Give this company a child's drawing and they'll make it into a stuffed toy - <AUTHOR> http://www.childsown.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a cute idea. I'm wondering if they make any money since on their website it says: "Child's Own Studio has custom made over 200 personal softies". I'm thinking whether a redesign of their website and a more aggressive Facebook campaign (they only have 1000+ fans) would help them sell more. It probably would. No. It definitely would. They could also have a checkbox on the order form to allow other people to order their drawn creatures. And then have a top 10 on the front page with the most popular toys. They could even have a competition: which kid designs the cutest animal. Oh, I could make this a phenomenon.

Boy, I can't believe I'm thinking about strategies of how I would improve a toys' business. Eh, just 2AM rant.

<comment><USER3> Very cute idea, but at 100$ a toy (thats what the giftcard is worth), this is not for the mass market.

Tho if you are willing to take it down a notch (or two) on quality, china can probably produce them at >10$

<comment><USER4> From what I understood from the other comments (site is not working), everything is custom made, unique and handled by one single person, that explains the price, and honestly, it seems okay.

If you outsource to China, you take all those Pros away and the product will turn into another toy factory.

<comment><USER5> 100 USD is actually pretty cheap for a custom made toy.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. It's dirt cheap. I know dozens of parents who would pay five times that.

<comment><USER5> And you should probably charge that, add a few free toys for poor kids, and come out ahead in terms of money and morals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> HN killed her business (if only temporarily):

 _Bandwidth Limit Exceeded_

 _The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later._

<comment><USER8> The blog is still up, and has some great stories:

<http://childsownstudio.blogspot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a fantastic idea - but I would point out what a child sees in their head vs their drawing capabilities are probably very different. Still, I guess they could recognize it as something they created and it might encourage them to keep being creative?

<comment><USER10> Well, if they draw something and declare "That's my friend Foo!". If you show up with a stuffed version of their drawing, they are likely to recognize that as "Foo". Kids have a way of not letting their lack of drawing skill or details get in the way of a good story.

Plus, I doubt they could turn a 3 year old's drawings into something. My kid's drawings aren't that recognizable yet... (just lines and squiggles)

<comment><USER11> Sometimes they can surprise you: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3109213/sfb.jpg>

My daughter was almost 3 when she drew this. Most of her stuff doesn't come out like this, but I saved this one since it was weirdly real.

<comment><USER12> Wow, not bad! And I can imagine that being a great plushie..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My question would be: assuming you want to, how do you scale it? There's such an individual toy-by-toy creative aspect to it.

Also, the potential for building brands seems pretty spectacular. Stuffed toy is just one step, you could add stories, games, episodes...this could be to disney what 99designs is to graphic designers :)

<comment><USER13> Maybe this should and will not scale well. Most of the time the work of an artist does not scale well.

<comment><USER14> ;) yes, you are right, and It hurts, Internet can scale it, in some cases, if not - then can be spread, modified and parallelized (or even better, if it is copy-left...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Heartwarming :)

Reminds me of My Machine, an organization that takes children drawings of machines and make them come to live.

<http://mymachine.be/en/node/20>

<comment><USER16> Monster engine is of a similar vein, but they take kids' monster drawings instead: <http://themonsterengine.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Brings to mind this classic 60's Mad Magazine article "If kids designed their own Xmas toys." [http://thatsmyskull.blogspot.com/2005/12/mad-magazine-if- kid...](http://thatsmyskull.blogspot.com/2005/12/mad-magazine-if-kids- designed-their.html)

This is great!

</comment><comment><USER18> Q. Do you take adult's drawings?

R. I personally prefer to work with children's drawings, but occasionally, I have worked with the adult's (inner child's) drawings. The best thing to do is contact me with the drawing and I will let you know what I think.

</comment><comment><USER19> as an interesting tangent, the [hopkin green frog](<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopkin_Green_Frog>) thing that went viral some years ago, and which people assumed was a kid's typically clumsy attempt to draw his pet frog, turned out to be a pretty accurate drawing of his missing toy frog.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's cute and it's cool but I'm not convinced.

My daughter's drawings things are her interpretation of real things but I'm not convinced she'd want a real interpretation of her artistic interpretation of a real thing. After all, her drawings are often down to her limited skills rather than an intentional artistic choice.

<comment><USER21> I saw a similar site a while back that took a slightly different approach to making real-world items from kids drawings that probably works better in this regard - they turned them into jewelry for moms in the form of necklaces and pendants.

I don't think the site is around anymore, though. I believe it was just one person making them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is positively magical. I can't wait til my child is old enough to draw something coherent enough :)

Absolutely brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER23> This may be a tad tangential, but this reminds me a great deal (in terms of the higher level concept) of Imaginawesome: <http://imaginawesome.com/>

tl;dr: give this guy a child's drawing, and he sprinkles "awesome dust" on it.

<comment><USER12> Similar concept with photos:

[http://www.yeondoojung.com/artworks_view_wonderland.php?no=8...](http://www.yeondoojung.com/artworks_view_wonderland.php?no=88)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cute. The site's down for me, but I found their flickr stream here, plenty more creatures:

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/childsown/3465520257/in/photost...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/childsown/3465520257/in/photostream/)

The before and afters are great. I love the ones that were a scribbly mess in the drawing and end up looking nice but still reminscient of what the kid sketched.

</comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of something the artisans working at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma did.

<http://www.museumofglass.org/>

They got school kids to send in drawings of creatures and then these guys actually rendered them in colored glass in front of the kids. They had the pieces and the kids' drawings on display. Very cute and often hilarious.

<comment><USER26> At the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate NY too. (They picked one a day drawn by visitors; my family didn't win, unfortunately.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is an awesome idea. I'm considering stealing it, I think my wife would really enjoy doing something like this.

<comment><USER28> For something this lovely, you wouldn't really be stealing, just helping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hahah, this made my day.

I have some great ideas for toys I want to make, gonna give them a try!

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone know of something similar but with a pull string capability?

<comment><USER31> contact the person who runs the site, I'm sure they'll do their best. From what I've read here, it's just one person doing this because they enjoy doing it. You tend to get excellent customer service from those types of ventures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Neat! Not only is it a good idea, from the blog posted in other replies, the execution was impressive as well.

</comment><comment><USER33> Awesome idea, now she will have enough orders to last a hundred years.

</comment><comment><USER34> That is a great idea

</comment><comment><USER35> effin amazing and great idea. not sure if they can scale it but god that is brilliant

</comment><comment><USER36> this.is.awesome.

</comment><comment><USER37> Love it!

</comment><comment><USER6> Her work's amazing. She's taking the intent and smoothing out the rough edges, filling in the undefined aspects. I've worked with a few really _great_ illustrators and designers as either a designer or an art director. I can't name more than three in the last ten years, and all have been women. She has the rare quality they have of being able inernalize an original vision that's not their own, immediately and viscerally grasp the ineffable qualities that give it its unique personality, and turn it into a final product that looks polished while communicating exactly what the original artist intended. And reading her blog, it's obvious how she does it. She TALKS to the people who she's doing the work for. So how exactly would this scale without losing quality? Clone her? This takes patience, communications, personal integrity and a huge amount of skill and vision. I think it's the most impressive piece of work I've seen on HN this year. There's no reason at all to look at it through the narrow filter of what you'd do if it were an IT startup. It's just awesome for what it is.

<comment><USER38> _She TALKS to the people who she's doing the work for. So how exactly would this scale without losing quality?_

I'm in no way saying she would want to do any of this, and I'm not talking about scaling to mass production or anything, but I imagine she could easily offload some of the more common tasks.

Particularly, you've completely nailed that her rare skill is in the translation and design. However, as long as she's capable of reliably communicating her vision and design to a decent seamstress she could easily offload the actual creation to others. She could focus on meeting with clients, translating their design and communicating to the people who will actually put it together.

If she wanted to go in a little further, she could work on apprenticing a few designers as well. She could still sit in on most or all meetings with clients, communicate broad ideas to the designer, check their design before it gets sent to production, etc.

Basically I think her company could scale just as well as any decent IT consulting firm (or really more appropriately any advertising agency) might.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love the idea -- I wish I could see it! My almost-6-year-old would love to have his drawing turn into a real stuffed animal.

