PostgreSQL 13 Beta 1 Released - <AUTHOR> https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/2040/ <comment><USER2> The only thing I want for PostgreSQL is a better backup/restore. SqlServer is so easy. You backup a database and restore it and never have any issues. You connect the users in the instance to the users in the database and away you go.

PostgreSQL will allow a backup and then epic fail on the restore if you don't have users and roles etc pre defined.

It's the hardest thing to achieve in PostgreSQL.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's because you're using the wrong tool for the job. You are using pg_dump on a single database, or set of databases. Use pg_dumpall: [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pg- dumpall.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pg-dumpall.html)

For an actual backup solution, not one off stuff, use a tool like pgbackrest. It's just way better.

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure I've tried dumpall before but honestly cannot remember but you're right do use dump.

I'll give dumpall a go today. I do still feel this could be improved in PostgreSQL because there's sooo many blog posts who suggest dump and none of them work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Super excited for the improvements to btree indexes, that is some interesting work and very impressive results. The improvements to pg_stat_statements will be very welcome too!

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone still on Postgres 9.6, does anyone have advice on how to make the business case for upgrading to 10, 11, or 12? I want to upgrade but I have a hard time articulating the benefits against the costs of downtime and risk

<comment><USER5> With the upgrade from 9.6 to 10 we improved performance by 20% without doing any other changes. From 10 to 11 it was pretty similar, saw a 15-20% performance increase.

We haven't made the jump to 12 yet, we expect overall performance to be lower but disk I/O to be improved.

If performance doesn't matter and you don't need any of the new features you'll have a hard time finding reasons to upgrade. I consider 9.6 to be very stable.

<comment><USER3> While it may be very stable, the business case for upgrading sooner rather than later is not being behind the 8-ball when 9.6 EOL comes in a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one eagerly waiting on postgres to transition away from the process per connection model? It seems like that is the only glaring con for postgres compared to SQL server. This would really put the nail in coffin for MySQL and other alternatives.

<comment><USER7> There is a proposed change that improves connection scaling signficantly:

[https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/flat/20200301083601.ew...](https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/flat/20200301083601.ews6hz5dduc3w2se%40alap3.anarazel.de)

This should be either in Postgres 13 or 14, not sure how they decided in the end.

<comment><USER8> Strange, they really wanted it for 13 and allowed it to be committed post feature freeze, but then all discussions stopped after April. And I couldn't find anything else in the mailing list.

<comment><USER9> There was a long discussion about multiple patches that "almost made it" on an internal release list. Ultimately, the conclusion was not to push them after the code freeze date (which was already extended by a week).

Obviously, it'd be great to get those patches in, but there's always the risk of pushing something that may not be quite ready yet, did not go through sufficient review etc. Which might disrupt the whole release schedule, make the stabilization phase longer, etc. And all the lockdowns around the world just amplify the risk. There's also the question whether it's worth breaking the rules the project adopted over the years. Considering all this, it probably makes sense to leave this for v14 ...

But yeah, it'd be great to have this in v13, had it been ready before the code freeze.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. At least we know it should be coming in PG 14. Hopefully Zheap too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love Postgres, it's an incredible piece of software, I have to say though, this is the least exciting update I've seen, in the last 10 years that I've been using it. Probably because it's now so capable, the only major missing feature for me is, automatic incremental update to materialized views, one of the few important remaining advantages that Oracle has over Postgres.

<comment><USER3> This release had quite a few patches that just weren't quite ready to go out yet, so were not included.

There was some work done which reduces the per-connection overhead and allows many many more direct PG connections before performance degrades, while increasing overall performance with high connection counts by a ton...but it just wasn't quite ready and missed the deadline by a little.

The memory based stats collector is another patch in the same vein, where it wasn't quite ready for 13.

That said, many of these features are quite impressive and will offer nice wins for many workloads, incremental sorting is very cool, as is the memory bound hash aggregation.

I'm with you on automatically updated materialized views, it's been something i've needed and been waiting for a long while now, and I am hoping it gets more focus. The current patch-set being worked on for it seems to have quite a few limitations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > PostgreSQL 13 continues to improve operability on Windows, as now users who > run PostgreSQL on Windows now have the option to connect over UNIX domain > sockets.

I'm curious about this!

<comment><USER12> Windows 10 brought in support for AF_UNIX: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/af_unix-comes- to-...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/af_unix-comes-to-windows/)

<comment><USER11> Nice! Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Zheap didn't make it?

<comment><USER3> Not yet, they have done much work on the pluggable storage API, but I haven't seen much discussion on the mailing list at all about zheap in a while but work seems to continue with it.

<comment><USER14> Pluggable storage would potentially be useful for YugaByte as well. PostgreSQL will see even more innovation in the years to come. Well done PostgreSQL community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Still hoping for a transaction manager so I can implement 2PC using postgres_fdw.

<comment><USER16> I don't know your use-case exactly but every distributed system engineer should know that 2PC is extremely dangerous.

It is a blocking protocol, This mean if the coordinator crash , some participants will never resolve their transactions.

After a participant has sent an agreement message to the coordinator, it will completely block until a commit or rollback is received from the coordinator but this will never happen.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the warning - I agree that there are dragons. I have some well- constrained use-cases, and would love to obviate the need for "yet another microservice."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it frustrating that stored procedures can't start and stop transactions. Without that ability, you can't really move application logic into the database.

[edit: Doh, I'm wrong. Sorry. I'll leave the comment here.]

<comment><USER18> Sure they can. See example here: [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/plpgsql- transactions...](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/plpgsql- transactions.html)</comment></comment>


Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Here's What It Takes - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3019847/think-you-can-live-offline-without-being-tracked-heres-what-it-takes <comment><USER2> Moral of the story: to really disappear, you're going to need to go live in a forest somewhere or move to the high plains of Tibet.

Potentially useful information, if there's mobsters after you.

The RFID tags in tires is a perfect illustration of why it's going to be practically impossible to live in the modern world and cover all your tracks. I certainly didn't know there are tags in tires (which, BTW, is a nifty idea), and there are doubtless hundreds of other tracks I leave. Who could possibly cover them all? It would be like trying to make a sieve water-tight, except you don't even know where half the holes are!

Now, if we're talking about the NSA and not mobsters, and you are less concerned with being un-findable than you are with hiding your activities- there are different games you can play, and I'd bet you could be more successful. Behave in an ordinary fashion 99.9% of the time. Just look at the intelligence operations sixty years ago. Spies didn't hide in holes so no-one could find them, they blended in.

<comment><USER3> I agree, it's not all your activity you want to keep secret (in which case move to the forest), it's the secret activity. It's not secret when you walk to the store, and it's not secret when you post a photo online or check into a location. However, there must always be a method for secret communication, and of course there is now, it's just not as convenient as the non-secure methods.

<comment><USER4> I don't know. I have a tendency to get noticd merely for being different. I have genuine concerns about ordinary, nonsecret activities of mine taking notice. But that concern is mostly not relevant to the kind of intelligence being discussed here.

/pedant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked for a big company where security was a big thing. I had to have an ID badge to enter the building. My boss once admitted to requesting the logs to determine if people on the team were really showing up on time to work. So I was aware the information could be used in let's say a predatory fashion for things not immediately obvious.

However, I once had an ugly run in with another employee I did not know while in the parking lot. I went to security to look at film and try to ID them. We were not able to ID the employee. We checked film from the stairwell I exited through and caught a glimpse of the person, but you only had to swipe your ID to get in, not to leave. So, no, there was no timed ID badge record to match the picture against.

I was surprised by the outcome. Given the ID badges and security cameras, etc, I had expected a Star Trek style set up. No, not remotely.

I am well aware info can be used against people. That mostly scares me in cases of hostile intent. And where you have hostile intent, it almost does not matter what info they have. They can spin it as something bad anyway.

At this point, I think being innocent is mostly not a defense either. I hope things change. Currently, there is a lot of assumption of guilt and, to me, that is the real problem.

<comment><USER5> The big issue with using access control and security cameras for tracking people is that they are some of the worst possible ways to track someone. As you discovered, it really comes down to a bunch of tedious scrubbing through video trying to find the few seconds of interesting video. Access control makes it somewhat easier, but then you have issues when people just follow another person in instead of using their fob. Tracking people via cellphones and other similar methods is far easier and effective right now.

You could make a lot of money in security if you were able to come up with a reliable way of tracking people via surveillance cameras, particularly in mapping persons movements and identifying when they aren't behaving as expected. Unfortunately this is exactly where it gets too easy to invade people's privacy. It is just a matter of time before we are able to do this, and we really need to have some way of limiting the invasion of privacy while still allowing for these systems to be used in positive ways.

<comment><USER4> I had fantasies there would be videotape with legible audio of the first encounter in the parking lot and pics of the second encounter at the access road next to the parking lot. There were no cameras trained on either the parking lot or the access road. The camera in the stairwell had no audio and I kind of want to say it took stills every couple of seconds or something, not video, but I do not really recall. Regardless, I was shocked. The cameras everywhere and ID bagdes, etc, turned out to be far less Big Brother Is Watching You than I had believed prio to that incident.

As far as privacy in the future, I think one thing that will happen will be cultural adaptation. I think that is already occurring. I often discuss "personal" things online with acquaintances and strangers that I rarely discuss in person with acquaintances or strangers. This has nothing to do with being shy and everything to do with opportunity to have a meatier discussion online. If I need to give a lot of background info, I can do that online in ways I cannot do in person. For example, I can give links that give additional info for those that need it.

