Facebook is Stickier than Peanut Butter - <AUTHOR> http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/02/22/facebook-is-stickier-than-peanut-butter <comment><USER2> The genius of Facebook was getting students at elite universities to divulge lots of potentially profitable information for advertising. They did this because Facebook was an exclusive place just for elite college kids (and later just college kids). Now that its open to everyone it no longer has that value. I don't see how it can reasonably continue to increase in value (although they could certainly find a greater fool to sell it to).

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure of the experiences from other early facebook adopting schools -- but my old school (Bowdoin College) was among the first -- and it's still like crack to them. Not as ridiculous as a few years ago, but it's still wickedly popular. And from my perspective the alum retention rate, as the article mentions, is very strong.

I think the genius of Facebook is not just the eliteness, but instead a new word I'll makeup called 'localness'. Facebook cordons off the scary, wild web and presents you with people that you know or could at least see yourself knowing or bumping into. Combine that with early entry into the social networking world, very strong and appealing UI, and yes, eliteness, and a few years later, you've got 18 million users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> $8 billion for 18 million users values each user at $440. Assuming that the technology can be reasonably coppied in less than $100k, apart from users what else does facebook have? They also have a very powerful brand. Given that myspace went for $440m (correct?) then the facebook valuation probably is reasonably fair.

Anyone suggested just paying 20 million users $100 each to join and use your social network for 1 month, hehehe, seems like you could 4 times as much money :-)

<comment><USER5> >Joi Ito, founder of Neoteny, a venture firm, and former chair of Infoseek Japan, has joined a group of technologists advising Dean ... I contact him to ask if he tihnks there's a difference between an emergent leader and an old- fashioned political opportunist. What does it take to lead a smart mob? Ito e-mails back an odd metaphor: "You're not a leader, you're a place. You're like a park or a garden. If it's comfortable and cool, people are attracted. Deanspace is not really about Dean. It's about us."

Facebook is a place. Think of it like Manhattan. What creates value isn't the population (the users). Nor is it the buildings (the technology). What creates value is the emergent social interactions and the culture that occur there. To put it in geek terms, it's not the instances of people, but rather what goes on in the interstices between them.

To quote Howard Rheingold, "The 'killer app' of tomorrow won't be software or hardware devices, but the social practices they make possible. The most far- reaching changes will come from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that this future infrastructure will make possible."

<comment><USER4> That is interesting. So the question becomes; how do you put a value on a virtual place?

<comment><USER5> Well how do you put a value on a place like Wall Street? It's not the number of people or the number of computers. It's what people do there and the amount of money flowing through. As someone said below, when you have this ability to datamine 18 million kids (in aggregate) then you're pretty much sitting on a mint. Every time one kid posts on another kid's wall, it's more data to feed into the system. College-aged kids are probably the most valuable demographic to marketers in general (not because college kids have the most money, but because marketers like marketing to them because it makes them feel young), and college-age kids who actually go to college are even more valuable because they have more money on average.

<comment><USER4> Hmm, I see your point. Value/Users does seem to be meaningless by itself. You could reverse it around and say $440 is how much value they think they can derive from each facebook user. But that does not take into account any future growth and as long as facebook stays *the* college social network it's going to continue tapping into that valuable demographic.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Duplex will call salons, restaurants, and pretend to be human for you - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-duplex-will-call-salons-restaurants-and-pretend-to-be-human-for-you/ <comment><USER2> Duplicate [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022963)

</comment><comment><USER3> A bot calling for you and a bot answering for salons/restaurant. Both pretending to be human. It's like having a client/server application speaking English with an accent, without versioning, schema nor content type. What could go wrong.

<comment><USER4> Well that sounds exactly like humanity. We all know how that turned out.

<comment><USER5> That's a good point. We don't _suffer_ from all those things mentioned. We have a living API that's meant to be very flexible and adaptive.

<comment><USER6> We suffer from it all the time. There's a beautiful and tragic poem called "The Charge of the Light Brigade" about the results of a failure to communicate orders well. There's a statue in Rome depicting Moses with horns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the tone deaf product org that brought you google glass and whatever wave was, comes a solution that does not so much pretend to be human for you as it does simply dispense with the need for you pretend you possessed any humanity whatsoever at all.

Next, google Snap! A robot that snaps its fingers at service people to get their attention...

<comment><USER8> I'd argue that this product isn't as much tone deaf as it is a brilliant way to force businesses to move to using online reservation systems. Phone calls always take longer, and rather than just selecting a time you have to present times where there this takes longer when things are already booked.

<comment><USER9> Or they can just start hanging up when this stupid thing calls them.

<comment><USER10> You would turn down an appointment/sale because it was scheduled by a machine with a human voice?

<comment><USER11> Yes. I'm perfectly willing to be discerning on who I do business with.

<comment><USER10> Same—we just draw our lines in different places.

It's been 15+ years since I've worked in the service industry, but from what I remember of it, I think I'd prefer to take reservations & catering orders from a Google Assistant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That product reminded me of Facebook's M, a Messenger-based assistant that wasn't able to scale. I guess Fb didn't have two years ago the tech that Google has now.

M's key uses cases are probably going to prove essential here: aside from the usual flowers-for-my-wife-on-our-anniversary and other difficult-flights-to- book, basically busy executive stuffs, the massive potential was to deal with painful cancellation processes for your ISP, bank, gym, etc. If Google (or a developper using this API) can handle the intentionally convoluted interactions that those imply, this could be very powerful and make using Assistant the best way to handle some painful cases. Imagine applying for a loan, refinancing, switching to a better phone contract whenever there is a good offer: this technology could advise people to move between services with significant usability moats much faster, and greatly improve competition and our experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> That is unethical, the human on the other side should be made aware that he's talking to a machine instead of a human.

<comment><USER14> May be the salon, restaurant also have a bot talking to Google assistant.

<comment><USER15> Amount of compute power wasted for an AI bot to AI bot voice conversation to make a reservations somewhere boggles my mind.

<comment><USER16> ... agreed, only it doesn't boggle my mind as much as the fact that human beings get employed full-time to sit near a phone and do this entirely- automatable task every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Your own personal robocaller. Your droids we don't server their kind here.

</comment><comment><USER18> Google is so creepy.

</comment><comment><USER19> I read that as Saloon at first and now I am so disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't need software to pretend to be human for me as I am already human and do not need to pretend.

Corrected title: Google Duplex will call salons, restaurants for you, and pretend to be human.</comment>


Available for preorder today, Surface Duo - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/08/12/available-for-preorder-today-surface-duo-is-purpose-built-for-mobile-productivity/ <comment><USER2> I was a windows phone user for ages, I've got several surfaces, and I'm super hyped about dual screen phones.

Unfortunately this device just isn't made for 2020 (or 2017) usage: small battery with no wireless charging, not waterproof, no NFC (aka no wireless payments), questionable/unproven camera, processor with 2017 specs driving two screens.

On top of all that, surface has particularly bad hardware reliability. Of the devices I've owned, each has had to be factory serviced. My Nokia phones from the windows phone 8 era all needed to be factory serviced. And all that for the low price of two iPhones.

Sadly this is yet another innovative device that will be killed by making the wrong trade offs. I expect it to be copied and executed much better by Apple or maybe Samsung (I tried the Note 10 recently and the stylus is much better than the surface pen).

<comment><USER3> I actually think this device was made for me. I carry an iPhone for my personal phone, but I keep a separate device for work where most of the things you just mentioned don't matter. I need it to last a work day and waterproofing, NFC, and the camera won't matter to me in that context, etc.

There is a good chance this will replace my laptop for ~75% of my work, which is dominated by meetings, not focused work time.

<comment><USER4> Might I ask what your use-case is?

<comment><USER3> My role is a bit delivery management and a bit account management so I have a lot of facetime (well, pre-COVID) with B2B clients and I am also responsible for making sure delivery teams are on track.

