The Art of Getting a 3 Letter Domain Name - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lob.com/post/55544977604/the-art-of-a-3-letter-domain-name <comment><USER4> It would be cool if you were more reserved with your usage of "squatted" to describe domain names. Amateurs commonly use it to mean "he has something I want," but in domainer lingo, a squatted domain is used specifically for trademark infringement: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act) .

I think it's an important distinction to make when describing domain name disputes.

<comment><USER5> In general lingo, domainer = squatter.

If you bought a domain name for the sole purpose of sitting/squatting on it until you can find a buyer who will pay significantly more than you did, than you're a squatter.

<comment><USER6> Squatter implies no legitimate rights. I've bought a lot of things with the sole purpose of selling it for more. Nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER5> > Squatter implies no legitimate rights

We aren't talking about land here, we're talking about domain names. A domain squatter has legitimate right to the domain names (s)he owns. Domain squatting is neither illegal, nor contrary to any rules.

I happen to despise the practice, and wish ICANN implemented measures to prevent it occurring.

> I've bought a lot of things with the sole purpose of selling it for more.

Try buying a lot in a modern real-estate development in a developed nation and see if you can sit on it. They won't let you, because your empty lot lowers the value of all the properties in the vicinity. They won't let you just throw up a lean-to and call it a building either. You'll actually have to build a proper house that not only follows all relevant codes but that actually looks good.

Generally speaking, domain squatting is a shitty practice by shrewd business- people who found a way to conjure big bucks out of thin air... ie. without creating any value whatsoever.

> Nothing wrong with that.

That's like, your opinion, dude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My suggestion would be to seek out a generic tld other than .com (unless you have a lot of money to burn). Here's Google's list of what they consider to be a generic tld:

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en)

I recently picked up a useful .fm three letter domain for a new service. It perfectly matched the service, and I think the negatives of alternative generic tld's can be overcome very well these days.

<comment><USER8> Let me put this as clearly as I can. This is very bad advice. I've been in this business since 1996 and I deal with end users and customers on both the buying and selling side. For everything from a standard domain registration (at normal pricing that you can get at your registrar) to high value sales (let's say hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Anything but .com is almost always going to be problematic and will more than likely cause problems. You can get a reasonably priced .com you just have to be creative.

Let me give you an actual sale today that I handled.

I bought both the .com and the .org of the same domain name for a customer (someone who sold their company to google iim)..

The .com went for $70,000. I was able to get the .org for $1,500.

Domains are all over the place and despite what the OP says (I will try to address that in a separate post) there are domains that can be had and sellers who are reasonable.

Getting anything but a .com for a serious site is going to be a problem. If anything makes more sense to tack on a word to what you want (pre or suffix) than it does to get anything but a .com

<comment><USER7> It's not very bad advice. I've been building web businesses for 16 years. You have no advantage over me on time.

The end of the dominance of .com was always inevitable, and is already occurring. Sites as varied as ask.fm, twitch.tv, minecraftwiki.net, foods.tv, formspring.me, php.net, about.me, imageshack.us, last.fm, mega.co.nz, rapidgator.net, popads.net, speedtest.net, ustream.tv, prchecker.info, who.is, all.biz, jsfiddle.net, justin.tv, bit.ly, scoop.it, snap.do and vine.co are proving that every day (or already proved it in the past). And that's ignoring the rest of the vast array of .net and .org sites. There will be a lot more big alt sites in the next five years. Instagram didn't start out as instagram.com. Clearly Vine didn't need the .com to succeed at all. Different use case than your typical 1998 .com? You bet, and that's exactly the future.

The proof is already in place: you don't need a .com to succeed any longer.

Among the top 5,000 global sites, .com addresses are in the minority now. Apparently other entrepreneurs and businesses in other countries are also having no problems building global, world class businesses without using .com.

In fact, over the last decade as the web has become dominated by non-English speaking and non-American businesses and users, I'd argue that everybody outside of America is already very accustomed to the use of alternative domains. Just another reason .com is the past.

Saying that something is going to be problematic, doesn't mean that it is actually so.

Only $70,000 for that .com? You mean in other words very few startups could actually afford that. You're talking about an elite class of startups - <USER2> top 1% - once you're talking about spending $70k on a domain.

<comment><USER9> You're mixing up the importance of a .com for an app- vs. web-centric business.

<comment><USER7> No, I'm talking about the future. The .com argument is about the past.

And I've listed tons of web centric sites that have had no problems succeeding without .com.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps for a web-savvy audience/product but thisisthefutu.re wouldn't pass the bumper sticker test for a regular user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Disappointing. There's no discussion of how much they paid, or how they actually got their domain name. From the article, it makes it seem as though they are in a lease to buy situation.

<comment><USER8> Really good point which I had thought of as well. I will try and see if I can find out the price. (Hopefully this thread will still be going when I find the answer).

Found this (in the mean time) (doesn't mean it was posted legitimately):

[https://flippa.com/2939130-ultra-premium-3-letter- dictionary...](https://flippa.com/2939130-ultra-premium-3-letter-dictionary- word)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Three things jump out at me in that post:

1\. Using any online 'appraisal service' or what have you as a pricing guideline is not something you can depend on. There have been numerous tools like this and sometimes their results are so wrong it is funny.

2\. People who own domains get do get a lot of mail, often of the "let me scam you" variety. Standing out from these is the trick.

3\. A good domain name is worthless without good content. Don't pick a bad name, by all means, but what lives at that name is much more important than the name imho.

<comment><USER8> "Standing out from these is the trick."

It's not hard to stand out. You just have to be realistic about the price you are willing to pay.

Domain sellers are all over the map. Some are highly rational and some are gamblers. The gamblers are willing to wait for the big fish to come along and pass up an offer that could be 5 times the amount that another domain owner would accept.

Agree with the domain appraisal service comment it can easily mislead you in either direction. The problem is if you know nothing about this you won't know which direction that was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The domain name market is completely broken. It shouldn't be allowed to register a domain name if a legitimate business isn't going to use it. It's just a corrupt practice and I feel sorry for everyone who plays ball and shells out top-dollar for this things.

</comment><comment><USER13> Duplicate. Prior discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6048851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6048851)

</comment><comment><USER14> I sold RebelSpirits.com for $500 to a winery business owner last year. We scanned and emailed each other our drivers licenses and he sent a check for $500 in the mail. I released the domain to him after I deposited the check. His check was from a major bank.

Can some one tell me if my method was smart or stupid? What could have gone wrong other than check fraud?

<comment><USER11> If someone had stolen ID _and_ checkbook, it might not have been the person you thought you were dealing with. I don't know if you looked into the winery / called it or whatever, but I'd have wanted some way to establish with fair certainty who I was dealing with beforehand. ( and probably would have accepted a check like you did given the amount. )

A surprising number of people don't know a check can be pulled back out of your account weeks after the deposit. Paypal or credit cards aren't much better. So far as I know using escrow, wire transfer or bank draft are the only "sure" ways payment can't be revoked

<comment><USER15> Bitcoin is exceedingly unlikely to be reversed after 6 confirmations (45 minutes or so).

<comment><USER11> Good point. Dinna think about BC

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who both buys and sells domain names (and particularly 3 letter .com's since 1996) let me point a few things out. I might also mention that I am the go to guy for a few well known VC's that you have heard of although that is not my main business at all (although it could be it just doesn't pay that well compared to other things I spend time on.)

This statement:

"Within a day or 2 we started getting responses. All the responses were the same and were in the format of "Sure we are willing to sell, we expect a bid in the mid to low 7 figures."

Is total BS and hyperbole. People in the business can be jerks and unreasonable for sure but it would be more likely for someone to "ask" for 100k or simply say "domain is not for sale" than to say "7 figures" (2 letter, possible, 3 letter, specifically "all of the responses", no. Unless of course you emailed the same people (they may have different email address for the same owner) and they were pulling your chain.) Exaggeration.

"When the price for a domain you like is really high, consider lease-to-buy options to give you flexibility."

I never recommend this it's normally a way to make sure you pay an exorbitant price for a domain.

"Don't get attached to any domain name. "

Great advice. This is absolutely true.

"When you find something you like, move FAST and close it as soon as possible. Often times you might not have a second chance."

I can say that I have closed a number of sales by simply making the buyer feel that someone else wants the same name, coincidentally the same day someone else inquired! Total bullshit. Good leads are extremely infrequent. Possible but more likely you are being played with.

"Good domain names get offers many times a week. Think about how you'll make your email stand out from the rest."

In general not true. There is no serious bidding war going on for good domain names every day. There are people for sure that email everyone and anyone with non serious offers and to people who own many names it appears to be that you are getting offers all the time. But you might get no inquires on a particular good domain name in 1 year or 5. The only way you need to stand out is to appear to be a real buyer and act like a real buyer. Unfortunately if you are sending a bunch of emails that's going to be hard to do.

"Use domainworth.com to get a rough idea of how much their domain is worth."

