Canada's New Food Guide - <AUTHOR> https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/ <comment><USER2> This is great. A no-nonsense, modern take on healthy nutrition. It's simple (no more food groups, portions, etc.), and actually healthy (e.g. not catering to the dairy industry with a daily glass of milk recommendation, pizza is not a vegetable, etc.).

Compare it to this: [https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/archived_proje...](https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/archived_projects/FGPPamphlet.pdf)

<comment> village-idiot Oh, it's still catering to some industries, they're just far less blatant about it than in America.

<comment><USER3> In the Pork and apple skillet dinner[1], they recommend using canola oil, a recommendation one doesn't see all that often. With canola oil having been engineered in Canada, is it an oil of choice for Canadians?

[1] [https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada- food-...](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-food- guide/tips-healthy-eating/meal-planning-cooking-healthy- choices/recipes/speedy-pork-apple-skillet-dinner.html)

<comment><USER4> I'm surprised you don't see that recommendation often. It's a very cheap, versatile cooking oil. I wouldn't say it's anyone's favourite, but it's effectively the default?

<comment><USER5> No? At least where I'm from, the default is sunflower oil and if you want to upgrade its olive oil. I've never heard of canola oil

<comment><USER6> FWIW, you may know it as rapeseed oil. "Canola was originally a trademark name of the Rapeseed Association of Canada, and the name was a condensation of "Can" from Canada and "ola" from other vegetable oils like Mazola,[6][7] but is now a generic term for edible varieties of rapeseed oil in North America and Australia. The change in name serves to distinguish it from natural rapeseed oil, which has much higher erucic acid content." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For comparison: Harvard Healthy Eating Plate [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy- eating-...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating- plate/)

At least among the Harvard faculty, there appears to be a consensus that healthy fats are important, which the Canadian guide doesn't seem to stress that much.

[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should- you...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats- and-cholesterol/)

===

Comments on the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate ([https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/intervie...](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/interviews/willett.html)):

INTERVIEWER: Some nutritionists have criticized your pyramid as "floating on a lake of olive oil."

WILLETT: The formal studies that had compared a more moderate fat intake as we've suggested, with low-fat diets, have actually consistently shown that people did as well or better controlling their weight on a moderate-fat diet compared to a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet.

INTERVIEWER: Even good fats are more fattening than good carbs. So they think you're contributing to the obesity epidemic, or there's a risk of that. A tablespoon of olive oil is 14 grams of fat.

WILLETT: There are all kinds of beliefs about the amount of fat in a diet, tremendously strong opinions. What we really need is sound data, and the studies that have been done show that people actually end up controlling their weight at least as well, and usually better, on moderate-fat diets compared to low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets.

INTERVIEWER: Is it okay to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat?

WILLETT: The evidence is quite clear that it's perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat, and probably, in fact, it's even better to be getting more than 30 percent of calories from fat, if it's the healthy form of fat. ...

===

EDIT: formatting

<comment><USER8> Olive oil is not a healthy fat (as much as I'd love it to be) -- it's got a substantial amount of saturated fat, and the interviewer is correct -- it's very easy to get a lot of empty calories with oil.

Aside from that, weight is not the only issue. A high fat diet (even a vegan one) is not good for your cardiovascular system.

There's a widely quoted study by high-fat diet proponents comparing two groups eating a high-fat Mediterranean diet (one with olive oil, one with nuts) to a "low fat" control group: [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303?query=re...](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303?query=recirc_curatedRelated_article)

This study can't really be used to advocate a high fat diet, though, because all the diets (even the control group) were actually high fat. Looking at page 28 of the appendix ([https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303/suppl_f...](https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303/suppl_file/nejmoa1200303_appendix.pdf)) shows that the fat intake of all three groups was really very similar -- about 41% calories from fat for the olive oil and nut groups, but only...37% fat from the control group. 37% calories from fat is not "low fat".

On the other hand, a true low fat diet, with fewer than 10% of calories from fat, has been shown to actually reverse the progression of heart disease: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7500065](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7500065) (this was one of the first studies to demonstrate this, but they've repeated this with larger groups and gotten the same results)

<comment><USER9> Where's the proof of your assertion that olive oil is not a healthy fat due to the saturated fat content? I'm under the impression saturated fat is a bogeyman similar to cholesterol.

<comment><USER10> The very same Harvard web-site?

> Saturated fats, while not as harmful as trans fats, by comparison with > unsaturated fats negatively impact health and are best consumed in > moderation. Foods containing large amounts of saturated fat include red > meat, butter, cheese, and ice cream. Some plant-based fats like coconut oil > and palm oil are also rich in saturated fat.

[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should- you...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats- and-cholesterol/)

<comment><USER9> > The very same Harvard web-site?

Thanks, but that is not from the post I was responding to, and only addresses part of the claim I was disputing. The link says unsaturated fats are better than saturated fats... and _specifically_ calls out olive oil as being healthy:

> "Good" unsaturated fats — Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats — lower > disease risk. Foods high in good fats include vegetable oils (such as olive, > canola, sunflower, soy, and corn), nuts, seeds, and fish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Canada.ca is a recipe website now and it's what HN always wanted: a recipe with no weird preface personal stories about grandmother's or something drinking tea.

<comment><USER12> I'm a fan. Other examples: [https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes](https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes) [https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes](https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes) With a light sprinkling of meat propaganda: [https://www.trueaussiebeefandlamb.com/recipes/](https://www.trueaussiebeefandlamb.com/recipes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I reckon this is influenced by the pioneering Brazilian food guide [1] released in 2014, which was created in partnership with the Universiy of Montreal[2].

[1] [https://www.vox.com/2015/2/20/8076961/brazil-food- guide](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/20/8076961/brazil-food-guide)

[2] [https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/brazils- revolutio...](https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/brazils- revolutionary-new-food-guide-focuses-on-how-food-is-made)

</comment><comment><USER14> New guide, same as the old guide, minus dairy as its own category, and carbs are de-emphasized.

This seems pretty non-controversial.

The old food pyramid suggested having as many carbs as you could handle, and made it seem like milk and meat were absolutely vital.

The new take just lumps those into protein and suggests proteins as a whole should be about 25% of your diet.

While no guide could possibly please everyone (there's a diet trend for every possible food combo out there), this seems like a reasonable baseline to me.

As for the recipes they list... omg no.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great Job, Canada. They've shot down many of the lobbying companies when publishing this.

It's not perfect, but it's a good start.

<comment><USER16> > Great Job, Canada. They've shot down many of the lobbying companies when > publishing this.

They only shot down diary, meat and juice industry[1], while conveniently ignoring mentioning of lobbying from others (plant-based foods).

Canada actually produces over 50% of the world's supply of lentils and they also grow a large amounts of various grains, legumes that they may be looking to push and make a profit for[2].

The whole food guide is extremely biased and hardly anyone here in HN seems to get it, lol.

\--

[1] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-food- guid...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-food-guide-shifts- toward-plant-based-foods/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3uewoEocYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3uewoEocYY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My food guide is to learn from examples: How average people of my age and older look like in different parts of the world? Are they healthy? What do they eat? What their habits? etc.

<comment><USER18> A people's traditional diet does not necessarily correlate to their longevity, there are many other factors one needs to take into account (way of life, access to healthcare, access to food, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Jesus, who invented that???

Mac and cheese with a veggie twist

* 375 mL (1 ½ cups) whole grain macaroni or fusilli * 10 mL (2 tsp) soft non-hydrogenated margarine

<comment><USER20> Yeah. That recipe looks pretty rough. I hate it when people try to transform unhealthy dishes into healthy "treats".

Just serve pasta with olive oil, some sort of acid (lemon juice, rotating cast of vinegars, tomatoes), and maybe a little grated sharp cheese if you really need that.

Honestly, I'd rather just eat barley, farro, or bulgur in a bowl than try to force whole grains into crumbly pasta. But I guess that's a matter of taste.

The big problem with this dish is the relative lack of umami. Sauteed mushrooms (shitake, portabella) really help here if you don't want to use meat. Or nutritional yeast really does the trick here. Depending on your palette, various fish sauces also help, though most Canadians probably aren't adding fermented fish products on everything.

<comment><USER21> I would imagine several of the recipes are directed at families with young children?

<comment><USER20> Most kids love simple noodle and rice dishes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From what I read, and someone please correct me on this, they put a bunch of scientists in a room to do their work without any influences from industry and lobby groups.

I love this. Great job Canada!

</comment><comment><USER23> I haven't looked over this food guide and probably will not put too much thought into it as a Canadian. Everyone knows that last food guide was completely out of touch with reality and was actually influenced by some of the big food companies. So now they want to try again and they didn't have it right for the last few decades why should I listen now? If they want to get me to listen now they need to highlight the old food guide and the changes they made and why. I notice they now recommend water as the drink of choice when the last one companies like Minute Maid fought to have a glass of juice placed on it. So my generation was sold out on the food guide. My trust now is strained. I will take this one with caution as well and continue to question if there is some alternative motive for the foods recommended.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't believe they still promote horrible industrial oils high in omega-6 as healthy fats:

      Unsaturated fats that are good for your health: peanut, soybean, safflower, sunflower.