An average day for me is 50%+ meetings and the rest of the time is spend coordinating actions (slack, text, emails, JIRA boards, Aha, etc.) as a result of those. Right now I bounce around between a laptop (Surface Pro) and a paper notebook. I could also probably do most of my job with an iPad Pro but the idea of the split screen appeals to me enough for me to overcome the switching cost that, for whatever reason, the iPad Pro did not.

Having a decade old note taking system that I still actively use inside of OneNote is also a contributor to my interest. My biggest fear for the Duo is that the stylus experience is subpar, so I'll certainly be trying that out first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really care if this product is successful or not, but I want to say that I'm glad to see hardware experiments from Microsoft. Not a lot of company are willing to experiment with different form factor at the scale of Microsoft, so it's nice to see some attempt to innovate!

</comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure who this is for ?

I don't want to sound negative (and have to admit I don't represent the whole population) so if this appeals to you, can you explain to me why please ?

As much as I dream of the day where you will be able to just change your screen size on a whim, we don't have the tech yet.

And it seems to me that if you need more screen estate, you will just get a tablet, not an hybrid ?

<comment><USER7> I'm on the fence just based on the camera. Thats' my 1, 2 & 3 decision maker at this point with young kids.

The universal feedback I've seen from peers who are considering the pre-order is: I can stop carrying around an iPad.

$1399 replaces an ipad and a phone for them. Time will tell if the usability matches their expectations.

<comment><USER8> Parent here. I won't buy a phone that doesn't have a good camera and take "live photos". The camera is the only reason I've not looked into getting rid of my smart phone entirely. I'd have to find some way to keep WhatsApp working, though, or else convince my entire contact list to migrate, and find a solution for MFA that works with everything from Steam to Github, so either of those might end up being blockers if I actually tried, but I'm _not_ trying because I won't give up a good Internet-connected camera (=auto-backups) that takes live photos.

I just gave it a quick DDG, and it looks like that still means my only option is iPhones (or 3rd-party apps on Android, but I am very skeptical the experience & results with those would be anywhere near as good).

<comment><USER6> by live photos you mean photos with a live 0.5 second video shot ?

Android has been having this for a pretty long while as well, at least on pixel. Off the top of my head, no idea if this applies to the whole ecosystem (might be pixel only, might be google camera only (so that would apply to any phone where you can install this app) or it might even be a pixel feature but tons of OEMs have already duplicated it (that's not exactly a recent feature so I would not be surprised)

<comment><USER8> Oh, yeah, just DDG'd it because I was curious whether Android had it now and all I could find were a bunch of "good news, now you can get live photos on your Android phone with a third party app!" hits. Cool that they have it now, too. AFAIK no stand-alone cameras have the feature, which is too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The argument here seems to be "It can replace an iPad and a phone", but I'm not so sure it can replace either one.

Setting aside the fact that Android tablet software is still a bit of a mess, are people going to want to watch movies and play games on a tablet with a big crack in the middle? Even surfing the web, you can't really view a page well in landscape. Likewise spreadsheets, word processing, etc

Apps like email which do well with multiple panes would be great, but only if they can mind the gap.

So much of what I use the iPad for is full screen, I'm a bit skeptical about how well those things translate to 2 half screens.

<comment><USER10> The "crack" doesn't bother me -- but then again, I'd never want to watch a movie on anything less than a 15" screen anyway -- but I'm old I guess.

"Two apps at once" is good, but the winner to me is master-detail support in all apps when it makes sense, without fussing around with child/popup windows, tabs or dividers -- this is a huge productivity gain, IMHO. (E.g., email list in bottom, selected email on top, etc.)

<comment><USER9> > but the winner to me is master-detail support in all apps when it makes > sense

Assuming all the apps in question support this view. I'm sure Microsoft's tools will. Not sure about how many others.

> this is a huge productivity gain, IMHO.

Versus what? On an iPad/ tablet, you can have splits where it makes sense int he interface. On this, you are stuck with the hardware split. Obviously it's way better than a phone if that's your compare. So if your job can be done on a phone, this is maybe the boss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At $600-$800 I think I'd give it a go--basically an iPad Mini (a form factor which I love) that folds up when not in use. I'm surprised they didn't show more gaming applications. I think you could use half the screen as a controller and the other half to play the games and that would be an upgrade over most current touch controls.

</comment><comment><USER12> Eh, I am underwhelmed. Android based device that appears to be overpriced based on available stats ( starting $1399 ). I am not certain if MS learned anything from Windows Mobile flop ( or learned the wrong lesson ).

Then again, I am not its target demographic. MS Surface line never entered my consideration.

</comment><comment><USER13> I love my Windows phones, but alongside Project Reunion this looks like a capitulation that the Windows strategy for mobile devices is a lost battle.

Even Windows 10X now looks like it won't be coming as expected.

Given how the whole Android ecosystem works, in terms of updates and Java support, is not as I would like, but I guess one needs to take such things how they are and not how they could be.

So "Courier" could have been Windows, but it ended up being Android based.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was very excited for it, but it is way too expensive (sensible, given the experimental nature) and seems like US only (nonsensical)... Did the first iPhone or Pixel launch in US only?

<comment><USER15> I agree, looks pretty cool, I was hoping for somewhere around $500 price point.

<comment><USER16> 500 I'd probably pre-order one if reviews were decent. 1400... ugh. :/

<comment><USER14> I'll order 3 if it was for $500!!! (•‿•)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is Android, but is it Google's Android, with Play services etc?

<comment><USER18> The screenshot looks a good deal like any other Android device, but with Edge instead of Chrome.

Is this Microsoft's first Android device?

<comment><USER19> I might be misremembering the chronology, but I think that the MS and Nokia partnership/acquisition resulted in some Android devices

<comment><USER17> Did it? I think Android only appeared on Nokia after the brand was resurrected, after Microsoft had exited it?

<comment><USER20> I didn't realize that. But there was at least the Nokia X, launched by MS in 2014 with a modified Android 4.1.2 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was really excited for this, I want to buy it and am willing to compromise for 1st generation hardware. But no NFC means it impacts my life substantially, from payments to public transport. I hope they reconsider the lack of NFC for the next generation.

</comment><comment><USER22> For context, this seems to be related to or inspired by the courier concept from 10+ years ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier)

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess you have to be a tablet user to really see the value. The fact that tablet users have more screen realstate increases their desire to want more on their screen. While for example I as a mobile user can't think of much use- cases because I'm used to a different user experience and my expectations are different.

I'm not sure if Microsoft strategy to call it a new device category instead of tablet is effective though. I can imagine if Apple was doing it, they would just call it a fold-able/dual-screen tablet.

</comment><comment><USER24> Given the choice between this and the Surface Go 2, I'd take the latter--it runs an OS that can run things I use. It's either have something less convenient that's useful, or something that's more convenient but still requires me to keep another device to use for some other things.

Maybe some day MS will make the Surface Duo run Android apps on a full OS, or make enough changes to Android to make it a usable as a primary not consumption-oriented device.

</comment><comment><USER25> Still think one of the biggest "mistakes" pre-Satya Microsoft made was dumping the Courier project, this is just that ten years later

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting, has there been any reviews for this yet? All the screenshots look like it's just two phones next to each other instead of one UI that takes advantage of its unique form factor. I'm also surprised they don't use bing as the default search engine in their screenshots, is that a aosp requirement? Finally, this makes me want to dust off my nintendo ds.

<comment><USER27> I've played with the emulator, it's pretty neat, but I didn't get the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This (and the Galaxy Fold i guess) could be the perfect sysadmin/on-call device - except for the price maybe. Small enough to carry around and use as a normal phone day-to-day but offers actually usable screenspace for remote sessions, docs, etc. if the need arises.

Also weirdly reminds me of the Sony Vaio P for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, based on the last picture the pen seem to be an additional device on the side, I don't see a way to attach it to the Duo itself via magnet or another mechanism. Maybe a missed opportunity here, it's always annoying to have the pen somewhere else when you need to use it.