Totally meaningless. By the way never try to negotiate with a seller quoting any estimate value. With very few exceptions means nothing. Very few exceptions means there are always outlier cases.

"Use instantdomainsearch.com and leandomainsearch.com to help you check your desired names or come up with new ones.

Both good ideas.

<comment><USER16> > People in the business can be jerks and unreasonable for sure but it would > be more likely for someone to "ask" for 100k or simply say "domain is not > for sale" than to say "7 figures" (2 letter, possible, 3 letter, > specifically "all of the responses", no.

FWIW, here's an email I received when enquiring about a 3-letter domain name:

 _Thank you for your interest in this domain name_

 _This domain name is among our most prized and sought-after domains. It is the online equivalent of prime, downtown real estate, and we get purchase inquiries about this domain every week._

 _Based on what comparable domain names are selling for, this domain name commands a premium price tag in the five-figure and higher price range._

 _This may come as a surprise to you since not everyone is aware that domain names of this quality regularly sell in this price range (and higher). Please visit the Domain Name Journal website below to see a current summary of recently sold domains and their selling prices:_

(omitted)

 _After you've viewed the Domain Name Journal Sales Chart (above) and seen the current selling prices, we'd be delighted to discuss your interest in purchasing this domain name from us. Also, to avoid giving you 'sticker shock', we want to make sure your domain acquisition budget will support this domain's five-figure and higher price range. We're always respectful of our customers' time and try very hard not to waste it with negotiations that can never get off the ground._

 _If your budget will support the five-figure and higher price range, please reply with a serious offer to begin the negotiation process with us. Any offer of less than five-figures won't be taken seriously by us, and due to the volume of email we receive, will not be replied to at all. Thank you._

<comment><USER17> Are you sure you talked to a person and not a robot? I'm sure that each and every domain you ask about is one of their "prized and sought-after" domains.

The "five-figure and higher" line (repeated four times!) is pretty funny. I'm not sure of any other market where price estimates span multiple orders of magnitude. It is just a transparent way to get you to name a figure first.

<comment><USER18> _> The "five-figure and higher" line (repeated four times!) is pretty funny. I'm not sure of any other market where price estimates span multiple orders of magnitude. It is just a transparent way to get you to name a figure first._

I presume they are targeting an anchoring effect:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring)

<comment><USER8> Part anchoring and part weeding out people who don't know the value and setting expectations.

Let me give you an example.

We are getting out bathroom redone. The first step is the contractor is going to come out and "take a look and get an idea of where we will be at price wise". He will then (he said) give us a rough idea of the cost. After we hear that and we look like we are both in the same ballpark he will proceed further to get an actual design in place and we will get down to specific prices. There is also anchoring involved in this as well (say he gets us to agree to 30k for the bathroom won't be hard getting us to 35k, right?).

Had the same just happen with putting in a backup generator. Guy on the phone stated "most systems like you need will cost $15,000". Said "ok". Came out, job priced out below that he had shot high. Didn't want to waste his time quoting if we thought the price is merely what you see for the equipment at Home Depot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> By the way there are plenty of 3 letter .com's that you can buy in the 20k to 40k range. Anyone who is interested can email me and I will point you in the right direction of people that I know that are selling in that price range. Below 20k gets a bit more difficult. But possible sometimes.

Wholesale price for people buying crappy 3 letter .com's (that you probably don't want) is perhaps in the 5k level (but they are not a good set of letters generally). These people will buy any 3 letter .com for 5 to 7k since they know that if a law firm needs those initials (one that has not opened yet) they can triple or quadruple the money.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wish there was a rule which freed up a domain as soon as it could be confirmed as having been bought for profit and nothing else.

Whilst I can get a squatted domain if they're sitting on my trademark, there are so many great company names which haven't happened because some bugger bought all the dictionary word combinations and runs ads and a GoDaddy auction link on them.

Goodness knows how you do that in a way which didn't require huge teams of people. It'd have to be automated. Anyone got any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER20> There's a problem to be solved here -- is there a way to buy/sell domain names ONLY to people who will actually use them?

I have a bunch of domains that I've registered over the years, with plans for side projects that haven't yet been realized. Some of them are probably moderately valuable.

Over the years I've let some expire that I was sure I wasn't going to use, and those are all registered nowadays... but NONE of them are actually in use. Just squatted. That's not nice to see.

I've sold a few as well, for reasonable prices, once I was confident that the purchaser was going to use them -- e.g., wishmash.com. I've had offers for others where we couldn't work out a deal -- not because I was asking too much, but because I wanted to sort out a way to ensure the domain was actually used, not just resold, and that got too tricky.

I'd love a way to have a sort of long-term escrow for a domain name, so I could let someone use it for an actual project... and if they get some traction, I'll sell it automatically for a fairly low price, and if they abandon the project, the domain reverts back to me instead of going to squatters.

<comment><USER21> How on earth does one distinguish between someone like yourself, who buys a domain name with a plan to use it in a project, from someone who just wants to sit on it until a high bidder comes along?

> I'd love a way to have a sort of long-term escrow for a domain name, so I > could let someone use it for an actual project... and if they get some > traction, I'll sell it automatically for a fairly low price, and if they > abandon the project, the domain reverts back to me instead of going to > squatters.

How is that different behavior from a squatter? You're just sitting on a domain until someone comes along who meets your criteria (project traction and some cash), instead of another's criteria (big bucks, and no cares about how it will be used).

I don't think there's any reasonable way to vet people who want to buy a domain. Nor would I want to see a vetting policy established. Part of the beauty of the current system, is that anyone can buy an unused domain on a whim.

<comment><USER20> > How on earth does one distinguish between

By asking them?

> How is that different behavior from a squatter? You're just sitting on a > domain until someone comes along who meets your criteria

I don't register the domain in the first place unless I have a good idea for what I'd like to do with it. I'm not registering them to sell... but I recognize that someone else may well also have a solid project idea, and the time _right now_ to execute on it.

I'd like a way to graciously give way to those people.

If there is no such way, then I'll just keep the domain until I have the time to do the project _I_ had in mind.

> Nor would I want to see a vetting policy established.

I think you misunderstood. I don't want a _general_ vetting policy, just a way for (the minority) of people who feel domains should actually be used, to transfer domains among themselves.

> Part of the beauty of the current system, is that anyone can buy an unused > domain on a whim.

Sure, I'm not talking about changing that. I'm just trying to create a third choice, beyond "I don't have time for my idea yet, so I'll sit on this domain until I'm ready" vs. "I'll let this domain expire and it definitely will be squatted when I'm ready." I want a 3rd option that recognizes that _other_ people have project ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think the most important advice I saw here was to not get attached. And this is probably a basic piece of advice that applies in all negotiations - <USER3> have an alternative (where possible).

I recently got my four letter domain for a very reasonable price when I made it clear that the domain seller that I was willing to change the name. When people know that you're an emotional buyer, that's when you get screwed.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have a two letter .ca if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER24> nobody is interested in garbage. that's why garbage trucks come by once per week.

<comment><USER23> That's not very nice, dude...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was stoked to get the two letter domain name bp.io a few years ago, and hopefully it'll be my online home forever.

</comment><comment><USER26> I just searched for my initials, found ajf.net and ajf.com were taken, so I took ajf.me. No squatters. :)</comment>


US dismantles forensic science commission - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sessions-orders-justice-dept-to-end-forensic-science-commission-suspend-review-policy/2017/04/10/2dada0ca-1c96-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.980e9493eb7b <comment><USER2> It just continues a long line of anti-science measures by the administration.

Proposing to cut funding to the EPA, the Energy Department, NASA, National Institute of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

And then there's the nomination of climate change denier Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA.

Not to mention the dozens of science and technology positions in the administrations that are yet to be filled.

<comment><USER3> I can understand many of these moves even though I don't agree with them -- these agencies are wasteful from the perspective of very very conservative people. They are government overreach from a Libertarian perspective. They are advocacy organizations that have political beliefs that are not in line with the administration (racial justice, environmental protection, sexual health, etc)

But this one is just pure cartoonish moustache-twirling evil. Even the most staunch Libertarians out there think government supported law enforcement is a worthwhile use of taxpayer money, and in particular making sure that it's done correctly. The conflict of interesting inherent in having scientific standards for conviction and evidence be determined by prosecutors, not scientists, is easy to see. Here we have Sessions saying: "We don't need to make sure that we are convicting people accurately, or that the science we use to lock people in cages for the rest of their lives to be repeatedly raped is based on fact". We have recently learned that nearly all forensic science is FAR less accurate than the people using it suggested and that FBI forensic scientists have been testifying under oath and wildly exaggerating the accuracy of their methods in order to get convictions -- this is public knowledge, and yet Sessions still wants to quash any investigation.