So I think new technology is already redefining what kinds of info are socially acceptable to divulge and changing how people react to knowledge about things that were previously much more deeply secret. As technology continues to evolve, we will face new questions about situations that never existed before. These days, people routinely wrestle with questions about handling social media, online privacy, etc. Those were questions that did not exist when I was growing up. No one has outlawed FaceBook even though, for example, people have been fired for things they said there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Ritter, for instance, recently met an insurance executive who always pays for meals with cash because he believes some day that data will be linked to his coverage. "I'm not saying this is a definite thing that happens," Ritter says. "but I don't see any definite reason why it couldn't. "_

Don't let it stop there. Buying a six pack for the weekend? Watch your healthcare premium go up by like 0.001% or something like that because insurance companies have calculated precisely how likely one alcoholic drink will cause them problems down the road in terms of them administering costs related to alcoholism or something. Very scary stuff.

<comment><USER7> Are they wrong? Did you _not_ just increase their liability by 0.001%?

I guess I'm still having a hard time squaring personal responsibility with this idea of complete anonymity. It's not that we shouldn't be able to hide anything, but like the article said, it's just not possible (or even reasonable to expect) to hide everything. Existing in society leaves a footprint, especially in cases like license plates - they're _designed_ to aid in tracking, what's the surprise that they're being used to do exactly that?

<comment><USER8> > Are they wrong? Did you not just increase their liability by 0.001%?

If people with lower risks didn't pay for people with higher risks, there'd be no insurance market.

If you can perfectly predict what's going to happen to someone - and you charge them all exactly what it's going to cost, + your overheads, then there's no reason they should buy insurance rather than putting the money into an investment plan. Actually they'd probably be better off with the investment plan.

Insurance is like gambling, what does the insurance company know that you don't? What do you know that they don't? If they get really good at predicting your health, then being accepted for an insurance scheme would be a really strong argument to do something else with your money.

<comment><USER9> This is simply not true. People are risk averse, and buy insurance to protect them from unlikely negative outcomes, not because they believe that the insurance company will, on average, pay out more than they pay in premiums.

I can invest $200 a month for the next 10 years, or I can buy health insurance. On average, I will have more money after 10 years of investing. But the additional $24,000 of savings will increase my happiness very little relative to getting the healthcare I need in the case of a catastrophic injury or illness. So I'll gladly lose a little bit of money every month (statistically) to avoid the possibility of that outcome.

Edited to add: one way to think of this is to pose the following thought experiment. Imagine that tomorrow you have a 50% chance of doubling your wealth and income, and a 50% chance of losing everything. What would you be willing to pay to _guarantee_ that you keep your current wealth and income? If you're like most people, the answer is nonzero and positive. That's how insurance companies make money.

<comment><USER8> This is a good point, and I have to admit I hadn't thought of it from quite that angle. I guess I'd have to reiterate my point to diminoten; that being in the same risk pool as people with a higher risk is a questionable decision. Certainly my risk might not be perfectly predictable, but to the extent that it is predictable, I don't see why I should pay for you as well.

If I set up a company that just took enough from you to cover your predicted risk - and the risks of people like you - plus some small charge for me, I could charge you less for it than a company that tried to cover everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A horrible article.

Offline? The lady has a tech-startup in SanFrancisco.

Untracked? Still possible to track her. There is nothing you can do to prevent it. If you want to buy a house, you're going to need credit, if you want credit then you're going to be tracked. That's just the way it works in developed nations.

It is one thing to be mindful of security. Protecting your data, understanding the limits of cryptography, not giving away important information via social media or to people who don't need it, is all important things to know.

In a digital world you leave behind a digital footprint. Having one isn't the problem. Controlling it is.

edit: Being untraceable is impossible and a thing of the movies. The moment you are born and issued a birth certificate, your digital footprint has started.

The thing to remember is that isn't a bad thing...

<comment><USER11> Even if you paid cash for that house, the tax records can be public.

<comment><USER12> If you can afford it, you pay to found a private company, and have that purchase the house. Preferably with cash, and have the company registered in an offshore tax haven.

<comment><USER13> Even the 'onshore' tax haven of Delaware allows anonymous corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find it very odd how they do not include "proprietary software" in that list. Because that is where true freedom ends. Anything offline can actually be online. And you wouldn't know. Because it are proprietary closed circuit systems which you do not know the intent of.

</comment><comment><USER15> Basically, if you can be observed by a person, then you can definitely be "tracked" by a computer.

The thing is, I've never been that upset about this. Technology has only made something that was _possible_ into something that's now _feasible_ , namely observing the public actions of many people to determine what they're doing.

I've always known, even as a kid, that if we scattered many small detecting devices (cameras, microphones, RFID tags) throughout the world, something that is not illegal or bad in and of itself, that we'd pretty much all be track- able.

Did no one think that putting RFID chips all over the place might make a rough point cloud out of nearly everything in the world? Or that simply by interacting with any computerized system it's possible it can be tracking literally ever _bit_ of your interaction with it? Or that it's possible to make cameras so ubiquitous as to make most of the world monitor-able?

Seriously, did the world not see this coming? I know one of the first things I thought of when I saw lots of security cameras somewhere like the airport as a kid was _" I bet you could design something to track all the people in this airport using those cameras. That would be sooo cool."_

<comment><USER16> Yeah, most people did not. I know, I have been saying this for years... ever since I studied ipv6 in the olden days (the 90's). All but one or two people I ever discussed the "trackability of everything" with was like, "What the hell are you tripping on?"

The point is that everyone is a target. For a mugger, an ex lover, a political opponent, a boss, an employee... everyone is a target. That should (IMO) make everyone at least a little wary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Facebook and Twitter already run photos posted on their sites through a > Microsoft-developed system called PhotoDNA in order to flag those who match > known child pornography images... "Every time you upload a photograph to > Facebook or put one on Twitter for that matter you are now ratting out > anybody in that frame to any police agency in the world that's looking for > them,"

This was news to me. Jezus, everyone on every photo?

<comment><USER18> [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/22/twitter- ph...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/22/twitter-photodna- child-abuse)

<comment><USER19> How do we get from "hash of the image" to "unique face identification of everyone in the image"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One interviewee had a credit card in a fake name. How legal is that exactly?

<comment><USER21> It is illegal to defraud and impersonate. There's nothing illegal about using multiple names (again, so long as there is no intent to defraud or impersonate).

<comment><USER22> I'd be very careful there ... the notion of "structured transactions"[1] is about as wide-reaching as a RICO indictment, and can be used for just about anything.

Even a sniff of a notion that you did that to avoid any kind of tax[2] categorizes it as a "structuring" which "may be punished by a fine or up to five years in prison, or both."

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

[2] Regardless of whether that's true or not ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ironic: I use Ghostery to block website trackers, and it identified thirteen of them on that article.

<comment><USER24> Alanis level irony: millions of people use Ghostery and most aren't aware it tracks them and sells their data.

<comment><USER25> _Alanis level irony: millions of people use Ghostery and most aren 't aware it tracks them and sells their data._

You have to actively turn the reporting on, it is not the default. It isn't a hidden option either, it is the very first one on the configuration page.

<comment><USER24> Off by default yes but blocking trackers is also off by default and as soon as you hit the settings they promt you to opt in. And if you're opted out you can be sure that every few weeks to a month Ghostery will update and try to get you to mess with it's "redesigned control panel". This is less annoying than YouTube's constantly trying to trick you to sign up for G+, but it's still annoying behavior that 90%+ of addons avoid.

And they downplay the sales angle [1] and fail to mention that they sent every url you visit back to their servers in the clear [2]. That's fine if it doesn't bother you but it strikes me as shady and disingenuous on Ghostery's part. Anyone who feels likewise should check out Disconnect [3] which is open source and breaks fewer sites.

[1] Although not as egregiously as in the past. Here is how they originally pitched GhostRank: _Ghostery provides reports to Evidon about advertisers and data collectors, which Evidon then provides to regulatory agencies like the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Direct Marketing Association, parts of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA)[2]. These agencies then use those reports to monitor how Online Behavioral Advertisers operate and, when needed, refer them to the Federal Trade Commission._

[2] [http://wtf.cyprio.net/ghostrank-logs-every-visited-url-in- cl...](http://wtf.cyprio.net/ghostrank-logs-every-visited-url-in-clear)

[3] [https://disconnect.me/](https://disconnect.me/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Trying to remove tracks is precisely the wrong thing to do. You have to keep a trackable presence of some sort or you will look suspicious and receive extra scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Friends can be an impediment to a life off the radar."

Top 1% of the super paranoid indeed. While I understand the reach of the government and the lengths they'll go to gain information - this article is absolutely ridiculous to me.

I like my friends, I like to travel, I like to do things. Effectively letting the government control your life because you are afraid of what they MIGHT do? Give me a fucking break.

<comment><USER28> Bully for you that you don't perceive an issue here.

The fact is beyond dispute that the social services in widest use actively turn your friends into informants on you. If that doesn't bother you, fine-- but don't mock the people for whom that is an uncomfortable reality.

<comment><USER29> Bit off topic, but I actually just disabled all my social media, and you know what? I don't miss a single soul and I feel really good again, more energetic and enthusiastic even. I just realized I really only do have about 5 people I should keep in contact with. Everyone else was a relationship that was kept up just from virtue of existing, relationships that would never make it into real life.

I feel free.