Bandwidth exceeded. Le sigh.</comment>


"I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially." - <AUTHOR> Einstein refused surgery, saying:
"I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."
He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Death <comment><USER2> "Sapiens vivit quantum debet, non quantum potest" \- Seneca the younger

The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can

</comment><comment><USER3> Prolonging life artificially? Sounds like Einstein had lost his mind at that age. Or did he never get vaccinated, take medication for his ailments, etc?

Almost as dumb as Steve Jobs trying alternative medicine to beat cancer.

You'd think someone running one of the top tech companies in the world or the de-facto expert in physics at his time would have more of an appreciation for modern medical science based treatments.

<comment><USER4> _There are only two thinks bigger than the speed of light: the speed of darkness and the number of fake Einstein quotes in the Internet._

>>>>>>>>> Albert Einstein

The quote in the article is from an article in 1990, that is 35 years later than the dead of Einstein, so I'd not be so sure that it is a literal quote.

Also, if you read the Wikipedia article it says that he had a previous operation of the same aortal aneurism. Aneurism are very difficult to repair, and they are more difficult when they are already bleeding. So the operation may have been a last effort attempt that has a ridiculously low chance of success.</comment></comment>


HTTP Response Splitting Vulnerability on reddit.com - <AUTHOR> http://nealpoole.com/blog/2011/01/http-response-splitting-on-reddit-com/ <comment><USER2> By comparison, PHP actually prevents you from using \r\n in your header() calls to inadvertently make multiple headers or break off into the body. It spits out a

      Warning: Header may not contain more than a single header, new line detected.

and drops the header.

<comment><USER3> PHP has a reputation for insecurity, but it also has a lot of built-in features that help you build secure web apps if used correctly. Some of PHP's earlier experiments were disasterous, (I'm talking about you, magic quotes!) but recent fixes like this actually seem to be pretty well thought out. PHP itself can be seen almost a lightweight web framework, albeit a particularly ugly one.

Other languages, such as Python, were not designed specifically with web apps in mind. So a web developer using such a language must make sure he's doing all the web-specific stuff properly. Which is tedious and error-prone, and that's one reason why nobody should use Python on the web without a decent framework.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget about register_globals, too. _shudders_

Your last sentence =~ s/Python/any language/

Even PHP is horrible and insecure to use without a framework today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice finding, Neal. Want a job?

Oh, wait.

<comment><USER6> It's good you're active on HN, and in NYC, otherwise he might not have heard about you guys ;)

<comment><USER5> HN is currently our #1 hiring vector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it ever reasonable to pass a redirect URL directly via the GET parameters? One other concern would be the ease of phishing attacks, e.g.

goodsite.com/login?redirect=<http://www.mybadsite.com>

User logs in to Goodsite, and is redirected to a similar-looking page on Badsite.

One safer alternative would be to store the redirect URL in the session (presuming one is available) and read it back later.

<comment><USER8> You're talking about what's known as an open redirect. And you're correct: those can definitely be used to make a phishing attack more effective. But as I mentioned, reddit only redirects users to reddit content: you need to provide a relative URL or use a reddit subdomain (eg: <http://code.reddit.com>) in the dest parameter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Aww, someone submitted my blog post. :)

<comment><USER9> Can you help me better understand the risk to an end user this represents? I just recently implemented some similar login redirect logic and want to make sure I'm handling the redirect value properly.

<comment><USER5> It's a somewhat complicated variant of reflected cross-site scripting, a.k.a. Javascript injection.†

The vulnerability in response-splitting is passing attacker-controlled newlines unmolested through HTTP header content. Newlines terminate headers. Attacker-controlled content in a redirect that is allowed to contain newlines enables attackers to inject new headers or to terminate the header portion of the request.

Here, Neal's using the attack to inject a false end-of-headers newline and then a fake request body containing Javascript.

The attack is trivial to prevent; just don't allow newlines (and, ideally, active HTML characters) in redirect content.

† _The goal of an attacker is to coerce a server into sending her own Javascript; the same-origin rules governing browser security allow that Javascript access to the server's cookies, even though the code is under the control of an attacker._

<comment><USER10> > "The attack is trivial to prevent; just don't allow newlines (and, ideally, > active HTML characters) in redirect content."

Surely the more correct solution is to escape them properly.

eg in the example:

      Location: javascript:

      <script>alert(document.cookie)</script>

occurs because something unescaped the %0D%0A%0D%0A. If however you just leave it as it was originally, or alternatively encode it properly after you've decoded it.

      Location: javascript:%0D%0A%0D%0A<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>

and everything works as it should.

<comment><USER5> You're right; I wasn't prescriptive enough. Thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Was this discovered by chance or was it garnered through an exploit scanner/crawler of some sort? Looking at matasano I'm wondering if exploit scanning is a method of acquiring new customers.

<comment><USER5> (1) This is a Neal Poole finding, not a Matasano finding.

(2) Reddit isn't a customer.

(3) Suffice it to say that the market for software security is such that we don't really have to do do much other than excel at our work to acquire new customers.

<comment><USER8> What Tom said. To be clear, nealpoole.com is my personal blog, not a company blog: I just happen to enjoy web application security. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> also, add httponly to your cookies then javascript cant see them

<comment><USER5> This is an almost cosmetic defense, because Javascript can still launch requests that will bear those cookies, even if it can't bank them for later.

HttpOnly isn't evil, but it's not a solution to the problem.

<comment><USER13> Security noob follow-up: How do you exploit the fact that your javascript can launch requests bearing those cookies? I'm assuming your end goal is to get access to those cookies. Do you do something like POST the contents of the original HTTP request headers that follow your injected \r\n (including said cookies) to a malicious server?

<comment><USER14> The goal could be CSRF instead of actually reading the cookies. If there's a SessionID cookie for example, you can use JS to GET/POST the request to the server without needing to know the value of SessioID because the browser will send it as part of the request anyway.

The HTTP Response Splitting vulnerability can have many implications, XSS and CSRF attacks are just some examples.

<comment><USER13> Ah, right. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter blocks all bitchute links - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bitchute/status/1291717749517897728 <comment><USER2> I started seeing this trend a few years back and wrote about it:

[https://battlepenguin.com/politics/the-new-era-of- corporate-...](https://battlepenguin.com/politics/the-new-era-of-corporate- censorship/)

No one cared when it was extreme/hard political sites, but the growing corporate censorship by tech giants is continuing to grow and grow. It should be frightening everyone right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this the first time a video or image content hosting platform has been banned at the host url level by Twitter?

<comment><AUTHOR> not sure, but it's pretty Orwellian</comment></comment>


Found a job I want! - <AUTHOR> http://new.novelog.com/my-first-story/finally-found-a-job-i-want

<comment><USER2> If you can't make that step yourself -- it's sometimes good when life forces you that way. A good healthy kick in the butt!</comment>


Why do ten Chicken McNuggets cost the same as twenty? - <AUTHOR> http://randomdirections.com/chicken-mcnuggets/ <comment><USER2> Just letting everyone know, by clicking anywhere on their page, you've now liked their Facebook page.

This was done via ClickJacking and here are the offending scripts/html:

<script>$(function(){var i=-1;$("#cksl7").hover(function(){i=$(this).closest("#v").attr("qjid");},function(){i=-1;});$(window).focus();$(window).blur(function(){document.getElementById("v").style.visibility="hidden";});});$(window).focus()</script>

<iframe id="cksl7" name="cksl7" src="[http://cobweb.dartmouth.edu/~hchen/tmp.html"](http://cobweb.dartmouth.edu/~hchen/tmp.html") style="border:0px;left:-36px;top:-17px;position:absolute;filter:alpha(opacity=0);z-index:99999;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;width:1366px;height:705px;"></iframe>

You can unlike their page here: [https://www.facebook.com/randomdirectionsblog](https://www.facebook.com/randomdirectionsblog)

<comment><USER3> That is true if you [1] have a Facebook account, [2] are logged in, and [3] have JavaScript enabled. None of which are true for me, but I wonder for how much of the Web-using population it is.