Of all the cabinet picks and even more so than the president, I think Sessions is the most terrifying. What do you do when the Attorney General, a person with near unlimited power to imprison anyone in the country is explicitly and blatantly malicious and corrupt? He earned his way up the ranks, after all, abusing his position as a prosecutor to go after his political opponents, some of whom are still in jail for daring to run for office with a D next to their name in Sessions' turf in Alabama: [https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/mar/04/jeff-session...](https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2017/mar/04/jeff-sessions-legal-past-democrats-trump-administration)

<comment><USER4> > _What do you do when the Attorney General, a person with near unlimited > power to imprison anyone in the country is explicitly and blatantly > malicious and corrupt?_

We consider ourselves lucky that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No seriously: a wingnut DoJ can do terrible damage, but one thing Sessions doesn't have is a "near unlimited power to imprison". Courts are still courts. They've been doing their job so far.

<comment><USER5> If you have a good lawyer. What they've been building and want more of is classism in justice, justice as a product. You get more and better justice if you can afford more and better lawyers. If you can't, well that's merely unfair but good luck getting justice out of unfairness.

<comment><USER4> The response was to an apparent fear that Sessions will start using the administrative power of the DoJ to imprison political enemies. He can't do that, because separation of powers.

Obviously injustice exists. And it did under Lynch and Holder too.

<comment><USER6> The Supreme Court allowed the Executive to imprison all Japanese-Americans for a time. The separation of powers dissolves under the right circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, this administration clearly doesn't want anyone within the executive branch to have the ability, vis a vis independence, to contradict their agenda, on any level.

The result is that anyone empowered to do research will answer to them directly, and anything don't like will never see the light of day, if it is even brought up in the first place (because, of course, this is also an administration that only wants to confirmation of their policies).

So, essentially, we can expect only more of this. Quasi-indepenent commissions will be replaced by groups we never hear from, unless they have something to say that backs up an administration policy. It'll be a rough four years for policy.

<comment><USER8> This is what "public funding for research" means. If we didn't want politics to affect research, we shouldn't have sold it to politicians.

<comment><USER9> That's a good point.

Why does the government directly fund scientific research? A better system might be to spin off private, non-profit entities and inject them with massive amounts of cash—enough to weather stormy political climates.

<comment><USER8> That would be interesting, though I fear that system would suffer the same problems. It could be corrupted by a desire to receive ongoing funding (either the individual researchers, or the organization).

Physics research is an example of something which is hard to corrupt politically. However, because government is at least somewhat in charge of so many things today, fields like medicine, mental health, anthropology, even geology can become political.

Then there are the obvious things like matters relating to guns, where the government has a clear interest in "proving" that the public shouldn't have guns, which is one of the CDC was barred from doing research related to this. If I recall correctly, one of the researchers employed by the CDC was recorded insinuating that his team would manipulate the observations to reach a foregone conclusion.

The other obvious one is the relationship between government research, lobbying (official and unofficial), and regulatory bodies.

I do get why it is attractive to fund research with government money, however. It can often seem like there just isn't enough money in research, and indeed there isn't much; but if your research dollar is spent on corrupt research then it may be worse than nothing.

By relying on private money, the special interests can be diversified automatically, which seems more healthy to my mind.

<comment><USER9> > _... though I fear that system would suffer the same problems. It could be > corrupted by a desire to receive ongoing funding ..._

Emphasis on _massive_ amounts of money. For example, let's say USG dumps 80 billion into YC Research with the expectation of being able to sustain research for 16 years. I'm pretty sure YCR would struggle to spend 5B/year, and I'm really sure they wouldn't give a single shit about trying to ingratiate themselves at the expense of their work's integrity for the purposes of receiving ongoing funding. There would be no reason to, because their funding interval would span at least two administrations, possibly four.

That example of course changes if you assume YCR would be picking up responsibility for critical science previously overseen by government agencies. However, the point is that ample, lump-sum funding of private non- profit organizations can completely destroy any perverse political incentives that would normally plague a government agency.

> _By relying on private money, the special interests can be diversified > automatically, which seems more healthy to my mind._

Sure, but what's the point if the research output is some company's IP or even trade secret? Private money doesn't have the obligation of serving the public interest. Government money does, at least in spirit. Philanthropy is of course nice, but you can't rely on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The commission will be replaced with an internal forensics expert(s), so out goes independent scientific oversight of an arm of the govt. that touts so much science.

</comment><comment><USER10> I for one will be taking this into account should I find myself in the jury box.

The bad thing is, eyewitness testimony is even worse. And police testimony has a bruised record too. Both sides hire experts to say what they want. I guess video footage is the only thing left to provide objective evidence of a crime scene. :\

</comment><comment><USER11> While I am all for reducing the size of the government this is bad move. This has less to do with science and more to do with overzealous Jeff Sessions.

Good science often helps find the right guy and stop preventing wrongful convictions. Over last few decades advancements in DNA testing etc. have helped several innocent people from being prosecuted wrongly. This is a step in a reverse direction for criminal justice reforms in USA (though totally expected from Jess Sessions).

Rant: I think we as a people are to be blamed here. We are the ones who have often failed to stand up for the rights of the people who are prosecuted. We buy the government's propaganda of partitioning society as "those bad guys" and "we good guys" and then let government treat the former as total shit. Trump has won election using those kind of tactics.

<comment><USER12> Wasn't there recently discovered some hundreds of potentially innocent people in either death row or prison due to flawed DNA tests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent > scientists to raise forensic science standards

Well, shit. When I saw the headline I grasped for a thread of hope that maybe this meant a blow to the terrible and corrupt forensic science industry. Nope, this is a step back towards the status quo. I should know better than to be optimistic.

<comment><USER14> here's a Frontline about how nearly all "forensic science" is not actually backed by science

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/real- csi/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/real-csi/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a shame. Next the FBI will be bringing charges based upon the use of crystal balls, hair samples, spirit photography, and talking goats. All scientifically validated by the NBS and DOD undoubtedly.

<comment><USER16> Or heavy metal posters... This is just the national version of what happened in Texas with regard to Todd Willingham. The forensic review committee was disband for fear that they would publicly validate what was becoming clearer by the day. Basically, that Texas likely executed an innocent man based on gut instinct forensic evidence, and the well known fact that people into heavy metal were satanists that kill their children.

Of course SOP for a Republican in Texas in this situation is kill the messenger and deny the message.

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham#Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham#Fire)

> During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor said that Willingham's > tattoo of a skull and serpent fit the profile of a sociopath. Two medical > experts confirmed the theory. A psychologist was asked to interpret > Willingham's Iron Maiden poster, and said that a picture of a fist punching > through a skull signified violence and death. He added that Willingham's Led > Zeppelin poster of a fallen angel was "many times" an indicator of "cultive- > type" activities

What the fuck. wow.

<comment><USER18> Wait, where was the phrenologist's testimony? /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looked at his Wikipedia page to brush up on our Attorney General.. Also Jeff Sessions:

"On October 5, 2005, Sessions was one of nine Senators who voted against a Senate amendment to a House bill that prohibited cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of individuals in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government"

"Sessions has been a strong supporter of civil forfeiture, the government practice of seizing property when it has allegedly been involved in a crime. Sessions opposes "any reform" of civil forfeiture legislation."

Incredible.. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions#Crime_and_securi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions#Crime_and_security)

<comment><USER17> He was also too racist to be confirmed as a judge in the 80s.

There is a nice letter from MLK's widow about him.

Although, why would you need to have a law against cruel/inhumane treatment? Isn't that already part of the bill of rights?

<comment><USER20> This is interesting so I dug a bit. Here is the amendment: [https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/senate- ame...](https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/senate- amendment/1977)

The amendment prohibited "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" for anyone in custody of the US government, including those physically outside of the US. Notably it was introduced by John McCain.

<comment><USER17> Oh right that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is anyone keeping track of what damage will have to be undone when Trump finally leaves office and is replaced by someone more reasonable?

<comment><USER18> I think even the knock-on effects will be incalculable after 4 years.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _"The availability of prompt and accurate forensic science analysis to our law enforcement officers and prosecutors is critical to integrity in law enforcement, reducing violent crime, and increasing public safety," Sessions said in the statement. "We applaud the professionalism of the National Commission on Forensic Science and look forward to building on the contributions it has made in this crucial field."_

"applaud and destroy."

</comment><comment><USER22> Trump is toxic but at least he exposes similar people.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wonderful! It's a twofer: the Trump administration gets to attack both scientists and accused innocents. Sessions is due for a big pat on the back for this one.

<comment><USER24> They defeated their enemy: logic!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, they did, except this is not a _winner takes all_ thing. We're still living in the same country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting choice of things to trim, I'd like no more public resources being used on the FCPA, insider trading, and "material misrepresentations", as these all seem to have disproportionate costs than effect. Who should I tweet?

<comment><USER26> FCPA? Seriously? That's a revenue stream for the government.

<comment><USER25> yo dawg, I heard you like kickbacks, so give us a kickback because you gave someone else a kickback, so we can kickback and relax

I'd prefer if our government did not engage in this practice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> #MAIA

</comment><comment><USER28> This was only established 4 years ago. It's not a big deal.