For the first time I took a walk in the park yesterday, rolled a joint, went for a nice breakfast and coffee at a local diner, read the newspaper, and just sat in the park. It was amazing not feeling pressure to make everyone immediately aware of how fucking awesome of a morning I've had. It was actually unreal. I just sat there looking at a bird and I almost just broke down and cried of happiness.

I felt zero pressure doing anything.

It felt as though I was obligated to post everything cool I did, so when doing those things, I'd do them differently just to fit the specific paradigm that I post in just to one up others.

A feeling has left me that I hadn't identified before that I mistook as depression. I was growing more apathetic, sad, and cynical due to social media because it felt like every little thing I did was in competition in some form or another to others online, and when I failed, I just felt more isolated and lonely.

I'm able to do things consistently without the need to constantly check my phone and compare that specific frame of my life against others. Facebook on the toilet, while cleaning, running, on the bus, at work, on the commute home, too much.

The weeks following deleting my social media I got so much shit done so fast with no distractions. Absolutely amazing. I think I'll write a blog post about this. I bought a tablet, loaded my favourite books on it, and have filled in all my pointless social media time with reading.

I'm actually discovering the city alone for the first time ever and it's wonderful because I don't care what anyone else thinks of what I'm doing, I'm doing it for _me_.

I'm going to grow my beard, cut my hair, buying some jeans, buying some chucks, and then I'm going to relax in a field somewhere and just spend time _not caring_.

<comment><USER30> Social media creates a ton of new needs that it then proceeds to only partially, and unpredictably, fill.

You're just realizing again that you don't really give a shit what your mom had for breakfast, unless you're talking about it with her to pass the time over dinner:)

There's absolutely nothing that anybody has to say to me that can't wait a day (except "the site's down!")

<comment><USER29> I'm going to get a t-shirt saying "Don't talk to me unless the site is down" haha. Yeah, trying to fill that void with social media is like trying to put out fire with napalm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> OA might have unpacked 'being tracked' a little.

Is it a time line of spatial locations?

Or just what I bought for lunch today (therefore one coordinate at a specific time)?

Or a super set of entries in multiple databases?</comment>


Russian Web Pioneer Says Iran Blocks Telegram App After Seeking Spying Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-durov-russian-telegram-app-spying/27317116.html <comment><AUTHOR> This tweet is not mentioned in the article, but contains quite interesting bit of information:

"We are working on a P2P solution that will make the service unblockable. It'll take some time."

[https://twitter.com/durov/status/656583952950513664](https://twitter.com/durov/status/656583952950513664)

</comment><comment><USER2> First it was Moscow after him, now Tehran.

I'd believe he'd be acquainted already how the world works.</comment>


I'm starting a company - <AUTHOR> http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Automatic-user-retention-service.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey hacker news. Long time reader, occasional commenter, new entrepreneur. I'm curious to know what you guys think about the need for product like the one we're building. Super excited and nervous to be taking the plunge. I'm turning 30 this year, and with everything I've learned to date, starting this business just felt right.</comment>


Teen Trades up on Craigslist from Phone to Porsche in 2 Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_15558973

<comment><USER2> I read the article, trying to find what he traded for the upkeep and insurance on a 10 year old Porsche. Unsurprisingly, he's going to sell it (trade it?) soon.

There's a reason why old sports cars seem to cost so little : it's because they'll cost their purchase price again in a few years in maintenance. They have expensive engines, expensive tyres, expensive suspension, expensive interiors. Plus, they get bought by people who like to drive fast and so wear out quicker. And, largely, they aren't servicable by the home mechanic. Consdier the Boxster in the article - you have to have a hoist just to even look at the engine- there's no engine cover or user-accesible access panel.

While a used Porsche is probably the best of a bad bunch of old sports cars (Corvette excepted, to a point) they are only for the person who really knows what they are doing. There's a reason many Ferraris don't ever get past 12,000 miles or so : because they need servicing all the time, and that servicing costs a bomb. In some cases you have to remove the engine for relatively routine jobs like changing a clutch, spark plugs or a water pump, and that costs serious money.

Anyone thinking of buying a 'cheap' sports car should watch one of the many 'Top Gear' episodes where they purchase a cheap sports car from the classifieds/internet and then try and drive them a certain distance, outperform a standard Honda, etc. That should put your dreams on hold for a bit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of my pokemon card days in elementary school. I started with ~5 cards a friend gave me and somehow traded up to a deck of 400-500 with a decent amount of holographics too.

The only time I ever bought cards were a couple booster packs, but that was after I already had 200 some.

Good times.

The art of trading comes from knowing that value is relative, you just need to find the people who want what you have more than others.

<comment><USER4> Is that what is called arbitrage ?

<comment><USER5> Not exactly. Arbitrage is exploiting mispricings of the same item in different markets.

For example, say you buy an iPhone from Craigslist for $100, then turn around and sell it on Ebay for $150, netting you $50.

Or conversely, you get an iPhone for your birthday for free, sell it on Ebay for $150, then buy a second one from Craigslist for $100, netting you an iPhone+$50.

That's arbitrage. It sounds like makeramen's Pokemon trading all happened in basically the same elementary school market.

<comment><USER6> > Arbitrage is exploiting mispricings of the same item in different markets.

There seem to be narrower and wider definitions of arbitrage. Some narrow definitions require arbitrage to be risk-free. Some wider definition accommodate things like statistical arbitrage (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_arbitrage>), which is far from certain and doesn't even use the same items, but just items with correlated prices.

<comment><USER5> True. A broader definition is probably 'exploiting price differentials of correlated assets'.

Market is irrelevant, and both 'same item' and 'different but correlated items' are both subsets. And 'mispricing' presumes there's a true value, which may or may not be case.

<comment><USER6> My personal definitions are backwards from that: I just define `mispricing' as anything that allows arbitrage. (Especially risk-less arbitrage. But you can -- in theory -- make almost all arbitrage as risk-less as you want, with the right derivatives.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Five hours a day at $10/hr for two years could have earned him $30,000 (5x10x600, i'm sure he was bartering during weekends too)

His car only worths $15,000.

<comment><USER6> The article estimates his current car (the Porsche) to be worth $9,000. (By the way, I always thought a Porsche would cost more, even used. Hey, I may get myself one for this price.)

We also don't know what other trades he has made during this time. Judging by the description in the article, he seems to be quite prolific, and has probably also made some money with refurbishing electric gadgets and so on.

And we also learned that he still worked at a sushi bar (but lost the job at some point in time). So he has quite a lucrative hobby, but still did a day job.

<comment><USER8> Porsche's seem to depreciate in price pretty rapidly. I was surprised to find that my used 98 Boxster is now worth only 9k. Bad investment, these cars. And I bought mine used for less than the price of a new Accord. But fun rides!

<comment><USER2> The only cars which are investment grade cannot be driven, and you've got to be an absolute expert to make money on them - like an art expert, knowing what will be in demand in the future.

No car is an investment, unless you're making money from driving it, ie a limo or rental car.

Porsches have some of the best depreciation resistance in the business, but even they can't resist the pull of gravity that comes with use, and the inevitable production of newer, better models. A pristine, low mileage used Porsche is a good buy, a well-used cheap model is best avoided and admired from a distance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It was alarming to read that people tell him he is a con artist. He's a good businessman.

<comment><USER10> He's a businessman, but whether or not he's good is a question for debate. Most people working the same hours have a higher income. Do the math, if the Porsche trade represents all of his "income" from bartering he made $3.6 an hour, if it represents half of his income then he made minimum wage.

It's interesting, and somewhat novel, but hardly astounding or terribly impressive.

<comment><USER11> He's demonstrated being a pretty poor businessman. He's traded down, knowingly, on multiple occasions, and furthermore declined trades of businesses, which generate income, for cars, which depreciate.

<comment><USER12> On the contrary. This article is great personal marketing -- who can deny the hook of "from phone to Porsche?" He gets a great anecdote and branding angle for the rest of his life. I'd say the lifetime value of appearing in this article is easily worth the trading down.

And besides, we can't necessarily exclude the possibility that he negotiated a little cashish on the side while trading down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the points that Charlie Munger makes in his talk on worldly wisdom (<http://ycombinator.com/munger.html>) is that good investors tend to bet heavily when the odds are grossly in their favor and not bet at all the rest of the time.

The teen in this story illustrates how consistent application of this principle yields good results.

This is also how Paul Graham operates YCombinator: he carefully evaluates all the investment opportunities that come his way and only bets on the few that seem to him to be particularly good deals.

More generally, the key to highly profitable business seems to be to focus on servicing profitable customers.

<comment><USER13> YCombinator's strategy is better described by Nassim Taleb's "Extremistan" parable. In Extremistan, most of your gains from stock investing happen from the few investments that make you a lot of money. So it's wise to distribute your investments over a large number of small investments, counting on the fact that your winners cover your expenses for your losers.

This is the opposite of the small number of large investment strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Relative to the amount of opportunity it has, YC is very selective. According to Business Week, YC's acceptance rate is 4.4% (1). For comparison, Harvard's rate is 6.9% (2).

I'm just realizing that besides launching early, working hard, iterating rapidly, listening to your customers, persevering, etc, a big part of success in business seems to be _selection_ : having the discipline and patience to pick the best deals. Deals can involve physical trades (as in the posted article), investments, customers, or even tasks to do. Whatever your process is, a good way to make your outputs above average is to select above-average inputs.

It seems obvious that the way to trade up from a phone to a Porsche is to carefully select your trades. It's not so obvious, at least to me, that the way to run a very profitable YCombinator is to carefully select your founders. Simple selection may be more important than locating in Silicon Valley, having regular dinners with great speakers, offering legal and technical help, and introducing investors. When you start off with great entrepreneurs it's not so hard to make them even better.