[https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/tips-for-healthy- eating/comm...](https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/tips-for-healthy- eating/commonly-used-terms/#oils-with-healthy-fats)

</comment><comment><USER25> It's great that they highlight the effects of targeted advertising on eating behaviour: [https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating- recommendatio...](https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating- recommendations/marketing-can-influence-your-food-choices/)

Definitely good to see a government organization being aware of how the modern world works.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is simply perfect.. Everyone can follow this by making small changes in their eating habits towards a healthy lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER27> I hope that plate at the top of the front page isn't a suggested meal size!

Has anyone got some background on this, is it part of a larger policy? Is it going to be added to, or is this it now?

<comment><USER28> Why? Too much? Too little?

<comment><USER27> The egg seems to be the most reliable scale indicator? Assuming that's a normal size egg, that is a very large plate of food.

I know the intent is to indicate relative proportions of food, but you question suggests more work needs to be done on portion control also.

<comment><USER29> I think if you divide the food on the plate over the course of a day that might be a reasonable amount, maybe a bit too much. Generally the site tends to focus too much on the problems of overeating while some people (myself included) might rather have problems to eat enough (healthy) food sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If governements tells you what to eat please be skeptical. They have got it wrong in past and they might be wrong today. The best diet advice always comes from grandma.

<comment><USER31> Just because they tried and got it wrong doesn't mean we should be skeptical. We should be comparing what is known about food science to what is presented. Honestly, this food guide has been closest to what people currently consider healthy than any other previous guide.

The whole advice from grandma is nonsense. You probably have a wealthy background, but my grandma was poor, uneducated, and cooked meals based on what was affordable. That isn't advice, that's an economic condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What are the little balls to the left of the egg?

<comment><USER33> I think pine nuts, perhaps some other type of nuts or maybe even lentils?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's not the same anti-evolutionary guude promoted by the EAT foundation is it?

<comment><USER16> Looks like it, and for which there is a good rebuttal: [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis- diet/20190...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis- diet/201901/eat-lancets-plant-based-planet-10-things-you-need-know)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's interesting how we can all check out Canada's food guide, but we cannot do the same with e.g. the Dutch food guide, or the Italian one, or the Russian one, unless you speak those languages.

In any case, this one appears pretty similar to the Dutch one, so I guess that that's a good sign. The Dutch one recommends specific portions (250g of vegetables for an adult, for example), but I think in similar ratios as shown on that example plate, and similar products.

<comment><USER6> Literally typing "dutch food guide" into DuckDuckGo got me to this summary in English: [http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-based-dietary- gu...](http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-based-dietary- guidelines/regions/countries/netherlands/en/)

Then following some broken links to [https://www.voedingscentrum.nl](https://www.voedingscentrum.nl), here is The Netherlands Nutrition Centre's English home page: [https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/english.aspx](https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/english.aspx) where following some more broken links you get to their "Wheel of Five", "the practical information tool used by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre to give examples of healthy dietary patterns": [https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/Assets/Uploads/voedingscentru...](https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/Assets/Uploads/voedingscentrum/Documents/Professionals/Pers/Factsheets/English/Fact%20sheet%20The%20Wheel%20of%20Five.pdf)

(I don't speak Dutch, and I feel silly pointing out that national dietary guidelines make most sense in national languages, and that English happens to be a national language of Canada.)

<comment><USER33> Wow interesting, it didn't even occur to me that the Voedingscentrum would have made available English-language content. To be clear, I wouldn't expect the Canadian food guide to be made available in Dutch either.

It's just that I often compare Dutch guidelines with foreign (usually American) ones, and they often diverge. For example, in the Netherlands it's common not to use anaesthesia when giving birth, where most other countries AFAIK do.</comment></comment></comment>


Samsung makes the case for 'bended' phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/18/5117200/samsung-bended-phones-in-pictures

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure if anyone here has used the BB Playbook (and lol why would you) but I got one for free after writing an app for it and I really enjoyed their bezel features[1] and always wish my iDevices had the same feature set. These gestures are nothing iOS can't do, but I find they stay out of the way unless you want them unlike some games on apple where you might confuse the app/os on what you want that swipe to do.

Samsung seems to be taking this to a new level

[1] [http://playbookwiki.org/index.php/Bezel_Gestures](http://playbookwiki.org/index.php/Bezel_Gestures)</comment>


Worlds First Online Panhandler - <AUTHOR> http://panhandler.co/ <comment><USER2> That's called crowdfunding. (Perhaps: "world's first online panhandler who admits that they're panhandling.")

</comment><comment><USER3> HA! Go to reddit sub section assistance and you will see plenty of 'panhandling' And it has been going on there for years.</comment>


Mona Lisa in pure CSS - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/jaysalvat/pen/HaqBf <comment><USER2> And here I am, upvoting the thread because I thought it's a statement about how ridiculous all the 'X in pure CSS' posts have gotten, while everyone else in this thread seems to be genuinely impressed.

<comment><USER3> It's even more ridiculous once you realise that data: URLs work in CSS.

Thus, I hereby present to you, the Mona Lisa in pure css (!!), using even fewer bytes!

<http://codepen.io/anon/pen/gnqlc>

<comment><USER4> Why not go oldschool?

Behold: Mona Lisa in pure html (!!), because more bytes is better.

<http://codepen.io/anon/pen/lJxAe> (may crash browsers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jeez.

If your underlying method is pixels, you can render any image you want. I'm afraid I'm missing the "hack" here.

<comment><USER6> I agree, I was expecting some CSS hackery.

But this is nothing more than using CSS for pixels. With that logic you could theoretically create anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So... It's a bitmap-image written in CSS boxshadows. It's a bitmap written in text.

The resulting CSS is 247KB. Taking the same image and saving as a JPG (which I think is fair, since it's fairly blurry) results in a 40KB file. That's more than 6 times smaller.

If you scale it down to the detail level found the CSS (each CSS-"pixel" being a 4x5 unit) even a PNG will easily beat it at 24KB. Here the JPG also clocks in at 6KB.

So I don't get it. Using CSS, using a _text-format_ to encode bitmaps has always been and will always provide subpar results. Ok. So it can be done. We know that. It has been proven times and times again.

Apart from that: What's the point?

<comment><USER8> It's just a hack. You're on Hacker News. If you don't like it, don't upvote it.

This reminds me of when I brought a friend of mine to Maker Fair in NYC last year... We were surrounded by a strange amalgamation of weird gadgets and "art", and sometimes the line between the two is not always so clear :) The entire time we were there she kept asking "but what is it FOR?!" or "but who would WANT a thing like that?". I've always found myself asking questions like "ooh what does it do?" and "what can I learn from it?"

<comment><USER7> Sure. It's a hack. I get it. Hacks are cool. But this is a hack which has been posted a million times over and over the last few months.

At some point the novelty wears off and IMO this one is way past due.

Apart from that, I was asking if there was anything else I was missing. From the responses I got, it seems the answer is "no".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a generator on Codepen that allows you to do this, that probably deserves more praise: <http://codepen.io/blazeeboy/pen/bCaLE>

<comment><USER10> True, how cheap that the author is trying to take full credit as shown on his codepen example: /* Mona Lisa with pure CSS Pointless but fun!

      By Jay Salvat
      http://jaysalvat.com

*/

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> About ten years ago I made a converter application that converted a image (jpg/png/gif) to an HTML table. The result at the time was great. Unfortunately the generated HTML was quite verbose so it took a lot of bandwidth to download. I guess a similar conversion program has been used here and it seems that CSS these days can take off quite a bit of fat of that generated code.

PS: Forgot to mention. The reason I wrote the converter at the time was as an experiment to avoid people from right-click and saving images.

<comment><USER12> While some websites stop people from right clicking and saving (such as flickr) you can get around that by just screen printing. So why would you invest time in trying to stop one route of copying when there is a second unstoppable?

<comment><USER13> Clients.

<comment><USER12> Would it not be easier to explain to them that what they're asking for is impossible to deliver?

<comment><USER14> Sometimes, yes. Frequently it's very difficult to explain to a client that the way you[1] interpret the words they[2] are using is rather different than what may be in their head.

That is, from the technical perspective it may be 'impossible' to achieve perfect DRM. But from another perspective, if the added cost of circumventing that DRM is large enough that most[3] people won't bother, it /may/ be a success. See: Steam.

In short, the language/terminology barrier between people in different fields results in a lot of client/developer miscommunication, frustration, and, frankly, poor results.

A rather complete discussion on this (w/r/t a client wanting 100% uptime): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3056414>

[1] The technical party in the relationship

[2] The party paying someone you to handle the technical side

[3] Again, we run into a problem with precise definitions using 'most' - do we mean 99.9%? Do we mean enough that the cost of implementing the DRM is larger than the $ saved. Though the lost sales due to /having/ DRM is an entirely different discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The best part about this is that now I know that the box-shadow property can take multiple arguments. The more you know...

