Email Address Length FAQ - <AUTHOR> http://www.eph.co.uk/resources/email-address-length-faq/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't the shortest possible Email address be 3 characters long, as in "a@b", where b is a TLD with a MX record, or did I failed to understand something critical?

<comment><USER3> You are correct. Although I don't think there are any TLD's with one letter.

Sean Hastings <sean@ai> seems to be real, and ai has an MX record.

<comment><USER4> .ai seems to be a "personal TLD". Most of the websites I've found on the tld (www.ai and nic.ai) are written in first person. The registrar (same person?) takes 3 months to approve accounts after charges before giving you the domain, dns changes are made on weekends, and 2nd level domains (ie hn.ai) are reserved for residents and local companies. I don't have a problem with any of that. I'm just curious how you find yourself in charge of such a setup.

<comment><USER2> It's the TLD of Anguilla, and Anguilla is quite small (population of 13000, area just over 100 square kilometers), so most likely the internet of Anguilla is maintained by just a few persons whose first priority isn't the TLD and the domains in it.

Personal TLDs don't exist (at least as far as I know). Some registrars are just tiny, AdamsNames for example which maintains .TC, .VG and .GD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [edit: Looks like my view is just plain wrong. Skip this and directly read the replies]

IMHO email address fields need not be 254 characters in length. Something like 64 is perfectly defendable I think.

Why would a person sign-up with an email address of 200+ characters if he is not looking for a buffer overflow? Why would a sane person even bother to have such a long email address? How much time would he take to type that?

He would have tried the email id on many other websites and some of them should have rejected it. So the person obviously does have a shorter version of his email address for those sites.

How would a person fill in the emial address in a paper form where there is something like 30 fields for the email address?

I'd say 64 is enough. Anything above is just weird. I can do away with those two users who have such long ids.

<comment><USER6> Given that conforming with the standard is effectively free, do you have any other justification for your non-conformal position of "I'd say 64 is enough. Anything above is just weird"?

Willfully and capriciously ignoring standard requirements that you think are "weird" results in non-conformal implementations that confound users and other developers attempting to interoperate with your systems. I'm genuinely surprised to be writing a paragraph defending standards conformance -- I'd have thought that this position was _basic common sense_ among software developers.

<comment><USER7> Conforming with the standard is not "effectively free".

The only way to _really_ validate an email address is to try to send mail to it. But that has non-zero cost (depending on how often you have to do it, what the odds are that you'll end up on a spam blacklist for no good reason, etc., etc.).

The alternative is to use purely server-side validation routines. But these become more and more expensive as you progress through less common edge cases (e.g., regular expressions are not capable of detecting every valid address). So most people, sooner or later, make a trade-off, favoring some more common subset of cases over some less common subset.

If anything, we should be arguing over what constitutes an acceptable place to make that trade-off. Should embedded comments be supported? What about bang paths?

<comment><USER3> If you are not going to email to it, why bother asking/storing it?

<comment><USER7> Maybe you don't need to send email right away, but want to store the address in case you need to get in touch with the user?

Sending one email per signup can be problematic depending on the volume of signups. Sending email only when absolutely necessary can help with that.

<comment><USER6> If you really care, use a real standards-comformant address parser, most languages have at least one -- Java does. Otherwise you're just wasting your time, and the time of any users you hose with your amateur-hour validation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't @a.gg (nothing before @) valid as an email address according to the RFC? That was my conclusion last time I parsed it..</comment>


Google bans plug-in that picks out Jews - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36459990 <comment><USER2> This is sort of troubling.

I think I inadvertently broke the same rules alluded to in the article, i.e. I have a small personal project where I mapped the buildings from my Eastern European city which used to be owned by Jewish people before they had been nationalized by the newly-arrived communists in 1948. I use Google Maps for displaying said buildings, and in order to "identify" a name as being Jewish I compared the names of the owners from the nationalization law to the entries from yadvashem.org (given enough matches for a certain name it meant that said person was Jewish).

Now, I didn't do this because I hate Jews, on the contrary, I did it because I am saddened by the loss of the Jewish cultural element from my city (they used to comprise around 10-12% of the city population before WW2, most of them emigrated to Israel by the late 1960s), and wanted to sort of make their presence felt again.

I also wanted to, at some point, map on Google Maps the Jewish cemeteries from my part of the country, which are almost all of them being forgotten and not taken care of (seeing as a former Jewish presence of around ~700,000 in the 1930s now only numbers ~3,000). But this article makes me think twice. What if someone thinks I would do that only for some Nazi-group to have a better target?

<comment><USER3> Um, don't you find the prospect of a Nazi group using it for that purpose significantly more trouble than people thinking that's why you did it?

<comment><USER4> No. Because if the group cared enough they could make their own add-on to do just that. And it wouldn't need to go through Google to be installed for "members".

"Is a member of a nazi-esque group" is not exclusive from "is tech literate enough to write browser add-ons".

If you let others control your actions, even indirectly, you show them that they have power and control over you. Many tools that are beneficial are also "double-edged" and could be used for nefarious purposes. In most cases, they're better off existing than not.

<comment><USER5> I think that, in general, it comes down to opt-in vs opt-out. Facemash got the pics without opt-in. Facebook learned from that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author should have provided a tool that identifies names of all different races, then people wouldn't be calling the extension fascist. Because advertising companies are doing the same thing.

<comment><USER7> I would be seriously very surprised if Google didn't know (or very much want to know) its users' nationalities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I grew up in a very non-jewish neighborhood, and then went on to college where 30% of people were jewish.

Learning Jewish names and characteristics was quite useful in being able to better adapt myself socially, especially when it came to food, holidays, etc. An extension like this would have no doubt been helpful.

It's weird to me that noting which names are likely jewish is taboo =/ I never thought of it as anti-semetic or racist at the time.

<comment><USER9> This is where we walk a fine line around intentions and usage. The app that was banned was using the information to direct hate speech towards people. Your goal was probably just to navigate social interactions more fluently or sensitively. One is racist, the other is fine. The difference is in how you're using the information.

The line is harder to draw when you're talking about automated tools, where something that automatically identifies Jews could be used in either way, and now you have to decide whether a blanket ban is worth it to stamp out the bad usages.

<comment><USER8> It's trivially easy for bad actors to instead install a grease monkeyscript that does the same thing. The effect it has on making anti-antisemitism harder to carry out is very, very, literally negligible. This is about PR.

If anything we should be talking about the merits for and against this PR move, Software Freedom, PR freedom, etc.

As a PR move, some people will like it, some wont. I personally don't like this PR move because I relatively care more about software freedom, and I think it's undesirable to censor apps based on the majority use case of it, instead of what the app actually does.

<comment><USER9> I don't think it's really a PR move. Certainly it could be a PR move, but whether or not GreaseMonkey exists, banning this plugin is perfectly justified on moral grounds.

I don't disagree with you about software freedom, but this plugin sounds like it was specifically intended to direct hate speech. Another commenter in the tree included a link to a different posting about how the ((())) is used as a marker to target people online. This app injects the ((()))'s.

If the plugin had used a less loaded indicator, I might see this situation differently. However, since the plugin is using an indicator specifically intended to mark people for abuse online, I have no doubt about its intentions.

Edit: Link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826647](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826647)

<comment><USER8> Moral grounds and PR are one in the same. It's your companies morals that are most important to PR. PR is all about communicating your companies morals. Your morals _are_ your PR. Perhaps I'm taking a broader definition of PR than you. I'm not just including money actively spent on PR, PR reps, etc. I'm talking more fundamentally than that - the way your company conducts it's business.

I understand your point. You care more about Google discouraging negative racial speech (I don't like the phrase hate speech as its used too subjectively) than you do software freedom. And from that perspective google made the right PR move.

But, as someone that cares more about software freedom, freedom of speech, etc, I think it's a bad PR move.

In the end, Google will do whatever it think is best in its opinion.

<comment><USER9> Your definition of "PR move" seems quite different from the common usage, which comes with a strong connotation of "we are doing this primarily for public image reasons," which is different from "we are doing this because we think it's the right thing to do."

> I understand your point. You care more about Google discouraging negative > racial speech (I don't like the phrase hate speech as its used too > subjectively) than you do software freedom. And from that perspective google > made the right PR move.

That's not quite my point.

In most situations where this is an issue, it's a judgement call on balancing freedom with ethical/moral concerns. I believe in neither extreme because they both represent systems that are broken in very obvious ways. Title IX and the various Civil Rights Acts are pretty good examples where freedom of speech (and some other freedoms) are explicitly limited for worthwhile reasons.

In this situation, even in its most charitable interpretation, it's probably a tool for directing unambiguously negative racial speech that's tied to a social agenda that is unhealthy for our society's cohesion.

My point is that in this case, the balance of considerations puts this app clearly on the "unambiguously bad" part of this spectrum, and it's quite possible to value software freedom or freedom of speech and still think that Google made the right PR move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else find the idea of a central party with absolute control over what addon you are allowed to run more of a concern than the bigots having their own extension?

It seems likely that the bigots will just find other ways to share names of people to harass.

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure you can develop use and distribute addons outside of the chrome store.

