sign up for an excellent streaming server provided by the entertainment industry and pay some reasonable monthly fee. Of course, I can't sign up to Netflix, Hulu or any of that since I don't live in the States. I think this is another issue you can bring up. A lot of content is pirated overseas since overseas doesn't have, easy, access to it.</comment>


Crazy Swedes travels through the desert on a land sailing vessel - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/97fjOmGg2jc

<comment><AUTHOR> Yesterday, the speed record was 43 km/hour

More pictures and text (in Swedish): <http://blogg.gp.se/wallgrenbloggen/></comment>


Carmack Not Impressed With Next-Gen Console Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomsguide.com/us/John-Carmack-Next-Generation-Console-virtual-reality-Doom-3,news-15618.html <comment><USER2> Thanks for spamming hacker news with multiple of the same article. I hope your karma rating is worth the damage it does to the community.

<comment><AUTHOR> "The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: both civil and substantial. [...] Which brings us to the most important principle on HN: civility. Since long before the web, the anonymity of online conversation has lured people into being much ruder than they'd dare to be in person. So the principle here is not to say anything you wouldn't say face to face." -- <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html></comment></comment>


Meredith Levien Wants the NYT to Be a World Class Tech Company - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meredith-levien-wants-the-nyt-to-be-a-world-class-tech-company <comment><USER2> Can anyone get behind this paywall?</comment>


Maddox on Link-Baiting Aggregation Sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks <comment><USER3> This is the state of the Internet under the DMCA--anyone can post or repost anything, even if they don't own it, and it is the burden of the original content owner to find each instance of unauthorized use and request it be taken down.

Part of Maddox's post addresses the frustration this can cause among people who create original content for a living. It seems to me that this frustration drives a lot of the worst impulses of groups like the RIAA and MPAA.

It also seems likely to me that there could be good technological solutions to the problem, that don't require lawsuits and crazy new laws. However, there is no incentive for people to develop these technological solutions. Instead the financial incentives (in this case, ad revenue) drive tech folks to build stupid sites like Ranker.com.

Acknowledged: I'm only addressing part of the story here...the friendly "you might like this!" emails are ridiculous. It's probably some 20 year old making 8 dollars an hour sending them...the 21st century equivalent of the telemarketer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely agree with you -- but I do think it's a double-edged sword. On one hand a lot of unauthorized content gets posted and people get frustrated because their original content is ripped/duplicated (with other people sometimes taking credit!), but on the other hand, the ease with which people can post stuff also leads to greater exposure.

Any extra steps to post content can mean the difference between something going viral and something remaining unseen in the dark corners of the Internet. I don't know if this is a good comparison, but this reminds me of the piracy study[1] that said piracy was beneficial for sales. These lists are a way of "pirating"/distributing content, though it seems without any real gain to the original creator due to lack of attribution (that's where the comparison definitely breaks down). I suppose the two would be more similar if you could somehow watermark the content to somehow point it back at the creator

Obviously, this method is really annoying for a lot of us, but the fact that it works so well and is generating all that traffic, likens it to all that Viagra spam we get -- people keep clicking! I don't know if there's any amount of technology that will help people gain common sense

[1] [http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-piracy-boosts-music- sales...](http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-piracy-boosts-music-sales-study- finds-120517/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just signed up for Ranker to figure out the email situation for Maddox.

\- They send through mailgun.net.

\- Mailgun.net doesn't include list-unsubscribe header, which means that spam reports from Google apps/gmail won't back to the sender.

\- If no unsubscribe link is included, then CAN-SPAM is not being followed either.

So if you wanted to unsubscribe from this, the only way to do it is mail the list owner directly (in this case, Nicole).

Suggestions:

\- Mailgun needs to implement list-unsubscribe if they want to get back spam reports from ISPs that don't support ARF/JMRP.

\- Mailgun should ensure their customers adhere to CAN-SPAM laws, which requires a working "opt-out" link.

</comment><comment><USER5> It was satisfying to have this pattern defined by someone. If there is a content akin to peanut butter cups and dollar menu meals, these aggregation sites are the best fit. And, like a peanut butter cup left at my keyboard, when I happen upon one, I will digest each, and the consequences are mentally similar- indigestion of the mind, malaise, unease. And the uneasy insight I'll just do it again and again.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought Maddox had "retired". After reading his book, like five hundred years ago, I sort of forgot him. I'm glad he is still the same old in-your- face writer that he is.

He does make a good point. Cheap content is a big problem these days. Cheap content that can be easily copied by scrappers, that is. Maybe this will force content providers to change the medium?

<comment><USER7> This pretty much sums up what's going on with "Chance."

<http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=second_chance_af>

<comment><USER8> That was an April fools joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to defend ranker.com, but maybe email@example.com really isn't in their database.

It's possible that someone is automatically forwarding a different address to maddox's inbox.