I'm naturally a believer in transformation. * If the trade as advertised is not a good deal, let's negotiate and we'll make it work. * If a person is not a good entrepreneur, that can be fixed with the right training program and environment. * If the product is not right for this customer, we'll add features and cut the price until it is right. * If a person has the wrong political beliefs, what is needed is some good logical argument.

This sometimes works, but it is often more efficient to simply look for a better deal: Find someone with a better trade; find someone who's more entrepreneurial, find a customer with more of a need, find a voter who already agrees with you.

1\. [http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2007/sb20070...](http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2007/sb20070926_620433_page_2.htm). 2\. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/3/31/financial-aid- pe...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/3/31/financial-aid-percent- students/)

<comment><USER14> That's more a result of YC's popularity and limited capacity than any desire to be selective. A VC who dicks around with you for months on end and only makes 5 investments a year is selective--YC is just popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _He spends five to six hours a day on his i-Phone scouring the website for good deals._

<comment><USER16> That sounds kinda crazy. 5-6 hours daily for two years could have easily earned him money to buy a Porsche, for cold cash.

<comment><USER15> That's what I thought. But I doubt he actually spends that much dedicated time. Rather he's probably multi-tasking, checking in periodically over the course of 5-6 hours.

I bet he's mastered some important negotiating skills.

<comment><USER17> Yes, for a kid, this was probably an extremely valuable use of his time, and he seems to have had fun doing it. He probably learned more than he would have working a retail or service job, even if he made less money per hour.

My parents are antique dealers, and my grandmother was a junk dealer who owned a thrift store. I grew up going to flea markets and garage sales, and my first business was started when I was twelve (I bought broken Commodore 64s, Apples, and TIs, among others, at garage sales and flea markets, fixed them, and sold them for four to eight times what I paid for them). I worked at my parents store and in their booths at flea markets throughout high school. I'm a ridiculously good salesperson when it comes to interacting directly with a customer, and people are often amazed when they see me in that context because I'm an introvert in nearly every other situation.

In short, having the ability to buy/sell/trade your way up from nothing is an incredibly useful skill, and it can make it possible to weather bad luck in other aspects of life.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps it would have been even better for the guy, if he had traded in person?

<comment><USER17> Perhaps. But, effective ad copy is also valuable. Negotiation is negotiation...though it does take a whole different set of skills to negotiate face to face.

That said, I suspect he _did_ deal in person quite a bit, even if the meeting was made on craigslist. I've sold tons of stuff on craigslist, and there's often a bit of back and forth, either on the phone or when the person comes to look at the item. All things are negotiable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like this is a YC start up in the making.

AirBNB = Couchsurfing/Craigslist rentals

Daily Booth = The "Pic a Day" meme

Along those lines a startup where people can trade their "junk" in a slightly competitive aspirational way. A more social eBay, based around local and some competitive game mechanics that reward big scores.

<comment><USER19> NotifyWire automates Craiglist monitoring. I don't know if it would help the barter system, though, since that relies on judging each trade opportunity.

<comment><USER20> I'm sure NotifyWire violates CL's terms of service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This guy went from a paperclip to a house: <http://www.oneredpaperclip.com/about/>.

A couple of my friends actually got a barbecue from him off of Craigslist. Sadly, I think the transaction only involved money.

<comment><USER22> the red paper clip guy actually hired a pr firm to help him gain publicity and achieve his goal (I knew a guy at the pr firm he hired)

<comment><USER6> Seems like a legitimate tactic to me.

<comment><USER23> Only if he obtained their services by trading something to them that started from the paperclip.

<comment><USER6> Yes, you could hold him to such standards. On the other hand, he has to do some PR for getting his goals -- does it matter, if he does his own PR or hires an agency?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if he has each trade he made published somewhere. It would be interesting to see the exact progression trade-by-trade.

</comment><comment><USER25> That it only took 14 trades to go from phone to Porsche is most impressive. He's gonna have an awesome last year of high school with that ride.

Wonder what his insurance costs?

<comment><USER26> Insurance rates, while higher because of type of car and age, shouldn't be too absurd. Even if he wrecks the thing, the company is only out ~9,000 or so.

<comment><USER27> > Even if he wrecks the thing, the company is only out ~9,000 or so.

Car insurance isn't expensive because cars are expensive, but because people are expensive. You can hurt a lot of people in a fast car, even if it's not expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be interesting to read about all the counter parties to the swaps. Are they still happy with their trades?</comment>


Sony's next-gen application platform built on Objective C/GNUStep - <AUTHOR> http://snap.sonydeveloper.com/pages/about/ <comment><USER3> Honestly I always considered Objective-C to be one of Apple's secret weapon. Both higher _and_ lower level then Java. Objective-C stays closer to the spirit of Smalltalk yet presents no hoop jumping when you need the performance of C.

That, and Cocoa was not designed by morons - protocols and delegation, _not_ inheritance, rightfully rule the day.

<comment><USER4> I'll agree with you on the protocols but not on the delegation. In fact apples engineers are all over the place on applying delegation and event handling. Some components have up to 3 different ways of handling callbacks - delegation, events, and notifications. Delegates are fine when you demand a 1 to 1 handshake, but they shouldn't be used for general callbacks.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, but blocks are going to solve a lot of this. (In a really nice, clean way, to boot.)

<comment><USER6> Agreed, for the most part. Having closures in the language can really take away the repetitiveness of writing delegate protocols and conforming to them. I wonder if they will full absolve the need for delegates?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a great move superficially. Tons of dev's know Cocoa thanks to iOS, and the language and compilers are open.

It will be interesting to see transition difficulty from one implementation to the other.

At the very least, Linux is going to get a serious push for GNUStep, and a ton more dev's if it works out.

<http://fireballed.org/linked/2010/11/24/snap/>

EDIT: Site's nuked for me. Main page cache from the fireballed.org site:

 _Sony's Networked Application Platform is a project designed to leverage the open source community to build and evolve the next generation application framework for consumer electronic devices.

The developer program gives access to a developer community and resources like SDK, tools, documentation and other developers.

The foundation upon which this project is base comes from the GNUstep community, whose origin dates back to the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT Computer Inc (now Apple Computer Inc.). While Apple has continued to update their specification in the form of Cocoa and Mac OS X, the GNUstep branch of the tree has diverged considerably.

The GNUstep core libraries strictly adhere to the OpenStep standard and OPENSTEP implementation. They consider changes and additions to their API only under the following circumstances:

They add methods and classes, either from Cocoa or their own extensions, if they add substantial value and don't interfere with OpenStep and/or Cocoa compatibility. They generally don't remove things unless there is a clearly better implementation in newer Cocoa API Where there is a real problem with a change, they will attempt find a technically superior work-around. In rare cases, this might involve a change in the original OpenStep API

We depart somewhat from the GNUstep adherence in that our goal is to thoroughly modernize the framework and optimize it to target modern consumer electronic (CE) devices. These modern conveniences include such features as touch displays and 3D graphics._

<comment><USER8> I'm sure they aren't writing another phone OS, but what devices exactly are they targeting? TVs, set-top boxes, MP3 players?

I loved the hardware of a Sony MP3 a bought a couple of years ago but it was ruined by absolutely atrocious syncing software. I hope this means they open up their interfaces a little more and let other people integrate with their products.

<comment><USER9> PlayStation 4. It's a Good Thing, but I've been overly optimistic about Sony adopting a policy of greater openness before. IIRC devices classed as computers incur lower import charges in the EU than devices classed as entertainment accessories (ie games/toys). Hence Linux on PS2, PS3, and...?PS4? So far, this has been something of a letdown after launch.

<comment><USER10> > Sony adopting a policy of greater openness

Sony had, a long time ago, a family of Unix workstations. At that time, those systems were called "open" in the sense that they played well with other systems over documented protocols.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> wow. wouldn't have guessed this would happen in a million years.

we are all well aware of apple's successes in the last few years, but they all seemed to be happening in their own little walled-off corner of the world. it's typically apple's tech versus the rest of the industry. now here's a sign that apple's influence is being felt at even deeper levels.

i guess webkit was another sign of this, but that doesn't seem as stark as some other company adopting objective-c.

<comment><USER12> WebKit (and KHTML) is written in C++.

I don't think it had any influence on this decision.

<comment><USER6> WebKit most probably did not have any influence here, but was mentioned because WebKit in the past, like "Cocoa/Objective-C" in this instance, is being used elsewhere. Hence, Apple's technologies are influencing adoption in the industry (yes, gnustep is not from Apple but for the most part, Cocoa is a distinctively Apple technology).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a great coup for GNUStep, back in 2006 when Greg took over as maintainer he posted a blog entry about future plans. Lots of people on slashdot pretty much mocked him and the project.

[http://tech.slashdot.org/story/06/12/26/0342200/GNUstep- Proj...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/06/12/26/0342200/GNUstep-Project-Gets- New-Chief-Maintainer)

ie: "by Psychotria (953670) ...I think this dude is a complete moron..."

Looks like Greg proved them wrong. As they say: "Living well (or rather: doing well in this case) is the best revenge."

</comment><comment><USER14> Site says "SNAP development is currently on hold" (<http://snap.sonydeveloper.com/>). Dead on arrival?

<comment><USER15> Do you think they may have run into legal issues with Apple once news of this project started to spread?

<comment><USER14> Unlikely, since they're based on GNUStep.