</comment><comment><USER29> As someone who has been using split screen on Android frequently as of late this device is intriguing. The one thing I'm not sold on yet is the keyboard but maybe I need to literally have it in my hands before I pass on it.

Price is definitely steep. They clearly know their market.

</comment><comment><USER30> I want a Surface Single-o.

No need for a fragile and hard to hold hinge.

Just a phone with a screen the size of one side of that Duo, offering the biggest single pane that will fit easily in the back pocket of a pair of jeans.

Please.

<comment><USER31> Surface Uno?

<comment><USER30> Surface Uno is the platform as a whole, not a single screen device (unfortunately)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why the bezel on the hinge? That's the one place you actually want an screen- to-edge experience that is terrible on every non-folding phone.

</comment><comment><USER33> Since so many of the screenshots show them running a separate Android app on each screen, I wonder if the apps themselves actually run simultaneously.

Or if it's like Android apps on my Chromebook where only a single active app actually runs, while all other apps get suspended in the background, even if they're visible.

The latter would make this concept pretty useless so I hope they actually solved this and are planning on upstreaming the changes so all future devices can benefit.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow, I didn't know I needed a phone with _two screens_ to be able to listen to music while doing something else!

<comment> core-questions Here I was using a _stereo_ to do that

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> How long will it receive updates? How fast will those updates be pushed out?

</comment><comment><USER36> When I first looked at this article I thought maybe I had slipped and time and it was April 1st, but no, its a real product.

I'd love to know the chain of thought to this thing being created--what problems was it supposed to solve, and for what kind of customer?

</comment><comment><USER37> Looks like a neat device.

I watched the ad for it, and the thing that stood out to me was I think the "cast" was entirely female. I wonder if that was intentional?

Is there any reason this would be marketed at women specifically?

<comment><USER38> The best I can come up with is the stereotype that women are better at multitasking? Something sexist like that probably wouldn't work out well for Microsoft so I doubt there's much behind it.

I'm not sure though, the commercial is a sort of story about a group of women planning to go on a trip. That's entirely reasonable, I don't see what gender has to do with the product. It's not like they sell a pink and a blue one for girls and boys or anything.

<comment><USER39> What's really interesting (scary? sad?) is that the "issue" would never come up if the cast was all men.

<comment><USER37> I guess that was more what I was wondering.

Was the all-female cast intentional or just incidental to the team that worked on the ad?

I think it's perfectly fine either way, but I was curious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Two screens and a hinge with mediocre OS - $1399.

Can't imagine this will be popular at all.

<comment><USER41> What phone OS would you suggest they use? I mean they're using the worlds most popular one.

<comment><USER40> None - the product will be a failure, because it doesn't solve any problems.

A phone OS, then why not use a phone? Oh, bigger screen? Use a tablet. With huge phones nowadays this just doesn't serve a market.

it's a glorified nintendo DS for 1399. Embarassing.

<comment><USER41> Oh just do nothing then ok, just shut the company down I guess why bother. I mean if it's not successful now it never will be right? Why even try.

You do realize a world existed before Apple made the iPod and the iPhone right?

<comment><USER40> Not even an attempt at a clever strawman.

Microsoft should focus on actual innovation. We've reached stagnation in SV - it's all an adtech scam now. A bifold phone with no new technology. Just tape it together and call it "innovation."

Apple is in a rut too, but Apple has released more interesting hardware than microsoft has in ages. New Xbox - glorified gaming PC with no unique titles at Launch. Halo Infinite had graphics from 2014. Windows 10 spies on you, has a terrible dual infrastructure OS with newschool apps and old school control panel.

Oh and I'm supposed to think Teams which really just stole ideas from everyone else is innovative.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a resource to track the flow of news stories across the globe? - <AUTHOR> Even something as "simple" as flow of news headlines across major news agencies (like Reuters, AFP, AP, TASS, etc) across countries would be really interesting. Such a resource could potentially reveal the sources of specific stories (with enough granularity of data) or which news sources weild the most influence over a region. For example, something like this quick mock-up I did: https://imgur.com/a/hRa41Vg <comment><USER2> Do you have time for a brief, 15 minute interview sometime? I'm a UX Designer and I'm currently developing an app along these lines.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to discuss. You can also reach me on the email - considering the timezone difference (I couldn't find yours on the profile page).

<comment><USER2> sorry, I'm a new user of this forum and know next to nothing about it. Do you want to email me? My email is firstname.lastname@example.com

We can go from there.</comment></comment></comment>


Pedestrians are dying while vehicle safety tech lags - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/vehicle-safety-systems-pedestrians-self-driving-cars-7423c276-c044-432e-aec2-1c1201d5a1fa.html <comment><USER2> There is also the point that viability is getting worse. In the name of efficiency and driver/passenger safety there are now larger blind spots. Particularity due to A pillars with airbags. And deep sloping windows.</comment>


On Bailouts and Sports Cars - <AUTHOR> http://calacanis.com/2008/12/01/on-bailouts-and-sports-car/

<comment><USER2> Boy it's a good thing Calcanis stopped blogging, and instead started a mailing list and then posting everything from the mailing list to a blog.

It's the blogosphere's equivalent of McCain's "suspending my campaign until the crisis is fixed" gambit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, I've been thinking the same thing. I'm not subscribed to his list, so I'm not sure what the ratio is like, but it is amusing to see the occasional _"I thought this was important enough to put on the blog..."_

<comment><USER3> Nearly every email he's posted has ended up on his blog or someone else's (with permission). Which means he's still blogging.

<comment><USER4> Please don't take it all so seriously. :-)

<comment><USER5> Welcome to Hacker News... if that's really you...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I personally think Tesla will and should be encouraged to go on to do great things, but..

Calacanis seems to believe that giving $400m to a relatively unproven startup has zero risk. While he gives some great reasons for giving the loan including, obviously, "interest", there's no consideration given to what happens if Tesla goes out of business in a year or two.

That's not to say Tesla shouldn't try because, yes, it probably would succeed, but that's also not to say people shouldn't be wary of giving a startup _$400 million_.. heck, at least drip feed them the loan.

<comment><USER4> I don't think there is no risk--would anyone think there is no risk in starting a car company!??!!? Hello!??!

The issue here is if we are going to give 25b in funding to companies to advance new car technology we should probably start with the company that has been most successful in actually delivering a product (i.e. Tesla and not GM).

<comment><USER3> Didn't expect you to show up here, but since you are, here's my major disagreement:

What makes you so certain that Tesla has so much more ability to execute than the big three auto companies? They're years and years behind in the "deliver a few people electric cars" race (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car>). And based on the executive turnover at Tesla, how could anyone really be sure that the leadership there is stable enough to be trusted to actually make good on a government loan?

I know the Roadster is awesome, and I agree with most of your points about it being at least a legit, innovative, and potentially affordable venture. But you kind of omit the part of the argument about why Tesla deserves it and the other companies don't...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Randall is really short sighted ([http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30digi.html?_r=1&...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30digi.html?_r=1&ref=business)). The big three want to be bailed out using this fund which defeats the whole purpose of why this fund was started in the first place. I don't see how giving this money to the big three will help anyone. They will go on to build those big SUVs and will need more money in six months. The jobs that would be saved will be at stake again.

Jobs at companies like Tesla are more likely to stay. I personally would like my tax dollars going to someone like Telsa rather than GM.</comment>


Show HN: Say everything you want with TerseTag - <AUTHOR> http://tersetag.com

<comment><AUTHOR> The story/problem: While hunting for a decent used car using the usual methods: craigslist, ebay, etc. I was on the freeway when a car drove by me with a For Sale sign in the window. The make and model were what I was looking for, but how would I ever be able to find out more (mileage, condition, etc) and contact this person? We'd both have to be parked to safely get all that info from the For Sale sign. Or try some good old fashioned tail-gaiting.. but didn't want to risk denting my future car! A similar situation happened when I was apartment hunting and seeing For Rent signs in home windows as I drove around. What if the world ran on short-tags, what if I could spot a huge printed #2N, know to go to a website, and look it up for more info?

