Ask HN: what unwanted domain names are you sitting on? - <AUTHOR> While thinking of ever more imaginative ways to punish domain squatters following yet another abandoned hunt for a domain-cum-product name, I finally became aware of the irony that I am sitting on a few decent domain names that I'm not using.
Then, I wondered, if one of the parked domains I've come across recently is held just by someone like me, not maliciously or out for profit, but just as a by-product of a non-startup startup, an abandoned weekend hackery project or whatever really.
So, rather than set up www.domainnameswap.com (partly because the name is parked ;o) ), how about a thread where we have a rummage down the back of the sofa and throw in any parked domains we'd be willing to give/swap away. If there's a match up, the relevant poster is contactable via their HN profile.
[Note: this idea may tank, but it's got to be worth a try. My fingers are being worn shorter with each fruitless domain search] <comment><USER2> I'm sitting on tons, but I've given plenty away over the years too, so I don't think of myself as malicious. Nearly all are from project ideas I had but then never followed up on.

ajaxday.com* amonad.com* cocoainside.com* detailedlook.com javascriptinside.com jotpack.com* jsinside.com pythonflow.com pythoninside.com railgrinder.com* railsteam.com (currently giving this away) railswebhosting.com rorhosting.com rubyonrailswebhosting.com richlanguage.com rollwall.com roted.org* rotes.org* rubyandhow.com rubypedia.com rubyweekly.com scalainside.com* spacepit.com* startupfreude.com* superyay.com* tipteam.com* topichub.com*

I don't think I'd be willing to unconditionally give/swap away all of these, but I'd say for at least half I would (I've put stars next to those). For example, I consider the Rails Web hosting ones to have value - I just haven't bothered to do anything with them yet. Some of the others I _am_ "squatting", in a sense, in order to prevent competitors infringing on my brand.

 _Sorry for the formatting.. too lazy to fix it, but actually realized it doesn't look too bad as a horizontal list anyways.._

<comment><USER3> i'd be interested in obtaining topichub from you...

<comment><USER2> It's yours. E-mail me at [my username]@[my username].co.uk and I'll sort out the auth code and unlock it for you.

<comment><USER3> I tried emailing you but got a bounce. [petercooper]@[petercooper].co.uk, right? (obviously without braces, ha)

<comment><USER4> It's funny he seemed to try so hard to avoid writing the email directly, and you did just that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone considered changing their parked domains to say:

"This domain is free to anyone who will develop it into something. All that is required is that they feature a link to my other project/site %s for the first year."

<comment><USER6> Once the deal was done, they could shaft you. The only thing you could do was keep ownership and grant technical administration over to the new domain user for a year. Would they want that?

<comment><AUTHOR> _Would they want that?_

Well, if I knew the domain holder personally, fine for them to keep the reins, but if I didn't, I prob wouldn't/couldn't take the getting-held-to-ransom risk if things took off. I don't have investors, but I bet people who do would say the same thing, only more emphatically

<comment><USER7> I agree with you, but the amusing thing is that all of these problems could be solved with a simple contract. Lease with option to buy at set price, or guarantee to sell unless breached, etc.

Its probably a 1 page contract, even. The real issue is trying to enforce it if someone defaults on that contract - it could get impossible/expensive if they are out of the country.

<comment><USER6> You'd need a central provider.

<comment><USER8> Hmm, a domain leasing agent...paying rent for a domain name, kinda like renting office space. Has this been done already?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good idea.

Although I've also had luck just emailing the contact for a domain, and finding they were willing to give it up. Worst case scenario is some squatter overvalues it and won't sell for a reasonable price. But it is always worth asking.

I even had one person randomly email me offering $500 for one of my domains. I didn't reply right away, and two hours later, he upped the offer to $1000. I had the cash in hand by the end of the day. Easiest money ever.

<comment><USER10> Yea, I've had the same thing happen to me with a name that I posted on Sedo :)

For what it's worth, owning a domain and not developing it is not "domain squatting" which is defined by law as "registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting>

There is nothing wrong with owning a domain and not developing it. It's the same as making a speculative investment, just like in real estate or any other asset. We all wish we were there in 1990 to scoop up the best names, but just because we weren't doesn't make the smart people who did unethical.

<comment><USER11> I do not think real estate, or other investments are a good example. They require paying market value, which means that only those who can genuinely find mis-pricing can make a consistent profit, and by doing that they improve market efficiency.

Getting a domain through registrations does not do this, because it requires only registration not payment. For a better analogy, compare how easy it is with the requirements of the (US) ...](http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/>Homestead) Act of 1863. It required improving the land over a five year period and imposed a size limit. It is easy to imagine what would have happened without that requirement: a few people would have made vast claims, far beyond what they could develop.

<comment><USER12> Probably the best analogy you could make

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Got one of those lovely 4-letter domains, though it's a bit gibberish: zwoz.com

fwiw, if you rotate 'zwoz' 90 degrees clockwise, it says 'NEON'. It could work pretty well in the hands of an experienced logo designer ;D

Incidentally, this is the domain I was originally going to use for my YC startup, whose name I eventually changed to 'Veracify': <http://reidesign.us/misc/veracifyWebsite3-5.png>

<comment><USER4> You made me tilt my head!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll go first, hoping that karma is more than an int next to my name:

lancelist.com / lancelist.net / lancelist.co.uk

bookafreelance.com / bookafreelance.co.uk

flatplan.net

zeditorial.com / zeditorial.co.uk

</comment><comment><USER13> buyitwhen.com

I've had this idea that when you see things you don't want to pay new price for, you can look them up, enter the price you'd prefer to pay, and get a notification when a merchant hits that price point - best for technology and gadgets where the price tends to fall over a predictable curve.

But I've been too lazy to build it out. I'm reconsidering after seeing the other day it gets 400 monthly uniques just for existing.

<comment><USER14> Ooo... I actually started something "just" like this, and this domain name is perfect. Would you part with it?

<comment><USER14> I'm at [dylans]at[gmail.com]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have jeejah.net, and would love to develop it into some kind of site for advanced mobile phone stuff. You'd have had to have read Neil Stephenson's Anathem to get the reference though.

Speaking of something that would be anathema to many here, if web sites are going to be 'properties', then why don't they have property taxes based on the last sale value? That might keep people from squatting - they'd be "forced" to either develop the site into something that generates revenue, or sell it. In theory at least... I _don't_ really think it is a good idea, but it's something to consider.

</comment><comment><USER16> 0spy.com

american-idol-online.com ( has gone through multiple ideas, but none have taken )

cheaptightwad.com ( was a product sales site based on the pronto.com api )

everythingmicrosoft.com

gconq.com ( was going to be an online game )

hddvdtech.com ( ha ha - gonna let that one expire. )

hotwaterinteractive.com ( meant for steam game development )

imvote.com ( never did anything with it )

rssgoogle.com

txt2sms.com

wiidynamics.com

wiiphysics.com

I have more, but they have some content on them or are partially active. These are basically my abandoned idea websites. :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Here are my domains I would let go for any reasonable offer...