<comment><USER15> GNUstep being more or less a re-implementation of Cocoa (and prior to that OpenStep). I'm not suggesting any copyrights have been infringed upon (indeed, I'm an avid user of GNUstep), but I always wondered if GNUstep would fall foul of the same kind of patent threats that Mono detractors seem to feel it is at risk from if it ever gained commercial traction. In fact, Apple has already made legal threats against manufacturers of Android phones, Android having nothing to do with Cocoa or Cocoa Touch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting--they're basing the 2D graphics on Cairo, which is probably the best choice available in the OSS world.

<comment><USER17> I'm too old - when I read this my first thought was "Microsoft's stillborn 90's project?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's especially interesting about this is that Steve Jobs modeled so much of Apple on Sony. Interesting to see things work the other way around.

<comment><USER19> First time I hear about that. Source?

<comment><USER20> Jobs was reportedly greatly influenced by Sony's late-70s/early-80s design sense, especially wildly popular consumer products like the Walkman. This book has a brief mention of Apple sharing a building with a Sony office in 1977, though I could've sworn I've seen a longer discussion somewhere: [http://books.google.com/books?id=W4_P8LDZOmAC&pg=PT38](http://books.google.com/books?id=W4_P8LDZOmAC&pg=PT38). I think Jobs has actually said somewhere that the iPod was intended to be the "Walkman of the 21st century".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the best thing here is that GNUStep is GPL - any improvements - <USER2> there will be many - bringing it to the same functionality level as Apple's equivalent will be also GPL'ed and open for all.

<comment><USER21> Do you know if this will have any implications for applications built on it (will they be forced to use GPL)?

<comment><USER22> GNUstep is actually licensed under the LGPL, so applications that link against GNUstep libs are not required to be similarly licensed. If GNUstep were GPL, however, the app would also need to be GPL'ed.

This is how Trolltech used to charge money for commercial use of Qt. Qt was dual-licensed under the GPL and a commercial license, so GPL'ed software could freely use the library, but non-GPL software would have to pay for the commercial license.

<comment><USER10> Oops... Correct. GNUStep is LGPL.

I should start writing * GPL as I do with * BSD

As for linking proprietary code do GPL'ed libraries, the license is not explicit. However, according to Larry Rosen ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Poin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Point_of_view:_linking_is_irrelevant)) linking, even statically, does not make a derived work (that would be subject to being GPL'ed by accident). Also, the GPLv3 has some different wording. I understand the GPLv3 makes it less likely a program linked to a GPL'ed library will be considered derivative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The thing that surprises me about this is that I took a look in at GNUStep recently and it kind of seems... unloved. I imagine Sony's had its work cut out bringing things up to date. Also, I would be interested to know how much GNUStep code Sony will be using and how much it will be re-implementing. I've heard some pretty average things about the state of the GNUStep codebase.

<comment><USER24> My impression is that Objective-C is pretty big (for a minor league language) in the US, but that elsewhere in the world its use is nearly non-existent.

Most places I've lived you could throw a shoe and hit a Java developer or a Windows (VB/.net) programmer, but you could set a nuke off and not kill any Objective-C programmers.

I think NeXT and Apple never really bothered promoting it outside of the US. Australia has just about the highest level of iPhone usage per head of population, but prior to the iPhone coming out jobs for Objective-C were running at something like one per N-thousand Java jobs. Now the iPhone pops up, and all of a sudden everybody wants an Objective-C programmer with 5 years experience and proven commercial success on the iPhone... well... guess what... you reap what you sow. Because virtually nobody in Australia invested in Mac programming for all those years, you now don't have a deep pool of talent to dip into.

But a similar thing may happen with Android ... anyone that didn't invest in Linux programmers is at a disadvantage.

<comment><USER17> Trust me... it was rare as hen's teeth in the US also, especially during the period after Java came on the scene but before the iPhone.

(In 2001 I found myself looking for work with 10 months' of Java experience, and 8 years of NeXT experience. I doubt anyone hiring had any clue what Objective-C, NeXT, OpenStep, EOF were. Certainly the HR drones didn't.)

Back in the NeXT days, I think interest was primarily in US/UK/Germany, with some interest in France and Japan and maybe some Swiss activity due to the investment banks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In other words Sony feel they need to at least make the iOS brain-drain a two way street?

</comment><comment><USER26> I vaguely remember that there was an Objective-C environment in one of the 90's game consoles. I want to say PlayStation, but it could have been one of the Sega consoles. Anyone know more?

<comment><USER27> It certainly wasn't the PSX, I spent years in MIPS ASM and C on that loveable rogue platform (from hell).

<comment><USER28> I still have a soft spot for MIPS. What a great assembler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What is the meaning of _SNAP has a re-architected display model and backend based on Cairo evolving toward COLLADA over time._

COLLADA looks like an XML based digital asset interchange format.

</comment><comment><USER30> From the chief GNUStep maintainer: [http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2010/11/gnustep-is-not- opens...](http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2010/11/gnustep-is-not- openstep.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> i don't see anything in the article that supports the claim of the title. seriously, did anyone even read it?

<comment><USER32> From the documentation:

SNAP is Sony's Networked Application Platform and is intended to be the basis for future consumer electronic devices. It is planned to evolve this into a complete software stack that will allow third party applications to run on Sony consumer electronics products. This Linux based software stack will include operating system, device specific middleware, general and device specific Objective C APIs including GNUstep, and key applications. The SDK will provide the necessary tools to begin developing Objective C applications for the SN Application Platform.

On a typical CE device hardware resources are much more limited than in the average PC or even a netbook. In order to get the most out of the available hardware it is therefore necessary to control access to scarce resources and manage their use and coordinate sharing them between applications. This is one goal of the SNAP stack. The other one is to provide the application developer with easy to use libraries to access all capabilities of the underlying hardware without reinventing the wheel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

</comment><comment><USER34> this is the secret to dethroning apple.especially if devs can have an open app store with less stringent rules</comment>


What Makes People Click on Hacker News Links? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jasonshah.org/post/16928420725/what-makes-people-click-on-hacker-news-links

<comment><AUTHOR> Just came across a link on SEOMoz that just got published and talks more generally about awesome link titles - may be interesting if this post interested you, too.

[http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/are-your-titles-irresistibly- click...](http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/are-your-titles-irresistibly-click-worthy- viral)</comment>


Ask HN: Producing a physical product (3D printing?) - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN. I'm interested in producing a simple dock for my Nexus One on a semi-large scale. Something simple for sale (a couple of bucks) as I just created a real simple one out of cardboard and think a lot of others would find something similar useful.
Some photos and more details can be found here: http://mini.whalesalad.com/nexus-one-dock
Is there any way to create something simple like this? I've never done anything like it, but have heard things about 3D printers. It could be made out of one solid piece of material. If it made sense.. I'd make them out of clay and put those high school classes to use :) Plastic, plexiglass, composite, anything semi-hard would work. <comment><USER2> hey there Whalesalad,

3D printing is a process that is best used to create prototypes, the kind of thing you are looking for would typically be made with injection moulding.

That's a fairly expensive process though, under 10,000 units it isn't feasible.

A midway is to use epoxy-resin based casting, you make a rubber mould which you can re-use a few thousand times, and you cast your units one-by-one.

The mould eventually wears though, usually because of imperfect releases (for instance when the mould wasn't properly coated with release agent).

How you make your blank is not critical, anything goes, it is the negative mould made from the blank (or 'plug' in the jargon) that you will do majority of the work with.

If you lose it you can always make another one.

Beware of playing with this stuff, these are dangerous chemicals and plenty of the reactions are exothermal and can go runaway on you with little to no warning. Never mix more than you will use and use a very well ventilated workspace.

Keep your stock containers away from the place where your casting set so that if stuff goes out of control you don't have an extra fire hazard.

Enjoy, you'll learn plenty, and please let me know if you use any of this.

greetings,

Jacques

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great comment! Surprisingly everything you said made a whole lot of sense. I guess for now I was more interested in creating a prototype. I have absolutely zero 3D modeling experience, and after giving Blender a try for about 10 minutes I need some Tylenol, heh.

The epoxy casting makes a lot of sense and seems like the best route to do it myself. My dad built his own kayak not too long ago, and I helped him out a lot with the fiberglass coating and epoxy (it's wooden, but it's coated in those things). I guess the hardest part in that sense would be creating a perfect and symmetrical mold, which is where the 3D modeling comes in handy =/

Hopefully I can find some semi-interested hackers or someone here in Honolulu who might be interested in helping with the project. Thanks again for your tips, It's helped push me in a better direction :)

<comment><USER2> You're welcome. If you get stuck mail me, email in my profile.

[http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=silicone+casting+rubbe...](http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=silicone+casting+rubber)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks like your design can be made from flat pieces of material slotted together. If this is the case laser cutting is ideal for this kind of production scale. Most big cities will have laser cutters you can rent time on. You can also upload a design to sites like www.ponoko.com which handle manufacturing and distribution and give you a portion of each sale.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out this video from CES: [http://www.wired.com/video/open- source-3d-printer-turns-desi...](http://www.wired.com/video/open- source-3d-printer-turns-designs-into-objects/61029613001)</comment>


The U.S. Navy Is Having a Hell of a Time Dismantling the USS Enterprise - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a22690208/us-navy-dismantling-uss-enterprise-nuclear-disposal/ <comment><USER2> I bet they could sink it in the deepest sea trench and it wouldn't cost more than $1 million.</comment>


How to nap - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/ <comment><USER2> For those wondering how to nap at the office and not get hauled into the managers office for sleeping on the job, I paraphrase a tip from Scott Adams (Dilbert):

"Grab a handful of paperclips and find an office/meeting room. Shut the door and lie down on the ground with your feet against the door. Sprinkle the paperclips in front of you. Now have a nap.