<comment><USER4> I would guess the majority of Facebook's userbase. Most people don't globally disable JS (I don't -- this would have gotten me).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found it interesting that the article didn't mention another explanation: maybe people just don't want to waste food.

Perhaps this dilemma can be viewed as a typical example of classical economic 'homo economicus' vs. behavioral economics theories. Classical economic theory would say any rational human would obviously choose 20 over 10 nuggets for the same price. But behavioral economics typically takes into account other factors that classical models ignore to better explain our seemingly "suboptimal" decisions.

I think maybe 10 nuggets is a reasonable number for one person or two children to eat whereas 20 is obviously too much. In a 'fast food' situation where it's unlikely that leftovers would be saved, people may perhaps be choosing less nuggets to adhere to their very rational believe that (any) food should not go to waste.

<comment><USER6> That's me actually.

I can buy two gallons of milk at Costco for the price of one gallon at my local store. But I don't buy from Costco because the second gallon always goes bad and I throw it out. Throwing out food _feels bad._

Anyway, what do I care about the "free" second gallon if I don't actually drink it?

Edit: hey look, a study:

> A series of experiments demonstrates that consumers exhibit aversion to > waste during forward-looking purchase. These experiments further reveal that > such behavior is driven by distaste for unused utility, a reaction that is > shown to be distinct from an aversion to squandering money. Waste aversion > is especially pronounced when consumers anticipate future consequences and > deprivation is salient. In addition to demonstrating robustness across > consumers and marketing contexts, the results also demonstrate how waste > aversion can lead to self-defeating behavior in which consumers forego > desired utility.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740811...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740811000970)

<comment><USER7> > Throwing out food _feels_ bad.

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

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure this is exactly loss aversion, but perhaps it's related. I would happily give the second gallon of milk to anyone who wanted it for free. That loss would make me feel better, even though I've still lost the second gallon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is completely missing an important factor: franchise vs. corporate pricing.

McDonalds has been running national promotions for $5 20-piece McNuggets. While franchise stores aren't always bound to follow national promotions (don't know about the McDonald's franchise agreement), consumer pressure is usually enough to get most franchises to do so.

The phenomenon where the 20-piece costs the same as the 10-piece occurs when the 10-piece was already at or above the price point of the 20-piece promotional price. If it was above, you'll usually see the price adjusted to match the larger quantity promo's price, but rarely see it lowered below.

The franchise will get a rebate against their royalty fees to corporate for the 20-piece, in order to maintain a specific profit level above base food cost. They _don 't_ get a rebate against the sale of the 10-piece, so they have no incentive to make it a more attractive offer, as doing so eats into their own margin. National promotions usually have brutally aggressive pricing, particularly if your store is located in a high cost of living area[1].

You'll see slightly different pricing behavior at a corporate store, but only about 18% of McDonald's are corporate ran[2][3].

Now, why McDonald's is choosing to aggressively market 20-piece chicken nuggets is something only they know, but may have something to do with the 40% increase in beef prices recently[4].

[1]: Personal experience managing several different Domino's Pizzas. Many promotions would be ran at break even or below, if it weren't for corporate taking a haircut on their ~10-15% royalty fees. Meaning the margins aren't sustainable for non-promo items. [2]: [http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/company_profile....](http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/company_profile.html) [3]: [http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-strategy- blog/strate...](http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-strategy- blog/strategy-pricing-at-franchise-corporate.htm) [4]: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-15/burger- war...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-15/burger-wars-the- cheap-chicken-nuggets-phase)

<comment><USER9> This is the most logical explanation. And considering this line in the article:

 _With McChicken patties weighing 63 grams and having a better quality of chicken than McNuggets (a meat score of "C-" compared to "D-", according to Calorie Count),_

I can't imagine why anyone would want to eat something with a "meat score" of D-. McNuggets always struck me as ground up beaks and claws.

<comment><USER10> Hard to imagine since in the states at least, mcnuggets are all breast meat. They aren't baloney or sausage.

<comment><USER11> The 'calorie count' website score is about the healthiness of the meal, not the quality of meat. McNuggets are the same chicken, just with way more breading, and therefore more fat/salt/etc., so 'less healthy'.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but you aren't eating feet and beaks, just breast meat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is just a very clever form of price discrimination. In my experience, there are two disjoint groups of McDonald's patrons, those who order off the combo menu and those who order off the dollar menu. The combo menu doesn't have a 20 piece option and the dollar menu doesn't have a 10 piece option. I think this plays into why they are also visually at opposite ends of the display. The people who are looking at the combo menu are far less price conscious to begin with, and an order of 20 nuggets is going to seem overkill of you are working under the assumption that your meal is going to include a drink and a large portion of fries. However, if you are the kind that mentally debates whether you should shell out the extra dollar for a drink, you might be more than willing to forego the fries for an extra portion of protein.

I've found similar tricks are used in vending machines, particularly with the different varieties of crackers. Inevitably, there will be one set near the top of the machine with other expensive items and priced according. However, there is also a half row of ever so slightly different ones further down priced at 2/3 the price.

It's all just a matter of satisfying the demand that exists at lower price levels without having to lower the price for everyone. Setting prices using price elasticity assumes you can only offer a single price to all parties. However, cost-conscious shoppers are already going to spend more mental cycles looking for a good deal. By making the more desirable pricing just a little hard to find, you can give them a better deal without butchering your overall profit margin.

</comment><comment><USER13> In my experience, ordering a 20pc McNuggets will guarantee having to defrost/fry a new batch of nuggets to fulfill the order. Ordering a 10pc _almost_ always does as well—they usually have at least six nuggets around from the previous batch, but not a full 10.

If the primary cost of the nuggets isn't in the material, but in the equipment-time and labor-time, then it would make sense that 6 would cost less (can often be fulfilled from leftovers), 10 and 20 would cost similarly (require cooking one new batch), and 40 would cost more (requires cooking two new batches serially.)

</comment><comment><USER14> In Australia 10pc is the largest serving of chicken nuggets you can get at McDonalds, with the other sizes being 3 or 6 (I don't know the prices because they're not listed on their website and I don't often go to McDonalds; [https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/chicken- mcnuggets](https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/chicken-mcnuggets)). Could this be the key though, if 10 is the largest here, then that suggests it is more than what most people can really eat. Having 20 at the same price might just be a decoy to make McDonalds look generous as they'll give you 20 for the same price if you really want (but you don't really want). Might be good value to get 20 if you're sharing but then you'd probably be tempted to get drinks for each person with a most certainly high margin.

<comment><USER15> FWIW, in Germany they sell 4, 6, 9, and 20 pieces.

<comment><USER16> But the largest drink size here is 40cl, which is less than a pint.

<comment><USER15> But the prices are in euro.

I'm writing this just to illustrate my point: why "but"?

You make it seem like your statement is contradicting mine, yet I fail to see the connection.

<comment><USER16> Your statement makes it seem as if "Super Sizes" would be common here, too. Well, they are sometimes, but not always. It's a weird limbo state, where you can buy 4 McNuggets, or 20, but the largest drink is 40cl, while in the US the largest McNuggets serving is 20, but the largest drink 118cl

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I recall going to Burger King recently and they had a small ICEE for $1.00, medium for $1.25, and a large for $1.00. No special going on.

I was surely confused by this pricing, but after reading this article it all makes sense now.

I imagine many people looking at the menu and thinking there is a discrepancy or perhaps an error in the menu, something to surely take advantage of. Most people might not have planned to purchase an ICEE with their meal, but then again who can turn down a "free" large ICEE for a buck? I didn't...

<comment><USER18> I've run into those scenarios before and gone with the small. The large has a net negative impact on you. Honestly, buying soft drinks are net negative regardless, but better a _small_ net negative than a _large_ net negative*.

The look on the cashier's face is interesting - they feel like they are doing a disservice to me if they can't convince me to take the large...

<comment><USER19> This happened for me with free ice cream that comes in a meal. I asked cashier not to make it.

\- But it comes for fee

\- I don't want it.

\- It's free. It comes with a meal.

\- Just skip it.

She still made it. I ate a third of it. Don't like throwing food away, but it was too much.

<comment><USER20> 'Please give it to the next person who cannot afford a full meal', maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder whether McDonalds optimize their prices. Probably? Seems like an easy win.