It'd be worth examining the SMTP header of one of these messages and tracing back the ownership of each relay.

<comment><USER10> The text of the personal reply makes this possibility unlikely:

      I'd really hate to lose the "Best Page In The Universe",
      maybe we can find something a bit more suited to your liking.

Obviously it's not just a random email address that someone forwarded on to Maddox if the site name is specifically mentioned.

<comment><USER11> Biot, meet formmail. Formmail, mmet biot. So it goes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _It's similar to the copout line included in email marketing when companies > know their contact lists are spurious, but they want to err on the side of > self-interest by emailing you anyway: "if you received this email by > accident, please unsubscribe by using the unsubscribe button."_

That's not a cop out line. For some websites, yes, it very well could be, but there is a legitimate purpose to it as well. _Anybody_ can go on a website and enter "email@example.com" in the email input box for a subscription to SpamMePlease.com, even people who aren't Maddox. Putting that line in the email is a way of saying "you might not have done this, so here's a quick link you can use to tell us to fuck off."

You can argue that they should use a "confirm this subscription" email instead, but the two options aren't _that_ dissimilar when you think about it.

<comment><USER13> Sure they are. I have a common name for a gmail address (early adopter). I get emails for every Steve, Shirley, Shane, Stephanie, Sam, etc in the world who have my last name and a gmail account. I also get emails from every mailing list these people have signed up for that do not use confirmation emails. The email address has become unusable because of that alone.

<comment><USER14> >> I have a common name for a gmail address (early adopter). I get emails for every Steve, Shirley, Shane, Stephanie, Sam, etc in the world who have my last name

I do, too.

Have fun with it?

I get emails for every "J" name with my same last name. At times I respond and get into a whole lot of mischief.

<comment><USER13> Yes, it can be tempting, especially the chain mail senders who ignore my "you have the wrong email address" pleas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Oh god, I love seeing Maddox beat this drum.

Calling out HuffPo was awesome too.

<comment><USER16> I'd rather see him call out HuffPo for promoting dangerously idiotic quack bullshit.

[http://www.scienceduck.com/2010/07/08/the-huffington-post- ha...](http://www.scienceduck.com/2010/07/08/the-huffington-post-has-a-soft- spot-for-pseudoscience/)

<comment><USER17> I think your link is broken.

<comment><USER16> Thanks; here's another:

[http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/huffpo_once_again_running...](http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/huffpo_once_again_running_irresponsible_quackery)

[http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/10/26/huffpost- health...](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/10/26/huffpost-health-a- soon-to-be-one-stop-sh/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cracked.com has mastered the shitty 'listicle'[1].

(<http://www.wired.com/magazine/tag/cracked-com/>)

([http://www.cracked.com/article_16272_the-top-7-secrets-to- wr...](http://www.cracked.com/article_16272_the-top-7-secrets-to-writing- cracked.com-top-7-list.html))

about the spam: I miss the days of god-tier trolls SPEWS.

<comment><USER19> Cracked at least makes a modicum of effort -- they have a stable of columnists who are more focused on being funny or informative than being eye-grabbing (Seanbaby probably being the most well known).

9gag and FunnyJunk are a whole different level of content farming.

<comment><USER20> > Cracked at least makes a modicum of effort

In particular, Cracked at least makes a pretty decent attempt to make their (mostly original!) editorial content the focus of their articles. The "listicles" that Maddox is really focusing his ire at here generally have little to no original content at all -- the bulk of their posts are either "borrowed" images or scraped/stolen content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I want Maddox to riff on those those insipid ads that go like: "Single mom in Podunk, OH discovers 1 silly trick to make wrinkles disappear, and doctors HATE her!" So much potential for comedy there.

<comment><USER21> You should send that to him as a suggestion. He loves it when his readers suggests things they'd like him to write about.

<comment><USER22> Don't make Maddox do all the work. Post a list of 7 funny comments on your own site and I bet Maddox would want to link to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> oddly, hardly anyone realizes that Ranker.com is actually one of the most successful semantic web plays...

<comment><USER24> Say what?

<comment><USER23> They use data from Freebase (the little brother of the Google Knowledge Graph) to help users populate the lists.

They get 8+ million page views on a good week.

<comment><USER25> Fortunately Google's Panda has dramatically slowed down the growth for sites like Ranker. Google applies an extremely heavy penalty for using content from sites like Freebase and Wikipedia. If those penalties didn't exist, there's little question Ranker would be a top 1k site.

Other lame content theft sites like Mahalo have been practically put out of their misery.

<comment><USER23> Ranker ~is~ a top 1k site.

Personally I've looked over the data for a number of successes and failures and I don't believe the conventional story about Panda.

Adding the data in this article to everything else I know about Ranker just confirms my model of what works and what doesn't.