If someone tries to enter the room, the door will hit your feet. This will naturally cause them to pause (and stops them entering), it wakes you up and lets you reach for the paperclips which gives you a ready excuse ("Oh sorry, I was just picking up the paperclips")"

:)

<comment><USER3> What about sleeping under your enclosed desk? and maybe building a small shelf to hold an alarm clock...

/end lame joke

<comment><USER4> s/lame joke/Seinfeld reference :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I cannot overstate how much power naps have improved my life. I started doing them regularly about seven years ago and have been recommending them to everyone I can since. Napping makes me happier, more alert, and way more productive.

A shameless plug: I wrote a post about how I learned to nap here: <http://unschooled.org/2011/05/how-i-nap>

<comment><USER6> Can you and other nappers here explain how you are able to find somewhere to nap in a busy office environment (and your car isn't available)? For me, lying on the floor would be far too noisy with hundreds of PCs humming away and I would be at constant risk of being stepped on by my colleagues.

<comment><USER5> In the three most recent offices I've needed to nap in, I napped: Sitting on a sofa with my head back against the wall; lying down on an oversized bean-bag cushion; in a computer chair, with my butt moved towards the front of it and my head back against the top of the back (the back wasn't tall enough unless I scootched forward). The last was obviously the least comfortable.

In general, I've found the biggest obstacles are social (i.e., people think you're lazy), not logistical. But these are largely gone for me now that I'm running my own company. My cofounder and I have vowed to not just tell any future employees that napping is acceptable, but to actually keep doing it, so they see that we're serious and feel comfortable napping themselves should they want to.

I'd recommend telling your coworkers/boss that napping makes you more productive, and that you only take one 20-minute nap a day. If they're silly and care about exact minutes worked, just show up a few minutes early or start a bit later.

<comment><USER7> When it comes to the social stigma of taking a nap at work, just ask if they'd prefer you take a smoke break every hour. Usually, people will get the hint. If not, too bad.

<comment><USER8> Former coworker of mine used to take, "non-smoking breaks". I always thought that was clever. Now I feel bad for never telling him so...

<comment><USER9> I used to go for frequent walks... people assumed I smoked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here is a way to generate simple, wonderful pink noise (with a slight tremolo) from the commandline, if you have sox installed. It somewhat mimics the sounds of waves on a beach - I find it very relaxing.

A nice side affect (and the reason I played around with it originally) is that it helps mask tinnitus when it gets too annoying (I find that if tinnitus flares up too loud, it can make it more difficult to fall asleep).

The cmdline:

      play -t sl -r48000 -c2 - synth -1 pinknoise tremolo .1 40 <  /dev/zero

<comment><USER11> Here is one for Star Trek fans:

      play -c2 -n synth whitenoise band -n 100 24 band -n 300 100 gain +20

<comment><USER12> Halfway down the page on <http://www.reallifecomics.com> , there's an hour long loop of this, complete with the random computer blip noises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The lark and owl distinction has been driving me crazy since I thought about my sleeping habits. I spent about 2 years with completely self-determined sleep (I even collected sleep data) and do not even approximately fit into those schemes. I alternate between a lot of sleep and no sleep over the course of 10 days continually shifting my waking hours into the night until I reset. Some people claim that this would be unhealthy, but (measured by introspection) I felt good and haven't been sick during that time. And I have spoken to some people that feel similar.

While all this is not based on anything that can withstand analysis, it adds a strange flavor to advice when it starts with broad categories which seem not entirely correct.

<comment><USER14> Same here. I've been allowing myself to sleep pretty much whenever I feel like it for the past several months, and I don't appear to have any sleep pattern. Sometimes I sleep 3 or 4 hours, and wake up feeling well-rested and ready to get back to work; other times I'll sleep 12 hours at a stretch. It's irrespective of the 24-hour day. After reading your comment, I'm going to start logging my sleep, to see if there's any noticeable pattern. Thanks.

<comment><USER15> If you removed artificial lighting (including computer screens, tv, etc) from your life between sunset and sunrise, I can almost guarantee your sleep would fall into a pattern. Artificial light wrecks havoc on our automatic systems and stops our internal clocks from properly tracking time.

I highly recommend you try this for a month. Have a set time (say, 10-12PM) after which you will be able to get 8 hours of sleep and declare that blackout time: no lights, candles, tvs, computers, phones, etc. You will be amazed when within that month you aquire the ability to go to sleep and wake at the same times each day.

<comment><USER14> I have a hunch that you might be absolutely right. But it's unclear to me whether following this advice would improve my quality of life. Right now I'm productive, working whenever I can without respect to the clock. Limiting my productivity just so I can conform to an Earth day seems like it could be counterproductive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've tried this so many times but I just can't fall asleep in the middle of the day unless I'm seriously exhausted. Anyone out there able to beat the "can't fall asleep unless conditions are perfect" curse?

<comment><USER5> What worked for me was to build up gradually over time. I started only napping when I was very tired, in my bed, with the lights off. Even then it took practice before my body learned to fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time.

Then I started napping with the lights on, and then when I wasn't super tired.

Today, I can fall asleep quickly in a chair in a noisy office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Twenty minute naps leave me in a horrid state of disarray. It takes me about an hour to recover from the grogginess, so I tend to stay as far away from them as possible. I've experimented with time and location variations, but never with any success. It makes me sad, because I know tons of people who work naps into their day with fantastic results.

<comment> eric-hu Other sources I've read suggest that around 15 minutes of sleep is optimal, and going over puts you into a different phase of sleep. Perhaps you have an easier time falling asleep than others.

When I try to nap, I'm pretty sure it takes ~5 minutes to doze off usually, but sometimes even more than that.

<comment><USER18> I have not tried this, but have read about this technique: When you start your nap, hold something in your hand that will make a noise if you drop it. As your body relaxes and you start to sleep, you will eventually relax your grip enough that the object will fall to the floor and wake you up. This happens at just about the ideal wake time for a short power nap.

<comment><USER19> That's a nice trick.

During meditation retreats, I often fell asleep during the first morning sessions. My teacher said that this was ok, but gave me comparable tip if I wanted to stay awake: meditate standing, when falling asleep, your body will always wake up in moments to stay balanced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sadly, here in Brazil when I tell someone that I _need_ a nap in the afternoon to be really productive almost everyone says "You are lazy" or something like that. I have worked in a single company that I had some time to take a 15-20 minutes nap in the afternoon and the boost in my productivity was simply outstanding.

<comment><USER21> Believe me, it's not just Brazil!

<comment><USER22> Not even in Spain or Portugal? My last hope...

<comment><USER23> head over to Vietnam, post-lunch nap is still widespread there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some tips on how to get white noise.

\- Obviously you can set a radio between channels, but I often don't have a radio in the room but do have a computer, so...

\- In linux, if you have ALSA installed, you can type

        cat /dev/urandom | aplay -f cd

in the console, or

        cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

for OSS

\- On the internet, there's <http://simplynoise.com/>

</comment><comment><USER25> My Dad always took powernaps and still does. He has the ability to sit down in just about any reasonably comfortable chair, and go to sleep on command. He can then wake up 5, 15, or 30 minutes later and be fully alert. Noise, light, temperature - doesn't worry him.

He laughs about it but it's got to be a skill built up over years by practicing.

The one trick he did teach me for a mid-day nap was to lie on your back on the floor and put your legs up on a chair (calf muscles on the seat, feet against the backrest). For some reason it really seems to help, I assume it's circulation related.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm glad that this provides scientific justification for that napping danger zone between 45 and 90 minutes. Having taken naps that have ended in that precarious time span, I can attest that it _feels_ like you're worse off than when you started.

<comment><USER27> Not just feels. Definitely worse, it puts me off-beat for the rest of the day and I always feel like I suddenly desperately need a shower.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I'm not sure where the sensation of needing to shower comes from...perhaps from sweat?

<comment><USER29> Not the OP, but my experience is similar. I shower in the mornings, so I think for me it's more of an association of "wake up = shower"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's been so much well-publicized research on the positive impact of sleep on performance, and hugely detrimental effect of not getting enough sleep.

Why do so many companies still force their employees to work with so little sleep? Why do they still frown at sleeping on the job? And why don't more of them provide cots, sofas and showers, when they can easily afford them?

For decades, some of the more enlightened companies have been providing in- company cafeterias, laundry, fridges and microwaves in office kitchens, and other amenities so that employees don't feel like they need to leave the workplace as much. You'd think these companies would recognize that providing sleeping facilities is the next logical step. Why don't they?

<comment><USER31> The obvious answer: Employees who need extra sleep during the day should simply sleep longer during the night so they won't need to sleep while they're at work. At least, that's the typical view of the employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Has anyone ever used phone apps that purport to wake you up at the right time by using the accelerometer to detect how much you're moving in your sleep?

Example: <http://www.sleepcycle.com/>

I've used this but only for a few times because it requires the phone to be activated all night, which makes it quite warm in the morning. But it seemed to make me less groggy...but I can't tell if that's just confirmation bias...

I haven't thought of using it for just 45 min spans though

<comment><USER33> I'm using it for nearly a year now. Its really nice if the app can wake you up while you are in light sleep but sometimes you are just not in that phase during the 30min period the app tries to wake you in.