The solution: We came up with TerseTag as the solution, allowing people to say everything they want with a QR code and short tag.

Is it just another QR code creator? Sure, you could say that. Is it just another URL shortener? Sure, you could say that too.

We love how QR codes provide a way to get from the real world to digital content, but studies show using QR codes is a mixed bag. Some people never bother learning how to scan them, possibly because it can be technologically intimidating and unfamiliar. To address this,That is why TerseTag offers short, memorable tags that people can quickly write down and lookup later, tapping into a simple and familiar act that we all have done by writing down someone's phone number or email address.

Please check it out and let us know what you think, thanks! www.tersetag.com</comment>


The Economy Needs a Shot in the Arm - <AUTHOR> http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9860 <comment><USER2> It's a compelling argument. I tend not to be as libertarian as the CATO Institute, but it's compelling.

I prefer to return the money to individuals because the government likes to specify what money should be used for. I love that specification when it's something important like interstate highways or a national health program, but telling schools that they all need new computers isn't useful. Maybe they don't. Maybe they need money spent on insulation. But, if you're only offering money for computers, schools will take it even if most of their computers are 6 months old.

I do worry about individuals squandering it though. That's kinda what got us into this mess. We had much so we spent it all and didn't plan for a rainy day. Maybe an elimination of taxes on bank interest earned under $1,000 would be a good step. Maybe a government matching for the interest on that savings (a negative tax) up to $500? That would really encourage people to stash money away (and stashing money in banks allows banks to lend that money to businesses who help the economy). Maybe it isn't such a great idea, idk.

Even better, _eliminate the portion of payroll taxes that businesses have to pay_! (or reduce it). Probably the best tax relief. It means that the cost of employing someone drops meaning that they can either: 1) employ more people; 2) pay people more. That's a real win for labor and companies and probably better than simply lowering personal income tax. As the cost of employing someone goes down, demand for employees goes up. I like this idea. Great way to lower the unemployment rate.

I just feel like random government spending isn't wise. Spending to create good value is awesome! I love social security, national health, interstates, etc. I don't like the government trying to spend its way to stimulating the economy. In that case, they aren't looking at value created, but rather getting dollars into other people's hands.</comment>


Has Joel Spolsky Jumped the Shark? (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/has-joel-spolsky-jumped-the-shark.html/# <comment><USER4> Spolsky himself left a comment buried in the discussion on that article:

> Let's put it this way. You have these constraints:

> (1) Six years of code already written in VBScript

> (2) Needs to run on customers' Windows and Unix servers

> (3) Minimize tech support costs

> (4) Many customers refuse to install new runtimes on their servers, either > because of IT policies or out of stubborness

> What would be your solution?

Anyway, whether it was a good solution or not, I don't quite understand the need that some people had to pick on someone so harshly. I never really followed Spolsky's blog but as far as I can tell it was pretty tame and respectful. Am I missing something?

Edit: Also, a compiler from one high level language to another is not the hardest thing in the world to write. We've got college kids these days writing new languages that compile to JavaScript. Maybe this was viewed as more of an extraordinary engineering feat back then or something.

<comment><USER5> Creating a new language is trivial (Hell, I've made one). Creating a robust, well-designed, full-featured, peformant language is very much not.

And that totally ignores the absolutely _massive_ benefit of having a community around your language of choice. Libraries, bug fixes, googleability, a pool of programmers to hire from, etc, etc, etc.

<comment><USER4> I agree completely, but I am curious what your answer to his question would be. What would you have done in that situation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spolsky has been pumping out great, engaging content in his blog for years; I remember spending countless hours with my friends arguing over it. Then he wrote a couple of mediocre posts and stopped blogging altogether. Had it ended there, it would have been merely an astounding feat of self-awareness.

But it didn't end there. Joel had then converted his entire audience to seed Stack Overflow - _the_ one invention that had the biggest impact on the programmer productivity in the 21st century. That's one hell of way to jump the shark, a gold-medal level performance. We would be lucky beyond measure if that sort of "disaster" happened to us every four years, or even each decade. But we're not so lucky.

Hats off to Joel Spolsky.

<comment><USER7> I hope you are aware Stackoverflow was actually created by Jeff Atwood. Joel just gave the initial idea something along the line like "let's make something like ExpertsExchange but less evil"

Not to mention, Stackoverflow was seeded initially by Atwood's audience (since he was the developer of the project to start with). I know because I was one of the first users back in private beta.

<comment><USER6> Ok. I still think its one of he best ways to jump the blogging shark - <USER2> your audience to where it matters the most.

<comment><USER7> Joel didn't donate anything. Donations are given without return consideration which is hardly the case here since Stackoverflow was his business.

<comment><USER8> So does Spolsky get credit for SO or not? You can't have it both ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For reference: Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky founded Stackoverflow two years later.

[1] [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/04/introducing- stackov...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/04/introducing- stackoverflow-com.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow, ancient history, but this later became a standing joke, and Jeff mostly recanted. See [http://pvm- professionalengineering.blogspot.com/2010/05/jump...](http://pvm- professionalengineering.blogspot.com/2010/05/jump-shark.html) (although why that site exists, I cannot say.)

</comment><comment><USER11> From the comments on the article: "However, _instead_ of upgrading to ASP.NET, they decided to.. write their own proprietary language that compiles down to VBScript/PHP/JavaScript."

Atwood then goes on to call it "crazy town."

Am I the only one who thinks that this decision might've paid off down the road for them? It sounds like he was just trying to code his app in a way that it would work in multiple types of server stacks, rather than trusting that MS wouldn't break their backwards compatibility again after doing so with ASP.net.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm curious what the people who know way more than me think about this. I knew next to nothing about web apps in 2006, other than dabbling in PHP as a side note in a MySQL class.

<comment><USER10> By way of background -- at the time that we created Wasabi's predecessor, Thistle, we had a large code base in VBScript that only ran on Windows, and almost no developers. Thistle was done by a summer intern in eight weeks and got us PHP FogBugz running on Unix for 8 weeks work, which almost doubled our potential market.

At the time, Fog Creek consisted of three people and one summer intern. We couldn't afford to rewrite all of FogBugz in some other language... even if there was a language (in 2003) that was reasonably portable between Windows and Unix, which there wasn't. (Yes, we considered PHP. That would still have been a full rewrite, and PHP on Windows was crappy and increased the system requirements in a way that our customers wouldn't have liked).

Yeah, a Lexus is better than a Camry, but not everyone can afford Lexuses. So saying "you idiot, why are you driving that crappy car, it's obviously crappy" is not particularly insightful... the question is, if you can get 90% of the bang for 10% of the bucks, that's a pretty good decision as a startup, even if it seems strange.

What's more interesting about the reaction is that so many average programmers seem to think that writing a compiler is intrinsically "hard," or, as Jeff wrote in 2006, "Writing your own language is absolutely beyond the pale." To me this sounds like the typical cook at Olive Garden who cannot possibly believe that any chef in a restaurant could ever do something other than opening a bag from the freezer and dumping the contents into the deep fryer. Cooking? With ingredients? From scratch! Absolutely beyond the pale! Compilers aren't some strange magic black art that only godlike programmers are allowed to practice. They're something you learn how to create in one semester in college and you can knock out a simple one in a few weeks. Whatever you think about whether it's the right thing or not, if you think that a compiler is too hard to do as a part of your day job, you may want to invest some time in professional development and learning more about your craft.

<comment><USER12> I think you and Jeff absolutely deserve each other, and are both equally fucking mental. (btw, stopped reading both of your blogs years ago specifically because of trite shit like this)

> We had a large code base in VBScript that only ran on Windows, and almost no > developers.

So you roll your own language to improve things?

> Yes, we considered PHP.

I don't think you did.

> That would still have been a full rewrite, and PHP on Windows was crappy and > increased the system requirements in a way that our customers wouldn't have > liked.