<comment><USER12> You can't, not easily at least. You used to be able to, but now Chrome addons need to have a valid signature from Google unless you have your users extract them, enable dev mode and install from the extracted directly and tolerate a warning that they're in dev mode every time their browser starts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sort of thing shouldn't even be a browser-level extension anyway, but a user script loaded with Tampermonkey/Greasemonkey.

</comment><comment><USER14> More context at "The echo, explained" [http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11860796/echo-explained- parenthe...](http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11860796/echo-explained-parentheses- twitter)

therightstuff.biz is just a nasty site.

</comment><comment><USER15> That this exists is very disturbing. Social technology firms need to consider the potential exploitation of their technology by bad actors, an increasingly credible prospect in today's febrile climate.

<comment><USER16> Exploited how? By adding () around people's names?!

If anything, we should worry that tech giants' weaknesses are being abused by bad _state_ actors in ways that have _actual_ consequences, like targeting dissidents, anti-regime journalists, ...

<comment><USER14> ...as a means of coordinating harassment and intimidation campaigns.

<comment><USER17> What coordination? There is no coordination.

<comment><USER18> The site that published the extension was coordinating an harassment campaign.

<comment><USER17> People were finding it as a result of MSM advertising for it.

I think you're overestimating the strength of these groups -- they are roundly mocked in social media.

<comment><USER18> Them being mocked doesn't help when you're getting death threats from them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/01/04/make-no-little-plans-–-defining-the-scalable-startup/

<comment><USER2> Excellent points on what constitutes a "startup" as opposed to a "small business" but the approach, I think, too narrowly limits the idea of "startup" largely to the type of potentially industry-changing company that VCs will fund.

Among other distinctions that can comfortably be drawn within what I think are clearly "startup" companies are:

1\. Founders who seek to make a pure technology play and sell to a larger company within a narrow window in the 7-figure range (up to $100M). The founders in this type of startup are not in it for the long haul and can potentially succeed without any form of VC funding (though they typically do not self-fund but rely on either friends/family or angels to give them needed capital). This is a bona fide startup, in my view, even though it may not scale quickly or at all by the time its technology is acquired.

2\. Founders who seek to develop a new and innovative niche business that will not shake up an industry but will make for a good growth business yielding extraordinary returns (e.g., a player that succeeds in the virtualization space with a product that does not take on VMWare or the other large players but that works within the established environment to offer, e.g., low-cost, non-resource-intensive desktop virtualization solutions for the enterprise). This type of startup will tend to scale quickly but will never shake up an industry. It potentially could succeed with angel-level funding and bypass the VCs, though more likely it will need some form of VC funding. Typical exit: up to $300M via acquisition.

3\. The type of industry-changing startup described by the author of this post. Typical goal here on exit: $400M and up but usually aiming at multi-B. This type of startup is invariably VC-funded and is indeed the "sweet spot" for tier-1 VC investments.

All of the above typically involve a founding team, normally small initial capital contributions by the founders themselves, a reliance on some form of technology or IP to define at least a key aspect of the business model, and an expectation of an extraordinary comparatively short-term return on the investment (typically 3-5 years).

This stands in contrast to the attributes of a typical small business, where the founders will often make more substantial initial capital contributions, will not tend to emphasize intellectual property rights, will fix their sights primarily on making immediate operating profits, and will typically have no expectation of any extraordinary return on investment in the short term (that is, will not aim for a near-term exit).

I think the above is a more useful way of distinguishing a "startup" from a "small business." That said, the post here is quite good and highlights very sharply the key attributes of what is perhaps the most important type of startup - the one that scales rapidly and seeks to conquer an industry.

<comment><USER3> Do you have some examples in mind for 1. pure technology play?

I ask because that may be where I'm headed - thanks!

<comment><USER2> In think any situation where, from an acquiring company's perspective, the decision becomes one of "build versus buy" fits the description of a pure technology play.

<comment><USER3> That makes sense, thanks; if you have an examples, I tend to find them very educational and helpful.

<comment><USER4> SO there's GOOG/YHOO/MSFT/AMZN/etc, but there's also places like IBM/EMC/HP/CISCO that are going around spending lots of cash.

So look at edge cases around Enterprise Solutions where new tech (or moore's law) lets us do things that were too expensive previously. Some previous examples:

Data Deduplication: Data Domain --> EMC, Diligent --> IBM Config Management/Provisioning: opsware --> HP, Rembo --> IBM

<comment><USER3> many thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with internet addiction? - <AUTHOR> I find it hard to keep off from mindlessly browsing the web because I'm so dependent on it as a web developer.
It's become second nature to Ctrl+T and 'fa' for facebook, 'news' for HackerNews, 'red' for reddit, etc. that I barely notice I'm doing it.
I also regularly stay up another hour instead of going to sleep, "to catch up" on things that really don't matter or I can view tomorrow. <comment><USER3> Environment plays a huge and under appreciated role in addiction. Try changing up your physical space: go to a coffee shop, a friend's house, the library, etc. and just observe if the same desires arise.

Also, it might help to know that your body is craving the immediate dopamine rush it gets from Facebook or news. The trick is to find something more rewarding and that usually comes from starting as small as possible. Try doing 1 pushup, reading 1 page of a book, taking a 5 min walk, etc. Sometimes these little pattern disruptions can be the spark that lights the fire.

It's not easy to change our behavior, but it is possible if you want to and it sounds like you do.

Here are some resources I found useful:

Wait But Why - [https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators- procrasti...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators- procrastinate.html)

(visuals / cartoons)

Stoic Philosophy - [https://youtube.com/watch?v=A0XxceO4qX0](https://youtube.com/watch?v=A0XxceO4qX0)

(step by step process)

<comment><USER4> Speaking of environment.. in this case, computing environment should be considered as well.

If you're mindlessly switching to websites to browse them, it could be best to just block them on your work computer. If you really want to catch up with the news, use your phone or a different computer.

Separating the environments will help you keep your focus where you want it to be.

<comment><USER5> It might be worth mentioning that unblocking the sites should be setup to be difficult or bothersome. It probably wont help much if you just need to hit a shortcut key to unblock them or even just a command you can pull from history.

An idea to make it more difficult might be to setup a firewall on a separate device (that's linking your computer and your uplink) and maybe setup authentication to that device to require a yubikey or even just a flash drive with an key inside. That way you must do the physical act of pulling out that key if you want to unblock those sites.

Wherever you put that key, try to forbid yourself from reaching for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I employ various hacks:

\- I permanently deleted my Facebook account

\- I block certain sites in /etc/hosts. My /etc/hosts file also blocks several hundred Facebook tracking urls, and I scatter the "tempting" sites randomly throughout these so that unblocking them requires more than muscle memory

\- I change the passwords on the tempting sites to random strings but don't save them so the only way in is to do a password reset

\- I use content blockers

\- I excoriate myself in a journal entry each day (this hasn't worked yet, but I keep on doing it)

These things sorta slightly work in that they slow me down for a second and give me a chance to consider whether I really want to visit [website]. However, my lizard brain tends to adapt pretty quickly, and disabling the blocks gets incorporated into muscle memory as well.

So I think my solution will have to involve zen-like self-discipline as opposed to hacks. I keep telling myself I want to give it all up for good, to become a person who makes things instead of a person who consumes things, who reads books instead of surfing the internet. My solution will have to be simply deciding to change.

<comment><USER7> Would you mind sharing the list of sites you block? It would probably be a good starting point for others wanting to do something similar. Thanks!

<comment><USER6> Ok, here it is: [https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all)

That's not me, but it's the list I use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Try going on a "trip" away from the internet, while staying at home. I mean turning it off for a while, and making a little kind of ceremony about it. It's almost like meditation.

In fact I think temporary internet deprivation is a decent way to describe meditation to most people in this era. But it's not just a deprivation because you'll probably find it quite interesting.

Maybe you'll feel a bit restless, but then remember you're on a trip, it's like you're camping, you need to amuse yourself. Maybe have a bath. Tidy a bit. Maybe even clean your downloads folder. Light a candle. Sit on the floor for a while. See what happens.

Offline life is a pretty good place to enjoy some coziness. The internet usually isn't very cozy. And coziness is nice. It's not like without internet you'll be actually _suffering_. It's kinda nice.

And then it's "just" a matter of habits. Getting acquainted with the niceness of offline life seems like a necessary first step to start forming any kind of offline habit.

<comment><USER9> > The internet usually isn't very cozy.

I'm curious in what ways the internet could be made more cozy (?)

<comment><USER10> Maybe by having less of it shoved in your face in the form of endless lists of vaguely related content engineered to keep your attention.

In a sea of pushed content, I actually find harder to find things I'm genuinely interested in. This may have turned a generation of curious minds into passive consumers.

For example, the paginated list on HN's home page is great: I've never needed to move to page 2, whereas if it has been an infinite list, I'd probably spend way too long there.

<comment><USER11> That's honestly one thing I love about Wikipedia. It's so easy to just keep clicking links and going to new things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seconding all the call outs about focusing on changing environment rather than relying on will power. In general, I think people have a tendency to expect to much on simply "willing" themselves into doing something, then feel guilty when it doesn't work, which erodes the willpower they stared out with -- recurse down to giving up.