AndyApp.cm AndyApps.com AndyDev.com AhayStack.com (think mahalo) AGoodProblem.com

        (like having too many sales, not enough inventory)

FastRapid.com (dev company?) HelpStopJunkmail.com (info site) LogicRandom.com ( a little logic + random = genius?) MobRally.com - (mobile social networking) SEOdeft.com

I saw some awesome domains listed here, good luck all finding their own little domain in the wild world.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great idea. I've had these since 2006 for some project ideas that quickly became obsolete. I didn't want to let them expire and fall into the hands of squatters, so I kept renewing them. I'm willing to give them up to a good home.

      gowiki.net
      swound.com
      thumbnote.com
      thumbwiki.com

(edit: one gone, removed. the four above are still up for grabs. Will trade for a donation to EFF or Wikipedia)

</comment><comment><USER19> Or use www.twitter.com/domaintrade. I'll set up a "bot" for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know if you whip up something - it's a nice idea you've put forward

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know what you mean. I have dozens and dozens of these names, all really good names that I like for startup or related projects. I dont want to give them up becuase, like you, I HATE trying to find new names. I also hate domain squatters, so they arent filled with BS Ad's either, just a brief message saying "this was for a project I was or will be working on... if you are interested, let me know.

My list is too long to post, but you can check it out at <http://btlventures.com/domains/> . I'm happy to lease/loan these domains to someone on the cheap who wants to use them for a good project.

<comment><USER20> I have to ask what thegreatmustachechallenge was.

<comment><USER7> We were going to grow mustaches and have people bet on who would keep them the longest in public (between my friends its not very sociable to have a stash). All the proceeds were going to go to some charity. I might still do it someday...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've had good luck with godaddy's auctions. They have a good, powerful search (you can specify tld's and set a max length and blacklist characters), and their buy-it-now feature allows you to instantly separate inexpensive domains from domains owned by, er, less rational holders.

For example, the auction for eventjunky.com is ending in 10 minutes, and the price is $10. not bad. I also saw asdense.com on there the other day for $5 buy it now... I thought that would be a domain squatter's dream, but decided to pass it up :P

<https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpHome.aspx?t=16>

</comment><comment><USER22> I've seen some decent ones come up on pool.com actually. For instance "digitalclassroom.com" was listed recently (no idea how much, would have looked more if I wasn't concerned with blackboard suing me if I used it).

</comment><comment><USER23> I have bringbacktheblinktag.com

If anyone wants to mount a campaign to bring back the much maligned html tag then let me know!

<comment><USER24> I was hoping for a pro-blink-tag essay that all blinked using javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I had two domain names reserved for some projects

nukanon.com extrophos.com

and now they are available for free. I'll tell you their story if you register them :D

currently I'm reserving only 'local' domain names which are mine forever. unused are

nucumpar.ro gros.ro

</comment><comment><USER26> I bought alcoholicsunanimo.us awhile back as an idea for a service to prevent drinking problems. You know you have a drinking problem if you drink alone, so you can send a txt to alcoholicsunanimo.us and let everyone know you want to drink, and need someone to drink with, and voilà! drinking problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER27> There are a few I am sitting on for lack of motivation:

      meetthedress.com
      hackmyjob.com
      fragtweet.com / tweetfrag.com (Has an app on it, needs more work though.)

</comment><comment><USER28> I was going to create a site that made fun of the fact that John McCain looked like Saul Tigh, so I have a bunch of domains like: saultigh2008, tigh2008, electsaul, etc.

<comment><USER29> I have "wow! A looks like B, haha" problem alot. Thankfully I dont ever buy domain names though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now you know why 78 million COM names are taken. A few here, and a few there. Most doing nothing. I posted an analysis with list of available one-word domains that are left recently: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480858>

</comment><comment><USER31> linux-inside.com.

I was looking round for a new computer to run linux on. There are lots of little companies that will sell you a computer with linux preinstalled, but they mainly have short product lines, so you have to check out loads of websites. With windows, there are companies which will put together the computer you want set it up for you.

I thought it would be a good idea if there was one place where all the small linux companies could list their product lines so they would be easier to find. Then the experience of buying a computer for linux would be closer to buying one for windows.

It became less urgent for me because I bought a computer :-) Anyone wants to execute on the idea, I'll give you the domain. Someone else has linuxinside.com, BTW.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're really bored with a domain and don't want to squat it, you could turn one of your short domains into a URL shrinker, we just opened up hosting for that yesterday:

<http://tinyarro.ws/info/custom/>

</comment><comment><USER32> I've been holding on to 'isby.us' for a rainy day. Back when I bought it I had aspirations of a sort of hybrid Video/Audio/Blog news center of average people. I never really got far with it though, and now I'm not sure what to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER33> Heres mine...

atomurl.com kidamigo.com salonsidekick.com mamascuisine.com mydaycarecam.com 360faith.com 3layouts.com addonator.com loftwire.com mobilemixtour.com mytaintedlove.com theadviceshow.com widgeweb.com

I want to finish all of my ideas, but I don't have the time :(

</comment><comment><USER12> Funny you should start this post because I have been on a mission to try to raise some cash for these domains just the last couple days:

ListLocal.com

CheapSwap.com

WildOnCampus.com

SaleMetrics.com

<comment><USER14> I have something I could use for ListLocal.com. If you're willing to part with it, I'm at: [dylans]at[gmail.com]

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have xpcom.org I can't remember what I was going to do with it.

<comment><USER34> I also have FREDHEADSUSA.COM FREDHEADSUSA.ORG

but Fred dropped out of the primaries :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> dcrowd.com - I had the idea to make a portal type of site for D programming language, maybe even expand it from the start to Development Crowd - hence d crowd being ambiguous. I even made a logo that I am satisfied with <http://www.dcrowd.com/t_logo/dcrowd_logo_table.png>

hmm maybe I'll make it, who knows. I have another project going on right now that takes a lot of time, so maybe after that.

</comment><comment><USER36> Kill30.com Freetvee.com iPhonization.com LaughYouLose.com IfMomAsks.com 140date.com 140me.com

</comment><comment><USER37> I have a had many domains over the years that I decided to just let go of by not renewing, and then watched someone take them and do nothing with it. It's aggravating because now I have the ability to make these sites and can't because someone has had the domain for 6 years and never once updated it!

Currently, the only domain I'm really sitting on is:

www.hackershabitat.com

Currently infested by 4789 bots, and hasn't been touched in over a year. I just don't know what to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER38> ElkHider.com (say that out loud) MoreInterviews.com BlueTu.be BlogTu.be BitsOfHope.com MessageRecord.com ModernError.com Overclass.org AreaMates.com

</comment><comment><USER39> hogornot.com

<comment><USER40> Why are you sitting on that? That website would take about 15 hours to build and will most likely earn you more than a few bucks for doing nothing.

<comment><USER39> If someone finds their way back to this thread, I did end up writing the site.

Granted it took me a more than the 15 hours (more like a part-time week) but the result is up: <http://hogornot.com>

Is was good to pick up django, jquery etc. It has little content right now but anyway -- it's up!

