Why only 18% of women have CS degrees? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hackerrank.com/the-real-reason-only-18-of-women-have-cs-degrees/ <comment><USER2> >The problem with McKellar's books is that they may appeal to certain types of young girls, but not all.

Try to please everyone and you will surely fail comes to mind.

Instead of complaining about McKellar's books (which are having a positive influence, even if only on a subset of girls) - why not write a book targeting these "other types of young girls" mentioned? Or could it be that it has been attempted and the books were a flop? Failed by a free market - unable to gain traction or credence?

What bothers me is that the article recognizes women are more interested and more likely to work in Healthcare or early Education areas of work helping others and dealing with children. That's the women's _choice_ to do these things. The author acts like women having a choice in things and doing what they are _interested in doing_ is wrong. That women need to change themselves and do more STEM-field work.

Preferences aren't just social constructs. The female and male brains are different, with different interests and we've known this for years! Yet nowadays this is somehow a problem?

      [0] http://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html

      [1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/101220-chimpanzees-play-nature-nurture-science-animals-evolution/

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe only 18% of women are interested in getting a cs degree? I don't understand why people waste time with non-issues and non-problems.</comment>


Telomeres – Too much of a good thing? - <AUTHOR> http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2016/12/12/telomeres-too-much-of-a-good-thing/ <comment><USER2> This is an interesting subject. I first heard of Telomeres from Dr. Rhonda Patrick[1]. She has her own podcast and actively visits podcasts of other hosts to talk about health and longevity. For anyone interested, link below.

I've gotten flack for mentioning Joe Rogan podcast here before, but I discovered Dr. Patrick through Joe's podcast and her visits are some of my favorites.

[1] [https://www.foundmyfitness.com/](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/)

<comment><USER3> Wow, why did you catch flack for mentioning the JRE?

<comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557489)

<comment><USER5> somewhat understandable why people have this view of him and his show. he let's his guests go on about what they think. it's usually a 3hr show. this gives people the perception that he believes in whatever they're saying because he doesn't interrupt his guests all the time.

imo Joe is very open minded, an avg Joe (had to) that is willing to hear people out and is fair handed in contrasting opinions. listening to the one with him, hannibal burris, and sam harris shows that he tries to take emotion out of argument and see where each person is coming from. but other times he'll just repeat things what he has heard other guests has said. for instance drugs that clogs up the blood for bicyclists when he had lance armstrong on.

i wouldn't say his show is scientifically dense though. that really depends on the guest. so when you have a person like rhonda on, yea her field is science and it's going to be dense in that subject matter.

<comment><USER6> Isn't giving over airtime on your own show somewhat an endorsement? If you're giving them free advertising, you should probably at least spend some time vetting their credibility. Seems irresponsible to give a platform to moon landing truthers.

<comment><USER7> Moon landing truthers get pretty much almost no time with anyone of consequence, so they are already well black listed. Rogan at least lets you see what is inside of the minds of these people, which is fascinating in itself. No subject, no matter how distasteful or apparently false, should be completely eradicated from the human dialog, even if only to reconfirm your distaste for it.

<comment><USER8> I kinda have a soft spot for ol' Joe Rogan and I see him hosting moon landing theorists on his show as not unlike Louis Theroux doing a show about UFO nuts. Interestingly enough Rogan did have Theroux on his show once, I was hoping it would be a good interview but it went really badly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I've read so far of interest relating to age prevention or reversal since I'm a programmer myself and you may find these interesting...

A Healthy lifestyle slows telomere length decline by producing more telomerase in your system than otherwise. Activities such as aerobic exercise where you sweat a lot, eating very healthy food, having a bit of red wine now and again and probably most important, having a solid network of people you interact with (and or animals) that care about you and express this for the most part in a positive way.

There is also strong evidence that caloric restriction slows your aging process by up to 30% coupled with high nutrition (CRON diet) which is backed up by tons of experiments in animals as seems to be fundamental to our biology.

The company "Elysium" produces a drug "Elysium" $50 that claims to slow the aging process through increasing NAD production which we lose through aging, putting you in maintenance mode (similar to CRON?) without having to starve yourself.

TA Sciences sells TA-65 and claims to elongate telomeres and reversing aging? by boosting telomerase activity from refining the Astralagus root's enzyme and putting it in pill form (1 part in 10,000 so its 10 times more expensive than Elysium).

The other route is gene therapy but it costs 1,000,000 dollars (picture Dr. Evil) which Liz Parrish has partaken in is reported to have increased her telomere length along with a muscle enhancement to avoid sarcopenia.

An interesting one is stem cell infusion that I've read about as well as stem- cell injection sites for stem-cell therapy which has been reported to have miracle-like effects in reversing symptoms of stroke to arthritic conditions but I don't know the pricing on this one.

Aubry De Grey seems to have tons to say on aging but I have yet to make heads or tails of his conclusions even though he seems to be super smart.

David Sinclair is a big proponent of NAD and Sirtuins, having a high degree of credibility in the field and finding proteins that stimulate our production of NAD, seems very sound.

I didn't list references as probably something you should look into yourself and more research is coming out so fast to debunk or bunk it.

<comment><USER10> Does the caloric restriction thing basically mean that for each person there is a certain amount of food they can eat before they die?

<comment><USER9> That wasn't a finding that I read about anywhere but I'm sure if you ate 1000 hotdogs in a day you would die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing to bear in mind is that most of the relevant studies are carried out in mice, and mouse telomere dynamics are significantly different from those of humans.

Telomerase gene therapies clearly slow aging and extend life in mice to some degree, but the actual mechanism involved is up for debate. We can argue that it has more to do with stem cell activity and influence on mitochondrial function for example than keeping cells out of senescence.

My comfort level for telomerase therapies would be increased by running them in dogs or another longer lived mammal with telomere dynamics that are closer to those of humans and observing the results there. Of course this might well be beaten out by actually running them in humans if the BioViva / Sierra Sciences collaboration gets their medical center running in Fiji to offer the gene therapy at a reasonable cost some time in the next year or two.

</comment><comment><USER12> Liz Parrish had some cutting edge genetic therapy done to increase her telomeres.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_name_is_liz_parrish_ceo_of_bioviva_the/)

<comment><USER13> We don't know how it will end up for her. She might live past 150, or she might get horrible cancers all over her body in 5 years.

We also don't know if she actually had undergone the treatment, it can simply be a scam.

<comment><USER12> Truly, anything can be a scam. I think the most disappointing outcome for her will be if she lives out the rest of her life in an average way. Did it work? Didn't it work? Sure, living past 90 would be nice but did her treatment have anything to do with it if that's the case? There are some things we won't know in our lifetimes.

<comment><USER14> If it worked I would expect her to start looking younger in some way.

<comment><USER15> I believe increasing telomere length may slow ageing, but wouldn't reverse it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tert has been shown to have non-canonical functions interacting with signaling pathways (wnt and nf-kb). It's easy to think of genes as a single function entity when the truth is a lot of genes have pleiotropic effects. The same can probably be said for other genes involved in telomere maintenance. It's probably more complicated than a simple correlation between length of telomere and resulting phenotype.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is a really well written article. I knew nothing about telomars, their importance in the field, nor the controversy surrounding their length.

While some of it was over my head (specifically that image of telomar transformation(?)), the author did a fantastic job of giving an overview of the field, create a compelling argument (at least to a layman), all with several links that (I hope) support and cite his arguments.

Good lessons in persuasive writing here.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting how entities initially considered more or less as packaging stuff without much use, such as histones and telomeres, turn out to be a lot more than that. People, and investors, may tend to focus on the obviously active part of the code and to overlook the architecture.

<comment><USER19> I feel like evolution would have weeded out significant waste from common systems shared among life. We may have been too quick to throw things we find in the junk pile instead of the "probably don't completely understand how this fits together yet" heap.

<comment><USER20> I agree with your second point, but not the first.

If true waste has very little/no cost associated with it, evolution wouldn't be able to select for it's removal.

<comment><USER21> That's a great point, though I surmise that there is no waste in the human body.

Human's constituents are entirely composed of cells or organelles, and those all consume energy. If there were any cells/organelles that did not contribute at all to the human, he would have a lower performance than humans without the waste, and so evolution would select them out.

<comment><USER22> _I surmise that there is no waste in the human body_

This is a naive interpretation of evolution. For one, selection doesn't occur instantaneously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So quick questions: Is this Elysium Health supplement I'm taking going to give me cancer?!

<comment><USER24> I've seen those ads. It's pretty unlikely that it will substantially increase your cancer risk. I would also mention that while there is some science behind their claims, the studies they put on their site are insufficient (n=120 people, t=8 weeks of study) to make any medically valid claims, and the efficacy of the treatment (consuming NAD+ and plant sterols) hasn't been clinically proven to have a positive effect on human health. They also don't claim the participants saw a benefit, just that their NAD+ levels were elevated

I am personally bullish on the thought process behind NAD+ [1], but I probably wouldn't buy a consumer product for it today without some serious clinical proof. Caveat Emptor.