Full rewrite into a cross platform language which only went on to improve and would have been far more backwards compatible [with a small eventual migration to php5]. I'm sorry but the fact you can't write a decent install script or manual to get your system working in different environments is not reason enough to roll your own language. Yes developing the compiler didn't take long but now you have a zero'd recruiting pool, a slower debug loop and an eventual fragmented maintenance nightmare. Oh and by the way, saying "PHP on Windows was crappy" is not particularly insightful...

> Cooking? With ingredients? From scratch! Absolutely beyond the pale!

It is when you're working at McD's though, and that is what Jeff everyone else was trying to tell you.

> What's more interesting about the reaction is that so many average > programmers seem to think that writing a compiler is intrinsically "hard,"

We didn't react because we're average and think writing a compiler is hard, we reacted because you went against every common sense principal of software development there is. Any idiot who completes a degree can build a compiler / code generator, that doesn't mean its a good idea for your next web app. But go ahead, call us "average" delude yourself more, everyone who doubts you is just stupid because, well you're just such a godlike programmer.

I don't get it, its obvious, you're an MS flake, because of that you didn't want to use the logical choice, PHP, so you did something stupid. And now you can't just own it, instead you going around insulting everyone who calls you out. The best developers own their mistakes and learn from them, the bad ones flail around, blame the language, system, or other people.

<comment><USER13> Ive just downvoted you. Agree or disagree with Joel's decision - <USER3> people do differ, but either way, your post was just plain rude.

Please dont write posts like that on HN.

<comment><USER12> Thats ok re the downvote, I know it was pretty on the nose. Post still stands though, kind of interested to see what Joel has to say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If customers prefer to run bug tracking software internally, then you are giving up a lot of customers by only offering external hosted solutions. If customers prefer one stack to another for internal solutions, then you are giving up a lot of customers by saying you only work on PHP or some other stack. If you just look at Joel's decision to write in something compiled to different stacks that can be run internally from a technical perspective, yeah, it sucks. But if it doubles the number of people who will buy your solution, then it may not suck from a business perspective.

Software is all about spending a fixed amount to produce it and then selling it over and over and over. If you double that fixed amount and double the over and over and over, you doubled your profits. Writing once and compiling to two things is less work than writing the same product in two different code bases as well. That sounds good and ignores things like buying a magazine ad becomes more efficient because more people who see the ad are potential customers.

As an engineer, I sure as hell wouldn't want to work on a system written in Wasabi. But as a business person, or an employee getting equity or options, it might make sense.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone know if FogBugz's codebase is still in Wasabi?

edit: Apparently it is, as of 2010. [http://fogbugz.stackexchange.com/questions/210/is- fogbugz-7-...](http://fogbugz.stackexchange.com/questions/210/is- fogbugz-7-written-in-net-or-still-wasab). Also, a 2011 Quora answer by Spolsky: "Much of the FogBugz code is still in Wasabi but a lot of it is in C# now." [http://www.quora.com/Joel-Spolsky-Are-you-still-using- Wasabi...](http://www.quora.com/Joel-Spolsky-Are-you-still-using-Wasabi-for- building-FogBugz-and-what-would-you-pick-today-if-you-were-starting-from- scratch)

<comment><USER16> FogBugz' core is still in Wasabi, but nearly all new code, including one hell of a release coming out soon, is in C#. The Wasabi core is gradually dwindling into an API shell, which will itself probably disappear at some point in the future. If you prefer to think of it this way: on any given FogBugz page load, you'll hit Wasabi, but the time spent in Wasabi will be increasingly tiny.

Kiln is pure C#/Python, Trello is pure CoffeeScript, and so on. Wasabi solved a porting issue. It wasn't designed for and isn't used for new stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> FogBugz in general is terrible. I use it everyday, and it's remarkable insofar as how amazingly bad the UI is. I was shocked to finally use software by Joel, who's essays I'd been reading for years, and discover that it was terrible.

<comment><USER18> _"I was shocked to finally use software by Joel, who's essays I'd been reading for years, and discover that it was terrible."_

Spolsky's writings have always seemed to me to be completely vapid and obvious, at best.

To see what a great reputation he has among pointy-headed bosses and developers alike is a sad comment on the state of the industry.

That his company writes crappy software should surprise no one.

<comment><USER17> Well, I guess I'm just an idiot and a fool. You must be great to work with.

<comment><USER19> I'm surprised that _you're_ surprised that your incredibly negative comment yielded an incredibly negative response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is some detail on the kind of stuff Wasabi does:

"[H]ow to translate [this bit of VBScript] a(1), which could mean "look up the 2nd element of array a" or "call the default method of the object a passing the argument 1" depending on what type a contains at runtime? This really matters, because we use arrays, and because we use the built-in class RecordSet all over the place, doing things like rs(1) which is short for rs.Item(1).Value, and since VBScript is latebound there is no way to know what code to generate in PHP until runtime, and that's too late! The only correct thing to do in PHP would be to generate code that checks the type of a, and decides, at runtime, whether to do an array lookup or a method call. This is messy and slow and would suck big rocks in the kinds of tight loops where you tend to be using arrays.

How did we fix it? Well, thanks to Hungarian notation, so callously dissed by developers who do would not recognize a superb coding convention if it walked up to them on the Shanghai Maglev train and shook their pants leg, every recordset at Fog Creek starts with the letters "rs". And Thistle looks for the rs and say, "ah, this is a recordset, you're not looking for an array value, you're calling the default method," and generates fast code. Based on your age you will either call this an evil hack (if you're young) or an elegant hack (if you're old); in either case it's a huge optimization made possible by the fact that Thistle only has one program to compile. Outside of Fog Creek it wouldn't work. All hail Hungarian notation!"

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogBugzIII.html>

<comment><USER20> I like how making it so that variable names determine whether or not the compiler generates correct code is labeled an "elegant hack". To borrow his phrasing, this makes me wonder if Joel would recognize an elegant hack if it walked up to him on the Shanghai Maglev and shook his pants leg.

<comment><USER21> I would barely call this a hack at all; it's only a hack under the view that it feels icky to evolve a programming convention into a language construct. Languages have been treating (parts of) variable names as part of the type system for ages: Fortran, BASIC, Perl, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reading the entirety of Spolsky's post was especially interesting for me to to read:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html>

Interesting to see Joel's comments on web stacks built with Python and Ruby back in 2006, and even taking a snipe at Lisp. I really can't decide whether web development has fundamentally advanced in every way in the past 5-8 years, or whether it's essentially the same.

<comment><USER10> Keep in mind Ruby on Rails had been out for less than a year at the time I wrote that, and the only thing I said about it was that brand new frameworks are not the kind of thing that enterprises like to bet the farm on.

<comment><USER23> As opposed to things like, say, brand new languages that compile down to VBScript.

The whole Wasabi story sounds eerily similar to this classic Daily WTF: <http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-We-Use-BobX.aspx>

<comment><USER24> A good reason not to do anything interesting with programming languages in your company: because if word gets out that you did, you'll never, ever hear the end of the snarky comments about it.

<comment><USER25> well said. i was actually quite impressed that they were willing to pay the up-front cost for developer productivity by writing a targeted dsl for their app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having read the linked post by Jeff, the post first mentioning Wasabi by Joel, and the follow up to it, I'm not sure I can see what all the fuss is about?

There are a few things that I think sound wrong, things like performance comparisons with Ruby, although I wasn't doing web development in 2006, and I'm sure it was a very different time.

However I don't think Jeff was entirely fair to Wasabi. He picked on it compiling to VBScript, but I think Joel explained clearly that it was only one of the possibilities, and in fact PHP5 would have been a perfectly good target to compile to.

I think we have a lot more choice now for web applications, and therefore I don't think it's justified to write your own compiler and language in-house anymore for something like this. However at the time, I think what Fog Creek did with Wasabi was a good decision, and actually quite inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER27> Here's more of the back-story to why they created the ASP->PHP compiler in the first place: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogBugzIII.html>

</comment><comment><USER28> And he was so convinced that Joel had jumped the shark that he went into business with him.