<comment><USER41> Hah, nice job :)

Keep us updated on the ad revenue numbers :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Very awesome idea. It's super cool seeing so many folks trading, selling, and even _giving away_ domains to other hackers looking to start a project.

Myself, I've only ever owned domains for intended projects and when it became clear that a project wasn't getting developed ever, I'd simply let the domain die for someone else to hopefully get it and make a project out of it.

</comment><comment><USER43> why not try portmanteus like tradomains.com? (trade + domains)

its available

EDIT: I could have bought it, but I figured steve could use it, so what say everyone give it at least an hour for steve to buy it before someone snaps it up?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was being a bit tongue in cheek re registering domainnameswap.com.

But as for the domain/name I do need, I've been trying all kinds of mashing together, while being constrained by the agreed critera (number of syllables, etc). No joy. Yet.

[EDIT: thanks for the thought, tho, knightinblue]

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> servingsizes.com - I'd like to sell it, but I'd give it away under the right circumstances. I always imagined being able to go to that site and compare the nutrition facts of consumer products.

</comment><comment><USER45> Have 182 - dropped the list on pastebin:

<http://pastebin.com/m1742e685>

Hit me up if you're interested.

<comment><USER46> Renewing that many domain names must suck =(

<comment><USER45> that's only about 1/2 of what I have, too ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Most of mine are .com.au or .net.au (e.g., body.net.au, industry.net.au, rating.com.au, lends.com.au, knows.com.au, etc), but I have three .coms I have never got around to using:

twitcorps.com Plan was for a register of businesses using Twitter, categorised by how they were using it and how well they were using it. It would be a way for newcomers to get ideas on how their businesses could give it a crack.

topictwits.com The idea was basically wefollow.com, but then that got released and so I forgot about it.

popslide.com First idea was for people to email a bunch of photos and get back a URL pointing to a quick, thumbnailed gallery. Like what Posterous does, but for one-offs. Second idea was for something similar, but you'd email a sequence of statements and you'd get back a URL pointing to an animated Flash presentation (a la Powerpoint) that you could tweak and style later.

</comment><comment><USER48> 8t.org

lowerca.se

<comment><USER49> How long have you been holding on to that first one?

<comment><USER48> since at least 2003. i ran a site at 1.8t.org for a number of years but now i'm just hanging on to it because it's a 2-letter domain.

<comment><USER50> you could do a retro 80's (music, memorabilia, whatever) site with that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> baddeveloper.org

coderepo.net

manphp.com

tweetbkp.com \- was going to be a twitter backup mechanism, but then i started working with the twitter api and quickly gave up that idea.

</comment><comment><USER52> It appears there may actually be enough interest here if you did set up a site :)

</comment><comment><USER53> bottomcoder.com

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> obamanutpunch.com

poofilter.com

lawgician.com

<comment><USER55> i would love to hear your monetization strategy. :)

<comment><USER54> mostly shits and giggles. the combinations of domains <$10 & alcohol has led to unintentional squatting of some sort for me the better part of 10 years..

lawgician was going to be a digg/reddit type of thing for legal news -- i don't think its gonna happen soon as doing this right would involve more time than I can give right now.

poofilter originally was intended to filter political news and somehow assess the bias level of the source from left to right, blue to red. someone else did this recently but I forget the name.

obamanutpunch was going to be a simple lolcat-type site of photoshopped photos of president obama punching people in the nuts (see chuck norris here <http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitesh/3254005822/>). Later, I found out that there were actually 2 definitions in urban dictionary for the term ([http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Obama%20Nut%2...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Obama%20Nut%20Punch))

<comment><USER6> You could have an automated site extracting whitehouse photos from here: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse> and allow users to customize.

edit: "The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."

maybe not.

<comment><USER56> That's what hosting in The Netherlands is for.

<comment><USER57> Bad idea. Since Obama's not only a Muslim but the second coming of the prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, he'll murder anyone who blasphemes his picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I recently abandoned a gift registry related app that accommodated custom subdomains ala basecamp:

giftofile.com

presentsfor.us

knotlist.com

giftquake.com

registrylist.info

showerlist.com

wishalistic.com

myregistryspace.com

</comment><comment><USER46> aggregatedesign.com

buyjives.com

campusai.com

djangobits.com

everyday(desi|arab|latino).com

gamefav.com

gradschoolrejects.com

instantgolfclap.com

joblike.com

linktard.com

nfektus.com

ngamr.com

sofound.com

startmyself.com

startupyours.com

Believe it or not, I had ideas for all of these domains. May resurrect a couple when I get some free time..

<comment><USER29> instantgolfclap! do it now! then when you are done, go here <http://instantgolfclap.com>

<comment><USER46> I wanted to but I couldn't find a decent golf clap audio clip and was too lazy to record one myself. <http://sadtrombone.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> flagsfororphans.com/org

I'll happily give it away to anyone who wants to use it for a transparent government initiative. (For those who don't get the reference, see the "Krusty for Congress" simpsons episode.)

<comment><USER60> Here's the Wikipedia article for that episode: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Spritz_Goes_to_Washington>

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> yougottabeshittin.me digdiary.com and for when Firefox jumps the shark

forgetfirefox.com

<comment><USER62> :D Can you have it point to arora-browser.org?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> fuckaneers.com

</comment><comment><USER64> internetcultureawesome.com This was intended to be a place where I could share things that are awesome on the internet that my less technical people could follow. But I never got around to doing anything with it, and it's been 8 months now.

jsvampires.com Its cousin, jsvampire.com (without the s), is a domain I use as a test site for a few things, but not sure why I bothered to register the plural.

foos-hack.com (currently just a placeholder, never had any great ideas for this one.)

authentipede.com

<comment><USER65> I quite like authentipede for some reason. Not sure why or what you'd do with it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Not sure we'd trade these, but here they are:

quippo.com

helpcloud.com

</comment><comment><USER67> grabkindle.com

An affiliate experiment. I actually sold a Kindle and made $36!

</comment><comment><USER68> awesomeopossum.com

<comment><USER29> i bet people would forget that middle o all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> newe.st boxed.in

Open to selling them or trading them: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER70> Wirefriend.com

Designtheuniverse.com

Pouqe.com

Xanama.com

Badbeatlounge.com / those of you who play poker will get this one...

<comment><USER6> Xanama would make a good software code name.. longhorn etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> youapedia.com - with the thought that it would be nice to have a wiki entry on yourself. everyone loves to talk about themself. :)

<comment><USER72> What's stopping you from just setting up a wiki on it then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> quicklibs.com

datafeel.com

<comment><USER6> I like datafeel - it's generic but can be applied to many situations

<comment><USER74> Yep. Even quicklibs is fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> advertiserblogs.com

daddybloggers.com

docfu.com

friendlywebhelp.com

grawgo.com

greendevelopmentblog.com

informationoperatingsystem.com

kill5minutes.com

localsearchzone.com

misternewhomeowner.com

msnewhomeowner.com

nooler.com

outinpaperback.com

papercompanion.com

serendipityrow.com

thenewsfindsyou.com

thewebworksforyou.com

workingblogs.com

<comment><USER75> I have this horrible habit of grabbing domains for every idea I think of for longer than two minutes.