1 - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112140/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112140/)

Disclaimer: I'm involved in the business side of the aging industry, but I only have a BSc in Genetics/Biochem, not a PhD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This type of thinking is exactly why we are where we are today with Trump.

It's not an endorsement to have a conversation, for God's sake. People seem to have forgotten that freedom of speech includes the freedom to sound as stupid as you want. If it's so glaringly obvious to you that it's dumb, then have the confidence that others will find it dumb too. Don't deny people the opportunity to even talk with them because they're interested in what others have to say. You end up driving people underground, which is even more dangerous, like what happened with the Trump supporters, who were too afraid to even talk about the issues that were motivating them.

<comment><USER6> You are conflating minority viewpoints with reputability. No serious media source would invite a conspiracy theorist with no credibility. Differing viewpoints are an important part of any discussion.

<comment><USER25> Stop changing the subject. The issue that you brought up is whether or not Joe Rogan giving air time to something is endorsing it. Which it isn't. It's having a conversation on a podcast.

And why are you comparing Joe Rogan to a "serious media source"? He's a comedian with a podcast, who can talk to whomever he wants that he deems interesting.

<comment><USER6> >Stop changing the subject. The issue that you brought up is whether or not Joe Rogan giving air time to something is endorsing it.

I was referring to an endorsement of the person, not the topic. ie "Seems irresponsible to give a platform to moon landing truthers."

<comment><USER26> The concept of "platform" (and thus no-platforming) is an area where IMO ostensibly progressive society has gone off the rails. It starts with good intentions, maybe as a reaction to the silliness of giving equal time to scientists and unqualified critics on mainstream media.

But then it morphs into this idea that thinking and talking about an idea, or being seen with people who hold an idea, without foaming at the mouth against it is the same as endorsing it, and that is a very dangerous place to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The first time I heard about telomeres many years ago, it blew my mind. What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud is that _maybe_ if the telomere count is reset (like it is for babies!), then we'd have cellular immortality. You could still die from accidents, disease, homicide, but not from ageing.

One sentence background info: Telomeres set a count on how many times a cell can divide before it ceases to divide and becoming old and useless; in humans, the count is 40-60 divisions and then you (the cell anyway) dies. Simplified, but that's the essence.

Yes, this is all extreme speculation, but if telomeres are the basis of ageing, can you imagine the upside for discovering a "cure" for that?

If only someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg were willing to throw a billion or $10 billion to answer this question. Ideally it should be government funding it -- like an Apollo moon shot or Manhattan project effort. But any kind of research with words like "immortality" in it will never get off the ground. It has to be funded by an individual or maverick organization.

<comment><USER28> "What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud"

What no scientist is willing to say out loud, is basically what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies. It has nothing to do with unwillingness to talk about the subject, but it has not been pushed that hard because there was* a strong belief that messing with telomeres had a very high risk of causing cancer.

*is? Although I think this belief has softened lately

<comment><USER27> > what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies

Maybe when they speak privately, but every scientist has a huge fear of branded a crackpot if they said something even remotely like, "I'm researching the possibility that we can make immortal cells".

To take one concrete example, Geron, a company that is/was very active in this area was always careful to say that they are investigating telomerase to control cancers, etc. They never even hint that they might possibly be interested in the Holy Grail result of solving ageing.</comment></comment></comment>


New documentary asks: Why are there so few women in tech? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/New-documentary-asks-Why-there-are-no-women-in-6222576.php

<comment><USER2> Previously posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9308074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9308074)</comment>


The Psoas Muscles and Abdominal Exercises for Back Pain | The Human Machine - <AUTHOR> http://humanmachine.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/the-psoas-muscles-and-abdominal-exercises-for-back-pain/ <comment><AUTHOR> Exercising and stretching the psoas muscle might be just what you need to eliminate back pain.

One point of interest: flat abs have more to do with healthy muscle beneath the abdominals.</comment>


A powerful and open source code editor - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007161239/elemental-2

<comment><AUTHOR> Elemental is an open source code editor that I'm developing for Android, Windows Phone, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Chrome OS.

The most common question I get asked is why not Atom or Caret. Elemental's goal is to target smartphones, tablets, and Chromebooks. While Caret runs on Chromebooks, Atom doesn't, and neither run on mobile devices.

The idea behind Elemental was to develop a code editor for new developers and students, those who don't want to buy a notebook or desktop to get into coding, but already have a tablet or Chromebook.

While I doubt it, I also hope Elemental will be useful to more experienced developers. I know I'll use it! Tablets and Chromebooks are cheaper and lighter than conventional laptops, not to mention better battery life.

To sum things up, if you like the idea behind Elemental, I'd love it if you backed the project. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> seems very interesting being able to code in same editor on phone, tablet and desktop/laptop.

have you looked at universal apps on windows? would make it possible to have one app that works across all windows 10 platforms, might not be relevant yet, but would be pretty interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The Windows Phone and Windows versions of Elemental will be universal applications once Windows 10 is released.

<comment><USER2> i hope this project gets going and i hope you make plugin support :)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that probably would help attract more people, since people now a days loves extensibility for their editor :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an update, macros have been added to Elemental's feature set.</comment>


Kickstarter Fulfillment & Product: A story of dogfood and data validation - <AUTHOR> http://fredbenenson.com/blog/2012/07/23/kickstarter-fulfillment-and-product-development-a-story-of-dogfood-and-data-validation/

<comment><USER2> They seriously had not heard of the leading zero zip code problem until now?

Fulfillment is KS's big hole, and an opportunity for them to make even more from projects as an optional service. I have done this kind of stuff before so was able to plan my mailing week fairly well, and KS do have a good list of tips on the site.

But too many projects crash on these rocks. Sourcing, packing, and shipping are hard work and can be a distraction from the real goal, which is whatever it is you just got paid to make.

<comment><USER3> _They seriously had not heard of the leading zero zip code problem until now?_

The bold print blames Google Docs or Excel for interpreting the ZIP as a number and dropping the leading 0. You can fix this in Excel by right-clicking the column, choosing "Format Cell" then under the Special section click Zip Code. You can even do this after you've pasted the data. In Google Docs you have to select the column and change the type to Plain Text before you paste the data. Either way not too hard to fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fulfillment is really complex. I work for Fangamer, who is shipping the Double Fine Adventure posters and shirts. We built out our own tech to get postage printed (and confirmation emails, accounting handled, etc.) to be able to ship everything. It's been a project to ship ~13k items.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article had a ton of great minutia in it so thanks for that! Many times people gloss over the fine detail which is really the important stuff.

Question: Bringing in $3600 and only profiting $400; was the whole thing worth it in the end?

<comment><USER6> I'd say so. Considering lots of creative endeavors end up a big loss, even breaking even is a great accomplishment.</comment></comment>


Scientists demonstrate ability to store 360 TB/disc - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-07-5d-optical-memory-glass-evidence.html

<comment><USER2> For archive only. Write-only? Sounds like the reader is still very expensive.</comment>


Ask HN: Are LeetCode-style interviews are more fair and objective? - <AUTHOR> There has been a growing trend of companies using take-home assignments to assess candidates for screening. A few of them takes it to the next level by converting their onsite rounds into a 5 hrs long coding project, e.g. use this mock to build a mini web app.
Initially, I was quite happy to welcome this trend. No LeetCode-ing, use my favorite tech stack, sharpen some fundamentals, and learn a new Web API or two. It didn't end there, I've received 4 offers from companies that used a combination of take-home exercise and code-a-project during onsite.
Fast forward to current date, I'd discourage this approach of interviewing a candidate. Firstly, the amount of time involved per exercise is impractical, think 3+ hrs per take-home exercise. And more importantly, any two teams could have entirely different opinion about the same piece of code/architecture. In a limited time setting, candidate can focus on a subset of key aspects like functional spec, clean code, tests, performance, or pixel perfection. But it's difficult to gauge what is important to the team.
I wouldn't want to criticize something without giving a few alternatives.
Option 1. LeetCode-style interview is difficult to prepare, but it is more objective and fair when compared with code-a-project styled interview.
Option 2. For frontend engineering roles, there are well defined focus areas. Onsite interviews should assess each of these areas separately rather than clubbing them into a single mini-project. Example:
Round 1. HTML/CSS, tests solid foundational knowledge. Round 2. JavaScript, tests solid foundational knowledge. Round 3. Framework, pair program a widget. Round 4. Special Topics: accessibility, networking, performance, security, testing etc, Pick 1-2 topics and go deep. Round 5. System Design for experienced candidates/CS Fundamentals for lesser experienced candidates.
#frontend #interviews <comment><USER2> The best interview process was at Pivotal where I had two pairing sessions with different developers in the same day/visit in two typical programming environments. One was front-end mobile and the other back-end TDD. They just wanted to know two things: (1) can this person program with any level of competence, (2) can I communicate/get along with this person.