<comment><USER3> Yes, established recently to deal with an enormous crisis of failures in forensic science that were putting innocent people in jail in huge numbers across the country. The FBI crime lab was essentially doing junk science and sending expert technicians to testify and say "The astrological sign of the defendant that I've described in technical scientific terms you don't understand tells us he was at the crime scene with 99.99% accuracy, trust me, I'm a senior scientist at the FBI crime lab."

It's a huge deal if you're accused of a crime or if you care about innocent people going free.

<comment><USER29> and it's wider than criminal justice, some of these tests are used in family cases too. Here's a blog post from England about hair strand analysis for substance misuse: [http://www.pinktape.co.uk/cases/hair-strand-testing-some- int...](http://www.pinktape.co.uk/cases/hair-strand-testing-some-interesting- information/)</comment></comment></comment>


Noam Chomsky – Manufacturing consent (1992) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE <comment><USER2> "If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." Noam Chomsky. A smart man, worth listening too, even if you disagree.

<comment><USER3> "Well what's called libertarian in the United States, which is a special U. S. phenomenon, it doesn't really exist anywhere else — a little bit in England — permits a very high level of authority and domination but in the hands of private power: so private power should be unleashed to do whatever it likes. The assumption is that by some kind of magic, concentrated private power will lead to a more free and just society.

…that kind of libertarianism, in my view, in the current world, is just a call for some of the worst kinds of tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. Anarchism is quite different from that. It calls for an elimination to tyranny, all kinds of tyranny. Including the kind of tyranny that's internal to private power concentrations. So why should we prefer it? Well I think because freedom is better than subordination. It's better to be free than to be a slave. Its' better to be able to make your own decisions than to have someone else make decisions and force you to observe them. I mean, I don't think you really need an argument for that. It seems like … transparent."

Noam Chomsky

<comment><USER4> There's so much wrong about NC and mainstream perception of classic liberalism I don't even know where to begin.

There are some interesting topics of dispute between NC / Proudhon-like anarchists and libertarians, but I don't see how this kind of quote achieves anything in this regard. Libertarians don't advocate "concentrated" powers or "tyranny" but acknowledge that hierarchy and subordination can develop in a voluntarily way and think about the best meta-rules with which each society groups can co-exist. Yes, large entities can occur - proof is with nation states and big companies.

But I don't see how Chomsky fans can replace them with anything better, do you ? Theirs solutions generally involve the state taking a monopole about some product / service or over regulations, leading to an even growing state and big co (all of which are "tyranny", "concentrated powers", "domination", "authority" they supposedly despise)

<comment><USER3> But libertarian thought paves the way for concentrated power and even relies upon it. Wealth, which libertarians believe can gotten from self-determination alone, does not accrue without legally enforced property relations (state monopolized justice/violence).

Self-determination without other anarchist values of mutual aid and solidarity creates classist society. I don't want to live in a classist society. I don't have an interest in a political critique which remains imminent to capitalist values and society.

I'd also add that libertarian thought in practice leads to abhorrent entities such as the Cato institute and the Atlas Network.

<comment><USER4> Could you care to explain how we could reduce "concentrated powers" ? It's not enough to simply claim that libertarian or neoliberal are not anti-business and hence facilitate concentrated powers, you have to explain to me a better solution, how you would approach this issue.

       values of mutual aid and solidarity

Isn't that what exchange, association and charity are about ? Theses are core libertarian values.

<comment><USER3> In my listening to and reading of libertarians the non-aggression principle is of higher importance than aid and solidarity. The NAP is then extended to property belonging to the individual such that property becomes prioritized over other individuals: "That person is starving, but this is my property and they have no right to it". When solidarity is taken as a core value it doesn't provide an avenue for allowing one to starve while another has more wealth than they need to provide for themselves.

My lack of providing an alternative doesn't negate my point that libertarianism depends on state monopolization of certain rights, such as violence towards others for the sake of property relations.

I think a reduction in concentration of power requires a cultural shift where people cease to fetishize the accumulation of power a la money.

<comment><USER4> The NAP tries to draw a line between what people can do to each other in society and hence what groups of people are able to do to each other ; it doesn't tell you to not help the poor "because it's my property", it tells you you have no right to steal from someone else under the pretense that you will use the stolen resources to feed someone dying (Also, maybe the "duty to rescue" is a fair legal way of dealing with small scale incidents like theses), you have to convince that person to give you the resource to help the other person. By doing so, she/he might discover others situations, have compassion, get interested in those matters, get engaged just like you do etc... Seems more fair to me for everyone.

And you can be libertarian and have the value to help other individuals, theses values are not mutually exclusive.

Note : not all libertarian think with the NAP. I personally think it might be a great intellectual construct and could be good to introduce libertarianism to people ; but I'm not sure about how it could fit into our actual society and laws. There's 200 years of very interesting classic liberalism philosophy before Rand and Rothbard :)

       When solidarity is taken as a core value

What do you mean by that ? Try to create some laws or use case, or give me a link to people you read that talk about that ;)

       My lack of providing an alternative doesn't negate my point that libertarianism depends on state monopolization of certain rights, such as violence towards others for the sake of property relations.

Oh because the solution friends of Chomsky don't involve violence ? For example running the whole economy through the visible hand of the friendly politicians, as a mean to control society and be 100 % sure that no one dies of hunger in the street.

<comment><USER5> >Oh because the solution friends of Chomsky don't involve violence ?

It probably does, just as capitalism was borne into this world with violence, "soaked in blood" as Marx put it. The point however is that it does not rely on violence to support property relations, beacuse anarchists generally view such violence for the purpose of property as inhumane. I can't speak for Chomsky personally.

>Seems more fair to me for everyone.

Arguably, it seems that property is "fair" only for the very few, and especially not those who must rely on charity. What fairness is found in the case of a man who cannot secure the bread to eat, for his wages are surrendered to the capitalist, middleman and State for rent or tax? It's always amusing to me this idea that in an anarcho-capitalist society, the proponents always figure themselves to be capitalists, never the poor, the dregs of society, the propertyless who live in hideous conditions.

>it tells you you have no right to steal from someone else under the pretense that you will use the stolen resources to feed someone dying

Perhaps we have a different view of what is just, then. I would even agree with you if we were talking about personal property. But we are not, we are talking about private property, and I think that such an attitude is abhorrent in the face of such conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> " The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. "

Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

<comment><USER7> This has been a feature of American society as long as there has been an America. It was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835. There were strict bounds on what people could discuss, though within those bounds they could say what they liked. As opposed to, for example, English society, which traditionally was more accepting of the eccentric (upperclass) oddball.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's an interesting excerpt from a Chris Marker documentary I found when I was doing research about Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent at the time I was still buying into his B.S. : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN1XWKULjfQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN1XWKULjfQ)

<comment><USER5> >at the time I was still buying into his B.S.

Why do you think it's BS, out of interest? I'm not too familiar with the man himself, though I am familiar with main social anarchist and Communist thought.

>Here's an interesting excerpt from a Chris Marker documentary

Chomsky does not support the Soviet Union, and to my knowledge never has. He also has no sympathy for Marxism-Leninism. He's more of a syndicalist/social anarchist, so the video doesn't really fit in so well. Unless he used a propaganda video himself, which would surprise me.

<comment><USER4> Chris Marker is a french cinematographer. His works is unregular but this documentary (Letter from Siberia) is great. (Also, he is the author of the photo movie La Jetée, here in english [https://vimeo.com/46620661](https://vimeo.com/46620661), which inspired the movie 12 Monkeys !). He has communist leaning from what I remember but it doesn't feel like he's using cinema to convince you about his political beliefs, and he doesn't defends USSR, although he is culturally very interested in this country.

This excerpt is about media manipulation if you didn't understand it, it shows how it feels to change the voice over and keep the same images.

      Why do you think it's BS, out of interest?

Sorry I wasn't talking about this documentary, it's not that bad, what he says in it is pretty obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given the implications of the current precarious state of net neutrality and the gawker case on independant news outlets, Compsky's analysis of traditional news model as propaghanda is more relevant than ever.</comment>


Hacker style versus the Dijkstra style - <AUTHOR>

Recently, I have been thinking about these two opposing styles: the hacker style ---rapid prototyping and incremental improvement---, and the Dijkstra (academic?) style ---think hard and get it right the first time---.
Given a problem, the hacker style is to:
1. Suggest a partial solution 2. Improve solution,
   add to solution to cover all cases 3. Repeat 2 as necessary.
In contrast the Dijkstra style is to: 1. Think hard to get the RIGHT solution 2. Justify that it is the right method,
   if failed throw it away 3. Go to 1 as necessary 4. Build solution using the method.
The hacker style makes you get started and enables you to make steady progress.  Even though the resultant system is not always an elegant solution, you are blessed with the advantage of predictability, and always having a more-or-less working product.
Dijkstra style prevents you to commit the sin of over-specialization and to settle with a complex or suboptimal solution when there is an elegant solution that also covers the general case of the problem. The downside is that you may not able to make any progress at all, since you are not to accept a mediocre solution.
I am sure the HN community has a lot of success stories and arguments supporting Hacker style over the Dijkstra style. I am wondering if you had any cases where the Dijkstra style saved you, and I am interested in hearing your arguments/anecdotes supporting the Dijkstra style over the Hacker style. <comment><USER2> The difference between the hacker style and the Dijkstra style is more apparent than real. Both rely on successive approximation.