It adds up after a while.

<comment><USER6> What did you have in mind for serendipityrow.com? Good band name, after Led Zeppelin.

<comment><USER75> It was going to be an offshoot of my main product (Serendeputy, a personalized news application currently in private beta).

Serendepity Row was going to be an extract of interesting, erudite articles that surfaced from the aggregate usage of the site. I'd put out two or three posts a day highlighting really interesting pieces. I was going to model it somewhat on Arts & Letters Daily -- <http://www.aldaily.com/>

Kill5Minutes was going to be the same idea, but for more low-brow stuff.

<comment><USER6> Spotplex when it was around tracked and displayed articles by popularity. Blogs and sites had a SP javascript code that sent back page views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> menfacingdivorce.com

menseekingdivorce.com

womenfacingdivorce.com

womenseekingdivorce.com

(We were going to call our cheesy 90's cover band "men facing divorce" I got a little register-happy.)

</comment><comment><USER77> I have tons of video-related and training related domains. If anyone's interested, pop me a line at my.name@g[mail.com

</comment><comment><USER78> diskoverflow.com fxwsw.com hackedipod.com * hackediphone.com *

* Was planning on developing these into some sort of information portal.

</comment><comment><USER79> nerdsdoitrarely.com

</comment><comment><USER80> tweatir.com

tweetcore.com/net/org/mobi/info (have a half developed twitter app to go with it if someone wants to buy and take over)

dormvoice.com

hub9.com/org/net/mobi/info

bsgfan.com

unusuallysized.com

</comment><comment><USER81> ajarr.com eatingmaps.com icanhasrock.com lifeninja.com regfx.com shitonfire.com verymeta.com sudobangbang.com

</comment><comment><USER52> isolobal.com manwench.com odvious.com twickster.com

I had ideas for all, just hit me up if you want to hear any of it :)

<comment><USER82> I'd be scared to hear your idea for manwench.com

<comment><USER52> That was a combination joke/my attempt to bring back the word wench.

What can I say? I like the word itself, we just need to find a new meaning or someone get rid of the implications of the word.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> pornrequest.com

<comment><USER84> would that be like cha cha where you ask the website to find you something in particular? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> tumblelogs.com

debatist.com

influencetree.com

listlearn.com

skatetrends.com

vacationite.com

weshould.com

I also have tumblelog.com which could definitely be put to better use.

<comment><USER86> weshould.com is a pretty promising name. I'd squat that for decades, considering but never implementing the many possibilities.

<comment><USER87> HN so needs a +1 funny mod ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> coredumpster.com onebigcatch.com matchisle.com

<comment><USER89> coredumpster.com seems like the perfect domain for a parody of stackoverflow.

<comment><USER90> Or a UNIX-only version of serverfault

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Great idea Steve.

<comment><USER92> greatideasteve.com is available...

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> what3va.co.uk (i don't know what i was thinking, but someone might have a use).

</comment><comment><USER94> If you have a domain with something to do with giving recommendations (sharing/favourites/popular), even loosely related (or even so far removed it works) then let me know. I've been struggling with this one.

<comment><USER95> I have betterized.com and relevnt.com ... not sure what type of recommendations you are looking for, but these could work for the right ones

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> letsdrive.us -> for a carpool solution

neighbourly.org -> for a craigslist+maps mashup.

<comment><USER14> Interested in neighbourly.org: [dylans]at[gmail.com]

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> foreverlist.com nuncatarde.com

I have plans for both domains, but they're on the back-burner.

</comment><comment><USER98> idoh.net

idoh.org

andperse.com

ballerinc.com

openappled.com

vimpressive.com

wikkey.com

They all have some idea for a site behind them, just haven't gotten around to it.

<comment><USER99> Are you crazy, man? You've got to keep idoh.org .

<comment><USER98> I'd consider giving it up / a trade for a worthy cause. I like having the trifecta, but what would I put there that I wouldn't put on idoh.com instead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> lifetagg.com

evrware.com

merberati.com

nerderat.us

yasurl.com

I must confess that I registered all of these domains while intoxicated.

[edit: spacing]

<comment><USER96> I'd be interested in lifetagg.com if you dont see a use for it anymore ...

[firstname.lastname@example.com]

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> bowbefore.us

blastcapacity.org

write2left.com

themeupdate.com

I'm letting them all expire this year at some point.

<comment><USER72> bowbefore.us sounds really appealing to me, but I'll need to come up with a concept before I offer to take it off your hands.

<comment><USER40> a 4chan competitor, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Good idea, I've been letting domains expire all year long.

amateurhour.org just expired, but I could renew it if someone wanted it.

trrd.org, trrrd.com/org, nichekitsch.com, enoughnow.org and w9gfo/0.org are the only ones left, I think.

</comment><comment><USER103> SearchBuzz.com

<comment><USER104> Oh wow, I'd love to snag this if I could. I've got a project in dev with this written all over it.

<comment><USER103> replied via your contact form on your blog

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> climatecancer.* yesweare.org/us question4.org & questionfor.org

</comment><comment><USER106> I have waypub.com - wish I could think of a project for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> iPhone/mobile app charting countryside pubs along interesting walking routes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> pixaruniversity.com

pittsburghfounders.com

snappyresume.com

careersauce.com

colonytech.com

allthebigstuff.com

findoozle.com

getfounding.com

fleetheshame.com

newmediamonthly.com

webkeynote.com

thetippingblog.com

<comment><USER108> Would you give away/sell snappyresume?

<comment><USER107> Sure. I'd sell or negotiate a fair trade. Shoot me an email:

brianklash at gmail dot com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> failfund.com/org/net corrupt.me

</comment><comment><USER110> karmr.com (and karmr.net)

Left over from a project. I have been thinking about selling it, but I'd consider swapping it for another pronounceable 5 or 6 letter name.

</comment><comment><USER111> existornot.com beforeyouspit.com spitforhumanity.com

</comment><comment><USER112> ishillarypresidentyet.com

<comment><USER113> I imagine this is just a static HTML page with a big "No"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> buxomwenches.com

</comment><comment><USER115> govevents.org

mobpoint.com & mobpt.com

<comment><USER41> Hey, I'd be interested in both of these for a little project of mine. Please email me at email@example.com if you're interested in selling :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> stupidsiteforjerks.com: I thought it would be funny if you could upload pictures of people and let them know you think they're a jerk. It would also be funny (to me...) to sell merchandise from "The Jerk Store".

That this is the best start-up idea I've ever had would explain my current day job...

<comment><USER116> I also have: 10000spoons.com autobooked.com itsbeendays.com slantless.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Idork.com

YourGodIsDead.com

BinaryShit.com

Reordertone.com

Worldwideshit.com

NSATT.net

ShiTv.com

You can probably tell that my weekend projects may involve alcohol.

</comment><comment><USER118> animedubzone.com

bitsboltsandvolts.com

bitsboltsnvolts.com

bitsboltsvolts.com

cashnik.com

deletetheinternet.com

dunbarsdungeon.com

finihd.com

graphle.net

graphle.org

hotelfreehd.com

maperate.com

phinihd.com

proclamate.com

pussyandguns.com

sandiegomarquee.com

schrodingershotbox.com

sdmarquee.com

seekaview.com

streamwhat.com

<comment><USER54> "pussyandguns.com" -- photos of cats and guns?