<comment><USER16> 7 thousand of them

<comment><USER17> bet you there's a limit. 65536 maybe?

<comment><USER18> Probably browser dependent. Edit: unless W3C mentioned something about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Me, in 60,000 lines of pure CSS: <http://codepen.io/anon/pen/ItbEm>

If anybody wants to take a gander at my very slow PHP code, it's here: <https://gist.github.com/3831235>

Anybody have any optimization tips?

</comment><comment><USER20> A friend of the guy did even crazier, a animated nyan cat (including the annoying music) with only one html tag, and thousand lines of CSS ^^

<http://codepen.io/JBay1337/pen/Ejtfl>

Webkit only though

It started kinda supidly over a beer yesterday with the joconde guy, then one friend posted a 50 mo animated nyan cat, I posted a 22mo version, and we kept iterating until he won.

His last version is kinda smart: it uses css keyframes like divx use video keyframes, with diff in between. Almost the first css video codec :-p

</comment><comment><USER21> We get it, you can draw anything in "pure CSS".

<comment><USER22> Not entirely. This also requires HTML.

<comment><USER23> You know, I was going to write that it was a given since CSS is applied to a markup language so you need _some_ sort of markup, and that you were being pedantic.

But then I thought it would be neat if someone were to make the Mona Lisa as ASCII art using only valid CSS, thus rendering a truly _pure_ CSS version. I guess you could further argue that it isn't _pure_ CSS because it also involves something to display the text.

<comment><USER24> You don't need HTML at all. Using pseudo elements and taking advantage of browser assumptions you can make HTML-free webpages:

<http://css-tricks.com/using-css-without-html/>

<comment><USER23> The example doesn't work for me on Chrome stable, Win7. So looks like we need _some_ markup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As pan69 said this technique isn't new! I've experimented this but I don't like it, it's heavy for coding images. It's good for smaller codes like <http://codepen.io/joshnh/pen/ohbHl>

<comment><USER26> Yeah, smaller code... Only 2000 lines for something you can do with 2 or 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's a bit disappointing that a project which is supposed to show me something in "pure CSS" is hosted on a site which gives me a big warning/block that the site "doesn't work with out javascript, like at all".

<comment><USER26> Codepen is just a viewer and editor for HTML, CSS and Javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cool hack. It would be neat if the box-shadows used relative units rather than `px` so that you could resize the result, but then why not use SVG?

<comment><USER29> <http://codepen.io/anon/full/FHqiE>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What would be nice is the source code of the code generator that did that CSS so everyone can post tomorrow their favorite image in pure CSS...

<comment><USER19> <https://gist.github.com/3831235>

<comment><USER30> Did you just find it, or wrote it right now? either way, this makes the point of the top voted comment even stronger.

<comment><USER19> I wrote it after seeing the thread.

It's a pretty simple technique, but it's intensely resource heavy. If the op (or anybody) wrote a script that does this algorithmically to produce as few drop shadows as necessary while maintaining quality... Well, then I'd be thoroughly impressed.

Regardless, this clearly struck a chord with some people so I say cheers to the op! Easy or not, he did it, did it well, and captured peoples' wonder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I want a Ecce Homo version of this please ><

</comment><comment><USER32> And the price for most horrible abuse of box-shadow goes to....

(Nice hack, though; didn't know box-shadow could be abused that way)

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems that everybody that has plenty of time, a little bit of talent and knows this tool <http://kushagragour.in/lab/picssel-art/> can make something like that

</comment><comment><USER34> So is there just an app making these types of things at this point? I'd have to imagine so... And if that's the case it's about as impressive as a generated ASCII art Mona Lisa.

<comment><USER35> Almost certainly. You could probably do this in about twenty lines of PHP, it's just a map of pixels from an image into CSS pseudo-pixels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If I had a thousand dollars for every HN post that works in Chrome and not Firefox, I'd feel somewhat better about what that suggests.

<comment><USER37> Yea, I'm a designer, I use chrome- you know why? The inspector is a lot better. The firefox inspector is sure sexy but it is simply not very powerful. Yea, there's firebug, but chrome has a very powerful set of tools built right in. I can amaze people by redesigning a page on the fly- as long as I don't accidently refresh.

<comment><USER36> I like Chrome, too. But I'm not ready to see Firefox abandoned. My hope is that the demo projects I've seen here are just bleeding-edge experiments that people were too excited about sharing to bother with the grunt work of browser compatibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've always said that recreating the Mona Lisa is the 'Hello World!' of the art community. Curious to see the two combining like this.

<comment><USER39> I thought Lenna was the Hello World of the art community. Or is that the image processing community? :P

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The script that generated the CSS is far more impressive than the image itself, would definitely like a look at that.

<comment><USER41> for each pixel coordinate and color, output an offset and color. Not sure how it is impressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How big would the CSS-image of Mona Lisa be compered to a "normal" image with the same resolution and pixel density?

</comment><comment><USER42> Amazing job! How long did it take and were there any tools you used to make this faster?

<comment><USER43> It's simpler than you might think. Takes less than 20-30 lines of Python. Read the pixels in the image and for each pixel print some parts of the box-shadow CSS with the right numbers... done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> No big deal. Let me know when you can do it using VIM syntax highlighting and ASCII

</comment><comment><USER45> The Da Vinci's of the future will use HTMLx and CSSx instead of paint and canvas.

</comment><comment><USER46> i actually like this better than the other "pure CSS" examples i've seen. in a sense, i think of this as an interactive lesson to illustrate a box shadow hack that could conceivably be useful

</comment><comment><USER47> "This Site Totally Doesn't Work Without JavaScript."

Pure CSS my arse.

</comment><comment><USER48> "Of course, it's not handcrafted" LOL

</comment><comment><USER49> More bytes for a pixelated look!

</comment><comment><USER50> Better version of Mona Lisa:

<http://codepen.io/anon/pen/zbcJq>

</comment><comment><USER51> Doesn't work in Opera 12.

</comment><comment><USER52> But... why?

</comment><comment><USER53> Extremely clever!

</comment><comment><USER16> this is insane

</comment><comment><USER54> Oh _come on_... Let me make you one in HTML4.01! Or HTML5! Or Javascript!

Pixel by pixel... seriously.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's in 'pure CSS', yet it requires Javascript.

<comment><USER56> Disgraceful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> amazing!!!

</comment><comment><USER58> wahhh! box-shadow can do that?! Crazy!</comment>


Ask HN: What is your one line wisdom you would like to share? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Little decisions you make alter your life, but they rarely do so all at once.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are few hard technical problems, there are many hard people problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Be generous and you will be rewarded by the universe.

</comment><comment><USER5> Don't spend your capital.</comment>


How to visit companies and start-ups in the bay area? - <AUTHOR>

Hi!
I am in the bay area hosted by Oracle, as the winner of the Thinkquest Digital media competition. I have two more days left here and I would really like to visit the big companies in the area(the offices, not just the campus) and other smaller start-ups. I am studying engineering at the University of Manchester so I am really interested in this field.
I was wondering if anyone can help me get a visitor's pass or give me some directions on where to go/what to do. If you want more information about me ask for my e-mail in the comments.
Thanks,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's a bit late notice now, but check out Meetup.com. There are tons of things going on, usually hosted by a company at their offices. The Ruby group is particularly active and has some stuff for tomorrow: <http://www.sfruby.info/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I found some interesting meetups but as you said it's a bit late now. I will plan my next visit better. Definitely gonna get back here in Summber! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not in the bay area, but would like to get to know you over email. My email is in my profile. Have fun!

</comment><comment><USER4> for the smaller startups, just find contact emails and reach out to them individually. pretty sure a few will bite, if anything, to see if you're interested in a job at least.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am in the Bay Area, email me, it's in my profile.</comment>


We Should All Step Back from Security Journalism - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/message/we-should-all-step-back-from-security-journalism-e474cd67e2fa

<comment><USER2> I don't see much of a legal framework in this post, which is a shame because it is about a legal topic.

For example the Pentagon Papers decision set precedent that reporters and editors can work with and publish information that would normally be illegal-- in that case because it was classified--in the interest of informing the public. Examining a file of credit cards to see if it was from an authentic hack, in the course of reporting that hack, would seem to pretty obviously be in the public interest. People benefit from knowing when their data has been stolen.

Motive matters in criminal prosecutions. A reporter examining a file of stolen data in order to accurately report on it has very different motives from the original hackers who stole the data, or someone looking to sell it.

Barrett Brown worked as a journalist, but the actions for which he was convicted went outside the typical bounds of journalism. I question whether his conviction means much for reporters who stay in those bounds.</comment>


Show HN: Hydra – Full Stack Billing, Payment, Provisioning and Mediation Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.hydra-billing.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hydra is a full-stack billing software that helps businesses save money on implementation and system support while growing revenue, increasing ARPU and keeping hold on subscribers. Multiple marketing-oriented opportunities available including promotions, groups and personal discounts.