See for example [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EW...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD316.9.html) where Dijkstra goes, in painstaking detail, through the process of solving the "8 Queens" problem, building up the solution piece by piece.

A hacker would probably come up with exactly the same algorithm, though probably written more quickly in another language, and with a few more compile/run/debug cycles.

The thing is: the mode of attack - breaking down the problem into simpler subproblems, solving one at a time, and in such a way that you're pretty sure that each step is correct - is used by both successfully. It reminds me of a study I read many years ago in Gerald Weinberg's _Psychology of Computer Programming_. The investigators studied the work patterns of many good programmers, and one of the variables they studied was number of runs per day (this was back in the day when one submitted ones program as a deck of punched cards to be compiled and (possibly) executed. They found that the good programmers tended to divide into two groups. The first (more akin to Dijkstra) mostly submitted a program which compiled cleanly, and executed, followed a significant time later by another. The second group submitted a program, got either compilation or runtime errors, quickly submitted a fixed version, perhaps iterating a few times, then went off for a while till they went through the quick cycle again. The point is: each group consisted of equally good (as far as could be measured) programmers. Both styles are usable, both styles are necessary to have in your arsenal: you need to be able to think through a problem, and prove your solution correct; and you need to be able to tackle it piecemeal and experimentally when it's too tough to tackle all at once.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ok, but Dijkstra would be the last person to use a go to statement in step 3.

<comment><USER4> ↑ Quote of the week.

<comment><USER5> I never ever upvote witty statements; I think that was the first time. Far too well done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Exactly, if you know what the problem is the Dijkstra style is great: system software, compilers etc..

If you are doing anything with business logic well that's where hacking takes precedence because the problem you are trying to solve isn't well understood.

<comment><USER7> Dijkstra advocated thinking about a problem _until_ it is well understood.

<comment><USER6> But often times you don't have all the information. You can watch how people currently do the task, but that might not be the optimal way once software starts being used. It's better to get them using the software so that they can suggest features, or perhaps even whole new ways of doing the task.

Not all problems can be merely thought about until their understood there are quite a few that require experiments to get further information. That is the hacking approach rapid experimentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> MIT approach versus worse-is-better philosophy <http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse- is-better.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> The easy argument supporting Hacker style over the Dijkstra style is the whole get it in front of the customer and make sure you are solving the right problem. You can solve the wrong problem as elegantly as you want no one will care.

<comment><USER10> "get it in front of the customer" is a great idea when you don't understand the problem. Now there are plenty of times when it's OK to not understand the problem, but if your building a driver and still don't understand the problem then something is wrong. Iteration as a process of discovering the question / need, but if the problems well understood it's not really the best solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I spent a month to reengineer a billing program. Previously, it needed 24h to issue monthly bills; after the reengineering it finished in under a minute. It was an easy target, the previous guy had that "hacker" style of thinking which resulted in a program being a pile of quick fixes.

<comment><USER12> "Hacker-style," doesn't mean completely abandoning all planning and thoughtfulness. It means rapid prototyping, sure, and (of course) constant refactoring, not a constant deluge of slapdash quick fixes.

What you inherited was a garden variety mess, possible from any poor practitioner of any school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suggest a bit of both. Start with "Dijkstra style" and finish with "hacker style". Adjust levels of each as appropriate for the project you are working on.

<comment><USER14> I prefer the opposite; hack together a prototype to get stuff moving. Encounter issues you didn't even think about during the planning stages. Eventually notice your code is a big morass of hacks that you don't want to look at. Enumerate all of the issues with the hacked-together software which could be done much better now that you've got hindsight and experience with the problem domain, and rewrite the software Dijkstra-style.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Dijkstra argument is that looking at examples, learning about concrete cases may prevent you from thinking about the most general abstract problem, for which you may devise an elegant solution. So according to the Dijkstra argument the prototypes you create may bias/prejudice your thinking, and should be avoided if you want to get to an elegant/optimal/general solution.

<comment><USER14> That sounds right, I can think of some revamp/rewrite projects that felt stunted because we only really thought about the problem in terms we already created in the first iterations.

However, in practice I find that programmers don't necessarily know what the (software engineering) problem is, what feasible solutions are out there (feasible != possible), don't know what the drawbacks to their plan are, and generally feel unmotivated if they don't start banging out code relatively soon. It seems really easy for a project to stay indefinitely in the planning stages if you want to make sure it's a "perfect" solution, and it's very hard to know that a solution is "perfect" without encountering its drawbacks through experimentation, i.e. coding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems that a good balance would be to rapidly prototype as a method of understanding the solution (in fact, for most proofs I've done, this is exactly the method: do a few specific cases and try and generalize them).

This then lets you start hacking right away, but without loss of direction. It will also help you find the general solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me repeat a comment I made in response a similar comment above:

he Dijkstra argument is that looking at examples, learning about concrete cases may prevent you from thinking about the most general abstract problem, for which you may devise an elegant solution. So according to the Dijkstra argument the prototypes you create may bias/prejudice your thinking, and should be avoided if you want to get to an elegant/optimal/general solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Partly it boils down to the sort of problem you're trying to solve.

I find that if your problem is not very domain-specific; ie if you can strip out the labels, and consider what you're doing as manipulations of relatively abstract objects; rearranging lists and graphs and so on - then up-front thinking is repaid many times over.

There tend to be lots of corner cases (what if this list is empty, what if this graph has no nodes, ...) and accidental infinite loops you can fall into. Thinking about it and specifying the algorithm up front forces you to take a coherent view on your problem domain.

If you approach this sort of thing iteratively (well, if _I_ approach this sort of think iteratively) I tend to find that even if I can get my initial usecase working quickly, I haven't got the problem well enough established in my own mind, so I end up fixing things in an ad-hoc manner, squashing bugs in one corner case only to find 5 or 6 cropping up elsewhere because eg in half the code I assume X can never be 0 while in the other half I've been using 0 as a marker value for invalidity.

Solving that sort of problem I find is much better done by thinking hard about it before hand and working out what you're trying to do. Of course, in any case, you should surround your method with lots of testcases documenting what it's doing as well.

This is very different I think from the argument of agile development against waterfall-style development. The hard thinking in this case is at most a few hours - it fits in entirely with agility.

</comment><comment><USER17> Debugging comes to mind: I think most will agree that it's much better to take time to understand the underlying cause of a seemingly mysterious bug, and apply a patch that makes logical sense on the correct layer of abstract, rather than patching and repatching the layer of abstract where symptoms appear, without understanding the root of the problem, just to get the code to compile (or get someone off your back or whatever).

</comment><comment><USER18> Often, the best approach is a blend of the two, I find.

Identify the aspects of the problem that you don't understand fully, and which aspects are likely to change. There's usually some part of the problem that you _do_ understand.

Then spend a day thinking up an elegant framework that allows you to experiment without making a mess. Small classes that can be swapped out or added and removed as needed. Modules that can be customized and moved around. A strategy pattern that lets you tweak your algorithms as you get more data. Whatever makes sense for your application.

"Hacker style" is no excuse for sloppiness; nor is "Djikstra style" any excuse for slowness.

<comment><USER19> I second for that. Actually I think the OP's description of two styles is two extreme cases of one spectrum. Plus, the OP doesn't distinguish difference in the size of the problem domain.

Standing out academic papers looks perfect and it seems as if the authors come up with the final version immediately, but in reality, many problems dealt in academic papers are attacked progressively. For bigger problems, you'll find series of papers beginning from special case solutions to more general ones. Wiles gave a proof of only special cases of Taniyama-Shimura since that's enough to prove Fermat's last theorem (so I heard; I can't understand the actual paper).

On the other hand, if you're writing critical part of nonstop software and trying to fix a bug related to multithreads, you want to iterate every possible timing combinations to make sure things won't be possibly broken. It's much like the process of writing math proof.