My version would be talk to the candidate for 30+ minutes about their general experience and then in depth about something they worked on recently and can give great detail on what was being solved, how it was written, and challenges overcome in the process. I'll follow that up with pairing on a problem in a language/stack that's relevant to the position and candidate.

My fave way of getting hired is when your car breaks down on the highway and you buy a used car from Auto Trader and the guy sees your engineering ring and asks "Do you know how to make a print function for a GUI program?" I didn't, but figured it that weekend. Got the car and means to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one who finds the "unpopular opinion"-type threads on Reddit and other sites don't generally yield high level discourse?

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely took the prefix "unpopular opinion" from a subreddit. In this case it was appropriate, but I've no qualms about changing the title if it invites good discussion. (See: updated title)</comment></comment>


How-to get that guy as your mentor - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-get-that-guy-as-your-mentor.html <comment><USER2> I agree with the basic principle but I'm not sure that every mentor relationship should turn in to an equity based one.

</comment><comment><USER3> At risk of tooting my own drum (did I say that right? ;-), you could always sign up at <http://EveryMentor.com> and try to get matched to a mentor there. I envision it as the online equivalent to a workout buddy.

There are a couple hundred "mentors" on there now at varying skill levels, with several dozen happy matches.

<comment><USER4> Interesting concept. Few thoughts on it:

As Gabriel mentioned in the blog post - "Identify people that would make good mentors, i.e. with the right domain experience." The site looks very generic from outside and forces me to signup without even giving me a peek of kind of people I can expect to see in the community.

I might be looking for a startup mentor in a particular domain, and may be there is none of that type on it right now. Or may be some people on it are providing mentor-ship on how to go about learning a specific skill like flying etc that I am interested in, but since I have no clue, I probably won't sign up.

You can think of highlighting a few profiles or at least a few categories helping a visitor understand whether (s)he should join this community or not.

Good luck, and hope it becomes a good success.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, right now it is HEAVILY weighted towards hackers and such (my main push has been in Hacker News) although one girl found a wedding designer match. That's kind of unexpected!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _On their end, the equity should be enough where it is motivating to stay engaged. In practice, I think this is 2%+. That is significantly higher than normal advisor relationships._

How much equity would you give for a normal advisor relationship?

<comment><USER6> Varies on person/startup/etc., but 0.25-0.5% is common.

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aside: that earn-mojo thingie on the right side? that just earned it's rightful place in my /etc/hosts deny list.

Please don't.</comment>


iOS 8 Changed How I Work on My iPhone and iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-8-changed-how-i-work-on-my-iphone-and-ipad/

<comment><USER2> Good read... until reading this article, I didn't fully understand how some of these additions to iOS 8 under the hood could make working on an iPad more effective.</comment>


Japanese earthquake literally made waves in Norway - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/06/japanese-earthquake-literally-made-waves-in-norway/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

<comment><USER2> The article about the atmospheric wave is also very interesting, they found it using a satellite with accelerometers.</comment>


Sensual Heat Maps on Flickr (Crowdsourcing what turns us on...) - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2782668929/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, follow the linked site, which presents more of the data. <http://www.fleshmap.com/touch/skinheat.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> hmmm i wonder how many people they did this research on. i actually wanna see this research being done on people that are under the influence since you tend to be more touchy when you're drunk or on drugs...like...coke or even prescription meds</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any CS students that would do a project for $500? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone. I'm working on a startup with a team that was formed at Startup Weekend, and we're looking for a student that would build a functional prototype or our MVP for $500. What we're working on would involve Facebook Places and PayPal integration, as well as a way for people to broadcast to others near them with the native app or mobile web app that they are looking to buy or sell something, and then once something was bought or sold, people would be able to broadcast the transactions to Facebook or twitter. If interested, contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com. I'm in high school, so my funds are limited. Thanks for your time! <comment><USER2> That's an exciting space. I know quite a few groups that are tiptoeing towards something like this.

I think you're going to need to offer something different than $500. I don't think there's too many people out there who'd do something that big (or exciting) for $500 and then just hand it off.

If you need that kind of technical chops, they're going to be a co-founder, like it or not. Try to play it otherwise and even if the idea does find success, you're likely to get Zuck'ed.

Best of luck to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Do you code?

<comment><USER2> Indeed. C, ASM, perl and python. I do embedded devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sorry for an off topic (and not even remotely helpful) comment, but best of luck with your startup! Starting something in high school is not only immensely cool but an amazing experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! It's been a great experience!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested in hearing more and discussing. Give me a shout: bb (at) fea (dot) st</comment>


Discover Bank storing passwords in plaintext - <AUTHOR> http://techflock.com/discover-card-storing-passwords-in-plaintext

<comment><USER2> Dumping tech-speak on a first-tier customer service rep, I guarantee you, will get you absolutely nothing except a boost to your internal pride meter. This needs to be communicated in another way.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. That part was hard to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The worst part is that it comes by email, which _is_ plaintext everywhere.

However, "encrypted in a database" is not "plaintext". It's certainly not ideal or recommended, that's for sure, but it's not the worst way to handle passwords. If properly implemented, a bunch of AES encrypted passwords without a key are nearly as useless to an adversary as a bunch of bcrypt hashes.

Just don't reuse passwords (at least for accounts you care about) and it really doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER5> 37Signals did this on basecamp for years too. I haven't checked recently and I assume when the consolidated their authentication they probably fixed it.

It was pretty shocking to get my password in plaintext in an email from a leading web app developer. Especially after DHH's multiple beratings of developers who used authentication libraries instead of rolling their own salted password hashing, because you should really understand how your app is handling such things yourself!

I was surprised that I never saw anyone bring it up anywhere.</comment>


Pyxel: A retro game development environment in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kitao/pyxel <comment><USER2> Hi, there is a Pixel Art Software called Pyxel. You might want to change the name of your software. [https://pyxeledit.com/](https://pyxeledit.com/)</comment>


Anyone know of innovative startups that allow users to create websites? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently plodding through Wordpress but I can't help wondering if some startups have recently made some really exciting and innovative tools to allow an end user to put together a great looking website.
Does anyone know of any startups that have recently put together innovative and exciting tools for end user site building?
I'm building a fairly simple site which describes a software product.  Maybe six to eight pages in total. <comment><USER2> There are a ton of these out there. Useful for building landing pages without much effort.

Look at:

<http://www.weebly.com/> <http://www.snappages.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.jimdo.com> is another one.

Posterous creates a webpage for you consisting of your social media activities, blog posts, etc. and you can post easily via Mail.

</comment><comment><USER4> Stick with WordPress and use some of the third party themes specifically designed for this - WooThemes has some great themes designed specifically for this case use.

<http://www.woothemes.com/2009/06/featurepitch/> <http://www.woothemes.com/2010/05/inspire/> <http://www.woothemes.com/2009/08/coffee-break/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Hypernumbers <http://hypernumbers.com/> has an interesting way of building web pages.</comment>


Been working on a Twitter client for Windows that doesn't suck - <AUTHOR> http://www.metrotwit.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any questions or feedback, would love to hear it.</comment>


14-Year-Old Prodigy Programmer Dreams In Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXZWB_dNsw <comment><USER2> Dreaming in code isn't that weird. Given that sleep is your minds way of organizing the previous days experiences (amongst other things), it's only to be expected that you would dream about whatever took the majority of mental time while awake. For most kids that would be playing with their friends. For adults that might be stresses of their day to day life. And for people who spend most of their waking life coding, we're inevitably going to dream about coding.

That said, when I was at college and would spend 2 or 3 days coding for about 18hrs a day, I would have the weirdest dreams that would resemble the scene from The Matrix where Neo first discovers his power. Except rather than green text on black, it would be the syntax highlighting colors that my (then) IDE defaulted to.

Going back on topic though, as normal as the "dreams in code" thing is. This kid clearly still has a natural talent and the enjoyment of the subject to push himself further. So best of luck to him - not that I think he'll need it.

</comment><comment><USER3> The kid is going to well. He's smart and eloquent, to important traits in software development.

However dreaming in code. Thats nothing new, I challenge you to find a developer who hasn't woken up with solution to a problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find when i'm dreaming in code, it's a sign i've been spending too much time in front of the editor.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've come up with answers to hard problems in the shower. Can I say I write software in the shower now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Under the shower, your brain switches to a bit of an alpha state, the same when you go to sleep and you start using your right brain more, so you find solutions to problems intuitively rather than rationally (which means you aggregate and summarize all of your rational knowledge, without even knowing about it).

It's good to train your right brain even if you do a lot of programming (which is totally a left brain activity), it will help you to be a better in that either!

<comment><USER5> Oh yeah, I'm aware of that.