Rich analytics functions make user base segmentation simple and effective. With Hydra you can offer each group of subscribers an individual pricing plan, create loyalty programs either out of the box or according to your specifications, reducing churn and increasing revenue.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Considering that market prices for billing+provisioning+mediation system usually start at 100k$ (without implementation costs), it's not that much. Anyway, thanks for the upvoting.

</comment><comment><USER2> Upvoted because I think it is a good idea for a product without alternatives in the market.

However, I will not pay that price.</comment>


Top Grossing Finance Mobile App Generates Barely $80,000 Annually - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canadas-top-grossing-finance-mobile-app-generates-barely-80000-annually-2012-07-16

<comment><USER3> Sigh, these things are so confusing. So this thing brings in $80K/yr, what are the operating costs? Does it need a data base or backend support? Or is it fire and forget? Did it take a year to write? 6 months? How much is spent maintaining it?

I can believe that its impossible to 'grow a business' on the back of one $3 or $4 app. Except why would you only have one of those? And if its that hard to write and maintain (so it takes an engineer full time to keep it going) then selling it for $3 or $4 is just bad business. Apps that need an engineer full time post ship are $20 apps.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking along the same lines. $80,000/yr. of perpetual income for a couple of months worth of work seems like a great deal.

However, I do feel the article is interesting from a user's perspective. If my $3 purchase only nets the author a $80,000 income from a popular work, there is little incentive for him to continue to work on the software. That means I'm unlikely to see it improve or grow in ways that will continue to benefit me in the future.

We've come to know continual product updates from not just software, but with physical products too. Seeing that process disappear could come with an interesting long-term impact.

<comment><USER5> It's highly unlikely that the income will be perpetual without additional work put in to update the application and keep it fresh.

<comment><USER4> You're right that it is not a safe bet. A lot will depend on how the market shapes itself in the future. Though the income from my own app has remained fairly constant over the years, despite the lack of updates and declining rankings.

<comment><USER6> Can you provide some data?

I also have a constant "income" from one of my apps, even though that income is one $0.99 purchase every one or two weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The actual title of article is:

"Canada's Top Grossing Finance Mobile App Generates Barely $80,000 Annually"

Isn't it likely that there are financial apps built in other regions that gross more?

<comment><USER8> yeah, unless the app is only useful in canada somehow, what about revenue from other countries?

<comment><USER4> The quoted revenue is not limited to Canadian sources, but the app reached the rank of #1 only in Canada. It did, however, make the Top 5 in the US, UK, and Australia, according to the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's a chart of their Canada rankings: [http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/budget-with-back-in- black/ra...](http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/budget-with-back-in- black/ranking/history/#view=grossing- ranks&start_date=2011-06-30&end_date=2012-07-16&store_id=143455)

Looks like they only do well in English-speaking markets, so they'll mostly live and die by their US performance. So it's more accurate to call them the #75 finance app (that's about where they seem to hover). $80k/yr to be number 75 in your biggest market doesn't seem quite as bad.

An interesting question is: why are they #1 in Canada? In the US, there are dozens of better selling budget trackers. What's different about Canada?

</comment><comment><USER10> Last time I looked the top 7 grossing apps were free. They make money with in- app purchase.

<http://appshopper.com/bestsellers/gros/?device=iphone>

I think it's very difficult to make decent money charging upfront for a mobile app that is to appeal to a broad market.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't see why this is such a surprise? The app does not appear terribly complex nor does being #1 in Canada really mean anything.

<comment><USER12> Is that sarcasm? I honestly can't tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a data point, my app for reading hackernews (<http://www.hackerno.de>) is one of top apps for Hacker News priced at $2.99.

It barely makes $350 a month.With that revenue there is very less incentive to spend time and do updates.But nonetheless I still give it some time.I guess other devs likewise are motivated by other things than money.

<comment><USER14> Do you mind if I ask how long it took to make it? If it was a reasonably small amount of time $300 a month for a year or so is a nice little earner.

<comment><USER13> Hi Nicholas...Please shoot me an email and I will be happy to give you more details...email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know title editing is a frowned upon here on HN lately, but this is pretty misleading. It is the top grossing finance app just in Canada (which is how the post is title on techvibes).

</comment><comment><USER16> Off the top of my head...

While mint.com isn't entirely a finance app, it was sold for $170 million. I'd assume that price would not have been paid if it were only grossing $80k/year.

Also Bloomberg has a free app that's pretty awesome. It's hard to peg how much revenue that app is responsible for bringing in, but regardless, I'm sure it adds more than $80k/year of value to the company or they'd can it.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1) The app looks like it could be done in 8-12 weeks if not less. The result of an $80k/year in passive income is well worthwhile. (This doesn't account for marketing + other costs if any, but is probably still a net gain).

2) How big of a market do they think personal expense accounting apps is?

<comment><USER18> Every App looks like it could be done in 8 weeks, until you actually try to do it.

<comment><USER17> That's true enough, but who cares. Double the development time to 24 weeks. Its still winning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find it difficult to parse all these financial factoids about what percentage of apps "break even" or "can support a standalone business" etc. How are these things defined? Does break even include paying the programmer? How much? Or is the programmer working at his own expense but hoping to repay himself from future revenues? Okay, repay himself how much? Probably all of the revenues minus expenses, but what expenses and for how long before declaring that it did or didn't break even?

I wish purveyors of this data would simply provide annual gross revenue per app for each percentile ("top-grossing 1%", next 1%, next 1%, etc.), and let ME decide whether that revenue would or wouldn't "break even" or be "sufficient to support a standalone business".

Has anyone seen such data?

<comment><USER20> Gross revenue is meaningless without taking into account those other factors: an app that took two weeks to develop and an hour a week from one developer to maintain that makes $1m in annual revenue would be amazing; but, if it took a year to develop and requires a team of five to maintain, then one would presume it is losing money (and a lot of it, possibly very rapidly).

I can thereby understand asking for both sides, so you can do the subtraction yourself, but if I was going to see either the result of someone performing the subtraction or just one of the numbers being subtracted, I'd have to say only the former provides value; this is certainly true of you want to break them up into brackets: the top 1% by revenue might be losing money while the middle third are raking it in.

<comment><USER19> I would, of course, be happy to have a fully itemized accounting database, but the way it is, undefined "making money" or "breaking even" etc. doesn't give me anything at all that I can use. Having an undefined mishmash of revenues over an unspecified time (per year? since release? discounted cash flow anticipated forever?) minus who even knows what, and announcing just the result of comparing undefined values to undefined values, is not more informative than a simple top line gross revenue number.

You're clearly correct that annual revenues per app without the costs it took to achieve those revenues is not all you would like to know. It's only one piece of relatively well-defined data, which you would have to supplement with your own estimates, based on looking at lists of popular apps and estimating what it would take to create them, of what it would take you to produce something similar.

But having just the results of how often an undefined value exceeds another undefined value is not more information than one well-defined value; it is less.

Now, of course, if they were to provide much clearer definitions of their terms ("breaking even", etc.), and give us some assurance that the developers who answered the questionnaires were quite clear on those definitions (not as certain as simply, "how many dollars per year does the store send to you for that app?), then we would both probably be happier with the data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At peak, my app FemCal was making about $1500 / month, or almost 1/4 of this top app, and I never broke about 130th place in the app store.

Don't add up to me.

</comment><comment><USER22> How are people not impressed by this? The app is making almost twice the median national income, and people are saying it's not enough? Come on.

<comment><USER23> Yes, but the whole point is that this is a _top selling_ app among many thousands, and it's only making $80,000. I would guess if you take the average selling app of its category, you would find that it's making much less than $40,000.

That said, unless this is a massively complex app (which I doubt), it really should take much less than a developer man-year. Plus, I'm guessing that this $80,000 is the net revenue, after they've paid their developers.

Still, it's not exactly inspiring for those of us starting to do mobile app development.

<comment><USER24> "net revenue" doesn't account for salaries. You're thinking of "net profit".

<comment><USER23> You're absolutely right. I tend to mix these two terms up, even though I recognize the difference between the two. Good thing I didn't go into finance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is not a "Finance App". It's an expense tracker. It manages your personal finances. A Finance App would be Bloomberg Mobile (on Android, IPhone) - <USER2> tracks equities, commodities, bonds, currencies & futures + news reports on everyday events in the world of uh... Finance.

<comment><USER26> Personal Finance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure what living costs and so on are like in good ol' Canadia but $80k seems like a huge chunk of cash to make annually off one app, that works out about £51k GBP which is some serious cash for someone in the UK.

Whilst I'm sure there's plenty of devs toiling away making next to nothing I'm going to guess there's another set who are making reasonably solid amounts of money as a supplemental income to their main jobs, or enough money to justify doing it. You only ever hear about the wild million dollar success stories, or the stories of woe. The inbetween? Not so much.

</comment><comment><USER27> 80k is a lot most people in the US do not make even close to that. Be happy you made something people pay for. Now do it again.