The specific thing I'd add to the comments already here is four things that have worked for me. These are more about phones specifically than internet addiction in general, but I think they help with that larger topic too:

1\. I bought a travel alarm clock. At night, I leave my phone downstairs. Having an alarm clock means I can no longer use the excuse "I just need the alarm function on my phone." This also helps in the morning as I literally can't just wake up and go online.

2\. I removed Facebook from my phone. If I were on twitter, etc I'd remove those too. Communication is better from a keyboard anyway -- I'm on social media less frequently, and when I'm on I have an input device that actually supports writing full thoughts and sentences.

3\. For web sites, I stay logged off on my phone. Similar to above, though less drastic than making those sites completely inaccessible on my phone. I still browse, say, Hacker News, but there's now often a forced wait between reading and replying.

4\. I have a small phone (iPhone SE). It feels "cozy" (to one commentor's point about making the internet a more cozy place) since it actually fits nicely in my hand and pockets.

I guess I'll throw in another point too -- I experiment with different ways to change my environment. I think that's the real trick, more so than even the above -- I came to those through trial and error. Try changing something, and use the results of that to inform what you try next. Recurse to improvement. Good luck.

<comment><USER13> what are some detailed changes that have worked for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you work in an office, try to sit somewhere that others can see your screen(s). Knowing that my boss or co-worker will see me constantly re-opening obviously distracting sites is a big deterrent. This works better than blocking sites or using productivity apps personally, but others swear by them. You just have to find what works for you.

</comment><comment><USER15> Along similar lines does anyone have ideas for transitioning away from consumption to production? I am coming from a similar place to the OP and after some reflection noticed my spare time is still dominated by media consumption (reading, podcasts etc.). Even though these are generally thought of as being more 'worthwhile' than scrolling through HN or reddit it still leaves me feeling pretty empty and unfulfilled.

Edit: realised I should have left some tips for others in this thread as it's something I have been working on recently myself. Two things to add that I've found help:

\- Making the bedroom an electronics-free zone. Bought an analog alarm clock for waking up and leave my phone in another room to charge overnight. I also try and read for an hour before bed to cut down on screen time.

\- Installed the app Quality Time which has the ability to limit app and phone usage for scheduled times or when desired.

<comment><USER16> I think reading is on a different enough level (depending on what you read) that it shouldn't be compared with idling on youtube. Most of the people who have really great ideas have read thousands of books.

As for podcasts, I listen to them when I am not in a position to be creative, e.g I am not going to write code when I am driving, or vaccuming the house, or shopping, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My guess is that you're not busy enough or that you're not busy enough with rewarding work. Believe it or not, being happy and engaged is a lot of work. Write down a list of things you want to learn, try and/or do and just start doing them. Take a sailing class, get your motorcycle license, learn a new technology, build a workbench, start running. You don't have to have a hobby but the more things you try the more likely you are to find something you enjoy more than watching the world burn online. Building lego sets takes a ridiculous amount of time but the tactile response I get from putting blocks together is pretty fulfilling, more than sitting at a computer.

I am also a developer and I've found one thing that I've enjoyed recently is revisiting old projects where the client and I disagreed on the execution and building it out the way I wanted to. It's fun to test your assumptions and also gives you more perspective when you build things in the future.

If you use AWS, sign up to acloud.guru for a couple of months and get an AWS certification.

Bottom line is that change isn't easy. Just make a list, get dressed, leave the house and go do something. Eventually you'll see wasting time online as exactly that, wasting time.

</comment><comment><USER18> Years ago, studies showed that people who worked physically hard jobs spent many hours zoning out in front of the TV. They were too exhausted to do anything else.

I think pointless browsing online has largely taken the place of zoning out in front of the TV. I am bad about it when I'm sick and exhausted.

So, for starters, work on your general health so you aren't so tired all the time. Second, find more satisfying means to meet your needs.

Because browsing twitter and the like is about like eating a single potato chip at at time all day long as your only sustenance. You never really feel full and you wonder why you are growing fatter. If you occasionally have the equivalent of Christmas dinner where you are so stuffed you couldn't eat another bite, then you can stop mindlessly eating potato chips.

(as just one example:)

Social media is frequently a substitute for a real social life. Establishing meatier friendships may have you less invested in refreshing Twitter all day long. (No offense intended to my twitter buddies, some of whom are delightful and really enhance my life.)

<comment><USER19> > So, for starters, work on your general health so you aren't so tired all the > time.

This is tough for me. Any tips on how to bypass the contradiction that is "I am too tired to work out, but I am tired because I don't work out?"

<comment><USER18> Start with diet and hygiene. Improve your nutritional status and get nitpicky about cleanliness. Expect to initially have negative fallout before you start seeing gains. Anything that helps will have some kind of side effects.

Then start walking more. Park a little farther out from the office or store. Take one flight of stairs instead of the elevator. Get a step counter to help you track your progress so it isn't invisible to you.

<comment><USER5> In other words, baby steps. If the workout GP is thinking of is too much then do something you can pull yourself to do. In time, one should feel slightly more energized and be able to do increasingly more difficult forms of exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For people who use YouTube and would like to remove distractions, I use the simple CSS script below along with the CSS styler extension Stylus to remove distractions and stop me from jumping mindlessly from video to video.

      /* Hide the Distracting Comments */
      #comments {
        display: none;
      }

      /* Hide Livestream Comments */
      #chat {
        display: none;
      }

      /* Hide Related Videos */
      #related {
        display: none;
      }

</comment><comment><USER21> Back in mid-October I needed to make a drastic change in my life. I spent a lot of time doing the following:

      - Mindlessly browsing the internet (FB, YT, HN, Reddit)
      - Dating apps
      - Nintendo Switch online

My wake up call happened when a few recruiters from big companies, that I'd love to work for, reached out to me about interviewing. It was then I realized how undisciplined I had been. I had no chance at either of these companies because I constantly wasted my free time instead of working on coding projects or bettering myself. So I made a change:

      - Added the Stayfocused browser extension and limited my internet wasting time to 30 min a day on weekdays
      - Deleted all my dating apps (this by far gave me the most sense of freedom and clarity which surprised me)
      - Stopped playing Switch altogether

That's it! My goal was not "go to the gym", "journal", "go on walks", "read more books"...but guess what...that's what happened! When I stopped/limited doing all of these time wasting activities I created a new void in my life. I suddenly had a lot more free time every day. My natural reaction was to go waste it, but now I could not...so I started going on walks instead. I started doing coding challenges and reading coding books on topics I knew I was weak in. I started journaling more and went to the gym 4 times a week.

Let me tell you, it has been an absolutely AMAZING life change. I highly recommend everyone take up this challenge for a month or two and see the difference in your life. If you're like me you'll never want to go back! Good luck out there!

PS. In case it helps motivate anyone, one of those companies was Google. I passed the phone screen :). I know that may be easy for some people here but I was completely unprepared when I was approached and I know this life change 3 months ago made the difference.

</comment><comment><USER22> I had same problem few years ago but after installing StayFocusd[1] plugin in chrome I solved this issue. I set allowed time per day to 40 minutes to visit such websites as: reddit, fb, 9gag, youtube. If I need to watch video related to work/studies I use viewpure[2] that way I only watch only that particular video and don't lose my binge time. I also communicate with my friends a lot using fb so I just use messenger website instead of having fb opened directly.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en) [2] [http://viewpure.com/](http://viewpure.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Altering a habit by means of will-force is not easy.

One simple route can be to make checking some sites more difficult, so that you need to make an effort to log into e.g. Facebook.

For example, you can use Temporary Containers [1] so that all cookies are deleted when you close a tab. Hence, every time you open a new tab and go to facebook.com you will need to make the effort to log in. As a side effect, this approach reduces tracking by third parties.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary- con...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/)

</comment><comment><USER24> >> Reloads "How to deal with internet addiction?" story repeatedly to read new posts. <<

</comment><comment><USER25> Instead of "what do I want to stop doing" frame it as "what would I like to be doing".

Get more engaged in something particular. Build your own car, for example. But that might just be me.

It's possible, that if you have free time to idle away reading, that your work isn't occupying as much of your time as you'd like.

Shift that free time usage to something you find more personally rewarding or that involves more in person social interaction.

It's tough. Bear in mind this is my own take and might not reflect the reality of your situation.

</comment><comment><USER26> Log out. When you end up on the home page anyways, it'll be your cue to pause, think, and then act. Decide that it is not a good idea to log in. Ctrl+tab to your work and keep trying to make progress. Repeat above till you make some actual progress.

Take a step back and examine why are you craving this comfort -- what in your life is lacking that makes so uncomfortable that you want to soothe it with internet immediately.

</comment><comment><USER27> I found that going cold turkey never really worked for me.

What I did find worked was tracking my usage and reporting on it each week. Most of my mindless usage happens on my phone, so I used the built-in Google Wellbeing app.

Every week I'd write down my hours on key problem apps (reddit, facebook, youtube) and then comment on it. Perhaps I spent more time than usual on youtube this week, or I was able to cut things down.