I'm just making the point that a _lot_ of programmers are thinking of code when they're not directly working on it. It's the nature of what we do.</comment></comment></comment>


Carmen Ortiz weighing appeal for motel owner forfeiture suit - <AUTHOR> http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/ortiz_motel_owner_we%E2%80%99re_not_done_yet <comment><USER2> Excellent, hopefully she can fully sully the reputation of the USDOJ to the point where the Senate has to step in.

A horrible case like this is exactly the kind of case to bring to trial before the people to set precedent. The more egregious the violation the more restrictive the regulation will be. The harder you push the pendulum the harder it swings back.

Sounds like she's vindictive enough to dig two graves.

Does anyone know how much traction she's getting amongst the AM radio crowd? Sounds like something that audience would eat up, especially in light of Kelo.

<comment><USER3> There's nothing scarier to me than people of power who are so drunk in their own arrogance that they refuse to ever accept that they could be in the wrong. I too hope that this come back to bite her.

<comment><USER4> I believe the nature of the job and ascendancy to the job requires a lack of empathy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This just reeks of being vindictive, evil, stubborn, revengeful, and down right dumb. This woman has no place in any elected office.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sigh. This woman just doesn't get it, does she? You'd think that the public taking to pitchforks for her job would have led to some serious introspection on her part.

<comment><USER7> Or maybe, just maybe, she thinks she's doing the right thing?

<comment><USER8> I think it's the Marines that have the saying: "Anything worth shooting, is worth shooting twice." Unless the judge points out some obvious mis- application of the prosecutor's legal logic then it _shouldn't_ be unusual to "weigh an appeal" as the logic was supposed to have been sound enough to warrant the case in the first place.

<comment><USER9> >I think it's the Marines that have the saying: "Anything worth shooting, is worth shooting twice."

The war on drugs is not a war between nation states. This hotel owner is a civilian and a citizen of the United States, not an enemy soldier.

>Unless the judge points out some obvious mis-application of the prosecutor's legal logic ...

Isn't that what the judge just did in throwing out the case?

<comment><USER8> I didn't mention anything about the war on drugs. I'll spell out the analogy though: Anything worth trying once for, is worth trying twice for.

> Isn't that what the judge just did in throwing out the case?

Judges throw out cases on non-obvious reasoning all the time. E.g. "the prosecutor failed to consider the test used in this Circuit since U.S. v. Foo (2004) and therefore the charges are moot".

<comment><USER9> >I didn't mention anything about the war on drugs. I'll spell out the analogy though: Anything worth trying once for, is worth trying twice for.

The context of the case is the war on drugs. That's the pretense for the government trying to steal his hotel, and I get the analogy. The problem is the premise. Even if everything worth trying once is worth trying twice, that doesn't do anything to prove you were right the first time, without which trying again is just compounding the error.

>Judges throw out cases on non-obvious reasoning all the time.

And is that what happened in this case? Because it seems like in this case it was "obvious" that the government was trying to take this man's hotel because it had no mortgage, they expected him to have insufficient liquid assets to successfully contest a seizure and when law enforcement seizes assets they get the resale value added to their budgets.

<comment><USER8> >>Judges throw out cases on non-obvious reasoning all the time. > And is that what happened in this case?

I don't know, I haven't checked the details of the ruling.

> Because it seems like in this case it was "obvious" that the government was > trying to take this man's hotel because it had no mortgage, they expected > him to have insufficient liquid assets to successfully contest a seizure and > when law enforcement seizes assets they get the resale value added to their > budgets.

Oh sure, real obvious. I'm sure all $1 they'd be able to get for that property would really help boost their training budget...

<comment><USER9> >I'm sure all $1 they'd be able to get for that property would really help boost their training budget...

From the article: "his mortgage-free property is worth more than $1 million."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When civil cases are used instead of criminal cases it seems particularly disgusting that the government can even appeal a decision in favor of a private citizen.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is not off-topic. This is about the use of "discretion" on the part of a prosecutor to stifle entrepreneurship. This is squarely and centrally within the mainstream of HN.

<comment><USER12> Say what? You think the motive for seizing the hotel was "I'm tired of all these pesky entrepreneurs"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please, stop this. This is off topic on HN. A prosecutor's legal battles with some drug-infested motel is not what I come here to read about. Stop turning HN into a tabloid where people read about loved and hated celebrities.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure about you, but I am not forced to read every article on the first page. Skip over them if they don't interest you. Sheesh.

<comment><USER13> But there's only a limited amount of articles on the first page... I would much rather see something programming/startup/technology-related up there. The threads about Aaron were important. The follow-up threads about his legal case vs. Ortiz were perhaps less interesting to some, but still very much relevant.

_This_ is blatantly off topic. Journalists and bloggers are sensationalist and know how to keep milking a good story when they see it. I do not expect this to overflow to HN.

<comment><USER15> >_This_ is blatantly off topic.

It's worse than that -- it's simply not interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, speechless.</comment>


Israel's Top Startup Accelerators in 2020 - vasya-gh https://perceptionbox.io/business/israels-top-5-startup-accelerators-in-2020/ <comment> vasya-gh Israel's startup ecosystem has some of the world's best startup accelerators. And it's not surprising as Israel still ranks as the #1 country for startups owing to some unique programs. Israel has the most startups per capita in the world. By extension, Israeli tech startups have easier access to more resources than can be found outside of Silicon Valley.</comment>


Are Remote Work Visas the New Vacation? - <AUTHOR> https://remotelyinclined.substack.com/p/is-remote-work-residency-the-new <comment><USER2> Among the many horrible things that happened in the last months because of COVID, the new-found possibility of a different type of working is not one of them. If your job allows you to do so, remote working is a great opportunity that many people will benefit from. Whether you are looking for a longer change of scenario (as you said a couple of months in some unknown country) or spending a couple of weeks in your home town, close to the people you love. I obviously see the downside of remote working, but as far as it concerns me, the benefits overcome them, and I would definitely spend a some time in a country I've never been before as soon as the pandemic is over. Also, positive side, the pandemic will be over eventually, but I do believe that this new perspective entered permanently into our lives (for the better).</comment>


Google ChromeOS is Google's Sneak Attack and Here is Why. - <AUTHOR>

If you are anything like me, you've taken a look at the ChromeOS and thought "lolwut" when it comes to the niche its trying to fill.  Techies want more out of it, your parents can't use iTunes with it, and Grandma heard old people like the iPad better.  ChromeOS seems to be a solution to a problem nobody has.
Today I booted a VM of ChromeOS and it immediately hit me:  Everything the Google Chrome and Chrome OS team have been doing lately points to one thing: a universal architecture.
If you partnered with or packaged a virtual machine seamlessly around Google ChromeOS, you could deliver an Internet experience to the user that protects them from almost any sort of attack.  Chrome inherently is already sandboxed, but if you add the stripped down kernel of ChromeOS that is self-healing, you built an almost bulletproof attack surface.
There are still some issues with this idea.  But the fact of the matter is that computers have the speed necessary to isolate entire operating systems in a virtual environment with little to no impact on performance for the user.
Was this Google's strategy all along?  What do you all think? <comment><USER2> Google ultimately wants everyone to move to the web. Chrome OS is just one more method to advance the idea that web apps are powerful enough for most use cases.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're missing the meta-strategy that Google ideally wants all computing I/O to run through its filters. If you use Gmail, Chrome browser and OS, Google Docs, Android, and now G+, then Google has a vice grip on your balls.

Google isn't the first software company to try to create a thin-client computing system on top of personal computers. And I have a feeling (or hope) they won't be successful for the simple reason that they are extending their reach too far.

</comment><comment><USER4> It'd definitely be an amazing product for Kiosks that need locked-down architecture.</comment>


ASP.NET Core – 2300% More Requests Served per Second - <AUTHOR> http://web.ageofascent.com/asp-net-core-exeeds-1-15-million-requests-12-6-gbps/ <comment><USER2> This looks like an old post from februari. Would like to see a current status post though</comment>


Secrets of the LinkedIn Data Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/11/secrets-of-the-linkedin-data-scientists.php

<comment><USER2> Recently, LinkedIn asked me whether I know the administrator of a ning I use occasionally. That ning is basically the only connection I have with its administrator, as far as I can tell. The funny thing is, I haven't used my real name on that ning for years. I go with a pseudonym, these days. Anyone know whether LinkedIn is looking at archives of social websites to mine connection information?

<comment><USER3> Is there any chance that that administrator has you in their webmail account? I know there was a couple of times where I never gave LinkedIn my webmail account details (though they do have my webmail address), and that certain friends showed up as suggestions from LinkedIn.

The only thing I can think happened was _they_ gave LinkedIn _their_ webmail account details and from there, LinkedIn started suggesting _them_ to _me_. This, obviously, is different from LinkedIn confirming I know someone. There are no other 'connections' between them and I. Zero.