<comment><USER26> No, they are not, at least not according to major reporters of such stats. What measure are you pointing to in order to indicate they are a top 1k site?

<comment><USER23> they ranked at #992 in Quantcast last week; they're got the Quantcast tracking code too, so the traffic numbers aren't crazy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There is a gmail plugin for sending canned responses. For repeat spam offenders I create a filter that automatically deletes the email and responds with a canned "Stop spamming me. Your original email was deleted and never read." I never have to deal with the spam and they have to deal with mine.

<comment><USER28> That's assuming your replies end up in a mailbox they actually monitor, though.

<comment><USER27> Typically these repeat spammers are individuals who manage some community email list (think apartment association or university student org) and don't know how to do anything but add people and copy/paste into the to field. For these people it works great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Tools to automatically check whether or not submitted content was original > would be trivial to make. Yet they don't exist because it's not in these > sites' best interest to stop accepting stolen bullshit.

How is a tool supposed to know who has permission to do what? Yes, you can use heuristics to make guesses. But you're making _guesses_ , you don't actually know anything.

<comment><USER30> He's talking about originality, not permission. An automated tool could fairly reliably determine how much content was already posted elsewhere.

<comment><USER29> Permission is what's required. I get that he hates that, but that doesn't make him right.

He's using the number of other copies as a heuristic. But that heuristic fails when people _want_ to spread their content, which is far less uncommon than he believes.

<comment><USER30> Permission is what's required to keep from getting sued, except that the DMCA keeps you from getting sued when it's user-submitted content. Permission isn't necessary at all. Maddox is promoting originality because it's a component of having a quality site. I'm sure he's aware that most of the people running those sites don't care about quality and is making an issue out of it because he wants other people to dislike the sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've linked to terrible list posts just for easy references. I'm sorry for making the web a worse place :-\ I'll be much more diligent from this point on.

</comment><comment><USER32> I know this is more like a sub point of the article, but I'm amazed at how poorly people deal with spam.

<comment><USER33> That's because it's illegal in most municipalities to douse spammers in gasoline and light them on fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Blech, all-caps large bold Arial just _screams_ "I DON'T KNOW WHAT HELVETICA IS."

Love that a Maddox page hit HN front page, though. It's like a blast from the past, but new.

 _Edit to make this comment slightly more acceptable on HN:_ CSS protip: If you want to show Helvetica to OS X users but not Windows users who are lucky enough to have it installed because Windows renders Helvetica like shit, use this font stack:

      font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial,
        Helvetica, sans-serif;

</comment><comment><USER35> Yes, yes, 100 times yes. I'm so sick of the shallow, mindless BS these sites repost constantly. Great post, great details and investigation. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER36> I thought this was going to be about Mashable. :(

<comment><USER37> I read Maddox as Madoff, and thought this was written by Madoff about how SEO is like a pyramid scheme :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Damn, that was a very long and hard to read Maddox article. He's losing his charm. Or growing up, or something like that.

<comment><USER39> Even more likely, you're growing up.

Maddox was funny when I was 12. I'm 22 now.

<comment><USER40> "I'm 22 now."

Priceless!

<comment><USER41> Being younger is hilarious!

<comment><USER42> I know, right? when I was 3 I didn't understand the hilarity of it all. But now I'm almost 7 and I know it all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Nobody has mentioned this yet, but if HN doesn't, who will? So, here goes: the graph makes no sense! Overlying the reading time and attention span graphs only makes sense if they use the same scales, but then why would attention span decrease as the number of list items increases? Shouldn't it be a simple horizontal line?

<comment><USER44> Maybe it means "remaining attention span"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For some reason whenever I read Maddox's posts I picture him as Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan

</comment><comment><USER46> finding it ironic that i found this article on HN, a content aggregation site...;)

<comment><USER47> HN is a different beast. We link to others' content instead of rehosting and claiming credit (and ad revenue) for it, and much of the value of HN comes from the original content we post in the comment threads. This site doesn't even vaguely resemble spammy content rehosting sites.

<comment><USER46> I was being a bit cheeky. I agree that HN is different than the some of the blatantly awful aggregation sites. HN uses only headlines, gives attribution, etc. I don't buy the community argument though - lots of sites take linked headlines, snippets and degraded images and package it up with a comment system. Aggregation - community driven, algorithmic, etc. - is still aggregation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> this is basically 8 out of every 10 Huffington Post articles

</comment><comment><USER49> Apparently it's perfectly okay for him to post lists though?

[http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=overrated_sandwi...](http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=overrated_sandwiches)

<comment><USER50> Did you even read the entire article? The link you posted is fair use images, and 100% original writing content. It has nothing todo with what he is complaining about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> He certainly whines very impressively and profanely. The comedy is in his article having contributed about as much value as any given content aggregator, it's little more than a big bitch fest.

