Copyright Act explicitly states disruptive innovation should be blocked - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120913/23530420381/copyright-act-explicitly-says-disruptive-innovation-should-be-blocked.shtml <comment><USER2> This blog post takes the statutory provision in question wildly out of context:

> I've read the Copyright Act many times, but have to admit that I'd never > quite noticed this line from 17 USC 801(b)(1)(D), which explicitly states > that the role of the Copyright Royalty Judges on the Copyright Royalty Board > that sets the rates for internet radio are there: To minimize any disruptive > impact on the structure of the industries involved and on generally > prevailing industry practices.

This is not referring to the Copyright Act as a whole, but to the purposes of Copyright Royalty Judges specifically. Here is the whole provision: <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap8.html>.

What are Copyright Royalty Judges? They're judges who set rates for statutory licenses. Statutory licenses are _compulsory_ licenses where copyright holders are obligated to agree to licenses and where rates are set by the Royalty Board and not by free negotiation between the copyright holder and the licensee: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_license>.

Basically, all this says is that Royalty Judges shouldn't use the compulsory licensing scheme and their rate-setting powers to disrupt industries. It doesn't say anything about the copyright law in general preventing the disruption of industries.

Ironically, this section of the Copyright Act is actually intended to reduce the ability of copyright holders to use their rights to prevent disruption in delivery methods: [http://rightsflow.com/resources/copyright-licensing- resource...](http://rightsflow.com/resources/copyright-licensing- resources/compulsory-license/)

"Because Congress was concerned about the potential for monopolistic behavior, it also created a statutory license, section 115 of the law, to allow anyone to make and distribute a mechanical reproduction of a musical composition without the consent of the copyright owner provided that the person adhered to the provisions of the license, most notably paying a statutorily established royalty to the copyright owner."

<comment><USER3> I like Mike Masnick, but this seems like a real miss. He should have gotten a second source before running it.

<comment><USER2> The purpose of the compulsory licensing scheme is the public good, to keep copyright holders from preventing certain socially-beneficial uses. The "disruption" provision a concession to copyright holders, basically promising them that the compulsory licensing scheme won't be used to gut their copyright protections.

I think Masnick's argument is that the Royalty Board should use its rate- setting powers to make online radio companies like Pandora more competitive. But Pandora is a for-profit business. Why should the Board give them rates lower than what they can get by freely negotiating with the copyright holders?

There are a lot of problems with copyright, but they're on the enforcement side. The streaming radio debate is just about money. Pandora can't make money selling Indie music. They want to sell Britney Spears, because that's what consumers want. But they don't like how much money Sony, etc, are charging for Britney Spears. So they want to force the government to force Sony, etc, to sell Britney Spears for less money.

<comment><USER4> I think you are giving Masnick too much credit in his argument. It looks like he confused general copyright enforcement guidelines with specific compulsory rate setting guidelines. Sloppy at best, muckraking at worst.

I would be curious to know, though, how often compulsory rates are set and in what specific circumstances, if you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The following sums it up.

 _There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it._ \-- Niccolo Machiavelli

Politicians looking for donations are trying to follow the path of least resistance, not most. Hence the rules defend the status quo.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pandora should work with alternative, indie music venues like MySpace or YouTube to find off-label music acts waiting to be discovered. There're hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of amateur musicians in this country that're waiting to be discovered but can't get the record labels to pay attention to them. Some of them are quite talented.

If an unknown but good artist showed up in my Pandora stream, I'd love it. Hell, that's _why I listen to Pandora_ \- to learn about musical groups that I wouldn't otherwise have heard of. And they already have the algorithms and the data to distinguish crap from good stuff, at least in theory.

They're potentially sitting on a gold-mine. Just open a self-service webapp where an amateur musician can upload MP3s of their work and fill out a blurb & promotional photos, classify their work through the normal music genome project, and start injecting it into the streams of people willing to listen to unvetted music. The thumbs up / thumbs down buttons can do the rest.

<comment><USER7> Maybe, but:

1\. That would make them a record label, rather than a radio station

2\. Most people, myself included, do want to hear established artists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> After reading this, it seems that this could be a clear case of a law that should be struck down on constitutional grounds -- Article I section 8, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts", not "disrupt the progress".

<comment><USER9> The full line is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

derekp7, I wish that the case was that simple, and that 17 USC 801(b)(1)(d) would be struck down. I'm afraid it's not that simple, though. IANAL, much less a constitutional lawyer, but I'll play devil's advocate and look at a possible rebuttal by the communications industry:

"The existing industries provide a time-tested way of asserting artists' rights (which itself promotes the progress of 'useful Arts'), by way of providing a stable system for the collection of royalties, and preventing distribution of materials, when such distribution is not desired by rights holders. An entity which seeks to interrupt the continued operation of this stable system could plausibly _reduce_ the security upon which rights holders have come to rely. Therefore, Congress is within its rights to _ensure the survival_ of this system as a means of implementing Article I section 8."

So it's not an open-shut case. The argument would have to be made that "disrupting the progress" of communications innovators, does more harm than ensuring the security of existing rights holders does good. I think everyone reading this site believes that, but I'm afraid it might not hold up legally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Imagine a start-up where you rent a tiny radio receiver, a really tiny miniature scale radio receiver in a big warehouse in Virginia next to an even tinier transmitter that you control via a "fan request" API.

So might that count as radio?

</comment><comment><USER11> <joke>Well then, I guess TechCrunch Disrupt is SOL.</joke>

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure this is a good idea. It keeps the peasants and proles in their place. It just wouldn't do to have that kind of people receiving new ideas. It would upset the Ordained Social Order.</comment>


New EU rules to curb transfer of data to US after Edward Snowden revelations - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/17/eu-rules-data-us-edward-snowden

<comment> k-mcgrady This stands out to me:

>> "Such bans were foreseen in initial wording two years ago but were dropped under the pressure of intense lobbying from Washington."

The fact that one country can influence a large group of countries in such a way is scary. Hopefully that's starting to change as the US motive for this kind of lobbying becomes public.</comment>


Faraday Future hit with layoffs, salary cuts - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/22/18009658/faraday-future-layoffs-salary-cut-jia-yt-evergrande <comment><USER2> Almost took a job with these guys about a year ago. Shame to see it falling apart

<comment><USER3> Where did you go instead?

</comment></comment><comment> village-idiot I think a lot of observers saw this coming. They didn't seem to be delivering fast enough or have a long enough runway to pull off what they were trying to do.

I also had no idea why their flagship car cost as much as it does. It looks nice, but $300k is insane. Nothing in the press materials really explained why it you should buy one instead of an Aston Martin or Bentley.

<comment><USER4> They "borrowed" Elon's vision of creating a premium brand before going mass market.

Terrible execution though.

<comment> village-idiot Elon's idea was great, but he also had the advantage of being first. When the roadster came out there were no other premium electric cars, so it could dominate that (small) market.

Now the FF91 needs to justify why it's more expensive than every car Tesla sells, the iPace, and the Taycan (which should be available when the FF91 was set to go on sale). In all those cases the FF91 is at least 2x more expensive, and all those cars are made by companies with established records.

Jumping in and selling a premium EV now is almost as hard as selling a premium SUV from nothing. It can be done, but holy crap it'll be hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Faraday Failure"

Good riddance. They had a good idea (and more competition in the EV space is always good) but thanks to their management they completely ruined whatever was good about them. Now I just wish they'd die and leave space for someone that actually knows what they're doing.

<comment><USER6> Care to expand for an uninitiated?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2017/12/12/16651026/...](https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2017/12/12/16651026/faraday- future-investigation-money-debt-finances-yueting)</comment></comment></comment>


What Is Going to Happen with Humans in the Age of Artificial Intelligence? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sander-gansen/sanders-book-club-life-3-0-bb4260713a6b <comment><USER2> IMO the whole "singularity/Super AGI" is just like any religion, the only difference is this that this one talks about "we will create the God".</comment>


Bias in student evaluations of teaching - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1066721849734615041 <comment><USER2> This happens in reverse too. Teachers assume high achieving students will continue to achieve and give them more slack.

The trick to all my "writing" classes was to simply put the most effort in the first assignment. It was pretty clear that future marks were a function of prior marks, and I tested this hypothesis in different classes by modulating my effort on various assignments throughout the year.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know I tended to rate my foreign" instructors poorly. Not that I want to be dislike them, but when I have trouble understanding their accent it is hard to learn from them. If I ever have to give a lecture in a foreign language I'm sure my students to have the same reaction (of course as a human you can be sure that if I actually spoke a language well enough for this to be reasonable I'd consider my accent perfect)

</comment><comment><USER4> Would it be that hard to judge professors based on students success (in subsequent classes) using something like a pagerank algorithm? But that wouldn't necessarily correlate with institution popularity and success.

Academia seems to be becoming more of a customer service-oriented business where customer (student) perception is more important than the value/quality of the service provided.

<comment><USER5> It's called "Value Added Method" (VAM) and is used in many school systems. It's also unreliable, says the American Statistical Association [https://www.educationdive.com/news/statisticians-reject- valu...](https://www.educationdive.com/news/statisticians-reject-value-added- teacher-evaluations/250785/) or original ASA statement at [https://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/POL-ASAVAM- Statement.p...](https://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/POL-ASAVAM- Statement.pdf) .