</comment><comment><USER28> I worked on a sports app that is regularly at the top of sports category for paid apps. It does not make enough to support the team that is working on it yet.

If I remember correctly, we were making ~$250 a day and were in the top few thousand apps in the store. The VAST majority of developers make almost no money at all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> True - not a "finance" app but that is how it is categorized in the App Store.

<comment><USER23> "Personal finance". That's been what this type of software is called since the early days of Quicken several decades ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'd imagine it has something to do with best finance apps being sponsored by interest groups (banks, online payment vendors, credit card companies etc.)

</comment><comment><USER30> Barely, you say...

</comment><comment><USER31> If the app was built and has had minimal work to improve it, $80,000 annually would be awesome. If one dev is working full time to improve it, then it's not amazing. If you have a team of 10 devs building this app, you're doing something wrong.

</comment><comment><USER32> " Alas, it's the harsh reality: most app developers face serious struggles and the 59% of app developers don't break even from their apps."

This is bull crap. Angry birds have made multi million dollars. Finance in itself is a dull category. They should start something like "paint your mouth" kind of app :-)

<comment><USER33> My friend won the lottery. People that say it's a waste of money are full of shit.

<comment><USER32> Well you caught something that is clearly lying there and down voted me but missed what I was trying to say. I gave just one example and hoped you will use your brain to find more. Most of the apps are crap so developers are reaping what they are sowing but at the same time if they try to do some good work like instagram, card.io, draw something, socialcam and there are lot more of them which got sold for multi million or even billion of dollars. That article was very demotivating and I still say it is full of crap. lesson for you - What you see sometimes is not reality.

With down votes people are trying to say that they are saving the world but they don't try to get the message that other person is trying to give

<comment><USER33> I almost never down vote and didn't down vote you.

Plenty of very good apps make no money. The world will be a better place when people understand basic statistics.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.wrevenue.com/2007/10/12/10-secrets-to-a-7-figure-website-income/

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I used to moderate at sysopt.com, Scotts first "startup" (though back then most sites were "hobbies" really rather than "startups"). He is a nice guy and now that he is blogging I thought some of his wisdom could benefit people here especially as he has a string of successful online businesses.</comment>


Retailers Shut Facebook Storefonts Amid Apathy - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/f-commerce-trips-as-gap-to-penney-shut-facebook-stores-retail.html <comment><USER3> The problem is that Facebook is a pain to navigate. If I wanted to shop for something online, the last place that I would go to would be Facebook - <USER2> even if I did choose to go to Facebook I wouldn't even know where to go or what to click on. A lot of those company pages have a spammy feel to them and when you like a brand they pollute your news feed.

The Facebook design has zero familiarity to it. I have been using the site for over 5 years now, at least once a week, and yet I have zero familiarity with the product. When I click on a link in Facebook, I have no idea what is really going to happen. I have written blog posts and popular guides on Facebook yet when I am helping others secure their accounts I find myself just clicking and guessing. It would definitely be in the top 5 products that I have used in the last 5 years yet it is the only popular product that I can't navigate blindly.

The menu's are starting to remind me of the toolbar hell of later Microsoft Office versions (a reason why a lot of power users are hesitant to upgrade Office).

I think Facebook really need to streamline their design, separate brands from real friends in the news feed and sit down and work out how they can expose deeper functionality of the platform to users without just throwing dozens of links into the interface. When you have personal pictures from friends mixed in with brand messages users are more likely to feel that their privacy is being violated.

Edit: to add, this is why I think Facebook isn't as secure in popularity as many analysts would have you believe. Pinterest is an example of a real threat to Facebook - a site that was designed with social and e-commerce ingrained in the product with an easy to use interface. That is a billion-dollar opportunity to Facebook is about to miss out on.

Edit 2: My attempt to shop on Facebook:

[https://img.skitch.com/20120219-nd4peencu2b7kf9534juhb1ytc.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120219-nd4peencu2b7kf9534juhb1ytc.jpg)

vs my attempt on Pinterest:

[https://img.skitch.com/20120219-fjyq53h693eb4fnfitamgsmuc5.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120219-fjyq53h693eb4fnfitamgsmuc5.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Your comment reminded me of when I used to work at Circuit City. One week, they decided to run a promotion: you would go to the Circuit City website, pick out and customize a computer. Then, you would print out a sheet with your order number on it, _and go to the store to pay for it_.

It was painfully obvious to me at the time that this was probably the brainchild of some young gun marketer at HQ. "Here's the deal," I imagine him saying. "People that shop at our on-line store don't go home with as many accessories and don't purchase extended warrantees as often as our in store customers. So, we'll make sure they have to go in the store. Then we can up- sell the crap out of them! It's flawless!"

Later on, I worked at the Apple Store. I once had a customer come in who was trying to decide between a MacBook and some low-end model of HP. I went through everything that she would get with the MacBook that she wouldn't get with the HP, and one after the other she informed me that she wasn't all that enticed by the difference. When we finished she told me, "I think I should get the HP."

"Yeah," I replied, "that's probably the right choice for you at this point. If you need another computer in the future, though, don't forget about us." The customer was stunned. She wanted to know why I wasn't pushing her toward the Mac. "Simple," I said, "we want you to buy an Apple because it's the best product for you, not because some pushy sales-person badgered you into a sale."

One of those companies is gone, one is the most valuable company in the world. Marketing on Facebook, to me, has always felt much more like Circuit City's strategy, and almost never like Apple's.

<comment><USER5> On the flip side, my last experience with the Apple Store and it's sales staff left me hating the entire experience. Suffice it to say, you can't walk and buy something knowing what you want. You are forced to wait for some sales person. More than a half hour into the experience, we simply left. My brother- in-law was sitting there, ready to buy. He knew exactly what he wanted. We left, and he never made the purchase.

So, when I read things like this, all I see is a sales person who just wasted another customers time. Sure, it's policies, and you are spending that time with a potential customer, and treating them well. The point, however, is I've had better experiences buying Apple products from places like FutureShop, where I can walk in, explain what I want, pay, and walk out in less than 5 minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure for the majority of people this is... fine (I guess). I mean, making an appointment to buy something is natural.

But yeah, I avoid the Apple store now. Between that, and numerous other things, it's at best a frustrating experience.

<comment><USER6> I had exactly the opposite experience last 2 times I was there - in one case a couple of years ago, I got an AppleTV... I straight-up said I was not interested in anything else, just that, I got a sales rep in about 2 minutes, then joked with him for another minute about how awesome Netflix on the aTV was. Paid, then I walked out without a bag or paper receipt.

More recently, with Apple's improved "self-checkout", I simply scanned the item on my iPhone app and pay with my AppleID. Again, no receipt, no bag.

I challenge you to find a more geek-friendly checkout mechanism. YMMV of course, but I've gotten really good mileage at my local Apple store.

<comment><USER5> The experience is different for things that are stocked on the shelf. Having to wait for a sales rep to be finished (regardless of other employees standing around) to purchase a computer is... well, described in my parent post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I never understood why companies ever thought I want to be a fan of my favorite mop or cheese grater.

The real effect of all of this has been to get Facebook mentioned on television and radio many times per hour at no cost to Facebook.

<comment><USER8> I think that Like Us sticker on your mop has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the mop company employee who implemented it and their relationship to their boss. "We're on Facebook!"

<comment><USER9> I agree 100%. It makes no sense other than internal positioning. Great point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has never actually seen a "Facebook store". Here's what appears to be a moderately good list of some "popular" stores:

[http://socialcommercetoday.com/top-50-facebook-stores- top-20...](http://socialcommercetoday.com/top-50-facebook-stores- top-20-facebook-store-solutions/)

From what I can tell from the first few, it's not really much more than a very basic third-party e-commerce platform squeezed into Facebooks frame.

Am I missing something? Why would a major retail brand want to downgrade the shopping experience to this when they can simply link through to their existing store front with their own brand experience, tracking, metrics, promotions and upsells? It seems baffling that any company would be content to squeeze their store into Facebook's 500 pixel-wide frame.

</comment><comment><USER11> IMHO, this proves (yet again) how difficult it is to monetize social networks and I think it's a commentary on the long-term viability of facebook – if nothing else, as the article mentions briefly, it's a crack in the high-value facade that FB and its early investors have tried so hard to build.

I guess it's an open question as to just how much of the network's would-be value can be wrung out of it by facebook – but doing so is a dangerous game for them. On the one hand, if you exploit your users too much or too invasively, you'll see a huge uproar and pushback. On the other, if you can't produce results for customers (retailers, etc.), then the perceived value of your product goes down significantly.

 _edit:_ Ah, yes, the non-communicative downvote. Please, if you disagree with me then by all means, say so. Downvoting does little to build any sort of higher intellectual exchange. If I'm wrong, I'd love to be told why... it might even spur a good conversation.

<comment><USER8> "On the one hand, if you exploit your users too much or too invasively, you'll see a huge uproar and pushback. On the other, if you can't produce results for customers (retailers, etc.), then the perceived value of your product goes down significantly."