And there's a problem domain. Djikstra style works well when applied to the problem whose domain is well understood. That's why it requires much thinking before actually writing solutions; you have to understand the problem clearly enough. For many software, the envionment in which it runs is more vaguely defined; anything that interacts with human has to incorporate this big unknown, unpredictable element which is called human. The software that supports business must adapt to the business process, in which many details are left to decisions of skilled human without any explicit rules. Software for such problems can't have the well defined domain before start writing in Djikstra style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> HackerMethod: SelectPartialSolution; GOSUB DijkstraMethod; REPEAT AddCaseToSolution; GOSUB DijkstraMethod; UNTIL AllCasesCovered.</comment>


Probabilistic algorithms for fun and pseudorandom profit - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/TylerTreat/probabilistic-algorithms-for-fun-and-pseudorandom-profit <comment><USER2> Great slides. Any additional good references for learning this material?</comment>


China Convicts Researchers in Gene-Edited Baby Controversy - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-30/china-convicts-researchers-in-gene-edited-baby-controversy <comment><USER2> That's pretty surprising. I'd read their government wasn't happy about it but haven't heard much on it since.</comment>


Is Google AuthorRank the biggest thing ever in SEO? Share your thoughts: - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/108784242618575374191/posts/VY44zqXCmjM Most SEOs agree that AuthorRank will change the SEO landscape forever. What are your thoughts? Join the conversation on Google+ <comment><USER2> The biggest question I have is regarding content duplicates. If I have, say, a comment or a draft post somewhere that I later develop into a full article and post elsewhere, can I take measures to identify both as being written by me and thus avoid plagiarism penalties?</comment>


Flock Ditching Firefox, Moving To Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/02/flock-ditching-firefox-moving-to-google-chrome/

<comment><USER2> Wouldn't this mean a lot of extra, cross-platform development of the "Flock enhanced" features? Wouldn't they have to re-develop all of these features for each platform's GUI toolkit, instead of just a single XUL codebase?

Nevermind the regression of features that Firefox has which Chrome doesn't. Seems like a lot of work to me.

Most likely Techcrunch just up to it's usual ways: authoritative headlines with mysterious, anonymous sources. Oh, and with this nugget thrown in at the end: _Flock hasn't yet returned a request for comment on this story._

<comment><USER3> I used to be the lead dev at flock - I've not worked there for almost 2 years now, but I talk to several of the developers regularly. I don't know what their business plans are but:

Most of the code isn't UI, it is JS. JS which is portable to other browsers and which would benefit from not running in a single thread. The IPC model of Chrome is much nicer for extension development. Porting many of the components is not as hard as you would think.

Next, some of the GUI is XUL, some of it is HTML. Converting between XUL and HTML isn't as hard as you would think. The box models are different, but both use CSS for style. I have several extensions and had to convert between XUL and HTML and back when I cannot figure out how to override browser.js stuff. Not that big of a deal.

There is a degree of "version 2, lets rebuild the whole thing," but I don't think they are going to change on the drop of the hat. Their open SVN repository shows that even while they have been working on new releases of the firefox based browser, they have been doing experiments with chrome to figure out how it would work.

Their VP of E before building Flock lead the team that build Netscape 8/9 (it was outsourced), and I have faith that if he changes to Chromium it is because it is the smart thing to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If there are two products I think I'll never understand the motivation, those are Flock and Cuil.

"it didn't work at first iteration, we burn a few million dollars... no worries! Let's rewrite the whole thing and pray... again"

</comment><comment><USER5> Flock is built on Mozilla using XUL. As far as I can tell (and I really haven't done my homework on this) Google Chrome doesn't have this kind of extensible architecture.

Having raised 30 million (most of which I assume is still in the bank or they're really doing something wrong) they should have plenty of time to explore new options. If the Google Chrome angle is real, then they'll have to re-implement all the work they've done on Flock so far ... from scratch.

Ah well, whatever. I never understood their business model anyway.

<comment><USER6> _Ah well, whatever. I never understood their business model anyway._

Really? Mozilla makes millions a year just from Google Search referrals. [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends- lucrati...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrative- deal-with-google-for-3-years/)

<comment><USER4> But will Flock ever get achieve populatity to make at least a few millions?</comment></comment></comment>


Power, secrecy and cypherpunks: how Jacob Appelbaum ripped Tor apart - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project-sexual-assault-allegations <comment><USER2> Also check this comment on the <nettime> mailing list [https://nettime.org/Lists- Archives/nettime-l-1610/msg00021.h...](https://nettime.org/Lists- Archives/nettime-l-1610/msg00021.html)</comment>


Stress hormones suggested as a key driver of Alzheimer's disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-14082-5#disqus_thread <comment><USER2> Oh good, I'll try not to stress out about this then...

</comment><comment><USER3> Sigh. More symptoms confused with causes?

By now they should know that the animal models are not.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Title rewritten for clarity.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure the title is correct:

* The word "hormone" does not appear in the article

* In the WP article about "chaperome" there is no mention of "hormone".

My understanding is that the article is about a concept a bit similar, but more operational than the concept of protein networks. And it is about networks of chaperomes, which are themself sets of chaperones.

Chaperones are very powerful proteins that shape the proteins produced in the cell nucleus, in order to give them some specific function.

Protein networks are very conceptual entities, that for example could hardly be tested with some reagent. Here on contrary they could test for existence of epichaperomes.

The authors found that Alzheimer disease could be thought as a disease of epichaperomes. To me it makes sense, as most neurodegenerative diseases are known to be proteopathies: Diseases linked to misshaped and mislocated proteins.

They hypothesized that epichaperomes reagents will enable easy diagnostic of such diseases. There is an unmet need for neurodegenerative diseases biomarkers, as currently they can only be detected when it is too late to make a clinical intervention, and when even the classification of a patient in some disease type is difficult leading diagnostic by exclusion, which is only way to say: _I do not know what disease makes patient ill_.

Trusted biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases would change life of doctors and patients.</comment></comment>


I'm creating this fb group so it's easier to rent a place as a remote developer - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/groups/657254981406899 <comment><AUTHOR> as a remote dev i usually do my bookings on airbnb or booking but sometimes i wish the place i rented were specifically target for tech people. like with good, fast and reliable internet connections. good and easy access to public transportation. and inspiring views. i wonder if there are other remote devs around here who would be interested by that.

<comment><AUTHOR> also i'm trying to make it as open as possible to like minded folks, so i've put this little repo together so if you feel like editing something about the description about the facebook group itself, just open a pr: [https://github.com/MarvelousWololo/fifteen-to- thirty/issues](https://github.com/MarvelousWololo/fifteen-to-thirty/issues)</comment></comment>


Microsoft RickRolls Wi-Fi leechers at TechEd - <AUTHOR> http://www.techedbackstage.net/2010/02/18/never-gonna-give-you-up/ <comment><USER2> Summary: BitTorrent users used up lots of space in the NAT port table in Windows NT. Because there are only 64k ports available, this is a big problem if more than a couple of users are using BitTorrent.

Interestingly, they did not not see this as a flaw in the Windows kernel. You can get a data structure which allows 2^48 concurrent connections by NAT on a single IP address if you map based on (destination IP address,port) rather than just (port).

OpenBSD does this, to avoid the very problem these Microsoft people solved by complex tools and a rick roll.

<comment><USER3> And who needs more disk partitions than there are letters in the alphabet, anyways? Kids these days! Get Off of My Lawn!

<comment><USER4> Oh come on, you're using a Win9x argument in 2010? :)

<comment><USER3> Uh, what do you think I'm arguing about? I'm drawing a parallel between a Microsoft oversight dating from the DOS days and the current oversight with port numbers.

But if you think I'm taking a _position_ , please explain. (I'm reminded of Herman Melville reacting to various academic's analysis of symbolism in Moby Dick. Something to the effect that _he_ didn't know that stuff was in there!) Unjustified projection of fictional intention is just as cheap as putting words into another's mouth.

<comment><USER5> FWIW: All Desktop/Server versions of Windows since Windows 2000 (except WinMe) support arbitrary directory-based mount points.

<comment><USER3> I was about to do this, actually, so I can have a 40GB "system" partition and put my "data" partition in "My Documents." But I still get the joy of seeing my "C:" drive in XP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> did they ask people to stop? i read through the text and couldn't see that mentioned, which struck me as odd. i'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have stopped everyone, but to not ask people first seems a bit misguided to me.

[edit: my comment on that page asking about this hasn't been answered, but there's a reply to another comment saying "people were approached" that refers to the previous post - [http://www.techedbackstage.net/2010/02/17/bittorrent- traffic...](http://www.techedbackstage.net/2010/02/17/bittorrent-traffic- shaping-and-trusting-users/) \- that does describe in more detail what happened. and there's still no description of a general announcement.

i do understand their frustration, but to take an approach like this _without_ any announcement is going to encourage some people to "fight back". a sympathetic announcement with an explanation would have got the majority of users "on their side", producing peer pressure and setting expectations that would reduce the amount of conflict. not doing so comes across as passive aggressive and encourages an "arms race"]

<comment><USER7> I think that if you find yourself banned, and then _change your MAC_ to get back on the network to continue the abuse, that constitutes being asked to stop.

<comment><USER6> i've edited my comments to make it clearer that this isn't about whether or not people understood why they were being blocked, but about social management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _software engineers as network admins has some benefits_

I'd hope a competent network admin would have seen this (bit torrent abuse and nat port exhaustion) coming from miles and miles away.

</comment><comment><USER9> > _RRAS, we found, only uses the machine base IP address for the outside of > the NAT. It will not use additional IP addresses in the public address pool, > no matter how many IP addresses are in that pool._

<facepalm> _Why_ exactly did they gloss over this as if it was no big deal? </facepalm>

The way that I see it they should either:

1) Fix RRAS to use all IPs in the public address pool.

2) Fix ipnat.sys to use a lookup table that keys on external_destination_ip+port rather than just port.