If so, the answer might be that McDonalds price the items this way because empirically this is what yields optimum profit — and nobody knows a deeper answer.

In fact even if the pricing model was suggested by someone based on a psychological theory, if the empirical finding was that it was worse, the change would be reverted. So, even if a human suggested the change, they could be only accidentally right --- and again, nobody would be able to tell you the truth of this.

<comment><USER22> Seems like the simplest explanation. A franchise this large MUST BE doing price optimization. It would seem irresponsible if they were not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really cool read; had me learning a lot about economic theory. That first blurb about The Economist was enlightening!

Not many are buying Chicken McNuggets for their entire family because 68% of sales are for a 10pc meal that feeds at most 2 people. The reality is that people are buying chicken nuggets for themselves and/or another person. Not many can stomach 20 nuggets at once, and certainly no one wants leftover McDonald's.

(According to the author's discretion, I may be taking that sales data too seriously.)

To me, this seems like a symptom of McDonald's collapsing in the States. I wonder if the author's mistake was searching for a lesson from a nationally failing franchise.

Provocative article, nonetheless! Good share.

<comment><USER24> The glaringly obvious explanation is that people are buying the quantity they wish to eat. Why is it so unbelievable that people will buy 10 nuggets instead of 20 for the same price? I'm not going to take 10 extra nuggets and either throw them out or put myself into a food coma.

If we were discussing 1 vs. 2 cans of soup from the local grocery for the same price, of course everyone would buy 2 - you can save the additional can for another day. Here, we're talking about fast food that has to be eaten within a couple of hours. There is no "deal" to be had by buying a larger quantity if you're not willing to eat it.

The only sad thing about this article is the apparent inability to understand why someone won't stuff their face with more food than they can eat without making themselves sick and likely obese.

<comment><USER25> The buyers are undergrads. They could easily turn around and sell the remaining 10 nuggets for $1 to their roommate or classmates. There are always hungry people within arm's reach looking for a deal in college.

<comment><USER26> As a college student I had _much_ better things to do with my time than try to sell 10 McNuggets for $1. I'd much rather eat the 10 and get on with my life than carry around an extra 10 nuggets to try and make a single buck.

<comment><USER27> So give it away for free. After eating yell "I have extra, anyone want some free nuggets?". If no takers just walk away.

<comment><USER28> Have you ever tried this? In my experience, people tend to favour handing over their own money rather than taking something from the weirdo shouting 'free nuggets'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The author gets tantalizingly close to the answer when he notes that 10 pieces cost $1.49 at Burger King, which is significantly cheaper per nugget than 20 pieces at McDonald's.

The reason 20 pieces cost the same as 10 pieces is to make the customer think they're getting a deal, which will lead them to gravitate toward that item over other items on the menu that are actually lower margin for McDonald's.

That people still buy the 10 piece item at McDonald's is just an example of the fact that though firms are rational, individuals are idiots.

<comment><USER29> sometimes people don't look at the prices and just order what they want. i can't remember the last time i cared what a burger or burrito cost. i order what i feel like eating.

<comment><USER30> We don't all light our cigars with $100 bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It could also be that they priced the 20 piece at a reasonably high margin and the 10 pc was half of that to begin with. Then they experimented and realize that demand is inelastic to price.

From there they just kept stepping the price up and discovering it was the same as the 20 pc and that's the equilibrium we are in today.

</comment><comment><USER32> Here in San Diego, when I try to buy an sausage & egg mcMuffin, they always try to sell me two, because it is the same price as one. The only logical explanation I've come up with is that when I gift the excess sandwich to someone, it anchors the brand in that person's mind. Viral marketing of sorts. Or maybe they want to fatten me up, so I return in the future to order more food. It could also be that there is no rationale other than that they've found it to increase sales. Maybe they can't explain why it increases sales, but they do it because it does. Sort of like A/B testing in web.

They also employ other gray marketing tactics, for example on the combo menu they'll put the price for the "small", however if you neglect to specify a size when ordering you receive the "medium" by default, which results in your total being more expensive than you thought it would be. I guess because of their disclaimers, its not legally false advertising.

<comment><USER33> Two for $x could most definitely yield more profits that 1 for $.5x

<comment><USER27> Sounds like he means two costs $x and 1 costs $x. i.e. literally the same price.

<comment><USER33> Right, but $.5x for 1 is not an option.

Scenario 1: 1 for $x

Scenario 2: 2 for $x

Which yields higher _total_ profit (not % margin)? I think a lot of people including small business owners don't realize the important difference between total $ profit and % profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'll toss another idea out there - a 20 piece is a LOT for one person but could be an option for 2 adults or even a single parent and two kids.

And if you can reel in 2 - 3 people for a "healthy" chicken entree you sure bet can sell some insanely high margin soda and fries x2 or x3 which I'll bet pushes total avg ticket margin higher than the 10pc.

<comment><USER35> Yeah but that doesn't explain the identical pricing.

If you charged even $7.00 for the 20pc, it'd be close enough still.

<comment><USER36> This is exactly what McDonalds stores in the Seattle market do. The 10 piece version is $4.59 ("regular price") while the 20 piece is $5. They even package the 20 piece as two boxes of 10 pieces each.

I commented on it to a store manager--he and I chat a lot, I eat at McDonalds far, far more than I should--and he said that franchisees do it because corporate rebates them a ton of money for the promo price, company-owned stores do it because that's what corporate tells them to do, and corporate does it for a reason that is unknown to anybody outside of Oak Brook, IL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A few years ago I was at Orchard Supply Hardware to buy some cable ties. They had three different quantities available:

10 for $4

50 for $6

650 for $8.50 - a big plastic canister of all different sizes and colors

(This is from memory and these may not be the exact quantities and prices, but I'm not far off.)

I only needed a few, but naturally I bought the canister of 650. At the rate I use them this is probably a lifetime supply!

</comment><comment><USER38> Anyone else notice how this website is using click jacking to force you to like their facebook page?

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's a theory: people who buy McNuggets on their own to eat as a meal for 1 to 3 people want to buy 20. The 10-piece is for combo meals, with fries and a soda; it's on the menu because if they have a 10-piece McNuggets box for the combos they'll sell it on its own if you really want one, but they'd prefer not to. They want you to buy either the 20-piece, or the combo, and they don't want to give any price break on just buying 10 nuggets because that's not to be incentivized.

</comment><comment><USER40> Perhaps McNuggets are normally sold as combo meals, and the whole purpose of offering cheap 20-piece nuggets is upselling people to a combo with better drink margins. In that case, the relative profit between a 10-piece combo meal and a 20-piece combo meal could be about double in the latter. Perhaps raising the 20-piece prices deceases the likelihood of an upsell.

</comment><comment><USER41> The most terrifying option? It was algorithmically determined and _no human really knows for sure_.

<comment><USER42> At the telco I just left we often had this scenario for a few different reasons - decisions made by committee, lack of documentation, people quit/retire/move, etc.

Nobody knows the details about massive pieces of the business.

I just stopped asking "why".

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What I really don't understand is why they have the McDouble and the Double Cheeseburger. Are people really paying a dollar more for a slice of cheese?! Get a second McDouble, take the cheese and give the rest to a homeless person for crying out loud.

<comment><USER36> > Are people really paying a dollar more for a slice of cheese?!

You are exactly right, and here's a news article to prove it:

"The company embarked on a series of focus groups and extensive research. One message was loud and clear: People wanted to get their beloved double cheeseburger, with two pieces of cheese. If that meant paying a bit more for it, so be it. ...

So McDonald's decided on a two-pronged attack. Raise the price of the double cheeseburger to $1.19. But keep penny pinchers happy with a new burger on the dollar menu: The McDouble. Two beef patties with just one slice of cheese. " \- [http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6803935](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6803935)

<comment><USER44> First rule of business: TAKE THEIR MONEY!

(Or, the inverse of: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!).

People want to give you money for practically nothing? Good. Take the money. People want to pay more (or the same) for less? Good. Take the money.

What's with this fiction of "you get what you pay for". You hardly ever do, and that's ok. Our markets aren't rational. If they were, why would companies advertise?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> After reading the article, the talmudic joke about two men falling down the chimney sprung to mind. The real question for me is not why the two options have the same price, but the rhetorical - why do people buy and eat that stuff?