Details about the difficulties in the implementation, at [http://vamboozled.com/](http://vamboozled.com/) , which as you can infer is against VAM. Eg:

* Class composition varied so much that comparisons of value-added scores of two teachers were only valid if both teachers are assigned students with similar characteristics.

* Annual fluctuations in results were so large that they lead to widely varying conclusions from one year to the next for the same teacher.

* There was strong evidence that results were often due to the teaching environment, not just the teacher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know how this is going to sound, but I'm genuinely curious: how do they measure whether the evaluations are gender biased, or whether the quality of the instruction is not equally distributed between the genders?

Before I get a bunch of hate and downvotes, I'm not suggesting that female teachers get lower evaluation scores because they're not as good on average as their male counterparts. But I assume that researchers can show _why_ that's not the underlying source of the difference in ratings, since that would be an obvious objection to these findings. Just curious how they separate that out, that's all.

EDIT: nevermind, this was just laziness on my part. Here's the study, and it's actually not that hard to understand: [https://www.scienceopen.com/document_file/25ff22be-8a1b-4c97...](https://www.scienceopen.com/document_file/25ff22be-8a1b-4c97-9d88-084c8d98187a/ScienceOpen/3507_XE6680747344554310733.pdf)

TLDR: In one experiment, they randomly assigned students to a TA and compared how well the students did in the class to determine whether the instructors were of comparable quality. In another experiment they secretly switched the TA identities in an online course so the students who had the female TA thought they had the male TA, and vice versa. Very nice.

<comment><USER7> Did you read the linked papers? They go into a lot of detail about how they did it.

<comment><USER6> Did you read my comment? I know yours wasn't there when I added that edit :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I spent one semester teaching at a major state university, many years ago. Here are some anecdata:

* I shared an office with a guy who was team-teaching a course with a professor. My office mate was an adjunct, the professor was coming up for tenure. They fought bitterly over the grading of the course. The prof wanted to give easy grades because he needed to boost his student evaluation scores.

* It was common knowledge that the best predictor of evaluation scores was the grades that the students expected to receive. It was as if the system was rigged to encourage grade inflation. That was 20 years ago.

* Female teachers received in their evaluations, among other things, violent threats.

</comment><comment><USER9> I knew one CS professor who always had very good evaluations.

His trick? He brought free cookies on the day he was going to get evaluated.

He swore that it worked.

</comment><comment><USER10> A really simple indicator of this the long term relevance of "hotness" in things like ratemyprofessor - mercifully they killed that, but it should never have been present in the first place - which showed that "hotness" was strongly correlated to a professor or TAs rating.

Couple with other studies that hotness ratings of women are more extreme (tending towards a binomial hot vs. not), and more negative (I would assume, but am not sure of actual real study to back it up, because "average" hotness gets demoted).

<comment><USER11> I'm kind of conflicted about that. A strongly explanatory variable is valuable to have in order to control for its effects. Voluntarily removing it reduces the usefulness of the derived statistics and in this case I guess seems to make ratemyprofessor just a niche version of hotornot.

Perhaps a middle ground would have been to allow students to rate "hottness" and explicitly controlled for it when ranking professors, but never making a given professor's "average hotness" viewable to users?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there an actual solution proposed here or is this just full of hot air?

He says adjusting can't work and that explaining bias doesn't do the job, so what is he suggesting? Don't consider a professors performance at all? Add some sort of standardized testing system?

</comment><comment><USER13> Are students of color harsher on instructors of color as well?

<comment><USER10> Unsure, but given this thread is mostly reporting on bias against women instructors it's not a super relevant question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Education is screwed up in many ways. Colleges would rather look good in the US News rankings than educate their students well. Students would rather have attractive professors than ones who teach them effectively. And yet the whole thing is massively popular and expensive.

</comment><comment><USER15> Worth noting that all four links in his thread are to the same paper.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why do I keep encountering people who apparently think that Twitter is an appropriate medium for conveying thoughtful, considered information?

<comment><USER10> I have wondered about that recently as well - I assume it's because "everyone" already has a twitter account, so if you do have some one off occasion that you want to say a pile of stuff, you already have that account that is easily sharable. Any other blog like service requires you signing up for another account, and sharing your email address again.

So you use twitter. The next time you want to say something, you still don't have a blog account so you take the same logic and end up posting through twitter again.

Things like threader seem to make it easier for your thread to be shared as a single document now, which makes it less annoying to share and/or read.

Then, with the death of Reader no one really has a non-FB, non-Twitter style mechanism for following people any more so if you want to say something and encourage people to follow you then twitter is your best bet. Likewise if you want to hear what other people say (ugh, internet commentators ;) ) twitter makes it possible to easily get replies and you don't need to worry about comment spam continuously appearing.</comment></comment>


Deploying Stuff With Git - <AUTHOR> http://www.babyl.ca/techblog/entry/git-deployment

<comment><USER2> Push and reset are not atomic, so you will risk race conditions this way: While Git is updating the local directory, a user may be visiting the site and will be loading files that are in different version states.

The only way to atomically deploy an application is to clone into a new directory and then write a symlink to point to the new directory. You can maintain a local Git cache that contains the newest tree and clone from that; Git uses hard links, so the clone will be fast. So something like:

        cd $cache && git fetch origin && git reset --hard $version && \
          git clone $cache $temp && ln -sf $temp $current

Of course, apps can be designed to avoid the race condition, by caching the application's files. Rails and Sinatra will do this (but only for Ruby files), for example. Edit Reply

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't re-invent the wheel.

Package management systems blur the boundaries between operating system and software. Use them, please.

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

<comment><USER2> This has nothing to do with package management. It's about deploying web applications.

<comment><USER3> A web application is a software. How do you think we've been deploying software for the last 20 years, using FedEx?

<comment><USER2> A web application is not systems software. Back when web sites were pure HTML pages, were you deploying them as packages? How about PHP sites, do you deploy them as packages?

There is a chasm dividing OS management and app management. The OS is the province of sysadmins, but apps are the province of developers. Ideally you want to bridge the two by having the environment "contain" the app, in a way that lets an application be automatically deployed from the newest code (eg., from Git), coordinated by an external system (eg., Jenkins), running inside an environment controlled by the configuration management system (eg., Puppet).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The new enemy of an ordered, happy society – the crying baby - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/28/meet-the-new-enemy-of-an-ordered-happy-society-the-crying-baby <comment><USER2> >We can all be difficult on planes so why pick small children out for special treatment?

This line drips with irony, since the author's main point is that babies _are_ in fact special and somehow deserve to be exempt from other people avoiding them. I'm going to actively avoid the guy who reeks of moldy onions, the woman who refuses to stop droning on about her vacation, and your troublesome crotch-goblin. I'd fly all by myself if I had the option.</comment>


Show HN: Fast gif capturing + 1-click upload (Mac App) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gifgrabber.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Project description: We wanted to solve the problem of capturing gifs quickly and easily. Existing solutions were complicated and yucky: you need the video source file, photoshop, or some specialized software, or a limited Youtube-to- gif service like Gifsoup.com. You ran into codec issues, it took a while, you needed lots of experience, etc.

We made it easier by giving the user a floating capture window which essentially grabs frames from whatever's underneath. It basically takes screenshots. Naturally, everyone wants to share the gif they created, so we threw in a 1-click process to upload that gif to our server.</comment>


Joe Hewitt's take on the iphone App Store - <AUTHOR> http://joehewitt.com/post/innocent-until-proven-guilty/

<comment><USER2> _Besides, when I have a problem with a friend, I don't threaten to boycott our friendship until they change, so I'm not going to do that to Apple either._

Apple is not your friend. Friends are people, not organizations.

Good post otherwise. Though I do wonder if Apple is legally obligated in some way to at least show that they have made a good faith effort to review applications that they are distributing. If there was no review process and people were distributing kiddie porn apps, could Apple be held legally responsible?

<comment><USER3> Not to get into corporate personage, but corporations can still be benevolent or malevolent, friendly or hostile. I don't know if I'd call _Apple_ friendly - they're a bit aloof to be friends - but a company like Pixar I'd readily call a friend.

<comment><USER2> "Friendly" is distinctly different from "a friend."

 _a company like Pixar I'd readily call a friend._

I love Pixar, but they're not my friend, and they're not your friend, for at least three reasons:

1\. Pixar, like all public companies, exists for one purpose: to make a profit. In fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their owners to pursue this purpose and if they don't, they can be sued.

2\. Pixar is an organization made up of thousands of people. It's impossible for a group that's made up of thousands of conscious and self-determinant humans to be your friend. You might as well say that North Dakota is your friend.

3\. Pixar does not know who you are. They do not know your name, what kind of ice cream you like, or why you enjoy riding a bicycle built for two. And to the extent that they do have any of this knowledge, it's referred to as data and is used in pursuit of the goals described in #1.

Pixar is not your friend.

<comment><USER3> Touché.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _No matter how annoyed I get, I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long as they continue to produce the best stuff on the market._

And if all developers take this attitude, why would Apple listen to the very sort of complaints this post makes? At some point you have to stand up for yourself if you want to be heard.

<comment><USER5> This is capitalism, not Developer's Rights Day. We don't like how Apple conducts their marketplace so we're porting to other platforms while continuing to profit off the iPhone and update our apps on it.