3) Make an announcement that several users are abusing the network with excessive BitTorrent usage which is taxing the NAT. State that BitTorrent users will be kicked from the network if the situation does not improve.

4) Make an announcement asking BitTorrent users to limit the total number of ports their client is using. Most BitTorrent clients (even rtorrent) allow you to limit the number of connections on a global or per-torrent basis. There really is no reason that one needs to have upwards of 800 (or even 2500) ports at a given time.

In general, #1 and #2 should be done _anyways_ regardless of how they solved the immediate situation at the conference.

</comment><comment><USER10> Given the lack of free or even affordable WiFi in Australia, I'm not surprised that people would leech when given the opportunity. During my travels there last year I found very little that didn't cost $4/hr, outside of a pittance available for free at McDonald's.

Certainly, after paying to attend the conference I'd feel entitled to some bandwidth as well. If the network is using a poor NAT implementation, that's negligent network planning and the admins should shoulder the blame instead of screwing with the users.

</comment><comment><USER11> "The next morning we found that ipnat.sys developer (being in India) suffered all sorts of Internet and power problems overnight and was unable to finish the utility. It was a new day when we received this news so we completed the utility ourselves…"

I've heard that one before! (Not that they don't actually have those problems in India)

</comment><comment><USER12> If Google does it, it's cute. If Microsoft does it, it's OMGOMGOMG MONOPOLY EVIL LOL DEATH!!1!

Why the snarky comments, HNers?

<comment><USER13> Could you update your comment with a link to the HN article where we called it cute when Google couldn't figure out how to manage its WiFi network and rickrolled its users? I can't find it at the moment.

Pointing out where anyone called Microsoft evil or a monopoly on this page would be helpful as well.</comment></comment>


Who do you recommend to follow on Twitter for those interested in tech startups? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Sari Azaout @sariazout. She also runs a great newsletter - check your pulse</comment>


GitHub issue calling for retraction of Imperial College study for codebase flaws - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165 <comment><USER2> I wrote a paper with co-authors asking for open source code in science ([https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10836](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10836)) but this GitHub issue is stupid. Calling for retraction because you don't like the code smell is dumb. Work on the code and see what its flaws are before asking for retraction.

Yes, I wish the original, apparently C code, had been released but let's fix the bugs in the code.

<comment><USER3> This is the correct approach. We, the "software engineers", can jump in and help. If it eventually comes out that the results were wrong then the papers should be retracted. At the moment there is no proof of that.

That's the beauty of open-sourcing the code: people can help or verify. Needlessly shitting on other people's work without any proof is just disheartening to me.

<comment><USER4> I'm reminded of the idiom "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". And I agree that software engineers should more actively contribute their expertise here.

With that said, if a research paper's main contribution is a model whose results were evaluated using a code with major bugs then retraction of the paper is only professional.

<comment><USER5> > if a research paper's main contribution is a model whose results were > evaluated using buggy code

There's no proof of that at all in this case. The person complaining didn't find any scientifically valid problem, only that he personally for some not cleanly stated reason doesn't like the tests provided, which is clearly stupid.

Since when should any tests be such that some random guy on github must like them? If the code was used by the experts, and they maybe even used it for years, who says that these experts are in any way obliged to publish all their logs of their use of that code (which doesn't have to even exist in publishable form)?

Even if all that they possibly iteratively did for potentially years could be condensed to some tests, who says that it wouldn't take too long (as in, months, years) for that? It's practically just a matter of good will that the code is published at all, in any form at all.

<comment><USER4> Apologies if my earlier comment came off as insinuating that code used for research paper was buggy. That was not my intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Academic code has always been a mess (from the standpoint of professional software developers). Anyone who has ever worked with code from academia knows this. If you think this code is messy, check out any random Matlab simulation strung together by any random series of grad students who aren't professional developers in any random lab.

People in industry don't always do better, either. Look at the notebook code shared on Github by Kevin Systrom for the rt.live site. It's just as messy. But the point is that he shared it and that helps everyone see what is going on and lets anyone improve on the work.

Publicly sharing model code on Github is a recent development and is amazing for everyone. It gets the work out faster, allows for feedback on methodology and coding style and generally lets everyone get smarter over time. We shouldn't discourage this.

Posting retraction demands in Github issues based on coding style is not helpful and shows a lack of communication skills. What is helpful is providing useful, specific bug reports, submitting improvements, or sharing your own, improved model. If you want to demand a retraction, do it via alternate means.

Remember, this crisis appeared suddenly on the world stage and whoever had a model sitting around got thrust into the forefront of public discussion. But scientists don't make policy. Policy makers make policy. A github issue is not the place to blame someone for a policy you disagree with. That only discourages people from sharing their work which would be a loss for everyone.

<comment><USER7> _> shows a lack of communication skills_

Your reading is very charitable. The political debate is a complete gutter, and everyone is ready to jump at absolutely anything that can advance his argument in the slightest.

As you can see in this very thread, jMyles is hardly unbiased on the matter. He's just playing politics, code standards are an excuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this sets a bad example. In many fields the current standard is that code isn't published at all. If bad coding practices will cause you to get bullied into retracting your paper, that's just another argument for why people won't publish their code. Of course if somebody does find a big that invalidates the results of the paper given the stated assumptions, that's another matter, but that doesn't seem to be what's alleged here.

<comment><USER9> The standard needs to change. Publication of code and data ought to be required.

<comment><USER10> Why exactly? We could also probably require a website to test the application, a mobile app on all platforms and then a native OS apps on all platforms. I apologise for being facetious but writing code is a serious, specialized task. It should be left to the people who specialise in it, scientists aren't the specialists for it.

I think it's important to understand that we only require information to generate algorithms written in the paper. As such, assumptions and limitations should be listed enough to generate the material in the paper. One way to do so is code and data, it is certainly not the only way.

<comment><USER11> Do reviewers of such papers write their own implementations, and verify they get (roughly) the same results?

<comment><USER12> Not generally, no. Even if they had access to the code at the time of review, which is hardly ever the case in my experience, there's simply no time. I also don't see a point in doing so, most papers only describe minute changes to some state of the art thing that's well established so you trust in the academic integrity and experience of authors to get that part right and usually focus on parts that matter over things like the ones this issue brings up.

Even for real reproductions, that require work just like they do in any other scientific domain, the points in that issue seem pretty irrelevant. There's things like FAIR standards on reproducibility but as far as the status quo goes that repo doesn't look too bad. I could not care less if tests for some project are badly written, at least it's in written in a non-obscure language and shows a somewhat sane structure. What's next? Calling for redactions because somebody didn't follow the same tabs vs spaces paradigm?

There's nothing in that issue w.r.t. whatever scientific finding this was used for and this general phenomenon is really fascinating. Instead of a constructive discussion with the technical or scientific folk that put their work out there, or engagement with the politicians that drew conclusions based on those scientific findings, you get github issues and Twitter threads mixing a bunch of unrelated concerns.

<comment><USER13> I think the matter at hand is much less trivial than tabs v. spaces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're trying to apply software development techniques to a discipline where testing is usually done in a much different way. Yes, we should all try to be perfect and write the most magnificent code with the most bulletproof testing methods, but reality is different.

How about you write tests that clearly prove that the results from this simulation are absolutely wrong? The code is right there! And you're a "software engineer"! Then start talking about retracting papers.

<comment><USER14> > a discipline where testing is usually done in a much different way

This reminds me of the horror mainstream code monkeys express when they see the source code for automotive firmware. Thing is automotive people functional test the shit out of everything. And they don't let jr developers refactor proven good code because they don't like the way it looks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well I would rather have the code already available for transparency and then we can discuss about the quality later than it not to be open-source at all.

I wouldn't expect research scientists to write an elegant and well structured program that ticks all the coding practices boxes at the first time as they are not "software engineers" unless that's their area of research or expertise. They want to present their results and the "code quality" comes secondary to them which can be done later. Surely the Linux source code wasn't cleanly structured in its first open-source release.

However, a quick skim at the source, one may suggest that the authors were writing C++ in a style of a C programmer. Maybe one can run a clang-analyzer on the source to find all sorts of issues, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER16> The last comment in the issue (as of this posting) posted to a comment from John Carmack on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872368763277313](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1254872368763277313)

I specialise in legacy code. I've seen my fair share of abysmal code that works. This is pretty awful, but far from the worst I've ever seen in my career -- even in systems where public safety was critical. I've not looked at this code in any real detail, but I suspect John Carmack (who has doubtless seen a fair amount of complex C code in his life) has it right.

On the plus side, if anyone wants to practice refactoring gnarly C code: here's your opportunity.

<comment><USER5> The twits point that Carmack personally worked on that very code (to prepare it for the Github release)!