<comment><AUTHOR> so we'd be talking lolfrags?

 _apologises_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> tweetby.com

mabify.com

nakedfile.com

stormset.com

</comment><comment><USER120> adstreet.net

alwayscontact.com

ballerscholar.com

bccmark.com

betterword.net

cardcurrent.com

mbawall.com

picturethenews.com/.net/.org

recofriend.com

<comment><USER94> Hi, I may be interested in recofriend.com I have emailed the address in the whois, but let me know if you don't get it.

<comment><USER120> I didn't get it. What's your email address? I will send you a note.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> groopvine.com

phreshy.com

</comment><comment><USER122> uncover(dot)com (Yes, there's a website there, but I've recently been trying to sell the domain.)

<comment><USER94> I may be interested in this domain.

<comment><USER122> Sure. Email me at email (at) spencerfry (dot) com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> fortunecookienotes.com w-note.com addresstree.com & addresstree.net

Would be will to trade for some of these.

<comment><USER123> Bleh, just read my comment from before. It's "would be _willing_ to trade." Love typos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> I've been holding on to irtue.com/irtue.net. It's supposed to mean "I refuse to use Evite".

<comment><USER116> I assumed it was going to be a v.irture.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> hookahhacking.com

</comment><comment><USER125> eskimokissing.com

<comment><USER126> what led to that? j/w

<comment><USER125> It's a common English phrase that means to rub noses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER127> agribizconsulting.com supplylifeline.com precimark.com predictivewebanalytics.com

</comment><comment><USER128> 1.0e100.com

</comment><comment><USER129> g.iraffe.com

launchingthefuture.com

mailmetext.com

understands.me

<comment><USER130> i really like g.iraffe. could i get in touch about maybe trading or buying?

<comment><USER129> kyle.c.maxwell at mail<->g.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> mixit.fm

vidcharts.com

kirbygamereview.com

newsrotica.com

<comment><USER51> How much for mixit.fm?

</comment></comment><comment><USER132> kcombinator.com

<comment><USER18> To save other curious people the inevitable lookup:

Kxy → x

</comment></comment><comment><USER133> blogwalking.com

</comment><comment><USER134> seedsea.com millipaid.com

</comment><comment><USER135> redflavor.com

<comment><USER136> Should start a complimentary dev shop for <http://blueflavor.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> b a c k s c a m . c o m

<comment><USER6> my idea was for plugin that redirects ecommerce and affiliate-able purchase/product web page links through a hub-site and inserts the site's affiliate id, tracks any original affiliate for record-keeping, collects a commission through having service accounts at each affiliate site (amazon, ebay, etc) and pays the USER a kick-back for their purchase with the site via collecting the commission on their behalf.

Realized they'd be many hurdles and technicalities, but could make a lot of money, perhaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER137> discoengine.com

Anybody wanna build a discovery/recommendation engine with me?

<comment><AUTHOR> If it has a mirrorball, I might be interested :o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> perfectlygoodideas.com

</comment><comment><USER139> codeshout.com nerdi.us

</comment><comment><USER140> userlinks.com askshare.com gallery508.com sharedlist.com

</comment><comment><USER141> mutoxen.com

</comment><comment><USER142> grawked.com net org

smartisan.com

goodfromgoods.com

creatorial(s).com

brokerageview.com

finefreight.com

letsbreakit.com

</comment><comment><USER143> biggestjerkever.com

</comment><comment><USER144> seebulletin.com stealyourradio.com stolenradio.com

</comment><comment><USER145> eatingwords.com papersubmit.com (never finished it...anyone with drupal experience who wants to finish let me know) weheartthings.com

</comment><comment><USER146> www.tagademix.com

www.shoutreel.com

www.shoutreal.com

www.salarypond.com

www.streetbulletin.com

www.h8up.com

</comment><comment><USER147> laterwaiter.com

eatseekr.com

hollapalooza.com

meetastartup.com

shoutsignal.com

turingcomplete.org

waxsoft.com

izeezy.com

onedollartuition.org

</comment><comment><USER148> meetyu.com

tastycomics.com

scenapse.com

flipmojo.com

</comment><comment><USER149> mvent.com

backtours.com

STARALIKE.COM

fourpawsclub.com

credit-planet.com

ereader-review.com

netbookreviewsonline.com

etc...

</comment><comment><USER150> falsifi.com

mktpost.com

lidly.com

ride-radar.com

</comment><comment><USER151> adz4.com

realityinvasion.com

rentacal.com (had an idea I never finished)

iwearyourtshirt.com (blatent cybersquatting)

stolenfocus.com (ex photoblog)

weightmonkey.com (half arsed attempt)

swearalot.com (stupid site)

fuelsaving-guide.com (ebook?)

droitwich.me (my local town)

</comment><comment><USER152> whereim.com

Geo-located IM service?

<comment><USER41> Hey, this is great. I think it'd work for my mobile project. Would you be kind enough to email me your asking price or contact info to firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER153> darnnews.com, greathive.com, thegreathive.com

</comment><comment><USER154> theconundrum.com

</comment><comment><USER155> rylor(dot)com

tobeg(dot)com

dyles(dot)com

5 letter domain names are hard to come by nowadays...

</comment><comment><USER156>
      RivetingGames.com
      DatesFor.Us

</comment><comment><USER157> screwbeingsingle.com - entirely unused

misticflame.com - used occasionally, would be willing to part with.

</comment><comment><USER158> shitcode.com

</comment><comment><USER159> faqbotic.com

</comment><comment><USER160> visualpolls.com

workdout.com

vegancuisines.com

ambyant.com

bustedhype.com

citizensagainstgovernment.com (haha don't ask)

</comment><comment><USER161> chattero.us

</comment><comment><USER162> geekmail.com linkedlife.com

</comment><comment><USER163> basicsofmoney.com

codetutorials.com

fromlastnight.com

rentify.com

thesitemart.com

bfmv.com

</comment><comment><USER164> cliiq.com

bloggergigs.com

coursebuild.com

tweetask.com

timesharp.net

</comment><comment><USER165> shreddedtweet.com

middlemaps.com

mynance.com

</comment><comment><USER166> blendify.com

roundscore.com

<comment><USER166> Oh yeah.

Textada.com (Auto-reply business text messaging service - never started)

</comment></comment><comment><USER167> sniggr.com

dontgodigital.com

</comment><comment><USER168> bets-for.us

bets4.us

betsfor.us

gambool.net

kungfugrep.com

linktacular.com

linktacular.net

phoenixfringe.com

sublunaris.com

tripgather.com

tripgather.net

</comment><comment><USER169> smoulderinghotgoats.com

</comment><comment><USER170> shadowgovernment.org

<comment><USER171> Is this one still available? If so, toss me a mail at my username at gmail?