This shit's not rocket science- Apple is evil, their platform is profitable, plan accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem is when you publish to the app store, you are - in essence - partnering with Apple and I'd imagine you would examine any partnership before consenting to it.

Furthermore, there are real liability issues here for Apple. To assume they blindly publish anything that comes their way puts them at pretty serious risk.

Due to the way the app store is structured, the review process is required. That said, judging for content versus judging for bad code are entirely different things and I personally don't think Apple should be incorporating content vetting into their process.

Finally, Apple should provide the ability for third parties to supply applications outside of the App Store ecosphere. I've said it before, but it makes no sense to me that the iPhone is treated any differently than a laptop when the only massive difference between the two is the 3G chip and access to the cellular network. Could you imagine your laptop locked down in that way? It wouldn't sell. So why the disconnect with the iPhone? I don't know.

<comment><USER7> "only massive difference between the two is the 3G chip and..."

[http://www.teknobites.com/2009/08/24/nokia-launches- booklet-...](http://www.teknobites.com/2009/08/24/nokia-launches- booklet-3g-mini-laptop/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has nothing to do with liability-- they take on much MORE liability by reviewing than just being an open platform. It has more to do with stopping any applications that threaten revenue in any way-- and while you could have some kind of app recall process for violaters, since there is no standard it gets even more messy. They made their bed and now they can die in it for all I care. Someday, in our rocking chairs, we'll fondly remember the "good ol days" of open software under microsoft. Phhht.

Thank goodness for android... really good devices are only now hitting the market and honestly android apps will catch up very quickly. The reality is that probably only 100 apps account for 95% of all ihpone app usage. In the long tail there are a lot more java developers out there than OjC.

HTC Hero drops in a couple weeks. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple's never going to get rid of the review process. Their corporate culture demands complete control of their system too much for that to ever happen. Thanks, Steve Jobs....

However, what I would like to see (and I'd love some comments on this, since I know I haven't thought it through completely) is Apple allow one to sell their app through the store, but not list it in iTunes or the App Store app. That would leave the marketing solely up to the developer, and Apple could keep their sanitized image to the public. Joe's right about apps being sandboxed, so it would be unlikely that any malware app would make it into there. As it is, if someone found an exploit right now they could simply timebomb it and submit to Apple to wait for it after they've reviewed it. So, safety isn't really a concern here. It's more of a PR issue.

Thoughts?

(P.S. Commenting at 4am is not recommended. Sorry if none of this makes any sense.)

<comment><USER10> Another alternative might be to support a sort-of "two tier" system, where users could see whether or not an app got the Apple "seal of approval" before downloading it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem is that if the review process is removed, there will be NO MORE DEVELOPERS on the platform. You know why? Because spammers will overrun the store and make earning money from the store next to impossible.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, that's the same reason why nobody makes money or develops for the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really agree with the points raised in the article, but as most of the other replies state, you are entering into a business relatioship with them , so yes they do have to review what you submit - fair enough.

What I've never understood is how they intend to scale the review process. With about 50,000 apps so far, and 40 reviewers (I believe that's how many there are) already, it must be a pretty intense task. How are they going to deal with this when they're getting ten or a hundred times as many submissions as they are now? In terms of business, they have to scale and grow the App Store continuously, so obviously they just employ more reviewers, but is this a viable and logical route?

Surely at some point they'll have to stop the review process.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good article. Sounds like he is getting annoyed that the Facebook 3.0 app is still in review after two weeks.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite dystopian novel and why? - <AUTHOR> I can't explain why but for some reason those books are those I can't put down until finished.
I love Asimoov and Huxley's work but while Brave New World has some background incoherence, 1984 is still my favorite depiction of a bad future.
I wouldn't say a I have a favorite dystopia genre, but Orwell and Gibson novels are those I have appreciated the most.
What's yours? <comment><USER2> By far "1984". I re-read it once in while, and am always terrified to see that each time, it looks a little more like our actual world.

I like "Brave New World" as well. It is interesting to see how our present is a mix of both Huxley's and Orwell's worlds. [http://postimg.org/image/ue0pdq56r/](http://postimg.org/image/ue0pdq56r/)

<comment><USER3> If you like Orwell's work you should read Koestler. He had a very strong influence to Orwell's work. try "Dark before Noon".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably the trial (kafka) or the plague (camus) but the one book I struggle to put down to put down is l'etranger as it's so easy to read in a single sitting and do compelling.

</comment><comment><USER5> Benford's Timescape always freaked me out a bit. Scientists in a dystopian future sending messages into the past in order to prevent their future from occurring.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if it counts as dystopian but you should check out Flowers for Algernon - it's on similar lines.

</comment><comment><USER7> SPOILER ALERT: "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." \- 1984 Haunting last line. All struggle is futile; acceptance is inevitable. So yeah, pretty bleak, but favorite book nonetheless. I also love Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, which while not classically dystopian, still manages to elicit dystopian stoic despair against the backdrop of a seemingly normal world (our very own time and age). It automatically coaxs readers to draw parallels..maybe dystopia is not something imagined. Maybe it's more familiar than we think. Lastly, Robert A. Heinlein needs to be mentioned at least once in this thread; Farnham's Freehold and a Stranger in a Strange Land.

</comment><comment><USER3> For a series of psychological reasons I try to avoid reading 1984.

From what I have read so far, I would say that it's Cryptonomicon. But it's a _good_ future, it's a very sad future. Not as sad as Huxley's or Orwell's but sad enough.

<comment><USER2> The thing with "Brave New World" is that it's _not_ a sad future. Everyone is happy. Everyone is conditioned to be happy with their situation. Alphas are happy to be alphas and enjoy a lot of privileges, Betas are happy to be betas and not have to deal with as many responsibilities as Alphas, etc. And this is the scariest part to me in the book.

<comment><USER3> Hm, you intrigued me, I need to read it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nineteen Eight-Four is mine too and it is because I think it is genius. I enjoy writing and I may even be able to write something good one day but the insights and truths in this book that parallel our society and appear to be timeless from when it was written to now make it my one of my favourite works of fiction. I can point to the book for some example for so many of the things that happen day to day. And yes, as said, the last line is truly chilling.

</comment><comment><USER9> Definitely Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ although it's hard to explain exactly why. But it's probably at least in part because I read it when I was fairly young, and it was one of the first "classic" dystopian novels that I read. And it made me so angry. I finished that book with a really deep-seated, almost primal, loathing of "Big Brother".

</comment><comment><USER10> Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and it's sequel, Homeland. Actually more of a "what if" set in the US at present time but still shows how there is a very narrow gap between current times and the time predicted in the book!

</comment><comment><USER11> I really enjoyed Stephen King's The Long Walk in addition to a few others already mentioned.

<comment><USER12> Running Man, another Bachman book, is another dystopian favorite of mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Silo series by Hugh Howey was pretty great

</comment><comment><USER14> "Earth Abides" was pretty good.</comment>


The GSD Mentality Doesn't Make Your Startup Better - <AUTHOR> http://isaacmosquera.com/post/91168087319/the-gsd-mentality-doesnt-make-your-startup-better

<comment><USER2> It's a matter of "getting shit down efficiently"

<comment><AUTHOR> I decided to use the word "better" because for some aspects like design, I'm not sure I would want that to be done more efficiently necessarily, but instead I would want it to be done better and achieve better design even if it costs me a bit more in time/effort. I think better in this sense is more qualitative although we should try to quantify as much as possible.</comment></comment>


Create AI Models from an Excel Spreadsheet - <AUTHOR> https://getyantra.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm new to HN, and I would love your feedback. I'm an ML engineer from Toronto, and lots of my non-technical friends wanted me to create ML models for them. After coding every time, I decided to create automated ML to save time. This will allow non-technical people to create an ML model and use it really fast. I made some massive change from my first version. Advanced users can now specify hyperparameters to fine-tune their models to get better accuracy.

<comment><USER2> You're more than welcome to post here as a "Show HN", but first it has to be available to the community to try out. Can you post again when that's possible?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey sctb, yes it's avaliable for the community to try it out! We are in private beta. If you go to the webpage and email me I can add you on our beta list.

<comment><USER2> It needs to be directly available without an email signup.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you launch a startup with .xyz TLD? - <AUTHOR> We came up with a name that we really like and were able to register the .io and .xyz TLDs. The problem is that the .io is used almost exclusively by tech companies (we're building a social media management platform) and the .xyz is only two years old. The .com is available for sale, they're asking $1500 for it (down from 3K). I'm really reluctant to drop 1.5K on the .com version, but also worried/not fully convinced about using .io or .xyz. Would really appreciate any input on this. Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Don't use XYZ. Because of recent $1 sales on XYZ domains, they're being snapped up by spammers, and there is so much spam coming from them that one of my most effective spam filters is flagging anything from a .xyz domain. I don't think I've ever had a false positive. I have the same issue with spam from .top and .pro TLDs as well.

IO should be fine. There's enough legit tech companies using .io now that it shouldn't have too much reputation risk. Maybe start out with the .io until you're generating enough revenue to drop $1.5K or $3K on the .com.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a co-founder of a company which has .xyz domain. We had a clear idea why we got .xyz domain but after 3-4 months of registration, we started seeing some issues with the domain. For starters, the visa office was unable to open our website to check the authenticity of our company before issuing visas for us to travel as their firewall had banned .xyz domain.