So worst case is that you wake up the same way you would with a normal alarm clock, but on the other days its pretty neat.

But the 30% battery charge I lose overnight is sometimes a hassle because my phone is either near the 30% right before I want to go to bed or I know that I have no time to charge it in the morning... and I refuse to charge the phone while its laying next to me :)

<comment><USER34> I got a long iphone cable from dealextreme and it comes onto my bed just fine to charge. Not sure if you had a different reservation :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Not everyone sleeps in the same way. After a doctor suggested I do an overnight sleep study, I found out that I often reach REM within 5 to 10 minutes.

Taking even a 15 minute nap in my car right after lunch completely boosts my creative thinking and problem solving ability.

</comment><comment><USER34> First time I'm seeing this, thanks for sharing.

Where it mentions a nap makes stage 2 sleep, I know my ability to nap can depend on how quickly I can fall asleep.

I've found meditating for 5-10 minutes even at my desk offers a similar result to napping, without the nap-hangover/grogginess.

The feeling? Like when we wake up, fresh, clear minded, focused, settled and ready to go.

<comment><USER36> I get the same results out of meditation, but if im going out at night or have to be at an event, i like taking a 30-40 min nap before getting ready, makes me be back to 100% till late.

<comment><USER37> The "disco nap".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've found 15-20 minutes naps after having lunch, to be amazing. I can wake up really quickly and being fully alert to keep working, without any drowsiness or performance hits.

I wish I could wake up with the same mood in the morning. I find it really hard to even wake up without putting the alarm in snooze at least twice.

<comment><USER39> ONLY twice?

I set my alarms at 8, and I snooze it till 8:30.

<comment><USER40> Why not set your alarm for 8:25? I've found that the time snoozing is just time that makes me feel guilty. Make realistic goals, and then stick to it rather than ruining your last half hour of sleep with noise and guilt.

<comment><USER41> On the contrary I greatly enjoy my snoozing time. When I wake up in the morning i'm at my most comfortable, and drifting off to sleep is nice. Plus I get that weird dream continuation thing going :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It amazes me that people can "nap". I can only nap when extremely tired, and at that point, I'm so behind on sleep that 20 minutes won't do a thing. I'll be lucky to wake up, and if I do, I'll be just as groggy. :)

</comment><comment><USER43> I usually get one nap a week on Sunday afternoons for about 3 hours. I find that I feel more creative and ambitious in the period after this nap than at any other time in the week. While it is feasible to add one more day to my nap schedule, I have yet to do it. I am rather much looking forward to when my schedule will allow for a daily nap.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm a big fan of siestas. I even put my _pyjamas_ on to nap.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am lucky: I work in the village I grew up in. When I am too tired I tell my boss: "I am not productive, I am going home to sleep, I will work the remaining hours of the day at home after I wake up." My bed is then a 3 minute bicycle ride away.

On a more helpful note: I learned how to nap by having siesta when I helped someone build a house in the South of France. A mid-day nap there was common, even for those in the public sector. They reasoned that in summer it was just too hot too work.

I would do my napping where ever I'd like: the grass, a garden chair, a leather sofa. It took about 2 weeks to actually "get" it, but it did my body good. Sometimes I skipped a day because I wanted to read or w/e, but I'd still take my moment of rest.

</comment><comment><USER46> Finally! I was wondering how to do this!

On a real note, napping changed my life. And when I had my own business, it really helped productivity to have a nap in the middle of the day. Now I work for the machine, and naps are unfortunately not allowed.

<comment><USER22> _Now I work for the machine, and naps are unfortunately not allowed._

OK, here's a crazy idea!

I work for the machine, MOST of us work for the machine. Unions are in our past. But government might just be the way to force the machine to support naps for its workers.

If we start lobbying for a law to allow naps, how realistic is it for that to pass? Sure it's silly, but silly laws usually have a better chance of passing!

<comment><USER14> While I'm a big fan of naps, I'm not a big fan of government. It's not their job to legislate when we sleep, and the Law of Unintended Consequences assures that it would be a disaster.

A better approach is to start your own business, and incorporate naps into the company culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This "nap wheel" is useful for finding the right time to nap:

<http://www.saramednick.com/htmls/book/napwheel.htm>

</comment><comment><USER48> Good info. I learned this years ago from my great-grandmother. She took a nap every afternoon for 20 to 25 minutes.

Now, living in Chengdu, office workers here are encouraged to nap after lunch time, around 2. At my wife's office, there is a chime followed by soft music twice a day, reminding workers its time for a break to do eye exercise, something they teach or at least used to teach in Chinese elementary school. Many offices in Chengdu also have a tea break around 4 ;)

</comment><comment><USER49> When I went to Bolivia, everyone went home for a 2 to 3 hour after lunch. All businesses would close. The work day started at 7AM and ended at 6PM IIRC.

Apparently, this is most popular in warmer countries. Nap aka siesta times correspond with the hottest and most dangerous parts of the day in terms of UV radiation. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta>

</comment><comment><USER50> Glad to see others power nap also, I thought I was just weird.

My routine is at about 1:30 slouch in my chair leaning back with my hands atop my head with fingers inter locked.

Whats strange is that I don't really goto sleep. I can hear everything going on around me but my mind is just totally blank and not focused on anything.

I stay like this for around 15-20 min then snap out of it fully refreshed!

</comment><comment><USER51> I've adjusted recently to have 1.5 hour naps in the middle of the day (I'm a college student), so then I can go to bed at around 1 AM and wake up at 7:30 AM, and be well-rested and awake the entire day.

It's almost like taking the nap in the middle day gives my brain a "restart" so it's refreshed and prepared to focus the rest of the night.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's interesting to note the immediate difference between a short nap (less than 45 mins) and one longer. I've never heard the pre nap coffee suggestions! I take naps frequently and hate when I over sleep or wake up from one longer than an hour and a half due to the groggy/grumpy side effects.

Really interesting and insightful piece!

<comment><USER53> > hate when I over sleep

Try this - immediately before closing your eyes say to yourself "I need to wake up in 15 minutes". In _exactly_ 15 minutes you will feel a subtle mental nudge that you need to act upon and open your eyes. You can as easily ignore it, in which case you will go right back to sleep. YMMV, of course, but it works for many people and it is seriously amazing.

<comment><USER54> The body's own clock is _amazing_. I've done this to wake myself up in the mornings successfully too!

I do it like this: when laying in bed right before falling asleep I imagine a flip-card clock and the whole thing is spinning, just spinning, then I imagine it stopping suddenly on the time that I want to wakeup. The really cool part is when you _wake up at exactly that time_ the next morning with NO alarm clocks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why is sleeping on the job frowned upon for programmers? I asked for it once and was denied like it was some outlandish request. I thought _I_ was doing _them_ a favor by asking (by wanting to raise my energy levels during the midday slump).

It just reaffirmed that 9 to 5 culture is not for me.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wish this was a higher-resolution image (or text... one can dream, right?). It's awfully hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER57> I don't nap (yet), but we get relaxing 30 min massages every other week at work. After that I'm a new person, and the thought of getting only a small portion of that relaxation every day...

I have a colleague who regularly meditates, he simply grabs a free meeting room.

</comment><comment><USER58> This whole time, I thought I had a sleeping problem because I couldn't fall asleep until after 12:30 a.m. or 1 a.m. and I would get irritable and tired from 3-6 p.m. Now if only that didn't clash with my work hours.

</comment><comment><USER59> I read that using an alarm to wake you up is not good. The perfect sleeping rithm is different from one person to another so I can't tell people how they should sleep, there are people who can, they studied for it.

</comment><comment><USER60> Another nap infographic...

[http://www.patioproductions.com/blog/wp- content/upLoads/2011...](http://www.patioproductions.com/blog/wp- content/upLoads/2011/Napping-ITDOnlineStores-101411.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER61> Shameless plug: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just15min/id471609083?ls=1...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just15min/id471609083?ls=1&mt=8)

I wrote an iPhone app for this

</comment><comment><USER62> In Japan noone is allowed to nap much less sleep. I need to move.

</comment><comment><USER63> How can I use this to better wake up in the morning, instead of groggy with "sleep inertia"? Set an alarm 90 minutes before I want to wake up, plus one when I want to wake up?

</comment><comment><USER64> Here's my angle on this: <http://danieltenner.com/posts/0017-how-to-nap.html>

</comment><comment><USER65> Old, but interesting. I wonder if hackers nap more often?

</comment><comment><USER66> What I do to fall take a nap or fall asleep is to focus on a point just outside of my right temple, tension drops and mind rest for me faster that way.

</comment><comment><USER24> I noticed that in the picture for 'owls' the best time to nap is 2 pm and ~3:15 pm, but the text says 'closer to 2:30 pm or 3 pm. Which is it?

</comment><comment><USER67> Pro tip I learned from the world of ultra-cycling (riding a bikes for days at a time):

\- Drink coffee as you prepare to nap

\- Take 20 minute power nap as caffeine gets in your system

\- Win

</comment><comment><USER68> A 3 year old infographic rises from ashes...

</comment><comment><USER69> It takes me like 40 minutes to fall asleep for a nap. I'm much too alert during the day after a full night's rest.

</comment><comment><USER70> find a nearby hotel with meeting space, usually on a mezzanine level (easy if you're in a city). these areas are often empty. find a comfy chair or couch and nap with a manilla folder or book on your lap so you don't look like a bum. set your phone to go off in 30 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER71> I really need that. Wallpaper-ed.