Either way, I was creeped out for a little while, then impressed :)

<comment><USER2> Ah, that's another possibility. I will ask her. Thanks for the suggestion.</comment></comment></comment>


Why did men stop wearing high heels? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21151350 <comment><USER2> They didn't. This is what cool people were wearing when I was a kid:

[http://www.etsy.com/listing/113052867/vintage- mens-1970s-dex...](http://www.etsy.com/listing/113052867/vintage- mens-1970s-dexter-genuine)

<comment><USER3> Those are platforms rather than high heels. If you take away the thick sole (ie make it the same thickness as under the instep) and reduce the heel by the same amount, it's not that high relative to current norms.

Also, consider that while platforms were fashionable in the US during the disco era, this is a BBC article. They didn't catch on over in Europe at all. Thinking of 70s movies, I'm not sure that platforms were even that popular outside of the youth culture, and the disco culture at that, whereas high heels are ubiquitous among adult women of all ages except the very old who are unable to wear them in comfort.

<comment><USER4> They look to have as much relative heel as today's men's dress up shoes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My girlfriend sometimes asks me why impractical and uncomfortable shoes dominate the markets; why can't they make simple and useful ones that men wear? I've always speculated it was simply demand & supply.

Now I know it is the great legacy of our male aristocrat ancestors. What a joke.

Though, she makes a much better impression on me than Louis XIV ever could.

<comment><USER6> I feel for her. I recently tried to find good looking but practical (ie can walk 4 miles in) shoes.

Yes I found a couple of pairs, all over £130, and all out of stock in my, normal, size.

I would have paid that much, if only they had them in stock!

<comment><USER5> Ah yes. Combine that with the fact that her foot size is EU 35. Conversion table: <http://www.i18nguy.com/l10n/shoes.html#adult>

In other words, it is the smallest foot size registered for adults. Practically non-existent, as it is too small for adults and too big for kids.

A very effective filter for a full shoe store to be boiled down to 1-2 pairs immediately.

<comment><USER7> My girlfriend has the exact same shoe size (5 in the US). She buys all of her shoes from Chinese companies on Ebay, as they always seem to have her size in stock. I have no idea if there are regional foot size differences, but shopping online may be a solution.

<comment><USER8> Haha, I used to have a Chinese couple as flatmates, and the woman had horrible problems buying clothes in the U.S.; at most stores the only clothes which fit were those in the kids' department, which obviously often proved problematic when trying to dress for work, etc!

[I currently live in Japan, and although my feet are only medium in the U.S., I have a lot of problems buying shoes that are big enough here ... they _exist_ , but it's usually the case that if I just choose something I like, the store doesn't stock it or has run out (typically they only get a few pairs of "fringe" sizes). I either have to buy only the most boring and standard shoes (which they sell in large enough numbers to justify carrying fringe sizes) or have to be on a constant lookout for new shipments. As a result, I really hate buying shoes, and often end up wearing them into the ground, getting my feet wet through the holes in my soles when it rains.... TT ]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Without bothering to read the article: High heels were invented to help with stirrups while horseriding. Cowboy boots still have them. If most modern men do not wear them, it might be because they drive cars rather than ride horses.

<comment><USER10> With reading the article:

Actually, they went out of fashion even earlier. The Persians invented them for horseback riding, and then European aristocracy adopted them to look macho; they increased the height until they got impractical, though. Female aristocracy then adopted them during a trend toward male features in women's fashion in the 17th century.

Then in the Enlightenment, men's fashion took a turn for the practical and sober (Man is Rational!) while women's clothing kept the old ostentatiousness (Woman is Emotional and Sentimental!) - including the heels. So by about 1740-60, men's heels had gone definitively out of fashion, while women kept wearing them.

<comment><USER11> I'd place a big Citation Needed next to the whole Enlightenment = Sober clothing thing. Sounds like a big oversimplification. Sure there was a reaction to baroque excess but placing it at the foot o the Enlightenment is a bit just-so-story for my tastes.

<comment><USER12> I do not have a citation to hand but during the Victorian era in the UK there was a shift due to changes in the class system.

Industrialisation and international commerce led to a new type of self made wealthy business man.

Before then, the super rich inherited their fortune. The established upper class were known for their impracticality to show that they did not have to work - being pale skinned to highlight that they did not labour outside, extravagant clothing to highlight their status, frills etc.

These new self made business men, such as factory owners, were proud of their new status but wanted to distance themselves from inherited wealth. They stuck to practical, but finely made, clothing.

<comment><USER11> Oh agreed, there was a sense in Victorian men's fashion of prudence, restraint etc (while showing your status by quality of fabrics and cut etc). There were similar fashions in Dutch Golden Age and the Puritans. But that's not the same as the Enlightenment...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm confused...

Most men's shoes have a raised heel. If you spend time wearing intentionally flat shoes for weightlifting or similar it can be quite awkward to put on a "normal" pair of shoes.

<comment><USER14> It's common to have a low-rise heel, but heels >2" on men's shoes are pretty uncommon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Arguably a little off topic, but it struck me that Louis XIV had a well known "trademark" of always wearing contrasting red soles and heels, and that this was even historically notable since he "protected" his trademark by not allowing people out of his court to wear them. _And still_ Christian Louboutin has won the right in the US to a legally granted monopoly on contrasting red- soled shoes?

Slapped down: [http://nymag.com/fashion/11/fall/christian-louboutin-red- sol...](http://nymag.com/fashion/11/fall/christian-louboutin-red-soles/)

Wins on appeal: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/nyregion/court-rules- loubo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/nyregion/court-rules-louboutin- can-enforce-a-trademark-on-its-red-outsoles.html)

I just can't get over the fact that a private company owns the trademark right to contrast red soles on high heels ... Louis, back me up.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't think that we did in high-end shoes. Any window shopper looking into a modern day high-end shoe store will see plenty of shoes with heels. It's just that the current fashion is to make them a bit lower. Plus when fashion dictates trouser length to be long, it keeps the trouser bottoms from getting dirty.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=fine+mens+shoes&hl=en...](https://www.google.com/search?q=fine+mens+shoes&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=TrINUfT- IrK40AHXroHADg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAA&biw=1120&bih=643)

also see many forms of men's dancing shoes

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm reasonably sure this HN submission came from a discussion on the latest Geek Friday (<http://5by5.tv/geekfriday/59>). I say this because someone posted the article to the Google+ group ([https://plus.google.com/107635569257603441624/posts/HmNguCkZ...](https://plus.google.com/107635569257603441624/posts/HmNguCkZoiS)) and then it wound up here. It's a pretty interesting article, though I still think heels and wedge shoes are, at this point, an elaborate prank.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's intersting that men were the ones who picked up Persian fashion first. Nowadays, men's clothing is utterly boring. The small men's section is mostly located in the basement or on the top floor of department stores, and what you find there is basically two or three kinds of uniforms.

</comment><comment><USER19> Somehow, I wish men could still wear high heels now. Then woman may not prefer tall men so much.

<comment><USER20> What makes you think tall men won't wear high heels?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The question is: "Why are women still wearing them?"

TFA talks about it a bit but, basically, it's sexier because of the curves it gives to the women wearing them (I apologize for being rude here but it gives them what many men consider a nicer looking ass). But IMHO it only started to make sense once women started to dress with fit/slim clothes. Which may be related what TFA mentions: that when they first started appearing regularly it was on nude or kinky postcards in the late 19th century.

Why do male like them, because, from TFA:

 _natural courting pose found amongst mammals, with an arched back and protruding buttocks_

<comment><USER22> That's weird. I didn't think humans were susceptible to "natural courting poses". Is there any scientific literature on this that isn't based purely on speculation?

<comment><USER23> There is lots of literature in psychology and in design (makes you see a Ferrari in a whole new light). It was the only interesting part in my freshman psyche class at USC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Because not wearing them is not stupid and and not painful either. I am sure about the latter, BTW.</comment>


Announcing JotForm Developer Competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.jotform.com/blog/88-Announcing-JotForm-Developer-Competition

<comment><AUTHOR> Founder of JotForm here.

To celebrate our new API we are running a competition for developers. The grand prize is $5000. We also have category prices and all complete app submissions will receive t-shirts.

The dates are from August 24th to September 24th. Anybody can join the competition.

The apps will be featured on a new JotForm Apps section. Non-free apps are welcome. JotForm has over 1 million users, and we'd be happy promote apps created by the community.

If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them here.</comment>


Where are we on the actual math of solar power? - <AUTHOR> I've seen several articles and threads lately that make claims of solar energy matching or surpassing that of more traditional (coal, gas) energy.<p>What's the "simple verdict" on it--is there simple math? <comment><USER2> As an approximation solar flux is about 1kW / m^2. Last time I looked the efficiency of panels was about 20% so we can generate about 200W / m^2 for at most 6 hours a day. The USA power usage / day is 4^15 W.hr.