I was thinking about this recently, in the context of Target and its use of statistics to get ads for baby products to people who they calculate are pregnant, and in the more general context of gmail et al. and ads based on email content.

There's probably a Laffer Curve kind of relationship between number of ads served (taxes) and the amount of views/visit/use (work). Serve more ads and your revenue goes up, to a point. Serve to many ads, and your revenue goes down, because people view/use/work less.

Still trying to work out how the Trickle Down theory manifests online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wouldn't shop on Facebook, for a few reasons.

One - I don't trust them... At some point they will do "beacon" or something similar again.

Two - Facebook will eventually either make you use FB gift cards or make a cut from the retailer. Either way, it will cost more.

Three - If I want a pair of khakis from the Gap, I can type "gap.com"... Or go down the Facebook navigation rabbit hole, which changes several times per year.

The only thing that makes sense to me for Facebook commerce is marketing at people who don't have access to credit cards, or at people whose only internet access is Facebook via feature phones.

<comment><USER13> > _Three - If I want a pair of khakis from the Gap, I can type "gap.com"... Or > go down the Facebook navigation rabbit hole, which changes several times per > year._

1999: AOL Keyword: GAP

2012: Facebook.com/GAP

<comment><USER14> @GAP

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I never knew Facebook was trying to cover this segment of the web presence, but if I did, I would have imagined them forcing some kind of fee on storeowners like they do with mandatory credits for apps/games. Given that there were no apparent barriers like that for F-store operations, it's quite interesting to learn that people didn't use them. I can imagine three issues:

\- buyers just didn't know about this.

\- people want a more private experience when buying online. Not so much "trying to sell to people in a bar" as "people don't want to shop when it feels that everyone is looking".

\- buyers are more and more using mobile, and Facebook is still trying to figure out how to integrate 3rd parties into their mobile experience.

Given the patterns of behaviour of Facebook users, I can't really believe any of the three, which leaves me confused.

Oh, and F-Commerce is a funny term.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure it's something Facebook is necessarily pushing. I think it's just businesses squeezing e-commerce pages into Facebook page tabs.

I think a lot of folks still don't notice the custom page tabs. They "like" something and they see the items that get dumped into their stream as a result or they occasionally go to the "wall" for that thing, and just don't see the links in the sidebar to the custom pages.

Even if the company sets it as the default tab for their page, once the user has "liked" the page, the default changes to the wall.

I think it's _because_ Facebook isn't officially enabling and supporting e-commerce that it's not working out well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My startup operates in this space (<http://venpop.com>) and we see this kind of thing all the time. One of the biggest problems is that the hype of Social Commerce has driven large, big-name players to make large, big-dollar bets on the space. They'll wind up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a fancy storefront, and they have _no chance_ of making their money back.

So, they shut them down... and it's giving the whole industry a bad name (via articles like this) because of over-execution against unjustifiable expectations.

Stores are making money on direct sales, but they're not raking it in. They're doing a lot more by staying in touch with their customers, offering them deals, and ensuring they stay top-of-mind throughout the year with their likely holiday buyers. But, some retailers were determined to turn Facebook into a Point of Sale destination... and they're so insistent on seeing returns on the social "channel" that they'll actually start putting up links and promotions to drive people to Facebook _instead of their own website._ It's pretty irrational.

A few months ago our CEO also did an interview where he talked about what a bad idea this was as well: [http://allthingsd.com/20110822/venpop-makes-a- case-against-a...](http://allthingsd.com/20110822/venpop-makes-a-case-against- adding-shopping-carts-on-facebook/)

</comment><comment><USER8> You know those cardboard compacter/bailer units in the back of Home Depots and such? The shelving crew puts their cardboard into them, it gets crushed and comes out in neat, baled bundles.

I saw a truck version of one of them. It drives to your location and you or they bale your cardboard.

It had a Facebook "Like Us" sticker on the side.

Seriously? For something you'll probably only need once, and probably didn't even know existed before you needed it?

<comment><USER18> Marketers don't want to miss the bus so they jump on every bandwagon.

<comment><USER8> To drive home their message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I need to buy shoes on Facebook like I need to share photos with other shoppers at the mall.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you want people to shop on FB you have to integrate it with the apathetic zero-effort social climbing. That means luxury goods only.

Allow opt-ins that allow for ads like: so and so just bought an Omega watch and is therefore clearly better than you!

Efforts in this direction were sidetracked by the Sharper Image(??) vibrator fiasco a couple years back. Opt-ins are very very important.

Finally, the other option is to plug-in a Pinterest model into a FB app. Or better yet piggyback onto Pinterest, replace affiliate links _again_ , and let the litigation fly! (I have a gut feeling that a dozen projects like this must already exist.)

<comment><USER21> "piggyback onto Pinterest, replace affiliate links again, and let the litigation fly! (I have a gut feeling that a dozen projects like this must already exist.)"

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Specifically 'replace affiliate links again'

<comment><USER22> Syndicate pinterest content to FB, and change pinterest affiliate tag to Facebook's. Basically out-pinterest pinterest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facts: a few companies have failed to monetize facebook store fronts, so they quit investing resources in them.

Conclusion: Facebook isn't a commerce platform that can succeed.

Facebook works for commerce. Most people just haven't figured out how yet.

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems that some companies like Payvment and Tabjuice have had some success getting brands to buy in and use their platforms to sell to fans...but again it just seems like fans are not interested in buying through Facebook. It might just be an undeveloped technology, or its too soon to tell, maybe it will reemerge as something different in the coming years. Also, consumers are probably skeptical about buying through a social network for actual goods, much the same way consumers were a bit reluctant to share their credit card online in the early days of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how the Facebook movie rentals thing is going... I think Facebook's ultimate destiny is as an aggregator, sending people to more niche/targeted sites.

</comment><comment><USER26> My gut reaction to this is that it might be that overtly trying to sell stuff of Facebook reminds users of the negative vibe that surrounds Facebook. It sort of proves that Facebook is more about gathering profile data to make effective targeted sales, rather then a social network tool.

</comment><comment><USER27> The whole idea of shopping _on_ Facebook was ridiculous from the beginning. But I think Facebook understands this and is now taking itself to the stores. Nik's post on the matter is a good read although he repeats the absurd Atlantic revenue projections for Pinterest.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting. I'm rolling out and testing a tool that lets restaurants create and sell their own Groupon-like daily deals from their Facebook page (using their own Stripe acct).

Maybe it won't work ... we'll see

<comment><USER9> Sounds interesting. One thing to consider is that part of groupons pitch is that they will drive customers that don't know about the business to the business. Don't give up, but do think of a way to get that function as part of your value prop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes, it's true that some brands have failed on Facebook- but to write off the entire concept is overreaching. The problem, to date, hasn't been with technology but with merchandising. Brands need to figure out the correct mix of merchandising and marketing before they will be successful. Too many retailers have just been vomiting up their entire catalog and that's what what the consumer wants on Facebook.

Facebook will always remain a secondary or tertiary revenue stream for brands, but there is money to be made in that space.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wait, facebook has stores? :P

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow I didnt even know facebook had stores.

</comment><comment><USER32> Analysts are amusing at times. So they speculated not that long ago that Facebook was going to challenge Amazon.com as a retail destination? On what planet was this going to happen?

Sure, and Amazon.com was going to challenge Google (A9!), and Amazon was going to challenge eBay in auctions, and Google was going to challenge PayPal (Google checkout!) and Microsoft was going to challenge Google (Bing!) and Microsoft was going to challenge Intuit (Money!) and Microsoft was going to challenge Oracle (SQL Server, Great Plains) and Facebook was going to kill Twitter, and Microsoft was going to kill AOL with MSN, and and and and.

Who knew it's apparently so difficult to conquer the entire planet? Next you're going to tell me that people don't want their car oil changed by McDonald's.

<comment><USER33> You shouldn't need a marketing guru to know about the basics of positioning and branding. Facebook is trying to be everything to everybody. They're not going to succeed - not because they're not good at this or that, but because you just CAN'T be the best at everything in the mind of your customers. Like shingen said, people aren't going to want their car oil changed at McDonald's - not if they have a choice.

Line extension is a tricky business. The good news is: this opens up a lot of opportunities for startups.

<comment><USER34> Walmart is very nearly everything to a lot of people. People do get oil changes, fast food, haircuts, furniture, household goods, food, banking, prescriptions, movies, games, sporting goods, gardening supplies... The list goes on. Convenience trumps almost anything.

<comment><USER32> And yet Walmart doesn't dominate haircuts at all, America is filled with a network of 20,000 hair salons that outsell the hair salons in Walmart. People usually have to schedule appointments with their hair salon - that is not maximum convenience, it's maximum value. There are more banks outside of Walmart than inside of Walmart, and that will continue to be the case. Walmart is an extremely small part of the US furniture market. And so on.

Walmart wanted to take over the gasoline fill-up market. What could be more convenient? Instead, gas stations have thrived living near Walmart, because convenience doesn't always maximize value. Gas stations draw people with gasoline, and make money on in-store purchases; that model didn't work for Walmart, because gasoline doesn't draw people to spend an hour shopping at Walmart, so the value-add was non-existent.