</comment><comment><USER29> At Taodyne, we also developed our own language. That lets us do that: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vv18SFljzA>. No other language fits the bill.

Try that in Javascript or PHP and see if you can fit the whole thing in 15 minutes (the YouTube upload limit)

Sometimes designing your own language is just the right thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER30> i'm asking in advance for a little indulgence as I trot out my language snobbery:

I had to check that the blogpost wasn't an April 1st submission because the entire premise of writing a toolchain to get cross-platform compatibility out of Visual Basic has get to be April Fool's material. The fact that the language is interpreted from VB into other languages that might generously be described as "partially good" (like JavaScript and PHP) just takes this whole thing over the top.

in other words my mind is blow (as per Atwood's comment) that the goal of cross-platform compatibility wasn't achieved in a sane way, like just using Java or Python.

</comment><comment><USER31> Gold. Thank-you for posting this. I missed this.</comment>


Screw the Bootstrap CSS Framework #front End - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mrfrontend.org/2016/06/next-step-learning-html-css-screw-bootstrap/ <comment><USER2> Don't let the baity title fool you — this is actually a decent little article.</comment>


Start a Paid Newsletter - <AUTHOR> https://indiemailer.com/read/why-you-should-start-a-paid-newsletter/ <comment><USER2> +1 for this, although I'd argue going with ghost and their new subscription service is better all-round (I'm biased because I've stuck to ghost for 3 years).... although mailing isn't built-in

</comment><comment><USER3> How serendipitous that I was just commenting about this very subject just a few days ago [1].

This is something I've always been interested in trying out, and I actually enjoy the writing process. It's just... I'm not that interesting. I just can't imagine a world where someone would pay to read what I have to write.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21395014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21395014)

<comment><USER4> I have struggled with this kind of self defeating attitude for a while now. I think it comes down to the fact that everyone has to start somewhere, if you spent all the years you spent thinking about doing something actually doing the thing you would be an expert right now in the thing you want to do.

<comment><USER3> Funnily enough, the thought of that is something that increases my anxiety.

<comment><USER5> Write and write and write without publishing. Publish anonymously if and when you're ready. De-anonymise if and when you're ready.

My assumption is that most introverts think they're boring. Focus on details IS boring to anyone that doesn't care about the topic. They're not the target demographic, so, you know, fuck 'em.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great approach, and the way I think about it, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do daily newspaper reporters pull off writing so consistently? Don't the smaller newspaper reporters write several articles a day?

<comment><USER6> Usually it's their day job rather than a side project (at least historically). They're also publishing several articles a day, but many of those articles have lead times rather than being written and immediately published.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love the idea of real data and coaching around building a true SME-based revenue stream. I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER8> yes! this sounds like a good idea... signing up now.

</comment><comment><USER9> seeing this. i'm going to consider this. ty. tysm.</comment>


ReactNative GitHub: who is allowed to merge PRs? - <AUTHOR> are only FB employees allowed to merge ?<p>or are there also other people outside of FB to merge ? <comment><USER2> They have their own help/discussion forum [https://facebook.github.io/react- native/help.html](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/help.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> didn't know this one. will check there ! thanks !</comment></comment>


Challenge HN: feedback on elevator pitches - <AUTHOR>

Use comment threads to help edit and refine elevator pitches.
Post a your link to your project/start up and your pitch and then give others feedback. Is the pitch clear and easy to understand? Accurate based on looking at the site? Can you suggest better wording? Is it written with the correct audience in mind (e.g. general public vs. hackers)?
Please avoid unconstructive criticism and any feedback relating to the actual project or start up. This is specific to communicating pitches effectively. <comment><USER2> FitFeud is a web-based system that allows companies to easily set up, organize, and track the effectiveness of weight loss and fitness competitions amongst their employees. In short, it's "The Biggest Loser" for companies.

FitFeud works directly with senior HR, Benefits, and Wellness executives at medium and large companies, as well as partners in the health, fitness, and corporate wellness community.

FitFeud uses competition as the motivation to help people reach their fitness and weight loss goals, and is an easy to implement, low-cost service that offers measurable results for businesses and their employees.

Competition = Motivation. Motivation = Success.

<http://www.fitfeud.com>

<comment><USER3> Hi jtnt, looks like we are the only ones on this thread :)

I like the idea and it feels exciting. A group of people I play hockey with recently did a weight loss challenge together which I think is a great idea.

I like the comparison to the biggest loser as that really helped me to visualize what it was. I think I would have liked to have that first. Im not an expert by any means, but it seems like you could distill the elevator pitch to:

Fit feud is the 'biggest loser' for companies. It is a web based system to encourage weight loss competition amongst their employees.

All the phrases like "easily setup", "easy to implement" "low-cost" are phrases that dilute the message. If you get past the first sentence, I would follow it with "the way it works is...",

The target market is extraneous. I think it is important for you to understand it, and be ready to answer questions about it, but isnt one of the top items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> www.triviatise.com

Like scvngr without having to go anywhere.

Triviatise increases retention of an advertiser's message by encouraging consumers to take quizzes about products in return for a chance to win prizes.

The triviatisement can be embedded in the advertisers website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Triviatise is a trivia based advertising platform. We increase brand engagement by using giveaway based incentives to drive consumers to learn about services and products.

<comment><USER4> edit: Triviatise is a trivia based advertising platform. Increase brand engagement through quizzes with prizes.</comment></comment></comment>


CatchFree Wants To Become The Hub Of The 'Freemium' Ecosystem - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/24/catchfree-wants-to-become-the-hub-of-the-freemium-ecosystem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not one to hate on people making things happen, but VC funding, for this? This reminds me of Quora, but worse.</comment>


New car engine said to be a few times more efficient than conventional ones - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/autos/new-car-engine-sends-shockwaves-through-auto-industry-110405.html

<comment><USER3> See also the discussion from when this was submitted 3 months ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2337237>

Also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2422867>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2424987>

<comment><AUTHOR> (wrt <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2422867>)

So HN Search still misses some posts. I searched for discovery.com before submitting - got two links from 1 and 2 years ago, but not this one.

<comment><USER4> Ironically, it looks like hnsearch isn't taking full advantage of the hnsearch api.

It appears to be just doing a text search for "discovery.com"; if there's a way to search by submission domain on hnsearch, I'm not seeing it at a quick glance.

For example: [http://shomi.associatedtechs.com/#submissions+from+news.disc...](http://shomi.associatedtechs.com/#submissions+from+news.discovery.com+with+%22car+engine%22+in+the+title)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It has been estimated for the same horsepower, a Wave Disk Engine could weigh a thousand pounds less than a conventional engine."

Erm... are there any conventional engines that weigh 1000 pounds to begin with? Even high end V8s aren't that heavy. I wonder what they mean by that.

<comment><USER6> Where did that quote come from? In the linked article, the closest I see is this:

"Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems."

A somewhat different statement, though I still share your skepticism.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry - I was actually reading an article linked somewhere else in this thread, and forgot it wasn't the OP.

(<http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Wave_Disk_Engine>)

Still, even if we're talking about total savings for the car, 1000 pounds is a hell of a lot, and I'm not sure I buy it. For reference, that's 3x the weight of an average V6 (or some light V8s), so it would have to remove a lot and add nothing back.

I found an engine weight list here that seems to be legitimate:

<http://fixrambler.com/engineweightchart.txt>

<comment><USER7> Extrapolating from the article there's no transmission or cooling system either - that probably doesn't get you to 1000 pounds, but removing the structure which supports those heavy components might get you close.

On the other hand, I don't think this would apply to cars with 25 kilowatt engines - a 1958 VW beetle only weighed 1600 pounds [[http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/default.aspx?carID=10196&...](http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/default.aspx?carID=10196&i=2#menu)]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard > car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times > more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

I'm skeptical.

Thermodynamic limits apply. While piston engines aren't near the limits, I'm pretty sure that they're around 50% of the limit and would be very surprised if this engine is over 80% of carnot.