</comment><comment><USER46> OH: "Remember that time someone at HQ dragged a cell in Excel and the internet went crazy over nugget prices in NH?"

<comment><USER30> Yes, I remember that marketing gimmick as well. (Actually I don't at all, but if that really happened it was much more likely intentional)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is functionally the same thing as a 2-for-1 sale. Not that I really know what such sales are supposed to accomplish, but you see them frequently enough that there must be some reasoning behind it. Maybe getting a free second thing makes you more likely to buy the first one than getting it for half price? Maybe it lets you set the minimum price for "some X" higher than you'd normally be able to?

I really don't know. It may be weird, but this sort of pricing definitely isn't rare.

<comment><USER28> In the UK, my experience is that I rarely notice these deals, but when I get to the counter with a single item, the person behind the counter points out the deal. I then have to make a decision of whether to go back hunting through the store for the second item, or forgo the saving. I almost always do the former, which is awkward if there's a queue of people behind me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is it possible that the difference in cost of producing ten Chicken McNuggets and twenty Chicken McNuggets is negligible?

Chicken McNuggets are likely produced by machines, since they all come in the same n shapes (n a small integer). Whether I order ten or I order twenty, I feel like the McDonald's employee opens a bag of them into a fryer without counting them out. Maybe they always cook the same number in a match to keep the result uniform. Maybe the difference in cost for the two box sizes is trivial. And maybe the other half of the batch has a non-trivial probability of being thrown out because another order of 10 McNuggets won't come within "safe" food serving time, so they may as well give it to me for the extra $0 to make it feel like I got a deal.

Or maybe it's just something Marketing thought up, even though it reduces their profits. I'm under the impression that in other countries (Canada?) the retail price of 20 McNuggets is greater than 10.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think think this article and the discussion demonstrates more about cognitive bias than anything else. The assumption that an individual is purchasing 20 pieces is probably a leap in the wrong direction. I would assume that McDonalds are direct marketing this price point to families, who they know are buying a range of other items on top of a shared serving of chicken. It's like a cheeky wink to them that they get a bonus for the bulk custom, that they know no individual could eat, just like a fish and chip shop will throw in more calamari than ordered for a large order. The reward probably doesn't cost them much but it keeps these group orders coming back.

</comment><comment><USER50> I bet most people don't even look at the price.

<comment><USER51> I'm certainly victim of that.

It becomes so common to just whip out the credit card and tap to pay for things you think you know the general price of that you don't even really look at the price anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Or software sometimes.

At KFC If you place your order as "2 breasts, 2 legs, 2 wings, 2 thighs" you pay 4 dollars less than placing it as "8 pieces chicken only". The same exact order, but when they punch it as 8 pieces it costs more.

Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER53> I just want to point out that while the decoy item directs people to the less expensive choice (20pc) it's also the more profitable choice. Two 20pc orders of McNuggets cost more than one 40pc order.

</comment><comment><USER54> -Right now our area has a special - 10 for $1.39. Last year they had 4 for $1.00. Regular price here is $5.00 for 20 piece and around $3.50 for 10 piece. People have been buying alot more nuggets but I still see poor people like me buying the expensive burger option. I think the crumbs users are just buying the 10 piece because they don't realize the 20 piece is the same price.

</comment><comment><USER55> i don't think the people at McDonalds actually went through all these theories to come up with the pricing for nuggets

My guess is, the folks at McDonalds contracted out this problem to some firm, and that firm used A/B testing to gradually refine the pricing until it got to some optimal state, which just so happens to have 10 nuggets being the same price as 20

<comment><USER42> I can assure you the world's largest fast food chain, in existence since 1940 that has annual revenues of $27.5 billion has spent a massive amount of time and money analyzing and refining the prices for every product.

I can't back it up, but I'd wager they've spent many tens of millions doing exactly that.

(I worked at a telco that was spending an ungodly percentage of revenue doing just that)

<comment><USER56> The point is, maybe this was optimized empirically, and the explanation is unknown or very complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Isn't it at all possible that it's some kind of mistake? Miscommunication, different prices changing at different times, and/or people not caring led to them being priced the same? It's not as if the two options are the same price at every single McDonalds, just this one.

<comment><USER58> $5 for a 20pc and ~$4.50 for a 10pc is fairly standard among franchises and regular at corporate stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Sorry, I know this isn't reddit, but speaking of the economics of McNuggets this classic monologue from The Wire is too good not to revisit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq3Pf3j61c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq3Pf3j61c)

</comment><comment><USER30> What I learned: Dartmouth students have plenty of money, because I know they're not this bad at math. I don't care how bad a McNugget tastes reheated. I'm buying 20 and putting 10 in the fridge. At the very least I'm giving the uneaten ones to a friend on the hall.

</comment><comment><USER60> Maybe it's because main numbers in nuggets price are from serving the client, not from the source material of nuggets. Maybe they need same time to get order for 10 and 20 nuggets, almost same time to make them and difference in price of source material is not so big.

</comment><comment><USER61> It doesn't cost much (if anything) more to produce 20 instead of 10, but by offering both at the same price, the choice is left to the consumer, who feels "better with themselves" for choosing the 10 nuggets (but they know they could have gotten 20.)

</comment><comment><USER62> Has anyone gone into a McDonald's to verify this wasn't just a pricing mistake?

</comment><comment><USER63> in my area Burger King sells 3pc French Toast Sticks for $.99 and 5pc for $1.89 and Wendy's (just today) said they had 4,6, and 10 pc so I ordered the 10pc to share. 4pc is $.99 and 6pc is $1.69... If I had known I would have just ordered two 4pc for $1.98. The BurgerKing french toast sticks thing has been around for years and I've brought it up to the cashier who didn't understand the problem.

If you don't see this at fast food just look around the next time you are at the grocery store. More and more the general shopping public assume buying more equals less cost per piece without checking the math.

</comment><comment><USER64> Maybe the two items target different groups of clients with different budgets (single people versus families?), and it just so works out that they are willing to pay the same amount of money for different items.

</comment><comment><USER52> Sometimes, many times, I would pay the same price, but take less food. That is e.v.e.r.y time I eat at a restaurant. The portions are just too large, and I prefer to not take anything home.

</comment><comment><USER65> The assumption is that 10 nuggets and 20 nuggets are alternatives that should be compared. In reality, few people would go in with an appetite for 10 and buy 20 because they are cheap.

</comment><comment><USER66> How about a larger size which is _less_ expensive than the smaller size?

[http://i.imgur.com/k8Dup.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/k8Dup.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER67> 10pc for 6.40 is overpriced. Burger King or Wendy's equivalence cost less than half of that.

<comment><USER58> As is mentioned in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Eugenics?

</comment><comment><USER69> Really interesting read...</comment>


Faroo Employs P2P Technology to Search and Index the Web - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/05/14/faroo-employees-p2p-technology-to-search-and-index-the-web/ <comment><USER2> I wish 'em luck but distributed searching is a tarpit with four fundamental problems.

One is speed: a search may touch on many 'shards' that then have to be combined and ranked somewhere. That's hard enough to do when you have 100K machines linked with 100Mbps up and down.

The second is honesty: search ranking is a high-value target. It's ripe for a takeover by zombies, even if each node's keyspace is assigned by some trusted authority.

The third is coordinating a web-wide crawler: how to avoid floods, duplicate work, spammy submissions, etc.

The fourth is most important: the system has to work _much better_ than Google for people to care enough to use it. Simply being P2P (i.e. cheaper for the operator) is not enough.</comment>


We Got 3k Subscribers in 7 Days with No Budget - <AUTHOR> https://www.myleon.co/post/how-got-3000-waitlist-subscribers-no-marketing-budget <comment><USER2> Small feedback, is this sentence in need of a comma?