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> usermob.com twooty.com carmindr.com fixingstupid.com

</comment><comment><USER172> savethedot{dot}com

</comment><comment><USER173> sonecessary.com

</comment><comment><USER174> simplescoreboard.com cvoy.com 0k1.org

</comment><comment><USER175> studystud.com

</comment><comment><USER176> spamlies.com

</comment><comment><USER177> cloudsdk.com

</comment><comment><USER178> wetally.com

</comment><comment><USER179> twitterstores.com

</comment><comment><USER180> resumelottery.com

</comment><comment><USER181> beerstobone.com

</comment><comment><USER182> <http://bit.ly/kOEwx>

<comment><USER6> V good URL shortener domain for Google.

edit: why remove gu.gl?

</comment></comment><comment><USER183> groupdraw.com

halfmeet.com

newofferz.com

urlcomments.com

</comment><comment><USER184> cleverhub.com

crowdhub.com

twijj.com

</comment><comment><USER184> shopperfeed.com

</comment><comment><USER185> google.com</comment>


Public recognition is key to employee engagement - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rahfeedback.com/recognize-people-at-work

<comment><USER2> Look at the chart in the article.

The title should read "Raises are the key to employee engagement". Or something like that.

Just as the site name indicates, this is for the "rah rah" type of manager.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great call out. Of course money is always going to be a key factor. If you look at Maslow's hierarchy, you've got to address the survival needs before the esteem needs are even a factor. I think the difference between 1 on 1 recognition and public recognition on the chart is interesting. I wonder how much of this is dependent on a person's personality.</comment></comment>


Building a face-tracking robot with Python in an afternoon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aicookbook.com/2010/06/building-a-face-tracking-robot-headroid1-with-python-in-an-afternoon/ <comment><USER2> Terrific stuff, you can do a lot with OpenCV right out of the box. The Python bindings are pretty poorly documented, though (they change a lot). As much as I'd rather write Python than C++, if you're not already familiar with OpenCV it can be a lot easier to learn with the C++ version. There's a great introduction and API rooted here: <http://opencv.willowgarage.com/documentation/cpp/index.html>

Shameless self-promotion: If you're interested in face / eye tracking, email me or keep tabs on <http://www.gazehawk.com>.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is seriously awesome. Reminds me of the cool stuff that used to be on hackaday

</comment><comment><USER4> Reading how people come up with great stuff in matter of hours always makes me feel miserable.

<comment><USER5> Just try to keep in mind that when someone says "I built X in just Y hours" they tend to omit the "and have spent Z years developing the skill set required to do that."

<comment><USER6> Headroid's author here - yes, the background skills took a fair while to acquire. As a kid (I'm 34 now) my late father (hardcore electrical engineer) used to bring home electronics junk so I could build robots aged 10 (solder+Commodore 64 joystick port+Lego+Basic). Then I got bored of robotics for a long time. For 11 yrs I've worked as an A.I. consultant after an AI degree/MSc, recently I wanted to hack, play and build fun stuff so I setup the AICookbook.com with Google Group and I'm posting my play-time projects. Headroid is one of them, there's also OCR (see the Plaque entry on the blog), NLP, recommendation engines, data mining, game play (auto Zork solver anyone?) and more to be done. I'm also a part of Brighton's HackerSpace (BuildBrighton.com) which is where I met BotBuilder who built the servo board and frame. All are welcome to come join the fun :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This link was valuable just for the introduction to OpenCV.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, but is it racist?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM>

<comment><USER9> Computers are born color blind. They have to be taught to discriminate

<comment><USER10> You should watch the video he links rather then assuming something. HP developed some video drivers for face tracking that didn't handle the "edge- case" of a person with black/dark skin.</comment></comment></comment>


Confronting Indifference Toward Truth – Dealing with Workplace Bullshit - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000768132030001X# <comment><USER2> This topic is surely worth a lot more discussion. It's a systemic pronlem that needs a systemic solution. I would heartily recommend "The Human Element" by Schutz. in this regards. It's worth reading because of its simplicity, effectiveness, and because it deals head-on with this subject of BS.

Among the major arguments,

* The single biggest obstacle to good teamwork (well defined therein) is rigidity on the part of individuals

* Rigid individuals are unchanging because the person's self esteem is threatened. Teams are busted by individuals who don't change behavior.

* And ultimately the biggest problem in the long run for human organizations is lack of openness.

* The book explains why this is so.

The background and impetus for this work (Schutz was Harvard trained) came out of WWII Navy experience dealing with battle conditions. The Navy realized a major impediment to better performing battle execution was that the bridge officers could resolve conflict well. It's not that conflict exists; this is intrinsic to any open ended, unconstrained problems in an evolving environment.

To respond the Navy post war completely revamped training. They chose physically fitter officers, smarter, and trained them harder. The results however under test exercises were random: sometimes teams worked and sometimes they didn't. The Navy couldn't predict when or why.

Schutz was asked to consult on this problem and through this work and in corporations subsequently this work was born.

If you work in an environment where office BS reins, and where management of teams really amounts to people tinkering with a Markov like hidden variable random process until something works, this book is for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's unfortunate that the CRAP acronyms Act didn't use EVIL (Exit, Voice, Ignore, Loyalty) instead of EVNL. Though I prefer. :(</comment>


Samsung flower vase is also a throwable fire extinguisher - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/28/18285253/samsung-firevase-throwable-fire-extinguisher-south-korean-awareness-campaign <comment><USER2> Oh. People have trouble aiming for the root of the fire with extinguishers, I can't picture a lot of users throwing the vase in a useful spot.</comment>


Appsumo experiences massive social backlash after Steve Jobs subject line - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/search/appsumo%20-dropbox <comment><USER2> I emailed AppSumo after getting that email, and Noah Kagan (the ceo) responded saying that this was an email they had put together months ago, and it was just incredibly poor timing that the email went out this morning.</comment>


Show HN: Embeddable hackernews comments - <AUTHOR> http://stuartquin.github.io/hncomments/

<comment><AUTHOR> Simple JS snippet to embed a hackernews comment feed on your page. With optional HN style theme! The hosted version is on a small box so may struggle under load, also feeds are cached for 5 minutes so may take a while to update, if you want to customise this checkout the source and self host.

Thanks</comment>


U.S. Passenger Rail Ridership (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/AmtrakRoutes <comment><USER2> Having taken Amtrak's rail from Coast to Coast, if you ever want a real vacation (albeit one in a semi-confined area), I highly encourage taking Amtrak to get where you are going. I met several retired couples who basically to get to New Orleans went to New York City, Chicago, California, Texas, and then New Orleans. There are kids on trains but unlike air travel and car travel these kids (and parents alike) understand that they are not trying to get anywhere in a hurry. The general vibe is one of just pondering life. Spending hours in an upper-deck observation car staring at the beautiful or even quite mundane passing landscape can really help you focus. The characters who come to the onboard bar are quite interesting.

If you do decide to do long-haul Amtrak travel, sleeping in the seat is quite difficult - the door opening can wake you, the observation cars so beautiful during the day are absolutely frigid at night. The costs for a sleeper car though are quite expensive (more than air travel for equivalent destination). And yes, freight has priority over commuter on the tracks because freight owns the tracks - so delays in the hours to days are possible.