As 1km^2 = 1,000,000 m^2. So taking the power usage, we divide by solar flux, by number of hours of high solar input, by 200 W / m^2, by area conversion, and get approx 3,000,000 km^2. Since the USA is 10,000,000 km^2, we would need to cover 1/3 of the country with solar panels to generate enough electricity, mostly down south where the sun shines the most. Alaska would be spared.

Since we use power 24 hours a day and can only expect to generate at peak rate for 6 hours, we need to store the power in batteries. Not to mention that not every day is sunny. It sometimes rains, panels get covered in dust and need cleaning, stuff breaks down, etc.

A Tesla PowerWall stores approx 120KWhr / m^3. So 4^15 / 120^3 = 33^9 m^3 just for the batteries, not including cabling, racking, etc. To get an idea of how this compares, Trump Tower in Chicago is approx 80,000 m^3. So we'd need 400,000 of them to house the batteries and this only for one day's worth of power.

Of course, none of the foregoing considers the power required to make the solar panels, the mounting hardware, the batteries, the housing and new power- lines. The math just gets more complicated. But if you were to consider every step from beach sand to working solar panels you will find that the lifetime energy produced by solar panels is less than that which was used to produce them in the first place. I read an article to this effect once, but can't find it. Google is your friend if you are interested to research further.

<comment><USER3> The USA power usage is actually closer to 4x10^15 W-hr per year, not per day. Source: [http://www.eia.gov/state/seds/sep_sum/html/pdf/sum_btu_1.pdf](http://www.eia.gov/state/seds/sep_sum/html/pdf/sum_btu_1.pdf) ; 1 btu is 10^3 joules so 10^5 tbtu = 10^19 j ~= 4x10^15 W*hr. So your land coverage requirement is off by a factor of a few hundred.

For battery space, the same factor of a few hundred still applies. Also I'm not sure where you looked up the volume of the Trump tower but wikipedia claims a floor area of 240,000 m^2 and I doubt people can walk in an area a foot tall. With a more realistic ceiling height of 3m, you'd be off by another factor of 10 there.

\--> Closer to 1/1000 of land area for coverage and 100 trump towers for storage.

Your claim on it taking more energy to make a solar panel than it produces is likely untrue, but I don't have enough scientific background to quantitatively refute it. ([http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf) claims a breakeven period of 2-4 years)

<comment><USER4> From your document it seems that the researchers ignored the most energy intensive part of the process!

From your document:

"Purifying and crystallizing the silicon are the most energy-consumptive parts of the solar-cell manufacturing process."

"To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Erik Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not "charge" for the energy that originally went into crystalizing microelectronics scrap."

The way I understand it, the calculations don't charge the most expensive part of the process by arguing that, being scrap of the semi-conductor business, its already been paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to see the math myself. I have the suspicion that there's funny math involved, like when the nuclear industry forgets the cost of warehousing nuclear waste for 100 000 years.

My most pressing question is how the capital costs are factored in. China built a huge PV capacity and arguably that made the price of panels collapse. Also, the semiconductor industry had been indirectly subsidizing the PV industry by upgrading their old fabs.

I also really don't understand how PV can be cheaper than Concentrated Solar Power < literally just a bunch of mirrors aimed at a normal thermal plant.

Lot's of funny numbers, lots of questions, few open source gitted models available to play with.</comment>


What If You Combined Co-Working And Daycare? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3025741/work-smart/what-if-you-combined-co-working-and-daycare <comment><USER2> I've actually been working out of this space for the past few weeks. Don't have kids but I see everyday how amazing it is for all the people who work there who do. The daycare is sectioned off so there isn't a whole lot of noise or distractions from the kids.

If you're based out of SF, freelance / work remotely, and have kids, I think this is a fantastic setup.

<comment><USER3> Looking at the photos it doesn't seem there is a lot of privacy unless you permanently camp out in a conference room. I'm on the phone pretty much all the time, would this not be a good fit, for when I'm in SF?

<comment><USER4> This is a failing of most coworking spaces in SF, and I imagine its a question purely of economics. I'd like to see (or hey, get funding to start) an open plan office that at least has the option of high-wall cubicles. I also think there's a bit of a gold rush in that commercial real estate owners figure they can just take a big open room and throw a bunch of tables down and charge everybody $300/mo to huddle together.

However, there are also several hackerspaces that have woodshops and whatnot, so it seems like a short hop to think that if computery people can work as part of a multidisciplinary office next to a bandsaw, why not work alongside daycare workers? Maybe there are some legal issues in sharing in this way, but by splitting a big open office into a daycare side of a wall and an internet one, maybe there's a way.

<comment><USER3> I wonder how a landlord in SF would feel about using a residential address as a shared office: much more affordable than downtown real estate and maybe the bonus of a garden for the summer. I expect that happens a lot unofficially..

<comment><USER5> Uh...residential real estate is hardly "much more affordable" in SF. In fact, office space in soma is likely still cheaper than residential here (not sure why you'd want to be downtown). Also, probably illegal if not zoned for commercial

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife and I both work full time in demanding jobs, and we have a 4-month old.

I'm in the process of setting up a business with a friend for pretty much one reason - we want to work full time and be close to our kids. Part of the plan involves either having a daycare section in our workplace, or our workplace being a couple of minutes walk from our daycare.

It's 2014, I want to be able to play with my son during my coffee breaks and lunch. And I'm sure as hell not dumping the responsibility for my kid on my wife..

<comment><USER7> I solved this by getting more wives.

<comment><USER8> I'm struggling to keep one wife happy. You must be crazy! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There was a place that did this in Menlo Park/Mountain View a few years ago called Cubes & Crayons. They really tried to make it work, but ended up having a lot of problems and eventually threw in the towel. Their daycare was decent, but the office side of things didn't cut the mustard.

And that, I think is the problem with the business model. It's hard to make both the day care, and the office space work, and one side is probably going to suffer. Do you focus on the day care, which is a larger market, but has high turnover (kids grow up fast), or do you focus on the smaller flex office space where you can potentially hook people for longer? The flex office space might not be a good idea because many people might just work from home instead, and are really just looking for someplace to park their kids for a few hours so they can get some work done. Cap that off with having to follow additional regulations around running a child care facility, and it makes for a pretty tough business.

</comment><comment><USER10> Right now I'm a dad who works in a similar situation, with a few notable exceptions (my 'coworkers' are my dog and cat, and the person taking care of my daughter while I'm working is my wife).

In my opinion, one of the major advantages of working from home is that when I want to take a break, I get to go hang out with my daughter. I really wouldn't want to trade that for anything... The downside to our arrangement is that my wife is very limited in what she can do, career-wise. A space like this would open up a huge number of alternatives for us, with very few tradeoffs (aside from the cost, which is conspicuously absent from the article...)

<comment><USER11> Wait until your daughter learns to come and knock on the office/study door and call out for you!

<comment><USER10> Heh, I'm hoping that by the time she has the strength and dexterity to open the gate at the bottom of the stairs that she'll also have the cognitive ability to understand "Daddy's working".

<comment><USER12> Mine has both... (At two.) it's v difficult to deal with "not work, daddy, come play. Come play!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think a daycare that's close enough to mom that she can go nurse her child 2 or 3 times a day is going to be a simpler solution. Nursing is the crux problem. I'm a dad, but I have never heard any mother speak kindly about pumping. It's a huge logistic pain, and quite unpleasant for most moms.

<comment><USER14> Nursing is a big problem/benefit, but far from the only one. There are a lot of other problems that can require a parent's personal attention for a few minutes, and having an essentially zero commute time would greatly simplify dealing with those. And spending a 10 minute break playing with the kids can at times be much more refreshing than anything you can do at a normal corporate site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope to see more innovations like this pop up as our "demographic" starts shifting away from the 20 somethings and into the 30 somethings.

<comment><USER16> There's a whole new breed of ca. 19 year olds with macbook airs who use javascript and mongo and don't know what syscalls are, and they outnumber us five to one. I wouldn't hold my breath.

<comment><USER17> 17 y.o. here (no MacBook, and no MongoDB for now mind-you); I'm very excited for possible innovation in parenting, and I hope there's at least a healthy subset in the HN community sharing that interest.

The coffee shop kids will keep coming though I guess, maybe we could find a way to get them on track while we wait for the first batch to mature.

<comment><USER18> I was gonna guess that you also must know about syscalls, but judging by your username maybe you're more into message passing. ;)

<comment><USER17> It was a phase, multiprocess debugging is every shade of hell on one rainbow with a pot of self loathing at the end.

I changed my IRC nick to microcode after microcolonel, unfortunately HN doesn't afford that luxury.

P.S. Most message passing APIs require some system calls, nay?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In Seattle, [http://elliescoworking.com/](http://elliescoworking.com/) \-- I know it received lots of interest and support a few years back when it was first being tested. It looks like this may have transitioned away from childcare for the time being into [http://www.worksprogressseattle.com/](http://www.worksprogressseattle.com/) Jessie is extremely friendly and I'm sure has quite a bit to say about her experience.