Recording this metric allows for several benefits:

1\. Create correlations. For example, I found that I was weakest during weekends when I didn't have any plans to start my day. I then fixed this by ensuring I always had some kind of task/event first thing in the morning.

2\. Allow for non-internalised judgement. Since everything is reflected on after the fact, you can judge your performance without beating yourself up. The bit of perspective really helps.

3\. Allows for celebration. When you do improve, you are able to celebrate and feel proud of your achievement. I've found this boost to be really motivating.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had the same issue. Being able to recognise it's a problem is already a big achievement, acting on it only follows naturally once you've realised how much time you waste.

For social networks, I blocked them at the DNS level in /etc/hosts (along with other annoyances) [1]. I've had the muscle memory to CMD+T , 'F', Enter for a few weeks after quitting cold turkey, but seeing the "Could not connect to host" message on the browser reminded me of why I did that.

A few months down the line, I don't regret my choice. Sure it's harder to keep up with friends, but it's a small step in making them realise what a social hazard those platforms are.

[1] [https://gist.github.com/franky47/6835b4a7ca5c072e4b75efa08bc...](https://gist.github.com/franky47/6835b4a7ca5c072e4b75efa08bc40422)

<comment><USER15> > Being able to recognise it's a problem is already a big achievement, acting > on it only follows naturally once you've realised how much time you waste.

I suppose this means I might have bigger problems if I recognise how much of a waste of time it is but don't feel massively compelled to change behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Procrastination may be symptom of some deeper problem with motivation and planning. Maybe your tasks are too chunky, boring or too much undefined?

Also to spoil a procrastiation pattern a bit I use Leechblock NG on FF. Sure you can unlock pages pretty easily but that one obstacle makes you remind your resolution.

</comment><comment><USER29> I occasionally temporarily redirect certain sites (twitter, HN, reddit) to 127.0.0.1 via /etc/hosts.

This is helpful, though occasionally it creates conflicts when there's a mixup between "lazy pages" and things I want to get done (e.g. sometimes twitter DMs are the way I reach people).

<comment><USER30> Just put the domains in your ublock origin list. That way, if you visit those pages, you will be displayed a page that says that the site was blocked but you have a button to temporarily override the block.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I share the same problem. I use SelfControl on MacOS to block all the distracting sites. I've configured my computer at work to start SelfControl on a schedule (9:00-18:00) so I have no choice over the block.

Still though, there are a lot of distracting ideas that come up as I work: what should I do for dinner? What's my routine for the gym tonight? What's the weather? How's the stock market today? I've started using a pomodoro app to make me psychologically less inclined to paying attention to distracting ideas as I work. Admittedly, depending on the difficulty of the task, it works more or less.

Part of the problem comes from not being completely motivated about my work. It's an issue that is hard to address, so I try to cope by increasing discipline.

</comment><comment><USER32> You'll quit Reddit when you begin getting annoyed with how predictable and repetitive it is.

I'm not kidding. People who got addicted to World of Warcraft and then quit it, recommend migrating to another server. It gets boring to grind again (or whatever happens, I'm not a player).

</comment><comment><USER33> I have the same issue. I've installed a browser extension that allows me to set redirects for any url. I've setup Facebook to go to khanacademy.org (I'm trying to learn more about linear algebra/calc) and reddit to go to wikiroulette.co

So far it's been working to stop my sub-awareness level typing of these URLs and wasting time.

Another approach would be to look into mindfulness so that you become more aware of your actions/habits.

As an aside, if interested in the topic of awareness/attention, I was just listening to a great podcast that's sort of related to your question:

[https://smartdrugsmarts.com/episodes/episode-123-consciousne...](https://smartdrugsmarts.com/episodes/episode-123-consciousness- graziano/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Like a number of others already said: there's probably some underlying problem and addiction is a symptom of it.

To illustrate my point: two years ago my phone died so I figured it would be a good opportunity to wean myself off it(especially given that I couldn't afford a replacement at the time). I spent 9 months without a smartphone only to discover that pretty much all the symptoms of addiction came back once I finally bought one.

In my case the problem was overwork combined with the inability to gather any savings and a somewhat uninspiring work environment.

I started budgeting and switched jobs, which is helping, but there's a long way ahead of me.

Which brings me to another point: it's usually a long process that requires daily work.

</comment><comment><USER35> Like any addiction it might be a signal of deeper underlying problems - <USER2> of meaning in your work, lack of feeling that it matters, general dissatisfaction with how your life is going.

One way to approach it could be a slow morning, as discussed on hn a few weeks ago - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18857090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18857090) \- take your time to arrive in the day, to remember what is important to you, and then do the most important things. If browsing the web is important to you, reserve a certain amount of time to do just that and stop once the time is up.

</comment><comment><USER36> I find a simple interim/transition trick is to say: If I do x,y,z tasks then I can do web browsing (any habit). Just make those other tasks things you want to work on and the web stuff a reward for working on it.

<comment><USER37> Agreed! I often find this kind of self-bargaining helpful, but I would suggest that you start _really small_ with the thing you agree to do. Otherwise it becomes just another set of tasks to avoid/procrastinate over.

I have used the Pomodoro technique on and off over the years, and I find it to be really useful for exactly what you suggested. I promise I will do _just one_ Pomodoro, twenty minutes' of work, and then I can go do whatever. Twenty minutes is short enough to not trigger avoidance or distraction, but it's also long enough to really get rolling. Almost without exception, at the end of the twenty, I don't want to stop. I keep going and end up with a full set of four Pomodoros completed, and desire and energy to continue beyond that (if other responsibilities allow).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's dumb, but in the past when I felt I was wasting too much time on the internet, I added some entries like this to my /etc/hosts file:

      127.0.0.1	reddit.com
      127.0.0.1	www.reddit.com
      127.0.0.1	m.reddit.com
      127.0.0.1	old.reddit.com

This is such a minor impediment, but I found in practice that it greatly reduced the time I was just fooling around websurfing. I don't think I ever disabled Hacker News, but I've rarely been able to blow multiple hours here, either.

</comment><comment><USER39> Lol you shouldn't ask us. I work with really productive developers who have never heard of hacker news or even reddit. You should ask people like that. :)

</comment><comment><USER40> One of the aha moments I had was - Thinking of good productive habits as light and unproductive habits as darkness. While you can dim the lights by doing good habits more and more but you cannot dim the dark by doing bad habits less and less.

So, instead of finding ways to "lessen" darkness, I tried to increase light by adding more productive habits.

For adding good habits, I use the BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits method. And it has helped so far.

</comment><comment> m-appleton Cold Turkey app has been a huge game changer for me on this front - [https://getcoldturkey.com/](https://getcoldturkey.com/)

Have Reddit and Twitter perpetually blocked for the next 6 months. Hacker news only accessible on weekends.

It's well worth getting the pro version for scheduled blocking as well. Plus it's indie software so you get to support a the fantastic developer who built this!

</comment><comment><USER41> Never log into any of your personal accounts on your work machine.

If your work and personal computers are one and the same, create a different user account for work.

</comment><comment><USER42> I used to have same problem and I didn't even realize how often I was doing Ctrl+T and 'fa' until I redirected Facebook url in /etc/hosts to a local page which kept the count of number of visits to that page. It's like Reinforcement learning, everytime you hit the fb url, you are instead being shown "not found" and sooner you start thinking that fb is bad.

</comment><comment><USER43> Being raised in a virtual environment taught me that repetition is safe. Most people get a sense of comfort from browsing their favorite sites on a daily basis, which is completely normal. As long as it's not destroying your social life you're fine. You can always walk away or find another hobby such as reading physical books.

</comment><comment><USER44> I remove bookmarks, and obfuscate where things are on my phone to keep me from mindlessly opening _another thing_.

</comment><comment><USER45> What worked for me: find things to do where you can't be on your phone / laptop, such as running (track your progress with a sports watch and get addicted to something worthwhile). Or find a job in Finland where it's mandatory to have sauna's.

<comment><USER46> I've yet to have a laptop/phone die in the sauna, sometimes they turn off/complain about the heat but that's about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I block websites I deem to be a waste of time during my automated Pomodoro sessions with Focus app. Works beautifully for me.

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing)

</comment><comment><USER48> Since last week, I started leaving my macbook at the office. That made me to spent more time to other hobbies, and except a couple of times where I felt I really needed it (import photos from the camera, etc), the week was quite fine without it.

</comment><comment><USER49> Like all addictions you should look at the underlying causes for your behaviour. Are you procrastinating? Anxious? Compensating for something else?

</comment><comment><USER50> i've noticed that waiting after i've taken my breakfast before i read news on my ipad makes a huge difference for the rest of the day.

But i started by doing a full 48h 100% offline. It made ma realize how much time i lost every day doing nothing online.all of the sudden i had so much time i had to fill that i started doing new things ( drawing, discussing things with people, etc)

</comment><comment><USER51> Go on holiday to a place with no internet or phone coverage. You will return in 2 weeks and notice that your absence didn't matter

</comment><comment><USER52> Disabling images helps a great deal while concuming content over internet. Look for under setting on how to disable.