For some people, it is a bucket list experience. I can honestly say after 5 days on a train - I was in no hurry to get back on (I flew back). I guarantee you will meet interesting people. Two of the most interesting people I met were these two beautiful Latina teenagers who sat for hours working on something hard to figure out. I finally approached them and learned that they were making Sudoku puzzles - by hand...

The wi-fi is so spotty that I don't think you'd have much luck working remote from a train if you required ssh connections.

[http://www.trainweb.com/coaststarlight/](http://www.trainweb.com/coaststarlight/)

<comment><USER3> I took the Empire Builder from Montana to Chicago when I was in college. It was a 28 or 34 hour ride, depending on which of the two trains you took.

 _sleeping in the seat is quite difficult_ Yes, but i ended up learning to sleep anywhere, door opening or not.

But as you say the view from the upper level in the senic car was worth it. I remember the journey through North Dakota next to route US 2. Those days, everyone had one of the mercury-vapor yard lights that would turn on automatically at dark, and you could see them for 10 miles or more. There would be hour-long stretches in which you would see non of these on either side.

Since I got off the train at Shelby, I never went through Glacier Park on the train.

Insofar as a bucket list item, put on there taking a convertible on the Going to the Sun highway. I got to check that one off when going to the Glacier/Waterton international Hamfest with a friend when I was in high school.

<comment><USER3> Oh, and I didn't worry about wifi, as my travel was done before that was invented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From this data: almost half of Amtrak's ridership (north of 45%!) occurs on roughly 1000 miles of track, or just 3% of Amtrak's almost 28,000 total miles --- _all in the Northeastern US_ , DC to Boston through NYC and Philly.

Another gigantic bite of Amtrak's ridership comes from short-hop California routes --- particularly LA to San Diego.

The sharp increase in Amtrak ridership that Brookings notice includes the _zero riders to 3.3MM riders_ from the introduction of the Acela service, plus another 2+MM from other Northeast routes, presumably knock-on benefit from the Acela.

Most of Amtrak's route map seems, with this data, to be a pointless waste of money. The "renaissance" is the Acela, and not much more.

<comment><USER5> This tells me that speed increase made a large difference. Most people drive when it's faster than the train. So, when we get our first high-speed rail in this country, in a densely populated region, it should do well.

<comment><USER4> There's a bigger gap between the 75MPH that normal Amtrak trains operate with at peak speed and the 130MPH the Acela does than there is between the Acela and a European high-speed train. Also: high-speed rail is going to go where the Acela already is, and the Acela is already fast enough to be viable and competitive. So, I kind of doubt train technology is going to make a huge difference.

<comment><USER5> This is incorrect on all accounts.

The Acela doesn't run in California and it doesn't run in Texas.

[http://texascentral.com/](http://texascentral.com/)

Trains in Eurpoe are going to 220mph.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/video/take-a-look-at-europe-s- faste...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/take-a-look-at-europe-s-fastest- train-at-360-kph-n2fkR~dVRdqIgy1N7zzLzw.html)

The average speed between NYC and Boston is something like 79mph. Saying you have a top speed 130mph, and doing it only for a small portion of the trip is quite misleading. At any rate, peak has little meaning. I've been on commuter trains that peaked at 90mph for 5 minutes.

<comment><USER6> That's the point. Peak speed is really irrelevant on the northeast corridor. The bottleneck is track conditions and tunnel capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I note that the profitable lines are on the East coast.

Your choices for intercity travel are:

1\. Drive. I hope you like staring at roads and other cars.

2\. Fly. I hope you like spending more time getting to, and going through, the airport than you will spend in the air.

3\. Take a train. I hope you like having leg room, a view, the ability to do some reading, going from city centre to city centre without fighting traffic, leaving from a train station you arrived at 15 minutes before departure time.

From NYC, I can get to Philadelphia or DC substantially faster by train than by any other method[^]. I can get to Boston sufficiently quickly that flying isn't worth it.

To travel to Toronto by air takes about 5 hours, once you factor in all the stuff that isn't flying. By train, it's about 10 hours. I am tempted, a lot of the time, to take the damn train.

[^] With one whoopee cushion: US rail systems prioritise freight over passenger traffic. You can easily be stuck for 10-30 minutes while several thousand tons of clanking steel crawls past a high speed train. Mind you, they close the airports any time somebody brings in a water bottle or if it's slightly chilly. So.

<comment><USER4> This is true in the Boston/NYC/Philly region, but not outside it. I prefer the Acela to a Jetblue NYC-IAD(DC), but the flight is the better call for that route.

It's also _only_ true of the Acela routes. Intercity travel on normal Amtrak trains is awful.

<comment><USER8> Meh, I regularly take the Adirondack line NYC/Montreal and it's a regular old Amtrak that creaks its way through upstate NY. It's a lovely trip and it beats the hell out of having to trudge through customs. It's 10 hours, but it's also only $190 (or so), and it's far more conducive to working than being in the air.

A plane trip is only three hours in the air, but all said it's probably six to seven hours out of the day given airport time and horsing about at customs. Tack on another $200 in cab fare for round trip rides to airports and I'm paying an extra $300 or more for a far worse experience.

<comment><USER4> NYC-Montreal is a 1.5 hour flight.

<comment><USER8> Which is the least of it. There is anywhere from 1.5 to two hours on either side. And the additional $200 each way, given the distance of the airports from the city center.

<comment><USER9> I fly to Montreal once a year from Boston and 1.5-2 hours on either side is a gross exaggeration. The Air Canada flights to Montreal have a dedicated security line at BOS and it takes roughly 7 minutes to get through it. I've also never waited more than 45 minutes for customs in Canada. On the way back, US customs take about 20 minutes thanks to automated terminals they have installed.

<comment><USER8> You don't get to the airport an hour early? It doesn't take you a half hour to drive to the airport and park? No idea, I've never flown out of Boston, maybe Logan's closer to town than JFK is in NY. I'm just saying, because from my place in Manhattan getting to Penn is literally a five minute shot up 6th Ave.

<comment><USER9> From the equivalent location in Boston (Beacon Hill) your a 15 minute or less Uber ride away from the gate at BOS. For flights that have dedicated security lines or if I get pre-check I'd leave downtown Boston 1 hour and 15 minutes before takeoff. I've only been bitten by this once in the last few years, in which case you can find an airline employee to get you through the security line ASAP.

However, even if you want to get to the airport early, it's not like that time is wasted. These days I would say relaxing in the airport is just as nice as relaxing in a train car: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/nyregion/improving- ground-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/nyregion/improving-ground-life- for-travelers-at-laguardia-jfk-and-newark-airports.html). The last time I was at LGA early I had a huge table to myself and the person I was with, and the table had an iPad I could use to order food and drinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> FYI

Spain has the second biggest high speed train network of the world, with over 3.000 km (many more kilometers being built), just after China.

This 2014, 28M people will have traveled by train, compared to 31.2M in USA in 2012. The goal is to reach 56M in a few years. After many years where the prices were expensive, we have started to liberalize it and prices have go down. Now it's reasonable cheap. You can buy one-way tickets for 30€ for a 1h30 route (like 4h by car). Madrid-Barcelona is one of the most demanding routes and flights can't compete with the high speed train. In just a few years, people have moved from using flights to most of them using the train. It's way way more comfortable.