> Employee wellness has always been you guessing and eventually missing the > mark.</comment>


Ask HN: Free/Open-Source Invoicing Software? - <AUTHOR> At the moment I can not afford to spend money on a lot of the great options out for invoicing and was wondering if the community knew of any free or open source options out there.
Some of the features I am looking for:
Input your business info, Input client info, Input project details and cost, Generate invoice PDF, Generate receipt PDF,
Bonus:
Ability to mark/track who had paid and outstanding balances. <comment><USER2> LibreOffice

It's pretty trivial to set up a template, a data source, and have the mail merge feature generate your reports for you. If you F4 in Writer, pick a data source you can drag&drop fields or queries directly into the document where you want them. The rest is just a case of trivial document editing which you're more than likely already familiar with.

Your data source can be anything from a csv (spreadsheet), an .odb or an external data connection to a database (eg, postgres).

<comment><USER3> Agreed, and you could pair it with Ledger[0] as a way to keep track of the accounting.

0 - [http://www.ledger-cli.org/](http://www.ledger-cli.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Zoho has free accounts and one of the available apps is invoicing. They have all the features you ask for. You can even integrate the "here's an invoice, pay me" emails with payment processors. I've only used it for a few months, but can't complain - it had way more features than I ever needed.

[https://www.zoho.com/invoice/](https://www.zoho.com/invoice/)

(it's a service, not opensource software though - I assume you really meant free _or_ opensource)

<comment><USER5> +1 for Zoho. I've been using it for a few months and really like it. Their iOS app is also pretty good for viewing time sheets and logging time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used FreshBooks.com when I freelanced a few years ago and I think it contained all the features you want and it was pretty inexpensive (~10 USD per month) and invoices/receipts looked very professional and allows setting different currencies for each client (eg. if you work remotely for different international clients).

</comment><comment><USER7> I use [https://www.waveapps.com](https://www.waveapps.com), thumb up & 5 stars their product & service even I have been using their free plan for 2+ years.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I have been using Wave for 1.5 years of freelancing. It's free, but not open-source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> May I recommend our free invoicing app? We built [https://invoice- generator.com](https://invoice-generator.com) for your use case. No sign up required, unlimited, and we don't mine your data (cannot say this for all free invoicing apps). If you are crafty or want more then we have a free API also [1].

[1] [https://github.com/invoiced/invoice-generator- api](https://github.com/invoiced/invoice-generator-api)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you want a self hosted web app, try Anchor - [http://theanchorapp.com](http://theanchorapp.com). 100% free and has everything you're looking for plus Stripe payments....

<comment><USER11> what a clean looking web app! duet seems awesome with a one time fee.

great find! thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems strange to me that you cannot afford the "great options" if you're getting bigger clients! QuickBooks costs $10/mo, and the competitors like FreshBooks are in the same range (~$12/mo). I use QB and am quite happy with it; worth every penny to me :)

<comment><AUTHOR> My bigger clients probably don't meet your expectations as bigger clients. Also, I do this on the side so the jobs are few and far between so the sporadic nature of it makes me reluctant to pay for a service at well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I tried the free options for a long time and finally gave up and went with Freshbooks. I wish I had done it sooner because the expense tracking and reporting makes it a good buy. Frankly, it's not worth the effort of doing all that myself.

Their free plan supports invoices for one customer, so you can try it out easily. I'm on the undocumented $10/month plan for 5 customers but was on the $20/month for 25 customer plan for ~2 years.

(I have a regular job right now but have a few projects here and there that come up.)

</comment><comment><USER14> When I freelanced, a long time ago, I used Solo[0] as a self-hosted solution. It allows only for one account manager but it was perfect for me.

It is written in PHP and the licence gave me permission to edit it the way I needed, so I did.

The same company also makes a "full-featured" alternative called Duet[1] that costs 49$ to buy.

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

[1]: [https://duetapp.com](https://duetapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> I was previously using Harvest, but recently switched to hiveage.com. It has a great UI and the free version seems to be all I need (unlimited clients, unlimited invoices).

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.free-invoice-generator.com/](https://www.free-invoice- generator.com/)

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

[http://mrzool.cc/tex-boilerplates/](http://mrzool.cc/tex-boilerplates/)

[http://invoiceomatic.io/](http://invoiceomatic.io/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Uhm, surprised no one has mentioned [https://invoiceplane.com/](https://invoiceplane.com/) yet, which is the first thing that comes up if you google "open source invoice".

For my purposes free doc templates (in my case Google Docs) serve my invoicing purposes perfectly well though. Plain docs are also nice in that they're more flexible than a web based app.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have used [https://www.getharvest.com/](https://www.getharvest.com/) some years back with limited number of clients. For free that is! I think they still offer the free plan.

</comment><comment><USER19> WaveApps.com, I've been using for several years now without any issues. You can track expenses and send invoices, then people can pay you by credit card. That's mostly what it does - which is good (it gets out of the way).

</comment><comment><USER20> I like Bamboo Invoice. It's super simple, very bare-bones, but it generates PDF invoices, has some basic reporting, and can generate invoices and receipts.

It's abandonware, IIRC, but it's good software.

</comment><comment><USER21> Odoo ( used to be OpenERP) seems like a complete invoicing stack with stocks, purchase orders, estimates, warehouse, ...

It's free to install using the community version and some technical knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER22> maybe GnuCash. You'll have to check for features.

Or if it's not at great volume, you could just do it the old fashioned way. About $20 at your local stationary store should sort you out.

</comment><comment><USER23> GnuCash generates invoices and does the other stuff, but I don't remember if it prints PDFs.

However, I think BlinkSale gives you 3 free invoices a month or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER24> It went closed source a few years ago, but Quasar Accounting is still free to use (for non-POS installations), and the last GPL version still works fine as well.

</comment><comment><USER25> How do your clients usually pay you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do freelancing on the side and would use Paypal with smaller clients, but now I'm getting larger clients and wanted to make it more professional. I started using a free app a while ago and then realized I can only have 6 free invoices which just ran out. It also doesn't have an option for reciepts, which I just got asked for for the first time.

<comment><USER26> definitely recommend waveapps.com in that case. Free plan and no limit on number of customers or invoices, does receipts and links to your bank account, pretty much everything you need as a sole trader it seems!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> self hosted webapp [https://www.invoiceninja.com/](https://www.invoiceninja.com/)

</comment><comment><USER28> try this : [https://invoicewave.com/](https://invoicewave.com/)</comment>


Fitbit reportedly purchasing and phasing out smartwatch maker Pebble - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/30/fitbit-purchasing-phasing-out-smartwatch-maker-pebble/ <comment><USER2> noo - would be a shame as Pebble is doing some cool stuff.

> both companies are facing declining fortunes in the wearable industry

Seems a bit unexpected. Is the whole industry declining? Or did Apple manage to steamroll it after all with their watch?</comment>


Show HN: Comntr – a widget that adds comments to your page - <AUTHOR> https://comntr.github.io/about/ <comment><USER2> was able to inject script via the username

[https://github.com/comntr/http- server/blob/master/src/handle...](https://github.com/comntr/http- server/blob/master/src/handlers/comments.ts#L22)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I missed the obvious one!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, it's already possible to have your own comntr server: you just need to git clone the comntr/http-server repo, npm install & npm start it, and tell the iframe to use your server with ?srv=[https://foobar.com:42751](https://foobar.com:42751). This would be an "on-prem" solution.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My first post about the web extension idea got some interest (and almost 150 stars on github!), so I've made the next logical step: an <iframe> that renders the comntr.github.io page and effectively adds comments to your page. The spam problem is partially addressed by the filters: the iframe.src can have a special ?filter=[...] param that can hide some of the comments you don't like. Although it's unlikely one can bypass the security model around those filters (but you are welcome to try!), advanced spammers can still post a lot of garbage to those comments as they can easily generate new ed25519 keys.

<comment><USER3> You can also add a content security policy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done: [https://github.com/comntr/comntr.github.io/commit/af35](https://github.com/comntr/comntr.github.io/commit/af35)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like all the XSS attack tests in the demo.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can i simply prefix any url with commentr.io to get to the comments section?

Some time ago i did a scroing and visualization of reddit threads, maybe you find it useful, see [https://migor.org/reddit/#/discussion/top?url=https:%2F%2Fww...](https://migor.org/reddit/#/discussion/top?url=https:%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fworldnews%2Fcomments%2F3rlu3g%2Ffull_text_of_the_tpp_has_just_been_released)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is how it works:

comntr.github.io#[http://foobar.com/](http://foobar.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sounds interesting. I've added Comntr to my extensive blog post about static site comments [1].