So, the only way this engine can be 2x as efficient is if it runs at a significantly higher temperature (which moves the limit).

And, the only way that it can run without a transmission is if it has a very wide operating range. That's hard to do with combustion. And, unless the engine is both reversible and has torque at zero RPM, they'll need both a clutch and a reverse gear.

If they use it to run a generator, they need to account for the electric motor, said generator, and maybe batteries. See diesel-electric locomotives. The prius combines the electric motor and the generator, but needs a transmission.

<comment><USER9> 50% sounded like a lot to me so I checked wikipedia, according to which, most internal combustion engines have an average efficiency of 18-20%. So I guess it could be true if the Wave Disk Generator lives up to those promises.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Ener...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Energy_efficiency)

<comment><USER8> > 50% sounded like a lot to me so I checked wikipedia, according to which, > most internal combustion engines have an average efficiency of 18-20%.

From the wikipedia article that you cited: "Most steel engines have a thermodynamic limit of 37%. Even when aided with turbochargers and stock efficiency aids, most engines retain an average efficiency of about 18%-20%."

I wrote that IC engines are running about 50% of the thermodynamic limits because 18/37 is around 50%.

18x2 is about 37, so there's no way for wave engines to be more than 2x as efficient as current engines unless they run at much higher temperatures. Since the relevant temperature is determined by the fuel....

Getting close to the thermodynamic limit is really hard.

You didn't read the wiki article very carefully

The 18-20% is of the total energy in the fuel. Heat engines, which includes both wave and piston engines, are subject to thermodynamic limits. The thermodynamic limits tell us the maximum efficiency, which is about 40% for the temperature at which ther

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Description about how it works:

<http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Wave_Disk_Engine>

Seems to be a new take on the Wankel rotary engine:

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

The rotary engine was found to be less efficient than piston engines. I think it's because the streamlined approach of intake an exhaust needs to be babysat, with a chamber and an object to (Make exhaust go away 100%) and (Make fresh air-fuel mixture come in) then a timed predictable ignite.

Is the wave disk engine just a modification of the Turbine engine?

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

<comment><USER11> What are the disadvantages? (none are listed on that page)

<comment><USER12> i would guess that it's hard to get a good (reliable, long-life) seal between the rotating part and the upper surface (i don't think this is much like a wankel engine, but it probably does share that problem).

also, it looks like it's supposed to spin at a constant, high speed - <USER2> might imply high pitched whine (see someone else's comparison with a gas turbine).</comment></comment></comment>


Testing for -0 (negative zero) in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/128 <comment><USER2> I'll admit I'm not familiar with JS, but assuming that it conforms to the IEEE standard for floating point and you can do bitwise logical operations, can't you just AND it with a 1 in the sign bit place and 0s in all other places, then do a logical right shift of it and see if it's 1? (In the IEEE floating point standard, negative numbers have a 1 in the most significant bit.)

<comment><USER3> Bitwise operations don't really make sense on floating point data, especially not in javascript. Based on a quick one minute test it appears that javascript just uses the integer part of the number if you try bitwise operations (e.g. 2.6 & 6.2 == 2)

<comment><USER2> There's no way to force it to interpret the bits logically, rather than as a floating point number?

<comment><USER4> I've always wondered why I only see questions about checking for the exceptional floating point values in a Javascript context, not, for example, a C context, where people probably hit these problems more often. Perhaps C programmers are more prepared, but I think it's more insidious:

This is one of those weird points where Javascript seems like a confused mutant combination of a high-level language and a low-level one. It doesn't give you the power to manipulate the bits of a value, but simultaneously exposes you to all the strange, pointy bits of floating point implementation. It would be a lot nicer if it either gave you the power to fully manipulate the bits, or abstracted away the nastiness of the implementation, but no, they chose wrong in both directions.

<comment><USER5> If you mean that maybe bitwise operators shouldn't have been included at all if javascript was only going to have one numeric type which would be floating point, maybe you're right. However they can be useful as long as your integers or bit flags are smaller than 2^32 (or 2^31 depending on what you're up to), just pretty slow as every operation needs to do a double->int32->double conversion.

on the other hand, -0 and +0 are a pretty straightforward result of the normal floating point representation, are sometimes useful, and IEEE 754 defines +0==-0. Hiding them under a single 0 would have been more of a hack than having to deal with the difference very very occasionally.

<comment><USER4> I'm saying Javascript should've thought out its exposed number api a bit better. Either give me the bytes, or give me a number object that does infinite precision behind the scenes for me, don't make me do backflips to figure out whether I'm under/overflowing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What concerns me about the ES5 solution is that with freeze, apparently we got yet another different way to evaluate equality.

if(value) behaves differently from if (value == true), behaves differently from if (value === true), which again behaves differently from that check in freeze.

IMHO, that freeze check should have behaved the same as ===, so the proposed solution should not have worked.

Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER7> But what's the point? What is this useful for, or is it only academic?

<comment><USER8> Negative 0 means that you have a negative value, but the value is too small to be represented with available precision. It's a way of noting the sign of the value even if the magnitude is unavailable. It could be useful if you're testing edge cases, or if you're looking for signs of an infinity (or negative infinity) in your program.</comment></comment>


Boilerplate for Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Development - <AUTHOR> http://www.getskeleton.com <comment><USER2> Related: <http://mediaqueri.es/>

It's "a collection of responsive designs". Some great examples in there.

Also: <http://www.angrycreative.se/projekt/less-framework/> Another nice media query framework, though a bit more complicated.

</comment><comment><USER3> At first I thought "not another one," but Dave has really done some great work. Simple, lightweight, and beautiful. Not to mention he provides a great set of media queries to aid with responsive designs and a handful of basic elements (forms, buttons, and a tab system). Definitely going to employ this for "quickie" projects or documentation pages.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a great little project!

Somewhat related: <http://html5boilerplate.com/mobile>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm going to have to spend a bit of time comparing this to Andy Clarke's 320 and Up[1].

From what I can tell so far, the difference appears to be philosophical - desktop first vs mobile first.

[1]: <http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty, but I really think the grid should be fluid, and not just jump between states.

</comment><comment><USER7> Was looking to do exactly this on my own. Will try it out!

</comment><comment><USER8> performance nitpicks:

* 3 separate requests for unminified css files

* 50 equal signs for every html and css comment (and there are a lot)</comment>


LastPass Technical Whitepaper [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://enterprise.lastpass.com/wp-content/uploads/LastPass-Technical-Whitepaper-3.pdf <comment> tonic-music How is the user able to recover a lost password using only their secondary 2FA device? This page on your website suggests that you can remove the master password on anyone's fault if they authenticate via their 2FA device.

[https://support.logmeininc.com/lastpass/help/recover-your- lo...](https://support.logmeininc.com/lastpass/help/recover-your-lost-master- password-lp020010)</comment>


Excalidraw whiteboard – easily sketch diagrams with a hand-drawn feel - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/excalidraw <comment><USER2> I enjoyed this recent talk from its creator:

[https://youtu.be/fix2-SynPGE](https://youtu.be/fix2-SynPGE)

<comment><USER3> Nice, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excalidraw is pretty cool, but its main drawback is that is has no backend. The drawings cannot be persisted to the server, and you cannot collaborate with someone on a drawing unless you are both connected at the same time.

I maintain another opensource whiteboard web application that has a slightly different set of features, but allows persisting drawings to the server. It's called WBO :

\- [https://wbo.ophir.dev/](https://wbo.ophir.dev/)

<comment><USER5> The public whiteboard is very interesting. It is a nice way to showcase collaborating capabilities. It would have been a great messy canvas except for that one user or bot determined to erase everything someone else draws :-)

<comment><USER6> A few of us managed to collaborate a bit... Not really going to change the world but it was fun while it lasted [https://i.stack.imgur.com/rV8gQ.png](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rV8gQ.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Excalidraw is a whiteboard tool that lets you easily sketch diagrams that > have a hand-drawn feel to them_

In general, don't whiteboard sketches have a hand-drawn feel?