</comment><comment><USER53> Block sites, pursue a hobby/craft that takes you away from the screen.

</comment><comment><USER54> How many folks on this thread are procrastinating right now?

I know I am, and it's sad.

</comment><comment><USER55> Have you looked in to a parental filter? - @DHH starup school talk

You actually should try redirecting sites you waste time on to something productive.

[https://sixtymeters.com/hack-your-productivity-by-editing- yo...](https://sixtymeters.com/hack-your-productivity-by-editing-your-hosts- file/)

That gives you details on redirecting sites to google, but I would redirect your time wasting sites to trello or your to do list.

</comment><comment><USER56> one "electronics-free" day a week

</comment><comment><USER57> You could start by getting out of this thread

</comment><comment><USER58> I've written an in-depth article about this:

[https://findfocus.net/Overcome-internet- addiction/](https://findfocus.net/Overcome-internet-addiction/)

Reduce proximity and exposure by design I discovered that overcoming my smartphone addiction was "relatively easy" while it was way more difficult to deal with internet addiction on my computer.

Especially when I wanted to get work done and engage in deep work habits.

For most people, the computer is still the place where we can work most efficiently.

The big advantage of using a computer to access the internet is that it's LESS convenient and therefore easier to not use the internet too much.

The whole approach is based on reducing proximity and expose to the internet and our smartphones.

This will remove most of the triggers that start the addictive hooked model. It will also make it much more difficult to engage in the 2nd step of the model and perform the action tech companies want us to take.

By designing an environment that removes the trigger or and makes making the action much more difficult, I was able to overcome my internet addiction.

If you follow this you will be able to do the same.

The secret ingredient I used is something I stumbled upon in Kelly McGonigal's book "The Willpower Instinct" and it's called Delay Discounting.

Delay Discounting Delay discounting is a mind trick recommend by behavioral scientists.

Researchers found out that the longer you have to wait for a reward (e.g. checking your favorite social media site or playing a game online) the less it is worth to you.

The reason is that your brain chooses immediate gratification at the cost of future rewards because immediate rewards trigger the older, more primitive reward system and its dopamine-induced desire in the brain.

To make this work and to delay gratification, the prefrontal cortex has to be forced to cool off the promise of the reward.

The reason is that even small delays can dramatically lower the perceived value of any temptation.

In practice that means your urge to visit Facebook, Reddit, Youtube etc. or playing a game has only a narrow window of opportunity to overwhelm your brain.

As soon as there is any distance between you and the temptation, the rational part of your brain takes over. For example, even putting your phone on airplane mode and putting it in the drawer will work.

For your smartphone: 1\. Delete every app that is potentially addictive from your phone.

2.Download the app Appdetox and add times for apps that you have to use less often but cannot delete completely.

3\. Download the app Applock for android to block the play store and your internet browser

For your computer: The Approach That Worked For Me Using the FindFocus ([https://findfocus.net](https://findfocus.net))

1.Block distracting websites throughout the day. 2.White-list all the websites that you need to work and force myself to unlock the Internet (for max. 15min per session) if I want to visit a site that's not needed to be productive. 3\. Block email during the day, while still being allowed to send email without seeing the inbox. Works like magic for me!

I can access almost any website (except proven distractions & email) all the time but for a maximum of 15min at a time.</comment>


The Invention of the Aeropress (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-aeropress/ <comment><USER2> I love my AeroPress. It makes some of the best coffee ever. But I had to stop. Putting hot water in a plastic cup everyday for coffee? I wish there was a metal version. I'll still use it once every so many months. But the plastic nature of the contraption has turned me away.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised there isn't a premium version available. There's surely a huge market for people willing to spend ~$100 on a non-plastic version.

<comment><USER4> There is a premium version available. It costs only $30.

As you can see at [https://aeropressinc.com/use-it-now/evolution-of- aeropress/](https://aeropressinc.com/use-it-now/evolution-of-aeropress/) , they've continued to re-evaluate materials, including testing for contamination while brewing coffee.

You can boil an aeropress at pH 5 for an hour without detecting any leaching. The interesting bit is how it ages—how cracks form, where bacteria might find a home, that sort of thing.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure the plastic is fine, I'd just prefer a metal or glass version.

On every discussion of the Aeropress, I've seen the ask for a non-plastic version pop up. Every time I've then seen essentially your reply above. I'd just prefer a metal or glass version.

<comment><USER6> You might be able to re purpose a lab device I don't know the english name for. See pictures: [https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=kolbenprober](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=kolbenprober)

<comment><USER7> The English name is "gas syringe".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd love for more inventions to be like the AeroPress. It provides a purist result with pedestrian convenience.

</comment><comment><USER9> Use mine daily here in Saigon with amazing Vietnamese coffee.

I bought the metal screen filters off of amazon for cheap. Far better than the paper filters. I can't really tell the difference between the different metal filters, but I've settled on using the wire mess screen for some reason.

Interestingly enough, you can get solid knock offs in Vietnam [1] for pretty cheap (450k vnd / $19.50).

If you haven't tried inverted method, do it! Lots of instruction videos on youtube.

[1] [http://barista1.viennam.vn/San-pham/dung-cu-pha-cafe- aeropre...](http://barista1.viennam.vn/San-pham/dung-cu-pha-cafe-aeropres- ad187703.html)

<comment><USER10> There are some research that points that a paper filter will be better for your health. The inventor of AeroPress compiled some of the research here: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/v6suj5auwsehn7p/Cholesterol%202.do...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v6suj5auwsehn7p/Cholesterol%202.doc?dl=0)

That's why he won't make a metal filter himself.

<comment><USER9> There is also other research that says that LDL isn't bad [1]. The pollution from living in Saigon will probably kill me long before drinking coffee does. I also only drink 1-2 cups of coffee and tea/water for the rest of the day. At this rate, I'll go for flavor over potential minor health effects.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=LDL+isn%27t+bad](https://www.google.com/search?q=LDL+isn%27t+bad)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aeropress is awesome, I'm still using mine for 7 years with Able brewing's fine filter. You can make coffee for two by use more coffee ground and dilute with hot water.

<comment><USER12> What's your recipe for two?

<comment><USER13> Ground principle with coffee is to increase amount of coffee and water. Do not increase immersion time, as that will only make it bitter. If the press is too small to add enough water, then just dilute as needed after brewing.

But "never" increase the immersion to make stronger coffee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My home-made coffee progression:

Automatic drip

French Press

Aeropress

Pour-over (using a Hario v60, Chemex filters, and a cheap, non-Hario Gooseneck kettle)

Next will be a home espresso setup if I can ever get rich enough to justify having one.

<comment><USER14> I'm currently at step 2, and was deciding between getting an aeropress or a v60. What do you prefer about the pourover setup?

<comment><USER15> Not op, but I've gone through the same-ish progression, and I prefer the pourover because it ends up being tidier. I always manage to spill grounds getting them into the Aeropress, and cleaning it out is messier, too. Plus there's the risk of your cup flying away with the amount of pressure you're putting on the top of the press. With the pourover, I dump the grounds into the filter, make the coffee, dump the filter with grounds into the compost, and rinse the v60, done. Rarely a spill or a mess.

<comment><USER16> I think I need a video of you making aeropress! It's super clean for me. Some suggestions:

> I always manage to spill grounds getting them into the Aeropress,

Use the scoop but don't pour or tap them in - instead put the scoop into the cylinder and then spin the handle to dump out the grounds. Makes it impossible to spill.

> Plus there's the risk of your cup flying away with the amount of pressure > you're putting on the top of the press

That sounds like way too much pressure - some new aeropresses can be tight (which can be remedied) but maybe you have too fine a grind. It should definitely not be espresso level which requires that type of muscle. It's not brewing by the pressure you are applying but time + agitation. The press is just removing the grounds.

I have however frequently knocked over a pourover while pouring... my own fault... tend to use a heavy ass kettle which turns it into some weird strength endurance exercise.

<comment><USER17> > It's not brewing by the pressure you are applying but time + agitation. The > press is just removing the grounds.

Is that right? I've never understood the purpose of the high pressure air pocket inside the Aeropress. If the pressure has no effect, why does the Aeropress brew more quickly than a French press?

<comment><USER16> Some effect no doubt but not as much as might be imagined by it's pressure pump like appearance.

I think the main variable affected by pressure is what is forced through the filter. A faster push and more force means more oils which can have positive or negative taste changes depending on the coffee.

You see competitive aeropressers (yeah, I know...) do 60s long presses to reduce pressure.

> If the pressure has no effect, why does the Aeropress brew more quickly than > a French press?

Typically a french press has a coarser grind and less agitation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Alan Adler posts in the Coffee Geeks forum are really enlightening about how to make a great invention and how to enjoy your coffee: [http://coffeegeek.com/members/AlanAdler](http://coffeegeek.com/members/AlanAdler)

It is great to learn how a great inventor thinks.

</comment><comment><USER18> I really needed to read this, as I've been very discouraged by my lack of success recently. I've only got 4 patents in various stages, and nothing with traction, but this is exactly the kind of life I'm aiming for...