The notion of extreme convenience fails as often as it succeeds in my opinion. It's why Walmart doesn't own every category. It's why GameStop exists. Specialization can just as easily trump maximum convenience, you have to offer enough of a value proposition. It's why Starbucks and Apple Stores exist; it's also why dollar stores are thriving. It's why Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme exist despite Walmart selling donuts.

Obviously Walmart doesn't manufacture the drugs in the prescriptions; they don't have a banking license; they don't make movies or games; they don't cut your hair; they don't run the food franchises (eg Subway); they don't make furniture; they don't make the groceries.

Walmart is merely a retailer, and with their physical space they sometimes act like a mini mall. They don't even own their shipping network any longer. That is not Walmart being everything to everybody. Quite the opposite, they're admitting they can't be, so they let other companies ride their coattails to optimize their sales per square foot.

<comment><USER34> Uh ok. I didn't say Walmart dominated haircuts in the US. I didn't say Walmart dominated gasoline. I didn't say Walmart dominated donuts. I didn't say Walmart manufactures their own drugs or operates as a bank or directly employs the barbers there.

What I said was that for a _lot_ of people, Walmart is where they go for nearly everything. There are a lot of places in small town America where a Walmart moved in and a lot of the existing local retail and service businesses shut down. It doesn't have much to do with positioning or branding. It's just really easy to get everything done there.

The point is, it's possible. If Walmart can do it, maybe Facebook can too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> FB doesn't drive commerce? Tell that to Zynga.

<comment><USER36> That's a pretty one dimensional definition of "commerce"; Zynga's product was designed for the Facebook platform. The key thing is this:

> _"A year ago, investors hailed so-called F-commerce as the next big thing, > speculating that the company had potential to threaten Amazon.com Inc. > (AMZN) and PayPal Inc."_

Facebook is going public. They passed 500MM users _two years ago_. Everyone and their grandmother, literally, knows what it is. So where are these stores that are part of the next big thing? Can anyone name _one_ e-store that's built around Facebook?

You'd think it'd be here by now. The tech business cycle peak is coming to an end...so where is it?</comment></comment>


Shell scripts to improve your writing, or "My advisor rewrote himself in bash." - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/shell-scripts-for-passive-voice-weasel-words-duplicates/ <comment><USER2> There's no problem with having a house style, of course, but it's obnoxious to claim that following one particular stylebook makes one a "better writer". Particularly obnoxious in the linked article are the claims that "the removal of all adverbs from any technical writing will be a net positive," and likewise for "the removal of the passive voice".

Adverbs are indispensable to good writing, technical or otherwise. Notwithstanding the claims of a variety of self-proclaimed experts, no good writer will omit adverbs, and no writer _can_ successfully omit all adverbs without at the very least sounding incredibly choppy and awkward. The author of the linked article included quite a few; even just counting those adverbs that end in "-ly", I found ten (fortunately mechanically really genuinely personally frequently unfortunately solely rightfully technically), and there was even an adverb ("so") _right there in the sentence where he was condemning adverbs!_

As for the passive, the author acknowledges the difficulty of avoiding them, but claims that their removal is still an improvement, though without explaining why. In fact, it makes the writing seem rather choppy (as if the author had to spend too much time paralysed by a set of rules to follow to actually be able to make the text flow). And despite apparently putting in a great deal of effort to avoid them, the author _still_ included at least two that I found in a quick reread: "drawn for them" in the "beholder words" section, and "accepted for publication" right at the bottom. In both cases, the result is perfectly readable, not at all fuzzy, and entirely unremarkable ---which shoots a rather gaping hole in the argument that there is anything wrong with a passive voice.

I feel sorry for his grad students, and only hope that when they come out the other end, they will sensibly discard the silly mandates of their advisor, rather than perpetuating the myths....

<comment><USER3> For experimental contrast:

I have no problem with a house style, but the claim that following one particular stylebook makes one a "better writer" annoy me. Worse, the linked article claims that "the elision of all adverbs from any technical writing," and "the removal of the passive voice," "constitute a net positive."

Good writing, technical or otherwise, requires adverbs. Notwithstanding the claims of a variety of self-proclaimed experts, no good writer will omit adverbs, and no writer _can_ successfully omit all adverbs without sounding incredibly choppy and awkward. The author of the linked article included a few; counting those adverbs that end in "-ly," I found ten (fortunately mechanically really genuinely personally frequently unfortunately solely rightfully technically), and _in the sentence condemning adverbs_ he included an adverb ("so").

As for the passive, the author acknowledges the difficulty of avoiding them, but claims that their removal still improves writing, though without explaining why. In fact, it makes the writing seem rather choppy (as if the author had to spend too much time paralysed by a set of rules to follow and had none left to make the text flow). And despite putting in a great deal of effort to avoid them, the author _still_ included two or more that I found in a quick reread: "drawn for them" in the "beholder words" section, and "accepted for publication" at the bottom. In both cases, I find the result perfectly readable, not at all fuzzy, and entirely unremarkable--which shoots a rather gaping hole in the argument against the passive voice.

I feel sorry for his grad students, and hope that when they come out the other end, they discard the silly mandates of their advisor, rather than perpetuating the myths....

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure exactly what you're attempting here, but you made a lot of changes to text involving neither adverbs nor passives, and you missed several adverbs. What was this trying to experimentally prove, exactly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My style checker finds weasel words, passive voice, and repeated words (a lexical illusion). It also finds confused words as well (another lexical illusion). It's not integrated with LaTeX but it is available for Firefox, Google Chrome, and OpenOffice.org.

<http://www.afterthedeadline.com>

<comment><USER5> > _and repeated words_

One of the things I hate most about English (and this is by no means a rant on how stoopid English is) is that "that that" can be grammatically correct. It's a minor thing really, but I could _swear_ it's mocking me some days.

<comment><USER6> Check out the "Lexical ambiguity" section of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sent...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences)

<comment><USER5> haha, nice, hadn't seen that one before. I love the last Japanese one (chosen because I've had some Japanese)

      Touou wo ooou. (東欧を覆おう。) meaning "Let's cover eastern Europe."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The passive gets a bad rap a lot of the time, but getting rid of passives isn't always the best way to go about things. An approach which forbids all passive verbs often results in less readable or less appropriate prose, because there are honestly places where the passive is the correct thing to use. Broadly speaking, it's better to educate yourself about those situations than to treat it as wholly bad and eliminate it entirely.

I'd go into more detail, but Language Log has discussed it in great depth: [http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://languagelog.ldc.u...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/+passive+voice)

</comment><comment><USER8> there are two gnu utilites that are useful for writing: gnu style and gnu diction. <http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html>

diction finds common mistakes. style gives some metrics (may or may not be useful, YMMV).

they have a similar theme as this article.

</comment><comment><USER9> My doctoral supervisor also taught me to write and it was very, very valuable. It enabled me to write for newspapers later and write my book. Learning to write is important because it helps you to see the subject you are writing about clearly.

In ReWork, the 37 Signals' guys mention that if they have the choice between two potential hires of equal ability, they'll choose the one who's a better writer.

<comment><USER10> Sure they do - but that isn't really surprising; why not take the better writer? It might be useful, can't hurt and there is no downside.

The really interesting thing is _how_ much they are willing to compromise; would they prefer a mediocre programmer with flair for writing? If not, it is just meaningless platitudes.

<comment><USER11> Prose and programing aren't as unrelated as they might seem. Ultimately, both are exercises in using a particular set of grammar and syntax to convey intent.</comment></comment></comment>


Walmart's $10 smartphone isn't actually $10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp <comment><USER2> From this article -- _" They're locked to Tracfone's network, and Tracfone has a very punitive unlocking policy: you have to use this cheap, pretty lousy Android phone for a year on Tracfone's network before you can unlock it."_

As opposed to the original iPhone which had a non-existent unlocking policy :-)

<comment><USER3> As did just about every other phone of that era. What would you say is the state of that comparison today, in 2015?

<comment><USER2> The original conversation was that Walmart was selling a $10 phone that was more powerful than the original iPhone which had been labelled by some in the press as the "Jesus Phone". This offended the sensibilities of a number of iPhone owners who have argued a number of side points to refute that assertion. The article here pointed out how horrible the restrictions were on unlocking so you were "trapped" using Tracfones crappy service for at least a year. However, that fails to acknowledge that when it was first released, the iPhone could not be unlocked and many felt its biggest weakness was the crappy service from AT&T (I certainly did).

So today, with some legislation help, unlocking phones is not quite as burdensome, and both Apple and Android makers have more carriers to choose from given the amount of business they "swing". This LG phone and others like it are totally adequate smartphones. Which only serves to illustrate the chasm between where we started and where we are.