Seems like the trick would be a tool to give diagramming tools a hand-drawn whiteboard sketch feel, or take hand-drawn whiteboard sketches and give them a diagramming feel.

Could be neat to put this engine behind e.g. graphviz/dot, for instance, a la "sketch viz":

[https://sketchviz.com/new](https://sketchviz.com/new)

Or for the real parlor trick, emit a literally hand drawn whiteboard sketch in dot!

PS. Many contributions to graphviz needed:

[https://graphviz.gitlab.io/doc/todo.html](https://graphviz.gitlab.io/doc/todo.html)

<comment><USER8> Nirvana for me is a tool that takes my really sloppy sketches and writing and converts it to something that looks like an actual sketch artist drew it. Maybe pick different styles. No idea how one would go about doing that though.

(TBH, it would probably be a case of it being better to just hire an artist.)

<comment><USER9> Do people still use dribbble? If you can find a style there you like I'm willing to bet it would be more affordable than you'd think.

I've always been surprised by the affordability of one-off graphic requests like these.

<comment><USER8> I'm not surprised. And I have a couple people at work who I could always ask for a favor for a given project. There's just a certain amount of friction with bringing a person in; it's not so much about the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cool! I found it a little unintuitive that after each stroke, it reset to the pointer tool. I would've expected to be able to draw more lines without pressing 'X' each time.

Also, as a mathematician, I would love some Unicode support for greek letters and super/sub-scripts. Something similar to [https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/unicode- input/](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/unicode-input/). I tried to just draw the text I wanted but the first point I brought up made this more difficult.

ETA: If you hold 'X' or '7' then it remains in the tool you chose. This makes sense.

<comment><USER11> there's also a lock icon that keeps the tool selected which i think is the behavior you want

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Neat!

I wonder if there is a way to modify something like xfig to output in hand drawn "look".

Collaborative editing is of course also very good and tools like xfig don't have it.

I guess I'm wondering aloud if it makes sense to see "hand drawn look", collaborative editing and cloud storage/saas as orthogonal issues.

<comment><USER12> Eg would be great to add 'hand drawn look' to other tools like graphviz without having to hugely modify the underlying tool, e.g. graphviz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Got this hosted on my own server using DigitalOcean and CapRover (from another HN post) works great.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there any API or method for pressure sensitive pens/tablets to work on the web? Or any native apps that support pressure and work with online apps?

I love my Wacom and I love collaborative whiteboards, but it feels like neither is at its full potential.

<comment><USER15> PointerEvents: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_eve...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_events)

They are pretty easy to use, but most online whiteboards don't bother. Perhaps the developers don't have suitable hardware?

The only pressure sensitive one I've seen is [https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs](https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs), which is ... not very polished yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's also embeddable [0]. I can imagine a few use cases where that's useful.

[0]: [https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw- embed](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw-embed)

</comment><comment><USER17> I found the default font has the problematic side-effect that when shared through a zoom/google meet type platform, the 'handwriting' becomes illegible. This has annoyed me a lot at $company, which uses it widely.

<comment><USER18> You should file an issue on the repo - folks working on it are super open to contributions.

<comment><USER19> Totally! I was annoyed by the default 'jump back to selection' so I created a PR to lock that (with the little lock on the right). It took about 10 minutes after PR approval to merge to production. Really nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A few weeks ago excalidraw was using google for storage, see:

[https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw- json/issues/76](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw-json/issues/76) "I also wonder, why is this using google cloud ? Could this be used without google cloud (and without sending data -- even if encrypted) to them ?"

I don't know if there is now a fully self-hosted version of excalidraw.

</comment><comment><USER6> Make an iPad version and I'll pay $4.99 for it

<comment><USER21> It works on ipad. Feel free to donate $5 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Love excalidraw! This might seem like a plug but someone asked for a collaborative embed. We actually integrated theirs in our pair programming solution for system design interviews: [https://www.hackerrank.com/products/codepair](https://www.hackerrank.com/products/codepair)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is neat.

One bit of feedback: I found the default and even "extra bold" stroke size way to small. White boards have that imperfect broad strokes feel to them, having tiny lines, especially as the default just doesn't connect well with it IMO.

Otherwise the interface is very easy to use, I like the draggable and editable objects approach

</comment><comment><USER24> This blog post on their multi-user support is pretty interesting

[https://blog.excalidraw.com/building- excalidraw-p2p-collabor...](https://blog.excalidraw.com/building- excalidraw-p2p-collaboration-feature/)

<comment><USER25> They are describing the Github problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> One missing feature: import an image to ease workflow with other tools.

[https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/issues/19](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/issues/19)

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone knows if there is someting similar available, but for uploading and editing Screenshots ?

I'd like to have features "crop", "pixelize" and "add sequential-number label" available in a brwoser-based picture editor.

<comment><USER18> I imagine this could be added to excalidraw. I also had a use case for inserting images and drawing over them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Stumbled upon this tool when it was linked from a recent HN post (Six levels of interaction with a system). Have been using this ever since.

</comment><comment><USER28> this is brilliant. thank you so much for creating this.

this also has end-to-end encryption built in. I think it should be the default and no hidden in a hard-to-find section.

I wish it would export in the Mermaid format - [https://mermaid- js.github.io/mermaid/#/](https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/)

</comment><comment><USER29> started using this 1 month ago - now is my go-to. only things annoying (other than no-cloud backend as people note) is that the naming convention is a little funky (but once you get a file named it persists to img outputs as well).

Lowers the bar for diagrams. And keyboard shortcuts super handy too.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really love this! My only complaint is having the brush reset to pointer after each stroke.

<comment><USER30> I also noticed that when I place text in the box, as I type the text expands out to the left and out of the box due to centering. My expectation was that the text would start from where my cursor is, and go to the right. (like in powerpoint or slides)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For quick sketches during sprint planning meetings or design sessions, I started using Witeboard.com a couple of years ago but have been experimenting with Excalidraw for the past two months.

TL;DR: I still tend to use Witeboard.com for quick sketches, but if I plan on doing something more complicated and not time-sensitive I use Excalidraw.

What I like about Witeboard.com:

\- fast to load and easy to get started

\- quick keys (t: typing, p: pencil)

\- pencil modifier keys: hold down l to switch from free drawing to drawing a line, or r to draw a rectangle

Dislike about Witeboard.com:

\- It's like MS Paint, once the pixels are drawn you can't move them around (despite being vectors (I assume, infinitely zoomable))

What I like about Excalidraw:

\- Can move shapes around (fixes biggest gripe with Witeboard.com)

\- Sloppiness levels: Artist is what I use and is PERFECT for my needs, but nice to have options for other users

\- Also has quick keys (8: typing, 7: pencil)

\- Exports editable drawing as a file, not saved in cloud. So you can just import that file again and not rely on saving the URL.

Dislike about Excalidraw:

\- Preventing me from switching to it: once a tool (ie. pencil) is used for a stroke, it reverts back to mouse cursor (I'd rather have it stay as pencil and hit 1 for it to switch to a cursor)

\- Majorly annoying: the open/save/color/stroke palette in top left is too similar to a square ratio, so it blocks a corner of the image

If those two dislikes were fixed, I'd likely switch to it fulltime. For both products, I'd easily pay a few bucks a month for them.

<comment><USER32>
      - Preventing me from switching to it: once a tool (ie. pencil) is used for a stroke, it reverts back to mouse cursor (I'd rather have it stay as pencil and hit 1 for it to switch to a cursor)

There is a little lock icon next to the drawing tools which enables you to lock a tool, so it won't revert back.

<comment><USER19> Fun fact: I added this to Excalidraw for this exact reason! It was super annoying.

<comment><USER31> Ah thanks, I'll give this a try!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can anyone recommend a Sketch plugin that can achieve this same type of style?

</comment><comment><USER34> We use this when we need to design. It's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone have a Helm chart to run this in k8s?</comment>