</comment><comment><USER19> There's no chance this plastic contraption makes a nicer coffee than my espresso machine.

My coffee of choice is a flat white, so I need silky smooth microfoam (not froth), which the espresso machine does at the same time.

Also in terms of an "exact science" in consistently good taste, and getting the best from the beans, the extraction process of an espresso brew is superior and more reliable. Provided you take the time to learn how to do it.

Next best after an espresso machine is a stove-top coffee pot. Best for coffees where it's mostly water and only some milk.

> " _Proponents of the device claim that drinks made with the AeroPress are > more delicious than those made with thousand-dollar machines._ "

Yeh that's funny, is this article a paid promo?

<comment><USER20> You can't make a good filter coffee drink with an espresso machine, an americano is just a pale imitation. An aeropress on the other hand is not a substitute for an espresso machine.

When talking about good coffee it's important to distinguish if you mean coffee you like to drink or if we're talking about flavours, mouth feel etc.

The coffee used and recommended for good complex espresso shots does not necessarily translate to good and complex cups of filter coffee. Comparing an espresso machine with an aeropress is like apples and oranges.

I could tell you several ways in which the aeropress is superior. But it doesn't matter, they are quite different devices for different purposes.

<comment><USER21> That's a fair criticism of the parent comment. Espresso != brewed coffee. But the author does quote the article stating that the Aeropress makes a better tasting (to some) drink than the expensive (presumably espresso) machines. When I bought my first Aeropress, I think the marketing and commentary by friends and acquaintances suggested that I'd be drinking something more similar to espresso at home on the cheap. Of course I did not, even though the coffee was good.

Lastly, for someone who wants espresso on the cheap, but doesn't care about frothy milk, the Flair espresso maker looks like a winner, as I mentioned elsewhere: [https://www.flairespresso.com/](https://www.flairespresso.com/)

To recap, yes they're different beasts, both good. There are often disingenuous comparisons to espresso made on both "sides."</comment></comment></comment>


Why Is HBO Go's Home Page So Poorly Written? - <AUTHOR>

view-source:http://www.hbogo.com/#home/ <comment><USER2> It seems to me that most of these services are focused on marketing needs before usability. Free the data and we will build the interface that suits our needs.</comment>


Ask HN: Consulting Projects - <AUTHOR>

Right now I have a good consulting project that pays the bills and lets me work on my own projects for the other part of a week.  While I am working on that, I am also working on selling my cars and slimming down on my monthly expenses so that I can be really lean with a potential startup while I shop for a co-founder.
I was wondering what advice all of you can provide for finding part time consulting projects.  Site's like Zendesk seem to be better for hiring cheep developers, but I need to find ~$100/hr gigs.
Right now I go to plenty of tech events, and search craigslist.  I am also planing on redoing my blog/ website to be more project driven and less blog centric.  I basically plan on making more clear of what my last and current projects are.
Any other ideas? <comment><USER2> Personally, networking in the local area and a bit of craigslist has been what's worked for me the past 3 years.

First year (second round of being indie) was rough, but connections made then have blossomed in to new opps over the past two years. Not sure I can stress that enough - work came to me 2 months ago from someone I met 9 months ago during a meeting with someone else I did work 16 months ago met via Craigslist. I met someone at a conference and 8 months later he called asking if I wanted some ongoing part time work. My own experience is that these things take time, but are eventually worth it.

Not sure if there's a way to go grab the 3 figure hourly rate gigs without personal referrals (I'm sure it's _possible_ , but not been something I've found much). You may want to aggressively let your immediate circle know you're looking for some extra short term / part-time gigs.

Craigslist connections made about 40% of my income in 2008 - it's gone down some since then, but connections made via Craigslist still bring in revenue now and then.

Personal advice - do what you're doing - trim living expenses, shed some excess baggage (unnecessary cars, etc), build up a runway of savings (X months, whatever you're comfortable with) for when you go fulltime on the startup idea. Like many out there, I've got a few of my own 'startup' ideas I may pursue, but want to have a comfortable runway to allow me to focus on the idea rather than cave and start having to do project work midway through the project. Also, just to give myself a bit of breathing space - something I haven't had in many years (though do now, a bit).

<http://indieconf.com> was set up to bring people together to network and help address these sorts of questions. Virtuality of HN is great, but some face to face to address the realities of freelancing is good too :)

Good luck - ping me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you care to chat directly.

<comment><USER3> How did you meet clients on Craigslist? Just looking at the "Gigs" section, or did you do something else?

<comment><USER2> In my area, looking at <http://raleigh.craigslist.org/sof/> and <http://raleigh.craigslist.org/web/> and <http://raleigh.craigslist.org/eng/>

It wasn't all that hot for me to start with. I probably replied to 80 postings in a month, and only had a couple things pan out, but they panned out all the same.

<comment><USER3> But in the jobs section aren't those people looking to hire regular full time employees? What did you say when you contacted them?

<comment><USER2> Good point. Some people are definitely looking for full time, others are just looking to get work done. Some are explicitly looking for contract/parttime and they indicate that too. F/T is what many want, but not everyone. It rarely hurts to ask - offer part time hours and see if they're open to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is possible to build up to a fairly decent level on sites like that but you need to be willing to do ridiculous things for practically nothing at the beginning.

I started on vWorker of all places in June and did about 7 or 8 soul destroying projects (one was basically a full custom CMS for $15, that I _know_ the agency charged > £3000 for). However, I got my 10/10's and since #8 onwards I haven't had less than $500 per job (each prob 4-5 hours work). I actually totted up my earnings yesterday and it's around $1000/m (I just don't dont have time atm to do many). YMMV, obv.

Craigslist sounds good for the US but it's a no-starter where I live so I can't offer anything there.

Other than that, hit up people you know, who you've worked with before. You might get lucky. My biggest earnings right now come from somewhere I worked with years ago. I IM'd him out of the blue when I was broke asking if he had spare work. Turns out he'd fired his developer that day and so i had my start! That's obviously not likely to happen often, but it's worth a shot. At the least these people might remember you if something did come up.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is risky to pay an unknown person $100 an hour, regardless of job. So employers either give the job to someone they know, or contract from a large firm with the expectation that the firm deals with whatever might come up frequently enough that it reduces their risk. The exceptions to this tend to be when the project is doomed, and the employer is just desperate to get anyone to work on it, which you don't want.

So looking at those two cases, your best plans of action are to either subcontract for a larger firm in order to get fed more jobs, or do more networking to lead to those jobs. Sometimes the networking is in the form of doing odd jobs and low value jobs until something larger comes up, and sometimes just a matter of letting friends know you are looking for work.

It would be nice if there were an easier method to go about it, but the bottom line is that $100/hr is a fairly valuable wage, and you need to earn trust before someone is going to fork it over.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you become well known for something people will beg you to consult for them.</comment>


Earth-Moon Fire Pole - <AUTHOR> https://what-if.xkcd.com/157/ <comment><USER2> I love how 5 year-olds see the world.

5yo mind: The Moon is up, so if you have a fire pole, you slide down, to Earth! How long does that take?

(Years of KSP experience later...)

Oof... Up isn't really what I thought up was, and neither is down. It makes more sense now, and almost less sense at the same time if you try to explain it to anyone.

<comment><USER3> I have a 2 year old. I can't wait for this wild journey!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely a fun read!

Curiously, it doesn't answer the question.

</comment><comment><USER4> Needs a (2018) in the title: [https://web.archive.org/web/20180523010341/https://what- if.x...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180523010341/https://what- if.xkcd.com/157/)

Unfortunately, Randall hasn't added any posts since then.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if there just stopped being interesting questions to answer. I remember him saying somewhere that he got a lot of questions that read as if the asker was trying to create a specific answer.

<comment><USER6> Randall Munroe has (re)started those What-Ifs in a simplified form for a New York Times column called "Good Question" [1]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/column/good-question-randall- munroe-...](https://www.nytimes.com/column/good-question-randall-munroe-xkcd)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this. I'm shocked, I had no idea! I wish he would have put a What-If blog post up pointing people to this column.

It's pretty telling that What-If has 573 subscribers on Inoreader (the RSS feed reader), but Good Question only has 3!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Biotech CEO claims she is the first to undergo gene therapy to reverse aging - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542371/a-tale-of-do-it-yourself-gene-therapy/ <comment><USER2> One thing to be cognizant about is that cancer is really a disease caused by the reverse aging of particular cells. If you make a cell think it is too young it is going to become invasive. We don't normally think of embryonic development requiring invasive behavior of cells, but that is certainly the case. Take a look at the development of the cerebral cortex and how cells must travel through other layers to reach their destination. It appears that they are targeting telomerase which is very interesting and parallels cancer where its over-expression is used often as a marker. But then again telomerase under-expression can occur in early-stage cancer and is thought to contribute to genome instability/mutation to affect other genes before it is eventually over-expressed. So this kind of experiment is really exciting and will almost certainly give us insight into many different medical fields. I just hope that her experiment winds up on the preventative side of cancer rather than the causative one.

<comment><USER3> No, cancer is caused by DNA damage. The longer a cell lives, the more damage it gathers, so if you make a cell immortal and the mechanisms the body has for killing malfunctioning cells or repairing damage to damaged DNA is disabled, weakened, or overwhelmed, then you get cancer.