<comment><USER20> I worked from worksprogress for a few months when I first moved to Seattle, good space and location and Jessie and Marnee are great.

In talking with them about the childcare side of things, they ran into a lot of regulation that just proved too much at the time.

Childcare is highly regulated and childcare and workplaces even more so apparently. They said that many of the laws they were running into were meant to keep larger industrial organizations in check back in the day. Companies used to offer very sub-par "childcare" for line-workers and if a child was having a problem (sick, injury, etc) it wasn't in the best interest of the company to inform the parent (who would have to leave the production line).

I didn't think those laws would apply to a co-op type office where everyone is working for themselves.

When I left in December, there was no childcare running, just the co-op workspace (which I would highly recommend).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I was going to build such a building, I think I would base it off the early education training rooms that schools like NDSU have. They have one way mirrors and observation rooms. I would assume any workable suggestion needs a staff or else it would be chaos given different children's schedules. Also, it would be a pain for the children.

</comment><comment><USER22> Employee memberships could be an interesting option for companies that aren't set up to do on-site daycare and willing to have remote-ish people.

</comment><comment><USER23> We had one of those in Atlanta for a couple of years, but it appears to have changed owners and become a regular preschool a year ago. I don't see a post- mortem on the web.

[ [http://john.do/bean-work-play-cafe/](http://john.do/bean-work-play-cafe/) ]

</comment><comment><USER24> I have read that having a company daycare makes attaining insurance difficult. You are bringing on a large liability by having children on the property, and insurance rates will reflect that. The concept sounds nice but there are significant financial risks.

</comment><comment><USER25> My son is 9 months old, and I take care of him two days a week while his mom goes to work. I've solved the problem in a way, by working long hours and in the weekends. In time we'll see if it's worth it. The kids are only kids once. I have two other kids from a previous marriage, the oldest recently began studying at the university. He seems to like spending time going to cafe's with me, so it's still not to late to catch up.

</comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't find much pricing info. Anyone know?

<comment><USER2> In case it helps: I work here on a monthly "cafe plan" for $325/mo, which means I can take any available seat in an open "cafe" area. A dedicated desk is $525/mo. Full pricing for this location is here: [http://nextspace.us/nextspace-potrero-hill/](http://nextspace.us/nextspace- potrero-hill/)

Daycare costs extra, but unfortunately I don't know how much (I don't use the daycare facility), and it doesn't seem to be on their website either. My guess though is that it'd be comparable to other daycare places in SF, so basically another $1000-$1500/mo?

<comment><USER26> For full time day care? That's awesome. I (we) pay that for 2 days/week here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a great idea for folks in urban spaces.

We live in the suburbs and did something similar for about a year. My wife and I both work from home full time, and when our second daughter was born, we had an in-home nanny take care of her for the first year.

We could take regular breaks during the day to visit with her, check in with the nanny, and help out with a feeding or two.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quite up for scoping and seeing if we could set up one of these in London, if anyone else is interested....

</comment><comment><USER28> i think a co-working + daycare space is a great idea. i've seen entrepreneurs try building product while staying home with their kids and it's very difficult to get into the 'zone' (and not feel riddled with guilt over it).

one model that i tried with my former CTO, who had a baby while we were working on a product, was to take turns watching the baby while coding.

/disaster

</comment><comment><USER29> Having a Kindergarten at your workplace was quite common in the GDR. Sadly this wasn't adopted in West Germany.

</comment><comment><USER30> Then you'd have a "no-working" space.

<comment><USER31> Why? Many companies have on site daycare. It helps parents who need to commute by saving them a trip and the stress of arriving late to daycare on the way home.

Clever pun though.

<comment><USER30> "Clever pun though"

And that's all it was intended to be ...</comment></comment></comment>


Sinclair Acquired and Will Relaunch Mobile News Site Circa - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/sinclair-acquired-and-will-relaunch-mobile-news-site-circa-1449506665 <comment><USER2> A huge part of what made Circa, well ... Circa was its editorial staff. The discretion they applied towards delivering the news was admirable and earned my trust.

With that editorial team now gone, an announced redesign, and the decision to "...also feature the kind of irreverent tone that does well among young audiences on social media" Circa is an entirely different business that bought themselves a head-start in content-management technology and perhaps, branding.</comment>


A fork of ruby-debug that works on 1.9.2 and 1.9.3 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cldwalker/debugger

<comment><USER2> After getting frustrated with ruby debug on 1.9.3, I realized that pry-nav and pry-stack-explorer are an excellent replacement for ruby-debug. After using pry for a while, I doubt I will return to using irb and ruby-debug.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think Pry can do "step" and such? I've been using Pry as well but I'm still very happy to see familiar ruby-debug back!

<comment><USER3> You can do steps if you install pry-nav <https://github.com/nixme/pry-nav>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately using pry-nav with pry has some limitations that ruby-debug doesn't: 1\. It doesn't seem to work in some cases (like putting binding.pry in a Proc.new { ... } 2\. On Windows, binding.pry works when directly embedded in a ruby script, but when put into code such as a Rails controller or model then several things don't work properly ('whereami' will show it doesn't have context.. though this works fine on Linux)

For these reasons, I still find ruby-debug better for actual debugging (when step/next are necessary) and pry better for inspecting state at a particular moment in time (but I can just call pry from the ruby-debug in that case)

<comment><USER5> I've never encountered those limitations, but since you have could you file an issue on the pry-nav repo? (<https://github.com/nixme/pry-nav>).

Remember, pry and pry-nav are new projects, and bugs can usually be fixed. And the sooner you file an issue, the sooner the bug can be fixed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've switched to Pry

<comment><USER7> The thing I like best about pry is that I don't have to start my application with --debugger.

Also, being able to cd into and out of objects is fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Shouldn't ruby-debug be part of ruby? I've been super annoyed when new ruby versions come without a working debugger.

</comment><comment><USER9> Switched to Pry and probably will not look back in a near future...am I missing something here?

</comment><comment><USER10> ha, just shared <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3797489>

taking a look.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have been using ruby-debug with 1.9.3 for a while now and have not had issues. Don't really understand why this fork was needed.</comment>


Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/shiny-new-office/ <comment><USER2> I am a raving fan of VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com (VWO) and highly recommend using or trying their A/B product over any other. Paras truly cares about his product, responds personally to inquiries although I am sure that as the business grows he may not be able to do that as much. It was clear to me from day 1 as an early customer (1st test deployed Sept 2010) that he truly cares about his customer, listens to his customer, and works insanely hard for his customer as does his entire team; and you can not put a price tag on that, in my opinion.

Now go subscribe to VWO and take his team to 2000+ customers! It will be beyond worthwhile for your website and business. It has been for mine.

Thank you for building a phenomenal product @paraschopra and team!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks James! I remember you being one of the earliest customers of VWO. With expanded team, we're baking lots and lots of interesting new features. But I will make sure the customer experience remains #1 priority even as we grow :)

<comment><USER3> I'd like to chime in as well: VWO is awesome, and Paras' support rocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paras's (founder of Wingify) blog posts on

Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money

[http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is- not-g...](http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-going-to- make-money.htm)

How to find startup ideas that make money

[http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find- sta...](http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-startup- ideas-that-make-money.htm)

might be appropriate given his stunning success (congrats Paras)

The other great thing about Wingify is that they aimed from the beginning at a global product vs a 'localized' knock off of an existing American product.

<comment><USER5> The link for "Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money" is: [http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is- not-g...](http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-going-to- make-money.htm)

<comment><USER4> fixed. thanks. sorry about that. too much time without sleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been using Optimizely, but after hearing from about VWO from COUNTLESS people I think I'm going to make the switch.

Plus, bootstrappers should support other bootstrappers, eh?

<comment><USER7> I'd be keen to hear the difference from someone who has used both in anger. I'm with VWO (because it gets mentioned around here so much - so I went there first) and it's awesome but it's always good to keep your options open.

<comment><USER8> Congrats, Paras!

As for a comparison, Optimizely uses Akamai which has 100,000 nodes in 75 countries. VWO uses Cloudfront and does two round-trips. Cloudfront has 32 points of presence in 12 countries.

Optimizely response time: Slowest: 289ms, Average: 65ms, Slowest: 19ms VWO response time: Slowest 1983ms, Average: 276ms, 171ms

Source: [http://till.klampaeckel.de/blog/archives/100-Shopping- for-a-...](http://till.klampaeckel.de/blog/archives/100-Shopping-for-a- CDN.html)

Unique features to Optimizely that VWO does not have:

\- Mobile web support & editor

\- Dynamic text insertion

\- Staging server support

\- Human-readable results

\- Documented API

\- Advanced developer tools

\- Cross-browser testing for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE, iOS, and Android

\- One-click integrations with Google Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, KISSmetrics, MixPanel

\- Implementation is 1-line of code vs 21 lines of code

\- Pricing starts at $19/mon vs $49/mon

\- Optimizely comes with a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee with 99.999% service level agreement

\- Optimizely support offers web, phone, email, and a dedicated account manager, as well as the CEO's direct cell for Platinum customers

In terms of adoption by the top 10,000 websites on the internet Optimizely is 6x bigger than VWO.