Some of our emails always was marked as spam when we were using it for marketing.

Thankfully, because of our organic growth .xyz did not hinder us too much but I personally think it will take a good time before .xyz is being used by commercial companies and hence I would suggest you to refrain from buying a .xyz domain for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, this is really helpful. I think we'll just go ahead and cough up the $1500 to acquire the .com version.

<comment><USER4> I'd recommend the same. We paid around the same for hackclub.com and it was definitely worth it (we started with hackclub.io).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Contrary to popular belief, your TLD isn't that important. Keep in mind most people will get to your website by following links, and rarely by typing the URL.

Focus on your service's quality more than your TLD. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER6> I digress on the TLD part. If your users are DESKTOP users, TLDs are not so important.

If they are mobile users, they can type ".com" on their on-screen keyboard.

If they don't remember the domain, they will go to Google and you might have some trouble with people advertising on top of your #1 positiom...

... which will happen only if you're successful, of course.

I totally agree on this: you should focus son the product, not on the name. People will buy your product - name changes are more frequent than we think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If your target group are the type of people who still types www in front of every url it would recommend to go for the .com

If not, go for the .io at least a lot of reputable sites are using that.

Haven't seen anyone using .xyz in marketing yet.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not unless your startup is called 'abc'.

</comment><comment><USER9> As many of the new TLDs are now finding out, nothing beats .com for user attention. Make up a word, or use a longer domain, but .com (and maybe .io due to their early launch and high-price) are the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER6> Get a domain where Google is an accredited registrar (.com/.org/.net/etc..) and extend registration for 5+ years.

But don't buy a 1.5K domain _before_ securing the twitter handle and facebook page FIRST.

<comment><USER10> Is it so important that the Facebook page and Twitter handle match the domain precisely? I feel there are a bunch of things (eg. @DomainDotCom) you can do with those. The domain is the one that will impact your business if you don't get it right.

<comment><USER6> For SEO it's not critical; but for users it is. Think about your domain, twitter account, and FB page as trademarks. Actually, they should be trademarked sooner or later.

Don't buy a domain without a match or near match in twitter / facebook (like $domainname + "app" or something like that).

I don't do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> matching handles were long gone, but I was able to get the exact name + inc at the end, which is good enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would use .io - that said, I'm using .tv for my own project (video related), and I understand the extreme pain of trying to come up with a good name that's not yet widespread and is available.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not really a "startuper/entreprenour" but I can tell you as a costumer that I'd never take anything serious with an .xyz domain.

</comment><comment><USER13> how about .net? - network is more sociable sounding than .xyz

<comment><AUTHOR> Not available and not for sale.</comment></comment>


This is what farms will look like in the future - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/this-is-what-farms-will-look-like-in-the-future-453541462 <comment><USER2> No, no they won't, anyone who says they will lacks a grade-school understanding of plant biology.

Plants eat sunlight. With adequate irrigation, light is the key limiting factor on plant growth. Stacking plants vertically is a very expensive waste of time, because you're not gathering any more solar energy than if you just planted them at ground-level. You're just spreading the same amount of light between more plants - plants that are housed in a very expensive building and that are impossible to tend or harvest in an efficient manner.

The future of farming already exists. It's in southern Spain, around towns like El Ejido and Almeria. These areas look white in satellite images, not because of any geological feature but because they're absolutely covered in polytunnels - hundreds of thousands of greenhouses, creating a humid microclimate in an arid but sunny region, to supply salad vegetables to Europe year-round.

<http://goo.gl/maps/WrZ5j>

<comment><USER3> have to vote you up just for the cool link. The 'contest' was really about visualization and design. Not really about actual usability :-) That said, there is a growing aquaponics movement in California which seeks to create nearly water neutral farms. I keep hoping to find one of those scaled up to something like the Spaniards have done but in Calfornia's central valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something I've never understood about those cool looking vertical farm concepts is water management. Doesn't it take a TON of energy to pump enough water to irrigate a field up 50 stories?

<comment><USER3> One wonders if you can vaporize it at the bottom and condense it out of the air at the top, but yes there clearly would have to be some sort of energy input to move water. One could imagine a sort of bucket brigade kind of thing where water heading down, was collecting in buckets which were lifting a slightly lower mass of water up (or equivalent mass with a an energy injection to cover the difference). But I don't think anyone submitted these designs as _practical_ farms, more like Farms that look futuristic at the expense of being implementable :-).

<comment><AUTHOR> California needs to put some effort behind desalination plants or else they will lose some of the most productive farms in the country and a whole wine industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I seriously doubt our food-producing future will look all kinds of architectural sexy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is the author suggesting that food is going to get really expensive?

</comment><comment><USER7> This is literally among the dumbest environmentalist ideas out there. It's a _tragedy_ it gets so much attention because that enthusiasm could be oriented towards advocacy of things which _actually make a difference_.

A napkin calculation a while back factoring in the cost of farmland, light, land, and skyscraper construction showed approximately a _60,000x cost difference_ per pound of crops between purpose-build skyscraper-type vertical farming startup costs, and prime Iowa farmland. I'm not exaggerating.

Compare irrigated desert land under intensive greenhouse cultivation with skyscrapers, and you're _still_ at hundreds or thousands of times more expensive.

The most sizable vertical farm at present is either a natural-light "bookshelf style" setup in Singapore which does absolutely nothing for land use by shading other land, and grows a trivial amount of crops, or a artificially-lit 30x30m area on Chiba University operated purely for research purposes, which sells its products on the side.

When someone says "X is planned for Chicago", that actually means something to some of us, something other than "An undergrad design student asked for creative solutions to save the world came up with a pretty render that any architect, engineer, farmer, or businessman would laugh at on close examination". I would ask the green energy sites to stop lying to our faces on this topic, necessitating stories like this [1].

The only way this kind of solution is remotely feasible is when your product is marijuana, and it costs $1000/lb. Expensive niche herbs like basil and wasabi may be able to grow economically in a climate controlled hydroponic system... but they can only pay warehouse rent if that, not skyscraper rent.

We owe the promotion of this concept to Dickson Despommier [2], a tenured professor of public health / environmental health sciences at Columbia University in Manhattan. Take one of the two most geographically and economically scarce land markets in the country, and apply "locavore" principles, and this stupidity is what you get.

To the people believing because a render was created and it was "planned" that this means they can absolve their share of environmental white guilt for living in a neighborhood without any trees or permeable surfaces... Stop promoting this, please. Tens of square miles of city displaces thousands of square miles of suburb, and you're living at 1/10th the resource intensity of the rest of the country by not driving everywhere. Farmland is not this scarce, and transportation for food is not this expensive.

The breathless enthusiasm of the green bloggers which are paid per post and have no formal science training past middle school has brought this concept to the forefront again and again. I've been shouting at my computer for nigh on ten years now and it _will not die_.

[1] [http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/1810325/so-las- ve...](http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/1810325/so-las-vegas- getting-vertical-farm)

[2] <http://www.verticalfarm.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> In the USA, the main reason it won't go anywhere is the efficiency of the food chain from farm to elevator to processing to destination. The USA really does a good rail system for transporting goods and our trucking is excellent.

// yes, I posted an article I don't believe, but the architecture quest is amazing</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What web crawler should I use? - <AUTHOR>

I need to run a web crawler to 'screen scrape' a few websites.  Ideally this crawler can: 1. Deal with forms 2. Deal with javascript 3. Deal with non-pure HTML to extract bits of data
A few years ago I had a bit of success with Mozilla Parser (http://mozillaparser.sourceforge.net/) but the project seems to have gone cold.
Can anyone recommend a web crawler they have used?
Thanks <comment><USER2> What's wrong with Mechanize + BeautifulSoup? Or even urllib2 + html5lib, if you want to stick to the standard library?

Executing JavaScript is a bit tougher...maybe you can extract it with html5lib and then hook it up to V8 to execute, although that doesn't really account for the intricacies of the feedback cycle between JS execution and HTML parsing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend PhantomJS: <http://www.phantomjs.org/>

It's not a crawler per-se, but you can fairly easily build one based on it. It supports everything that modern browsers do - it's a headless WebKit, driven from JavaScript, after all.</comment>


Cities' Offers for Amazon Base Are Secrets Even to Many City Leaders - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/technology/amazon-headquarters-hq2.html <comment><USER2> Austin city council member Leslie Pool, pictured and quoted in this article, is a notorious pseudo-progressive NIMBY. When she speaks in generalities, everything that comes out of her mouth aligns with my political ideals and my concerns about growth in Austin, but at the same time, she fights tooth and nail against anything that might help.

She talks incessantly about affordable housing while at the same time doing her best to prevent any new housing from being constructed. She wrings her hands over lack of transit (her favorite excuse for opposing density) and supports transit as an idea while always finding an excuse to oppose any specific proposal for improving it.

I have fears about Amazon as well (it could be fine, but it also could be horrible, and I know Austin will be fine without it) and they're the same as the ones she articulates, but to me they mean nothing coming out of her mouth when I know her only agenda is protecting her single-family-with-yard-and- three-cars constituents from sharing space with apartment dwellers and public transit users.