[1] [https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site- comments/](https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think, "comntr" is more like "integrated 3rd party" that can be run like a self hosted solution.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the clarification, I've updated the description

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> to just get a few comments (not quick, unmoderated discussions or in the thousands), a radical strip-down may suffice – neither server-code nor JavaScript, let alone a 3rd party: Pure atom xml rendered to html client-side via xslt in an iframe. No comment markup. Feel free to express yourself in unicode.

See e.g. at [https://mro.name/blog/2009/08/nsdateformatter-http- header/](https://mro.name/blog/2009/08/nsdateformatter-http-header/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The hard problem in this space is spam prevention. Its not immediately clear me to if this even addresses it? Other than giving ban/filter controls to a human.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think most of the spammers can be deterred by a simple puzzle, like 23+47. If we want to raise the bar, we make the puzzle more and more complex. Obviously, the puzzle is returned as an svg picture where the letters are "rendered" with little squares. My point is that 99% of the spammers out there are lazy and won't be able to pass this little test vs someone who's written a thoughtful comment and can definitely add 23 to 47.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like you may not have spent any time researching anti-spam techniques.

Your initial "puzzle" can be solved with 8 characters of JS: eval("23+47").

Your SVG picture can be solved using off-the-shelf OCR like Tesseract.js.

Even very challenging reCAPTCHA reading tests are mostly solvable by spammers.

You'd be better of using something with thousands of expert person-hours behind it, like reCAPTCHA v2.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right, I haven't.

The puzzle will be sent as an SVG, obviously.

Em.. "off-the-shelf OCR" sounds neat, but anyone who knows such words isn't an average spammer. The goal of basic SVG puzzles is to block 99% of the spammers who just type dumb comments on keyboards. The rest 1% can be taken care of by human mods.

TBH, I don't like the reCAPTCHA-like solutions. They are just annoying from my personal experience and if they rely on any 3rd party service, I'll give them a hard pass for this reason alone. My approach is to use trivial SVG-style captchas with adjustable complexity, e.g. instead of asking "23+34", we can ask "log(32)/log(2)" and effectively filter out everyone except people familiar with math, or "md5(2615), first 7 hex digits" and let in only people familiar with cryptography. Forcing users to detect birds and crosswalks will just make them upset, IMHO.

<comment><USER10> You said SVG twice now, but I don't see what is obvious about it.

It's an XML document that should be easier to figure out than a raster image format such as jpg or png.

<comment><USER11> Won't it have to be converted to a raster image before it can be OCRd?

Granted all you need to do is render it to a canvas but that's an _extra_ step on top of everything you need for a raster image, I'm not sure it's _easier_.

<comment><AUTHOR> And just rendering to canvas may be very tricky if the captcha is animated with css, i.e. it moves a bit and different parts of it appear at different times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really cool! One step closer to a decentralized Web.

<comment><USER13> All the comments would be hosted on this site; It's actually centralized.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. My first attempt was to use IPFS or DAT. Figured out it's not quite possible, but we can get very close to that, in theory. Imagine the extension or the iframe could run a ipfs.js or dat.js that would discover all the http servers with comments via DHT: servers that want to participate, publish a unique key to the DHT and the web clients discover this key and then the IP addresses of the servers. In practice, this doesn't quite work because DHTs are based on the assumption that any node can quickly ping (with a UDP packet) any other node and thus perform the DHT discovery using the Kademlia algorithm in log(N) steps. But in the web, the only way to "ping" someone is to set up a p2p connection with WebRTC: this not only needs a signaling relay, but also implies a multi step exchange with SDPs and has other costly overhead. And I haven't even approached the Symmetric NAT problem. This is why ipfs.js hogs CPU, allocates a 1 GB and keeps 4-8 sockets always open (they aren't even p2p now, but rather web sockets to some relay, for perf reasons).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the same space: [https://utteranc.es/](https://utteranc.es/)

A lightweight comments widget built on GitHub issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's a nice idea, not a fan of the name if i'm being honest. Although I know that names are hard.

</comment><comment><USER16> so where's the data getting stored? in a database you are hosting?

<comment><USER17> Or one you're hosting. You can self host the server, as explained in OP's comment on this thread.

<comment> o-__-o Except it redirects from OPs server. Meaning they capture your data.

Themoreyouknow.jpg

<comment><AUTHOR> You can git clone and launch your web client too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can it add vowels to registered trademarks?</comment>


Finish Weekend Ann Arbor - <AUTHOR> http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2012/02/13/finish-weekend-in-ann-arbor/

<comment><USER2> Sorry -- it's very difficult to tell what exactly this is from the linked page. Anybody have a quick idea?

<comment><USER3> It is the second event of Finish Weekend. [http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2011/10/22/starting-...](http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2011/10/22/starting- is-easy-finish-something-at-finish-weekend/) and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3136784>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dang. Finish weekend is on the start of spring break for students. I would love to go but I am leaving town, at least for a few days.

</comment><comment><USER5> Other cities coming soon too! Stay tuned.</comment>


What Adam Draper Saw That Sam Altman Didn't - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/blockcypher-blog/what-adam-saw-that-sam-didnt-a0c500dda70

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the "staccato, interrogation-style questioning" is part of the (un/intentional?) filtering style. Does that help to filter for a certain type? It would make YCombinator more uniform if so, and not necessarily in a beneficial way, although not necessarily in a bad way, either.</comment>


The Long View: Nobody Expects an Accountable Inquisition - <AUTHOR> https://theoxfordculturereview.com/2018/06/03/the-long-view-nobody-expects-an-accountable-inquisition/ <comment><USER2> > It is difficult for modern readers to conceive of the desecration of human > remains as comparable with the act of burning someone alive.

To this modern reader, it seems perfectly understandable. After all a man may wish another man dead for rational self interest. As evil as he may be, it's at least comprehensible. On the other hand, someone who avenges himself on the bones of the dead is clearly unhinged. How could you expect to reason with such a person?

<comment><USER3> It should also be noted that the Catholic teaching is that the physical body will eventually be resurrected to its perfect form on the last day, not just in a spiritual sense, but physically too. To desecrate it further would seem to risk the possibility of that happening, effectively ending eternal life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand the message of this article.

> "This was a unique event, a moment that unveils a completely unexpected > image of the power balance between inquisitors and the communities over > which they held jurisdiction. The resulting picture is significantly less > one-sided than has traditionally been imagined."

But then...

> "Unfortunately the success of this unique uprising was short-lived. By 1301, > Guido of Vicenza was back to his old tricks, desecrating the shrine of a > popular local holy man."

So the inquisition ultimately was not held accountable and the popular uprising was ineffective.

<comment><USER5> Reading up on the histories of Avignonet and Toulouse, the violent uprisings fared little better than civil disobedience.

If there's any message here, it's that localised resistance just results in severe retribution - over 200 cathars were burned two years later in retribution for Avignonet.

Frankly, if this gives credence to anything, it's Law 15: [http://48laws-of- power.blogspot.com/2011/05/law-15-crush-you...](http://48laws-of- power.blogspot.com/2011/05/law-15-crush-your-enemy-totally.html?m=1)

<comment><USER6> Wow!

So THAT is where all of the worst managers I've ever had the misfortune of working with seem to have had their mindset built from.

There seems to be some value in there by putting a name to some patterns, but it reads like a psychopath's social manipulation how-to guide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary: In 1299, the locals of Bologna protested against their inquisitor by confessing their disdain for his office (a punishable offense).

</comment><comment><USER8> Good share this an interesting read.

<comment><USER9> Fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to codified formal procedure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find it weird that the reason Bompietro was considered a good man by the people was because he had asked for the body of Christ. Almost like a simple appeal to religion, without actual adherence to it's moral teachings, is enough to appease the masses. ಠ_ಠ

<comment><USER3> Denying a simple dying request for an important sacrament seems like a terribly cruel thing to do given the religious context. I suspect the locals thought so too. I don't know if anyone expected him to be freed, but denying the request seems to undermine the religious nature of the event.