<comment><USER51> That seems like needless hyperbole, if not a poor attempt at snark. There's plenty of content in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I agree linkbait lists are garbage, but the writing is awful and full of profanities, and the author goes on and on about the linkbait content he supposedly despises (complete with pictures).

I was going to say it all comes off as gradeschool, but little kids have it much more together.

<comment><USER20> This is what Maddox does (and has been doing since 1996).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Wow, I remember reading similar "insight" about top 10 lists back when Digg was the thing. Somehow I'm not surprised this website looks like it was made in 1993.

<comment><USER54> That's because it _was_ made in the 90's. Maddox has been writing for ages [1], and he keeps the site "shitty" as a sign of protest [2].

[1] <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=archive>

[2] <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=faq>

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Ironic that this article is in itself linked..

<comment><USER56> Not really; it's linked here, not copied wholesale here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Personally, you can't blame people for doing their jobs.

You can however blame them for repeat spamming you. Blaming the list is just dumb.

<comment><USER58> > _"Personally, you can't blame people for doing their jobs."_

Woah. Why not? Why can I not blame someone for doing a job that's a net negative to society? Why can I not blame someone for doing a job that's purely parasitic and creates absolutely nothing of value?

By that logic, I can't blame dealers for pushing crack to kids - <USER2> they're just doing their jobs. Or, more legally, I can't blame used car salesman for being lying, swindling cheats, because they're "just doing their jobs".

<comment><USER37> because life is a rigged game and some people came into this world with a poor hand. if you blame ppl for doing their jobs, you have to blame God for creating an unfair world.</comment></comment></comment>


New Glasses that work with or without Google Glass - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ril/ril-eyewear-glasses-that-work-with-or-without-goog

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how fond I am of the frame design, it has a sort of flair to it that makes it look strange.</comment>


Productised services: #3: The best of both worlds - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2011/12/14/productised-services

<comment><USER2> Love this post and I am doing this in my current startup.

The best way to bootstrap a business is to sell a service without selling your name.

<comment><USER3> Could you please expand on "without selling your name"? You mean sell a service that isn't tied to you delivering it personally?

<comment><USER2> Instead of selling "John Smith, Incorporation Lawyer at $100/hour" you make it "Incorporation Package, $495".

In other words, moving from selling YOUR time (service) to selling a solution (productized service).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great advice. I am hoping to roll out my own service offering (<http://www.knowledgebooks.com/>) in about a month, and I have been thinking a lot of how to keep hosting costs minimized and put in place sufficient automation that not a lot of my time will need to be spent, except for improving the service itself. This service is something that I need for two projects and hopefully other developers will find it useful also.</comment>


The Faces of Mechanical Turk - <AUTHOR> http://waxy.org/2008/11/the_faces_of_mechanical_turk/ <comment><USER2> Brilliant. Love it!

<comment><USER3> I expect nothing less from Andy Baio. His panel at SXSW2008 was my favorite.

<comment><USER4> What did he do?

Waxy is one of my favorite blogs. He's so consistently interesting.

<comment><USER5> The talk was called Worst Website Ever, a competition between eight very smart people trying to invent their worst possible startup idea: <http://waxy.org/2008/03/worst_website_e_1/>

Needless to say, it was a blast. And thanks for the compliments, guys. Feel free to email/IM anytime.

<comment><USER6> Interesting that the two Indian faces there seem to be at the same location (look at the window pane tiling; one of those ubiquitous Indian internet cafes perhaps? Or a turk farm!?). Also, they look Malayali (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayali>), but I could be wrong. It wouldn't be surprising if they were though. Kerala, the state from which they hail, has the highest literacy rate in the country. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool.

Out of curiosity, can you actually make a decent/living wage being a turk?

<comment><USER8> In a "third world" country I guess.

<comment><USER9> Computers we throw away --> go to "third world" countries = our toxic trash problem solves & fewer poor people.

The tough part is making it happen, something I'll have to think about.

<comment><USER9> YC readers are so encouraging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Woah, this turk thing sounds awesome.</comment>


Python vs. R for Data Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.codementor.io/python/tutorial/python-vs-r-for-data-science-data-frames-i <comment><USER2> This has at least one basic error. It recommends chained indexing to index pandas DataFrames by row and column this does not have clearly defined behaviour and is specifically warned against in the pandas docs.

</comment><comment><USER3> And there is also this strange line of R code.

colnames(existing_df) <- new_col_names

The author probably wanted to say instead:

colnames(existing_df) <\- new_col_names;</comment>


Rate my startup: Scheduling and Gantt components, built in JavaScript/HTML/CSS. - <AUTHOR> http://www.ext-scheduler.com

<comment><USER2> If you could get it to read MS Project files you'd be on a fantastic winner. I quite like how it is, but MS Project is the de facto standard, and if you could render that a collaborative and shareable resource it would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good feedback, working on the MS project support now. reply</comment></comment>