</comment><comment><USER72> According to my zeo deep sleep usually starts way before 45 minutes into sleep.

</comment><comment><USER73> Doesn't this depend on person? I never had naps and don't feel like I need.

</comment><comment><USER69> but surely you can still dream in non REM sleep can't you?

</comment><comment><USER74> I love naps.

</comment><comment><USER75> Is "nap" what they call coffee these days?</comment>


Show HN: EventGrid – Event Management and Ticketing - <AUTHOR> http://eventgrid.com/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps the target audience is different, but instead of a bullet list of features I'd prefer a couple screenshots of the working product and a few examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Working Sample - [http://eventgrid.com/custom/PlayStationE3?zip=98004](http://eventgrid.com/custom/PlayStationE3?zip=98004) (past sold out event example)

</comment><comment><USER3> In the "About Us" section, you've mis-spelled "EventGrid".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks...We will correct

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this different than Eventbrite?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Catered for more larger conferences (with sessions, workshops etc)

2\. Customization seating charts. (Reserved seating)- eg [https://image- store.slidesharecdn.com/15ca1c66-ebef-11e3-95f...](https://image- store.slidesharecdn.com/15ca1c66-ebef-11e3-95f3-22000a919507-original.png)

3\. Slightly better pricing than eventbrite

<comment><USER5> 1\. [https://www.eventbrite.com/reserved- seating/](https://www.eventbrite.com/reserved-seating/) 2\. your event pages look identical</comment></comment></comment>


Study finds there is "no safe level" of pm2.5 air pollution - <AUTHOR> https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/uos-api012420.php <comment> eric-hu Buried lede:

> The researchers found a 1- 4 percent increased risk associated with every 10 > μg/m3 increase in PM2.5.

> Put another way, Sydney has recently been experiencing increased air > pollution because of bushfire smoke and, on its worst day PM2.5 surpassed > the standard of 25 μg/m3 to jump to more than 500 μg/m3 in the suburb of > Richmond, comparable to levels of continuous cigarette smoking. There are > about 15,000 OHCAs annually in Australia so in a hypothetical situation, if > there is a 10-unit increase in the daily average of PM2.5, it could lead to > another 600 OHCAs resulting in 540 deaths (10% survival rate globally).

OHCA=out of hospital cardiac arrest</comment>


Aventus: A touting and counterfeit solution for the event ticketing industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6cv59r/introducing_aventus_a_touting_and_counterfeit/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! Sorry, I accidentally linked to Reddit instead of Medium - <USER2> didn't mean to do that. I am hiding and reporting and will repost with the correct link.</comment>


Ask HN: Email handler - <AUTHOR>

I am currently building a Django web application which involves listening for email. I looked high and low, but couldn't find an existing solution for implementing automated email handlers in Python. So I decided to build one. I'm still hoping there is a great library out there that I missed. Does anyone know of one?
Getting a simple handler up and running was easy, but I have run into some trouble with graceful handling of error conditions. For example, I don't always get SMTP error codes when sending mail to bad addresses or full mailboxes. Instead, I often get non-delivery receipts as emails a while later. Unfortunately, these NDRs appear to differ wildly by server and do not include structured or standardized meta-data such as the message ID that was not delivered.
I noticed some striking similarities in requirements between the system we are building and Anyvite. Anyvite automatically expanded a gmail address to a full name and parsed a non-delivery receipt (try sending an invite to a known bad email address). I am curious how they accomplished those two tasks. Since Anyvite was a Y Combinator company, I was hoping one of those guys could comment too :-)
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Do what ezmlm does with bounce messages: use a different envelope sender for each outgoing mail and encode the message ID in that address. If you get a mail to the envelope sender you can typically assume it's a non-delivery report of some kind.

For finer-grained information, you can search the resulting message for HCMSSCs: <http://cr.yp.to/proto/hcmssc.txt>

Further reading: <http://cr.yp.to/proto/verp.txt> [http://support.kavi.com/khelp/kmlm/user_help/html/bounces.ht...](http://support.kavi.com/khelp/kmlm/user_help/html/bounces.html#automated_bounce_handling)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is certainly interesting. In the grand problem of making sense of bounce messages, there seems to be three sub-problems:

1) Determining if the message is in fact a bounce. VERP doesn't seem to solve this.

2) Correctly linking a bounce message to the original message. VERP seems to solve that via encoding the message ID into the return path. I could implement VERP with "plus addressing". Thanks!

3) Identifying the error that the bounce message represents. Unfortunately, the presence of HCMSSCs in the hash format does not seem common. Even Gmail's bounce messages do not provide them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, sorry we didn't respond earlier, just saw this post and the Anyvite reference.

Our system is very basic right now and needs to be expanded on in the future. We start by setting a return path on all emails we send. This directs any bounce messages to a single mailbox that we can then process.

Parsing the bounce messages for us is fairly easy. We took some ideas from David Rusenko's post at: [http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/06/startup- email-monitor...](http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/06/startup-email- monitor-your-bounce-messages.html)

You seem to be trying to tie a bounce back to a specific outgoing message, which may or may not be the right thing to do depending on your application. For us, we only care about the email address it was sent to so we know not to send them anything else (if it's a hard bounce).

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I sent a longer note via email :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're looking for this:

<http://www.smtp2web.com/>

They listen for mail and hit your site with HTTP POSTs whenever they show up.

<comment><AUTHOR> smtp2web solves the problem of getting the messages.

As far as I can tell, there are 3 ways to get access to the messages:

1) Control your mail server, use something like procmon to forward mail to a script

2) Rely on smtp2web or some other mail server to forward mail to a script

3) Poll for messages via SMTP or IMAP

I chose #3 with IMAP over Gmail (configured for my domain).

The real problem I am having is identifying and categorizing non-delivery responses / bounce mails.

<comment><USER2> I assume you mean procmail, not procmon. Decent MTAs (like qmail) make it pretty easy to have mail delivered to a script.

<comment><AUTHOR> You assume correctly. My day job involves a lot of Windows programming and a healthy dose of procmon use :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would use procmail (<http://www.procmail.org/>). You might also check out the comments at this older post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=186875>

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked briefly at procmail, but it seems to only have a primitive mechanism for identify bounce messages. There does not appear to be a way to extract meta data from them.

""" If the regular expression contains '^FROM_DAEMON' it will be substituted by '(^(Mailing-List : |Precedence :. _(junk |bulk |list) |To : Multiple recipients of |(((Resent-)?(From |Sender) |X-Envelope-From) : | >?From )([^>]_[^(.%@a-z0-9])?(Post(ma?(st(e?r)? |n) |office) |(send)?Mail(er)? |daemon |m(mdf |ajordomo) |n?uucp |LIST(SERV |proc) |NETSERV |o(wner |ps) |r(e(quest |sponse) |oot) |b(ounce |bs\\.smtp) |echo |mirror |s(erv(ices? |er) |mtp(error)? |ystem) |A(dmin(istrator)? |MMGR |utoanswer))(([^).! :a-z0-9][-_a-z0-9] _)?[%@ >\t ][^<)]_(\\(. _\\)._ )?)?$([^>] |$)))', which should catch mails coming from most daemons """

I still need a way to get meaningful information from the bounce messages.

For example, my system sometimes emails a file on behalf of a user. If I receive a "mailbox does not exist" bounce, all I can do is notify the user that they may have mistyped an email address. However, if I receive a "mailbox full" bounce, I want to try again without the attachment and only with a web download link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not python, but simple and works great: <http://subethasmtp.tigris.org/></comment>


Show HN: Brit/Euro version of Threadless tee design competition- Facebook App  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello fellow HN pals- Jay and I were sick of waiting for shipping from threadless over in the states and paying a premium for delivery, so we hacked together this MVP as a Facebook app. We are London based so hoping to attract a more Brit/Euro community that should reflect in the designs that win too. Let us know what you think of the alpha site (note you have to be logged into Facebook as it brings up a Facebook app)- we thought this would be easier to share stuff/promote to pals for voting, etc.

www.facebook.com/designoff/</comment>


Why Snooki might be "worth" more than a Nobel Prize-winner.  - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/snookinomics/

<comment><USER2> The adage "Any publicity is good publicity" only holds for celebrities (or wannabe celebrities). I don't think it is true for an educational institution.</comment>


Introducing FBlock, AdBlocking for the New Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mohamedmansour/introducing-fblock-adblocker-for-the-new-facebook-be7a2aac53e4#.y2t11msal <comment><AUTHOR> I read this, [http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-will-force- advertising-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-will-force-advertising- on-ad-blocking-users-1470751204), and created "fBlock"

Hate these targeted advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why would you (Facebook) go and advertise that you changed something that crucial. It's like saying 'hey, I have $1000 in my pocket, bet ya can't take em from me, my new pockets are pretty tight'. Eventually someone's going to try. Had you said nothing...

<comment><AUTHOR> I know ... Maybe they want to control the media before anyone else.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Jungle Book - <AUTHOR> https://bubbl.in/book/the-jungle-book-by-joseph-rudyard-kipling/1 <comment><AUTHOR> I made this single page app (responsive) of this awesome book by Rudyard Kipling -- The Jungle Book. It's a great read for children.

The repo is available on Github[1]--under MIT license--for anyone to fork and republish with an alternative take/ newer illustrations. Hope you like it! :-)

[1] [https://github.com/marvindanig/the-jungle- book](https://github.com/marvindanig/the-jungle-book)

</comment><comment><USER2> Mindblowing! Awesome job!</comment>