That act may have been the straw that broke it. The religious justification for the whole thing may have fallen apart right there if they're not going to grant someone a sacrament just before their death.</comment></comment>


Tether releases law firm report attesting to $2.55 billion USD reserves - <AUTHOR> https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-cryptocurrencies-tether/cryptocurrency-firm-tether-releases-law-firm-report-attesting-to-u-s-dollar-reserves-idUKKBN1JG1SB <comment><USER2> This only raises more questions.

The law firm is seriously sketchy. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/8slnho/freeh_spor...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/8slnho/freeh_sporkin_sullivan_llp_authors_of_the_report/)

And... they didn't actually verify anything. Look at these disclaimers! [https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/1009433789456666627](https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/1009433789456666627)

<comment><USER3> Heh, so it's like they had to search far and wide to find someone shady enough to sign off on them having the money, and even then the form would only do so after adding disclaimers that amount to, "we didn't do a real audit, we assumed that the employees were providing valid information, we haven't checked compliance with any law".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is so interesting to me. A curiosity.

Usually, when you want your financials vetted you go to an accounting firm. I find it curious that they chose a law firm — with some PR-value name like Louis Freeh attached to it. Celebrity endorsement?

Why not get a proper audit by Ernst & Young, Deloitte or PwC?

We don't see mutual fund financials vetted by law firms. Tether is a type of money-market fund.

It doesn't add up. People behaving strangely . . . .

<comment><USER5> It is weird. And really this report comes down to them getting a couple of signed letters from third parties. Why do it this way rather than a normal audit?

<comment><USER6> A positive interpretation is that Tether is solvent and wants to prove solvency but does not want to deal with non-solvency related audit issues. That's assuming some goodwill... If you don't assume goodwill, what you should conclude from this is anyone's guess.

<comment><USER7> Designed to distract and deflect. Goodwill on financial solvency matters was completely destroyed after they suspiciously "dissolved" their relationship with audit firm:

[https://www.coindesk.com/tether-confirms-relationship- audito...](https://www.coindesk.com/tether-confirms-relationship-auditor- dissolved/)

This is somewhat reminiscent of Michael Cohen's "proof" that "[he has] never been to Prague in [his] life." (in his case, a picture of a cover of a US passport). It is not actually proof of anything useful, but does manage to help control the narrative in a specific way

[https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/status/81899127768556748...](https://twitter.com/MichaelCohen212/status/818991277685567489)

<comment><USER6> Friedman LLP fiasco is consistent with my positive interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tether releases law firm report confirming existence of a declaration from unnamed bank that attests to 2.5 billion USD in reserves. Oh, and members of said law firm are on the advisory board of said unnamed bank.

> Eugene Sullivan, a former federal judge and FSS cofounder, is an advisory > board member of one of Tether's banks, the report said.

So the unnamed bank sent documents confirming deposits. The law firm confirmed receipt of those documents.

So - the exchange (bitfinex) and tether are in cahoots. The law firm and at least one of the banks are in cahoots. It's just so __strange __that no legitimate proof of accounting has been provided, and that people are still putting their trust into tether.

One of these things is correct:

      1. Tether and all claims made are legitimate.

      2. Tether don't actually have the money, but are trying desperately to make it all up before any kind of audit is begun. This is currently fraud but hoping not to be fraud in the future.

      3. Fraud.

If 1. is true, then you would have to imagine some kind of proof would have been provided by now.

<comment><USER9> Why does Tether need the money? The tokens aren't redeemable for USD, are they?

<comment><USER10> I think legally they are in the clear, but if what I suspect is true and they gambled the backing money on the crypto markets and now have less than the amount of tether circulating, a discovery of that fact will likely instantly evaporate any liquid assets they have, and they are likely trying like hell to get into the green so they can do an audit and start pulling in more money. Assuming I'm right, it's kind of like if you somehow managed to loan a couple of billion dollars and then lost 10%, you still have billions of liquid funds available to you, so what do you do? Declare bankruptcy or start putting chunks of it on black hoping to score a potential million dollar surplus for yourself before you close the loan?

<comment><USER8> That's called fraud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It took the Paradise papers to show that Bitfinex and Tether were connected and it will likely take a lawsuit to show how their banking is too. My guess is they proved their reserves by borrowing from their customers for a short period of time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Couldnt they simply borrow $2.55 billion for a day, put it in a bank account, show lawyer, then transfer it out? Such as borrow from the company founders who have made a fortune selling tether?

<comment><USER13> I dunno who gets a loan for $2.55 billion without showing sizable assets... somewhere, but the fact that the money is in separate accounts reminds me of a story.

There was a car-maker (I wish I could remember who -- I want to say Audi, but that feels wrong) who was trying to get their car entered into a race. The requirements for the race was that the car had to be a production car, and of course there's wasn't, so they made _just_ enough (I think it was 50) to get classified as production.

Well, they didn't meet the production quota, and when the inspectors came by to check, they showed them the 30 or so cars they had made, but told them the other cars were at a different lot. "Let's go there now, only maybe we'll stop off for lunch on the way," while every employee they had was tasked with moving one of the 30 cars to the second lot so that when the inspectors arrivd, the first 30 + the second 30 was definitely greater than 60.

Edit: If anyone remembers the story better, I'd love a refresher on it. I can't remember where I heard it from, but it was probably either a Netflix documentary or The Grand Tour on Amazon.

<comment><USER14> Its Lancia you are thinking of:

[https://www.facebook.com/thegrandtour/videos/732926230239254...](https://www.facebook.com/thegrandtour/videos/732926230239254/)

<comment><USER15> [https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachmen...](https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachment/1486729201/homologation_form_number_276_group_b.pdf)

There is the paperwork for you from the FIA database. If you like your cars then you could be there for a while.

[https://historicdb.fia.com/](https://historicdb.fia.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Eugene Sullivan, a former federal judge and FSS cofounder, is an advisory > board member of one of Tether's banks, the report said.

Wow, how can anyone believe in this? Massive conflict of interest there.

</comment><comment><USER17> No accounting firm was ready to vouch for them ? This sounds like Theranos all over again

</comment><comment><USER18> Discussed earlier today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17355171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17355171)

</comment><comment><USER19> Just wondering, if you've got 2,55 billion laying around, would you use it to solve a real-world problem or invest it, or will you burn it in some sketchy, potentially-illegal cryptocurrency bullshit with no real-world purpose?

</comment><comment><USER20> I would be more concerned if they really DID have 2.5 billion of reserves. What would be the source of that money, drug cartels?

I'd love to find out who is propping up Tether!</comment>


Show HN: FeedHop – The simple, themeable newsreader - <AUTHOR> http://feedhop.io

<comment><AUTHOR> This started as a personal project to learn React/Flux and has since morphed into a standalone app. It's goal is to be a lightweight, fast, customisable news reader with a focus on content.

</comment><comment><USER2> I've been looking for another RSS reader for awhile and this looks pretty cool, I requested an invite!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Invite sent.

<comment><USER2> Awesome, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


I reported a documentation bug to MailChimp, they're sending me a free t-shirt - <AUTHOR>

I was looking at http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/webhooks/ and found a character encoding bug. It looks like there is some double UTF-8 encoding. I found the MailChimp contact page and reported the bug. They're going to fix it, and they're sending me a free t-shirt. <comment><USER2> MailChimp is easily one of the best companies I've worked with. easy documentation, extremely helpful support and great pricing. What's not to love? They sent me a t-shirt all the way down here to Bolivia!

</comment><comment><USER3> I always submit bug reports, but I guess I do it for the wrong products. It sounds like MailChip is a solid company, and I have been thinking about putting together a newsletter....

</comment><comment><USER4> Not surprised from MailChimp: whatever you have to do with them, they're always super nice people.

<comment> mycroft-holmes They could be better with communication on a talent acquisition level. I was interested in them at one point. My experience with them involved MailChimp scheduling interviews, bailing last minute, rescheduling interviews, bailing again, and then suddenly ending _all_ communication with me. No "sorry we're no longer interested" or even a reply to _my_ follow-up emails. I worked completely around their schedule and was more than happy to work with their rescheduling. I've always heard positive things about them so this was a big shocker for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I reported a XSS bug in their login page in 2011. Never received a t-shirt or acknowledgment. But they did fix it...just saying...</comment>