<comment><USER3> How I wish we could build European block housing (is this the correct term?) in this country. The buildings are shoulder to shoulder and take up the whole block.

visual example: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prague,+firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prague,+email@example.com,14.416089,73a,35y,39.37t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x470b939c0970798b:0x400af0f66164090!8m2!3d50.0755381!4d14.4378005)

<comment><USER4> I grew up in terraced housing in the biggest social housing scheme outside the Warsaw Pact, under the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

You never have privacy. I could hear my neighbour having sex. Party music vibrated through the floors regardless of dampening in the walls ( we tried cork sheets ). The back gardens were all overlooked. Everything you did was known. It was like growing up in a commune.

When I see new terraced developments I am angry at the human cost being paid just so a contractor can save the cost of one wall and a metre of land per house.

<comment><USER5> Modern construction methods have largely solved these acoustic/privacy issues.

Building codes throughout the United States require a measure of sound insulation between floors of multi-family dwellings. They specify a minimum architectural design standard of privacy of 50 STC (Sound Transmission Class) and a 50 IIC (Impact Isolation Class). The codes also state that validation of the minimum noise criteria can be field measured and the field measurements shall not be less than a 45 FSTC or a 45 FIIC.

Of course, contractors sometimes find ways to cut corners. But in general, neighbor-noise is a solved problem.

<comment><USER6> Yeah sure, but Cannabis fumes from the shared heating system are not. My friends are selling their downtown condos to GTFO to the suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I respect Toronto's proposal a lot, in light of this: absolutely no specific incentives offered, just an overview of the benefits of working in Toronto/Ontario/Canada from an employee/employer's perspective. I think it was a strong action both in terms of attracting Amazon (there's no other non-US cities being considered, so they are already hugely differentiated) and in terms of reassuring the constituents that the government will not bend over backwards for corporations (especially considering the Google smart city in development).

</comment><comment><USER8> > Corporations have choices. They could go about their business, and simply > choose the best location, the one that makes the greatest business sense, > and invest accordingly. Or they can as Amazon, GE, and dozens of others, go > through the ritual of pretending to entertain a wide range of proposals, and > use the leverage of competing bids to sweat the best possible deal out of > their preferred location

[http://cityobservatory.org/cash-prizes-for-bad-corporate- cit...](http://cityobservatory.org/cash-prizes-for-bad-corporate-citizenship- amazon-edition/)

Whoever 'wins', may not come out ahead.

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/9/10/what-can-i- do-...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/9/10/what-can-i-do-to-have- you-love-me)

</comment><comment><USER9> Democracy: When you can't tell your citizens what you're up to, you already have a problem.

It is also a very hypocritical example of, speaking generally of these things, business decrying "the nanny state" while actually engaging and encouraging it, full force.

It's just that _they_ want all the nanny's attention and preferential treatment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why is Amazon negotiating/receiving offers from outside the gov't? Seems odd.

They could pick a specific city and the city council could say "hell no" or just be unable to pass legislation to deliver on it.

<comment><USER11> My cynical side says that this is a feature, not a bug - a litmus test to see whether or not the selected city will be politically pliable under Amazon's significant financial leverage.

Any city that can't pass (or force through) favorable legislation isn't one that Amazon would want to choose long-term anyway, especially viewed in the context of their relationships with local governments in Seattle [0]. The key point here is that this is a descriptive feature that's hard to ask about, but easy to test for.

0: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogervaldez/2018/07/31/good- new...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogervaldez/2018/07/31/good-news-or-bad- trying-to-understand-the-repeal-of-seattles-head-tax/#709534ce7f2f)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, my guess is that the principal function of HQ2 is to increase negotiating leverage with Seattle.

<comment><USER13> Not unlike Apple bullying Cupertino. They got their huge HQ without much alteration.

Speaking of Cupertino, right near there, a huge battle to allow I think 1,000 units replacing a dead shopping mall. All the usual complaints of traffic.

So 1000 apartments would have intolerable traffic, but 25,000 people in one building won't, seemed to be the argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The only reason why they would do this is for plausible deniability. If it turns into a disaster, then they can claim they didn't do anything about it. It's pretty disgusting to think we're that stupid, but journalists will just take the lazy way out.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'll be stunned if they end up anywhere other than northern Virginia and if nova gives than much more than token incentives. They have a huge presence there already and if they want to negotiate for big government contracts it helps to be nearby.

<comment><USER16> Same, although I can see some cooperative deal w/ DC and possibly MontCo (MD).

However, I heard the Virginia's governor speak about this broad topic, and given what he'd already indicated the state had done to attract tech and defence sector bis, I pretty much consider NoVA to get something.

He also mentioned that consultants do much of the footwork to feel out which which locales will provide the be$t offers. He indicated that such consulting is actually a billion dollar industry and that to even be a viable contender in such races, cities/states must offer _some_ incentive(s).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What prevents the elected city officials from voting No on the package once it is accepted by Amazon and revealed? Anything with legal teeth or just public pressure?

<comment><USER18> If it works like in Congress they will have only very limited time to understand the package. And more importantly they won't have had any input during negotiations. There is a lot of pressure so it would be much easier to add their concerns during the process instead of saying "No" at the end. They pretty much have to vote with a gun held against their head.

<comment><USER17> So that gun is... What? Besides losing the next election, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Usually tax deals or tax holidays are offered to entice prospective companies but given Amazon's US tax burden is already nearly zero what else can these cities offer, free land, protection from unions?

Amazon seems unlikely to choose a city randomly, its likely to already have decided which city suits it best in terms of logistics, efficiency, cost and available labour pool so this seems to be an elaborate game to squeeze its preferred city.

<comment><USER20> In 2017 Amazon recorded a $137 million refund for US federal income taxes. However, nationwide it paid $211 million in state corporate income taxes. It also pays property tax and sales tax (on things Amazon itself buys). Reportedly Amazon paid ~$250 million total in taxes to Washington state in 2017. [1]

Maryland's "Promoting ext-Raordinary Innovation in Maryland's Economy (PRIME Act)", signed 4/25/2018, provides credits against all these kinds of taxes [2].

[1] [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon- paid-250...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon- paid-250-million-in-washington-state-and-local-taxes-in-2017-source-says/)

[2] [http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&...](http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&stab=01&id=sb0877&tab=subject3&ys=2018RS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Capitalism is disgusting.

World's richest man is going to rob two cities blind with promises of jobs. Just a massive giveaway to the man who literally has the least need in the world.

Guess they don't want the people actually having any say.

> pitched the idea of Amazon University, with a customized curriculum > developed in partnership with Amazon and local universities

Just gonna go full company town I guess.

> added $38 billion to Seattle's economy from 2010 to 2016.

and made it impossible to get a modest tax passed.

> "They are about ending inequality and creating more inclusive cities," said > Richard Florida, a professor at the School of Cities and the Rotman School > of Management at the University of Toronto. "Now they're in a game competing > with one another to throw money at one of the most powerful companies in the > world run by one of the world's richest men."

Yup, because they want to be able to say they brought amazon in. It fucks over the people who already lives there, increases inequality, and ultimately doesn't really help that many people other than Jeff.

<comment><USER22> This comment violates the HN guidelines. We don't want ideological battle here (not to mention low-rent rants). That's not because we're capitalist pigs or socialist moochers; it's because it's all repetitive and therefore boring, and it leads directly to flamewar. All scorched earth is the same.

You've been posting a lot of this for a long time. We ban accounts that do that, so I've banned this one. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email firstname.lastname@example.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended. In the meantime, would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with?

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

<comment><USER23> I don't have a bone to pick in this back and forth, however there's something I don't fully understand from dang's comment: what does "low-rent rant" mean? Never heard the expression before and I don't know if it's a pun to the subject of the article or something else entirely referencing the tone of the OP's comment.

<comment><USER22> By "low-rent" I just mean easy, cheap, and of dubious value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> DC should just let Amazon run the city government as Amazon sees fit. I wouldn't mind living in an Amazon company town, I bet they'd shape things up around here.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, high-ish salaries. Everyone works until 10pm. Get off work and get drunk. Complain about how Amazon took away your life and cost you your marriage, but hey they offer free marriage counseling now as a result (true story).

Rinse and repeat.

That's what I see around SLU.

Amazon is incredibly efficient, and that's good. But please don't let them take over a city with their work life culture.

<comment><USER26> If anyone wants Amazon to take over any sort of public space they should come experience the local vitriol towards all things Amazon here in Seattle.

I was interviewing at AWS just last year and one of the interviewers(in a Virginia/remote work setup) went so far as to admit he doesn't wear any amazon branded shirts or swag when he is in town.

<comment><USER6> That's not Amazon's fault. That's the rage of the incompetent lashing out at the most convenient target rather than focusing on bettering their own situation. And yeah, Amholes are a thing, just stay away from the Amholes (hell I once punched one after he intentionally shoved me and the way he backed down when he realized I was ready to beat him to a pulp was priceless), but I don't personally buy into the current agenda of punishing nerds for being nerds that seems to be in vogue these days.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ClamCase Turns iPad into Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/clamcase-turns-ipad-into-laptop/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GearFactor+%28Blog+-+Gadget+Lab+%28Gear+Factor%29%29

<comment><USER2> If this takes off, it will really leave Apple with egg on it's face. They will have to admit (even if only internally) that they didn't get the form factor quite right.</comment>


Ask HN: Is AI essentially just linear algebra? - <AUTHOR> Honest question here. After doing some preliminary research (out of interest, not for professional purposes), it seems like AI is essentially linear algebra and tweaking variables in the equation. Is there anything else happening here or have I missed something? Be gentle. This isn't my specialty and I'm interested just for interests sake. <comment><USER2> No.

linear algebra is a part of AI but AI is not just linear algebra. I would say linear algebra is used most with machine learning with is also a part of AI.