<comment><USER2> Yes those are all important parts in the development of cancer. But you have to take into account the tools that cancer has to take advantage of when it comes to invasiveness and proliferation. DNA instability is the root cause which results in incorrect signalling, cell cycle progression, cell morphology, and immune system evasion. But take angiogenesis, an extremely important tool for a developing embryo, and how ubiquitous it is for a growing tumor. But we can go farther and consider the factors that influence the guidance of a cell during development. Accutane or Isotretinoin is very similar in structure to retinoic acid, a guidance molecule in the posterior embryo. Consequently isotretinoin causes birth defects. Interestingly isoretinoin has also been implicated as an anti-cancer treatment. Thalidomide, which also interrupts proper development has also been used as an anti-cancer treatment. My point isn't to dispute the importance of DNA damage and gene expression profile changes, but rather to emphasize the importance of metastasis and its apparent parallels with embryonic development since metastasis is the main reason (sans leukemias) why cancer has such a high lethality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Publicity stunt instead of scientific paper in reviewed journal, "we don't care about FDA approval" attitude, undisclosed location in latin America - sounds totally credible.

<comment><USER5> After the FDA started pressuring 23andme in to not giving data relating to diseases to customers, I lost of respect for them in the genetic arena. Customers have a right to know what's in their bodies. At the moment 23andme is only cleared to give out data from a single disease, which is pathetic. Clearing the way for more genetic diseases will likely be a bureaucratic nightmare and would harm more people in the long run.

Given how conservative the FDA is in allowing companies to inform customers what's in their own bodies, it's unlikely companies will get any form of approval for modification.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with FDA that much (I live in EU) and I believe it isn't anywhere near perfect, but you _want_ to be conservative when it comes to public health. Look at case of Thalidomide from 50s [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide)

      In the United States, pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey M.D.
      withstood pressure from the Richardson-Merrell company
      and refused Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval
      to market thalidomide, saying further studies were needed.

<comment><USER6> Any example is pointless without considering opportunity costs. How many people were saved due to faster availability of drugs?

<comment><USER7> Then again, how many people would be lost if public confidence in drugs as being safe was lost? We can't get a sizable portion of people to even vaccinate their children anymore, and that was all sourced from a single fraudulent paper, which the author lost his license over[1].

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just a note: I haven't seen it mentioned in article, but "gene therapy" was discovered in 70s and it's widely used [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy) \- what's new here is use for anti-aging and DIY nature of treatment.

I feel it's important to judge weight of this story.

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps better to link to the original article at Technology Review:

[http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542371/a-tale-of-do- it-...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542371/a-tale-of-do-it-yourself- gene-therapy/#comments)

<comment><USER9> Yes. Url changed from [http://bionicly.com/liz-parrish-gene- therapy/](http://bionicly.com/liz-parrish-gene-therapy/).

From the guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is eerily similar to the background story of many a comic book super villain.

</comment><comment><USER11> I will definitely be keeping an eye on how this develops. Parrish is so enthusiastic about her work it is contagious. I hope this project turns out positively, for her sake and the sake of the research.

<comment><USER12> > she lacks formal scientific training

> Telomerase ... is present in cells that can continue to divide indefinitely, > like stem cells and tumors.

Your cells dividing indefinitely is not the opposite of aging, it's cancer. This is completely quackery.

<comment><USER13> > Your cells dividing indefinitely is not the opposite of aging, it's cancer.

No. As long as they divide on schedule in the amount they're supposed to, they're not cancer.

Dividing indefinitely is the opposite of aging at the cell level; aging at the whole-organism level has some other stuff to it. I think there's so much emphasis on the cell division clock because we know what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love how this mixes the "n=1" self-experimentation of Seth Roberts [1] with the "not just the President, but also a client" salesmanship of Sy Sperling [2].

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

[2] [https://youtu.be/IuRLGdGnqSU?t=47s](https://youtu.be/IuRLGdGnqSU?t=47s) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_Club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_Club)

</comment><comment><USER15> How is this irresponsible? It's her body. Yeeesh. She is brave to believe in her work. I don't think the article author is aware of how the cause of ulcers was proved and shared the 2005 Nobel prize.

[http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth- gave-...](http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer- solved-medical-mystery)

<comment><USER16> Some ways this is irresponsible, from the (much much better) Tech Review article:

>Fossell, the anti-aging entrepreneur, says even if Parrish were to somehow succeed in slowing the aging of her body, an outcome he rated as unlikely, the experiment would have no impact because of how it was carried out. "The problem is that no one is going to believe them," he says. "The credibility will be zero even if they are right on the money."

Also:

> "We as a company have our own ethics," she says, referring to what she calls > the need for inexpensive gene therapy treatments. "I am certainly not going > to ask someone's permission to potentially create new industries and cures."

Anybody saying "we have our own ethics" is way way out there, it casts doubt on all of the rest of their endeavor.

<comment><USER3> So if it works, only the people who have adopted Liz Parrish's ethics and those who do not live under the rule of those who refuse to accept her ethics will be able to live forever. That's because, in the ethics of Fossell, some truths are not ethical to believe in, no matter what the evidence. They become ethical to believe in once the proper authorities have determined those truths to be ethical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "if successful she plans to roll out a public offering in three to five > years despite neither treatment being FDA approved"

Is it legal to offer a product that hasn't gone through FDA as long as consumers sign their acknowledgement?

<comment><USER14> Probably not in the US. But the workaround is already in the article: do it in another more-favorable jurisdiction.

Medical tourism for price reasons is already a big thing. People are also traveling to Mexico or South Korea for stem-cell treatments unavailable in the US. Startups might also find US jurisdictions that want to carve out more experimental freedom than the FDA's defaults, as with stem cells in Texas:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-01-03/stem-cell- sh...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-01-03/stem-cell-showdown- celltex-vs-dot-the-fda)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You have to admit that FDA approval can be onerous, and that a "mad scientist" way of demonstrating technology can be an effective way to build public demand.

Consider another technology: safe, effective, and reversible male birth control [1]. It's been used in India for decades, but happens to be illegal in the US right now due to the slow and expensive nature of the approval process.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance)

</comment><comment><USER19> There is a quite large database of genes that affect aging in model organisms: [http://genomics.senescence.info/genes/stats.php](http://genomics.senescence.info/genes/stats.php) In this database there are 126 mouse genes.

It looks like (science funding) politics is the only reason we are not testing how these genes work in large mammals and primates. The public is scared of genetic engineering.

<comment><USER18> > The public is scared of genetic engineering.

And nuclear power, and geo-engineering. Public hysteria is placing us at great risk on numerous fronts. Ultimately, though, I'm optimistic. Not once in human history has anyone been able to suppress technology once it became both possible to make and profitable to produce. In this instance, the Chinese will probably beat us to gene therapy technology, and we'll desperately play catch- up once we see the difference it makes in life outcome.

<comment><USER13> > Not once in human history has anyone been able to suppress technology once > it became both possible to make and profitable to produce.

How do you feel about Japanese suppression of firearms?

<comment><USER18> If there had been a major war, you'd have seen them come right back. It's not as if the Japanese simply forgot how to make the things during the Edo period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> BioViva is one of the small groups interested in bringing telomerase therapies to humans sooner rather than later. It seems they have started in on their small long-term trial of human gene therapy for telomerase activation, and have treated the first volunteer.

I should say that at any given time there is a fairly large gap between what can be done in human medicine, the technology that actually exists and works, and what is being done in trials. Most of this gap is due to regulation, and the rest of it because development groups want to have a reasonable certainty that what they are doing actually works, does more good than harm, and so forth. The regulatory process might last a decade, while the actually useful part of that testing (does it basically work, and is the risk profile sufficiently defined and acceptable to patients) is only a few years. As the cost of research and development in the life sciences falls, it will become increasingly untenable that a huge ball and chain slows progress thanks to regulatory risk aversion, and a growing number of initiatives will forge ahead and build anyway. Some years ago I proposed the Vegas Group fable, something that I think will happen in the fullness of time: alternative roads that bypass official regulation in favor of faster progress, an inevitability in an environment of low-cost research. Also, I think, a necessity.

What about the science here? I've never been a big fan of telomere lengthening approaches, as average telomere length as it is measured today in immune cells looks very much like a marker of the progress of aging, an end stage consequence far removed from root causes. Telomeres shorten with cell division and new long-telomere cells are delivered into tissues by stem cell populations. Thus average telomere length in immune cells reflects some combination of immune health and stem cell activity, both of which are known to decline with age. You can't argue with the fact that telomerase gene therapy has been shown to extend life in mice, however, though you can certainly note that the size of the effect has been getting smaller as the research groups have refined their data and approaches.