In alternate history speculation, had Microsoft released the Lumia 550 the same year that Apple released the iPhone? Microsoft would have outsold and out performed Apple in the smartphone market and Apple might never have gained the necessary momentum to fuel its growth. But we know that Balmer didn't see it, and as an employee working at Google when Android was being developed, Google didn't see it either. The original Android phone concepts were very much like Palm Pilots, not what you see today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are we going to do this every day now?

There are several "$10" phones out there and have been for the past couple years.

I have a dozen various brands of android phones sitting on the desk in front of me for testing, none were over $20.

Next Friday (black friday) there will be $5 phones, $10 phones and $20 phones.

Both Best Buy and Kmart will have this phone for $5 next Friday:

[http://www.bestbuy.com/site/net10-zte-paragon-4g-with-4gb- me...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/net10-zte-paragon-4g-with-4gb-memory-no- contract-cell-phone-black/4297500.p)

(net10 is tracfone, same no unlock policy)

You can even find middle range phones now for $20.

[https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/zte- obsidi...](https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/zte-obsidian- prepaid)

($20 phone with $40 airtime card - quad-core, 1GB of ram)

Yes Tracphone will not unlock the phone. But you can use mvnos on other phones if you actually want a phone plan.

You can even get free phone service from services like RingPlus with Sprint/Boost Mobile/Virgin Mobile phones and those phones are sometimes $10-$20

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a few cents over $10 with tax, including free ship to store, no additional purchase required.

Source: I bought it.

Minutes run $20 for 180 if you want to activate it, which is a fair price for a pay as you go emergency phone, especially one running Android that includes a data plan.

For a heavily used normal day to day phone sure, something else is better.

<comment><USER6> Is there anything stopping you from using it as a WiFi only device for $10?

<comment><USER7> Probably no, but is it a phone then?

<comment><USER8> Sure, if you use Skype or Google Hangouts you can call other phones.

<comment><USER9> While you're right, depending on availability of Wifi is not very portable, which decreases its utility.

Not sure how it is in the US, but in Romania we've got pretty good and cheap 4G-only Internet pre-pay cards. You can't call or receive phone calls, you cannot send SMS, all you can do is to connect to the 3G/4G network. The price is €5 for 1 GB, €7 for 3 GB, €15 for 13 GB of bandwidth. And you recharge whenever you want, as this is not a monthly plan. And I have an Android that I use with such a pre-pay card. It's like my personal 4G modem that I can also use for Skype and stuff. And I was actually thinking of giving up my phone number. If it weren't for my parents which are old-fashioned, I would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems the author doesn't really understand the low-end pre-paid market. Luckily I've escaped this, but for a long time, this has been what I could easily afford. I had one that functioned best as a flashlight, but most function well enough and are Much better than no phone - and these are better than a non-smartphone. Limited power and space are things that people grow accustomed to, much like trying to avoid using non-wifi internet. Most, but not all, will understand that one will need a bit more money for working service - though understandably, many are replacing or upgrading a phone and don't need the minutes. A year lock on the phone doesn't seem like a horrible thing since it is subsidised - as pointed out, there are other options that cost less than replacing a car tire.

<comment><USER11> Why do you think e author didn't understand the low end market? It sounded to me like the author was claiming the total cost of owning the phone was higher than other lots end phone. That there were more expensive phone existed with cheaper plans. And by more expensive I mean a few tens of dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If it's made by LG I wonder how long until you could unlock it with one of the 5-10$ online mail the unlock code services, if it uses some standard LG locking scheme that might already be possible. I've unlocked devices before that weren't on the "unlock list" just by trying the most similar device to that, that was pretty much the case when Nokia used to have 50 regional models for the same phone, and while things have surely changed I don't think that they've changed that much.

As a SHTF phone it's not that bad of a deal I have the new Microsoft Nokia 105 as an emergency and beach/club/night out phone it costs like 15 GBP unlocked. No wifi and 2.XG only but it's 15GBP if I lose it I won't cry because it's the price of 2-3 shots here in London. And for those that say I need my phone to call Uber, well m.uber.com works on low end phones ;)

Oh and the most wonderful think about the Nokia it actually works as a phone unlike pretty much every modern phone out there the reception is brilliant (2G coverage is pretty universal) and as far as the voice quality goes it's by far better than the iPhone 6S and the OnePlus I'm using atm it's much clearer even in loud environments.

<comment><USER4> Note if you are in the USA, this is technically illegal under DMCA, but like speeding, a great many people still do it.

<comment><USER13> As of 2014, it is explicitly legal to unlock a phone:

"Circumvention of a technological measure that restricts wireless telephone handsets or other wireless devices from connecting to a wireless telecommunications network ... may be initiated by the owner of any such handset or other device ... solely in order to enable such owner or a family member of such owner to connect to a wireless telecommunications network"

\- Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, 2014 ([https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house- bill/1123...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house- bill/1123/text))

<comment><USER4> key word there is "owner"

do you "own" a (heavily) subsidized phone distributed by a specific carrier?

yes some people will argue, if you paid for it in a store it is "owned"

guess it all comes down to when corporations start asking the government to jail people over this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As some of the comments in the article point out, you probably won't be spending $10 on this phone to use it over a cellular network - rather, you would probably just use it to connect over WiFi as an additional smart device.

It does have Android 4.4 with WiFi support - that should be enough to use as a cheap additional smart device at home.

</comment><comment><USER15> often, when browsing website on mobile, and this is probably because I am a tech savvy superuser, I use the "scroll" feature.

obviously, moving the page or "scrolling" as I've taken to calling it, isn't typical behaviour. i really appreciate PC mag building on top of this feature.

with so little screen real estate available, I like them using as much as possible to show me other things i might find interesting.

sure, it is almost impossible to read the current article, but the article is someone describing a price tag. i am glad i can quickly consume the first paragraph of many articles quickly, it gives me the insight and confidence to espouse my opinion everywhere with little effort.

cheers pc mag.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know if it has been unlocked and if Cyanogen Mod is running on one of these? If those both happen, I will definitely buy this as a backup phone. Hell, even using this as cellular modem in a log cabin would be cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is te cheapest smartphone (anything with wifi and a browser) that comes unlocked and is not carrier-subsidized?

<comment><USER12> The Nokia Lumina 530 costs under 50 GBP on Aamzon SIM-Free without a carrier. The Samsung Galaxy Y can also be found under 50 GBP without a carrier these days, same goes for older S series mini phones. And if you just need a cheap android phone then DealExtreme/Alibaba no-brand Chinese phones can also usually be found under 50$.

Edit: The 520 costs 58$ on Aamzon US, the 530 cots 78$ both are unlocked and quite good phones(decent hardware, great battery life) since they both run Windows 10 these days you also get quite decent app support, not nearly as good as Android as of yet but it's getting there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if it can be rooted and reflashed with something completely different.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ok, it's not 10$, but it's still few times cheaper than iPhone.

<comment><USER20> You get what you pay for.

<comment><USER21> Exactly! It's great when customers can pay less and only get what they need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> this post's url is really:

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp)

<comment><USER23> Ok, changed from [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp?kc=PCRSS...](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fpcmag%2Fbreakingnews+%28PCMag.com+Breaking+News%29). Thanks!</comment></comment>


Interested in a mentor program for programmers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/kxo4c/interested_in_a_mentor_program_for_programmers/

<comment><USER2> I assume you're the person who started the reddit thread. I recently thought about an idea like this but don't have much time at the moment to really implement it. I would be interested in talking about it and perhaps contributing a little bit of code. Please email me if you would like to discuss.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am. I've been thinking about it for a while, but procrastinating as well. I will email anyone who's interested in getting involved.

</comment></comment><comment> no-go-mojo That'd be great! any of us would be able to use such a service.</comment>


The Psychologist's View of UX Design - <AUTHOR> http://codesketch.com/2010/06/the-psychologist%E2%80%99s-view-of-ux-design/

<comment><USER2> From the guidelines at <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> :

        Please submit the original source.
        If a blog post reports on something
        they found on another site, submit
        the latter.

<http://uxmag.com/design/the-psychologists-view-of-ux-design>

<comment><AUTHOR> My apologies. I'll be sure to do that in the future.

Thanks for the reminder! All the best.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: When and how to outsource software development? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to find out more about outsourcing software development (as in, paying engineers that aren't your employees and possibly live in another country).
As an engineer in Silicon Valley, I know very few people that outsource their development and haven't heard many success stories (I recently learned that fab.com is built by a team in India that used to be a development agency, though). I do, however, see a lot of potential to accelerate or reduce the cost of development for certain types of projects.
Would you mind sharing your experiences with projects that went well or not so well? Is there ever a good reason to outsource development, even if you have in-house developers?
How do you make sure the development team is any good? Or, how do you find a good team?
Is there any forum (in real life or online) where people who outsource development and development teams congregate and discuss best practices/challenges? <comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, I have witnessed a few projects that went terribly wrong (usually, because I was called in to salvage the project).

From sitting in on some calls, it became clear that a large source of issues were misunderstandings between the client and developers. Usually those misunderstandings were around technology.

This is one category of issues that would be less likely to happen if the client has some technical knowledge.</comment>