This diagram is what you're looking for. linear algebra would be its own bubble within AI. -[https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-9854e5bb9573b26c66caff...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-9854e5bb9573b26c66caffcf9cb9001a-c)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great diagram! Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Kinda, but you gotta stir it. [https://xkcd.com/1838/](https://xkcd.com/1838/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great cartoon. It's funny but it's essentially what I'm feeling about the topic. The stirring is the variable modification, no?

<comment><USER3> Tuning your hyperparams, activation functions, etc. It is great. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of machine learning is just linear algebra and applied probability (statistics). AI, however, is typically more a combination of logic and probability resting on a foundation of linear algebra. See AIMA.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I understand correctly (and I am very much not an expert), deep neural nets can't be purely linear. The "adding inputs to produce an output" part has to have a nonlinearity in it, or the nets don't work well.

Source: Attended a couple of hours of lecture on neural nets for speech recognition. (Yeah, that gives you a pretty accurate picture of the depth of my knowledge here. But if the lecturer was right, the neural net part of AI can't be linear algebra. It's linear-ish, but not linear.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends on the approach. If you go with statistical learning, it's more a mix between statistics, calculus and linear algebra. It's my favorite approach though, because it makes you feel less like the comic posted below.</comment>


Bubble barriers: a smart solution to plastic pollution in rivers - <AUTHOR> https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/en/ <comment><USER3> This is fascinating and clever.

But the cynic inside me fears it would never make a difference. First of all, one common statistic is that 90% of trash in the ocean that comes from people dumping it (in rivers) comes from just 10 rivers, all in China/Asia.

And if they cared about the problem, they'd already be doing something about it. But it seems like they don't. Because the real solution there is the same as what is done in the first world -- to implement actual municipal trash pickup and urban trashcans etc. If they can't even do that, I have a hard time believing they'll bother with "bubble barriers".

So this seems like something first-world countries would implement... but that's not where the problem is.

But second, it's also common to hear that a large majority of _overall_ ocean plastic comes from discarded industrial fishing gear -- nets and the like. Which this obviously does nothing for.

So while still very clever, I sadly don't think this could ever make a difference. We need to actually solve the much messier human problems of installing trash collection around the world and figuring out ways to monitor and punish fishers who discard their equipment.

<comment><USER4> I think there is now a real will from the chinese government to limit plastic pollution.

For example, waste sorting started in Shanghai a year ago and started in Beijing last June [0].

This is not the usual waste sorting we are experiencing in Europe, for example, since you need to decline your identity and not make any mistake while sorting or you may get charged.

Probably a bit too invasive (this is China after all) but more thorough for what I consider a good cause.

Besides, the first bans on plastic use will take effect on January [1]. This is only for small items now, but this is a first step, and it also includes production of these items, which is especially impressive considering China supremacy on the production lines.

[0] [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3016801/shan...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3016801/shanghai- begins-new-waste-sorting-era-china-eyes-cleaner-image)

[1] [https://www.scmp.com/business/china- business/article/3101241...](https://www.scmp.com/business/china- business/article/3101241/no-plastic-bags-straws-or-hotel-shampoo- bottles-2025-china)

<comment><USER5> You mentioned Shanghai and Beijing, but note that sorting waste isn't new to the country. I was part of a team that installed a single-stream waste sorting system in China in 2007, prior to the Olympics. It was a very impressive system where all garbage would enter at one end and a large array of machines and people would sort the garbage into recyclables, compost, and the rest for an incinerator. It used all the latest tech, mainly from North America.

<comment><USER6> I think current garbage sorting is waaay too inefficient, and this is fundamentally limits the recyclability rates.

This is especially obvious when you talk about stuff made of a lot of different materials.

Picking such things apart for different material streams is impossible to scale.

I was thinking, what if governments were mandating mandatory chemical tagging of all common materials, so you can just shred everything, and then separate materials using machines which can distinguish chemical tags.

<comment><USER7> I think it might be easier to just have machines learn to recognize the top 99.9% of all things thrown away and leave the rest to a a small group (or landfill).

<comment><USER6> The problem, as I stated above, is that you will be landfilling significantly more than 0.01%.

There are tons of unrecyclable stuff in regular household garbage. For example, a packaging made of two incompatible in recycling methods plastics are a waste.

<comment><USER7> I'm describing an approach to sorting. Your response isn't about sorting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, this claims that fish and other wildlife can pass through but they don't seem to explain how it's different from bubble barriers used to deter fish from passing into underwater construction zones related to drilling or pile driving [1].

[1] [https://www.newnybridge.com/protecting-underwater- wildlife-b...](https://www.newnybridge.com/protecting-underwater-wildlife- bubble-curtains-reduce-underwater-pressure-waves-2-2/)

<comment><USER9> In that article the primary purpose seems to be to reduce soundwaves rather than preventing fish from passing through, so both sources are in agreement there that it lessens soundwaves.

Also the pressures could be different. It's not hard to imagine that higher pressure would act as a bigger deterrent to passing through, so maybe that's what they're using at the construction site?

Both the bubble barrier page and the article you linked are fairly short on specifics though, which is a shame. It wouldn't be that hard to write out some pressures...

<comment><USER8> Agree, I hope it's a possible solution. Just thought it was interesting after hearing about the technology a few days ago in relation to sound suppression and rocket launches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this let fish past? Dolphins and whales use bubble corrals as a fishing technique specifically because fish don't like crossing it. I believe it's also being tested as an alternative to shark nets. Presumably this would be a more intense bubble wall, which I would expect to seriously impede the free movement of marine species.

Maybe if it were suspended near the surface of the river so fish could swim under it. That probably wouldn't let much plastic through, as this would only really be effective on floating plastics anyway.

<comment><USER11> See it:

      >|     |
      >|  |  |
      >   |
      >|  |  |
      >|     |

<comment><USER12> Although in the video they don't have breaks and they have it angled to steer the rubbish towards a trap: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_KwF- gf0S0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_KwF-gf0S0)

But they could add breaks:

      > \
      >  \
      >   \   \
      >        \
      >         \
      >          [rubbishtrap]

The biggest problem I could see is that it also traps leaves etc which you would ideally let past as they surely are needed for the river mouth ecosystem? Edit: also what if most of the trash is during storm events - <USER2> system wouldn't work if that were the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jorge-d I think the best solution to avoid plastic pollution is to tax it heavily where it does not make sense, whether it's single use or not.

Also I believe a nice solution to plastic recycling would be for legislators to implement a standardisation of all the bottles / food packaging / etc. so that they all use the exact same type of plastic.

Then once we stop dropping tons or plastic on our ocean and polluting our soils with it, we might end up with a quite-clean environment in the next 50-70y (and pray that there are no long term effects on plastic contamination).

But in the end, the best solution to plastic is definitely to stop using it.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is interesting. There's a related "startup" tackling the problem from a different angle: [https://theoceancleanup.com/](https://theoceancleanup.com/)

They did some research and found that something like the top 5 or top 10 rivers in the world are the source of 80+% of the plastic in the ocean. So they came up with this plastic-filtering-barge design with hopes of placing them at key points in all the major rivers. So far four are built and in operation. Absolutely not a solution but a ton of harm reduction.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOceanCleanup/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOceanCleanup/videos)

<comment><USER14> Both of them hail from Amsterdam! I imagine the bubble idea might have come out of seeing the ocean cleanup barges in operation - they have the problem of interfering with boat traffic where deployed.

<comment><USER15> The Ocean Cleanup hails from Delft. It was founded there, and the concept was 'invented' whilst the inventors were busy with an Aerospace Engineering course at the Delft University.

Different province and about an hour's travel south from Amsterdam

I guess the frisian province is 'Amsterdam Lake District', rotterdam is 'Amsterdam Harbour', The Hague is 'Amsterdam Government Plaza', and Delft is just 'Amsterdam - Burials of Royals + that place with the solar boats and cars and the plastic barges dept' :P

NB: I think that "Amsterdam Lake District" thing really is how its marketed from time to time to attempt to distribute tourism more throughout the country. The rest a bit more tongue in cheek.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If this is the main idea, move it further up on the page if it doesn't break your design goals. I skipped the initial text and went right to it.

[https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/03...](https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/03/Side-view-TGBB.gif)

Great idea. Has it been tested?

<comment><USER17> They claim they are working with Deltares which if you are not familiar is a reference research institute in the Netherlands for Waterway management.

On top of the principle you linked I think an important feature of their concept is that the bubble barrier is diagonal to the waterway so that the debrie is accumulated and guided to a single collection point on the river bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > How much energy does a Bubble Barrier use?

> The Bubble Barrier uses compressed air to create the bubble curtain. > Depending on the scale and length of the Bubble Barrier, this is done by > means of a compressor. The length of the Bubble Barrier has a significant > influence on the necessary energy usage. Our Bubble Barrier uses much less > energy than bubble curtains that are used to separate fresh from salt water > or to prevent oil spills.