How does this work to slow aging in mice? At this point I lump enhanced telomerase activity into the general category of approaches that either probably work or intend to work by boosting the activation of old stem cell populations, resulting in increased repair and tissue maintenance and thus a slower decline into frailty and organ failure. More telomerase doesn't seem to raise cancer risk in mice, but mice have very different telomere dynamics and cancer risk profiles than we humans. The fastest way to figure out what is going to happen in humans is of course to try it, and kudos to anyone volunteering at this stage, but I'd be waiting for a few more years of testing first in animal or tissue models closer to human telomere dynamics. In part that decision would be driven by the fact that I don't think that this is the best approach to move ahead with practical applications, to push ahead and get things done. I absolutely agree that pushing ahead to get things done needs to happen, but I'd rather see this sort of boldness for SENS treatments like senescent cell clearance.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>

Digest of the Reddit AMA with the BioViva CEO: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_name_is_liz_parrish_ceo_of_bioviva_the/)

I am patient zero. I will be 45 in January. I have aging as a disease. To take on this role myself was the only ethical choice. I am happy to step up. I do feel we can use these therapies in compassionate care scenarios now but we will have to work them back into healthier people as we see they work as preventive medicine.

The genes targeted are human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) and follistatin (FST). In animal models neither FST nor hTERT have increased the risk of cancer. We expect to see the same result on myself, and to that effect we are measuring all known cancer biomarkers. The gene therapies on my body are to measure the effects on humans. There is plenty of animal research to support these gene therapies but no one was conducting human tests. We are using both visual biomarkers, MRI and a panel of blood and tissue testing including work on telomere length and epigenetic testing. We are collecting as much data as we can, but unfortunately we currently don't have the coverage rate for this therapy, how much of the tissue of the body is affected. Depending on the tissue and vector used we ultimately expect to see similar rates of transfection as seen in mice, which is somewhere between 5 to 60%.

We are working as hard as we can to bring it to the world as quickly and safely as possible. We will will evaluate monthly and within 12 months we will have more data. If the results are good we hope to have something to the general public, that is cost acceptable, in 3-5 years. Our goal is to build laboratories that will have the mission of a gene therapy product at a reduced cost. Gene therapy technology is much like computing technology. We had to build the super computer which cost $8 million in 1960. Now everyone has technologies that work predictably and at a cost the average person can afford. We need to do the same with these therapies. What you will get in 3-5 years will be vastly more predictable and effective that what we are doing today and at a cost you or your insurance can cover.

We need a lab that works solely to bringing those costs down. We would need about $1 - 1.5 million to build one lab to focus on this. We can expand as needed. I would love to crowdfund this project but I do not know how to get good results at that scale - I think the price tag is high for that modality. We are raising investment to do offshore clinical trials. Many USA companies do this. If we can cut costs we will be able to bring back a treatment that people can afford.

</comment><comment><USER21> Give her credit for taking a risk with her own health. Although of course the animal studies haven't shown cancer development. But still a brave thing to do, and obviously worth it given the existing animal studies.

I believe that regulations are holding back therapy development, especially in any area that is not already popular.

I think this is an issue with government in general, and we will need a totally new type of government if we are going to get a moral society that integrates with technology.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Not once in human history has anyone been able to suppress technology once > it became both possible to make and profitable to produce.

Yay, thank god. Otherwise it might take us whole aeons to heat the planet beyond the point we can live on it.

<comment><USER18> There are lots of approaches to eliminating excess CO2 that we could talk about if people like you didn't reflexively smear technology as some great devil. Voluntary CO2 emission reduction looks so far like a doomed effort that goes against every incentive built into human nature.

<comment><USER9> > _if people like you didn 't reflexively smear technology_

Personal rudeness is not ok on HN, even when you think someone's view is wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


Flurry report on iOS vs. Android allegiance called into question - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/flurry-report-on-ios-vs-android-allegiance-called-into-question/2571?tag=main;top-stories

<comment><USER2> here are some "tech news" sites who took the Flurry report serious:

MacRumors, Marketing Land, The Next Web, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, TechCrunch, PadGadget, IntoMobile, Appolicious Advisor, Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News, memeburn, Gruber, Siegler.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I learn to code first then cook up startup idea or vice versa? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HackerNews Elites,
I am a biomedical engineering major, so I only have very little programming knowledges. I sure don't know about any advanced programming skills. But I do have a little bit of experience with languages like MATLAB.
As a matter of fact, I have been wanting to start my own startup for quite a while. But I was at the crossroad of not knowing whether I should learn to code first and then think up startup idea, or the other way round. During these past few weeks or months, I have been struggling as to which to choose. But at the same time, I have also been cooking up some startup ideas and reading a lot of Hacker News posts to get a better idea of the startup world.
Since Hacker News has the best people in the startup world, I would be really grateful if you could offer some insights so that I could have a better idea of what to pursue.
Many thanks! Ed <comment><USER2> Great to read from someone who has startup ideas and is prepared to learn to program. My two bits worth: It's like a bar stool, best to have three legs.

1\. Choose the startup idea that you feel most passionate about. There will be others as you progress, but stick to the first one (unless your customers vote with their money to go for a different one).

2\. Pick a widely used, well documented language. My suggestion would be Python as it supports most paradigms and comes with a comprehensive collection of standard and additional libraries. Buy at least strongly recommended book. I recommend the ones from the O'Reilly series.

3\. Be prepared to go off and explore particular issues with the programming language as well as your idea. You will probably end up with a lot of small point solutions. I frequently end up with two or more solutions to specific problems before selecting the one to integrate into my key project.

Other considerations:

* It's a good idea to establish test driven approach and incorporate your tests from point 3 in your code libraries.

* Use version control, I prefer git, but others are good as well. It's not so much which one you choose, but to use it consistently.

* If your idea is very web centric, then you might have to seriously look at JavaScript and Node.JS. But JavaScript is a difficult first language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @CyberFonic! I am kind of inclined towards building web app in the beginning as I conceive it as a "broader" user base.

Another great lesson learnt! Looks like I better start picking up some Python skills asap.

Many thanks for your tips again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just do both. Your early code will probably suck. Your early startup ideas will probably be quite flawed. But working on real project will make coding more fun, and all your "failed" startups should teach you something for the next one.

I've been coding for a long time, and sometimes my code still sucks but it's better than it used to be. I haven't been bootstrapping "startups" for quite as long but I've already made a ton of mistakes, and learned from them.

PS. Wouldn't call myself an HN "Elite" by any stretch, but my $0.02 nonetheless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @fooandbarify. Looks like I really need to get the coding engine going now! I certainly think I will have a lot of lessons from my foreseeable "startup" failures!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had no big start-up yet, but I've found mini-start-ups a great motivation and learning experience. If you have something that you want to make you can learn while you make it, it will give you the motivation you need to learn (get your site done) and it will provide a great learning environment (building your product).

I'm in school for web development, since I got the basics of programming down in my second semester, I've learnt more from my own projects then school.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @thatusertwo. Mini-start-up is surely a great motivation and start! My present lame startup ideas are all in this category:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You will gain programming skill far more quickly if you have an idea you're trying to implement as you learn. Read tutorials and change them to try suit your needs. It will probably be horribly broken and ugly but you will learn a lot faster.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @slysf. Yup, tutorials is what I need and code implementation too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do both, They will compliment each other.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @FirstHopSystems!</comment></comment>


What does it feel like to be rich? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-rich?q=how+does+it+feel+to+be+rich <comment><USER2> That was a really really good read.</comment>


Show HN: Open Core Admin for Business Executives to Query RDBMS (No-Code/No-SQL) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brainless/dwata <comment><USER2> I have listened to this album and really liked the songs in it. All the songs are really good and are also very meaningful. I would like to ask if you guys know about big assignments at [https://allessayvikings.com/hirewriters-com- review/](https://allessayvikings.com/hirewriters-com-review/) and could tell me about them as I want to use their services.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, that's a good thing that you are doing work on a software which can help us in our business work. Well, I am also a business enterprenuer and I was reading some useful information at [https://www.ogscapital.com/article/preschool-business- plan/](https://www.ogscapital.com/article/preschool-business-plan/) where I am getting some business planning about the pre school. Well, I think this could be helpful for you also.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone,

I am Sumit and I have been working on dwata for the last few months now. The software is intended to be open core although I have not figured out the best licensing route. This is early early stage but I want to get some feedback.

The aim is to create a software that really works without any engineering setup. It (backend, Python) reads DB schema, and generates SQL (including JOINs and Sub-queries) depending on what tables/columns are selected in the UI (React app).

I am talking to some founders who have teams and need to query data (business analysis). Non-technical people get frustrated with SQL and existing tools usually want engineers to setup Dashboards, and they go the SQL way. I want to build dwata in a way where there is no SQL in the UX at all. Of course this is not easy but for vast majority of business users this would positively affect their lives.

Simple query like "Show me orders from last year where product value was above $50" needs a 3 table JOIN. If we could get to these without knowing SQL that would be of value. Please share your thoughts, and thank you for your time.

Kinds regards, Sumit</comment>


Welcome to Medium — the new age blogger. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48 <comment><USER2> > _Medium is based on the belief that the sharing of ideas and experiences is > what moves humanity forward._

You don't say. What a grandiose, BS, statement, for a blog platform...

</comment><comment><USER3> Reading this title, I thought this post would announce that everyone could now use Medium :) However, new contributors are NOT welcome (yet).</comment>