Sources: <http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Optimizely> [http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Visual-Website- Optimiz...](http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Visual-Website-Optimizer)

Note: I co-founded Optimizely and used Google Website Optimizer, Omniture Test&Target, and VWO but by no means an expert in their products.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Dan. Appreciate you pitching in. However, actually, you have old statistics. We recently rolled out a dynamic, custom built CDN that sped up our response times by 7x. Our average is now 45ms. We spent a lot of time perfecting our system. See the details here: [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/geo- dis...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/geo-distributed- architecture/)

Plus, you are wrong about almost all of your points:

\- We do have a well documented API. Many customers use it on a daily basis to integrate VWO into their systems. [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split- testing-blog/announc...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/announcing-visual-website-optimizer-api/)

\- Our 21 lines of code is unique as it provides an asynchronous fail safe method. With 1-line of code, websites still have a theoretical single point a failure where code is fetched from your servers/CDN. If your code isn't able to get fetched for any reason, standard timeout of browser (30 seconds) applies and since it is synchronous page load stalls. With our asynchronous approach, we completely decouple the dependence (even if it doesn't look elegant, it certainly is much preferable to our customers). Here are the details: [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/asynchr...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/asynchronous-code/)

\- I'm not sure what you mean by Human-readable results. Certainly we have some great looking reports that our customers love. 50+ case studies on our websites is a testimony to that <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/case- studies.php> In fact, one independent website that tracks UI from color blindness perspective says we have one of the best charts out there <http://wearecolorblind.com/example/visual-website-optimizer/>

\- We offer developer CSS/JavaScript API that allows complete modification of a website without touching any backend code

\- Our tests run on mobiles as well, a lot of our enterprise customers regularly test their mobile landing pages

\- We have one-click integration for Google Analytics, and have plugins for KISSMetrics, SiteCatalyst, etc.

\- ALL employees of Wingify (including me the CEO and our CTO) do support for all levels of customers (not just enterprise ones). In fact, support is bed rock of our offering. My number is there on our about us page <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/about-us.php>

According to best of my knowledge, apart from cross-browser previews I do not think there is any feature that VWO lacks. You may want to cross-check your facts. Our backend delivery infrastructure prioritizes on speed and fall-back rather than elegance of how the code _looks_.

However, you did not mention the features VWO has that Optimizely currently lacks:

\- Usability testing. Our users can get quantitative feedback and improvement ideas on what they should be A/B testing [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/geo- beh...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/geo-behavioral- targeting-usability-testing/)

\- Heatmaps and Clickmaps to show where people are clicking on their pages. Our customers LOVE This feature and some solely use VWO for its heatmap functionality [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab- test...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab-testing- clickmaps-awesomeness/)

\- Enterprise security options such as whitelisting office IPs for login and realtime activity notifications to administrator [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/hallowe...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/halloween-gifts-announcements/)

\- Free 30 day trial without requiring a credit card.

\- Numerous other small features that I won't go into (test labels, test organization, frequently used goals, roles/permissions, account management, reports exportable to CSV/PDF, etc.)

<comment><USER8> It's great to see multiple products in the market trying to solve this problem and I admire your ability to do so without a large team or any funding. It's unclear how the market will grow in the future but we're thrilled to see Optimizely grow +397% amongst the top 10,000 websites in the last year to over 2,500 happy customers.

I'm glad to see you are focusing on improving your response time. Unfortunately hitting live servers serving dynamic content in 5 locations is never going to be able to beat 100,000 edge-cached nodes in 75 countries serving static content when it comes to response time and reliability.

According to the link you provided it looks like Pingdom reports VWO response times as:

VWO Slowest Average: 352ms

VWO Overall Average: 207ms

VWO Fastest Average: 45ms

According to Pingdom, Optimizely response times are:

Optimizely Slowest Average: 95ms

Optimizely Average: 65ms

Optimizely Fastest Average: 19ms

Here is a head-to-head comparison of Optimizely vs. VWO including response time and feature differentiation: <http://i.imgur.com/BRTxC.png>

To clarify some of the points you might have misunderstood:

\- Here is a demo showing the Optimizely visual mobile editor: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HucXw_egPRs>

\- Documentation of Optimizely one-click integrations: [http://support.optimizely.com/customer/portal/articles/58188...](http://support.optimizely.com/customer/portal/articles/581882-analytics- integration)

\- The Optimizely API is publicly available at: <https://www.optimizely.com/docs/api>

You are right we don't currently offer ancillary features like heatmaps and usability testing. We've been focused on offering the best possible experience for A/B and multivariate testing.

<comment><USER9> Did Optimizely make that graphic? The support comparison is deceptive. You are comparing the basic plan of VWO to the platinum plan of Optimizely. And comparing lines of code is meaningless. In fact for the reasons outlined above by paras, a 21 line implementation which does not block the site load is more beneficial to most users.

@paras: Your response times do not look good. Why are you using a homegrown pseudo CDN instead of a real one like akamai or limelight ? Also why not make your API docs public ?

<comment><AUTHOR> The reasons for having a homegrown CDN is mentioned in the article. The major reason though is that our URL matching (determining whether to run a test or not on a particular URL) is complex, and CDNs cannot handle that.

Reason API doc is not public is because API is on demand right now, but anyone can use it. They just have to request for a key from us.

<comment><USER9> I still don't get why the docs cannot be public. Stripe for example has public API docs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've said it before and I'll say it again (because Paras and his team deserve it): I tell people about VWO as the prime (and possibly, the only) example of an Indian startup with a truly global product.

Edit: Sorry, forgot Zoho.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kayako, FusionCharts, BrowserStack, FreshDesk are other great Indian software companies that I admire. (The first 3 are bootstrapped too, as far as I know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a user, I pretty much have to chime in here & say this is well deserved success.

It's a great product & pretty much the best customer support I've ever encountered. Every time I've needed it, I was in contact (email & skype) with Someone Who Knows and not afraid of treading into the gray area between your problem & their problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like the VWO guys. I was kind of an ass and ranted about some issues in their JS on twitter recently and they reached out to me and addressed the issues I was encountering. Very responsive, look forward to seeing what they can come up with.

</comment><comment><USER13> As a long time user of VWO, I'm very impressed and pleased with their success.

Early on, perhaps about 2 years ago, I reached out to Paras asking for an API so our internal dashboard could show the status and performance of all running tests.

Within a few days, there was a private (or non-published) API ready to go. Since then, my business and I have been using it daily.

Disclaimer: I even supplied a testimonial for their homepage after frustrating experiences with Google and Omniture. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> excellent. with 1600+ paying customers that means they are clearing over $1M in revenue/year. ($49 being cheapest plan * 1600 = 80k/month)

<comment><AUTHOR> Our enterprise customers pay thousands of dollars per month, so it is well over $1M :)

<comment><USER15> Thats awesome. I remember when you launched on HN not long ago. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that was for the original prototype called Wingify (which I had to completely discard. Horrible user experience). Based on feedback from initial users of the prototype, then I had built Visual Website Optimizer and had launched on HN <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252>

<comment><USER16> congrats on the excellent progress!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulations @paraschopra. Really great to the success of your company/products.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man. We're very excited about building a great software company and staying bootstrapped as long as we can :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey Paras, What was your methodology for customer development, customer acquisition in the early days of your startup? Or, did you build for yourself? What are the distribution channels you currently use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Main methodology was guest blogging. I contributed exhaustive articles in publications such as Smashing Magazine, CopyBlogger, etc. The articles were purely educational in nature, taught people what A/B testing was and VWO was introduced as one of the of the new tools to do A/B testing easily.

The second big focus was on passion for feedback from early customers and incorporating that into the product. Really, our product is driven mostly by customer feedback and that is why our customers love talking about it.

I plan to write comprehensively about it. But I do keep posting my experiences on my blog <http://paraschopra.com/blog/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's something about bootstrapped companies that I really like. I've always thought if I began a start-up, it would be without any venture capital.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems so many successful small internet businesses lately are attacking meta-problems for the benefit of small internet businesses. Sort of like Levi selling bluejeans to gold miners in California.

</comment><comment><USER21> congratulations Paras. Great bootstrapping!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congrats, Some questions :-) Are you incorporated in US? If not what do you use for payments?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, we're an India based company. We use 2checkout for payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> congrat Sparsh

\-- from Trung

<comment><USER24> Thanks Trung, good to see you on HN :)</comment></comment>