Based on them explicitly not wanting to give any numbers and comparing it to much larger and more difficult operations, I'm guessing this is the main issue. It may well work, but costs a lot of energy. Doing that in NW Europe feels like spending a lot to achieve a little, because plastic going into the ocean is a) not primarily from rivers and b) among that which is delivered via rivers, it's not primarily from rivers in Europe.

<comment><USER19> There are a lot of companies developing river turbines that possible could complement this well. I have no idea if they produce the right amount of power though.

<comment><USER18> Good point, though you probably need a strong flow for turbines, which will be an issue for the bubble barrier. And for large rivers that are also deep (i.e. any river that is used for larger scale shipping), the infrastructure seems extreme.

It's one thing to handle a 10m wide canal that's 2m deep, it's quite another to install that system on a river that's 800m across and 10m deep. I believe we'll quickly reach a level where it's not economical to do put a lot of energy into it to catch what little waste there is. On the other hand, maybe there are positive side effects, more oxygen in the water?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting Idea! This seems like an elegant but somewhat expensive solution. Does the power consumed by pumping tons of air 24/7 offset the ecological gains by the system? If this can stop microscopic plastic than it would probably also stop microscopic creatures. Are there shore based ecosystems that rely on those creatures coming to shore, or vice versa?

Anyways still seems worth trying.

<comment><USER14> If it's wind / solar, absolutely. A compressor for that canal run is probably using 1-2KW/h, comparable to a small shop. If the compressor itself is cooled by the water you're even putting back some of the sun or wind energy that would have gone into it :)

<comment><USER21> Your units are wonky. I'll assume you mean 1-2 kW, a unit of power output. kW/h would be a rate of increase of power (e.g. "The generator is producing 500 kW now, and can safely ramp up at a rate of 100 kW/h.")

<comment><USER22> in the US Kilowatt-hour is commonly used like that, and not as a rate of change - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt- hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt-hour)

<comment><USER23> A kWh is not a kW/h. Also, a device used continuously would use a number of kWh over a time period... So kWh/h or kW. If you were discussing a process, you might say it takes so many kWh per cycle, like charging a battery or producing an item, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Future generations will look at our wanton use of single-use plastic like we look at leaded gasoline or cigarettes and wonder what took us so long to legislate banning poisoning our environment. A bubble barrier moves the plastic around, it doesn't decrease its production.

If it helps in some small way relative to decreasing plastic production, great -- no need to let the perfect be the enemy of the good -- but let's keep it in context of decreasing production.

Also, technical solutions to social and behavioral problems tend to create unintended side-effect. Have we considered them?

</comment><comment><USER25> What's the children's book, by a classic SciFi artist in the 70s-ish with well done living in the future illustrations.

One was an underwater habitat and all the fish were kept in vertical cages made of bubbles?

It makes me laugh my childhood wonder turns out to be real, except it's for rubbish.

[edit] The Usborne Book of the Future (1979) had it, but I'm sure it's not the only one - P16 P17 - [http://calameo.download/00081642432fc0bfded26](http://calameo.download/00081642432fc0bfded26) All new ideas are old.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder how this affects other stuff such as plankton or other kind of nutrients...

</comment><comment><USER27> It's unfortunate that these "sexy" solutions get more attention than practical ones. Trash localized in a smaller body of water isn't much better than trash in the ocean, especially since a clogged up river will eventually start leaking trash. The most effective way to reduce ocean trash in the ocean is to build proper waste management infrastructure in developing countries. The only NGO I can find that does this is WasteAid.

[https://wasteaid.org](https://wasteaid.org)

<comment><USER28> The bubbles are only part of the solution. You still need a fairly straightforward extraction method and a landfill or other long term disposal method. This might add up to ~5 dump trucks an hour worth of trash for extreme rivers, but that's not all that expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think this may be a good solution for those countries where trash more or less accidentally ends up in rivers. But what percentage of trash ends up accidentally in the sea, and how much trash is intentionally dumped because it's cheaper or easier? I would assume that's far less than the 8 billion kilos per year quoted on the page.

</comment><comment><USER30> There's already an existing solution for this purpose: [https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/](https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/)

<comment><USER31> That handles plastic that's already floating, whereas this claims to bring plastic to the surface.

The two solutions seem complementary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I could see this working in a shallow stream meandering through the countryside. I don't see this being effective in a deep/fast river. What do those bubble nets look like in a river 50+ feet deep and moving a several mph? Remember that the bubbles get bigger as they rise. I don't think many fish will be happy to swim through a maelstrom of compressed air rushing from giant pipes on the bottom.

<comment><USER19> You could create steps so to speak. So across the river there would be bubble lines that are only 20% or so of the span. Then the plastic would step down until it reaches the other side and fish could swim around the bubble lines.

I realized I probably didn't describe it well... he's a drawing of what I mean [https://imgur.com/a/n9PdT0L](https://imgur.com/a/n9PdT0L)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Doesn't this just encourage more plastic dumping into waterways? Now you can write it off because "it wont harm fish anymore"

Lets create systems where we don't need to dump plastic in waterways at all.

<comment><USER34> "Let's create systems where we don't need to use firewalls/authentication/application patches/defensive programming"

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Defense in depth is a winning strategy.

To be clear: we should also not be polluting/littering/etc. That's part of defense in depth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Would love to see this in action in the chesapeake bay on the east coast.

</comment><comment><USER36> Interesting! I spent some time recently looking into technical solutions for marine aquaculture industry problems, and I saw the same concept proposed as a preventative measure for salmon farms, to reduce sea lice infestation. It was referred to as a "bubble curtain", or something like that. IIRC, I may have also seen it proposed as a measure against harmful algae blooms (HABs).

</comment><comment><USER37> Can this be dangerous to swim through? I imagine that bubble-water has a very low specific weight, causing people to go under.

</comment><comment><USER38> It would be better to have some kind of deposit system.

Any plastic or plastic product importer must pay deposit per weigh of plastic. When used plastic is returned for recycling/burning etc. that deposit is paid to whoever returns it. This way waste plastic would have a price that would make it worth not to throw it away.

</comment><comment><USER39> Solidly into "why didn't I think of that" territory.

Who's got other examples? I'll go first:

In my kitchen, I have a coffee can full of ordinary plastic clothespegs/pins that I use to clip bags shut. They work so much better than occlupanids or even purpose-made bag clips, whether you fold or spin the bag.

<comment><USER14> Why not go the extra mile and use wooden pegs. Less plastic!

<comment><USER40> I am ging to be that guy now: he already _has_ those plastic pegs. Throwing them away and getting wooden ones may _look_ more environmentally friendly, but it isn't.

Avoiding to buy plastic in the future is a good idea. But throwing away perfectly fine plastic stuff you have to replace it with wood stuff isn't.

<comment><USER41> That's the case in my home. We have some supply of plastic clothespins bought years ago, and some of them just slowly migrated to the kitchen. We aren't planning to buy any kind of new ones any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Related: [https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/09/selfish-pochien- chen/](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/09/selfish-pochien-chen/)

</comment><comment><USER43> This technology is already implemented and being used in harbors (I've seen it in Florida) to keep the seaweed OUT of the marina. It was very impressive how well it worked

</comment><comment><USER44> You can see it work in this video: [https://youtu.be/n_KwF- gf0S0](https://youtu.be/n_KwF-gf0S0)

</comment><comment><USER45> If it blocks plastic, what else might it block?

</comment><comment><USER46> Inspired by a Sonic the Hedgehog level.

</comment><comment><USER47> How does it compare or complement the "river cleaner" from the Ocean Cleanup?

</comment><comment><USER48> Off topic, why is bubble sort called bubble sort? Is it because bubbles are slow?

<comment><USER49> Without looking further, I would say it's because elements bubble up as they're sorted.

Edit: Wikipedia [1] seems to agree:

        The algorithm, which is a comparison sort, is named for the way smaller or larger elements "bubble" to the top of the list.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> this rhyme is going to be stuck in my head for a while</comment>


Dr. Fauci throws cold water on conspiracy theory Covid-19 came from Chinese lab - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-throws-cold-water-conspiracy-theory-coronavirus-escaped-chinese-lab-2020-4 <comment><USER2> I really hate how the media keeps conflating the theories that the virus was engineered and that the virus escaped from a lab. Even the title of this article has been editorialized to conflate the two.

I mostly trust what people have said about the virus lacking signs of being engineered or otherwise modified.

That the virus escaped from a lab is totally plausible and has precedent. It is a shame it gets lumped in with the other theory. SARS escaped Chinese research labs twice and there are many other instances worldwide of pathogens escaping research labs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Newsweek has specifically addressed just the "escaped from a lab" theory.

'Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfounded Scientists Say'

[https://www.newsweek.com/claim-that-coronavirus-came-lab- chi...](https://www.newsweek.com/claim-that-coronavirus-came-lab-china- completely-unfounded-scientists-say-1498308)

<comment><USER2> Fundamentally, you are not going to find any direct evidence that the virus came from a lab unless the virus has signs of being engineered (which seems to not be the case).

Only in the last week or so major news organizations have started covering the theory of lab escape of an unmodified pathogen. You can find tons or articles arguing either way.