Of course, the key question is geography. Trains works best for a distance less than 1.000km. In Spain that's the distance from east to west or south to north. In USA there are some areas that make a lot of sense like Boston-NY- Philly-Washington; and California.

<comment> chestnut-tree In the UK, we tend to look enviously at our continental neighbours such as Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands who we pereceive to have fast, modern, reliable and cheap rail travel. All things that we tend not to have in the UK (especially the cheap bit).

One interesting fact I discovered a while ago that greatly surprised me: the percentage of public transport usage (as the main mode of travel) is higher in the UK than in Germany, France and the Netherlands. This finding came from a survey funded by the European Commission in 2010/2011.

      Country and % whose main mode of travel is public transport
      Czech Republic 37%
      Spain 30%
      UK 22%
      France 20%
      Germany 15%
      Ireland 14%
      Finland 13%
      Denmark 12%
      Netherlands 11%

The full list of countries is in the report (see page 8): [http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_312_en.pdf](http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_312_en.pdf)

<comment><USER11> The UK has a higher share for public transport than the Netherlands in large part because the Netherlands has a higher share of people who use no mechanized transport at all: 34% of Dutch either bike or walk as their main mode of travel, compared to about half as large a proportion of Britons (16%), according to the source you linked.

Here's the ordering (same countries, same source) if you take transit+walking+biking together:

        Czech Republic 60%
        Spain          46%
        Netherlands    45%
        UK             37%
        Denmark        35%
        Germany        35%
        Finland        35%
        France         32%
        Ireland        30%

The UK still does pretty well, admittedly. I think the reputation for bad trains in the UK is mostly intercity trains, whereas these "main mode of travel" statistics are more about commuting, which is a different set of concerns; the London Underground alone accounts for a very large number of commuters.

(Denmark, by contrast, doesn't look anywhere near as good as its reputation in these kinds of figures. In large part because its reputation is built specifically on _Copenhagen_ , the most visible city by a good margin. Jutland, which has about half of the Danish population, is a sprawling, car- centric collection of towns and suburbs.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To bring an outsider's perspective to this discussion, I'm kind of shocked by how _low_ all those numbers are, even with 200% growth and whatnot. Amtrak is offering service on lines that get under 40k passengers a _year_. By comparison, the Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka has 391k passengers a _day_ , meaning it also racks up the entire Acela corridor's yearly numbers in a week.

<comment><USER13> I just looked at one of those routes under 40k passengers, the Hoosier State.

Wikipedia has an interesting fact, that there's a 2008 law that requires intercity routes under 750 miles to have their costs covered by the affected states by 2013.

1\. That changes almost every discussion in this thread, and really the economics of Amtrak as a whole.

2\. The route brings in about $850k a year but costs $3M.

Obviously at this point I need to read up on this law that changed the short route train funding. (Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act)

Edit - It looks like it's more about "cost-sharing" of various types. Still, that does change things.

Amtrak's budget justification for 2014 is interesting. Particularly the graph showing the decrease in operational defecits. [http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget- Request...](http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget-Request- Justification,0.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting we're talking about so much money between questionably useful routes. In areas not well-served by rail, it might make more sense to put spend that money on express subway lines to the airport and more efficient security processes.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd never come across the term "ridership" before. What a wonderful word!

I note that Google says it's a North American term (in Australia and England this would probably be termed "patronage") but I may start using it. It has a Samuel Clemensy feel to it, although dictionary.reference.com dates it to 1962.[1]

[1] [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ridership](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ridership)

</comment><comment><USER15> Train travel is for the most part impractical because it's so slow -- passenger traffic takes a back seat to freight.

I've had a notion that we should nationalize the rail _lines_ and invest in having it handle more passenger (and freight) traffic safely. The lines could be opened to other passenger service (hello, Virgin) and some competition could be had in that space.

<comment><USER4> Train travel is also impractical because no train is ever going to be competitive with an airplane on a Chicago-Houston, Chicago-Boston, or (heh) Chicago-Seattle route, simply because of the distances involved, even assuming the train runs the top operational speed of the Shanghai Maglev for the entire route.

(Chicago isn't what's important; substitute Minneapolis, St. Louis, or Indianapolis; the point is: trains can't efficiently get you from any coast to or from the midwest, or for that matter from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California).

The problem is geography, not freight traffic.

<comment><USER16> I disagree with this assessment.

The distance from Chicago to Houston is roughly 1100 miles. Non-stop flights from O'Hare to Houston Hobby are listed on Kayak.com at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Add approx. 1 hour for pre-flight check-in, security and an average delay factor (it's O'Hare after all). That's a 3 hour and 45 minute trip time. We could add post-flight transportation from the airport to where you actually want to be and probably add another hour, but let's ignore that detail.

In 2007, the French TGV set a speed record on conventional track of 357 mph. The unconventional track (maglev) record belongs to the Japanese SCMaglev and is 368 mph [0]. These were set under very experimental conditions, but if it were possible to realize equivalent speeds in a practical setting (perhaps via underground tunnels), the train trip from Chicago to Houston would require only 3 hours(!).

But let's assume the above is impossible in real operating conditions. French TGV passenger routes regularly attain speeds of 200mph. This makes our Houston trip a little under 5 1/2 hours. That strikes me as quite efficient.

I'm not an expert, but given the deplorable state of American infrastructure, especially rail, implementation of a system like this would most likely require starting from scratch. As such, equivalence of the French TGV seems very attainable.

More likely, new innovation would lead to performance improvements over their system, which was conceived in the 1970s. Is 300mph attainable? I don't know, but it seems like a reasonable goal. That brings our Houston trip to roughly the equivalent of a flight, when including pre-flight check-in procedures. Of course, trains are safer, less energy and infrastructure intensive and a lot more pleasant.

All of this without mentioning the fact that SCNF, the operator of the French TGV, achieved a $1.75 billion operating profit in 2007.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record_for_rail_vehi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record_for_rail_vehicles)

<comment><USER17> Amtrak issued a report saying that SNCF and other European rail companies only report "profits" because they have higher public subsidies which are unaccounted for.

[http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/E-08-02...](http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/E-08-02-042208.PDF)

<comment><USER16> Of course Amtrak would issue such a report...

<comment><USER4> Did you read the report, or is that innuendo? The report makes actual arguments about the structure of the public financing that European trains get. Refute one of them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can a Computer Algorithm Replace the Human Ear? - <AUTHOR> https://www.utab.com/magazine/article/qLBAvkWibJP <comment><USER2> I've been working on a similar tool for my own personal use, and have found it's MUCH easier for "pop music" which tends to always be diatonic w/ only a few borrowed chords at most, not to mention basslines almost always reaffirm the chord progression.

I've found it harder to figure out how to distinguish the upper harmonies over a pedal in terms of algorithmic writing, since I still associate certain chords with "feelings".

</comment><comment><USER3> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9886819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9886819)

Show HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023302](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023302)</comment>