He explicitly writes there:

"it turned out that it _fared a lot better_ going through the gauntlet of code analysis tools I hit it with _than a lot of more modern code. There is something to be said for straightforward C code._ Bugs were found and fixed, but generally _in paths that weren 't enabled or hit._"

"the performance scaling using OpenMP was already pretty good, and this was not the place for one of my dramatic system refactorings. Mostly, I was just a code janitor for a few weeks, but I was happy to be able to help a little."

and

"I can't vouch for the actual algorithms, but _the software engineering seems fine._ "

As shown, he even points that the believes "a lot of more modern code" would have been worse than that "straightforward C", which matches my experiences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Of all the things wrong with this study, bad code is probably the least (bar actual bugs which mess with results). In fact, it's par on course for code in non-cs academia. There's such a thing as the "physicist code" stereotype.

<comment><USER18> It's generally not used to push policy affecting billions of people, though.

But as I said in another comment, let's blame whoever listened to that garbage fire of a model, not the model itself. We don't listen to Minecraft modders for structural engineering advice either, and we did, they would not be the ones to blame for collapsing buildings.

<comment><USER19> The policy is mostly a reaction to what happened in Wuhan, Iran, and Italy. Especially Italy. The mass graves filling up are a pretty good motivator, as it turns out.[1]

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus- ir...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus-iran-mass- graves-qom)

<comment><USER14> One could say the model was experimentally verified in Wuhan, Iran, Italy and New York.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is such a dangerous precedent. This type of call out will only discourage the release of source code making legitimate peer review more difficult.

</comment><comment><USER21> The issue is crazy. It basically come down to there is no unit test? Unit test traditionally is not done for numerical code in Fortran or C. We sent people to the moon on code without unit test. We build atomic bombs on code without unit test. It doesn't mean the code is not tested. Those numerical code are just tested in a different way.

Also remember, all models are wrong, some are useful. Is this particular model useful? Probably.

</comment><comment><USER19> This github issue sounds a lot like it is politically motivated. He is clearly trying to make the leap from "I don't like the tests in this project" to "public policy is wrong." No actual evidence, just cranky poo-pooing on the project.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's worth noting that this issue was posted by a moderator of the /r/LockdownSkepticism/ subreddit to push a particular political agenda, and now this repo is being brigaded by users from said subreddit.

</comment><comment><USER23> If only all the studies that do not publish their code got half this level of criticism.

<comment><USER24> Well most of science doesn't matter. This was used to introduce cataclysmic policy changes.

<comment><USER7> This was hardly the only element that UK policymakers had to take into account. By the time this study was published, numbers were already accelerating and most of Europe was already in lockdown.

<comment><USER24> Hard to know really. I think it's likely the big question at the time was how bad will this get. And they did run and use this simulation. Frankly people who are willing to use this for anything should have no say in anything more important than their own papers.

There is the great (Carl Sagan?) quote "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". If other parts of the puzzle are of the same quality, I want to see heads rolling. The PCR test for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The title is misleading, the GitHub issue doesn't actually point out any flaws in the codebase.

</comment><comment><USER26> Just because unit tests aren't provded in the codebase, it doesn't mean testing hasn't been done. Quite often it's difficult to model certain things in tests, e.g. Linux kernel drivers, embedded devices etc.

However, it seems that the author of the GitHub issue has personal/political problems with the Imperial researchers because of the lockdown: [https://pastebin.com/LadbM3E1](https://pastebin.com/LadbM3E1).

<comment><USER12> Thanks for posting that.

@OP: So let's get this straight, you created that GitHub issue within one hour of seeing the repository, rallied whatever Discord server that is to join your cause and put it on HN for reach?

As an academic and software engineer, please point me to where I can file an issue for you to retract your issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is politically motivated and just plain dumb. Someone with the intention of finding holes posted it with the assumption that the code must be wrong because it's build in a way that makes it hard for that individual to find potential errors. That doesn't mean that there are critical errors and this "issue" should not have been submitted unless there are, but the author is impatient and has a foregone conclusion so the issue was submitted and pushed in social media instead of doing the actual work of looking for critical errors. And likely there are no critical errors, only minor ones as is typical of heavy simulation code bases.

You don't do testing via unit and integration tests, you do testing through simulating known systems and building confidence in code correctness over time. And by reviewing the mathematics behind the models, and reviewing that the code matches the math.

That's harder for outsiders who want to discredit you to dig into that and point fingers at it. But not at all impossible, however in the science community we don't start pointing fingers until we have actual criticism to back our critique.

</comment><comment><USER28> > The tests in this project, being limited to broad, "smoke test"-style > assertions

Doesn't this put the code far above most academic code by _having_ some tests?

</comment><comment><USER29> What's wrong with comparing the code results to a hash of a known result?

<comment><USER13> You aren't validating the result its self!

<comment><USER29> It is if you know that result is valid, for example if you have validated it some other way and this is a regression test, or you calculated it by hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is the only time I've ever actually been embarrassed to be part of this profession. Maybe other cases i can just say it's limited to this other subgroup that doesn't include me...

</comment><comment><USER31> I suppose it's only fair that if software engineers think they can play epidemiologists, that epidemiologists could think they can play software engineers.

</comment><comment><USER32> Welp, this is the best argument for regulating the title of "Engineer" I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER18> Blame the politicians who listened to some random guy with some code instead of the random guy with some code himself.

<comment><USER19> "random guy"

lol

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The study in question is the Imperial College study projecting the spread of COVID-19. It used (apparently an earlier version of) this code to generate the data for its analysis.

This study was, of course, the basis for lockdowns around the world.

<comment><USER7> _> This study was, of course, the basis for lockdowns around the world._

[citation needed]

Afaik this was a lone study that might have been relevant only to the UK debate (and very late at that). Italy had already been in full lockdown for weeks before it was published, quite a few other European countries had gone in shutdown or closed borders, and obviously Asian countries had already taken countermeasures for months.

Being so cavalier with the truth is, of course, why intelligent people don't take seriously a lot of anti-science attitudes.

<comment><USER29> The FT claim it was: [https://www.ft.com/content/16764a22-69ca-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcc...](https://www.ft.com/content/16764a22-69ca-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75)

<comment><USER33> The timelime doesn't match tho. The article is dated 19/03 and mentions a study released the previous week (so 12/03 or late). The italian lockdown started on the 22/02 [0] for a few towns, and a couple of weeks later was extended to the entire peninsula.

[0] [https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/25/towns-italy-lockdown- coronavi...](https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/25/towns-italy-lockdown- coronavirus-12298246/)

<comment><USER29> Indeed, I forgot how late the UK/US policy changed. The claim that this study affected policy around the world doesn't seem to hold up.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apply HN: Jam, every student's personal assistant - <AUTHOR> We are building a text-based supervised A.I. designed to help French students in their daily lives.
Jam was born last year. It only speaks French and is available via Facebook Messenger, Twitter DMs and SMS. 50.000 people have already texted Jam.
Ask us anything <comment><USER2> Students ask Jam pretty much anything. For instance, we get a lot of bar recommendations, job-hunting, miscellaneous advice (love tips, etc.) and a bit less restaurant recommendation, meal/cocktail recipes, or shopping.

I think it would be interesting to develop the way we handle holiday requests : For example, Jam could help a student get a train ticket to Amsterdam (and an airbnb), and once the user is at destination we could guide them through the city.

Jam should be a "background-tech" type of product, avoiding the cumbersomeness of interfaces.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for explaining what Jam does. Could you please talk a little bit about user engagement (how often does a typical user use Jam) ? Also how do you (or plan to) generate revenue ?

The potential travel related feature you describe seems more widely applicable than just for students. Perhaps it may be better to focus on other features for the student user base first before expanding (if students are the current focus for your product). ?

<comment><AUTHOR> A considerable part of our base does not come back after the first two weeks. However, we are noticing an increase of the segment that comes back more than twice a week. They seem to use Jam as a way to get rid of tasks that demand little reflexion/benchmarking (eg. "What's the best oven for <150€", "Where can I eat brunch right now at République ?"). Our ideal user should ask 3 things per week.

About the travel assistant feature, it is indeed a feature that many could use. I have personally discovered this use-case and found it truly powerful.

This week, we have put a lot of effort into making the experience around bars as delightful as possible (put some interpolations and randomness in our wordings, put a few jokes in there, etc...).

About the business model : So far, we have tried to help companies hire talent using Jam. We signed 3 contracts in one month (25k€) but abandoned the idea eventually because we felt the product was not ready for that. Right now, we are interested in helping brands grow in the student market. Say Uber is looking for ambassadors, we can find them rapidly as our user-base is cash- poor and time-rich and there is already a high demand for student jobs. Here's a repartition of our requests received in the last 7 days (878 "student jobs") : [https://infinit.io/_/BHZzvHE](https://infinit.io/_/BHZzvHE)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds interesting. I don't know French, so could not try it out, but can you please elaborate a bit more on how it helps students ?

</comment><comment><USER4> What are the most common use cases for Jam so far? What are some others you'd like to grow?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If your French is not too rusty, feel free to check out hellojam.fr

</comment><comment><USER5> Why only in French?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are based in Paris and the entire team is French (some of us work remotely). We could either translate it into English or more "rare" languages (ie. where text-based training sets are rare)</comment></comment>