Given the fact that almost every city in China is going to have wet markets, but Wuhan is one of the few (only?) cities to have labs researching these types of viruses it would be irresponsible to not consider the possibility. Given that the CCP is going to do the utmost to cover up any negative stories you are never going to find any smoking gun level evidence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the Newsweek article?

"The SARS-CoV-2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses — the ones a laboratory would be working with," said Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses.

<comment><USER2> Again, there are many articles that argue either side of this. You can pick and choose quotes however you like.

That being said, you don't believe that a lab that studies novel coronaviruses could be studying a novel coronavirus? There is a history of pathogens escaping labs and there are many more wet markets in other cities in China than labs doing related research. As the simplest approximation just try applying bayes rule.

Additionally, the CCP is an authoritarian regime with a strong motive to cover things up. A refusal to even consider the possibility of a lab escape is willful ignorance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not a "conspiracy theory", it's a theory; and a very possible one.

Lets look at the facts:

1\. The virus came from horseshoe bats, and this kind of bat was not sold at the Wuhan market.

2\. The lab _was_ working on Corona viruses.

Maybe the virus was not bio-engineered, but there is a very very very real possibility it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

<comment><USER4> Then why was the initial outbreak centered around the wet market, not the research lab? A giant coincidence?

<comment><USER3> Its possible one person could have contracted the virus, then traveled to the wet-market, which is about 20 miles away, then spent some time there shopping there and passed it on to others.

Then again, it could have come from the wet market and it could be a coincidence.

I don't want to make this into a left-wing vs right-wing thing.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps you could make it a 'listen to the professional epidemiologist' thing?

<comment><USER3> No. There is no proof that it came from the wet market either. There are wet markets all over China, how come this doesn't happen all the time?

Shit happens, somebody doesn't follow protocol and a virus escapes, how unbelievable does that sound?

For the record, Dr. Fauci is not an epidemiologist, he's just a basic bitch Dr.

<comment><USER6> I've banned this account until we get some indication that you want to use HN as intended. That would include not using a trollish username. You're welcome to email email@example.com if you don't want to be banned.

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


HipChat – Syncing messages across clients (feature request) - <AUTHOR> https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-308 <comment><AUTHOR> Posting this here because it's a fundamental feature missing in HipChat and the issue was created over a year ago. It's quite fascinating to watch how little is being done to address this and how many people have or are threatening to leave HipChat as a result. We ultimately made the decision to ditch HipChat as a result of this.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this a good format for minimum viable products? - <AUTHOR>

This past week, I've been creating sites such as http://frostchat.com and throwing AdWords campaigns at them to test a few product ideas.
Looking at the landing page I just linked to, do you believe it's an effective way to gauge the public's interest in a product (combined with AdWords data), or am I ultimately just wasting my time and money?
This is the first time I've done something like this, so I'm sure it can't hurt to gather feedback on the landing page that I'm using to gather feedback. :) <comment><USER2> I don't think it really engages your target (ie: decision makers), particularly the general discussion example with 'lmfao' and 'breathe idiot'... that sort of thing. It really needs to pop with what differentiates it from an established product such as <https://www.hipchat.com> that sounds to do a similar thing (ie: how you're "developing a new way to communicate with your team online." isn't really obvious). Sorry to sound harsh but hopefully constructive criticism.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't sound harsh at all. :-)

As I (briefly) mentioned in the original post, I'm running a few sites similar to the one I linked to, and only used FrostChat as an example.

What I'm most concerned about is if I'm effectively figuring out which product idea is the most viable using this method (adwords + crappy landing page + comparing which landing pages get the most email addresses). I wonder if zeroing in on one idea to iron out all the kinks (like the language usage issue you brought up) would yield better results.

<comment><USER2> > I wonder if zeroing in on one idea to iron out all the kinks (like the > language usage issue you brought up) would yield better results.

Definitely this, the best measure could only really be taken by engaging (or appearing to engage) with the market. I think you might be selling yourself short otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the real value of this type of testing would come from actually talking to people who are interested in your product.

With that goal in mind, I would change the "I'm Interested" button to a single email submission field with a call to action like "Get Started".

Once somebody submits the field, give them a confirmation message to check their inbox. Then in that email, explain that the product is under development and their feedback would be valuable.

Do you have some specific questions in mind that you want these leads to answer for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> _Do you have some specific questions in mind that you want these leads to answer for you?_

I guess what I need to figure out is how to incentivize visitors to answer my questions (or if they even need incentives in the first place).

I like this idea (even if it creates more stuff for me to test). :-D

<comment><USER3> Although it's a cheesy title, check out the "Letters That Produced Miraculous Results" chapter in Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". It will give you some great ideas about how to get a response from the initial email you send.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought of that. Good idea!

Would you say that the following is an improvement?

<http://frostchat.com/images/contact.png>

<comment><USER3> Nice work! I'm generally pretty immune to copy, but that would definitely get my attention.

Also, good job eliminating the extra page in between clicking the button and the contact page.

The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is the character on the contact page. It's a high quality illustration, but his expression might cause an upset/worried feeling when someone hits that page. Now that your copy is so good, I would consider removing him and just centering the copy & contact form.

Any plans to start a blog about your tests and subsequent product development? I know I'd be very interested in reading it, and I think a lot of other people here would as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I purchased the following pack on graphicriver.net a few days ago:

[http://graphicriver.net/item/business-man- mascot/119027?WT.a...](http://graphicriver.net/item/business-man- mascot/119027?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=e5302)

I'll think I'll have to run some A/B tests to see what effect the little guy and his different expressions have on visitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My experience with AdWords has been that it's hard to get enough traffic to give you meaningful data about interest or conversion rates.

That being said, if your particular keywords can bring you a lot more clicks per day than I've gotten, it's probably worth a shot.

I think if you really want quality feedback on your product, though, you'll need to reach out on a human level. Contact everyone you know, people you don't know but who might be interested, etc..</comment>


Career change - <AUTHOR> I'm a tech geek who didn't know what to do in college and got talked into going the easy route and studying Accounting for a guaranteed job after graduation (this was after Enron failed and accounting was briefly considered "sexy"). I worked as a programmer for my university job and took some basic CS. I really miss the creativity of creating something and wish that I had studied CS, engineering, or a hard science. I liked my job when there was still some mystery, but I've gotten to the point where I'm looking for the next intellectual challenge. Since I have a masters in accounting and that is where my job experience is, I'm afraid that it will be hard to change careers into something more fitting my personality. I'm thinking of going to school for an MBA in entrepreneurship and starting over, but wanted to get some advice. I'm pretty tired of just being a cog in the corporate machine and would like to feel like I'm contributing something to society/humanity. Perhaps a socially conscious start-up? I do also have non-profit and international experience. My former boss said I should get back into programming so I could be making things again. Thoughts? <comment> barry-cotter 1\. Don't do an MBA to do entrepreneurship. You would be far better off finagling your way into a job in an early stage startup, seeing what's going on and getting experience in a company without lots of structure and procedure. See spencerfry's take on what even someone who's not overwhelmingly technical can do in a startup[0]

2\. If you do an MBA, do an accelerated one [1],[2]. If you're considering changing because you've plateaued in your professional growth you may just need a change of area and that's where MBAs are good, but if you have a Masters already you've spent enough damned time in college without doing more than is absolutely necessary.

3\. UChicago has a CS Masters that I believe is more welcoming to students who don't fit the traditional profile for people wanting to do CS. I imagine it's pretty brutal though.

[1]<http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do>

[2][http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020425140457434...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574344594232539808.html)

[3][http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_mbamainchart_...](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_mbamainchart_20090910.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very interested in the start-up culture and definitely agree that I've done enough school for the moment and am ready to get to work. I think the thing to do is just get back to coding and getting into the community to see where it can take me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I earned my BS in accounting, but now I'm a developer. Your story sounds a lot like mine. A few thoughts:

* Logistically, changing careers out of accounting/finance is relatively simple. Just explain it like you already did.

* A MBA is a ticket into the corporate machine, not a ticket out.

* You should start programming again. There is significant demand for accountants with developer skills. Your boss is also right.

After leaving my accounting/finance job, I took a year "off" to build a web app, then worked at a non-profit, now working at a great midsize interactive agency.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry for the late reply. Did you have to go back to school or were you able to be hired on the merrit of your web app? Do you think that not having a formal CS degree has been detrimental to your career?

I do plan to start programming again. My experience was mainly Perl with some VB and Java thrown in. I've heard good things about Python and am going to try it out.</comment></comment>


Liar, a Con Artist and a Snitch. His Testimony Could Send a Man to His Death - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/hes-a-liar-a-con-artist-and-a-snitch-his-testimony-could-soon-send-a-man-to-his-death <comment><USER2> Saw this from the Reddit thread about the recently freed convict on r/IAMA. Quite a harrowing read.</comment>


Sunset District house receives 18 offers, goes for half-million over asking - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/S-F-real-estate-over-bidding-Outer-Sunset-25th-Av-11102327.php <comment><USER2> Even more insane : [http://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15439048/silicon-valley- teard...](http://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15439048/silicon-valley-teardown- sold-home-house)</comment>


Apple products are back on EPEAT, glued-in batteries and all - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/13/stop-the-presses-apple-admits-it-made-a-mistake/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a lot about this Apple/EPEAT story that doesn't add up to me. I'd be fascinated to read some educated speculation as to what exactly happened, and why.</comment>